generosity

I'm attracted by the theme of generosity, perhaps because it doesn't come naturally to me. I'm the kid who hid his bag of sweets under a pillow when a friend came round unexpectedly. It's taken me more than half a lifetime to realise that giving not hoarding leads to flourishing. And I still don't 'get it' sometimes.

When I need to open up more, I think of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. Both starting off without much formal musical education, but learning along the way, as people taught them on the job.

Armstrong, thrown into the Colored Waifs' Home for firing a borrowed revolver into the air at new year, learns the trumpet and becomes the greatest trumpeter ever.

Ellington, the freelance sign painter, starts gigging in his teens and pours forth a torrent of musical creativity over a distinguished lifetime.

They epitomise for me generous musical creativity. Let's do likewise.