Anodyne
Friday, March 18, 2005
 

Mr. M. himself, from his "Open Letter to Miles Davis":

"Miles, don't you remember that 'Mingus Fingers' was written in 1945 when I was a youngster, 22 years of age, who was studying and doing his damnedest to write in the Ellington tradition? Miles, that was 10 years ago when I weighed 185. Those clothes are worn and don't fit me anymore. I'm a man; I weigh 215; I think my own way. I don't think like you and my music isn't meant just for the patting of feet and going down backs. When and if I feel gay and carefree, I write or play that way-or when I'm happy, or depressed, even.

Just because I'm playing jazz I don't forget about me. I play or write me the way I feel through jazz, or whatever. Music is, or was, a language of the emotions. If someone has been escaping reality, I don't expect him to dig my music, and I would begin to worry about my writing if such a person began to really like it. My music is alive and it's about the living and the dead, about good and evil. It's angry yet it's real because it knows it's angry." Posted by Hello


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