Happy Birthday to one of my favorite living music legends. It’s impossible to forget your birthday, Diana. On November 16, 1964, the bright smiles of heaven pierced through the atmosphere when on earth, a brilliant jazz pianist and singer with one of the most beautiful contralto voices was being born. Fifteen years later, on the exact same date, a boy who loved your music from the first note he heard, and never stopped loving it ever since, was also born on November 16, 1979. The part of his life that was spent on music was partially influenced and inspired by your passion, talent, genius and brilliance.
As the boy was growing up, listening to your songs, looking at your album covers, your photographs and performances, … it looked too familiar. The goldish hair, the birth date, the love of music, especially of jazz, … so he went changing, … more time in the sun, tanning, trying new fashion, changing the color of his hair, … but while he liked intelligent and meaningful conversations, didn’t like thoughtless and shallow talk, loved to work hard and couldn’t understand people who didn’t, you were always there, in the good and bed times, enriching his memories ‘on the make,’ filling the atmosphere of his work environment with your magical vocals and piano playing, adding texture, nuances, emotion, eros, passion, sexiness and beauty to his life; providing the perfect background music for the Christmas seasons when he would “ride, sing and jingle the bell all the way!” | “… Now the ground is white, Go it while you’re young, Take the girls tonight, And sing this sleighing song, …”
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Picture 1: The boy at the center of the picture. | Picture 2: [ Left ] The boy at the back of the pony. [ Right ] Holding his sister’s hand inside of a catholic church, after eating lots of ice-cream. Inside the church, he was rubbing himself against the person behind him, thinking it was his mother, when suddenly, a strange voice spoke, not nearly as beautiful as yours, … realizing it was not his mother, he turned abruptly and after catching a quick glimpse of the lady, he run outside the church and refused to get back inside … | Picture 3: Changing the color of his hair and trying new fashion, … he didn’t like to wear a belt, he thought it was too much unbuckling, unbuttoning, unzipping, … | Picture 4: The youngest boy in the group playing a bass guitar with the older boys. | Pictures 5, 6, 7, 8: Glimpses of part of his journey, while playing music at churches with “Devil May Care, Temptation, Between The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea, …” melodies trying to re-gain access and infiltrate his heart and mind, not at the appropriate time and location.
There was a specific time on his journey, when he was working extra hard to advance the causes he was deeply passionate about, he would go home, park his Toyota 4Runner and get into the curvy Infinity FX35, just because it was better crafted with a superior quality sound system to enhance the listening of your music, and he would just drive away with you as one of the main musicians on his playlist, altering his brain waves and heart waves, as he was unwinding from work and drinking deeply from your gifts. Those memories are now deeply embedded into his being. As his journey progressed, and he was maturing, he was no longer the same as he used to be, however some things did not change, for instance, he will always be dazzled by your music, you will always have a special place in his heart, and he will always be grateful for the amazing talent, unique style and beauty you brought to this world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-IqzrDRzoA
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To Music | Rainer Maria Rilke
Music. The breathing of statues. Perhaps:
The quiet of images. You, language where
languages end. You, time
standing straight from the direction
of transpiring hearts.
Feelings, for whom? O, you of the feelings
changing into what?— into an audible landscape.
You stranger: music. You chamber of our heart
which has outgrown us. Our inner most self,
transcending, squeezed out,—
holy farewell:
now that the interior surrounds us
the most practiced of distances, as the other
side of the air:
pure,
enormous
no longer habitable.
.
Happy Birthday to one of my favorites, you will always have my unspoken affection,
Gelson Rocha [ November 16, 2018 ]
