Ken Latchney has just introduced me to Studio Belewbeloid's new computer monitor, to work with Ade's new Apple computer. Stunning. The Apple Cinema Display: 22 inches of wonderment. Visiting the Diaries & Guestbook now has an additional frisson. And thank you to Paul, on the GB, for reproving me on Birmingham University.
From an e-letter to Andrew Keeling, in response to his recent diary entries:
Crimson is a strange beast. "The Music Of King Crimson" is a more accessible project than King Crimson, the group/s. Good luck to Sid on that!
If music is authentic, and has the power that we recognise & feel that it does, it stands apart from the characters that wrote & played it. The musician is a bridge that music crosses. It is a fundamental mistake for the musician / composer to believe that they are responsible for the music entering the world: they are a necessary condition, not the reason. The sheer willingness and wishingness-to-be-heard of music creates a demand which calls on some to give it voice & some to give it ears.
How to explain this in terms of Crimson, with its fluctuating membership & several definite editions? For me, Crimson is a particular individuality which stands apart from the particular groups which speak in Crimson voice. This is the "good fairy" which is not located in any particular band person/s, but which may act through any of them. But it is primary: the people are secondary although they must be able to respond adequately, competently or sufficiently.
I sympathise with the players who feel "their" Crimson was the only Crimson. My experience is different: their Crimson was the only Crimson, and there were also others. Clearly, this is not to be grasped with everyday mind, although this may be more easily experienced by listening to music across the Crimson generations.
Music introduces itself to each generation of listeners through their own generation of players. Once the contact is made, we know for ourselves. Then, we may discover the same contact in the work of other generations, using the taste of our own direct experience as a lodestone & reference point.
"Before we move from A to B, better to know we're at A."
