When You Get A Groove Going, Time

I Tried To Grow Up. Honest. Didn’t Quite Happen. I Guess I’m Someone For Whom Youth Still Seems More Real Than The Present, Or The Half Century In Between. And Why Not? I'm Deeply Underwhelmed By Most Contemporary Art, Literature, Music, Films, Tv, The Heinous Little Phones, Money Talk, Real Estate Talk, All That Stuff. The Internet, Which At First Seemed So Fascinating, Appears To Be Evolving Into Something Even Worse Than Tv, But We'll See.

Melodies Can Be Good Depending On The Context. You Can Have A Simple Melody, And If The Harmony Behind It Is Interesting, It Can Make A Very Simple Melody Really Different. You Can Also Have A Complex Melody. The More Complex It Is, The Harder It Is To Sing, And Then Sometimes It Can Sound Contrived. You Could Write A Melody That Would Be Fine On A Saxophone But If You Give It To A Singer, It Can Sound Raunchy.

I Took Some Lessons As A Kid But Trained Myself By Ear. I Did It The Way Jazz Musicians Used To Learn Years Ago, Which Is To Play Records And Slow Them Down To Figure Out The Notes. At First I Tried To Imitate Red Garland, Who Was My Favorite Jazz Pianist.

Randy Newman Seemed Like An Even Worse Singer Than Me. I Liked Ray Charles, Levi Stubbs, Jack Jones, Joe Tex, Wilson Pickett.

I Think Of Steely Dan As Being Of Its Time, And It May Be Inseparable From Its Time.