My first instrument was the saxophone. That instrument introduced me to performing music and if I hadn’t started playing my horn at the age of 11 I probably would have never started writing my own songs. I still love my saxophone. Even though my singer/songwriter output is balanced on my lyrics, playing the saxophone offers a respite from words in music — more than any other instrument the sax replicates the tonality and intricacy of the human voice, unencumbered by the ballast of language. Playing the saxophone is pure singing in a way that song-singing can never be.

Ornette Coleman died yesterday, but his legacy of pure musicality continues to affect me and any musician concerned with personal expression. Coleman’s radical improvisational experiments created a bridge that took Be Bop to its logical conclusion, and his pioneering music is the aural equivalent of Jackson Pollock’s revolutionary canvases. Like Pollock, Coleman’s music has been hailed and reviled, lauded and laughed at, but his indelible influences at jazz’s most daring edges will forever define his legacy as one of the most important of American music-makers.

Here’s Coleman and his trio in 1966…

“Ornette Coleman Trio,” presents Ornette Coleman’s famous trio during their visit to Paris in 1966 in order to record the soundtrack of a very nutty-looking Belgium film called “Who’s Crazy?”.

Realized by Richard “Dick” Fontaine–who is considered to be one of the founding fathers of erotic gay cinema (with such famous titles as “The Days of Greek Gods”) and that years later realized the full length film “Art Blakey: The Jazz Messenger”-. the film was made in three days and offers a portrait of the trio that becomes an “ironic essay in dignity in the face of insanity”. Ornette, who in this era was one of the leaders of the Jazz Avant-garde movement, faced the challenge with his two fellow musicians by responding with passionate improvisations to the stimuli that reached him from the screen where the images are projected. A priceless testimony to the innovations which revolutionized the world of jazz in the sixties.

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Google Maps has just released a street view that invites you to virtually explore The Great Pyramids of Giza and The Great Sphinx on digital foot among blurry-faced tourists who seem as curious about you (the Google eye) as they are about the presumably man-made wonders. Technology has elevated the experience of vicarious, imaginative tourism from illustrations to photographs to film, and now it’s possible to basically simulate astral projection among the pyramids of Egypt. We recommend listening to Sun Ra & His Arkestra Live in Egypt as you embark upon your journey to Planet Google Earth.

Street View Treks: Egypt by Google Maps

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On this day in 1967 we lost a giant of jazz. John Coltrane is a personal hero of mine. As a saxophonist I’ve always been enthralled by the instrument’s superlative ability to mimic the human voice and one is hard pressed to find any other horn man in jazz who exemplified the saxophone’s potential for eloquence like Coltrane.

The following clip is my favorite John Coltrane document of all time: the video captures his classic quartet at the height of their power, literally steaming as they strain to realize every moment of this electrifying expression; it demonstrates the influence that Eastern music had only begun to have over the musician and composer, and it finds Coltrane poised directly between his be-bop roots and the free jazz frontiers that he would help to map in the second half of his career.

This video is officially one of “My Favorite Things”…

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Have you ever noticed that Oscar the Grouch looks like he’s made outta weed? Seriously. Of course, I don’t think this is intentional. Frank Oz probably had a run of the green shaggy stuff laying around and the rest is history.

Along with groovy music and the kind of social awareness that came of age during an era when battles for equality were being fought on the racial, sexual and gender fronts, Sesame Street was also influenced by the drug culture of its time. I don’t have any specific info about who was doing what when, but its likely that the dynamic, young artists who created that magical place sought inspiration – as most artists will – wherever they could find it.

Here are a few funny SS videos that teach kids about letters and numbers while simultaneously goofing on a the lingo of the drug buy…

Just for good measure, here is one of the better psychedelic/mystical scenes from the show:

Keep learning, kids! If you know of any other videos that fits this bill, please leave your links in the comments section!

Joe Nolan <3

Just a quick one this time.

Thanks to everyone who has been messaging me regarding the Disinformation World News Podcast and The Wicked – the new CD I am in the middle of recording with Jean Paul Lilliston.

A new Podcast should be up in a few weeks so go subscribe to the ‘cast at Disinfo‘ and you won’t miss any of the weirdness. If you are interested in previewing the new CD, listen to this free download of The Ol’Double Zero. This brand new tune has been a highlight of the various festival shows I did this summer and this work-in-progress version is a fun listen to the project as it evolves. This tune is a really raggedy country-rocker.

In addition to all of this bloated self-promotion I’d like to give some props to Thelonious Monk on what would have been his 92nd birthday. Bless you Monk. Thanks for all those great tunes.

In lieu of 92 candles, enjoy this screening of the Clint-Eastwood-produced documentary Straight No Chaser. I first saw this movie in college in Michigan and this is what turned me on to jazz.

This playlist is hosted on my YouTube channel: Imagicon and is curated by your good friends in the AV department here at Insomnia, The Sleepless Film Festival.

If you need even more music, check out my latest project:

Use this player to listen to my new CD. Purchase a song or two at your favorite digital outlet and help us stay awake here at Insomnia!

Find the archives to my Sleepless Film Festival, and more at my You Tube channel: Imagicon

Listen to my earlier releases, and enjoy free downloads here!

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Love,
Joe Nolan