Hello to any and all readers of my writing. I started writing publicly in 2009. Since then I have posted 392 blog posts and it looks like people have read my writing about 20,000 times. Thank you! I’m not that good at wordpress stats. This will be my last public writing post for some time. If I ever come back to writing publicly, I’ll be a different person.

The very first public writing I did was published in what is now called the New York City Jazz Record. I wrote an article called “The courage to really play.” This was more than 10-15 years ago. I was then the subject on some kind of jazz or free jazz online public forum, when a friend of mine wrote to me and said I better get over there, people were coming after me big time. Public judgement of Matt Lavelle was then in full force before MySpace or Facecrook. Highlights were “Matt Lavelle is a whiny bitch”, and “His playing is just macho posturing bullshit.” The one comment that stuck with me was “Heal yourself before trying to tell others how to relate to music.” In truth I wrote the piece in an attempt at creative actualization, you know, the way Art Farmer said about Miles: “He plays like the person he wants to be.” It was then that the late Chris Rich from Cambridge asked me to guest write on his blog Brilliant Corners. Chris was hardcore and when I played the Outpost up there I learned he was living in the back on the edge of life. Chris ignored my thing about using commas, periods, and spacing in an insane manner. People were reading though, so I eventually made a blog called That Fat Eb Feels Mahogany to me, a title that nobody ever understood but me, kind of. Down the yellow brick road, my awesome wife constructed No Sound Left Behind sometime after I discovered my writing voice. At some point I went back to school and took several writing courses. I self-published a book called NYC Subway Drama and Beyond and a short story called The Jazz Musicians Tarot Deck along the way.

Many if not all of my posts here always end with an attempt to reach people with a universal truth or understanding within themselves. Having been told I’m some type of psychic surgeon by a master astrologer, I was always simultaneously attempting spiritual and mental emotional surgery on myself by writing out my internal process. I have always considered it vital to try and explain myself so people might get a window into what my music was all about. That’s just how we people with the sun in the third house are. We communicate too much. That being said, I am now compelled to write why I’m stopping my blog here, for a year, or maybe forever, idk.

I have written before how I read a review of a record I did with a trio called Eye Contact that said the music sounded like mountain climbing. I latched on to that metaphor deep inside myself, and have never let it go, until now. Since then I have attempted to be what I have always thought myself to be, a spiritual messenger of sorts, denoted in numerology by my birth on the 11th day of April, 1970. I said things like “Let’s tune the world”, and “Free Jazz for the people!” I have always been all about the spiritual power of music, titling a record I did with that name. John Coltrane and Albert Ayler are my spiritual music heroes. I have outlived them both, Trane by 11 years now.

The problem with mountain climbing, you see, is that it suggests that with hard work, really hard work, you can reach a mountain top of some kind. I have never reached the top, and after 30 years of climbing I have decided to plant my flag. Maybe others will see it on their way to the top and salute or toast me.

For me, I’m entering the river with everybody else. I’m going to let the flow carry me to my next destination. The word “let” is the problem, because my entire adult life I have sought if not demanded spiritual control over my own life. I made a record about this called The Manifestation Drama. Every time I see the Sun I try to remember that there is another power level beyond human comprehension that is behind it all.

That is the power that took Giuseppi, Bern, Roy, and Francois.

In trying to understand my own destiny, whatever it may be, I believe that after all this writing maybe I finally figured it out.

What works for me is that somehow in like 2095, if people remember me, they will see me right there next to my risen brothers above.

The one thing I have in common with them is that I came to play, and played as much as I could. G, Bern, Roy, and Francois, they never got a grant that I know of. I personally tried to get G and Bern grants that were rejected. I’ve been rejected something like 10 times. G was homeless for decades, but will be remembered for his first ESP record, a true classic. Bern will be remembered for his OC days, but he was so much more than that, and lived on the edge. Tazz was another person that battled with and triumphed over adversity. Tazz will stand as one of the greatest free jazz trumpets of all time no matter what. Francois was someone that lived the life he wanted, played as much as he could, without any desire other than to play the music.

Like my fallen brothers above, I have given every once of my being to the creative act.

Along the way I have tried to climb some kind of perceived mountain my whole life to reach a place where my music was enough to sustain me, a near impossible task as many know. I believed it was possible though. I’m proud that I tried.

As of today, I can no longer sustain or task myself with delivering any kind of spiritual message.

For anyone that has read my blog over the years, I hope that you felt something inside. I hope that whatever I was writing about contained some kind of spiritual truth that I somehow got right.

What I truly believe in comes down to one thing. What I have learned from 392 blog posts and 51 years on Earth is this. If anyone takes anything from my writing, music, or art this is it:

 

You have to be who you are in this world.

 

No matter what

 

No matter what

 

No matter what

 

No

 

Matter

 

What

 

Peace and Love to all

 

ML