I went to a concert with my girlfriend yesterday! It was a gipsy jazz concert, which was a refreshing and very interesting experience. We were gonna watch a ballet concert but tickets were sold out so we ended up on this other concert. Weird, novel music? Count me in! I had never listened to gipsy jazz before but I liked it. It was fun to experience a mix of international music with the traditional sounds of jazz. I wonder if Ted Gioia has any opinion on gipsy jazz at all 🤔.
The concert was fun as a date too! It reminded me of a podcast I was listening the other day about the importance of searching for novel experiences so that your life—and your love relationships too—are not compressed into one simple, common experience that you repeated for 60 years. I certainly fall into the trap, and all too human pleasure of the routine, but I'm now wondering if perhaps I should add more novelty when it comes to leisure. What other things can we do following this line of thinking?
This feels like a perfect time to note down some books that I've been wanting to read for a while. Learning more about the history of music and particularly jazz is something that I find very compelling. I feel like it might offer some interesting insights on group formation and scenius. But anyways, here's a list of books worth looking into:
- But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz by Geoff Dyer. I started reading "The Last Days of Roger Federer" and enjoyed the writing, so looking forward to this one.
- The History of Jazz by Ted Gioia. I'm subscribed to his very wonderful newsletter The Honest Broker. I expect his book is even better.
- Do You Know...? by Howard Becker. Books by sociologists as creative as Becker are always worth reading. I also enjoyed this marijuana article.
And let's also consider this by Tyler