angst. angst. weird word.

Some musicians realise early that the real instrument is you. So as well as practicing chords, runs, arpeggios they're gauging their effect on you. You can't notate that skill. You can't describe it in any detail, you can barely teach it.

What you can do is tell who's done this homework by the way they make you feel. The angst comes in via the tacit admission that there's a dark side of the street. It goes without saying that jazz musicians faced hardships in the fifties and they thrived despite that. You can feel it in the music and I can too.

I promise, if you can catch the bug their music gives it'll reward you for the rest of your life.

Incidentally, my best friend can't stand this tune. How's that for angst? Playing it near him is like I'm sandpapering his soul. To me, it's like a favourite dish I can't get enough of or what health potions in video games would be like if they were sound.

I'm jealous of anyone who was made to love this tune and hasn't heard it yet. These guys make an art out of anticipation. You can hear the meditative practice sessions they engaged in both together and alone.

We all struggle to get good. These guys did much more with less (comparatively), and I applaud that when I remember to but mostly they transport me to moods, times, and ambitions that few others ever could.

The next guy is one of those few and his name’s Keith Jarrett.

As a kid one Christmas, This band played In the Bleak Midwinter on jazz fm. I was mesmerised. I tried and failed to find that tune but fell in love with the band. They perfected the practice session. They can play tunes five hundred times and still sound fresh. Keys, chords, modes, arpeggios, sitting standing, silence and making sounds are all the same to Keith!

Georgia's already a classic tune. Keith catches the mood of missing someone you want to be with but can't. Your mind’s consumed with them so there's a happy tone to your memories even as the doldrums get you down. It's a mood. It's masterful. He's making a lot of it up as he goes along. How can he be that good?

If you like this you’d love Time after Time, Over the rainbow & Summertime.

PORTRAIT OF TRACY

If you want a hit of angst, that eloquent and subtle angst you get after Vanessa Carlton’s wrung you out, Alanis and Avril have said their piece and you just want to lay back in some kind of relief then…

You know when you think it’s just you that knows a tune? My favourite teacher introduced this to me. I had no idea Jaco was human. I've tried to learn this tune on bass over the years and failed in everyway. Still, some of the invisible bits of my anatomy are the shape of this tune. Pride? Joy? Freedom? No, definitely angst.

WANDERING AWAY

In the museum of angst, beside goodnight Irene, River Rat, Don't Play Guitar Boy, Tender Surrender, you’ll find this song. Play it when your soul looks at the far off distance. Play it when you get so lonely it just makes sense.

WOKE UP THIS MORNING

Growing up, this was the quintessential indication of angst inside a tune. It permeated cultures and it was fully immersed in the zeitgeist but I thought it was just me! I found it in the library in an old dusty CD and I listened to it. I bet on a day that I’m tired or when I feel a little hard done by you could probably see this tune in my walk if you looked hard enough.

As far as I can tell it’s still an adumbrative of more modern inheritors of the niche that this tune filled. What this tune did as it flowed through me, what it allowed me to express to myself is so much smaller than its accomplishments throughout the world. Still, it’s the closest thing to my infant war cry that I’ve still got.

So now you know my brand of angst. I have a gentle angst. The kind of angst that parents laugh at. For example, I woke up late for a trip to a theme park (class was meant to meet at six am and that’s when I woke up), so I played this tune. My father laughed and laughed. Are you smiling? Stop smiling.