Historicity is problematic. But as John Edgar Wideman once said, all stories are true. So listening to Gavin Bryars‘ „Jesus‘ Blood Never Failed Me Yet“ the story that your brain builds up around it is what it is. A fragment of found music, a handful of notes. A lost soul who duty will not track down, throwing spirit and poetry into an indifferent grey atmosphere. Arbitrarily swept onto magnetic tape, then augmented by orchestral backing some time later. Must be a hymn. Must have provenance.
I hadn’t slept well for days, but I still drove down to the city yesterday for the first time since my friend departed. Although the sun shone brightly, there was a cold wind blowing. We were supposed to have met for our usual ritual. But today I made our customary stops alone. I could feel his presence as I sat on the outdoor concrete bench at Blue Bottle and sipped my mocha. His ghost followed me over to Arlequin, but it just wasn’t in me to order a glass of wine and toast him, as had been my plan. Instead, I got a cup of soup and sat in my chair, at turns morosely staring at the empty chair across the table and watching passersby on the busy street.
In the end it all comes to story-telling, gotcha!? After her duo with David Toop, and the following „live remix“, Sidsel Endresen was standing outside, her eyes met my eyes, and instantly we embraced one another, and I heard her whispering two words into my ears: „my sweetheart“. Well, we never had an affair going on, so what was that? It simply was a purely improvised moment, with the much-quoted beating heart. David Toop has written a book about the history of free improvisation, and this way to communicate has never just been an attitude of music at the margins, it has always been, in many aspects & not so mysterious ways, a model for breaking patterns in the everyday life.