Couple weeks ago I finally got around to buying Miles Davis’ Birth Of The Cool disc. Listened to it nonstop for about three days; in its complex, bop-inflected melodies and thick textures (nine-piece band!), it’s far denser and more structured than Kind Of Blue, but just as immediately alluring and just as relistenable—it’s beautiful at first glance, and grows moreso the longer you look.
We listened to it in the car on the way to the airport... and so began our journey to the House of the Mouse...
Impressions from a journey south
First off: apologies to Carla Speed McNeil, whom I love dearly and whose work I adore—but for my own good, I probably shouldn’t have seen this before we left...
The good folks at New England Comics supplied us with reading material for the trip. For me it was a Transmet trade and Bendis’ Torso—which, despite some overstriving dialogue, pisses on Sin City from a great height, not least because it’s (mostly) true. For Claire, volume one of the magnificent Akiko.
The resort was a crackhead cartoon version of the old French Quarter.
The thing about Disneyworld is that there’s always music, everywhere: drifting from hidden speakers in the parks, the restaurants, the resorts. Even on the trains. Even on the wildlife pathways.
At Port Orleans, the motif was jazz, but modern jazz: there was a sprinkling of Dixieland, but overwhelmingly—and I mean at least every other song I heard—it was Birth Of The Cool. We spent the better part of eight days soaking up that album along with the Orlando sunshine.
(It’s funny, of course, because Miles had nothing to do with New Orleans: he was born and raised in Illinois and cut his musical teeth in New York city, bebop’s Ground Zero.)
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