Let’s start like this. Can you name any professional bass guitarists?

Mm-hmm.

And, how many recordings made by those bass guitarists do you have?

Good. Good.

If you could name one or two bassists, you have every musician’s respect and appreciation. If you could name a few, and own some of their recordings, you have our most sincere admiration. If you could name more than a handful and own their recordings, you should write the remainder of this column. Because in all likelihood you already own – and dig heavily – the record that sets my fingers to these keys.

I don’t know many musicians, if any, who do not recall with jaw-slacking stupor the first time they heard Jaco Pastorius play his Fender Jazz Bass (which he painstakingly customized by removing its frets, wood-filling the subsequent gashes, and applying coat upon coat of epoxy).

He played like no other had played before him. He changed a generation of players. He played jazz, funk, pop. He played with Joni Mitchell, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, David Sanborn; he was a pioneer of electric bass playing. So much could – and deserves – to be said about this complicated man, this artist. Yet, it’s impossible for me to summarize here the complex and tragic life that was Jaco’s. And not just because his wiki entry has more potholes than the 405. (Actually, I have no idea if the 405 has potholes or not. I’ve never even been to L.A. The 405 is in L.A., right? Well, whatever. I think you’ll still hang with the analogy.)

The words that describe his life form a perfect stereotype of “artist”: genius, friend, husband, alcohol, drugs, anger, bipolar, human, loving son, early death. There swirl around his greatness many stories of dubious authenticity. So, it’s hard to say what can really be said about him. Even his biography is considered a sham by some, and I’m not sure that that accusation is all that accurate, either.

What I can write about Jaco is really something that, well, was written by the great Pat Metheny. (And, in case you don’t know who that is-he’s really important.)

From the liner notes for the reissue of Jaco’s debut album:

Jaco Pastorius may well have been the last jazz musician of the 20th century to have made a major impact on the musical world at large. Everywhere you go, sometimes it seems like a dozen times a day, in the most unlikely places you hear Jaco’s sound; from the latest TV commercial to bass players of all stripes copping his licks on recordings of all styles, from news broadcasts to famous rock and roll bands, from hip hop samples to personal tribute records, you hear the echoes of that unmistakable sound everywhere. -Pat Metheny

As with all really great artists though, getting to know him is really a matter of getting to know his art. It is a matter of hearing him speak to us and tell us his story in every note and every gesture that emanates from the instrument that became a part of him. That is one way the truly great ones emerge from a crowd of excellent peers. They don’t simply wear their axe. They don’t just put it on and take it off. They are one with their instrument. There isn’t a point at which the man stops and his instrument begins. This was Jaco.

Like all greats, he raised the bar – both of the possibilities of the instrument, but also of the music itself and those that played with him. He made other players better players by his presence. And when on those rare occasions greats come together, each in their prime, something magical happens. Jaco’s album The Birthday Concert stands out as one of those special moments in music history.

In the winter of 1981, Jaco threw a surprise birthday concert for himself, gathering a superstar-studded cast of musicians for a performance that, praise God, was recorded. Here’s the a short list of behemoths that shared the stage that night: Bob Mintzer, Michael Brecker, Don Alias, Peter Erskine, Othello Molineaux, and others. I realize that unless you’re a jazz aficionado, you might not know many of these names, but it’s like saying that Kurt Cobain, Bono, Madonna, The Boss, and Eric Clapton played a concert for and with Stevie Wonder. And, since Jaco, Michael Brecker, and Don Alias are all no longer with us, the magnitude of this night looms.

The evening begins with the palpable anticipation of an audience that knows what is about to come. Before a note is played, we hear Jaco address the audience: “Good evening everybody. I’d like to say hello to my mother.” Ten seconds later the count begins. “One, two, three. Two, two” CRACK . . . and Soul Intro blasts off. Think Saturday Night Live, minus everyone save the band – to the tenth power. Mintzer squeals and screams and squeezes more funk from his tenor saxophone than one thought possible, until finally Jaco fully takes the reigns with a bass line so hair-raising it makes Rogaine look like a Flintstones vitamin. At this point we are fully into The Chicken, a tune with whaling solos by two saxophoning giants and a groove so fat it should have its own zip code. It’s the kind of tune that sends you into a funky stride embodiment of 70s John Travolta no matter where you are. (Save maybe funerals. And why are you listening to soul/funk/jazz during a funeral anyway. Have some decency.)

Check out this YouTube video of Soul Intro/The Chicken (from 1982).

After listening to The Chicken anywhere from two to ten times, we move on to hear the essence of Jaco’s playing in the floating and mysterious, Continuum. Harmonics, chords and strong melodic movement don’t usually characterize bass playing, but Jaco derives much of his distinctive style from them. This cut also brings an opportunity to soak in the sound of Jaco’s axe and his unique array of equipment. His tone is unmistakable and here we really get to know it best.

Every track brings gem after gem; from the lilting waltz Three Views from a Secret, to the exotic Reva, to the Stan Kentonesque Domingo. From start to finish, this record delivers. I’ve often heard a complaint about instrumental music; that it’s monotonous without lyrics, that eventually it gets boring and backgroundish. This album offers a rebuttal fit for John Grisham; a vibrant diversity of musical elements that appeals even to those who aren’t drawn to “jazz.” It’s a piece of history; a glimpse into the heart and soul of one man’s passion and genius – of his love for music.

So, whether or not you end up grabbing this disc from your local record shop, the big chain store putting your local shop out of business, or an online megastore putting both of them six feet under, you can at least name one more bass guitarist than when we began. Unless of course, you were already savvy to Jaco and own this record – in which case, be glad I reminded you to blow the dust off that old CD, load it onto your MP3 player of choice and strut your funky stuff.

Simple yet deadly, this cotton killer has condemned more fellows’ fashionableness than Fidel. (Is there anything less dapper than Castro’s garish garb?) Countless gents every spring, emboldened by the sun’s reviving rays, adorn themselves in crinkled colors and warbled white from head to toe. Confident in their comfort they step and strut not knowing this selection will forever blemish the veritableness of their future vestments.

Of course some men possess enough panache to pull it off. They know who they are.

But to the rest of Mandom I issue a strong warning.

Be wary of this weave.

First, it is nearly impossible to wear seersucker without irony or nostalgia.

Nothing calamities classiness more than donning duds with irony. I am speaking not of the juvenile, ironic t-shirt, rather of when the very essence of an outfit oozes mockery and self-awareness. “Hey everyone look at me! Doesn’t my attire make me look witty? I am wearing a garbage bag and used, holey penny loafers, and I haven’t shaved or showered since Groundhog Day. This style is called Derelicte.”

There’s nothing attractive or creative about such sardonic irreverence. Nor is there anything gentlemanly about such contempt-filled costumery.

Ironically (wink, wink) the seersucker is contemporarily associated with southern gentlemanliness. And, even more interesting are its origins in the United States as wears for the poor.

In a 2006 article about seersucker in the New York Times, David Colman writes:

Widely considered patrician, seersucker was a 19th-century workingman’s fabric, a cheap American cotton version of a luxurious Indian silk. In the 1920′s stylish undergraduates, in a spirit of reverse snobbery, took up the thin puckered fabric for summer wear. That edge was still sharp in 1945, when Damon Runyon wrote that his new penchant for wearing seersucker was “causing much confusion among my friends.”

“They cannot decide whether I am broke or just setting a new vogue,” he wrote dryly.

Seersucker’s origins are not lost on clothing designers whose ads convince guys this is apparel that will garner respect – or babes – while keeping you looking and feeling “cool.” Seersucker certainly feels cool in the temperature sense, but in the end most guys look like tools of the fashion industry when they stuff themselves into a too tight pair of sucker shorts with a rolled-sleeve sucker blazer and a v-neck t-shirt. Unless you own a yacht and beach house in The Hamptons — where you retreat with Ralph Lauren and toast with Tommy Hilfiger — you’re being ironic and annoying.

The second major concern is that even without irony, seersucker is a very difficult fabric to wear well. Countless images of chiseled models wearing sucker suits give the appearance of a crisp, clean drape. And while the fabric may be manipulated to hold that sharp shape, the natural lay of seersucker is more slackened and supple. This isn’t a problem for skinny dudes with straight, square body types. But for curvy gents, athletes, or miscellaneous, oddly shaped beaux, it’s difficult to slip on the seer without looking like one has slipped on pajamas.

Fit is king. Fabric is second. If one’s habit hangs well, it hardly matters who made it, or how much it cost. However, of what it is made has a huge implication for how it fits. This is where seersucker threads tread toward troubled waters. It is a weave not woven to hold a pristine pressing, but rather revel in rumpled relaxation; wrinkly raiment is the usually the reserve of dressed-down denim and t-shirts, not of more formal finery. Such a juxtaposition contained embroidered into the cotton itself can careen a chap quickly into accoutrement catastrophe. Combine that with the aforementioned connotations and cultural implications, and seersucker can dive a dude into douchebaggery faster than smoking a cheap pipe and wearing a Target-brand fedora, brand-new trenchcoat, and a clip-on bow tie.

If you’re going to wear seersucker, you MUST know exactly how and why. Every small detail needs to be carefully considered. What width and color of striping? What color shoes? Oxfords or loafers? Clean shaven face or stubbly one? No tie, tie or bowtie? Belt or suspenders? Button down shirt or polo? The list could go on and on.

One slight misstep and a fellow might find himself being mistaken as the fifth man in a barbershop quartet, handed a red, white, and blue boater, and hauled off against his will to the International Barbershop Quartet Convention in Kansas City, MO. (Confession: I love barbershop quartet music, but would rather avoid being incorrectly thought to sing in one.)

More than anything, to wear seersucker well you have to believe in it — own it 100%. No hesitation; no waffling; no backpedaling. If you walk into an H&M, see a seersucker jacket and think, I’m gonna buy that; it looks cool, then you are in for a world of regret.

Fashion is a lot like cuisine. You can rain salt onto a bland dish to season it. Or, you can take the time and care to season it well while cooking so the finished creation is saline and alive with flavor from the inside and not the out. In a recent email conversation on this Rob Hays wrote, “a bow tie can be worn like it’s just another tie, or like it should be part of a face paint and clown nose ensemble; a seersucker suit can be worn like it’s just another suit, or like you’re auditioning for the role of Atticus Finch.”

I’ve known only one man north of the Mason-Dixon line to wear a seersucker suit and look like he was born to do it. I marveled at how he accomplished this astounding act. And as I considered all the mitigating factors I realized his very day-to-day life was preparation for parading such panoply.

Zack Hickman wearing a cowboy suit.

Zack Hickman, born in Lynchburg, VA, lives outside Boston, plays the upright bass, tours with Josh Ritter, sings about his handlebar moustache, performs music by Schoolhouse Rock, has degrees in English and music, and is tall. He is described thusly by the laudatory Jake Armerding:

One of the few for whom superlatives truly fail. Resident general, fire marshal, ringmaster and power behind the throne. Maintains these offices with the help of one of the nation’s great moustaches, carefully cultivated with the use of beeswax harvested from his father’s hives. (A venture into retail, Dr. Zachariah’s Mustache Conditioning Wax and Gravity Suppressant, was, sadly, short-lived.) Buys used boots in bulk from various online vendors. Owns Z-shaped belt buckle. Has successfully roasted and served turducken. Featured in the Improper Bostonian and Stuff Boston. Swears loudly and creatively, often as part of pre-show warm-up routine. Plays the bass as if someone were going to take it away from him. (For a more visual analogy, picture the Bengal tiger from Swiss Family Robinson.)

This man defines a seersucker-worthy lifestyle.

I can’t match that. So, I don’t wear seersucker. I can’t pull it off, and I know I can’t. In fact, my playing the saxophone immediately disqualifies me from even attempting.

So men, know your limits; there’s no shame in that.

And for those who sincerely sport seersucker, I salute you.

This is a big day — the day I dust off all my Christmas albums. And by “dust off” I mean open iTunes, navigate to the genre “Holiday” and “Select All,” and then “Check Selection,” to reactivate all those jolly gems.

Christmas songs fall into that category of things people strain to avoid talking about in small groups for fear of word wars about who thinks what’s best, and who hates that very thing, and so on. It’s right up there with politics, religion, and submarine sandwiches — you put signs in your front yard declaring your preferences on them, but you sure don’t talk about them.

Well, it’s time to take down those old, lame signs. It’s time to blaze a new auditory adventure. And, you can’t spell adventure without Advent.

As a Christmas canticle connoisseur (I could start my Christmas playlist and let it deck the halls all the way through the twelve days of Christmas before hearing a single jingle twice), I present these 9.08 Christmas albums, not as the best Christmas music ever, but simply the recordings I never tire of hearing. Those for which I have a yearly yuletide yearning.

(In a somewhat — but not overly — particular, non-qualitative order.)

A Charlie Brown Christmas, Vince Guaraldi Trio, 1965, CBS Records
If you don’t have this you aren’t from Earth. I can’t be certain what planet you are from, but either buy this recording TODAY, or go get in your flying saucer and warp back home.

If you already own it and don’t absolutely love it, there’s nothing neither I, nor Dr. House, can do for you. In fact, you probably have an aluminum Christmas tree and hate floppy-eared dogs and large-headed, cartoon children. The best advice I have for you is to stop reading. Just stop right now and think about how you got to this place. Our prayers are with you.

When My Heart Finds Christmas, Harry Connick Jr., 1993, Sony/Columbia
It’s hard to go wrong with a talent like HCJ. (He told me to call him that when we met at a JazzFest back in 1999 . . . actually, that’s not true. I lied. I’ve never met him. Please don’t tell him I said anything, though, in case we meet someday.)

Writing a new Christmas song is one of the most difficult creative endeavors. Ironically, the holiday commemorates the beginning of one of the archetypal stories to which most good stories and many amazing works of art point. Nonetheless, the pantheon of gifted artists that have left a heritage of unassailable classics makes tapping even this manger of creativity a tough one for anyone.

Yet, HCJ delivers no less than two new nativity numbers that ought to be standards, “I Pray on Christmas” being my favorite among all non-classic/traditional Xmas tunes.

Once Upon A Christmas, Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers, 1984, RCA
Chalk this one up to nostalgia. If you don’t like for its 1980s sincere “we think this is really terrific music that will stand the test of time” optimism*, you’ll love it as one of the greatest pieces of American Christmas kitsch ever. I guarantee you’ll be singing along by the second song. It’s got an inexplicable irresistibly to it, like raw ground beef and raw onion on a slice of pumpernickel. Well, not like that at all. That dish, served all over southeastern Wisconsin around Christmas, is disgusting.

*(The original recording is no longer available; a re-release, that loses a few of the original tunes and gains one less than stellar addition, is.)

Since Kenny and Dolly are two icons of country music with distinctive and perfectly harmonious voices, the recording is not “bad” by any stretch of the imagination. They play to each other’s strengths and keep the schmaltz to a minimum, opening the doors for cynics like me to still enjoy this hard to find treasure.

A Very Ping Pong Christmas: Funky Treats From Santa’s Bag, Shawn Lee’s Ping Pong Orchestra, 2008, Ubiquity Records
I can only describe it thusly: it’s like being in the back of Starsky & Hutch’s 1976 Gran Torino, listening to Christmas tunes on 8-Track, and not wearing a seat belt.

Enough said. Download it right away.

A Jazzy Wonderland, Various Artists, 1990, Columbia Records
Good music deserves to be listened to, with focus. But, when you’re blasting the holly harmonies at your house 24/7, you’ll occasionally need to tone it down into the background. Therein enters this jazz jamboree for all you un-hip cats out there. If, like me, you love jazz, it’s perfect in the forefront.

This album is also perfect listening for tree-trimming, baking pumpkin pie, or maybe having just a half a drink more. It’s the only compilation on the roster because most complications are merely collections of songs that originally appeared somewhere else. Such is not the case with A Jazzy Wonderland.

Check out the list of artists that perform: Monte Croft & Terence Blanchard; Marlon Jordan & Delfeayo Marsalis; Fred Simon & Traut/Rodby; Richard Tee; Ellis Marsalis; Kirk Whalum; Wynton Marsalis; Tony Bennett; Karl Lundeberg & Full Circle; Grover Washington Jr.; Kimiko Itoh & Nancy Wilson; Joey DeFrancesco & Dwight Sills; and Harry Connick, Jr. & Branford Marsalis.

It’s a soulful parade of jazz hall-of-famers. I recommend you dim the lights, sit by the open fire, and get out your chestnuts for roasting.

The Andy Williams Christmas Album, Andy Williams, 1963, Columbia Records
Everyone knows this one even if they don’t know they know it. Sadly, that’s because it’s most often heard in Midwestern department stores two months out of every year. But, don’t let that hinder your ho-ho-ho. “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” is a celebratory romp that’s sure to get the eggnog flowing in that $700 electric eggnog fountain you bought from the SkyMall on the red-eye back from Seattle. At least it came with cool moose glasses.

Andy Williams, who is still singing, has some powerful pipes. No wispy, wimpy, Josh Groban-ness to be found.

The Christmas Shoes, Newsong, 2001, Reunion
Wait! Wait! Before you muffledly stomp your pointy-elf-slipper-shod feet away from the computer in absolute disgust, I am ONLY recommending their rendition of “You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch.” (I bet you thought you’d entered a Twilight Zone Christmas nightmare for a second there.) That’s just one of the twelve songs on the record. The only other one of those twelve I’ve heard bears the same title as the album itself, which, if you heard it one of the exactly 12,445,678,453,124,245,456 times it was played last year, you know that song instantly disqualifies me from recommending any more than 8/100 of this album.

That said, it is a show-stopping arrangement. Quite fun.

The Season, Jane Monheit, 2005, Sony/BM
Jane Monheit’s singing is as angelic as her backstage persona. (I know this because, in fact, my wife and I met Jane and conversed with her for bit at the Blue Note jazz club in Greenwich Village some years back. True story this time.)

No other songbird’s call is quite as sublime. Forget Mariah, Whitney, Beyoncé, Celine, Ella, Dinah, Sarah, and everybody else. (Though Rosemary Clooney gives her a run for her money.) Jane’s voice is truly majestic, a soft waterfall cascading down upon a silvery unicorn bearing your life’s love, while the moon rises and comets streak through regal skies over snow-capped mountains barely visible behind shimmering rainbows cast by the fading sun through joyful tears falling from a host of heavenly angels.

One thing’s for sure, if you fill your hearing holes with Ms. Monheit’s magnificent music, you’ll multiply your merry moments by millions.

The Voice of Christmas – The Complete Decca Christmas Songbook, Bing Crosby, 1935-1956, Decca Records
He truly is the voice of Christmas, and perhaps the most recognizable, stunning, and perfect voice ever recorded. If I had a million years to imagine things, I still couldn’t imagine what it feels like to sing like Bing.

While listening to Bing bellow, it’s interesting to be reminded that people have been opening gifts and sharing time with family to the strains of these exact versions of classic Christmas songs for almost seventy years. It’s one thing for the song itself to belong to antiquity, it’s another for an actual performance of one to endure. Plus, the whole recording has that “old-timey” feel. Probably because it was made in the “old times.”

He Is Christmas, Take 6, 1991, Word Entertainment
Before I made it big as a writer, I was an editorial intern for an industry trade magazine. I was in charge of compiling a list of “desert island discs,” or “moon mission music” as I called it. An artist submitted this recording as one of the five he would take on a one-way trip to the moon. That’s high praise since the magazine was for musicians about chamber music.

Normally I’d tread lightly when recommending an a cappella group to an unknown audience, it’s sort of like sweetbreads, you either love them, or the thought of it sends you hurtling towards the water closet like Santa after a night of drinking warm, spoiled milk.

But, with all the Glee fanaticism these days, maybe now is a good time to dip your toe into the post-doo-wop-gospel-second-wave-jazz-a cappella-vocal-pop scene.

These guys are just like the cast of Glee, except middle-aged, African-American, all-male, probably bad actors and dancers, but can sing circles around the faux-teens any day.

Give them a try. Who knows, maybe if you like it, you’ll order sweetbreads next time you go to a restaurant that serves sweetbreads — whatever kind of restaurant that is.

So there you have it. 9.08 Christmas albums yule love, or your holiday cheer back.

Musical Christmas to all, and to all a not-so silent night.

Besides the city we love, many other cultural artifacts could have brought us even closer together: songs, movies, politics, shoes, sports and, most obviously, numismatics are chief among them. But, it was that most manly of canapés that took our budding buddyship to the next level: hot wings and beer.

Now, imagine for one second the dangerous and seemingly impossible discovery that we could consume both our beloved hot wings and beer in our beloved city in one solitary establishment. (And for $.25/wing and $2/draft at that.) Needless to write (but will anyway since verbosity won’t keep you out of heaven… I certainly hope), we were more than skeptical about the quality of the items on which we were about to spend our moderately-difficultly-earned money.

We came. We saw. We paid with change we scraped up from various junk drawers. The wings were edible; the beer was wet; but, the experience we had, words cannot describe. So I won’t try.

That’s it. The article is over. (Wait, I’m sorry boss, what’s that? I’m way under the word minimum? The preceding drivel is not an article?)

Well, a truly gifted scribe, says Flannery O’Connor or Michael Crichton, would at this point put their artistic foot down and refuse to compromise themselves. Well, maybe not Mr. Crichton. But Flannery – I always wondered if her nickname was Flan. And if it was, did she go by Flan on trips to Spanish-speaking nations? A simple phrase like “quiero flan por favor” could have resulted in much awkwardness and perhaps  an accidentally- arranged marriage. It is at this point that I believe I have disqualified myself from ever being allowed to attend a Glen Workshop. Such is the extent of my commitment to my art.

I’ve lost my train of thought (and probably 2/3 of my readers).

Straight to the main point then.

What is post-modernism? Isn’t that the question people ask when they are trying to seem erudite and educated? Asking in a way that presumes they know the answer, when they actually have no clue what it means and couldn’t recognize it if it was a pile of manure stuck to their shoe, so it gets mistaken for mud and wiped off by hand before remembering the dream job interview starting in ten minutes and realizing there is nowhere to expunge the excrement before handshakes and hellos.

For the longest time I thought I had a grasp on this slippery eel; I thought there was only mud on my shoe. I’d throw around words like subjectivisticism, multiculturalityness and openmindednessicity in conversation. But it wasn’t until the night Fitz and I entered a corner beer and hot-wingery that I truly appreciated the 7-layer salad that is post-modernism.

The establishment presents itself like a typical, local-divey-psuedo-Irish pub, hookah bar, and grill. Gaudy four leaf clover signs advertising Budweiser’s newest beerish-but-not-much-more-than-sparkling-yellow-water beverage are lazily draped above the makeshift outdoor seating area furnished by plastic chairs and wobbly tables covered by partially torn umbrellas. No sooner than one finishes stereotyping this haunt from its exterior, does one enter it to find an unimaginably tangled web of discontinuity.

The window decor is Hindi-ish. The wall-hangings mirrored and/or neon. The music pounding is classic rock. The TVs blaze soccer & football. The parishioners palate burgers and burnt tobacco. The bar is dirty. The bartender is Puerto Rican*. The clientele is Russian, Pakistani, and Jerseyian. And there’s Fitz and me, talking theology, eating wings, and fitting right in. Because, in that place, a profalactic-peddling, ex-circus performer wouldn’t have stood out.

*Due to her fortissimo speaking volume, we did spend several minutes imbibing in silence as she regaled the Russians and another server with the story of missing work due to her mom being found dead on a boat docked in Costa Rica not shortly after having had an, apparently, life-fulfilling breast augmentation.

Our conversation that evening kept rolling back to how difficult it would be for Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann to sit at that bar for even 5 minutes. We just couldn’t imagine the high-modernist mind being able to make any sense of such a disjointed amalgamation. But that night we walked right up the embodiment of every rationalist’s fears, shook its hand, bought a beer from it, and said, “hello, post-modernism. Pleased to meet you. Cheers.”

Doubtless a place like this is not far from you, a place where you could get away and take a break from your worries; a place where nobody knows your name, and where they’re barely aware you came. Yet a place where people know that people are all the same.

We can find moments like this one where nothing seems to make sense or belong together if we are willing to suppress the need for sense and enjoy sensing the surrounding strangeness. In the senselessness of these situations, there can be some semblance of sanity, if we are only willing to shake hands with a new friend.

I wish I could enjoy flying the way my son does. His jaw-dropping, wide-eyed, finger-pointing spirit is unfettered by the procession of nuisance that precedes, co-mingles, and succeeds the actual flying part of flying. It’s all miraculous to him. The airport, the trains, the cars, the planes, the monitors, and the baggage trucks are woven together for him like a grand opera. Each of these elements, however insignificant, is like a two-bar oboe introduction to a prima donna‘s aria – often unheralded yet absolutely essential. It doesn’t seem to matter how many times on a single trip they make us deplane and re-board– he’s enchanted.

The same cannot be said for me. Rather than seeing an intricately coordinated ballet of astounding technology, machinery, and humanity, I see my wasted time and money. I don’t see like a child. I think like a bloated consumer, annoyed at how much I’ve spent to sit in uncomfortable chairs, overpay for unhealthy food, wait, wait, wait, board, deplane, board again, lose feeling in my legs, and eventually land. Hardly an artistic experience, unless I was at a Bjork concert or Matthew Barney exhibition.

But somehow, despite the airlines’ best/worst efforts, I try to think of something other than myself on the flight – if only for a few minutes until they bring the sodium bag that’s called “snack,” or some other inanity. In those few moments, I think about how for millennia humankind looked to the sky and dreamt. They painted pictures, wrote stories, developed whole mythologies, all centric around the notion that one day man would fly. Journeys that would take those dreamers a lifetime take us a few hours. I imagine  they would have given up much to experience that which I take for granted and even berate at times.

What happened to my child-like wonder? Why can’t I be more like my young son, even as I try to teach him to be more like me (in the not-pooping-in-his-pants, self-reliant way, not the “hey,-aren’t-I-awesome-I’m-gonna-teach-junior-to-be-just-like-me way)? [note: His name is not junior.]

Perhaps this parenting thing will rekindle my enjoyment of the small things, help me see the special in the ordinary.

In fact, it was on a flight not too long ago that I noticed something I’d never noticed before. I’m familiar with lifting up on the buckle, finding the nearest exit, the price of adult beverages, pretending to lower my seat back in an apparently courteous fashion even though this action will swallow huge portions of the other person’s dwindling legroom, putting my mask on first (to be clear: I have never had to put on the mask, but in theory I know how to do it since I’ve seen many flight attendants half do it), Skymall Syndrome, the great steakhouses and best plastic surgeons in North America (once again, the latter not from experience), fake Mensa quizzes, half-finished Sudoku and crossword puzzles, and the layout of noteworthy US Airports. But one item I had paid little attention to are the “radio” stations. I knew that on most flights one could plug those weird, two prong headphones (I wonder if they shrivel up and disappear like the Wicked Witch of the East, or magically turn into one-prong headphones if you take them out of their element?) into the armrests. What I hadn’t known was that the reason one would plug in those bizarro headphones – when there wasn’t a terrifically bad movie to watch – was to browse airplane FM.

Since my wonderment goggles are still a little fogged up with adulthood, I was especially skeptical about the time-worthiness of spending a portion of the flight I had allocated for sleeping (ahem, all of it), listening to “who knows what” kind of garbage.

It took a minute to figure out how to take my headphones out of my iPhone (I don’t think I’d ever done it before) and jerry-rig the one-pronged cord into the two-pronged jack. But once I’d accomplished that minor mechanical miracle, my eyes got really wide. I had providentially tuned into a station playing  jazz (a favorite of mine). I listened, and listened, and kept on listening while song-after-song my jaw dropped ever more open. As I changed stations to explore this new world, I was more and more enchanted.

In our personal, digital, music player, iTunes era, it is rare that we hear any music we don’t specifically intend on hearing. Even if we “shuffle” or use Pandora, we are still in the musical pilot’s seat. But on that day, on that plane, someone else was choosing what came next in my ears.

It was refreshing. All I could change was the channel. Otherwise, I was totally at the mercy of the curator the airline hired (or outsourced company hired) to assemble play lists for those few passengers who bother listening to anything other than the music boxes in their pockets and purses.

That wonder-filled experience was undoubtedly crushed too early by the unfortunate reality of air travel, but I don’t remember that part of the flight. All I remember is how much I enjoyed the simplicity of listening to music and the mystery of what was coming next. I was more like my son than ever in that moment (you’ll be glad to know that I had not forgotten how to use the lavatory though). I was flying, for the first time in a long time.

The next time you return your tray table to its upright and locked position before takeoff, glance around your armrest for two puzzling little holes, plug in, and fly away.

Looking for something to fill the void left by Lost?

Oh dear Lost-Lovers,

I know your recent loss of Lost is looming; it’s hard to let go of a love so long in lingering. Even when you had begun to think that perhaps it’s time for less Lost; you feel its absence and know that while the drama’s players are now found, you are lost.

I can empathize; I was lured then left by a long-running love once. And I lived to tell that there is hope. That you, too, will find your way to the church and see there all that you loved about Lost.

In fact, what if I told you that I knew where that church was? What if I said its doors will once again open this fall? And what if, over the summer, it were possible to begin to climb your way out of the purgatory in which you now find yourself?

What if you could have back all of what made Lost your greatest love – and more?

Characters that feel like family, unrequited love, death and resurrection, action and adventure, consipiration, mysterious origins, sub-sub-subplots, high-techery, super-suspension of disbelief, familial über-loyalty, double-crossing, triple-crossing, flashbacks, fabulous acting, rich characterization, profound writing, a weekly abandoning of your mundane existence into a world of enigma and possibility, beautiful people, unlikely heroes and likeable/hateable villains – all of these could once again be yours. And then add to that humor, silliness, stupendous non-sequiturs, elaborate covers, spies, and Captain Awesome.

As much as I would love to promise you tropical polar bears, time travel, flash sidewayses (that is the correct plural of flash sideways, right?), immortals, and smoke monsters, you won’t find those here.

And still, you ask, “Where can I find this great hope?”

Chuck.

Mondays at 8:00 pm Eastern on NBC starting again in the fall.

But don’t wait until then to start healing. Get Season 1 on DVD right now and start to fill that life-changing-TV-show-shaped hole in your soul. And don’t do it just for yourself, or for the good of mankind, or to help keep this show on the air for a few more seasons to generate ad revenue for a company so half-witted that it doesn’t know how good of a thing it has going…

Do it for me.

Do it so that next year – right about now – I am not weeping into my Fruity Pebbles every morning wondering what I will do now that I’m lost.

Just like you.

This article originally appeared on Patrol, an independent daily magazine where young writers explore their interactions with art, culture, politics, and religion.

So, here I sit – day of the deadline – starting the second paragraph of a new work that hasn’t technically begun yet since I insist on delaying the actual start of the piece by describing why I’m writing one at all. Rest assured, dear reader (interesting: “dear reader” is deceivingly close to being a palindrome), it was not whimsy which spurred the spurning of a near-finished creation – which was, I believe, quite good. Instead, I am coerced to write this still-not-officially-started column by the weight of a brief moment experienced on a mundane commute home that pressed my soul until I wept. A weight so weighty that if I’d been on a scale I’d have weighed 10 times what I actually weigh.

And now, it has begun.

Lost?

People who are lost find out they are so by one of two ways. They might, after some time wandering off the path set before them, begin to notice the absence of the markings blazing toward their destination. Others only discover their lostness upon arriving, miraculously, back home – or at least on the path toward home. The former, now seeing the imminent danger all around them, frantically search for any sign of what was their guide and inevitably realize how precarious the journey and elusive their safety. The latter are oblivious to that precariousness and move about as though safety were ubiquitous. They don’t understand the narrowness of path and closeness of danger.

I was the latter – until yesterday.

Our deepest – and most painful when unfulfilled – dreams and aspirations for our lives are often formed in youth. I remember the me that I was when I first set sights on the me that I hoped to become. Looking back, I am glad I am the me I am now and not the me I hoped to be in almost every regard. Our lives often travel down paths that wind, climb hills, circle back, and force us to take the long way home.

I do mean paths plural. I have many dreams, many homes at which I hope to one day arrive. A home for work, one for family, one for life, one for the afterlife, and many others. Yet I, stupid little dreamer that I am, had wandered from one of those paths.

I don’t recall when it happened; I think there were signs I was taking misstep after misstep, but they weren’t ever bright enough to signal trouble – to say, “You may never get home if you keep going this way.” I wandered, feeling the whole time a security in the assumed inevitability of my arrival home, unaware that scores of threats to my hopes were amassing all around.

If I’m honest, I knew that something wasn’t right. I knew I wasn’t heading toward home any longer. I just didn’t want to believe it. It’s much easier to pretend that one day all my dreams will come true, even while I’ve forgotten what some of them were, than to pursue them.

In that frame of mind I sat on a crowded subway biding time until my stop.  I would alight there and go about believing that I was still on course. But that’s not how it happened.

Halfway home something happened – something so powerful it really did bring tears to my eyes. (Which were fortunately hidden behind dark sunglasses. Always a wise choice on crowded trains. You never know when you’ll have a “moment.” And then it gets all weird when people notice and you feel their awkward body language of not knowing whether to say something. And you have to tell them that you’re fine and they don’t really believe you because you’re whimpering like a baby. Anyway. Sunglasses are good to have.)

In my headphones, instead of the usual rotation of podcasts, I was listening to an old favorite, a group a friend recently mentioned was terrific when he suggested we start performing one of their tunes. I remembered how much I enjoyed them a decade or so ago and thought it would be fun to reminisce.

What I wasn’t prepared for was to hear the source of one of my dreams. To be reminded of why I decided to play saxophone, why I love music at all, why I studied it and still hope to “make it.” It’s not surprising that hearing music from my youth showed me how far astray I’d gone from the simplicity of my hopes and the purity of enjoyment of music that was once mine. What was surprising was the group that made me cry in public was Supertramp.

It’s almost too absurd to be true.

I loved Supertramp once. Their songs bellowed from the car stereo (back when I had a car).  I didn’t really know or care why I dug their groove then. I just did. And it was inspiring. I wanted to make music that gave others that simple – and simultaneously profound – satisfaction of relishing living.

I’m not saying that I don’t make that kind of music now. I certainly hope I do. But I had gotten caught up in the intelligentsia; in the constant analysis and dissection of music; in the reduction of the transcendent to the calculable, the concrete.

Something important happens when one falls in love with music – music which needs no justification. There’s no list of historical, theoretical, or philosophical reasons to prove why this music is “good.” It’s good because it is, and you know it instinctively.

Listening to them now, I understand why their music is compelling, why I loved it then and still love it today. I can see the stuff of which it is made, how it holds together structurally. I can hear why it is interesting.

But I don’t need the why anymore.

I had forgotten that I once enjoyed music beyond a cerebral appreciation. That I had set sights on a home where I loved the music I listened to and loved the music I made -  just because.

I didn’t even know I was lost.

Supertramp showed me the long way home, the same way they did fifteen years ago.

Story. That’s why people watch the Olympics. It’s certainly not the finer points of curling technique or the joy of seeing the best athletes in the world excel at doing what so many of us try to do better every time we strap rifles to our backs, slip on our skis, and head out into the hills for a causal afternoon of recreational alpine snipering.

We watch to see the grandson of WWII veteran drape his grandfather’s military burial flag over victorious shoulders as he celebrates gold. We cheer for the figure skater who overcame all odds to return to the ice for one more try for a first medal before retirement. We marvel at the skier who achieves heights none before have. We weep with the snowboarder seeking redemption for past bravado whose chance melts like the snow that slid her into disqualification.

We celebrate dreams come true and mourn those that don’t. We need their stories. It is story that informs our humanity and gives context to ebb and flow of life.

But sometimes rather than discovering story, we are deceived by mirage. All the trappings of story are laid before us, but the closer we get, the more its substance unravels, and we are left feeling hollow.

Such a tale was Avatar. A grandiose, colorful candy shell – with little inside. Imaginative and yet somehow uncreative. It was pure entertainment – a predictable pleasure delivered in a predictable manner.

I did like Avatar and enjoyed the experience it offered. It was spectacle, and I was entertained. It was a visual feast as promised, but a feast of little more than cinemagraphic cotton candy. In the end, I left the theater hungry (and not from consuming too little popcorn). I left feeling like I could have been changed. I left wanting to have been changed. (I also left the theater with a bladder as tired, sad, and bloated as its closing theme song.) I wanted real story, not recycled characters and cliched plot points covered in impressive technology and slick imagery.

Telling a meaningful story involves risk. And many aren’t willing, or able, to take on such risk artistically – risk that the story exposes the heart of the teller, risk that the market won’t respond and will thereby close doors to future creative opportunities. But with little risk comes little reward. (Unless the reward hoped for is little more than heaps of cash. Entertainment can yield lots of that.)

What I wanted from Avatar was risky storytelling: a bold attempt to challenge our preconceptions about life and existence, to leave us wondering if the worldview we held complete still has room to grow. If our eyes can see things afresh. If compassion can increase and love deepen as our humanity is filled up with the good, true, and beautiful.

And when you find a story like that you tell the world. You get on your Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Google Buzz, Bebo, Tumblr, Blogger, WordPress, Orkut, Jaiku, Friendster, Ning, or whatever and tell everyone. Whether it’s a movie, band, TV show, poem, or short story.

Or in this case, a novel. I’d never waited in angst for a book to be published before now.

Having been one of the first to discover the Harry Potter series after they were all already released, I’ve never felt that nervous energy of unquenchable anticipation. My fingernails remained neatly clipped, not chewed to stumps, as I flew through books 1-7 without pause or thought to what it was like to have a year roll by between volumes.

Until a few months ago.

I began reading Auralia’s Colors, a novel by Jeffrey Overstreet, with the end of the aughts (or the two-thousands, or the double-0s or whatever we ended up calling that decade) looming.

It’s the first book, or the Red Strand, in a series called The Auralia Thread that was initially published in 2007 by WaterBrook Press.

Auralia's Colors, by Jeffrey Overstreet

Set in another time, in another world, the people of the Expanse have a long history they trace back to a single ancestral group of children, who, led by a Mosaic patriarch, escaped a dangerous wilderness to settle a new land. Generations passed and the people scattered and separated into four houses, each with its own distinct and complicated lore. Auralia’s Colors throws us headlong into the contemporary trials of House Abascar when a young girl, orphaned at birth and of unknown ancestry, brings new, life-giving color to a drab and dying people.

Try to remember the last time you read a fantasy novel, and, if you can, all the ones before that. (Which might bring most of you to a grand total of three, and us geeks and nerds to a total of near 22 or more.) Of those, how many were about men with weapons and kingdoms to defend against irredeemable evil and save weak womenfolk from sure destruction? Black and white stories with no room for gray – or color?

Once it became clear that our protagonist, Auralia, was a little girl enamored with colors, mystery, and the seeing of things unseen, I was hooked. In all my previous fantastical readings I’d never encountered such a premise, though some might be out there. At first I was intrigued, stepping cautiously – if not a little skeptically – over the pages and wondering where this tale was taking me. But like that of all master craftsmen of language, Overstreet’s storytelling pulled me deeper and deeper into this vivid world both rich with – and yet deprived of – color, song, creation, and all that their presence brings.

I burned through the book like a dragon puffing ragweed rolled in magic paper.

Cyndere's Midnight, by Jeffrey Overstreet

Fortunately I didn’t have to wait at all to start the second installment, the Blue Strand, Cyndere’s Midnight. It was strategically positioned in my bag so when I inserted a finished Auralia’s Colors, I could remove an untouched Cyndere’s Midnight. Really, the only way I could’ve shortened that lag time would have been to glue one book to the other.

As much as I was enchanted by Auralia and the story Overstreet wove in her pages, I was changed by Cyndere’s Midnight, a story of loss and redemption. Of finding out what makes one human, and what shreds one’s humanity. A story that could not let me be, but pushed me to become something better. One that probed my heart as I found pieces of myself – the good and the wretched – in these characters. Their journey became my journey, their hopes and sorrows mine.

Raven's Ladder, by Jeffrey Overstreet

So, you can imagine the vacuous hole left in me when I closed its cover and had no other book in my bag to pull out. I sat on the train filled with questions, gawking bewildered at the route map like a first-time tourist because there was nowhere else to stare, searching for answers with such ferocity that if I’d been the conductor we’d have skipped every stop until the track ran out.

And so I waited, feeling for the first time that reader’s anxiety common to many but alien to me. I waited 46 days that seemed like one point two five score and four weeks.

The characters’ stories have yet to fully enfold, but this one has a happy ending.

Raven’s Ladder, the Gold Strand and third book in the series is finally available. And it is every bit as engaging, imaginative and transforming as its predecessors.  While I long to feel the resolution of this transformational, expertly-crafted story, part of me hopes the series will never end.

Because while there will always be, in our lives and in our culture, an important space and time for entertainment – for movies like Avatar – we need story. And when we’ve found it, we cling to it. We share it. We relive it over and over, and are changed by it. We let its colors saturate our lives.

So I got to thinking, with the smell of chestnuts roasting over a street vendor’s coal, that we need a new pop culture holiday tradition. Don’t we all have enough versions of We Wish You A Merry Christmas on our music playback machine of choice to last us the rest of our lives? Really, can anyone want figgy pudding so much that they would refuse to leave a person’s porch/living room until some is brought to them? I mean, how merry of a Christmas can you possibly be wishing me in this scenario?

Here’s what I propose: we replace the annual release of Music Celebrity du Jour’s Christmas record with something that has just as much cultural identity and brand development as those far-out music stars of wonder shining beyond us. Something that always turns a profit, regardless of the quality of the artifact. Something that would at least give us a break from hearing silver bells jingle.

“What is this something?” you ask, your cheeks quivering nervously like a bowl full of jelly thanks to all the pumpkin pie and egg nog you’ve been downing since Thanksgiving?

Movie franchises.

Instead of the Jon Secada & Lady Gaga Christmas Duets from La-La-Land, we get Pirates of the Caribbean: Mists of the Black Coal Stocking. A much needed change for the better.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Mists of the Black Coal Stocking

Captain Jack and crew sail to the North Pole to discover the source of coal filling the world’s Christmas stockings. Along the way, Will and Elizabeth Turner must rescue their young twins from the Isle of Banished Elves, while Jack schemes to find a way to turn coal mists into diamonds and partners with a most unusual sailor of the skies.

Terminator: Incarnation

War rages endless between man and machine. Weary of the constant loss of life, cyborgical and biological, SkyNet determines there is only one way to bring peace between man and machine. A young orphan, Maria, agrees to be the vessel that will bear the perfect half man/half machine. When word of this deliverer’s birth reaches ears and CPUs, many are threatened by the new world he will bring. But three cyborg generals, and three vagabond resistance guardians, join forces to protect the new hope that has entered their broken world.

AVP: Joyeux Noel

After eons of slaughter and violence cutting across the galaxies, two enemies – separated from their brethren – become unlikely friends as they learn to lean on each other for survival. Inspired by their experience together, Autjr’tyi and Xoktz return to their respective species and tirelessly pursue an unfathomable armistice on Pt’Katix, a holy day of celebration for both worlds.

Indiana Jones and the Star of Wonder

After inscriptions on a rare 1st century vase from the fertile crescent are found – supposedly detailing the falling of an eastern star that had shown brighter in the sky than any in ancient history – Indy and Mutt are dragged into a race against the clock to decipher the remainder of the script and find the location of the fallen star before the evil energy conglomerate Consortio Globus can destroy the treasure: a meteorite, presumed to contain enough mineralogical space radiation to overcome the world’s fossil fuel dependence and bring peace on earth and good will to all.

Sinterklaas and the Planet of the Apes

For thousands of years Kris Kringle has warped time to circumnavigate this planet in one night to deliver good gifts and cheer to all the Earth, but this time, night is bent too far and Santa is hurled to an apparently lifeless, foreign planet. The sleigh’s power of flight lost, and his reindeer scattered, Claus begins the search for a way home and discovers the horrifying reality of this new place. His capture at the hands of an impossible enemy leaves him wondering if he’ll ever escape to be Father Christmas again.

National Treasure: The Tunnel to Korvatunturi

Santa Claus and his North Pole home are the most powerful myths of the modern world. But, what if it is more than a myth? What if the Santa Claus lore is actually a series of clues? Clues to an unfathomable hidden treasure buried beneath Mount Korvatunturi, one of the many rumored locations of Santa’s lair. Ben Gates is determined to find out. He and his band of treasure-hunters embark on twisting, turning adventure to discover the fabled entrance to the Tunnel to Korvatunturi and reclaim the lost treasure of Saint Nicholas.

Star Trek: Epiphany

The United Federation of Planets calls the Enterprise and its crew into action once more. This time the mission is one of peace: to bring a gift to a new race only just discovering warp drive. But when they arrive, they find a most unusual series of events unfolding in the history of this people – events much like those reported to have occurred on Earth millennia ago. A child that some fear and others hope will be their savior has been born. Kirk and crew must confront long abandoned ideas of God and faith to present the gift to its true recipient while the fate of this entire planet hangs in the balance.

The Matrix: Neotivity

Rain pounds the window of Michelle McGahey’s Lower Downtown Capital City apartment. This dark night brings a strange visitor to the door, calling herself “The Oracle.” She tells the young woman that she is pregnant, and that her son will be “The One” and restore order to what she calls “The Matrix.” “You shall name him Thomas Anderson, but his true name will be Neo.” The Oracle leaves behind her a guardian – John Anderson, a servant of The Oracle – to watch over the shocked mother and her unborn son as a husband and father. A word of warning she gives as she departs, “stay hidden, and stay quiet. For, others will come after me who do not seek to protect Neo, but to destroy. In good time all will be revealed. Until then, guard this child.”

Avatar: Blue Christmas (IMAX 3D)

100 years after the Pandora War, peace exists between the Na’vi and humanity. Mankind has long since colonized the Edenic planet and has intermingled life and love with the Na’vi. But some Na’vi fear the loss of their ways as they see the “small man” grab more and more authority over this shared world. A group of young freedom fighters begin to study the culture of their invaders to find the perfect time – a point of great vulnerability – to take back what is rightfully theirs.

How many of the above movies would you go to the theater to see? 1? 4? 8? Won’t you join me in righting the pop-cultural ship we see sailing in on Christmas Day? Together we can usher in a new era of the commercialization of Christmas – an era that will be as timeless as an era can be, in our age of ultimate consumerism.

I’ve spent most of my life learning to play instruments and studying music – history, theory, composition, performance. A lifetime’s pursuit, the study of music is never complete.

Having a deep-rooted musical knowledge opens the door to experience music in a way that is almost indescribable. The best I can do is to liken it to a botanist’s appreciation of a leaf; every part of it has meaning to one who has learned how and of what a leaf is made.

To the “Average Harry” (I have a good friend Joe that resents his name’s use in such a generic manner. I don’t have any friends named Harry. Well, except for maybe Harry Potter) a leaf is pretty – perhaps, at times beautiful. To the botanist, the leaf is sublime; it is mystery. It is a treasure trove of wonders that both asks and answers questions about life and existence. It is so much more than a pretty color; it is the blade, the petiole, the veins, the margin, and the midrib.

In truth, I find leaves most marvelous when the colors change en masse each autumn. And, the botanist can certainly appreciate leaves this way. But like a master craftsmen, the botanist cannot help but want to get a close-up, in-depth view of even just single leaf, to study it and to marvel at it.

This is the way that I listen to music. Like most, I first hear the forest, yet I yearn to pore over each leaf and find the treasures it hides.

But a problem arises. Unlike the natural world, with all its complex systems of adaptation and perpetuation, music-making does not have a controlling force that squeezes from the raw materials an artifact of worth by default. Certainly some leaves are more interesting to certain leaf-lovers than others, but it is seems unlikely that there are leaves, which upon closer inspection, elicit a melancholy, “This leaf should never have been made. It’s a crappy leaf.”

Listening with a critical ear then, leaves me with a relatively small cross-section of “leaf music.” Usually I hear a tune on the web, iTunes, or . . . (dang it, what’s that thing that you have to put on a certain number to hear some music, otherwise it’s just static? Um. Radiator? Radial? Radiation? No, no. RADIO! That’s it!) radio, and quickly find that the particular piece of music is a forest without leaves. In the past, I would have made it a point to announce that I disdained said music and wished there were a filter for music that would create a forest of leaves for me to discover and revel in. Now I simply make a small point about it and move on. (And perhaps one day I’ll mature enough to not say anything at all and spare my friends and co-workers the verbiage.)

For instance: John Mayer’s new album was released last week. In it, he conducted an experiment and condensed the usual three stages for recording an album – writing, demo, recording – into one. Whenever an artist decides to break from his or her traditional creative method, the work very well may not shine the way it had when it was created through a honed, developed system. It seems (for now) that is the case with Mayer’s record.

I was disappointed. Earlier in Mayer’s career, I had written him off as a no-talent pop hack. And then I heard his live trio album; I heard his raw performance style; I heard him shred on the guitar in a pop/rock age where few shred on guitar anymore. I was hopeful that there would be some “leaves” in this new record worth studying. But alas – there aren’t, at least for me. (True, I only heard the first 30 seconds of half the cuts. But honestly, if the first 30 seconds of pop/rock don’t grab you, it’s too late. It’s not like each song was nine minutes long.)

So, I got to thinking. What “experimental process” records out there are filled with “leaves”? Two came to mind straight away. (Undoubtedly there are many others, but I turned to these two when slightly depressed after the John Mayer preview.)

Chris Thile's "Deceiver"

1. Deceiver – Chris Thile
It’s not often that one artist’s ideas and voice can carry an album. This is one of those rare instances. Rather than bring in the caliber of musicians that he worked with on Not All Who Wander Are Lost (Béla Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Bryan Sutton, Jeff Coffin, Edgar Meyer), Thile played all the instruments on the recording – drums, keyboards, strings, bass, guitar, and mandolin. He wrote and arranged all the songs and sang all the parts. Normally, this is recipe for disaster, and yet, it’s fascinating to hear a musician push himself as far as possible in so many areas. Musically, the album takes a lot of risks, avoiding the typical trappings of bluegrass and folk music with complex rhythmic and harmonic modulations and angular melodies while still planting key musical moments in the listener’s mind.

Is it his best work? Probably not. Are there others who have executed the same concept better? Most likely. But in the realm of musical experiments, this one holds its own.

The Mutual Admiration Society

2. Mutual Admiration Society (Glen Phillips with Nickel Creek)
Here, the experiment is a little different. The former Toad the Wet Sprocket front-man and the now-dissolved bluegrass trio got together, as the name suggests, out of respect for each other’s musical voices. Over six days they wrote, rehearsed, and recorded the album, with great success. Flaws found their way into the final cut, the mix is not quite up to industry standards, and a few moments are more raw than one expects from these artists, but the songwriting and passionate performances turn this effort from flop to fab.

Each track on these records feels the first sign of fall foliage, and draws you in closer and closer to uncover every artery and vein bringing life to the music.

What do you hear in the leaves from your favorite recordings; what music do you etch in your mind?

Few joys found in music are greater than when you delve into the mystery of what makes it move you; when you seek those songs in which you find an endless forest of leaves.