“Sahaja” doesn’t mean only that you get spontaneous Realization, it also means you get spontaneity, the whole nature gets spontaneity. All those subtle things that I have told you, they all get spontaneous and they work it out. Of course there are angels and there are ganas who are helping you. But you need not worry about them just now. Main thing is you must realize what you are, what you have got and how much you have faced it, you have got it and how it has worked out. I have seen every time I just have a little problem of something, immediately it works. It works in such quarters and such people that I never expected, just comes in. Everything works out. But whatever works out is for your good, is for your growth, for your understanding that you are a Sahaja Yogi; you have entered into the Kingdom of God, but this you have to develop. Also introspection can tell you that are you working out all those things, or not? If you take to introspection, you’ll be surprised to see, yes, you have these powers, and you can do wonders. So I bless you all. Please develop those subtle things within you. They are already there; you don’t have to do anything, only understand and locate.

(conclusion to: 1998-1216: Subtle Forms of Five Elements in us, Talk before music program, Delhi)

So I bless you all. Please develop those subtle things within you. They are already there; you don’t have to do anything, only understand and locate.

So like one pitcher which is in the River Ganges, you are like a cell in the body of the (primordial feminine energy) Adi Shakti. Your entity, your personality is preserved. Despite that you feel the (creative power of the primordial feminine energy) Brahmachaitanya through your senses and you can give realizations to others, but you are in the body of the Adi Shakti. As long as you are in the body of Adi Shakti you can do all that.                                            May 1987, Australia

Something special has happened to you that the whole of Brahmachaitanya, the whole ocean has taken the form of a cloud – that’s Adi Shakti – and has come on this Earth to shower the chaitanya (subtle energy/power) on you people, enrich you, nurture you, develop you, by manifesting the love in such a manner that you have entered into the body of the Adi Shakti.                                                                                                                                                                                              May 1987, Australia

This Mother Earth has to teach us …
Whatever is outside is also inside.
If you want to exploit your Mother inside
or if you want to trouble your Mother inside,
you can also trouble this Mother Earth.
Now what has replaced our understanding is very simple.
It is that we are paying more attention to money.
If you can cut a tree to get money, then it is hurting the Mother.
But if you are cutting a tree for beautifying Her, then She’s happy.
Her discretion is so great….
It’s very remarkable how nature is so much within us
and how this, whatever it is within us,
guides outside and receives the blessings.
We are not something separate.
This Mother Earth is our home.
We have a home in Her
and She has a home within us.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             September 1997

Every leaf, every branch tries to give a chance to another leaf and another branch, that they all get the sunlight. If you have to see collectivity, really you see it in a jungle, how they live together and with such happiness, with such unity.
5 April 1994

Every individual has to work it out for himself so that the whole can be all right.
16 January 1983, Vaiturna

The feeling is that the other is myself. Be kind and gentle. Try to improve and help in that manner.
“Mother Earth”

Without recognition, you cannot see the play. Without the play, you cannot have confidence within yourself. Without confidence, you cannot become a guru. Without becoming a guru, you cannot help others. And without helping others, you are not going to be in any way happy. So to break the chain is very easy, but to build the chain, one after another, is what you have to do.                                                                                                                                                                                           July 1979

This is the best way to bring non-violence: in violent places you go and stand steadily there, facing all the things that are happening and that witness state acts – acts and stops that kind of a violence that is going on. But the witness state is not a mental state. It is a state of a spiritual ascent where you become a witness. The best way to practice the witness state is not to criticize anyone.                                                                                                                                                                             August 1998

In thoughtless awareness nobody can touch you, that is your fortress.                                                                                                                                                                 August 1998

Your own attention is important, not the attention of others.                                                                                                                                                                                 August 1998

Don’t listen to those who say, “Mother said….”                                                                                                                                                                                                               August 1998

Either you lead a life which is luxurious on the material level or you lead a luxurious life of God’s blessings. One of the two you have to choose, the time has come. August 1998

If a lotus is there, it will open. But it must give fragrance. Even the lotus has a responsibility. Then what about you?
Christmas 2001

You must practise to see something without allowing any thought to rise. Then you start sucking through your spirit the beauty, the glory, the fragrance of a flower.
Every flower is poetry.
Easter 1984

This is the greatest joy-giving thing for Me, that one flower can enjoy the fragrance of another flower. It is real poetry.
5 October 1987

I don’t know if you people really are aware of your responsibilities. Sometimes you are only worried on “Where am I catching? What is happening to me? What is this?” So self-centered! Or, you are worried about others: “She should not have done this, he should not have done….” Nobody should think they love me more than anyone else. Nobody should think like that. Some people know more rituals, some people know more protocol, doesn’t matter, but I know who loves me. The one who loves others most loves me the most. I don’t care, your protocols and ritualistic things are nonsense for me. What does it matter to me? The ones who loves others really loves me. Take it from me, I’ve had all these rituals and all that and I have no care for these things. Makes no difference if you say good morning or good evening to me, is not important. What you say to your brothers and sisters is the most important.                                                                                                                                                                                                    05.24.1981 Chelsham Road, London

This criticizing nature comes from a terrible misunderstanding about oneself. What are we? Why should we judge anyone else? Are we paid for it? So why waste your energy in judging others, because in the realm of reality, it is all good, everything fine, everything first class. But if you are trying to see what is wrong with others, then you are not in reality.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           05.05.1996 Cabella, Italy

When you judge others, you should know that you are judged by God. If you are judging others, God has judged you also. So, in His judgment, whatever marks you have given to yourself and to others aren’t going to be consulted (ed. i.e. taken into account) at all.                                                                                                                                                  Bordi, India 01.27.1980

“You cannot know the meaning of your life until you are connected to the Power that created you.”
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

One should not be too attached to the body.  As it is we have too many wrestlers and archers. Now what we need are saints.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 V5.26 Mar.85.p41

He gave you freedom to know and this freedom has created all the problems you face, not God. God has not created any problems for you. No. He wanted to make a very smooth ascent. He has made your machine so beautifully.
V5.26 Mar.85.p36

Because of your habits, you may go down again, again you may ascend, again go down. It happens with some people, doesn’t matter. But, if you are steady, it is going to work out.                                                                                                                                                                        V5.26 Mar.85.p37

That is the most important thing, how many are going to be wise, to see to their own advantage, to their own ascent?  Is the only choice.
V5.26 Mar.85.p37

Darkness always disintegrates.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             V5.26 Mar.85.p32

When nobody is the other, where is compassion?  Because, supposing this finger is paining, and if I try to rub it, am I doing any compassion to this finger? Because it is a part and parcel of Me.
V5.26 Mar.85.p25

It is an erratic and funny heart which swells up in ego. Understand that what we lack is disciplining.  And that disciplining has to come, otherwise our caliber cannot improve.                                                                                                                                                                             V5.26 Mar.85.p6

Try to control your speech.  Whether you express temper in your speech or you express your compassion, or are you artificially compassionate?
V.4.21.May84.p11

With ego-oriented people it is more difficult, at the slightest pretext they topple down. And spirit, which is the source of joy, just doesn’t come, doesn’t show. The joy itself is beauty. But that is a state one has to achieve.
V.4.21.May84.p9

Enlightenment of your brain‚ means; the limited capacity of your brain to become unlimited in its capacity to realize God. I will not use the word understand. To realize God. How powerful He is, how miraculous He is, how great He is.                                                                                                                                                                                                                         V.4.21.May84.p7

One candle which is not enlightened can be enlightened by another enlightened candle. Now this candle doesn’t do anything except that; enlightens that candle, and that candle has to enlighten other candles. It’s as simple as that.
V.5.27.May85.p42

You have to run in the way of the roots, of the branches, of the leaves, of the flowers and of the fruits. You have to be the essence of the tree that nourishes and not just the outward leaves with wrong ideas about yourself.  Put the problems of the tree always ahead of the problems of the leaf.                                                                                                                                                                                                 V4.19.Jan84

Be joyful! The entire universe has to receive the bubbling streams of your love.
V.5.27.May85.p19

If there is no duality, what is the attachment?  If you are the light and you are the lamp, then where is the duality?  If you are the sun and you are the sunlight, you are the word and you are the meaning; then where is the duality?
V.4.21.May84.p10

Because there is a difference and a distance between you and yours, that’s why you get attached to it, but it’s Me, who is the other? The whole universe is Me.  Who is the other? Everything is Me. Who is the other?
V.4.21.May84.p10

Why didn’t He do it in our evolution, why did He make us so stupid? One can say to God, why did He create these problems?  But who are we to ask Him questions?  He does what He likes.                                                                                                                                                    V5.26 Mar.85.p37

How can you blame God for fanaticism?  I just can’t understand. He never created it. Actually he never created any difference between people, just a variety, just to make it look beautiful, that’s all.                                                                                                                                             V5.26 Mar.85.p37

Anything that creates such limitations within us, any kind of fanaticism, is dangerous, not only you, but to the whole society, and, if you support even this much, you are supporting that destruction.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               V5.26 Mar.85.p36

So religion is another way to disintegrate you.  You hate each other, fundamentalists fighting. For what?  Is there difference between the spirit of one and another?  Fundamentals are: that God is one.  He has created us.
V5.26 Mar.85.p36

Christ has said, ‘Thou shalt not have adulterous eyes‚, meaning your eyes should be clear and as you know, eyes represent both your ego and your superego so, when He said that about your eyes should be clear, He meant that your thoughts should be clear.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            V4. 19 Jan.84

This kind of myth exists among human being that when you look at something, or you think about something, then you solve the problem.  It’s not true; it’s a myth, because thinking is just an empty process of the mind.
V4. 19 Jan.84.p4

If in the heart there is no living force, then how can you progress?  You must know what to choose. You should grow mature to that point where you know what to choose. This is growth. Then you do not ask Mother, you do not ask anyone.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    V3.15 May.83.p15

The mastery of your attention will come when you start seeing that it is all a myth that upsets you. Just throw it away and understand that you are the eternal attention, that you are the eternal life.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       V4.20.Mar84.p24

The only thing that keeps you away from the eternal is ignorance, and ignorance is too simple to understand, that you have accepted myth as truth.
V4.20.Mar84.p24

Those who are on the emotional side see the egos of others, while those who are on the ego side see the emotional side of others.  So once criticizes another.  But they don’t see themselves, that they are falling into a trap, into one of the extremes.
V.5.27.May85.p22

People get confused with emotions, they think it is joy.  Joy can only be achieved through complete detachment.  The detachment which is egoless and superegoless.
V.5.27.May85.p22

Some will say that we’ll just go on being austere about it.  Then that will become again another obsession.  Some will say, alright Mother has said we should enjoy, so we will just enjoy.  How to strike the balance is a big problem.
V.5.27.May85.p21

Get out of that mental conception that you know already about it.  You do not know, because what you know is just mental.  That should be a part and parcel of your being.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                V.5.27.May85.p21

What can you give?  That is what one should understand. If you humble down, then it’s yours, is there, it’s just in your heart. There’s a saying that whenever I want to see my God I have to just bend my head towards my heart, that’s all.
V.5.27.May85

Why a complicated human being has been created and so beautifully it is organized within himself, that it is hard to believe that some juggler was not behind the show.                                                                                                                                                                            V.Jul80.p7

One candle which is not enlightened can be enlightened by another enlightened candle.  Now this candle doesn’t do anything except that; enlightens that candle, and that candle has to enlighten other candles.  It’s as simple as that.
V.5.27.May85.p42

There is no need to go through the suffering at all.   When Christ has done it for you – finished. You have to awaken Christ within you.  Just count your blessings one by one. It’s not such serious stuff.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 V.5.27.May85.p40

it is a very common attachment nowadays with all the people knowing about everything and having nothing.  This mental attachment is to be really attacked. Becoming is seeing, becoming is experiencing.
V.5.27.May85.p21

The divine play is not frivolous, it is joyful. And the joy does not have that duality.
V.5.27.May85.p19

(God) has created this universe and you, in a mood of play, you have to see His play. So a kind of mood that is cheerfulness should be really bubbling through you.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         V.5.27.May85.p19

You have the authority of your spirit.  Those in authority never try to show off. Because they are in authority, what is to show off?  Only mad people show off, you see.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          V.5.27.May85.p17

We have to enjoy our bliss within. That is important. Perhaps you are not aware of the bliss that you have. Not at all aware.
V.5.27.May85.p17

People should see bliss working in us. People should feel there is bliss. If a person is blissful, he looks blissful. He emits bliss. He radiates it.
V.5.27.May85.p17

If you have no confidence in yourself, bliss cannot be. And the worst thing against confidence is: Then what should I do? Then how can I get it? Then why do I not have? That’s the worst. You are fighting yourself all the time.
V.5.27.May85.p17

Those who are vain people can never feel bliss. Vanity kills bliss. Ego kills bliss.
V.5.27.May85.p17

Bliss has so many dimensions that you go beyond the realm of cause and effect.  And all the angels are there to help you. When you know that. It works out.
V.5.27.May85.p17

Bliss can only come through gratitude. Only through enlarging your heart with gratitude. Bliss is the reward of gratitude, gratitude of the heart.
V.5.27.May85.p17

What good things others have done to you, what good things there are?  What are the beautiful moments you have had?  Count your blessings. Otherwise you cannot create peace.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     V.5.27.May85.p16

So, to have peace, the best way to put your mind right is to think of good things. Think of the flowers, not of the thorns.
V.5.27.May85.p16

And you must know that you are in one body, active. All the cells of the body are never active, but those who are active have to be at peace with each other, otherwise, what will happen to the poor body?
V.5.27.May85.p16

It is a very subtle enmity that you carry on in your hearts. That cannot be forgiven. If you say sarcastic things to others, you are not in the culture of Universal Religion. You should be respectful. The more respectful you are to each other, the better it will be.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            V.5.27 May 85. p14

Only the peace within can register whatever is auspicious, whatever is nourishing for your growth. So try to make peace with yourself. Do not fight with yourself.                                                                                                                                                                                                       V.5.27 May 85. p14

But it is not what’s wrong with you is the problem. What is right with you is the attitude. Whatever is right with you, put your foot on that and establish yourself on that point. And then develop yourself higher.
V.5.27 May 85. p14

That peace has to be within yourself. You have it. Your spirit is absolutely peaceful.  “Avyagra”‚ without restlessness. There is no restlessness in your spirit. Absolutely peaceful and steady. It is for you to feel it. It is not for anybody else to certify you.
V.5.27 May 85. p13

You have to be compassionate, beautiful, sensible people, who are highest things on this earth. Take out your attention from all nonsense that you have been busy with.  That is how you get possessed. That is how you get conditioned. Small, small things you see.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            V.5.27 May 85. p9

You don’t have to spend too much time on meditation. But, whatever time you spend, whatever you gain, has to be visible outside. How you radiate and how you give it to others.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 V.5.28.Jul 82. p41

In meditative mood you are alone. No one exists there. You alone. And once you enter into that ocean then the whole world becomes your family. The whole world is your own manifestation. All the children become your children. And you treat all the people with equal understanding.                                                                                                                                                                                                                   V.5.28.Jul 82. p41

You have to enjoy the power of love – that people see you as their protector, as their help, as their support, as their friend, than somebody who is a dominating personality.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         V.5.28.Jul 82. p40

All the beauty that is created by human beings as possessions is exposed before you. And you start enjoying all those things without possessing them. You understand the myth of possession.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           V.5.28.Jul 82. p40

She talks like you, sits like you, She will behave like you, everything will be just like you.  And you would not be able to make out the depth of this woman who is a Mahamaya (The Great Illusion) because She plays such tricks on you and such things in such a beautiful way, that you cannot make it out.                                                                                                                                                                                V.5.28.Jul 82. p34

The first quality of the Mother is that she takes away fear.  The second that She knows your faults and can correct them.  And the third quality of the Mother is that She is a Mahamaya.                                                                                                                                                                   V.5.28.Jul 82. p34

Because, in the West especially, people are over-intelligent and if enlightenment does not enter into their intelligence, they can never overcome their attachments.                                                                                                                                                                                        V.5.28.Jul 85. p26

Ekadesha Rudra (The energy/power of transformation) is extremely powerful, explosive, but it is not blind. It is discriminative and extremely delicately woven. It avoids all the good points and attacks the wrong things. And it hits at the right time
V.5.28.Jul 85. p25

If you are a child of the same Mother, how can you go higher than anybody else?  You will remain always the child of the Mother. How can you be higher than any other child in the eyes of the Mother? You cannot.
V.5.28.Jul 85. p32

In thoughtless awareness nobody can touch you.  That is your fortress.
V.5.28.Jul 85. p24

That relationship with yourself should be tyrannical.  You should lash it up.  You should absolutely make it clear to yourself that I have to perfect myself, if I have to give this, my being, to God, it has to be perfect.
V.5.28.Jul 85. p16

You only have a horrible time when you are not the spirit. If you can watch the whole thing as a drama that is played, then you are not having a horrible time, but the outside of you is having a horrible time and you are watching.
V.5.28.Jul 85. p17

Never fight your ego. The only way is to witness it.You see you should never fight the ego. If you try to fight it, it will sit more on your head. That is not the way to fight it. Never fight your ego. Only way is to see it.                                                                                                       V.5.28.Jul 85. p15

You all have a direct access to me. You all can know your spirits, nobody can dominate you. Everyone has complete freedom to know their spirit.  And the spirit is something cannot be dominated by anyone.
V.5.28.Jul 85. p13

“Now you have become a flower, you cannot suddenly become a leaf. Now you are a flower and you have to live like a flower.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                             V.5.28.Jul 85. p10

“Our compassion, if that is flowing, then only can we get compassion from Mother.  Better give it away, empty yourself a little bit, then I can give you more compassion.  The source cannot flow unless and until it expands the flow of it.”
V.5.28.Jul 85. p9

“I have seen people what want to have compassion from me; they want that I should love them.  But reflect it back; do they love others like that?”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     V.5.28.Jul 85. p9

“Holding on to your source of power, you have to stand firm, courageously, without any fear.  That is the truth you have to achieve the other side of it is, that when this source comes to you, you become the compassion.The truth and the compassion are one thing.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                             V.5.28.Jul 85. p8

‘Like the wick and the oil combine to form the light.  In the same way compassion gives you the truth.  There is no difference whatsoever, only the state is different.  That you cannot see the light which is oil and the oil which is burning.”                                                                V.5.28.Jul 85. p8

“You should not feel disgusted with yourself, nor dejected with yourself, nothing.  But treat yourself as a separate entity. And dedication is actually turning back to yourself and looking forward to the Divine personality in you.”
V.5.28.Jul 85. p6

“Whatever you do, it should be done with the faith that you have in worshiping, the zeal of a warrior and the sensitivity of an artist.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Y3.V14.Mar83.p11

“Be joyful! The entire universe has to receive the bubbling streams of your love.”
V.5.27.May85.p19

“What is surrendering? Is nothing, because when you are detached you are surrendered automatically.  When you are holding on to other things, you are not surrendered, that’s all.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        V.4.21.May84.p12

“Enlightenment of your brain‚ means; the limited capacity of your brain to become unlimited in its capacity to realize God. I will not use the word understand. To realize God. How powerful He is, how miraculous He is, how great he is.”                                                                V.4.21.May84.p7

“You only have a horrible time when you are not the Spirit. If you can watch the whole thing as a drama that is played, then you are not having a horrible time, but the outside of you is having a horrible time and you are watching.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                      V.5.28.Jul 85. p17

“So, once you start facing yourself you will like yourself, because that is your Self I am talking about – it is glorious, is beautiful, without any Kalanaka (blemish)  But first of all your attention has to accept it, that this detachment is my life.  I am a different personality.  Detachment is my nourishment.”
V.5.28.Jul 85. p6

“Now to blossom, to become fragrant, you have to give up rationality.  That is binding.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                              V.5.28.Jul 85. p6

“This is the mantra for you, for controlling your temper, you have to tell yourself, ‘Ya Devi Sarva-bhooteshu, Shanti Roopena Samsthita’  So Shanti (peace) is the point, the axis point is that, from where you witness everything.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                    V.5.28.Jul 85. p12

Peacefulness can never mean cowardice, nothing can transgress it, nothing can overpower it.  It is never, never possible that cowardice and peace can go together.”                                                                                                                                                                                           V.5.28.Jul 85. p12

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Let me be clear what interests me specifically in jazz. I’ve always loved good music, irrespective of what type of music it was. For example, in the late 1980s when I took my family on a trip up the Nile river on a felucca, an open deck sail boat, we stopped off in a village, in the middle of nowhere, between Aswan and Luxor, and there was a religious festival going on. Men, who had come on horseback and who carried first world war bolt action rifles, were ‘dancing’ to amazing music. They were dressed in long flowing robes, with huge hats and they swirled in school playgrounds and in private spaces in the village, such as the courtyards of private houses. They whirled, around and around, and amazingly, even though their eyes were firmly closed and they were in close proximity, they never actually touched, let alone bumped into each other. I was enthralled – how did they avoid collisions, how did they keep spinning around and around without falling over? To this day, I just don’t know, but it was the music was that really got to me. It transported me into some special place, which I later came to recognize as the absolute present, the pure moment between past and future that is so easy for kids to be in and so hard for adults. There was a dimension to the music that really touched my spirit.

So while I like all kinds of good music, what I’m always seeking is the aspect I’ve just described. It can be as rare as hen’s teeth if you don’t know where to look.

Last night I attended another wonderful program in the National Museum of Harlem, this time on Jazz in the 1960s. The guy who ran the program last night is a sincere, well-informed fellow who clearly really loves his music. His lecture, not a word I like, but can’t think of a better one right now, consisted of a series of video clips that he played from what must be an extraordinary collection.

He told us a lot of things I certainly didn’t know, that Louis Armstrong was the most successful jazz artist of the 1960s, as he had been in the 20s, 30s 40s and 50s. His Hello Dolly, at one point, toppled The Beatles off the number one spot in the Pop Charts. And he showed how Ella copied a lot of what Armstrong did vocally. And that the 60s was unique in that it was a decade in which you could hear music from every preceding era, all the way back to New Orleans jazz.

I certainly wouldn’t criticize the program, for it obviously depended a) on what the presenter had available to him,  b) his own personal loves, likes and dislikes and c) it would have been a boring, potentially miserable evening if what he played coincided solely and exactly with my own personal tastes and preferences – had this been so I could have stayed at home and listened to my stuff without driving to Harlem and back. But I found myself fascinated by what he didn’t play, or even refer to.

What I liked. First of all, that it was such a thought provoking program. The insights into Bill Evans, and Monk, and Ella. It was great seeing Monk with his quartet. The frisson of connection when Coltrane appeared and started playing. I loved seeing Bill Evans, I’d seen him live in Ronnie Scott’s little club in Gerard Street in London, I think in the early 60s, I got in, in those days, for half a crown, about a quarter, by showing my musician’s union card.

What I didn’t like. A lot of what he played showed genius playing alongside tradesmen. Maybe this was because so much of the clips were made from TV shows in Europe, and obviously, if you are Sonny Rollins, you couldn’t afford to take a band of equals to Europe and make any money out of it. Having seen some of the greats, they were best in the company of equals, or near equals, musicians capable of challenging, provoking or even stretching them into playing at their most creative. As it was, I accept that I am being unkind in calling the bass player who accompanied Rollins, who’s name I can’t remember, a tradesman. But while he is technically brilliant, he misses on what this music is about at its best, and interestingly, what Rashaan Carter,  a young guy who played at the event last week in the Apollo Theater, has in abundance, that spark that ignites something deep within the listener.  But many of the accompanists were tradesmen, and my overall point is valid in that what we got to watch was more akin to watching Sugar Ray Robinson in an exhibition bout rather than in a real fight, something approaching the real thing, but inherently different in many important aspects and ultimately, not the real thing. What we saw was some of the greats play well within themselves, against a pleasant, but none too inspiring backdrop.

What else didn’t I like? Well, the main thing I didn’t like is that even great jazz, played and recorded for TV is a shadow of it’s real self. It’s the sound that’s missing, that sibilance of the brass, the thwack of the bass being stuck, that feeling that reverberates right through you and causes the hairs on the back of your neck to rise, as genius expressing a fundamental truth touches something at the very core of your being. All that is missing, and unavoidably so, but people who never experienced the real thing just don’t know and cannot even speculate on what it sounds like.

It may sound churlish to make this point, but what if we had to look at the works of the great painters – in black and white?

What might have been legitimately included? Assuming it exists on DVD. Yusef Lateef’s Eastern Sounds, a seminal album from 1961 that directly led to the fusion of jazz with Middle Eastern and Indian music. But to look at the bigger picture first, the 60s were an age of rebellion, throughout the Western world. Europe, particularly France and Germany, looked as though they might descend, or ascend, depending on your point of view, into outright revolution. Student protest exploded and the streets of Paris were barricaded against the established order. In the USA, the Civil Rights movement was getting into full swing. Black Power was asserting itself. At the 1968 Mexico Olympics, two black American athletes made history by staging a silent protest against racial discrimination. Tommie Smith and John Carlos, gold and bronze medalists in the 200m, stood with their heads bowed and a black-gloved hand raised as the American National Anthem played during the victory ceremony. The pair both wore black socks and no shoes and Smith wore a black scarf around his neck. They were demonstrating against continuing racial discrimination of black people in the United States. As they left the podium at the end of the ceremony they were booed by many in the crowd and white America was appalled. Such momentous events were reflected in the new jazz of the 60s, and none of this was reflected in last night’s program.

Was there really any reason not to mention Charles Mingus, not to even play a snatch of, say, Fables of Faubus, his musical protest at the ghastly, racist Governor of Alabama, Orville Faubus? Or his Town Hall concert, in New York in 1964 one of the best live recordings in jazz, but of great political as well as musical significance. Or, in keeping with the times, the experimentation of musicians like Archie Shepp, John Tchai and the New York Contemporary Five. Would Miles Davis not merit even a footnote in a program on jazz in the 60s, and was Ellington silent in that period? It wasn’t just the young. Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler and others, notably Coltrane, were exploring the possibilities of a jazz without the usual orthodox restrictions of melody, harmony and rhythm. There was an overtly political element to all this. In the 1940s, the be-boppers, having watched their elder brothers, invent and play Dixieland and Swing at the highest level, only to see their work mimicked, diluted and the white musicians who did so, become rich and famous in the process, tried to create a music that was uniquely theirs. They failed, of course, for music isn’t the prerogative of one group. But there was an attempt at the same in the 1960s, and inevitably and rightly, it failed for the same reasons. And none of this got a look in? Maybe it’s because it isn’t on DVD, it could be as simple as that. But I left the place with the feeling that what had been served up was a watered down, sanitized version of what I remember.

And that leads me back to my main point. A lot of jazz can be as dull, boring and interesting as any other art form. But when jazz takes off, as it did last night, despite all the things going against it, the crappy sound, for example, watching Coltrane and Getz play ballads on the same bandstand, although not actually together, or Monk play Epistrophy, or Bill Evans play My Funny Valentine, almost without straying from the melody, but producing great jazz, at the same time. This leads to the element of the numinous, the spontaneity and creativity, that touching our very core, that connection to something divine, that’s what jazz,  at its very best, produces and more than anything,  that’s what I really dig.

admin Awareness, Enjoyment, Knowledge, Meditation, Understanding, human brain, ydig Add new tag, discrimination, genius, jazz, National Jazz Museum in Harlem, Rashaan Carter, transformation

The comic book genius who won’t make a penny from £65m Watchmen

By
Mail On Sunday Reporter
Last updated at 10:01 PM on 14th March 2009

The movie adaptation of his comic book Watchmen has raked in more than £65million since its release this month. But
writer Alan Moore will not receive a penny.

The
eccentric writer lives in a modest terrace house in Northampton and
remains a recluse amid the hype surrounding the Hollywood blockbuster.

The 55-year-old author says he wants nothing to do with the film
because his story, published in 1986, is not suited to the big screen.
He said: ‘It was designed to exploit all the things that comic books
can do and no other medium can.’

He has insisted any royalties go to the artist who drew Watchmen, Dave Gibbons.

Mr Moore could not prevent the sale of film rights as they are owned by his former publisher, DC Comics.

But he says the film has left him ‘spitting venom’. He ignored the
West End premiere, instead going for a walk near his home with his wife
Melinda.

Watchmen, starring Malin Akerman as Silk Spectre, tells
of the murder of a retired superhero, and the efforts of his former
comrades to discover what happened. After filming there was a tussle
between rival studios over rights.

And Mr Moore, who claims he is a practising magician, quipped: ‘Perhaps it’s been cursed from afar, from England.’

He
also refused to have anything to do with films of his other books: V
For Vendetta, The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen and From Hell.

admin Enjoyment, Knowledge, Understanding, ydig Add new tag, Alan Moore, Watchmen