by Shaun Usher
I am 10 and have been surrounded by and listened to your music as long as I can remember. I saw you in Hobart in January 2017 and I’ll be there again to see you in January 2019. None of my friends listen to anything cool, interesting or beautiful. How will having your music in my life so early on affect me, and have you got any advice for me?
THE LETTER
Dear Ptolemy,
I think I may have already answered your question at the In Conversations in Hobart – if you’re the little blonde kid, who was sitting on the right side of the hall. I can’t remember exactly what I replied, but I thought more about the question after the show, and I remember wishing I had answered it better.
Perhaps, this is what I should have said. Listening to Bad Seeds music at your age is like having a secret knowledge. When I was about your age I had a secret knowledge too. My eldest brother, Tim, used to listen to a lot of very strange and obscure music and he passed this knowledge on to me. Back then I lived in a rural city in Victoria and it seemed to me that nobody my age listened to the music my brother played to me. As far as I could tell they all listened to a whole lot of shit. It was like I carried a secret around inside me, a special knowledge about the world that my friends didn’t have. It was a secret power. I carried this secret power with me all through my kid-years until I went to a school in Melbourne, where I met three or four other people who also had this special knowledge – this secret power. These people became my best friends and we went on to form a band and tried, in our way, to take this knowledge and pass it on to the world.
This secret knowledge you have is a strength that lives only inside certain people. It is a strength that will inspire you to do wondrous things – like write stories, or draw pictures, or build rockets that fly to Mars. It will give you the courage to take on anything that the world might put in front of you. It’s a wild power that can be of untold value to the world. Your name, Ptolemy, is a warrior’s name. A boy full of inspiration with a warrior’s name! The world is waiting for you. Blow ’em away, kid.
Love, Nick.
LETTER 30
THE CREATIVE URGE
John Coltrane to Don DeMichael
2 June 1962
As a saxophonist, bandleader and composer, John Coltrane will forever remain a giant in the world of jazz, a community that owes so much to his innovative, instantly recognisable sound. Born in 1926 in North Carolina, it was a stint in the Miles Davis band in the 1950s that forced people to take notice of his talents, but it was his solo releases – including his 1960 masterpiece, Giant Steps, that truly thrust him into the spotlight and etched his name into the very fabric of jazz history. Two years after the release of Giant Steps, Coltrane was sent, by the editor-in-chief of Downbeat magazine Don DeMichael, a copy of Music and Imagination, a book containing a series of lectures delivered by composer Aaron Copland at Harvard University in 1951. This letter was Coltrane’s response.
THE LETTER
June 2, 1962
Dear Don,
Many thanks for sending Aaron Copland’s fine book, “Music and Imagination.” I found it historically revealing and on the whole, quite informative. However, I do not feel that all of his tenets are entirely essential or applicable to the “jazz” musician. This book seems to be written more for the American classical or semi-classical composer who has the problem, as Copland sees it, of not finding himself an integral part of the musical community, or having difficulty in finding a positive philosophy or justification for his art. The “jazz” musician (You can have this term alog with several other that have been foisted upon us.) does not have this problem at all.
We have absolutely no reason to worry about lack of positive and affirmative philosophy. It’s built in us. The phrasing, the sound of the music attest this fact. We are naturally endowed with it. You can believe all of us would have perished long ago if this were not so. As to community, the whole face of the globe is our community. You see, it is really easy for us to create. We are born with this feeling that just comes out no matter what conditions exist. Otherwise, how could our founding fathers have produced this music in the first place when they surely found themselves (as many of us do today) existing in hostile communities when there was everything to fear and damn few to trust. Any music which could grow and propagate itself as our music has, must have a hell of an affirmative belief inherent in it. Any person who claims to doubt this, or claims to believe that the exponents of our music of freedom are not guided by this same entity, is either prejudiced, musically sterile, just plain stupid or scheming. Believe me, Don, we all know that this word which so many seem to fear today, “Freedom,” has a hell of a lot to do with this music.
You know, Don, I was reading a book on the life of Van Gogh today, and I had to pause and think of that wonderful and persistent force – the creative urge. The creative urge was in this man who found himself so much at odds with the world he lived in, and in spite of all the adversity, frustrations, rejections and so forth – beautiful and living art came forth abundantly . . . if only he could be here today. Truth is indestructible. It seems history shows (and it’s the same way today) that the innovator is more often than not met with some degree of condemnation; usually according to the degree of his departure from the prevailing modes of expression or what have you. Change is always so hard to accept. We also see that these innovators always seek to revitalize, extend and reconstruct the status quo in their given fields, wherever it is needed. Quite often they are the rejects, outcasts, sub-citizens, etc. of the very societies to which they bring so much sustenance. Often they are people who endure great personal tragedy in their lives. Whatever the case, whether accepted or rejected, rich or poor, they are forever guided by that great and eternal constant – the creative urge. Let us cherish it and give all praise to God. Thank you and best wishes to all.
Sincerely,
John Coltrane
‘WE ARE BORN WITH THIS FEELING THAT JUST COMES OUT NO MATTER WHAT CONDITIONS EXIST.’
– John Coltrane
PERMISSION CREDITS
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologises for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.
LETTER 1 Copyright © Mindless Records, LLC, 2010. Extracted from Life by Keith Richards (Published in 2010 by Weidenfeld & Nicholson) / Reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Group Ltd, on behalf of Keith Richards / From Life by Keith Richards, copyright © 2010. Reprinted by permission of Little, Brown and Company, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
LETTER 4 Copyright © 2016, Leonard Cohen, used by permission of The Wylie Agency (UK) Limited.
LETTER 5 Reprinted by kind permission of Mark Taubert.
LETTER 7 Reprinted by kind permission of Ms. Hammond and Mr. Taylor, grandchildren of Florence Price. Letter is located in the Library of Congress, Music Division, Serge Koussevitzky Archive.
LETTER 8 An open letter to Miles Davis by Charles Mingus November 30, 1955 Downbeat Magazine.
LETTER 9 Reprinted by kind permission of Billy Altman literary executor of the Estate of Lester Bangs.
LETTER 12 ©Yoko Ono Lennon – Used by permission/all rights reserved.
LETTER 14 Reproduced by kind permission of Yo-Yo Ma.
LETTER 16 Reprinted by kind permission of Roger Taylor.
LETTER 18 Teo Macero Collection, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
LETTER 19 Reprinted with kind permission of Angélique Kidjo, Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.
LETTER 21 Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd © (2005) (Rik Mayall).
LETTER 22 Reprinted by kind permission of Kim Gordon.
LETTER 24 Reprinted with kind permission of Jon M. Chu.
LETTER 25 Tom Waits Letter, © 2002, Tom Waits. Courtesy of Jalma Music. Used By
Permission. All Rights Reserved.
LETTER 26 Reprinted with permission of Canongate Books Ltd. Copyright © 2000 David Katz. With thanks to Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry.
LETTER 28 Reprinted with kind permission of Dr. Steven Schlozman.
LETTER 29 Nick Cave on The Red Hand Files reproduced by kind permission of Nick Cave.
LETTER 30 © Jowcel Music, LLC. Used by Permission / All Rights Reserved.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It requires a dedicated team of incredibly patient people to bring the Letters of Note books to life, and this page serves as a heartfelt thank you to every single one of them, beginning with my wife, Karina – not just for kickstarting my obsession with letters all those years ago, but for working with me as Permissions Editor, a vital and complex role. Special mention, also, to my excellent editor at Canongate Books, Hannah Knowles, who has somehow managed to stay focused despite the problems I have continued to throw her way.
Equally sincere thanks to all of the following: the one and only Jamie Byng, whose vision and enthusiasm for this series has proven invaluable; all at Canongate Books, including but not limited to Rafi Romaya, Kate Gibb,Vicki Rutherford and Leila Cruickshank; my dear family at Letters Live: Jamie,Adam Ackland, Benedict Cumberbatch, Aimie Sullivan, Amelia Richards and Nick Allott; my agent, Caroline Michel, and everyone else at Peters, Fraser & Dunlop; the many illustrators who have worked on the beautiful covers in this series; the talented performers who have lent their stunning voices not just to Letters Live, but also to the Letters of Note audiobooks; Patti Pirooz; every single archivist and librarian in the world; everyone at Unbound; the team at the Wylie Agency for their assistance and understanding; my foreign publishers for their continued support; and, crucially, my family, for putting up with me during this process.
Finally, and most importantly, thank you to all of the letter writers whose words feature in these books.
Compulsive collections of the world’s most entertaining, inspiring and powerful letters, curated by the founder of the global phenomenon lettersofnote.com
