MUSIC AND THE MIND

The power of music is great, as is the mind that creates it. Don Heckman’s article “Playing With the Mind” (July 28) articulates the struggles and promise of trumpeter Tom Harrell with sensitivity.

Schizophrenia is a devastating disorder, with the highly regarded jazz talent having to contend with numerous obstacles in order to marvelously render the music he does. Heckman is able to explain the nuances of how it is this same music that fortunately calms the disease of its worse expression.

In this process, both Harrell and Heckman describe a battle for integration that reassures all of us that creativity transcends disorganization; it can even produce resilience.

MARC D. SKELTON

Clinical Psychologist

Laguna Niguel

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Don Heckman has served not only the jazz community but all of your readers. His article’s analysis of Tom Harrell’s musicianship made this jazz lover anxious to hear him in person. More important, its information on Harrell’s life as a schizophrenic should raise the awareness of the public about a medical-psychological disorder that strikes thousands of young people each year.

Who knows how many talented artists, musicians, choreographers, poets, etc., could express their creativity in productive ways, as Harrell is doing, if they received the proper treatment in a timely fashion, and were given the psychological support as well as the necessary financial assistance to continue treatment?

MILDRED G. MAYNE

Diplomate, Clinical Psychology

Los Angeles

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In 1988, I lived in Santiago, Chile, and played as an amateur in a jazz club there.

There was an alto sax player, whose name I don’t recall, who rarely spoke a word and was incapable of doing anything whatsoever by himself--except play. He played in a New Orleans-style band, sounding for all the world like Frankie Trumbauer. The next evening he played with a modern group, sounding like Charlie Parker, playing Parker’s solos and then improvising his own lines. Utterly amazing.

One night, I called a tune he apparently had not heard (Gerry Mulligan’s “Line for Lyons”) and he joined in after listening to one chorus, playing like, I could swear, Chet Baker had Chet played the alto.

Music is truly a muse like no other, inexplicable and beautiful beyond all other things.

GERRY COLLATZ

Los Angeles