Nature is Jazz

Country music lays claim to the outdoors, but I think Nature is
at heart a jazz tune. A suite. A collage of joyful noise
from the largest band ever assembled. If I’m right, know this.
Good jazz challenges. You may have to listen until you’re ready to hear.

There is whirring. There’s chirruping. And soft, long notes
from a blowing breeze. That’s the strings. Bowing through
the treetops, whispering through the grass. Now pianissimo,
then a terrifying crescendo with staccato, percussive rain.

Your next move takes guts. You’ll invite cacophony. Every player
in Nature’s band is fearless. Totally devoted to their own time
signature. Willing it to be THE time. The one you hear. Eager
musicians demanding you to be their audience and share their song.

But there isn’t just one song, is there? Well, there may be, but it’s
on so many levels and in so many venues that you have to stop hearing with your ears and open your heart. Somewhere, all the little songs blend. There’s a place they all make sense. We hear the struggle.

We hear scrappy virtuosos asserting their version of the song. We hear little combos, certain they share the melody, shifting the beat and hoping we’ll tap our foot in time. We hear soloists screeching and preaching, proclaiming the true music is theirs. But they’re still just players.

And players serve the song. It’s beautiful music. It’s an infinite number of voices singing and screaming and growling. It’s rhythms thumping and booming and scritching along. You wonder where the conductor has gone. Don’t be fooled. The conductor hears it all. And it is good.

One day, we’ll be removed. Pulled from the noise. Distanced. And then the jazz stylings of Nature will make sense. The vocals and instrumentation will blend. This composition isn’t terrestrial. It’s universal. Yes. THAT universe. It’s coming from and playing to places you can’t even imagine. It’s jazz. Cool, baby.