Living the Blues..........................

The Blues.

Music that comes straight from the inner most

parts of a human being.

''Gimme a pig foot and a bottle of beer'' Bessie Smith

(famous Blues singer)wailed on the old record player(gramophone)

 and from the first time I heard it, I was hooked.

Before there were vinyl records, there were Bakelite

records, also called ''78's''. In Sweden, where

I come from, they were called ''Stone Cake''

records.

Not long before my father passed away he handed

me a box of his prized 78's records.

As I browsed the content of the box, I was

overcome by childhood memories.

Those records are one of the reasons that

at the ripe old age of five, I decided that I was going 

to become a jazz & blues musician when I 

grew up.

Fast forward a bunch of years.>>>>>>>>

When I was doing a stint in the USA some years ago

 performing with some heavy-weight jazz musicians, one

night Cleve(Cleve Eaton, double bassist with among

others Count Basie's Orchestra and Ramsey Lewis)

 looked quizzically at me and asked: -How come a

little blue-eyed, white-haired kid growing up in

the suburbs of Stockholm ''gets'' the blues and jazz?

(I had told him that I had decided as a five year

old that I was going to become a jazz & blues musician.)

-Uhh, I really don't know Cleve, I just know that

from the moment I listened to my dad's old 78's

jazz and blues records, I had found a music that

knew and expressed everything that was 

in my heart and soul.

That's the thing with the Blues, it's raw, it's honest,

it tells it like it is.

Sometimes with words, sometimes with just instruments,

the Blues tells a story.

A story of what it feels like to be a human. 

When we cry when we laugh, when we love

when we grieve, when we're lonely when we're lost,

when we're happy when we're sad.

The Blues reminds us that we're not alone

when we suffer, when we struggle, when we feel

all alone.

''Every bad situation is a blues song

waiting to happen.''

(Amy Winehouse)

As a child, I used to try to get as close to the sound

I made on the piano as I could.

For hours I would press the keys searching for

sounds that responded to and expressed my feelings.

I discovered that music is a wave of emotion and

experiences in sounds that at times couldn't

be described with words.

''Music, [whatever the genre,] expresses that which

cannot be said and on which it is impossible

to be silent.''

(Victor Hugo)

about the images: top: Ink on paper

Billie Holiday, Lady sings the Blues

bottom: Graphite on paper