A humble attempt at a tribute to the late jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius, in places imitating and paying homage to the bebop triplets, imagery and effects he used in his playing. His self-titled solo album made an enormous impression on me on its release in 1976 and has done ever since. Jaco even makes a cameo appearance in one of my stories.

This is a remembrance of someone whose music and spirit I love. It’s not an obituary, or a tribute – of which there are finer examples already. They’re thoughts for someone who didn’t know me but whose voice I hear every day. I feel honour-bound to pay my respects more thoroughly than I’ve already done because I feel Jackie Leven’s presence, his soul shimmering, every time I hear his voice. I didn’t know I was going to miss him this way. I didn’t know it could hurt this much. I feel as though a piece of me has been broken off. But it’s time to let go.

Photograph of Jackie Leven and Scots John in an Islington recording studio, circa 1983 © Tina

One of my heroes, the great Jackie Leven of the Kingdom of Fife, died at around 20:00 GMT on Monday 14 November. You can read more about Jackie’s musical legacy here. In the meantime, this one’s for you, Jackie. This isn’t the place for philosophy. I just couldn’t bear the idea that an Artist whose work gives me comfort, pleasure and meaning was suffering and in pain.

Antonio Machado, the final stanza of ‘Portrait’, translated by Robert Bly (from Jackie’s Defending Ancient Springs):

“And when the day arrives for the last leaving of all,
and the ship that never returns to port is ready to go,
you’ll find me on board, light, with few belongings,
almost naked, like the children of the sea.”

The Bridge is one of those books I first read long ago but have no recollection on whose recommendation it was. More unusually, I don’t remember where I was when I read it for the first time. It was published in 1986, when Banks was 32. He apparently told SFX magazine’s Mary Branscombe in 1996 that The Bridge is the intellectual among his bibliography. “It’s the one that went away to university and got a first. I think The Bridge is the best of my books.” As such, he warned against reading it before his other books, which I did.

I love it because it’s a novel in which the writer takes some hair-raising risks.

“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. If we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

When did you feel most alive recently? Where were you? What did you smell? What sights and sounds did you experience?

Capture that moment on paper and recall that feeling. Then, when it’s time to create something, read your own words to reclaim a sense of being to motivate you to complete a task at hand.

(Author: Sam Davidson)

Released on 24 February 2009, Wellington-based composer Rhian Sheehan’s Standing In Silence is a relatively recent addition to my armoury of music to write by, but I could tell on the first listen that it fulfilled each of my criteria. Sheehan has been an active recording artist since 2001 and his work has featured in a number of films, commercials and an Emmy Award-winning TV series. This album is what I’d normally describe, if forced to put it into words, as “ambient” music, by which I mean it enhances the mood in the room, augments or improves an existing atmosphere without dominating it or dictating a mood – aural wallpaper, if you like; although that sounds dismissive of the music and it isn’t meant to be because a functioning soundtrack is an intrinsic part of a lot of my writing.

Steve Reich’s Music For 18 Musicians is a 33-year-old piece of music I discovered relatively recently that’s had probably the most direct influence on my writing – so much so that I wrote it into one of my later short stories as a character. Steve Reich is now 75; not that you’d guess from listening to this record. I can’t think of a more modern-sounding piece of music – it’s positively futuristic, which in itself is extraordinary, since he uses only orchestral instruments (cello, violin, clarinet, bass clarinet, pianos, marimbas, xylophones, unamplified vibraphone and women’s voices), no electronics, and only the musicians’ breath to create the effect of what could be mistaken for a sequencer.

As Frank Zappa memorably said, music is the best. In the early to mid-2000s, I reviewed a variety of CDs for the IDG New Zealand magazine >>FFWD, including albums by Can, David Gray, Dave Brubeck, various world music artists, Herbie Hancock, The Who, The Blue Nile, Peter Gabriel and many others. Writers review other people’s work for all kinds of reasons; not least because, although the pay rates are often negligible (or non-existent), it provides you with a ‘free’ source of listening or reading. Many of the CDs I’m listening to today were acquired as review copies, so it’s a win-win. And there’s nothing like being required to articulate in a couple of hundred words what you think of something for arriving at clarity in your own mind.

As I said in my previous post, music often plays a role in creating conditions conducive to writing. Just to recap, my criteria for great music to write by are: 1. It has to be more than wallpaper, should enhance your mood while not distracting you from the task at hand. 2. It should engender a mood of anticipation; filled with possibilities, not the intimidation that makes a blank page seem bigger and scarier than the potential it holds. 3. There should be an underlying, bristling electricity that hints at anything-could-happen. You’re seeking an inner tranquillity and an outward tingling; a 3 o’clock in the morning feeling that shifts your mind up a gear.

I’m reviewing another oldie this time, Brian Eno and Harold Budd’s 1984 recording The Pearl. An interval of 27 years between its release and my review seems about right, although it sounds fresh enough to have been recorded yesterday.

Listening choices often play a role in the creative decisions a writer makes. What music is most likely to get your creative juices flowing? 1. It must be more than wallpaper but less than a 30-minute makeover. It should enhance your mood, not distract you from the task at hand. 2. It should engender a mood of anticipation and possibilities, not the intimidation that makes a blank page seem bigger and scarier than the potential it holds. 3. There should be a bristling electricity that hints at anything-could-happen. You’re seeking an inner tranquillity and an outward tingling; a 3 o’clock in the morning feeling that shifts your mind up a gear. These are recordings that fulfil those criteria and more.