music interrupts my writing. Peter Conradin is listening to a Charles Mingus recording of the 50s. A particular passage has caught my attention, a passage of great intensity and freedom in the calm, almost earthy sweep of its slow rhythm. In the pulse of that rhythm, the tenor saxophone speaks in warm and rough and leisurely tones that I almost understand-word by word. Booker Erwin, the sound of his horn hard and compressed, shrill but not brittle , porous despite the density ; dry pizzicatos in Mingus’s bass; no erotic, greasy “groove” that seeks to disarm and conquer. The music, thus heard, might give the impression of sounding stiff. But it isn’t. it’s wonderful. Incredibly beautiful, my son and I say, almost in unison, as we look at each other. I listen. The music draws me in. It is a space. Colorful and sensual, with depth and movement. I am inside it. For a moment, nothing else exists.