shahzad and i have been practicing jazz lately. i think we’re getting really good! last weekend i went to see “last year at marienbad” at the film forum. i will write more about it after i see it again and hopefully the next time i won’t fall asleep. such as it was, ‘marienbad’ is not very conducive to napping - at least not like a good marc ribot solo concert, which marian discovered was perfect in that regard last thursday, at the stone. it was an absolutely beautiful 45 minutes of mostly pure improvisation plus some ayler & a standard & a folksong, all played on an old nylon string guitar that was barely microphoned, so that we had to strain to hear it, which was actually quite an interesting and uncommon listening experience. you heard the music in a much more structural way i think, but also you were engaging in the music more intensely, because your ears had to go out and meet the sounds halfway!! it sounds like this:

thomas and i had the pleasure of playing with master ribot, as members of the chocolate genius band, on tuesday at the apple store. we preceded a set by larry campbell w/levon helm on drums. man that guy has a beautiful sound on the drums! how do you do that? maybe a drummer can help us learn that skill, right drummers? drumming is hard! easy? hard? easy?