In his great work To Heal the Soul, Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira wrote that all humans each have their own unique musical ladder -- a distinct melody that allows one to draw down spiritual sustenance into this world. This melody is exclusive and in essence can not be performed by anyone else. He believes that it is so individualized that to use someone else's ladder is like putting someone else's saliva into your mouth to sing. This concept is so ubiquitous, so universal, that Rebbe Nachman of Breslov went as far as to say that each and every blade of grass has its own unique melody as well. Very poetic, but is there any substance to it?
Years ago this assertion would have been harder to make but not so since the advent of String Theory. Though there are many who reflexively disparage it, the fact of the matter is that as time progresses, science and mysticism seem to be merging. For instance, since the time of Aristotle, the common wisdom was that matter had always existed. So ingrained was this notion that even Einstein was prepared to "fudge" his own math to uphold the view (a move he would later call "the greatest blunder of my career"). The 3,300-year-old Jewish view that there was a "Beginning" to reality as we know it stood out in sharp relief against the prevailing wisdom and was vindicated in the last century. Science had taken a step toward religion.
As science developed the technological capability to peer deeper and deeper into the essence of matter, the familiar notion of minute balls or dots of matter was formed -- electrons, protons, neutrons and the like. As it turns out, this picture now seems to be inadequate and has been replaced by Super String Theory, a concept that suggests that the tiny matter contained in the proton is actually composed of uber-small strings, the vibrations of which give rise to all of physical reality. So we see that at its core, the universe is created through sound. In that light, Rebbe Nachman's singing grass does not seem quite as quaint, but is actually substantial. String theory also helps to explain why G-d specifically used the medium of speech (as opposed to thought, deed or anything else) to create the world as outlined at the beginning of Genesis. (Interesting side note: String Theory only works based on a model of the universe that contains either 10 or 26 dimensions which happens to be the exact same numbers suggested by the great Kabbalist Rabbi Issac Luria in the 16th Century.)
What does all of this have to do with Jazz? Well, as we have explained, every facet of the universe is currently singing its own unique tune. This highlights the intrinsic need for us to "be ourselves," and indeed, musicians perform at their peak when they are internally consistent. Miles Davis had trouble finding himself early in his career, preferring to incarnate as a second Dizzy Gillespie. Miles finally asked him why he couldn't play like him and Dizzy wisely explained that Miles heard other sounds in his head and that he should play those. The results were stunning. I once heard the great bassist Dave Holland defend the music of Kenny G as "authentic." "You may not relate to it," he said, "but he's being true to himself and you need to applaud that."
In Conscious Community, another classic by Rabbi Shapira, he explains the prophetic connection to music. Jewish tradition records that the prophets of antiquity used music to lull themselves into the prophetic state. There is a wonderful description in the Talmud of King David's meditative practice. He would prop up his stringed instrument by the open window and in the middle of the night as the wind began to blow across the strings he would be awakened by the tune and begin the process of focusing his thoughts. Rabbi Shapira relates that when the musician begins, he is playing the music and after a while, the music begins to play him. Every serious musician knows this to be the case. In fact, this is the reason they are drawn to play to begin with.
When I gave my graduate recital at the New England Conservatory, there was a moment during improvisations on Mahler's 9th that I simply ceased to be in control of what was unfolding. I became an observer of the performance, aware of it but no longer directing it. Melodies and musical ideas that I had previously been incapable of playing flowed from my fingers. It was fantastic, and for those moments I needed nothing else from life. The audience applause came as a shock, and then it was gone. There is something that the music does to the psyche. What is it? What properties does it have that so elevates the heart and mind? In an evolutionary sense, music has no value. The deaf are quite as capable of propagating the species as anyone else. How is it that these ordered tones compel us so?
Jazz, by virtue of its improvisational nature, forces the players to intently focus on the here and now. The musicians are balanced on a tight rope, not knowing precisely where the other side is and needing to depend on each other to get there. This trust and inspirational flow is similar to our relationship to G-d -- the less we are weighed down by the past or fretting over the future, the more of that natural creative (and spiritual) flow we can access. Many of the players I've spoken to and played with acknowledge this dynamic. They know that they have become a vessel for something bigger. It's their version of a religious rite, though they might never give it that appellation.
Kaballah explains that there are five spiritual dimensions and that at the intersection of the highest two, four energies merge: Eden, souls, Torah and music. This implies that each one of these concepts is a doorway to the others. Though Goethe wrote that architecture was "petrified music," dance, sculpture, drawing et al are not mentioned. It seems as though music hits a plane of reality that is simply higher than other artistic endeavors. It is the language of reality itself and its building blocks. Musicians also know the feeling of deep connection to the other players. It might not last five minutes after they leave the stage, but there is something magical while it lasts. As all people possess souls and as the root of all souls emanates from the top of that fourth world, it would follow that music is also a doorway to the merging of people on a soul level. Pleasure, wisdom, unity and transcendence are all byproducts of the true musical experience.
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Kalonymus Kalman Shapira - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thus vibration is the structure of the universe.
Simple.
African tribal rhythms + southern spirituals/work songs = blues, and then later jazz
Improvisation is not the same as Jazz. For all the many great things Jews have given the world over the centuries, music (and particularly rhythm) don't really stand out, whereas you could argue that Jazz music is one of the greatest gifts of African culture to global civilization (certainly worth more than all the religious texts in the world in my opinion).
The only things Jazz and Kabbalah have in common are (a)both tend to be esoteric and consequently (unfortunately) have some pretentious fans, and (b)some of John Zorn's Klezmer/jazz fusion stuff.
The "spiritual" dimension of jazz music (or for that matter, any kind of music) is shared by all religions. As much as I appreciate the singing of a good Rabbi or Cantor, if you really want to combine a semi-organized religion with jazz music you have to go the church of John Coltrane in San Francisco
http://www.coltranechurch.org/
where you can enjoy a "sermon" in which the preacher combines the 23rd psalm while a bunch of people jam to A Love Supreme.
:-)
first we assume the class spent many months honing their skills in tensor calculus!
They were actually discussing how embarrassing it must have been for the String Theorists to take 2 millennium longer than the Kaballists to understand the same thing.
I often remarked similarity between the vibe people have after practicing and meditation.
It is the same glow and intense "here and now" grounding.
But I have an ambiguous relationship to jazz improvisation. Main problem is that so few jazz musicians are actually improvising.
IMO both are fun, but very limited in musical sense.
would have to give up all the music that I carried with me, and I told him that I could not.
We parted cheerfully and warmly. I knew my limits, and I knew that there was something vast beyond them to which this man held a key.
But none of this, directly, is the point of my story. As I came in to his studio, two young
ladies were tuning each an Indian stringed instrument. Now when we tune, we westerners
tune to 440 herz, the convention that was the last international agreement shared between
all nations before the outbreak of WWII. Curious, that one, its timing.
These ladies were not tuning toward a standard however. They were tuning the instruments
each individually to her in baseline of musicality, her bio spiritual mystery pitch.
Something is out there in there, and it drives, Bach, Coltrane, Pran Nath, Nervous
Norvus, and the stars, and you.
Pauline Oliveros has for decades taught what she calls deep listening, and the
fundamentals of mulitphonics ( excuse the pun) can be experienced just about as
soon as one can learn to whistle, maybe with a guideline or two to know what to
look for. Both Terry Riley and LaMonte Young preceded me in their involvement with
Pran Nath, which in both cases involved taking a big leap for a long haul that I felt
was beyond me. I'm 70, and now a straight up classical pianist and occasional writer.
wanted to experience a level of music that was not attached to any culture. And so it
was that I interviewed for music lessons with Pandit Pran Nath, who was teaching at Mills
at the time. Larry Austin once told me that this man had once sung a Vedic hymn to
God in one continuous effort lasting several years, eating, sleeping, evacuating of course
allowed. And to hear Pran Nath was to hear a cave singing in multiphonics.
So I went, and at my age, I was not about to play the fawning apprentice game that really
was required by his culture. I was after all a STOCKHAUSENSTUDENT. Well, that old
geezer didn't like that part, didn't like me, and we were off to a roaring start that was not
likely to last long. But I said at some point that I had experienced sound as a living thing
and wanted to pursue that mystery. This Vedic lion turned into the sweetest man, cooed,
"oh yessss, sound makes the universe, starts the stars, makes the baby cry...
(continued)
the orchestral version of the Sonata for 2 Pianos and Percussion. Somewhere, maybe
in the fugue at the beginning, Bartok took off and went elsewhere, leaving the orchestra,
the conductor, and his wife to scramble. When asked what had happened, Bartok
simply answered that he "saw" another possibility and had to pursue it.
Concert or not.
I am a former student of John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and outside the world
of jazz, the issue of improvisation was hotly debated in the mid 20th Century. KHS at
first allowed only sparingly and under very tight controls. He did not trust the instincts
of mere musicians. John Cage and his circle made an industry of dismantling all the
barriers, evolving a style of musical organization that opened the floodgates to improvisation.
But a question, a huge one, was waiting in the wings, in particular for the denouement
delta lands of European classical music. Was there somewhere in human consciousness
a meta music, a master program out of which all music subtended? How close was
Beethoven to that shangri la, if it existed, in the recurring material of the late quartets?
Why is there an eerie merging in so much of the great quartet literature?
(continued)
I wouldn't be so sure about that. Just off the top of my head I can say that music helps us bring about a cohesion during social gatherings. There are many uses for music. Just because deaf people don't need it to procreate doesn't mean it hasn't been advantageous to human beings as a whole. I would look into more.
attach the two. I am however a classical musician, and the whole history of written music
is one on which a strong case for an evolution of sorts has happened, the arguments
resembling often those of Herbert Read in his discussions of the evolution of the spatial arts.
But there was a disaster that awaited this line of thinking that was manifest in the most
radical views of John Cage, and those resonated with the ideas in Dada that so vexed the
certitudes of all the other arts. This point of view consigned progress and models thereof
to 19th century thinking, to a kind of manifest destiny that was bound eventually to be found
out.
Well has it? Look at the state of classical music since Cage? Do we see further progress
or back paddling nostalgia? Have we hit a limit, and if so why, and what does it say about the
model. These questions are seldom asked in the case of music, let alone answered, but I
guarantee that a key to the answer is to be found in the career of David Tudor. That's real
canary in the mind shaft of this tale.
Moreover, most artists strive to find their own "voice", and often pass through a period of imitation on the way there. We all stand on the shoulders of giants, we all build upon our shared history, and I'm not sure that Miles Davis could have been "Miles Davis" without spending some time trying to be "Dizzy Gillespie".
One should avoid confusing the numinous (as Dawkins, Harris, et al. define it - i.e., the feeling of having "the best day ever") with the superantural. OK, so musicians experience a deep emotional state - that does not equate with the rather specific and dogmatic mysticism of kabbalah.
.
having read several paragraphs, I began to trust what I felt the author was groping
toward--and who isn't who has even speculated at this level, because it address
deep and arcane wellsprings--and I remembered the tales about Bartok and Pran Nath.