Word 40 (Back to the Crossroads)

​A few words after my 2010 post Crossroad Blues.

Orpheus looked back because he was an imperfect, fallible human. This is also what made him a great musician. And I suspect mortality is also what allowed Marsyas to beat Apollo. He had the one thing Apollo could never have: the foreknowledge of his own death. This sweetens the music.

The only question, practically speaking, is whether it’s okay, like the Robert Johnson of myth, to look outside yourself for improvement—or do you need to fundamentally trust that you already have what you need to be great?

Coltrane described practice as “cleaning the mirror.” His work was to cleanse the pathways that connected him to the divine. No tower-building necessary; the connection was already there. The work was learning to see it more clearly.

I must say, though, I’m coming to freshly appreciate the importance of teachers. Their influence is bounded, but limitless within parameters. Things they say come echoing through the years, gaining in resonance. The truth is that Robert Johnson didn’t sell his soul to anyone. He learned guitar from a guy named Ike Zimmerman—who, the story goes, had practiced his craft at night, in a cemetery, playing and singing while leaning against a gravestone.