Michael Jackson RIP

I know it's been more than a week since Michael Jackson passed away, but this is the first time I've gotten the chance to sit down and put my thoughts together. Mostly, it's just sad to lose anyone that young, but most especially to lose someone with that much talent & artistry.

His songs were the soundtrack to most of the jazz classes I ever took. One of my jazz teachers actually was in the video for Beat It and again in the Weird Al parody of it, Eat It. (In Eat It, he was the "gang member" in the white leather jacket with the smiley face & "have a nice day" on the back.)...It's rare that I don't hear one of those songs and it doesn't place me immediately back to whichever dance class where we used that song.

Another one of those "burned forever in my mind" memories from high school was the time when 3 of us decided we had to go get ice cream from a place approximately 30-35 minutes away. The only one of us who had use of a car that night was a friend who could borrow his mom's car -- a small convertible. (Luckily, I'm small enough to fit in the back or it wouldn't have worked.) That friend was in the process of creating a music mix, but the only stuff he'd gotten to so far was 3 old Jackson 5 songs: ABC, I Want You Back, and one other that escapes me at the moment. For 35 minutes out there, and 35 minutes back, we heard those same 3 songs over and over again, top down, singing along...I don't hear any of those 3 songs without thinking of that night.

And who (who was around) can forget the impact of the video of Thriller?! A friend of mine managed to record it and we played it over and over until we managed to break it down, and then we knew it by heart. Yeah, I'll admit it, we were all dancers, so we kinda get a pass, but I'd bet there are tons of others who, if they were being honest, would have to fess up to the same thing & they wouldn't have the excuse that they were dancers.

He was always breaking new ground & and what he did one day would be tweaked & modified and incorporated until 10 years later, there it was at the core of whatever was hot. The "heartbeat" in today's hip hop? Take a look at this video of Dirty Diana and you'll see it developping:



And, yes, as a dancer, I know that the Moonwalk came directly from Bill Bailey:


but you gotta admit, MJ made it his own and it grew from there. And, I think that's really the saddest thing -- that we'll never know what he would have done next or when that next iconic thing would have appeared.