RSS FEED
What piece of art changed your life? How did it affect you?
.... the moments of art that calmed my madness or inspired me to inhale texas and live or to open my heart so wide, and wider and wider that it surrounded jupiter and stood standing nearly proudly even when the other planets laughed... this is that first moment. it started with Louie Armstrong, and me. and a crowd of flower loving Baltimoreans and their off spring escorted around the asphalt. We were outside in Baltimore City. The air was clear and most everybody was a lot taller than me and it looked like there was a group of people playing music on the top corner of a building.(it might have been the stage) legs and legs of people passing by. it was the flower mart...my Aunt Laura would let me skip the whole day of kindergarten and that year i heard that voice that i had heard on the radio singing in that that deep warm fuzzy grizzle ..."hello dolly, well hello. dolly...." and his back was toward the sun so he was this charcoal silhouette against a brilliant blue sky that beamed around him, and the glare on the trumpet exactly the sound like a laser disappearing the glum out of everyone within ear shot...and when i got closer i could see the sweat and he knelt down to pick up a yellow towel, he looked at me, smiled, wiped his face and head, then stood up. i was newly 5 years old and it was the first time the sounds i heard on the radio came to life in full humanity before my eyes and you could reach out and touch him he was a real person. it was amazing it was like finally that little box of music aka a radio made sense and the music was sweeter than lemon juice i was sucking out of that peppermint stick. and he was real.
those moments were so beautiful....to be completely connected with someone that lived in a faraway city and yet here we were connecting from 30 feet away...and i could feel the connection. THAT is the kind of magic that i love when i am playing music in a little room or a big festival stage...it is that connection of music soul to soul to soul that keeps me engaged in this career process called, entertainment.
and when i get down, and i am a mouth of complaints i remember Louie. It is likely he had a lot more difficulties to face than kvetchy ol' me.
SONiA plays 8x10 tonight with an impressive band that includes Freebo (Bonnie Raitt's longtime bass player) and guitarist Howard Markman (his tune, "Almost Home," was named "Best Song" in last year's Best of Baltimore issue). It's an early show, doors open at 7 pm. It's also SONiA's only area show for the rest of 2009.
