yearlongday

predicted by jonathan t marlowe in 2003, robot jazz has finally arrived!

i don’t know exactly how to explain the way i feel about this development in artificial intelligence. “bitter” and “foolish” come to mind. “foolish” because i secretly witheld the idea of robot jazz for roughly a decade; i’ve auditioned nearly a half-dozen drummers for the purpose of robot jazz recording sessions, but never explicitly described my idea in detail. i never even used the words in the same sentence publicly, fearing my idea would be advanced by someone else.

where my alternative indie-pop albums failed to attract the attention i sought, i was certain my robot jazz project would earn an irrefutable place in music history. but this video, posted at least a year ago, makes it bitterly clear that no one will credit yearlongday or jonathan t marlowe for introducing them to robot jazz; trying desperately to stay ahead of the curve has placed me in the back seat yet again, and if i ever have the privilege of being a footnote in the history of music, it will be as the nikola tesla to its guglielmo marconi.

so, the cat is out of the bag… jonathan t marlowe & yearlongday stepped away from the stage and from the public spotlight to begin transforming our ideas about robot jazz into studio recordings. although it looks like someone else will take the place in music history that i wanted, this is only the first round and i’m not down for the count! while guy hoffman & the g.i.t lab may have spent years working on shimon the jazz robot, it was years after i scrawled “robot jazz” in my music journal; my failure was in sharing the idea, not conceiving it.

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