talking to cats

“One of my all-time favorite jazz pianists is Thelonious Monk. Once, when someone asked him how he managed to get a certain special sound out of the piano, Monk pointed to the keyboard and said: “It can’t be any new note. When you look at the keyboard, all the notes are there already. But if you mean a note enough, it will sound different. You got to pick the notes you really mean!”

I often recall these words when I am writing, and I think to myself, “It’s true. There aren’t any new words. Our job is to give new meanings and special overtones to absolutely ordinary words.” I find the thought reassuring. It means that vast, unknown stretches still lie before us, fertile territories just waiting for us to cultivate them.”

This is an excerpt from an essay titled Jazz Messenger by Haruki Murakami.

Music has always played an important part in the work of Murakami, from the cool jazz of the 1950s to bands like The Beatles and Radiohead. Nakata, from Kafka on the Shore, and his ability to talk to cats probably has its roots in music, in particular with Bossa Nova great Joao Gilberto. Joao talked to cats. He sang to them. I like to imagine cats mesmerized by Gilberto's whispery soft voice. One day his cat Gato was asleep on a window sill and fell to its death. Gilberto's friends joked that the cat, sick of listening to Joao's voice, didn't fall in its sleep but instead jumped and committed suicide.

Miles Davis later stated that Joao Gilberto “could read a newspaper and sound good".

I saw Gilberto perform about four years ago and it was beautiful beyond words. He’ll be back in NYC at Carnegie Hall on June 22.