Monday, March 29, 2010

Nostalgia for a place I've never been

Back when I worked at WNYC, I was taken to do some field interviews at a photography of exhibit of jazz photographs by a man famous mostly for his pictures of Miles Davis.

I asked people about their reactions to the photographs, and one person put it perfectly -- and, if I recall, this was the only man-on-the-street quote that made the final piece.

He said that the photographs made him nostalgic for a place he'd never actually been.

For better of worse -- or more accurately, sometimes better and sometimes worse -- this is a feeling I can relate to. I guess that's what hopeless romanticism really is: a longing for a comfortable familiar feeling that you may have never actually experienced.

When it's something you have experienced, then it is just depressing, thinking of what you once had that has slipped through your fingers.

Right now, I'm nostalgic for seeing the Bill Evans Trio in the Village Vanguard. Never saw it, seeing as he died 5 years before I was born, but hearing all the recordings, feeling the emotions behind the music, singing along with the piano lines, I'm there. I've never been there, but it's easy to get there.

So now, without further ado, I allow you to join me. I present to you, Bill Evans playing "When I Fall In Love."

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