http://blog.nicksieger.com/articles/2006/04/29/jazz-and-creativity en-us 40 do what you love <p>Short bio moment: I am a jazz musician. I have not been actively playing in recent years as my dual life as information economy worker and father have dominated, but the essence of jazz as a form of communication, interaction, problem solving, patterns, repetition, and creativity have remained in the core of who I am. Whenever I&#8217;m having a down-cycle in my life, it always seems like it&#8217;s because I&#8217;ve gotten away from listening to jazz.</p> <p>So, with that as background, imagine you&#8217;re me and go read Garr Reynold&#8217;s recent post on <a href="http://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/2006/04/jazz_and_the_ar.html">Jazz and the art of connecting</a>. Even if you&#8217;re not a jazz lover, many of the quotes there resonate so well with any aspect of a creative profession. My favorite (and Garr&#8217;s):</p> <blockquote> <p>“Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.&#8221; &#8211; Charles Mingus</p> </blockquote> <p>Now, <a href="http://www.37signals.com/svn/archives2/constraints_breed_breakthrough_creativity.php">37 signals</a> may appear to have the recent trademark on &#8220;embracing constraints&#8221; and its relation to creativity, but it sounds like Charles beat them to the punch! Time to go dig around in some jazz biographies again!</p> Sat, 29 Apr 2006 03:43:00 +0000 urn:uuid:343835a4-4080-4207-99d0-cfaaf8778459 Nick Sieger http://blog.nicksieger.com/articles/2006/04/29/jazz-and-creativity random http://blog.nicksieger.com/articles/trackback/4