"Overpraise provides a measure of compensation for critics deprived of the experience of living in more vital times."
-- Adam Shatz in "Fight Club", an article in The Nation, May 22,2003
-- Adam Shatz in "Fight Club", an article in The Nation, May 22,2003
2
"A lot of advanced jazz today has the feel of a self-conscious hybrid, combining (take your pick) punk rock, hip-hop, Indian rhythms or Middle Eastern modes. Taborn is a musical omnivore, too, but his explorations of other forms never sound willful ..."
Why do you need to put down other musicians' work to elevate Taborn's? Farther down the paragraph you invoke Vijay Iyer. Is he one of the "self-conscious" "Indian rhythms"? And what does "willful" mean in this context?
It's these kinds of facile epithets and evidence-free evaluations that turn music criticism into precious secret signals. Most people don't hear it at all, and the rest feel elevated by the sound of their own echo chambers of meaning.
Why do you need to put down other musicians' work to elevate Taborn's? Farther down the paragraph you invoke Vijay Iyer. Is he one of the "self-conscious" "Indian rhythms"? And what does "willful" mean in this context?
It's these kinds of facile epithets and evidence-free evaluations that turn music criticism into precious secret signals. Most people don't hear it at all, and the rest feel elevated by the sound of their own echo chambers of meaning.
4
Yes, this observation instantly dissolved the writer's credibility as a jazz listener, to me, unfortunately. In addition to Vijay, Amir El-Saffar's Rivers of Sound comes to mind....
2
Shatz description is right on. Iyer, while a stellar musician, does sound willful to me, where Taborn is in another place and on a different level. Music is subjective, of course, and Taborn is not for everyone. But how can we know one thing without comparing it what else there is?
4
What does "willful" mean when applied to a piece of music?
We can certainly know one thing without comparing what else there is. Comparison is just one type of knowledge, and to my mind, most people are just expressing a preference using fancy words without actually comparing anything. Saying that Iyer is "willful" and Taborn is "another place and a different level" is meaningless without a musical definition of "willful" and musical samples contrasting "willful" music with whatever "place" and "level" you are talking about. And define that too please. It's tautological to just say that someone else is "different" or "other".
And you don't have to compare everything you hear to something else. Just listen to it. You can know a Beethoven piece without comparing it to anything else. If it makes you feel better to place one piece above another, be my guest, but it's a pretty trivial mode of judgment.
We can certainly know one thing without comparing what else there is. Comparison is just one type of knowledge, and to my mind, most people are just expressing a preference using fancy words without actually comparing anything. Saying that Iyer is "willful" and Taborn is "another place and a different level" is meaningless without a musical definition of "willful" and musical samples contrasting "willful" music with whatever "place" and "level" you are talking about. And define that too please. It's tautological to just say that someone else is "different" or "other".
And you don't have to compare everything you hear to something else. Just listen to it. You can know a Beethoven piece without comparing it to anything else. If it makes you feel better to place one piece above another, be my guest, but it's a pretty trivial mode of judgment.
A melody is worth a thousand words....
2
Outstanding profile.
7
Please stop calling his compositions "songs" unless they actually have lyrics and involve a vocalist.
4
What should we call them, Meg?
1
Compositions, improvisations, pieces, some such thing that doesn't imply singing - even if the pianist does have a lyrical touch.
5
Songs, by definition, are sung. Sans lyrics, they're tunes, compositions, works, etc.
5
Unfortunate choice was made for the sample track. This is relatively pedestrian Taborn. The waters run much deeper and more interesting than this.
2
I don't know about that. My attention wandered for the first couple of minutes, but when the high chiming piano chords came in, I was riveted.
A couple of recommendations, please, then?
2
Thank you. Moody piece. Will listen to more Taborn. Bill Evans 'easy to do'? Maybe the style, but not the Evans.
2
No more puff pieces about celebrities. Please more profiles of people like this: unsung greats doing amazing things. Awesome article.
14
Now that's REAL jazz. Thanks Mr. Shatz!
2
I have to see Craig Taborn. I want to, to close my eyes and open my hands.
2
A "waltz in 3/4"? Ya don't say!
Just kidding. A great piece on a great musician. Thanks.
Just kidding. A great piece on a great musician. Thanks.
2
A virtuoso piece of journalism.
1
Taborn has become a leader in jazz by trying not to be one. Bravo!
3
a real jazz read in nyt sunday mag! thank you. it is a real loss that the daily nyt has dropped most of its previously thoughtful jazz coverage. how about hiring adam shatz to write regularly in the daily?
4
Thank you. I have just seen the reincarnation of Frank Zappa.
1
Very good piece.
2
Craig Tabor may be considered the greatest living jazz pianist alive but as Duke Ellington said, quoting Bubber Miley, "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing." The swing is gone in jazz. I might as well be listening to contemporary minimalist music!
4
I truly gasped when I read that Taborn is drawn to Agnes Martin. It makes so much sense that he would be but I would never have known this fascinating truth if it were not for this wonderful article. Thank you!
4
Wow. Adam Shatz wrote such a gorgeous profile. I was so moved by this profile that I stopped what I was doing and signed up for a digital subscription to the N.Y. Times. I want to encourage the Times that there IS a readership for this type of music journalism and to continue down this path. There are so many deserving jazz and other music artists that would make for good profiles. After Nate Chinen left the paper I thought these kind of treatments would be left for the journalistic graveyard. I'm writing to tell you and the hyper analytics people that I put my money where my mouth is. Do more of these types of stories and more people like me will sign up. Great piece, comes at a time when I had given up that this type of writing could ever happen again in this world. It's that important. As is an artist such as Craig Taborn.
18
So much of contemporary writing about jazz is pablum that comes straight out of the press release.
Mr. Shatz has gone to the essence of the musical creative process, and speaks directly to the music created by people of whom few journalists dare to acknowledge, such as Cecil Taylor.
Craig Taborn is one of the cats who defines the present and future of musical creativity, even in a time when some jazz labels are about to give up. How is that this musical form has the ability to constantly revive itself and open up new possibilities?
Mr. Shatz has gone to the essence of the musical creative process, and speaks directly to the music created by people of whom few journalists dare to acknowledge, such as Cecil Taylor.
Craig Taborn is one of the cats who defines the present and future of musical creativity, even in a time when some jazz labels are about to give up. How is that this musical form has the ability to constantly revive itself and open up new possibilities?
3
Thank you for the article. Any promotion of the jazz art form and its artists is always welcome. The best solo pianist of recent years is 'Michel Petrucciani-Theatre Au Champs Elysee', a live concert recording. Michel's story is the most fantastic true musical fable of our times. He was three feet tall and weighed sixty pounds and passed away at the age of thirty six. The French people honoured him buy burying him next to Chopin at Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris. He suffered from 'brittle bones' disease and the honour of his fellow musicians,at times, was to see who would carry him to the piano stool as he was too weak to walk but could play through broken clavicle bones etc. A Great documentary, unseen in the US but can be found on YouTube, is 'Michel Petrucciani, Body and Soul' directed by Michael Radford, the write/director of 'IL Postino'
6
Taborn's inner necessity is such a relief in this era of endless personalities and branding. Not everything and everyone needs to be sold and/or widely known.
Process. Moment. what is IS.
I'll be listening to that.
Process. Moment. what is IS.
I'll be listening to that.
2
"Talking about music is like dancing about architecture."
-Coltrane(?)
-Coltrane(?)
2
well - ok - that could work
1
I believe it was 'writing about music is like dancing to architecture.' ( Thelonious Monk said it.) Having seen Craig Taborn a number of times I agree here, tho getting the word out about him is admirable however it happens.
1
Beautifully written. I first heard Craig in the Michigan Union in Ann Arbor, when he was in college and playing each week with a group that included Gerald Cleaver on drums and a charismatic leader who, in combination with Craig's endless invention, drew a young, diverse, highly engaged crowd. In 1992, our jazz/latin Lunar Octet was one of the beneficiaries of Craig's willingness to adopt the sideman role. He would navigate dense chord progressions without complaint, but the more freedom our compositions offered, the more he could build his own world. His favored musical landscape was not the comforting confines of chord changes, but a fenceless prairie rolling to the horizon. There was one particularly memorable solo in a club in Toledo where he took a simple but evocative piece called Ramilayu's Tune on a tempestuous journey to the moon and back. Even something as seemingly simple as his warming up on Hanon exercises would catch the ear. Undergirding his flights of imagination was a bedrock precision.
3
Craig Taborn took the most amazing abstract bluesy solo in a second set jam at Joe Maneri's 75th Birthday concert (2002) at Tonic...great technical skill mixed with deep feeling...he has moments like that everytime I see him play (last time was with Ches Smith and Mat Maneri at the Philadelphia art museum. I honestly can say (IMO) he can swing with the best of them, but he has his own way of doing things like any artist and is one of the few worthy of mention with people like Herbie Hancock or McCoy or Cecil.
3
A fantastic thoughtful and very insightful article. The writer is spot on when he says there are many friends of Craig's who will be happy to see him get some much deserved and hard worked for shine. I too only really have brief conversations with him in the street (we share a 'hood) but its always a pleasure. Just saw him last weekend and he was talking about studying McCoy Tyner's left hand on some upcoming European dates they have together. This story makes me appreciate him even more than I already did.
3
thank you for this wonderful tribute - I went to school with craig and we all enjoyed his beautiful music emanating from our school chapel - he is a modest and soulful artist with a keen intellect and much to offer
3
This piece is absolutely beautiful--a rich and important reminder of what the creative process can and should be all about. I was lucky enough to attend one of Taborn's performances at the Village Vanguard back in March. I didn't know much about him, but what little I read convinced me that it was worth the effort to go. About 4 minutes into it, I was already blown away, and I spent the rest of the time totally absorbed, and often surprised, by what unfolded. It was a genuine revelation to me. It was mostly jazz, of course, but a new and more complex form of jazz than I had even remotely expected. Simply, it was one of the most invigorating and memorable live performances that I've ever been lucky enough to witness.
1
Wonderful article! Beautiful music! Thank you for introducing me to this incredible musician/composer.
2
I plan to read this canny essay daily. So thoughtful and so intriguing. And, yes, Craig Taborn is such an unusually talented musician. Thank you!
2
Wow....another dimension, an unknown language, with those brilliant splashes of color, yellows, reds, blues...amazing pianist and musician who is in another sphere from the rest of us...makes you believe that some musicians are the conduit to a Supreme Being. Thank you, Adam!
2
I'm surprised there is no mention of Farmers By Nature, a trio with Taborn, Gerald Cleaver & William Parker. The band had a lock on calling down the spirits every time i've heard it play. Three great albums, a great exponent of the "black improvisational tradition."
2
A fine piece - kudos to the Times for publishing an extensive treatment of a pianist I'll just have to get to know now!
7
Beautiful....and wonderful!!
10
Awesome thanks for writing this. Always nice to see jazz at the spotlight and Taborn is an inspired choice for an article!
12
Thank you for introducing me to Craig Taborn. Its not quite McCoy Tyner but I love it! Most people have forgotten the many genius Jazz musicians and especially pianists from the 70's and 80's but "Listen to Daylight Ghosts" takes me back!! I am now an instant fan!!!
9
I think Salieri characterized his p[laying best when he said "scales whizing up and down". clearly he can play but I see his work as a combination of a lot of different styles. There have been a lot of pianists flowing under the bridge and it's difficult to really have an totally unique style. even 12-tine music faded after a while because of limitations. Tatum, Garner, Waller, Evans, and hundreds more before them have all their styles but few really turn out to be genius. Taborn is different but not necessarily genius. There seems to be a lot written out here in what I have heard thus taking away the freeing aspects of jazz which is improvisation. There's a little musique concrete, and other "experimental aspects and reminiscent of "new music" in the classical arena of the 60's and 70's.
4
Taborn is of the greatest musical geniuses of our modern era. Thank you for this erudite piece of writing. Shatz should be applauded for the care and time he put into this piece about a true iconoclast.
12
Thank you indeed to Adam Shatz and the New York Times for such s well-written and thoughtful article. And thank you to Craig Taborn.
1
Wow. Taborn's commitment to "the process," to "being present," to "just the enjoyment" of the thing speaks to something much greater or bigger than music.
As a psycho-therapist, a teacher, and a father of a now 9 year young daughter, all this reminds me of what is possible in us, what "magic" can happen when we "get out of our own way." Thank you Craig Taborn and Adam Shatz, and The New York Times.
As a psycho-therapist, a teacher, and a father of a now 9 year young daughter, all this reminds me of what is possible in us, what "magic" can happen when we "get out of our own way." Thank you Craig Taborn and Adam Shatz, and The New York Times.
22
I feel a bit vindicated, since I've admired Taborn's music-making for a long time and...well...I guess we've crossed a threshold and now I'm no longer a member of such a small club. Jazz is in a golden age at the moment, and you only have to check out a random night at The Jazz Gallery or The Village Vanguard or Small's or The Stone or 55 Bar to have your mind blown. But there is something special about Craig, and it's lovely to see him celebrated in such a sensitive, thoughtful way. Now how about a piece on Tim Berne? Or Matt Mitchell? Or Tyshawn Sorey? Or Dave Binney? Too many amazing voices in jazz to count at the moment, and they just keep appearing. These are heady times for modern music.
16
As someone who hung out at Slugs' Saloon for the Sun Ra performances, I can dig it. Taborn is a worthy successor.
4
Sun Ra ("Space is the Place" my favorite) thank you for recalling his name! John/Alice Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Lonnie Liston Smith are just a few of the other giants in the mix of my favorite musicians that are ageless geniuses. As I stated earlier I'm also now an instant fan of Taborn and will be adding him to my collection!
2
I am well over eighty and have never heard Mr. Taborn. But I would wager he never played anything so sublime as Jess Stacey's solo at Carnegie Hall in Goodman's Sing, Sing,Sing.
4
really - this shower of adoration should be accompanied with a, "IMO", qualifier, as there are some truly great pianist in the world...
7
98% of the people in America have no clue of jazz and blues. Always there: bubbling, growing, shrieking, crying. Subterranean, lost - a depth so below the pop/tweet/pap/shrieking blare of cars honking, people babbling - lost in the circus of sport, politics, consumption.
Way back, I played flute and sax in a band called "Honky Deluxe." Three white guys and a black woman with a great set of pipes. The week spent working - I was a carpenter - Friday and Saturday playing as a bar band. I doubt we made enough to cover the gas. Still, it was glorious.
For a brief musical moment, jazz and blues had surfaced in America's mind. It does that occasionally then recedes to the depths. Jazz requires the listener to both hear and think. Blues forces them to hear and feel. Most people don't want to work for their music. Most don't want to feel.
I've not heard Taborn. I wish I could. In this transcendent article I see the Ghost for a moment. I feel again the joy of sound pouring out of me, and yes in that rapture I am utterly alone. Yet we must come up to connect with the other completing the sound/moment/experience making it shared.
All great song (which we certainly weren't) comes from the heaven, hell, heart of the listener/maker who pours it out trying to enunciate what is never full. Illusive that moment.
Thank you Mr. Shatz. I remember those times of dream and drama when I was thus taken - revealing a moment sublime.
Way back, I played flute and sax in a band called "Honky Deluxe." Three white guys and a black woman with a great set of pipes. The week spent working - I was a carpenter - Friday and Saturday playing as a bar band. I doubt we made enough to cover the gas. Still, it was glorious.
For a brief musical moment, jazz and blues had surfaced in America's mind. It does that occasionally then recedes to the depths. Jazz requires the listener to both hear and think. Blues forces them to hear and feel. Most people don't want to work for their music. Most don't want to feel.
I've not heard Taborn. I wish I could. In this transcendent article I see the Ghost for a moment. I feel again the joy of sound pouring out of me, and yes in that rapture I am utterly alone. Yet we must come up to connect with the other completing the sound/moment/experience making it shared.
All great song (which we certainly weren't) comes from the heaven, hell, heart of the listener/maker who pours it out trying to enunciate what is never full. Illusive that moment.
Thank you Mr. Shatz. I remember those times of dream and drama when I was thus taken - revealing a moment sublime.
15
I can't overstate the brilliance of Avenging Angel - I would rank it up there with my very best Monk, Jarrett or Evans albums.
5
Whereas Craig Taborn is most certainly a musician of tremendous ability, the assertion that Bill Evans' style can be boiled down to "chord voicings" reminds me both that many great players fail to grasp anything past the surface in analysis, and that music critics, even those with degrees in music, rarely seem to possess any sophisticated understanding of their subject. If anything, Evans' stylistic contribution has more to do with rhythm, meter, group interaction, and approach to the arrangement in a trio setting than any particular harmonic devices. Moreover, it does not serve the art form to make it even less accessible, and to present another withdrawn, willfully socially awkward personality as the shining light of jazz music. (Of course, if you don't call it "jazz," maybe you can excuse yourself for confusing the listening public. For those of us who love jazz that does not resist classification as such, this is not as convenient a choice.)
18
i think we all get a chance to determine what serves the art form, and in the end the music is first and foremost. nothing else really matters.
5
"I'm able to handle all kinds of music, but if it doesn't swing, it's not jazz." ~Woody Shaw
8
Right on.
1
Right, young ed: "It don't mean a thing . . . "
1
Right, young ed. "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing." Duke Ellington.
1
Craig has been a family friend for life. He is a gifted ,talented pianist, he has always been humble and approachable. He and my kids grew up together ,he is a quiet genius. His style of music is beyond me, but it is still great. Great article
13
I, too, saw the Agnes Martin show at the Guggenheim, and am struck by my difference of opinion about her work with an artist of Taborn's majestic level.
Like Taborn, I discern the barely visible, up-close differences in the lines and tones that make the work interesting. (For one of his plays, Beckett wrote a stage direction about a door that is "imperceptibly ajar.") I admire Martin's work. I just don't enjoy [ital.] it. I expect that Taborn and I could have a lively discussion about the distinction and its importance.
I have difficulty separating Martin's work from, in the expression, where she was coming from. Martin was mentally unstable. We could go around on this subject.
Taborn's brilliance is that he can pull interesting ideas out of Martin's work and make them good for me. Hats off.
Bottom line: Thank you, Shatz and The Times, for the well-crafted profile.
Like Taborn, I discern the barely visible, up-close differences in the lines and tones that make the work interesting. (For one of his plays, Beckett wrote a stage direction about a door that is "imperceptibly ajar.") I admire Martin's work. I just don't enjoy [ital.] it. I expect that Taborn and I could have a lively discussion about the distinction and its importance.
I have difficulty separating Martin's work from, in the expression, where she was coming from. Martin was mentally unstable. We could go around on this subject.
Taborn's brilliance is that he can pull interesting ideas out of Martin's work and make them good for me. Hats off.
Bottom line: Thank you, Shatz and The Times, for the well-crafted profile.
6
Nice. Really nice.
3
Thank you, Mr. Shatz, and thank you NYT for creating the space for this article to be written and read.
29
Taborn is a wonderful musician, one of the finest on the jazz scene today. Cutting-edge jazz is creatively healthy, maybe more so than any of the other arts at the moment, and its leading talents deserve a wider audience. Thank you for running a feature piece on something positive, someone inspiring.
23
"Thank you for running a feature piece on something positive, someone inspiring."
Yes, thank you, thank you. Such an uplifting balm much needed for the times we now live in.
Yes, thank you, thank you. Such an uplifting balm much needed for the times we now live in.
This piece is everything. Adam Shatz should be given more spots to write about jazz. He is so good at it as he humanizes his subjects like almost no one else writing about music today does - either because of word limits or a lack of curiosity in the true essences of his subjects. His profile of Kamasi Washington a couple years ago, was, in my opinion, the most complete picture of that artist in written words. This one here, about one of my personal musical heroes, someone I've followed for almost 15 years, gets right at his essence which is indeed something like a ghost. But it gets at things about him like his love of fine art that I had no idea he paid such deep attention to. This is one of the better arguments for long-form journalism - spending time and care on a subject you get a better story. This being the best story ever written on someone who is probably the closest thing we have to a modern iconoclast on piano - someone who combines all kinds of music from contemporary classical to metal to God knows what else and synthesizes it into this churning magical fairy dust. "Avenging Angel" in my opinion is one of the singular greatest works of the last 100 years. His work with the trio of Morgan and Cleaver is better live than on recording. Go listen to "Bodies We Came of" from "Light Made Lighter" or the opening track of "Avenging Angel" - "The Broad Day King" and sit with that for a minute and tell me Craig is not one of the greatest musical geniuses of our modern era.
37
The technique of holding keys down with the right hand so that the strings are open, and then popping a staccato note with the left hand to bloom them with sympathetic vibration is, ironically, called "ghosting" by us piano tuners.
17
His playing with Chris Potter where he played Wurlitzer and covered the bass on his left hand was my favorite, what a brilliant artist!
1
Fascinating.
3
I rarely listen to anyone newer than Mingus, Coltrane, Gordon or Pepper. I'll give him a shot. Thanks.
4
Man, you are missing out. So much amazing jazz being made right now. Moran, Iyer, Salvant, Mehldau, Kamasi Washington, Courtney Bryan, Logan Richardson, Esperanza Spaulding...the list goes on and on. Heck, Charles Lloyd, Jack DeJohnette, Henry Threadgill, and Wayne Shorter are as good as ever, sometimes better. Keith Jarrett, Sonny Rollins, and Cecil Taylor are still kicking around here and there.
Mingus is divine (in his diabolic way), but you can't go see him live, which is the thing to do with jazz. Just the other night I listened to the young genius that is Ambrose Akinmusire absolutely crush a beautiful set of originals for 90 minutes in a postage stamp theater in Seattle for 20 bucks. In the '90s the music seemed the ossified stuff of the conservatory, but in the last 10, 15 years it has become vital again.
Mingus is divine (in his diabolic way), but you can't go see him live, which is the thing to do with jazz. Just the other night I listened to the young genius that is Ambrose Akinmusire absolutely crush a beautiful set of originals for 90 minutes in a postage stamp theater in Seattle for 20 bucks. In the '90s the music seemed the ossified stuff of the conservatory, but in the last 10, 15 years it has become vital again.
14
Man...time to start listening to the new crowd. You're missing out on a lot - I hope Craig's music opens a door for you.
I will definitely buy his music. It will be great to play when I'm writing. One thing that saddened me was the experience he has with people reacting to his physical presence, which seems ordinary and unremarkable to me. Almost too ordinary for the glorious sounds he produces. Thanks for this wonderful article.
3
I've been heavily into jazz for the last 30 years. Almost all my listening is focused on the music that exists between Minton's and the beginning of what I call Coltrane's inter-gallactic period, roughly 1946-1963. With a few exceptions, much of what happened after that just doesn't interest me. So, while having heard of Mr. Taborn, I had never heard Mr. Taborn. Now that I've spent some time with "Daylight Ghosts" that will have to change. If there's such a thing as a thinking man's music, i.e, challenging in a good way, this is it. Thank you Adam Shatz and especially Craig Taborn for opening that door.
12
I was pleasantly surprised to see this profile; Taborn, as the article points out, does his work in a modest fashion, yet it is work that is vital and engaging, exemplifiying the spirit of creative music in our time.
It is this sort of steady exploration of his art which is the lifeblood of the creative, improvisational music which is America's and New York City's great gift to the world. The reporting of performances and recordings should again be a part of the Times' regular coverage, documenting the trajectory of the living music.
It is this sort of steady exploration of his art which is the lifeblood of the creative, improvisational music which is America's and New York City's great gift to the world. The reporting of performances and recordings should again be a part of the Times' regular coverage, documenting the trajectory of the living music.
15
I hadn't heard of him before and I really love the sample of his music you offered here. Thank you for writing this.
9
Craig's a favorite! Seen him in several NYC venues: the Stone, The Jazz Gallery, the Rubin Museum, Roulette . . .
4
I first heard him playing years ago at Yoshi's in San Francisco (RIP) with David Binney, Brian Blade & Eivind Opsvik(?). It was Binney's ensemble, but Taborn shown....
1
Thanks for the in depth article. Listening now.
7
Lots of people who have access to attention--sometimes deserved, often not--could learn from him.
13
Just like good jazz, my mind's wanders and then settles into a mood with this portrait of an artist's by an artist's in the melodic rain of a contemplative morning. Thanks, I will listen as best I can, waiting...
14
I've heard Craig Taborn in several settings including with Dave Holland. As noted in the article, he's one of a handful of innovative artists, jazz or otherwise. There are others out there but they generally get less notice than the artful imitators in my opinion.
12
‘Music functions as a means to “call down” those spirits, so in a very real sense I am not doing anything when the music is truly being made. It isn’t really me doing it.’
Thank you Graig Taborn. For your modesty, grace, spirit of solitude, for being everything that most very talented human beings are truly not these days--HUMBLE. Reading about you and your life was like embracing tender raindrops in a soft spray of magic upon the parched barren earth where those spirits turn into huge swirling butterflies of JOY quenching your thrist and doing the dance of LIFE! WHAT A REAL GIFT! Thank you for giving us your real music full of soul (or your soul full of real music!). I'm so grateful for it. So life-giving! I feel refreshed and rejuvenated just knowing your walking the planet with us (there's hope!). Reading like this is like being inside the womb of LOVE!
I bow in total respect, in deep pleasure, and feel like I just met a true friend.
Thank you Graig Taborn. For your modesty, grace, spirit of solitude, for being everything that most very talented human beings are truly not these days--HUMBLE. Reading about you and your life was like embracing tender raindrops in a soft spray of magic upon the parched barren earth where those spirits turn into huge swirling butterflies of JOY quenching your thrist and doing the dance of LIFE! WHAT A REAL GIFT! Thank you for giving us your real music full of soul (or your soul full of real music!). I'm so grateful for it. So life-giving! I feel refreshed and rejuvenated just knowing your walking the planet with us (there's hope!). Reading like this is like being inside the womb of LOVE!
I bow in total respect, in deep pleasure, and feel like I just met a true friend.
31
Thanks for this. Awesome.
33
In recognition of the quiet work of others here, I'd like to give a name to the person referred to as the musicologist at the University of Minnesota who was a colleague of John and neighbor of the Taborn family. He was Prof Reginald Buckner, a teacher and scholar of African American music and jazz. Though he died young, Professor Buckner also encouraged Craig early on, and is himself remembered in the Twin Cities and honored by the Museum of Jazz in Kansas City Mo.