Interstellar Space

I was twenty years old when I heard that nightmarish reed shrill and shriek and drop in tone and naked-lunch-baritone shower the stars in my skull with its explosive orgasmic release. I recall sitting at an office of a Good Night Inn on a bad morning, where I was desk clerk and twirling my tie as Mars moved on in with its masterful menace with The Trane and Ali. First the bells gently bouncing in Coltrane’s hands as Rashied Ali rushed down the alley and down a flight of stairs getting to his appointment–a stage set for two bodies to become one, undeniably the grandfather and standard for all saxophone and drum duets in music. The morning got better shortly thereafter. I was lucky enough that my boss hardly came around, Indian cat who loved chasing underage pussy while his wife woefully wondered.

I unplugged the phone from the wall and turned up the volume, walked to our complimentary breakfast table and poured myself a cup of the best Folgers money can buy. Lifted the blinds on a small window and focused in on a fuzzy bright yellow and orange rose with two bees beautifully fighting for its attention.

Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn. Four tracks fornicating with my listening funnels.

Ali, the drummer desperate to abandon the bunk terrestrial boundaries and set a cutting course for uncharted space. Coltrane, perhaps at his most visceral, exuding an overwhelming dose of diabolical confidence managed at times by sacrosanct and turbid tenderness. This was recorded in the studio in the year of Mr. Coltrane’s death, 1967. And released in ’74.

Rocketmen breaking barriers and bruising along the way to bring forth the best free flowing sounds of future fervency. Passionate movers of planets. Wizards of wonder.

Years later, I summon its power while I paint, fuck, cook, write,  contemplate at the crapper, slip into old tattered boat shoes and shaking ’cause the heater’s broken on a Christmas Eve…

Thank you, gentlemen. Your genius and discovery in Interstellar Space will always be a vessel of escape. Its incendiary sorcery ignites a burning furnace within.

∞