I have to admit to still being a little intimidated by Jazz music. It's like standing in front of an abstract painting where your eye doesn't even know where to start looking in order to form an impression. With art I've been able to train my eye not to look for an "entrance" into the work and try to let the whole speak at once in an attempt to assimilate the artist's message. In some ways you have to start on an instinctive level, and evolve into rational thought gradually.

While it's one thing to be able to do that with your eye, to do the same thing aurally feels much harder to me. Part of the reason is that my ear is not as sophisticated as my eye. I've had very little music training and while I'm able to distinguish notes and tunes etc, I lack the ability to recreate what I hear. This makes me feel insecure when it comes to my abilities to appreciate the music to it's fullest. It feels like I'm living the adage those who can't play teach, and those who can't teach, critique.

But I've never interpreted that to be a literal reference to someone's ability, more of a state of mind. When I hear that saying I always get the image of some bitter, failed actor, musician, or author sitting behind a typewriter thinking of ways to take revenge on those who have been able to succeed where he or she failed. Since the people whose work I review in these instances usually leave me amazed at the scope of their imaginations and the breadth of their talent, I know I don't fall into that category.

So, when I hear a disc like the most recent one released by Keefe Jackson, Keefe Jackson's Project Project: Just Like This on Delmark Records I take a deep breath, and dive in without trying to think about it. I don't know enough technically about what he and his fellows are doing to analyze it from that perspective, but at least I can give an honest emotional opinion.

Sometimes that means, of course, that my first impression of the music is going to be the strongest, and in this case what I felt was that the mind behind these compositions has a great sense of humour. The first track on Just Like This is called "Dragon Fly" and it begins with two sputtering trombones emulating the spasmodic motions of dragon fly wings. The song gradually opens up to include all twelve members of Project Project, as they create a wonderful homage to the flight of a dragonfly.