The Costa Factor

Inspiration is a kick. I am inspired to start blogging tonight thanks to a kick I got from Brazilian singer Gal Costa. Listen to this.

I love an artist who lets go. I love a person who lets go. Costa does it within two minutes of bluesy bossa. By vocalizing along to the audience she voids her role as a singer, defining jazz attitude.

That Jazz attitude is what I was looking for. If I take this summer too hard, I'll be devastated. The heat around here is abominable. a dramatic separation is still a very recent memory, funds are short, and I still don't use my beard trimmer properly, so it always comes out uneven.

But consider this: There's someone down on the street drumming on a Palestinian darbouka, The yellow half moon high above him, the slender palm tree listening to him, as does the pink house across from the military court, as does chicken on skewers, grilling at Zika's.

Consider Yeffet St. - a gateway to a night of honking horns, trash-can lovers' lanes, narrow staircases where empty mop buckets were left to accumulate sleeping pigeon teardrops.

This is the jazz of Jaffa. If I let go, like Gal Costa, and hum along to it, we may get somewhere.