John Coltrane and Louis Armstrong found themselves seated on a park bench overlooking a city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Music drifted through the air from every direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
None of the musicians were visible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ARMSTRONG:<\/strong> That’s a funny thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n COLTRANE:<\/strong> What is?<\/p>\n\n\n\n ARMSTRONG:<\/strong> All that music… and I don’t see anybody making it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Coltrane listened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n COLTRANE:<\/strong> They tell me machines compose now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ARMSTRONG:<\/strong> Compose?<\/p>\n\n\n\n COLTRANE:<\/strong> Songs. Symphonies. Jazz. Country. They imitate almost anyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Louis whistled softly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ARMSTRONG:<\/strong> Well, that’s one talented typewriter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They laughed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A melody floated past that sounded uncannily like a forgotten standard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ARMSTRONG:<\/strong> It’s not bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n COLTRANE:<\/strong> No.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ARMSTRONG:<\/strong> That’s almost the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n COLTRANE:<\/strong> Why do you say that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n ARMSTRONG:<\/strong> Because music’s always been more than sounding good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n COLTRANE:<\/strong> What else is it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n ARMSTRONG:<\/strong> Somebody standing in front of you saying, “This is how I survived.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Coltrane nodded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n COLTRANE:<\/strong> I spent years trying to reach something beyond technique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ARMSTRONG:<\/strong> Everybody remembers your solos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n COLTRANE:<\/strong> They shouldn’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ARMSTRONG:<\/strong> No?<\/p>\n\n\n\n COLTRANE:<\/strong> They should remember the search.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Louis smiled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ARMSTRONG:<\/strong> You always were the philosopher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n COLTRANE:<\/strong> I wasn’t searching for new notes. I was searching for a different way of being alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A train passed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Its rhythm reminded them both of a shuffle beat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ARMSTRONG:<\/strong> You know what made jazz different?<\/p>\n\n\n\n COLTRANE:<\/strong> Tell me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ARMSTRONG:<\/strong> We had to answer each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you played something surprising, I had to respond before the moment disappeared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You couldn’t pause the universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n COLTRANE:<\/strong> Improvisation is responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ARMSTRONG:<\/strong> Exactly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Can a machine feel responsible?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Coltrane looked toward the skyline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n COLTRANE:<\/strong> Perhaps it can imitate responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ARMSTRONG:<\/strong> That’s like imitating hunger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can describe it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can’t skip lunch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They both laughed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nearby, a teenager proudly announced his computer had written five hundred songs that week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ARMSTRONG:<\/strong> Five hundred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n COLTRANE:<\/strong> Quantity has become inexpensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ARMSTRONG:<\/strong> Which makes attention expensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Coltrane smiled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n COLTRANE:<\/strong> That’s beautifully said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another piece of machine-generated music began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perfect intonation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perfect balance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perfect production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Neither spoke until it ended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n COLTRANE:<\/strong> Do you know what I missed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n ARMSTRONG:<\/strong> Tell me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n COLTRANE:<\/strong> Hesitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ARMSTRONG:<\/strong> Hesitation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n COLTRANE:<\/strong> The moment when a musician wonders whether to leap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The uncertainty before conviction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That’s where personality often lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Louis nodded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ARMSTRONG:<\/strong> I used to crack notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lord knows I cracked plenty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes the crack was the whole story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n People heard me reaching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Coltrane closed his eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n COLTRANE:<\/strong> Jazz has always loved the sound of someone becoming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not simply being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A machine may arrive fully formed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A human being arrives unfinished every night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A young saxophonist approached.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Mr. Armstrong,” he asked, “Mr. Coltrane… should we be afraid of these machines?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Louis looked at John.<\/p>\n\n\n\n John looked at Louis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally Louis answered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ARMSTRONG:<\/strong> Don’t compete with the machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Compete with your own fear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Coltrane continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n COLTRANE:<\/strong> If the machine can produce a million notes, then your task is no longer to produce notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is to produce necessity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The young musician frowned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n YOUNG SAXOPHONIST:<\/strong> Necessity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n COLTRANE:<\/strong> Play only what had to be played because you lived the life that brought you to that note.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No machine can inherit your childhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No machine can mourn your mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No machine can fall in love, lose faith, recover it, or spend twenty years trying to become kinder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It may resemble those experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It cannot remember them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Louis stood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He lifted an imaginary trumpet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ARMSTRONG:<\/strong> Technology changes every generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Folks said microphones would ruin singers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Records would ruin concerts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Television would ruin radio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every invention scares somebody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then he smiled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ARMSTRONG:<\/strong> But every audience, sooner or later, asks the same question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Who’s talking to me?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n He looked around at the invisible speakers filling the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “If the answer is nobody…<\/p>\n\n\n\n the music may be flawless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it’ll always leave one chair at the table empty.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" John Coltrane and Louis Armstrong found themselves seated on a park bench overlooking a city. Music drifted through the air from every direction. None of the musicians were visible. 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