I just met my new landlord, Charles, for the first time. After handing over the monthly rent check and all that, we sat down for a bit at the kitchen table.

Conversations rambled from whether one can teach Creative Writing at all, which one of his other tenants does.
Imagine wondering that with a person from Design, where we hope we can ‘teach’ people to be creative practitioners.

He said he used to manage Professional Boxers for a living. How could this frail looking, diminutive, gentle person possibly make a living doing that, it got me wondering. We were masked up – oh the conversations in these times! But, I could not help but notice that he wore his glasses with one side of the bridge resting on the central axis of his nose. That must have hurt – but he did not rearrange it till much later for sure – for as we ended our chat, the glasses were indeed resting properly.

But then the conversation took another turn, to music, and in particular jazz. That was triggered by me bringing up Ken Burns and his ten-part documentary, which for me was extremely enlightening. Perhaps it should be something I refer to in my Strategic Design courses.

It turns out he, Charles, had just finished an article in which he had criticized Ken Burns – Jazz according to him wasn’t meant to be entertainment, for foot-tapping and universal – it was a language for insiders. Perhaps it was – you can bet that was an interesting discussion.

We talked about a whole bunch of idiosyncratic ways jazz can be in your life, in remote corners of the world.  I should write about me and my affinity for and ignorance of Jazz sometime, but it all began with the Voice of America Jazz Hour, with the inimitable voice of Willis Connover.

It has never made sense to me that more Jazz musicians collaborate with Carnatic musicians than they do with the more improvisational Hindustani. And, so on – we talked of worlds, economies, currencies and languages of various art forms.

Well that opened up another facet – so he knew something about Jazz enough to critique Burns. Well, it turns out, he is a Jazz Pianist, and played with Ornette Coleman, and once refused a job with Sonny Rollins. Now, imagine that!

It made my evening. We promised to have more of these conversations – just like jazz – free flowing – wide ranging, no holds barred, full of surprises and wonderment.

What do we know!