Windy Jazz
Dear Editor,
A blustery New Year’s Day, and it seems 2025 has arrived with all the grace of a saxophonist falling down a spiral staircase — an apt metaphor, perhaps, given that I’m contemplating an interest in free-form avant-garde jazz this year. Whether it’s the weather or the music, chaos appears to be the theme.
Now, I must confess, the wind outside my window sounds like a lost trombone trying to keep up with John Coltrane’s ghost. Is this a sign? A cosmic nudge toward embracing dissonance and discord? Or is it merely the guttering, rattling in protest against my life choices? Either way, the gusts seem to be playing their own form of avant-garde jazz: unpredictable, unsettling, yet oddly captivating.
But here’s the question I really want answered — do you think the wind likes jazz? It certainly feels like it’s improvising on the rooftops and harmonising with the bins it’s knocked over. Perhaps the storm is nature’s way of telling me to stop deliberating and simply embrace the cacophony, whether it comes from the heavens or a double bass being plucked with a spoon.
And what about all the New Year’s resolutions blown away by these gales? If my neighbours find scraps of paper in their garden reading learn to scat or Google what bebop is, they’ll know who to blame.
So here’s to 2025: a year of wild winds and wilder rhythms. If you hear a strange, discordant wail, it could be the weather, or it could be me, trying to play the saxophone upside down. Either way, let’s embrace the madness together.
Yours in breezy improvisation,
A. Windy McFreeform