Fresca posted a link to a video clip that begins with a few seconds of a pianist playing John Lennon’s “Imagine” outside the Bataclan Theatre. I watched, and I lost it. (And I don’t even much like “Imagine.”) And then I remembered the words Sonny Rollins spoke to an audience on September 15, 2001:
“Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we are here tonight, and we must remember that music is the — one of the beautiful things of life. So we have to try to keep the music alive some kind of way. And maybe music can help. I don’t know, but we have to try something these days, right?”And then I remembered that the one thing I have found helpful in times of tragedy is music. Maybe music can help.
Without a Song: The 9/11 Concert (Milestone Records, 2005).
[The post title is no mistake. It’s meant as a suggestion to seek out something helpful. I’m listening to Miles Davis, Anita O’Day, and Steve Lacy, who for many years made his home in Paris.]
comments: 5
Thank you for this amazing quote. I have sent it to many people too.
And thanks to Sonny Rollins. :)
Rollins, by the way, was in his apartment in lower Manhattan on September 11. He saw the second tower fall.
Wow.
It’s quite a story (in the liner notes for the CD). He was evacuated by the National Guard the next day. His wife encouraged him to not cancel the concert, in Boston.
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