All that Jazz

Today is a jazz kind of day. Dark, broody, wet and slow. Like the kind of lovemaking that stretches on for hours, starting off softly, then picking up pace and reaching a peak, then slowly down again, till you forget where you are and what time it is, why is the room dark and how long will this piece go on? 

I never really understood Jazz. I know it is complicated and contrary to popular belief, it does have a structure. 

On listening to some Chet Baker music, the kind that makes you want to sit in a leather armchair and close your eyes with a glass of spiced brandy, I remembered my days in my old house. 

Chet Baker was reserved for silent, lonely evenings with a bottle of wine, sitting and watching the sky from my balcony. I do get nostalgic about my house where I used to put on my LP player and listen to old scratchy Sinatra and Joni Mitchell records. I still have a rare collection lying in a cabinet that someone offered to buy, but I refused. Just like I have kept old cassettes with handwritten messages. I'm not stuck in the past, just a sucker for nostalgia. 

I remember once telling the person I liked, "I have the same birthday as Chet Baker who is your favourite, and you share your birthday with Joni Mitchell, who is my favourite. Don't you think that's a sign? " Incidentally, it wasn't. But I did learn a bit about jazz from him. Apparently he was just as complicated and vague as the T Monk music he loved, which I understood nothing of. 

I find myself asking for signs again, and the Universe sends some really small ones. But  I'm not satisfied. I need 'signier' signs to know that I'm on the right track. But it doesn't comply. An old Hindi song I don't even like has been following me for the last 4 years. I don't even know whose favourite song it is and whether it is a sign. 

Back to Chet Baker and nostalgia. Jazz has always been evening music to me. I just could not listen to it in the daytime otherwise it gets depressing. Old folk and country is morning music, best had with your tea or coffee. These days, my favourite genre is Dreampop. I seem to be drifting further and further away from the harshness of the real world and finding my peace in other worlds. I have never been so blissfully happy as I am now living in these alternate realities.

Everything happens to me...