My art inspiration: Myele Manzanza

Aaron Parks, Ben Street & Billy Hart – Find the Way

This is one of the more interesting jazz piano trios I’ve heard in recent years. Firstly, Billy Hart is an absolute marvel on the drums! He plays with a mixture of mastery, wisdom and an almost childlike innocence. Some of his musical choices seem almost amateur (see the hi-hat work at the beginning of “Adrift”) but are done with such authority and intent that makes his work behind the drums undeniable and original. Aaron’s compositions and work on the piano are very much in service to the music and have a beautiful freshness, and despite their relative complexity they have an earthy, natural feel about them. My personal favourite is “Song for Sashou”, a beautifully melodic bossa that the band navigates with great subtlety. You can hear the communicative nature of the musicians playing with one another, and Aaron takes some amazingly lyrical turns at the vamp in the end that leave you in no doubt that despite his relative youth (in jazz terms, 33 years old is teenage), his place in the history books is more or less assured.

Robert M Pirsig – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

If there was one book that really changed my thinking about how to apply myself to a craft, it’d be this one. I stumbled upon this book when I had just finished university and had been in institutional education for 17 years – at a time in my life when I was just entering the big wide world and feeling a sense of “What the f#%* am I doing with myself?”. This book was pretty critical to me in a few ways. While it’s definitely a story with a narrative, it was my first introduction to some pretty broad philosophical ideas about subject/object duality and the broader exploration into what “quality” is, using ideas from Western / ancient Greek philosophical traditions as well as Eastern Zen/Taoist views of the world. Secondly, while a chunk of the story does involve literal motorcycle maintenance, that side of things directly applies to mastering any craft. I saw a lot of it as being useful for myself as a musician. Both in the mindset and physical technique required to play an instrument well, as well as the broader artistic uses of that technique and what it's all for. I could go on for ages but it wouldn’t do the book justice. Just read it!

Rick Ross – “Santorini Greece”

“Sometimes I just wanna say ‘F#%$ the world’. I don’t give a ‘F#%$’. Shoot it out with all you B*@%$@s.” Not since Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name Of” has the F-word been leaned into with such weight and vigor. Yet Rick Ross’s opening gambit on “Santorini Greece” is an almost Kasparov-level decoy of a chess move. He sets the listener up for the standard ‘I’m better than you’ rap bars then takes a surprisingly introspective turn. Well, introspective is a relative term for someone like Rick Ross.

Perhaps it’s the juxtaposition of the braggadocio street talk (“Constant visits from the ATF, so I bought some cribs in the ATL. Martha Stewart decorated both, Snoop Dogg donated the smoke”), Afro-American political stances (“We in the last days, these racist agendas. Blatant double standards because I’m a n*$$@^”), self-deprecating sense of humour (“Versace underwear but see the ass crack”) with consistent flow over the whole track, with the incredibly savvy choice of a stripped-back minor key soul sample production that draws the listener in and takes us into his world. At the very least this song is a go-to on my Tidal account right now to help shake off stressful situations and keep things moving forward.

Visit www.jazzfestival.co.nz for the full Welllington Jazz Festival line up for 6-10 June.