I saw a concert on Public TV tonight. It was one of those recycled Great Performances they use to plug the station and solicit contributions with the usual dreadful pledge break people they round up to emcee these things. The artist was James Taylor.

Taylor performed solo, on acoustic guitar, with only a pianist assisting on some numbers. The program consisted of a roughly equal mix of his old standards and some new material. There were few props, just some film clips illustrating his songs and anecdotes, and an outrageous contraption of pulleys, hammers and wheels which provided percussion on one of the tunes. Between songs, he kept up a running patter of jokes and homespun observations which seamlessly tied the whole thing together. The venue was the grand old restored Colonial Theater in the Berkeshires, his home. I had the impression the audience was composed primarily of his neighbors...he exhibited a sense of place and an affection for that landscape and those people that showed through and permeated the entire performance. His wife and children were in the audience. The show had that feeling of informality and spontaneity that is usually the mark of a meticulous craftsman in his prime, but no less genuine and authentic.

Taylor has been around since the sixties, the quintessential singer-songwriter, and it shows. No longer the striking young man on the cover of "Sweet Baby James", he is now a balding and greying older man, still trim and fit, but certainly not the young rebel of his early days. He dressed simply and conventionally, chambray shirt and slacks. His guitar work was precise and melodic, his voice strong and clear, his lyrics simple yet profound; gentleness, wit and decency radiate from his face; a spirit at peace with himself, with his family, his community and his work: musician, performer, humorist, neighbor. I don't think I've ever beheld a man so obviously intelligent and simultaneously so much at home in the world.

Sure, I know you can't really read an artist's soul in his art, the two are separate. And I know some of his history, too; he has had to stare down the fire and rain that often haunts us all. But the impression was undeniable; as he played and sang there was a connection with the audience, there was no doubt they adored him and he was tearing his heart out and offering it to them. Artist and audience fed off each other to form something new, something irresistable. I experienced a twinge of envy, this was human communication at it's most subtle and complex level. I have always wanted to do that but I have never come close. I would give up everything I know, everything I've been. I know the stars by name, I have studied the mysteries of the Universe, I can take a ship anywhere on the planet with water deep enough to float it, but I would give it all up to be able to do what James Taylor pulled off. It was extremely entertaining but it was also a very humbling experience. This is very hard work, it takes talent, study, and long experience to do it right. But this is what a truly advanced and developed human brain and heart is capable of, even more so than astrophysics or quantum mechnanics. There is a truly vast universe in each human spirit, and an infinite multiverse in the human family. We are free, and perhaps even obligated, to explore this immensity. This is why we are here.