Dan Jacobs: Writings

GREAT QUOTE:
This quote is from a friend of mine and marvelous sax player in Los Angeles. Also check out his website!
- Dan Jacobs

"I think one of the greatest aspects of being a musician is that we come so very close to understanding the effect of intentionally "practicing" something over our lifetime. We have proven to ourselves that we do indeed get better at anything we practice, and given enough time we can learn to play any passage like it was our own. The self-esteem from that idea alone can give our lives great purpose.

I believe perfection is attainable, but only momentarily."

Gary Gould, 25 August 2005
Jazz Saxophone / Klezmer Clarinet / Irish Penny Whistle
Hear the music at www.garygould.com

"if you knew who I really was, would you still like me?" - Billy Brown

QUOTE: BEGIN IT NOW!
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings, and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.

NOTE: WILL ROGERS, was probably the greatest political sage this country has ever known. The following are some of my favorite quotes by him.

There are three kinds of men: The ones that learn by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves.

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

The quickest way to double your money is to fold it and put it back in your pocket.

QUOTE ON PERFECTION
by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

NOTE: This magnificent poem was sent to me by one of my favorite relatives, my Aunt Virginia. She is as active, alive and wise beyond her years . . . (though I won't say how many, there are a couple of great photos of her in the photo section of this site). She continues to enrich the lives of anyone lucky enough to know her!!! She told me the story of how her father, my grandfather, Seth Jacobs, writer, newspaper editor and free-thinker,  read this poem to her and her brother, my father Wilbur Jacobs, when they were young children.

So, that's the "back story" on this poem. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

- Dan Jacobs


POEM: "IF"

A poem by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run --
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!

"When you've ehausted all possibilities, remember this - - - you haven't. - Thomas Edison

"Never underestimate the power
of stupid people in large numbers"

Billy Brown

LANCE ARMSTRONG QUOTE

(editors note: I love this quote as I've thought the same things in my life, no matter what activity I'm involved in . . . but especially in music!)

"What makes a great endurance athlete is the ability to absorb potenial
embarrassment, and to suffer without complaint. I was discovering that if it
was a matter of gritting my teeth, not caring how it looked, and outlasting
everybody else, I won. It didn't seem to matter what sport it was--in a
straight-ahead, long-distant race, I could beat anybody. If it was a
suffer-fest, I was good at it."
- Lance Armstrong, My Journey back to Life

QUOTE: ON ART by Myrna Jacobs, photographer

"I think each of us is always juggling the technical with the art... even the best of us. Our choices are what makes it art."
myrnajacobsphotography.com

QUOTE: by George Eliot

"It is never to late to be the person you were always meant to be."
- George Eliot, 19th Century Novelist

QUOTE: FROM CHARLIE PARKER

"Learn everthing you can about music, then forget everything you've heard."

MUSIC IS SACRED

It doesn't matter where you are in this world. Don't expect things to come to you. You have the ability to make things happen yourself'. Don't allow money and fame to motivate your music, because music is sacred.

"Because the artist deals in future realities, he always seeks improvements or changes in the existing reality. This makes the artist, inevitably and invariably, a rebel against the status quo. The artist, day by day, by postulating the new realities of the future, accomplishes peaceful revolution." -- L. Ron Hubbard

“I allow my audience an all-access backstage pass to what’s going on in here” (indicating his head).

"Wrong notes are of no consequence. To play without passion is inexcusable."
Ludwig van Beethoven

John Lewis’ definition of jazz—a delicate balance between art and entertainment.

Writing is an inherently introspective act. Keep it up! It's not about jazz, or music, or writing, or photography, or --- it's about creativity!

And the reason your writing is effective is because everything you write focuses upon the point you are making. There are no superfluous words.

In the training in writing I have received from several sources this has always been the primary lesson -- make each word count -- just like in music -- make every note count.

Larry's playing is partly the result of my pounding this lesson down his throat until he has internalized it.

He used to fill up space with useless notes, whereas now he leaves space.
Yo --

"You know that people keep talking about the universal solvent. You know the universal solvent is something you couldn't even keep in a bucket. And the reason you couldn't keep this in a bucket is, it'd go through the bucket and if it hit the ground it'd go through the planet. Universal solvent would eventually eat up the whole universe. And there have been a lot of stories about the universal solvent.

"Well, we had to discover it here, I'm sorry to say. It happens to be
admiration."

— L. Ron Hubbard

"What a true friend does: for one thing they stand up for one, give him
counsel, they help him in adversity, they safeguard his reputation, won't
hear ill of him, share his triumphs, ignore his faults." LRH

"...And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." ~Anaïs Nin~

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Mark Twain

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle.

The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.

Ayn Rand

“Pay no attention to what the critics say; no statue has ever been erected to a critic.”

Jean Sibelius
Finnish Composer

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that frightens us.

We ask ourselves 'who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?'

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; its in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Marianne Williamson
From her book Return To Love

(note: this quote is often mistakenly attributed to Nelson Mandela)

The biggest person with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest person with the smallest mind. Think big anyway.
Dr. Kent M. Keith

"It takes as much stress to be a success as it does to be a failure."

Emilio James Trujillo
Haight Street Armchair Philosopher

"Nothing is too wonderful to be true"

- Faraday (seen etched on the science buildings at UCLA, sent by Dave Rich)

PERSISTENCE

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.

Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.

Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.

Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

FINAL LESSONS OF HISTORY
BY WILL DURANT

My final lesson of history is the same as that of Jesus. Love one another. You may think that's a lot of lollipop but just try it. Love is the most practical thing in the world. To love, to be kind, not to be greedy, not to be ambitious, not to be influenced by people but to think for yourself - these are all very practical things, and they will bring about a practical, happy society.

Will Durant, 1885-1981
American Philosopher, Historian and Author

"For me, an improvisation is like telling a story. You have to start your solo as if you're telling a story to a kid. You can't just say a whole bunch of words they wouldn't understand - you've got to start with a simple phrase, then develop it." - Chet Baker
"Deep in A Dream" by James Gavin

"While i was always thinking about the changes I was playing, he (Chet) led me to discover that there is a higher point, where you forget all the changes and you just go from note to note, knowing exactly where you're going."
- Maurizio Giammarco, tenor sax player with Chet Baker group in the late '70's.
"Deep In A Dream" by James Gavin

"It's really very complicated, but it looks so easy that I'm sure 95% of the audience is unaware that I've said anything unique."
- Chet Baker
International Herald Tribune/"Lost in A Dream" by James Gavin

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world.

The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
— George Bernard Shaw

from Bob Lippmann, RSVP
Orange County
Los Angeles
Inland Empire
Oregon
www.rsvpmarketing.com

All your suffering is rooted in one superstition: you believe that you live in the world, when in fact, the world lives in you. - Deepack Chopra, MD

The unreasonable one persists intrying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
— George Bernard Shaw

From Bob Lippmann
www.rsvpmarketing.com

"There's no success like failure."

Bob Dylan

QUOTE: "You create your own universe as you go along."
Winston Churchill

QUOTE: "Imagination is more important than knowlege."
- Albert Einstein

QUOTE: AMBITION
"A man without ambition is dead. A man with ambition but no love is dead. A man with ambition and love for his blessings here on earth is ever so alive."

Pablo Casals, at 95 years old, was answering questions one day. One of them went like this.

"Mr Casals, you're the greatest cellist of the 20th Century, perhaps of all-time, and your career has been nothing short of spectacular. Why, at the age of 95, do you still practice 6 hours a day?

Casals answered, "Because I think I'm making progress."

"You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left." - Yitzhach Pearlman

DON'T HOLD BACK
by Gertrude Stein

You have to know what you want to get. But when you know that, let it take you. And if it seems to take you off the track, Don't hold back because that is instinctively where you want to be. And if you haold back and try to be always where you have been before, you will go dry.

PEOPLE WHO THINK
by Robert Heinlein

Most people can’t think, most of the remainder won’t think, the small fraction who do think mostly can’t do it very well.

The extremely tiny fraction who think regularly, accurately, creatively, and without self-delusion – in the long run, these are the only people who count.

Obscurity is the refuge of incompetence.

LEONARDO DaVINCI: SIMPLICITY

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

"We never play anything the same way once. " - Shelly Manne's definition of jazz musicians

GEORGE ORWELL QUOTE

George Orwell's book '1984.' In that story, three slogans are
engraved in the Ministry of Truth
building:

'War is peace,' 'Freedom is
slavery,' and 'Ignorance is strength.'

Did he know something we still don't get?

CHICK COREA ON SOLOING

"Only play what you hear. If you don’t hear anything, don’t play anything."

It’s taken me all my life to learn what not to play.
~ Dizzy Gillespie

QUOTE: To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing. ~ Elbert Hubbard

QUOTE: ON CREATIVITY
by Charles Mingus

"Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity."

QUOTE: LOUIS ARMSTRONG
by Ken Burns

"Louis Armstrong is quite simply the most important person in American music. He is to 20th century music (I did not say jazz) what Einstein is to physics."

"Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every
moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the
adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

QUOTE: HOW FAR CAN YOU GO?
by T.S. Elliot

Only those who risk going to far can possibly find out how far one can go.

QUOTE: "Life without music"

"Life without music would be a mistake."

Friedrich Nietzsche

QUOTES ON JAZZ: FROM BILL EVANS (the pianist not the sax player)

“First of all, I never strive for identity. That’s something that just has happened automatically as a result, I think, of just putting things together, tearing things apart and putting it together my own way, and somehow I guess the individual comes through eventually.”

“My creed for art in general is that it should enrich the soul; it should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise . . . a part of yourself you never knew existed.”

“I believe in things that are developed through hard work. I always like people who have developed long and hard, especially through introspection and a lot of dedication. I think what they arrive at is usually a much deeper and more beautiful thing than the person who seems to have that ability and fluidity from the beginning. I say this because it’s a good message to give to young talents who feel as I used to.”

“A guy is influenced by hundreds of people and things, and all show up in his work. To fasten on any one or two is ridiculous. I will say one thing, though. Lennie Tristano’s early records impressed me tremendously. Tunes like ‘Tautology,’ ‘Marshmallow,’ and ‘Fishin’ Around.’ I heard the fellows in his group building their lines with a design and general structure that was different from anything I’d ever heard in jazz.”

“Technique is the ability to translate your ideas into sound through your instrument. This is a comprehensive technique . . . a feeling for the keyboard that will allow you to transfer any emotional utterance into it. What has to happen is that you develop a comprehensive technique and then say, Forget that. I'm just going to be expressive through the piano.”

QUOTE: KNOWING IS NOT ENOUGH

"Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do."

~Johann von Goethe

STORY: HOROWITZ ON WEDDINGS

My favorite wedding story is about Horowitz. When he came to America he was the toast of New York high society. One night after a concert on of the Grand Dames of society came up and asked if he could get a quartet with three of the biggest names in classical music to play for her daughter's wedding. He said he could. When the woman asked for a price he said, "Five thousand dollars," which was a fortune at that time.
The woman was really pissed off, but since she had asked in front of a lot of important people she had to seem unpulsed by the price; at the same time she had to put in a barb.
"That is fine," the woman replied, "but, I don't want the musicians mingling with the guests."
"In that case," Horowitz said with glee, "we'll do it for twenty five hundred."

BASIC ECONOMICS & THE WEB OF DEBT

If the Nation can issue a dollar bond it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good also.

It is absurd to say our Country cannot issue bonds and cannot issue currency. Both are promises to pay, but one fattens the usurer and the other helps the People.

From an interview with Thomas Edison reported in The New York Times in1921.

RAFAEL MENDEZ - TRUMPET TIPS

Watch this youtube video on Rafael talking about trumpet playing and then backing up everything he says with some outstanding playing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUij8FCg0z8&feature=related

QUOTE: COFFEE OR TEA?
By Abraham Lincoln

"If this is coffee, bring me tea. If this is tea, bring me coffee."
~Abraham Lincoln~

In his equally masterful autobiography, "A Jazz Odyssey: The Life of Oscar Peterson" (Continuum, 2002), he said of the "dare-devil enterprise [the jazz experience]" in which he engaged for so many years that it "requires you to collect all your senses, emotions, physical strength and mental power, and focus them totally on the performance. . . every time you play. . . . Uniquely exciting, once it's bitten you, you never get rid of it. Nor do you want to; for you come to believe that if you get it all right, you will be capable of virtually anything. That is what drives me, and I know it always will do so."

Art Blakey's invitation to extreme pleasure: "You don't have to be a musician to understand jazz. All you have to do is be able to feel."

QUOTES ON WINNING
by Vince Lombardi

"I am not remotely interested in just being good. ”
~ Vince Lombardi

” Gentlemen, we are going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it, because nothing is perfect.

But we are going to relentlessly chase it, because in the process we will catch excellence.“

- Vince Lombardi

QUOTE BY GARRISON KEILLOR

"The truly suspicious people these days are the authorities."

THE JOB OF THE ARTIST

When I play, I don't want to impress people. I don't want people to leave the club and say, "Wow! That guy's unbelievable! Did you see his right hand? Man that guy kicks ass." That's not what I want to hear.

What I'm trying to get anyway, is someone to leave the club and say, "Wow. I'm in a different place emotionally than when I came in the door. I felt something. He moved me." That's the ultimate compliment for me. It's not "He impressed me", but "He moved me."

And that's the job of the artist. The artist's job is not to impress. I mean, you can look at a painting -- and you can look at the technique, and as an up-and-coming artist, you do, you admire the various brush strokes and the detail, and what techniques they've used -- but ultimately, what gets you to become an artist in the first place, the thing that drew you to it in the first place, hopefully has nothing to do with the technique. It's "Wow, that guy -- Chagall, just jumps off the page at you. It's there" And then later, you go in and start [admiring technique].

Bill Carrothers,
www.billcarrothers.com

“Every time I’ve done something that doesn’t feel right, it’s ended up not being right.”

Mario Cuomo

HOW TO WRITE THE BLUES

1) Most Blues begin "woke up this mornin'."

2) You can't use "Got a good woman" to start a Blues unless you insert something nasty in the next line:
Got a good woman
With the meanest dog in town

3) Blues are simple. After you have that first line, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes. For example:

Got a good woman
With the meanest dog in town
Got a good woman
With the meanest dog in town
He got teeth like Maggie Thatcher
And he weighs 'bout 500 pounds.

4) The Blues are NOT about limitless choice.

5) Appropriate Blues transportation includes Chevies, Cadillacs, Greyhound buses and southbound trains.

6) Walkin' is a major part of the Blues lifestyle, as is fixin' to die.

7) You can have the Blues in New York City, but not in Brooklyn or Queens. Hard times in Vermont or North Dakota are just a depression. Chicago, Saint Louis, and Kansas City are still the best places to have the blues.

8) The following colors do not belong in the Blues:
Violet
Beige
Mauve
Teal

9) You can't have the Blues in an office or a shopping mall. The lighting is wrong.

10) Good locations for the Blues:
The highway
The jailhouse
An empty bed

10a) Bad locations for the Blues:
The Gap
Gallery openings
Weekends at the beach

11) No one will believe it's the Blues if you wear a suit unless you are an old black man.

12a) You have a right to sing the Blues if:

Your first name is a southern state (Georgia)
You're blind
You shot a man in Memphis
You can't be satisfied

12b) You DON'T have a right to sing the Blues if:
You were once blind but now can see
You're deaf
You have a trust fund

13) If you ask for water and baby gives you gasoline, it's the Blues. Other Blues beverages are:
Wine
Irish whiskey
Muddy water

13a) Blues beverages are NOT:
Any mixed drink
Any wine kosher for Passover
Yoo Hoo
Red Bull

14) Appropriate places for Blues deaths include:
Cheap motels
Shotgun shacks
Stabbed in the back
Electric chair
Substance abuse

14a) Death during liposuction treatments is NOT an acceptable Blues death.

15) Creating a Blues name:
Name of physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple, Asthmatic)
First name or name of fruit (Willie, Bessie, Lemon, Lime, Kiwi, Melon)
Last name of a US President
Example - Cripple Lemon Clinton

15a) People with names like Sequoia, Savannah, Jessica or Sierra will not be permitted to sing the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.

16) Teenagers can't sing the Blues. Adults sing the Blues. Blues adulthood means you're old enough to get the electric chair for shooting a man in Memphis.

THE ABILITY TO SIMPLIFY

"The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak."

- Hans Hoffman, abstract expressionist painter.

"People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates." Thomas Szasz