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The chalkboard in my kitchen

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…..I live a mostly interior life.  The work of editing and publishing Jerry Jazz Musician is done within my interior because it involves lots of reading, researching, listening, observing and communicating.  (All stuff I love, by the way).  This work is physically done inside my home – often in a basement office with a small ground-level window the only source of natural light.  The weather in the Pacific Northwest has been dreary and uninspiring and walks in the rain are usually confined to a mile-long neighborhood route.  Add to all of that, I am getting older, which unsurprisingly means that my world is shrinking – I go out less and encounter the world less.  I fear I’m becoming that old guy down the street who only takes his car out of the garage to go the grocery store once or twice a week.

…..Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit.  I admit that other than some clumsy mistakes made now and then (some bigger than others), my world is generally accomplished and satisfying – I just need to get out more often.

…..In January I began telling myself (and eventually anyone willing to listen) that it was time I took a trip – a big trip, the kind that can possibly blast me out of my interior world and into the exterior world, and not just any exterior world – an unfamiliar one.   A place that will stimulate me, bring some balance, and kickstart my spirit.

…..So, I leave on Tuesday for Prague.  I have no idea why I chose that as my destination other than I have enough friends who glow about their experiences there that it seemed like a good place to start.  I’m counting on the city being filled with enough art, music, history and atmosphere to jar me out of my  interior.  I also love classical music, and what better place to experience it than there and my subsequent visits to Vienna, Salzburg and Munich?  From there I will wander Italy.   Maybe an opera at La Scala in Milan?  We’ll see…

…..I make this trip with gratitude, curiosity, enthusiasm, and a healthy degree of trepidation. I will be alone for much of it, joined by one of my oldest buddies for the Italian portion.

…..While I’m away Jerry Jazz Musician will continue to be published as normal (on a nearly daily basis).  I hope to share some photos and a post or two along the way, but no promises.

…..Readers and contributors who attempt to get in touch with me for the next few weeks can do so knowing that I will eventually respond – it just may not be immediately.  And, since I only bought a one-way ticket for this excursion to the exterior, I don’t know how long, exactly, I’ll be away.  For that, I will let my presently overactive interior be my guide.

Joe Maita

Editor/Publisher

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Listen to the 1959 recording of Charles Mingus playing “Boogie Stop Shuffle,” with John Handy (alto saxophone); Booker Ervin (tenor saxophone); Shafi Hadi (tenor saxophone); Willie Dennis (trombone); Mingus (bass); Horace Parlan (piano); and Dannie Richmond (drums).  From the album Mingus Ah Hum.  [Columbia/Legacy]

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Other posts about and from my European journey

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Click here to read “In Prague, things just sort of worked out”

Click here to read “Beyond Category…Two Vienna jazz clubs”

Click here to read “A friendship made in Verona”

Click here to read “C’est Si Bon’ – at trip’s end, a D-Day experience, and an abundance of gratitude”

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