I’ve been listening to a lot of Coleman Hawkins lately. When I first got into jazz in high school, it was Duke Ellington, there was just something about him. While he’s easily most known as a “swing” or “big band” composer and bandleader, there’s something so SMOOTH about Duke Ellington. So smooth, in fact, that even a 16-year old kid could “get” it, not to mention the same kid almost 20 years later. Lots of range in there, you know what I mean? I think it’s part of what made him so successful in his day, there was enough range in his music for the dummies and the snobs alike.

But I wasn’t really into “swing” music that much, especially when that weird fad hit in the 90’s and people were actually wearing zoot suits and taking swing dance lessons? Remember that? Yes you do. You probably bought that Brian Setzer Orchestra album didn’t you? DIDN’T YOU? Anyway, by then I was living with The Piemaker and had been exposed to what I still think of as the apogee of American jazz, the period between 1950 and 1970, including the best of Coltrane, Davis, Mingus, etc. To a 20-something, swing music lacked the sort of raw spirituality, the passion, the searching quality of more “out” jazz.

But man–there’s something to be said for smoothness, even so. John Coltrane was an extraordinary musician, moreso an extraordinary composer and soloist. But the early guys, new as their artform was, had an impossibly perfect technique; they were the Bachs and Beethovens of the early 20th century–and remember that in a very real sense they just made jazz up. Bach and Beethoven had hundreds of years of development preceding them to take advantage of; Fats Waller and Art Tatum and Duke Ellington likely had living relatives who had been slaves.

Slaves! Crazy.

Anyway, check out my man Coleman “Bean” Hawkins, playing the standard “Body and Soul.” If you’re not into jazz necessarily, just pay attention to his breathing, how much air he puts into each note. Pretty amazing.

Oh yeah I almost forgot to mention, I put some more sketchook pages up in my Flickr set collecting my entire last sketchbook.

WUXTRY WUXTRY! Presenting three things of interest to all of those people who just CAN’T GET ENOUGH information about young Dustin Harbin:

ONE! I’ll be appearing at the Small Press Expo on October 4-5, in Bethesda, Maryland. This will be my very first comic convention as a guest, not an organizer or comic book seller, etc., which is very exciting for me. Even more exciting is that SPX is super-fun regardless of why you’re there, and it’ll be fun to see some of my cartoonist friends from across the wide world. I’ll be sitting with Chris Pitzer of AdHouse Books, who published my 12-page Kid Medulla story in the recent SUPERIOR SHOWCASE #3. Also in that issue is the well-dressed Jim Rugg, who I believe will also be sitting with us. Not in that issue is the potentially-inebriated Josh Cotter, whose SKYSCRAPERS OF THE MIDWEST hardcover is garnering praise from nearly every corner. Except mine: that reminds me, I need to finally sit down and read that thing. Anyway, me, Josh, Jim and Chris will be sitting together and meeting you all weekend, so bring it.

TWO! It looks like I’ll be one of four AVERAGE JOES on our local NPR station’s (WFAE) show “Charlotte Talks.” They have these once a month or so, where instead of talking to people who know much about anything, they talk to people who know a lot about nothing. You can see how eminently qualified I am for this conversation. I believe things will be focused more or less on this fall’s election; I need to provide a list of potential topics I’d be interested in discussing, so if you have anything to suggest, please suggest away in the comments below.

THREE! Tomorrow is my mother’s birthday. I’m not exactly sure how old she’ll be, as that number has been shrouded in mystery all of my life. Even my older siblings, who are in their 40’s, can only make educated guesses. Out of deference to my mother, I would estimate her to be about 17 or so. I love her very much, and will be helping to fete her this afternoon at a WILD PARTY out in the country.

BONUS TOPIC! Interpol still sucks. I think they always sucked. Why do people like this band so much? It sounds like five people banding together to push mediocrity to new heights. Dullsville. Let’s not even talk about it anymore, ok?

BONUS TOPIC TWO! I have posted more new art from my sketchbook on my Flickr stream, which is a veritable cornucopia of delicious mastery of the cartoon form. Gaze upon my works, Interpol, and despair!

This one from a show I went to last night with my friend Kelly at the Patchwork Playhouse, a room in the back of Century (a local vintage shop) which is covered walls and ceiling in quilts and generally soft stuff. Instead of chairs there’s a ridiculous profusion of sofas everywhere, and everyone kind of squeezes in to watch. What’s so great is that all the fabric and upholstery everywhere COMPLETELY deadens the sound, so they almost never mike anything and everything sounds pretty crystal clear. I love it.

This band was called “Arrive”, and hail from Chicago. Pretty good, although sometimes when trained musicians make random noises it’s hard for me to tell if it’s good or not. Using all those brains and training to make all these “found” sounds seems a little histrionic, although it by and large sounded really good. The vibes player sounded especially sweet, although the more that I think about it it was the sax player who did the coolest stuff. He was so unassuming, and moved so little, that it was easy to forget him. But he had a really amazing sound, and never overplayed at all, which is refreshing from younger musicians. I know if I could play like that I’d be soloing all over the place.

Afterwards we saw them out at Snug Harbor, where we missed no opportunity to say the name of the beanbag-pitching game they were playing (”Cornhole”) over and over and over again.

Last night I went up to Dish, a local restaurant/bar, where my friend Kelly was hosting an art opening for a guy named John Prichard. I can’t find a website for him anywhere, or I’d link to it.

The best part, though, was listening to the band, Ten Speed, and trying to draw them. I’m not sure how successful the drawing was per se, but listening to live music and drawing was surprisingly fun. Ten Speed is “out” jazz, or “free” jazz, or whatever–a lot of improvisation and a little dissonance, with some real sweet bits peeking through from time to time. It’s not the easiest music to listen to with all of your mind, if you’re not a musician or a student of the form or something. But listening to it with part of my mind while drawing was PERFECT. The music part of my brain would zone out while the drawing part did its thing, and then when that real sweet part would come around, they would switch for a little while.

Doubly perfect as this has always been something I struggle with: disengaging the part of my brain that wants to fill everything with lines and details and tomfoolery, rather than just loosening up and thinking less about the end product and more about the PROCESS of drawing. I think it’s especially apropos for listening to jazz, especially “out” jazz, or any musical with an experimental compositional scheme. The making of that music, the idea that what you are hearing is a unique one-time event combining the ideas of several people into one whole, the PROCESS, is as much a part of things as the product that you hear. It doesn’t always work as well in a recorded form, because you’re only seeing the product, and the process is less evident. But in a live setting, you can’t help but notice it–the musicians are nodding to each other, biding their time, planning their moves.

Anyway, Ten Speed was super good. Also John Prichard’s drawings were really good. The whole night was pretty great. That’s my report.