i’ve become terribly dependent on podcasts. i absolutely hate the radio and on my 45 minute commute to work, it’s hard to come up with constantly fresh playlists that work for me. in fact, when i listen to music i really *listen* to it and that isn’t conducive to driving or working. it’s really a bummer that the thing i enjoy most is the one thing that i have to do exclusively.

the point of this is that i have subscribed to a gaggle of podcasts to fill my morning commute. one of those is the studio 360 podcast. on my way to work this morning, there was a piece about miles davis and his masterpiece “kind of blue.”

the piece itself brought a number of things to my attention: i don’t own a copy of “giant steps” by john coltrane; i didn’t know that ornette coleman really introduced free jazz in 1959 (the year “kind of blue” was released); and that people can honestly judge music by the person who made it.

it’s that last bit that really caught me unawares. it was a really tiny part of the story, but it derailed my train of thought.

i won’t claim to be an expert on the life of miles davis, but from what i understand he had some very undesirable traits as a human being. he beat his wife. he was a pimp to make money for drugs. he did some bad things. again, i’m no expert, so i’m going strictly on what i’ve gotten from excerpts and interviews like the one i heard this morning.

does that affect how i hear “kind of blue”?

i’m a big biography reader. i especially love reading about composers, writers and painters. i like drawing the parallels between their lives and the works that they produced. autobiographies and journals are even more fun for me as i get a peek inside the head of the creative individual through their own filters. when i came to the biographies on john cage, i was quite aware of his work. looking back, it was fascinating to connect the dots. the same goes for harry partch and edward abbey. i wonder how it would have colored my views of their work if i had known their life stories in advance. would i have been more sympathetic? more put off? i can’t say. i do know that all too often i will hear a story about this author or that band and go off to experience their work and feel let down by the quality of it for one reason or another. in a way, it’s de rigeur to get a promising story about a creator only to find that the work itself is less exciting than the story of who made it and how. but i don’t think i’ve ever heard a horrible story about someone and then gone on to really fall in love with a work by that same person. is that because i don’t seek out the work of those people?

but i wonder if it matters.

we know nothing about the individuals who make our clothes or cars or meals, yet we make use of them daily. would i send back my steak if i knew for a fact that the chef beat his wife? would anyone? i honestly wonder.

but music is different, right?. it’s something that we take so very personally. i would argue that there are few things that are taken on a more personal level. saying that you hate someone’s favorite song is almost akin to saying that you despise a very specific part of what makes that person who she is. maybe it’s because we identify with certain pieces of music so deeply that we desperately want the people who made it to be good and kind. the way we might imagine ourselves to be. in essence, we want to recreate the people who make this highly personal music in our own image. when reality clashes with that, it can prove to be too much.

so i think about miles davis. would i have enjoyed drinking with him? i don’t know. he sounds like he was an edgy man who liked making people uncomfortable. i find that amusing most of the time, so i might have enjoyed his company very much. i’m sure that i would despise some of his behaviors, but would that affect the music?

as a composer/writer i try to put a great deal of myself into my work. but do i want people to judge my music based on my loose and frequent use of four letter words? whether or not i go to church? how i treat my wife?

i guess not. because to me, it shouldn’t matter. i don’t know that i believe in absolute music in the purest academic sense. i think that music does bring something to a listener. but i don’t know that it’s the heart and soul of the person who made it.

music is interpreted by the listener and great music allows the audience to bring pieces of themselves into it. so at its best, music is a joint venture between the creator of the sounds and the receiver. the way that the listener applies the music in her head is independent of the creator and his life story.

i have had dear friends whose music didn’t move me one whit. and i’ve know people that i branded as jackasses who could do amazing things. maybe miles davis wasn’t a good person. am i defending the pimp? no. i’m saying that in the context of his music, it doesn’t matter to me. perhaps there would have been less soul had he not been what he was: deeply flawed just like the rest of us.