Taste

Of the senses that cruel nature can decide to deny
Taste is apparently the ugly stepchild
Likely to be easily dismissed without a thought
Or simply sacrificed as in a pact with Faust

Its function can even be subsumed by its siblings
Harken to the ancients of the Epicurean tribe
Who claimed that we eat first with our eyes
For even as visual appetites can be further whetted
By the alluring smells of culinary anticipation
I'm minded that even the sounds of food preparation
Can occasionally climb to the most flavorful heights

The hunger for touch and tangible connection
The music of comfort suites and aural pleasures
The sight of delightful contours elicit recognition
The familiar smell of home remains a welcome perception

True, there are magical feasts in fairy tales
And secret recipes are oft highlighted
The storytellers of yore emphasized poisonous potions
But far more of their plot points hinge on glorious visions
Suffice to say that the gustatory is underrated

The plague announces itself with the theft of taste
A sensual covidious casualty even before smell
Superfluous perhaps, this robbery, for food is fuel
But the pandemic's effect on the tongue means all is gruel

What a life, to be resigned to the bitterness of disappointment
To no longer know the meaning of a grain of salt
Or that the sweetness of a smile could be lost in appreciation
And sour moods could remain mere shadows rather than viscerally appall

No more folktales, what about the princess and the brown sugar?
What is the spice of life when everything now requires a food taster?
You can have all the riches in the world, all that money
But without comfort food, would the prince still savor the honey?

What circle of hell is this, with no easy excuses to forgo your broccoli?
Sustenance perhaps, but might as well go for feeding tubes really
Everything is pap, utter undifferentiated banality
This poisoned chalice that has become your new normalcy

A paradox, the sensory organ continues to exist
Still soft, warm and lush, this vestigial proboscis
This invisible disability remains a dark matter
Even as you sit ruing the loss of your taste receptors

The body compensates, they say, and refines the other textures
Enhanced smell might give you an entrée
   as a great nose in the perfume industry
But it's no consolation when you can no longer detect
   a wine that's merely ordinary
A subprime foreclosure on your mooted career as a fine wine buyer

We've been reading the tale of the lost stories
Narratives of control; this paradise from which we’ve been severed
Social distancing with so many unable to walk in glory
Pity the survivor however, at a remove from a taste of heaven

The heart leaps at the mention of Auntie Becky's kelewele
Roadside excellence, the comfort food of Labone childhood reveries
The intense longing, an almost physical vibration
Synesthesia, I can picture the plantain with such acuity
But to have these flavors foregone would be agony
To be left with only the color of memory
Would a kiss of life even be extraordinary?
Taste, a lack of sensation, to no longer be at ease
It is said that nostalgia can be a fatal disease

After learning of my sister's covidious condition and a friend stuck in Texas trying to summon the memory of the taste of plantain

Taste, a Playlist

A tasty soundtrack for this grace note. (spotify version)

• A Taste of Honey by Lizz Wright
  It melts on your tongue
• Just a Taste of Lovin' by Al B Sure
  It's all you need
• Your Love - So Good I Can Taste It by Barry White
  He takes his time but once he gets going, well...

  "You ever hear a three-hundred-pound black man with sweat dripping out of his process get so overcome by the goodness of his woman's "love" that he stops forming actual syllables and instead just goes to rolling his tongue around and making "brrrrrr" sounds like a baby? Welcome to Barryland."

• 65 Bars and a Taste of Soul by Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band
• A Little Taste by Cannonball Adderley
• A Little Taste of Soul by Sugar Pie DeSanto
• Taste Your Love by Horace Brown
• Mr Pitiful by Big Daddy Kane
  The album is titled Taste of Chocolate after all
• Kiss of Life by Sade
  Wist and extraordinary comfort are to be found here.

See previously: Touch

This sensory process is part of a series: In a covidious time

File under: poetry, taste, sensory, culture, observation, perception, loss, coronavirus, pandemic, disease, nostalgia, food, covidious, Observers are worried, toli

Writing log: February 12, 2021

The Prince and The Honey

A sequel of sorts, this time the tale is of The Prince and The Honey. One morning, not too long ago, The Little Prince was overheard plaintively saying as he tucked into his morning oats, "Daddy, I don't like the smell of this honey"...

"You what?", thundered the harried father. "Ebei, what little Lord Fauntleroys am I raising here? It's a pandemic, Oliver Twist. I'm in exile. I'm not complaining about what I am missing from the shores of Lake Bosomtwi. Your Akim Swedru lineage is not about delicate sensibility."

But it turned out that The Wicked Mother had replaced the contents of the bottle of Good Flow Austin wildflower honey with an obviously less than adequate Round Rock honey. The 10 mile discrepancy in taste was duly spotted; the Prince had promptly called out the deception. Identity theft. Imposter honey.

The wicked mother quickly snatched her honey back, apparently it's a natural cure for all manner of allergies - they were living in the allergy capital of the land of America. The father placated the son by locating an unadulterated bottle of original honey - the nectar of princes, and fruit of his last pre-lockdown trip. The Princess smiled to herself that her little brother was following in her regal steps.

The mother was slightly chastened that her deception had been exposed, but had the readymade explanation that she was actually protecting the prince, who was still prone to breaking things, and had preemptively decanted her counterfeit honey from its crystal bottle - the Round Rock brand aspired to high class glass, into the old faithful plastic bottle that the family knew and loved, the good flow, as it were.

The father accepted that explanation - he was known to engage in parental deceptions of his own, but he decided to troll the mother by nudging the princess, and loudly saying to the prince: "Likely story...". He winked, accepting as he did this, that he would face the inevitable marital repercussions later, but winding Mother Bear up would be worth it in this case and, well, it was a covidious pandemic, what else does one do to entertain oneself and pass the time?

The father then opened up a browser and, after a quick search session and one-click tribute to an Amazonian tribe - there was a transfer of filthy lucre to their leader, Count Bezos - a whole paycheck's subtribe collected a not-inconsiderable amount of black gold coins in exchange for food. A supply of the Good Flow honey was duly sourced for the next few months.

And everyone lived happily ever after...

(Ducks)

The Prince and The Honey, a playlist

A soundtrack for this anecdote (spotify version)

• Honey by Ohio Players
• Fake by Alexander O'Neal
• A Taste of Honey by Lizz Wright
• Jezebel by Sade
• That's my Honey by Chuckii Booker
• A Little Taste by Cannonball Adderley
• Honey don't Front by Grand Puba

Woe is me, this life of fairytales I am living is not for the faint of heart, what with peas and brown sugar princesses, not to mention princes and honey for the bears. What about the hard knock life, I ask? What next, I wonder? Am I to be the boy who cried wolf?

Bonus soundtrack

• What have I done to deserve this by Pet Shop Boys featuring Dusty Springfield
• Fairy tales by Anita Baker

See previously: The Princess and The Brown Sugar

This note is part of a series: In a covidious time

File under: humour, taste, food, music, parenthood, whimsy, culture, folktale, family, life, covidious, toli

The Princess and The Brown Sugar

Woe is me, I'm living in a fairy tale entitled The Princess and The Brown Sugar. I've raised someone who can detect when brown sugar is substituted for white cane sugar in her tea. I know her grandmother writes cookbooks but hadn't realized that such food sensitivity was genetic.

My uncouth palate was curtly dismissed with a hand wave. But it's all just sugar to me. Let's be frank, can you really tell the difference? Let alone after said sugar is dissolved in tea? Ebei, there's some African electronics at work, Nyame dua.

Or perhaps I should turn to her grandfather, a materials scientist, for pointers on aqueous processing of sugar. Could it really be that brown sugar crystals are processed differently by the tongue? Enough to make a difference in taste? Another book project...

The Princess and The Honey, a playlist

A soundtrack for this anecdote (spotify version)

• Princesse Nubienne by Les Nubians
• Sugar You Want by Beres Hammond
• Brown Sugar by D'Angelo
• Being a Girl by Van Hunt
• It Makes No Difference Now by Ray Charles
• I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl by Nina Simone

Further reading

• Food Culture in Sub-Saharan Africa by Fran Osseo-Asare
• The Ghana Cookbook by Fran Osseo-Asare and Barbara Baëta

Backstory

The initial feedback to this note was ferocious, I was told that there was a indeed a difference in taste and texture, and that I had a wholly indiscriminate palate. I was even deemed to be shameless for drinking tea with brown sugar, a culinary affront. Moreover there were fears that I might even have the rona or be covidiously afflicted if I couldn't even pass such a taste test. The Wife's testimony in my defence didn't make a difference, almost every one sided with the princess. I've come to realize that I am definitely in a minority in this business so much so that I've decided that, as I am indeed living in a fairy tale, I needed to add some beasts to the prevailing soundtrack:

• Troglodyte by Jimmy Castor Bunch

(Ducks)

This folktale is part of a series: In a covidious time

File under: humour, taste, food, music, parenthood, whimsy, culture, family, life, folktale, covidious, toli

A Kenkey Bounty

Happiness is finding kenkey in Oakland - and not just something purporting to be kenkey, but good kenkey. You hadn't realized how much you'd been missing kenkey in your life so you beamed when you saw those corn husks wrapped around those broken pieces of your heart. Call it a restorative. And then to cap it off you notice some good puna yam at the door of the store, "From Ghana", she assures you. Hey it's Ghana's independence day and what better way to celebrate. Your basket was quickly filled with the basics: kenkey, yam, sardines, tilapia, plantains, okro, palm oil, fufu powder, and the old faithful, gari. You had come perilously close to disaster but had remembered that piece of advice that they announce as the plane takes off from Kotoka International Airport: "A Ghanaian immigrant should never run out of gari"; it's like losing your soul.

One of the problems with being an immigrant is getting food from home, a problem exacerbated especially if, like me, your culinary tastes were locked in place by age 8 or thereabouts. Physical displacement can be tolerable - a cosmopolitan disposition helps, but culinary dislocation goes beyond the realm of physical to a certain level of metaphysical angst. Like nostalgia, it's almost a social disease. As that wise man said, "home is where the kelewele is".

I see it as a quality of life issue. Moreover I have a very specific notion of (my culinary) home. I could eat plantain every day (and often do) - and have been known to base my housing decisions on its availability. So the first thing to investigate when in a new town is where the "African" shop is and if my staples can be obtained. My kelewele has to be styled like Auntie Becky's in North Labone - and I've been known to come to virtual fisticuffs with other exiled souls who have the nerve to argue that it was rather 'the woman from Labone junction' who made the best kelewele in town. Good grief. Well, less said on that, I shouldn't blame you if you haven't been exposed to that slice of heavenly taste.

Fruits: mangoes, bananas and pineapples preferably from Aburi and its environs - I am a failed pineapple farmer - and more on that later. Fruits however can be substituted. Banku and kenkey are irreplaceable. When it comes to kenkey, it's Ga kenkey that is essential. I could of course learn how to make kenkey but I always demur, safe in the knowledge that I'll never reach the heights of some of the good kenkey houses in Osu or Jamestown. I believe in division of labour. Sidenote: to avert the inevitable Ga versus Fante kenkey critiques, I'll admit that Fante kenkey off the road from Cape Coast is quite the thing. Tell Mama Akos Esi (or rather, her grand-daughter who tends to skip school to mind the stand) that I sent you.

There's probably a longer feature to be written about the "African shop" abroad that caters groceries, phone cards and serves as community bulletin board to the diasporic cohort. My experience in France is perhaps coloured by the relative lack of authentic African food stuffs where we lived; the substitutes helped but weren't sufficient and French cuisine leaves me completely indifferent to this day. In London in the 80s it was first Charlie's in St John's Wood that catered to our tastes - although Charlie's English reserve and hefty prices were a bit hard to take. Then, as the immigration wave crested, we started to see competition as Africa immigrants opened their own shops - the couple of Afro-Carribbean shops in Cricklewood made my day. Later, Ghanaians and Nigerians took over many parts of South London so that Deptford on a Saturday could be well be Kaneshie market. In New York and New Jersey, there were of course the Korean shops that were early entrants but again Ghanaians and Nigerians have now caught up and compete in the culinary marketplace with groceries and now restaurants. Boston was touch and go - the Ghana shop that I frequented moved a number of times - and even burnt down at one point. Still, I was never too far from plantain, yam, gari and kenkey. And the world was good. Slowly and surely the African culinary colonization is taking place and these days many supermarkets cater to our diaspora. Would that this trend continue.

Downtown Oakland has the Lucky Oriental Mart which, despite its title, is comprehensive in its purveyance of all manner of African and Carribean food. God bless the Filipino owners whose knowledge of our plants and foods is a thing to behold. The only gap in their coverage had been a regular supply of decent kenkey - now resolved. I do hope these soul sisters make it to the continent one day; on this Independence day, they captured my heart with a few balls of kenkey. A small thing perhaps, but I am duly sated. From here on, I only have a few fantasies to fulfill: some chichinga or grilled Guinea fowl - well a man can dream can't he? Everyone needs a taste of Africa.

File under: Ghana, immigration, food, kenkey, wist, culture, taste, nostalgia, life, Africa, toli

A Taste of Africa

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the sight of a grandmother running a kitchen in a restaurant brings a sense of warmth to the stomach of any man. The anticipation is further heightened in the sub-species known as the seasoned bachelor. I have seen grown men regress to their misspent and gluttonous youth, instantly shedding the heady shackles of responsibility as fond memories visibly surface. A certain look comes over the face and, for an instant, monosyllabic grunts are all that one is capable of. A food coma in prospect, the salivary glands go into overdrive. You'll notice a lot of involuntary licking of lips. If you listen closely you'll hear them whisper the adjective 'mouth-watering' under their breath. If only one could bottle up that instant cheer. I should know. Even though matrimony has been treating me well, that was me this Saturday.

Food is like that. Homecooked food, made with expert care is like that. Comfort food is by definition richly valued and time-tested, and the visual cues, those Auntie or Grandma figures, are rightly emphasized in advertising. An authentic real-life grandmotherly intervention is to be prized above almost all else.

And there it is, front and center, as you enter: you see her. Smiling her warm welcoming smile, she's surrounded by the pots with perhaps a ladle in hand, stirring, prodding, orchestrating a small slice of culinary nirvana. She's in full control, cooking with glee. You'll hear her dispensing pearls of wisdom, advising the others on spices and such. Still it's her show.

She's a grandmother. It's her thing, she's in it for love. It's the usual story: her reputation for homecooking was outsized, it wasn't just the extended family, but also the friends, and their friends. They all knew. She liked to cook, that's all. First it was a little joint a few blocks away, not much more than a little trailer, yet it kept going for 8 years. Now there is more capital, so it's a full-blown restaurant. They've lost the training wheels as it were; the revamp and grand-opening was late last year. Moving on up like Curtis Mayfield sang.

It's one of those crossroad neighbourhoods. The signs of recent gentrification are mixed with the usual pre-gentrification remnants and indeed holdouts. Transition in short. The restaurant is near the Berkeley/Oakland line, thus it's close enough to the heart of the City of Liberals to be a favourite of the Peace Corps crowd - those wanting to reminisce about a time when life had meaning, while maintaining the close ties to the soulful parts of the Oakland brethren and sistren - you know, those who keep it real. And then of course, there's your tribe of patrons: Africans in America. Ah nostalgia.

It's a family affair. Her daughters and sons cook, serve and clean. On occasion the little grandchildren drop by. I think the word is cute. It's really like spending time in a family home, it doesn't feel like a Formal Restaurant™. You wouldn't come dressed in opera wear.

It's not a dive, but it's suitably intimate, seven or eight tables, perhaps seating 25 inside, and a dozen out on the patio when the weather is right as it often is on this side of the San Francisco Bay. You get the red, gold and green painted exteriors, you get some batik prints. Was there a mask or two? Above all you get food from the Grandmotherland. Glorious Cameroonian cuisine is what you get. Ambiance and comfort are the fringe benefits.

Ethnic food in the Bay Area is mostly Asian (Chinese, Korean, Indian, Indonesian) and obviously the ubiquitous Mexican. African food is represented by the numerous Ethiopian restaurants, their delicate civilization having a strong presence in these parts. Of course there's much more to African food and culture than Ethiopia and slowly that awareness is seeping into the public consciousness.

We live near the Gourmet Ghetto in Berkeley, home to Chez Panisse and 15 or so restaurants. World-renowned, haute cuisine, Californian New World fusion cuisine with complicated ingredients - typical descriptions read like a Restoration Hardware label. You know what I mean: the expensive wines, the high snob quotient, the feel-privileged factor. Your mileage may vary but colour me unimpressed. When I need soul as I often do, living as we do in the midst of God's own people, I like to head out to our people, my people. I try to support the burgeoning West African community. There's Ghanaian Tropical Paradise down the street and, ever since I discovered it in the new year, there's A Taste of Africa.

Thus you might find me there on certain lazy weekend afternoons, sporting my fresh haircut from the nearby barbershops (I have to cross over to the Oakland side of things to get the right hair treatment), sipping on a glass of their homemade ginger delight drink (the last time, I almost declaimed spontaneous poetry in appreciation), chatting with all and sundry, or perhaps quietly reading a novel as the whim might take me. I'll be there taking in the atmosphere, nodding to the music as the family get to work, conjuring up the meals. They chat amongst themselves with the back and forth and intimacy that comes from knowing. It's the easy familiarity of, well, a family.

This is not fast food, it's homemade and unhurried, prepared with care. The menu is only a guideline, a starting point for a conversation. Ask for whatever is good that day. The menu alternates and Ma will cook whatever is her fancy.

"What do you have today?" "Well... I think... today... well... you see... you might like...."

And so forth. The pauses and rhythms are eternal. The sense of time is African. You'll wait a while as the food is prepared. The sweet smell of the fried plantains, the sule as the Cameroonians call it, will gently waft in from the nearby kitchen tickling your sensibility. It's ten feet away; if you could you'd take a few leaps and pick up a few slices, hot off the fryer. But, well, you control yourself. As they say, good things come to those who wait.

By the time the food arrives, you're ready. You dig in. What else is there to say? It's the main course, the main event, the main everything. I shall skip the ludicrous amount of pleasure you derive but I suppose I should describe the food somewhat.

Let's start with the ndole. A sauce of peanuts, spinach, garlic, ginger and something special. Throw it on everything, you can't go wrong. I exchanged a look of delight with a grandchild, perhaps 4 years old, she knew the score about the ndole she was similarly wolfing down.

The jollof rice is different from my customary Ghanaian fare, they don't seem to use long-grain rice, it's not the usual Basmati business, and the tomato treatment makes for a less intense taste. I like it though. Topped with Ndole, the fat lady sang. For the uninitiated, jollof is... well you can google it. Suffice to say that that it's my kind of thing. The sule, as I've suggested is great - again with a twist, I couldn't detect the ginger that would be in Ghanaian kelewele.

The suya, well, that's something else altogether. The spice on the kebab is phenomenal. Cameroon's proximity to Nigeria comes in handy in this respect, the Nigerians have the greatest tradition of khebab. Suya. Suya. Suya! A chorus of approval.

Try the pepper soup, typically with lamb or goat meat - or vegetarian if you must. Of course, this is West African food, so there's the obligatory fufu to accompany it (pounded yams in this case). There's more of course: moi moi or acara (various takes on black eyed peas), ewole which is the essence of Cameroon, egusi, okra and more. I'll let you discover for yourself.

I was struck that everything was light; she cooks with a delicate touch. Some African restaurants go all out with heavy fare that the part of the clientele that are cab drivers appreciate. You will eat a lot here and you won't regret it. You are reminded that the beautiful people live in California. There's sensitivity to the market. Astute, I must say.

Midway through your sustained attack on the delights at hand, she might take a walk around the place surveying the fruits of her labour. She doesn't need to ask; it's a done deal. But she does anyway. And yeah, she knows all right. She's seen it before: your appreciation is plainly evident from the precursors of sweat on your face, even before you launch into the obligatory mumbled 'it's ummm sooo ummm goo umm oood". She smiles. You smile. 6,000 miles away from the continent, diaspora, exile life is forgotten. For an hour of so, you're transported back home. You've gotten your taste of Africa. You're in the realm of the sated.

A Taste of Africa is in Berkeley, California.

Tell Ma I sent you. It's the least I could do.

Soundtrack for this love letter

Al B. Sure! - Just A Taste Of Lovin'

File under: food, review, Africa, Cameroon, Berkeley, USA, appreciation, taste, restaurant, life, pleasure, observation, happiness, joy, escape, cuisine, comfort, diaspora, small things, toli

Miles Ahead

So Chris Lydon pinged me yesterday about a show he was putting together on Miles Davis tonight. He obviously knew that Miles is like an old friend to me and a litmus test I use to compare up-and-coming artists.

The original hook was "How to listen to Miles Davis... and Why?", it has since morphed into Miles Davis: Early, Late, Real, Yours. As The Times points out today, A Radio Program Turns to a Blog to Cull Ideas, this is a very interactive way to put a program together and the pre-show comments tell the tale about how it can engage the audience and shape the focus of the show. Participatory radio is the thing these days and the feedback loop that the two-way web allows is refreshing. You should be able to listen to it live on radio, via streaming or download the archived show.

I've been nursing a sore throat and have mostly lost my voice thus I'm not sure that I'll be able to call in and participate what with George Wein, Marcus Miller and George Cole now added to the menu.

Still here are some jumbled thoughts that I sent his way. We are both enthusiasts on this front.

So much to say about Miles and so many ways to look at him...

For some he's just a good introduction to jazz. For most people, Kind of Blue is the first jazz album they'll buy much like Bob Marley's Legend is the normal introduction to reggae.

Thus we have Miles as the Gateway Drug, the Taste of Blue which will lead to Something Else and Someday My Prince Will Come and then to Cannonball Adderley, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Bill Evans, Ahmad Jamal and Wynton Kelly. Maybe we need a Miles Czar or War on Miles to prevent young people from getting hooked?

There's the bandleader who always surrounded himself with great musicians and (mostly) run a tight ship. Think of Monk, Duke, Mingus or Blakey or Horace Silver whose bands were similarly proving grounds.

The list of those who passed through his band is astounding from Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley in the 50s through Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter in the 60s, Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul, Dave Holland, Michael Henderson, George Duke and Marcus Miller etc. He caught them young, stepped back and let them shine playing a kind of zone offense (to mix my metaphors) whatever the style of music was played.

There's the competition of the bop years, the blowing sessions with Bird and Diz. Who blew better, faster, higher? Diz? Clifford Brown? Lee Morgan? Roy Eldridge?

Then there's the First Great Quintet that I alluded to when Cookin with Rokia Traoré - the Rhythm Section indeed.

There's the Taste of Miles: he immediately recognized the artistry of Ahmad Jamal, Bill Evans, Wynton Kelly and others. Impeccable taste in short.

The various eras of Miles like you suggest. Everybody has their own favourite era and I change every six months. Of late I've been going with the work with Gil Evans and especially Miles Ahead which verges on the orchestral blues.

Style - Nobody does it better than Miles

Competitive - He was always listening to other sounds and wanted to compete. Think of the reaction to James Brown and especially to Sly Stone in the early 70s.

Tradition vrs Modernity - respectful at times but refusing to go with the academy. As an example of the academy at work, a recent (or current?) cover of Jazz Times has a piece on Wes Montgomery in proximity to the phrase Sellout. The nerve of it! Is jazz a living music or did it end with Filles De Kilimanjaro as Stanley Crouch and Wynton Marsalis would have it?

Ego - Miles refused to be ignored and was very sensitive to perceived slights.

Provocative - how else to describe Bitches Brew or say On The Corner?

Hubris - there was that and we must admit it

Race - since race is still very close to the fabric of this society one can talk about the kind of additional scrutiny that falls on prominent blacks from Jack Johnson to Muhammed Ali and how they negotiate it.

Sex - there is much to say about his attitude towards women. e.g. Misogyny at times, exploitative at times (pimp episodes). Is that par for the course?

There's also another aspect of Miles and sex that is worth pointing out. Why is it that when you start playing some laidback Miles (say Bags Groove with Milt Jackson) that members of the opposite sex immediately assume that your intentions, are how to put it, single-minded (e.g. Miles as a Gateway to Seduction). I suppose it's like the notion that Henry Ford could never have assumed that the back of a car would become a cultural signifier in the sexual life of teenagers in America and the rest of the world.

Drugs - must one suffer for one's art like so many jazz musicians did?

Money - well that's also worth a discussion. Did he go commercial?

Miles in twilight - I'm very interested in what he recorded with Prince and Chaka Khan in the late 80s - very little of which has been released. He had become terse, preferring concentrated bursts of trumpet and emotion rather than virtuosity. It is clear though that his influence was crucial in bringing horn-inflected sounds to His Royal Badness (the Minneapolis purple one). If you're one of those afflicted with the purple obsession you'll have somehow acquired the bootleg of the New Year's Eve jam at Paisley Park in 1987.

And it continues with the rappers today, they may not sample him (since the record companies charge so absurdly these days) but they name-check him. Think of Digable Planets or of A Tribe Called Quest in the past decade (The Low End Theory is just a matter of vibing with Ron Carter and hence Miles). The late era of any musician is always interesting, think of the pathos of Lady Day in autumn, the voice ravaged but note also the emotion of The End of the Affair.

Above all there's the music and we are lucky to have so much of it available on record. Still it is the music that happens after the show that I've been interested in, the blowing sessions much venerated in soul jazz, the little moments that stay in one's memory.

Mission: music. Glad you found Inamorata, I love tomorrow.

I subsequently noticed that the comments on the show's entry on the web site also spoke of Kind of Blue as being the Gateway Drug to jazz... Thus this is quite a meme. And it is true...

If you hear Miles play It Never Entered My Mind, you'll indubitably be led to Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins' version and from there you'll branch to Duke Ellington then all bets are off, you'll get to Count Basie, you'll think of Lester Young and then you'll get to Robert Altman's Kansas City and then you come full circle with all those young lions cutting each other, James Carter, Nicolas Payton, Joshua Redman, Christian McBride etc.

There should be a Six Degrees of Miles parlour game.

As I leave you, I'm listening to Blues For Pablo and sipping some ginger tea with honey.

Miles Ahead like they said.

File under: music, jazz, Miles Davis, radio, history, culture, taste, influence, obsession, Chris Lydon, toli