I seem
to recall plenty of entries where, even in the dead of winter there were noises
that needed to be reckoned with.
You get up early and spend an hour in the quiet meditating and you
notice sounds outside. Usually
this consists of bird life and in the Beijing winter it dwindles down to
magpies with their harsh clacking and a few brave chickadees, picking at a squash
rind or a dried persimmon still hanging out there on the tree. Spring changes everything and all
manner of bird sounds erupt before dawn.
Crickets, frogs and even the sound of leaves blowing in the wind round
out the ocean of auditory possibilities.
I recall all this for on this mid-summer morning I have nothing to
report. It’s not that nothing is
happening out there. Rather, the
first thing you do on a summer morning is throw on the aircon or the ceiling
fan, so you don’t sit and stir, uncomfortably in the heat. Both devices though, are loud and
nothing from the outside can be heard above them.
A friend had a birthday. Typically, I hate it if people who should know forget my
birthday and I frequently forget the birthdays of people who’s days I should
remember. Nobody means any
harm. Everyone has their own
relationship with mortality. This year though, I remembered. There are two of them, in fact, that I
need to remember for late August.
That helps. My little
brother and my friend are two days apart and the density of obligation usually
begins to form an anxious swelling towards the middle of the month. They are looming. When are they? Forced, on say August 16th
to state when either of them were I’d probably guess incorrectly. And so, like most of us increasingly
do, rather than rummage through anything physical, I rummage in the cloud. Somewhere out there from last year or the
year before will be a “happy birthday” note on the appropriate day.
The proper dates are 8/22 and 8/24 respectively. On the latter date I took it upon
myself to search for something quick and uplifting to send. It occurred to me somehow to search for
Hendrix and “birthday” to see if there was some on-line recording from
somewhere of Jimi playing that familiar tune to someone. Remarkably, I quickly found this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znucP0xqwak
As is the master’s want, he is playing his own version. And from the first compression of the
wah wah pedal, there is no mistaking who is playing. The singer though is not Jimi but rather the old Blue Flames
front man, Curtis Knight. The
lyrics are improvised and rudimentary, but the sentiment is perfect. “Everybody’s wishing, me a happy
birthday. Everybody’s wishing, me
a real good time.” The supporting
grove, notably supported by the drums, not to mention the photo someone posted
up to accompany the clip, are necessarily majestic.
The opening line for the Wiki Page devoted to Curtis Knight,
who was born in Fort Scott Kansas about ten years earlier than Hendrix in 1929,
is not the kind of opening line anyone wants to necessarily have memorializing
their life’s work: “Curtis Knight (May 9, 1929 – November 29, 1999), born Mont
Curtis McNear, was an American musician who is known for his connection to Jimi
Hendrix.” After Jimi blew up in
England, Knight was a witness in a lawsuit against Hendrix, claiming he was one
of the many people who was trying to make him a star. I know some of the material he’d released like “How Would
You Feel” (which is playing now, sounds wonderful and is a more fitting, and
noble civil rights tribute to anyone than merely: “he worked with that guy.”) but
this birthday track, was new to me.
After Jimi’s death, Knight too moved to England, formed a band modestly
called Zeus, and, worked with, among others, Fast Eddy Clarke of Motorhead
fame. He lived until 1999, but, as
per the opening line, never seemed to grow out from beneath the remarkable tree
he once stood out in front of before it bloomed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Knight
At the gym this morning I couldn’t help but put Jimi’s first
album, recorded not long after he’d split from Curtis and New York, “Are You
Experienced” on. Damn, if that
tree didn’t bloom fast and furious.
The earlier Knight tunes,
released on account of afore mentioned lawsuit are nearly all murky and half
realized. Knowing the Vesuviun
potential strumming away dormant behind the band, one can’t help wishing that
old Curtis would hush and just let Jimi drive. And then, something time-lapsed transpires, in the course of
a few months, a spring rain, a change in temperature, an opening up overhead in
the canopy and ‘bang’, 鸟语花香[1],
just about fully realized mastery, that changed everything. “strange, beautiful” Some things are just perennially
fascinating, and inspiring. And then mournful, considering the abrupt silence, that fell mid-summer.
[1] niǎoyǔhuāxiāng: lit. birdsong and fragrant flowers
(idiom); fig. the intoxication of a beautiful spring day
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