Jazz as an Analogy for Wisdom

All great jazz musicians have at least three things in common: (1) they have gone into the practice room and learned and internalized all the scales, which are simply organized sequences of notes, until they can play them forward and backward; (2) they have put in the time to learn all the standard jazz songs (in jazz parlance, they’ve “learned the book”); and (3) they can play every one of those standards in any key. “Oh, you want me to play Duke Ellington’s ‘Take the A Train’ in C?” No problem! “How ’bout we play ‘A Night in Tunisia’ in D?” You got it.

“Hey, man, you good with…