latenight groove and poetry session...

when Herbie Hancock played with Miles in the mid-sixties, they (along with Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams and Ron Carter) created some of my most favorite music. so inspirational, those albums. but Herbie wrote some great music outside of that group such as the albums Maiden Voyage and Empyrean Isles, with the latter containing the song "Cantaloupe Island" which has become a jazz standard. the song has been reworked in many many genres/styles. good stuff. enjoy some Herbie Hancock, Jack DeJohnette, Pat Metheny and Dave Holland:



(use the smaller play button, watch it right here, if you didn't know)

and then enjoy some Jack Kerouac on Steve Allen. it is important in art sometimes to seperate the creator from the creation. Kerouac (and others, Pound, Eliot, etc.) had his share of ugly issues. but when "the music plays the band," when the fire is burning, the artform calling the shots, the antennae charged up and the muse singing thru her worldly vessel, man, it is something. he isn't for everyone, but when you hear ANY spoken word today, even this crap called 'slam[e] poetry,' you are hearing the bastard children of those who originated a new way of doing it. and it is a characteristic in our culture today that we are satisfied with imitations of imitations.

enjoy an original, warts and all:



and finally, speaking of warts, witness art in its fullness as a masterful poem inspires someone else to heights of creation. this is a beaut, poetry from the Buk: