Honesty Is Overrated

March 04, 2019 in life

Honesty is so tricky.

It sounds like a virtue we all should strive for yet most of us don’t know really how to handle it. People speak as though they do value the quality/action yet it is often explosive and controversial and it can turn things very quickly.

I think about this alot. Partly because I’m in a position where I hear people says all the time that they’d rather hear an honest opinion. It’s been my experience that it is not true. Not at all. Very very very few of us can handle honesty. I’d like to think that I do; I’d like to think that I handle it with patience. I don’t like hearing about myself or that I have done something less than righteous but I’d like to think that I at least sit with it. It’s always rough, though.

I think deciphering the motivation of each case of honesty is helpful. Is it meant to hurt me? Is it meant to help me? Is it coming from a place of love? I also need to check myself: did I ask for things that I’m not ready to hear?; Am I too proud to open my ears?; or did I just want to be affirmed and I was passive-aggressive about it?

It has happened to me quite a number of times that I was told to give an honest opinion and then I opened my mouth only to realize that I was supposed to give them their expected version of “honest” opinion. This happened more times than I’d like it to happen. I am very weary when people ask me for my honest opinion. Because they don’t really mean that. People wants to hear what they want to hear and everything else is dismissed.

Topdog Underdog

February 11, 2019 in life

For a long time, I wanted to be a topdog. Whatever that means.

Yes, I admit to my ego and vanity and to my need to be recognized. I wanted accolades. I also thought that I can be more effective in helping artists if I had more external power. Like, my simply saying, “hey, so and so is the shit” would open doors for that artist. But it wasn’t happening. Yes, I always had an enormous artistic freedom to do whatever I like at The Jazz Gallery but I felt like everything I was trying to do went mostly unnoticed by power that be. And whenever I encountered an artist I really like to push, others took my opinion with grains of salt. Big ones.

It took me a long time to realize that that actually was an incredible blessing in disguise: to be an underdog. It made me bold and courageous and independent and I was able to operate just the way I like without being picked on or criticized, because I didn’t really matter.

Eat Well

October 21, 2018 in life

When my daughter turned 10 three years ago, I had “The Talk” with her and here is roughly how it went.

I chose a beautiful summer day on the beach as the venue. I wanted to talk about sex and intimacy in an open and sunny place. I know that I wanted to do this on my own term and I was happy to do it. I felt just a little nervous about the whole thing and I kept telling myself, “Rio, don’t be weird. Act natural. Put a smile on your face, but not a stiff, forced one. A natural and subtle one.” Right.

My daughter and I were lounging on the beach at Asbury Park when I abruptly said, “So do you know how babies are made?” To which she said, “yes.” I kept my cool and asked her to tell me what she knows. She said that people have sex. I asked her if she knows what that means. She said no. I explained what happens. The logistical part of it. I told her it’s OK to have sex, eventually (very important word here, lol), when she feels like she is ready but pleeeease protect herself. Make sure that her partner wears a hat. At all time. It takes one time to really change the course of her life. We can always recover and regroup from pretty much anything but if she can avoid adding challenges to being a young woman of color, then, I think she should strive for that. It’s already hard enough.

You Got To Be The Star

October 19, 2018 in music, life

Over the years I have received thousands and thousands of emails from young musicians who want to perform at The Jazz Gallery. First of all, thank you. I feel really honored and humbled to have been asked. Each time. Because without cats, we are nothing.

Secondly, I want to talk about how you should think about yourself as the star of whatever you are doing.

Many of the emails try to get my attention by saying, “I will have Ambrose Akinmusire in my group if I get a gig,” “This is the CD release for the album I recorded with Larry Grenadier, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and Mark Turner,” or “I have performed with Vijay Iyer.” And I have many things to say about that type of approach. Lol.