“Getting ideas” is an interesting line of work. It’s not something you can force. To put it crudely, f you wanted someone to build a fence or dig a ditch you could put a gun to their head and you might very well succeed and make them do it. But you can’t put a gun to someone’s head and force them to “get an idea.”

That means you can’t force yourself to get ideas either.

There is still some talk here and there about AI and the impact it will have on the world of art. In my opinion, when it comes down to it, AI will never replace art, and here is why:

Art is a primarily communication—communication between two living beings.

On a more philosophical level, would go even further to say: art is communication between two spiritual beings.

Every time I get into a field of art, my first instinct has always been to find a mentor. A mentor is important if you’re planning to actually make your art available to people in the real world. Because it is not just about the techniques of making good art—it is also about how you package it, how you talk to people about it, how you keep yourself going; and a million other small things that only someone who is truly experienced in the practical business of being an artist could know.

When it comes to music, painting, books—any kind of art, really—some works achieve momentary popularity and then fizzle out like fireworks on the 4th of July. Other works, however, only become MORE popular over time.

Today I would like to discuss some aspects of art that I believe can help an artwork achieve the status of “classic/universal/timeless”:

When you’re starting out with any art form, there are many things you can “stuck” in to the point where you never actually take off. On of those is: you’re trying to put all of your artistic messages and impact into one piece. When I started out with music, it took me several years before I was able to write my first song, after I decided that I wanted to start writing songs. I had been writing poetry since I was about six, so the idea of writing lyrics was not a big problem; it seemed to me that it should not be that big a transition from poems to songs. 

Sometimes people ask me, “how did you get into jazz”?

The path to jazz was not obvious, as I grew up in the 80s in a small town in The Netherlands, about 20 miles east of Amsterdam. There was no jazz radio, either regionally or nationally, so I never really heard of jazz.

We’ve all been hearing about the vast number of ways that AI will supposedly influence our daily lives in the very near future. How vast the changes will be remains to be seen, but the fact that there will be changes seems to be certain.

No one is disputing that technological advances COULD do a lot of good for society. But now it seems that we are entering a whole new phase, a phase where it seems like the human element is almost becoming obsolete in our own world. Or is it?

About a year ago, I was playing around with the Midjourney AI, a website that allows you to generate images from verbal commands. You can say things to it like “Imagine a jazz singer in a dark, smokey lounge.” It then generates four images, which you can make further variations on.

I recently came across a peculiar jazz video on YouTube. It was advertised as “Vintage Retro Jazz Classics,” so I thought I was in for more some nice classics.

Then it struck me that these were all new songs that I had never heard before. And they were pretty good.

Last month, two of our recordings were used in the new ABC primetime TV show "Dr. Odyssey." “He’s A Tramp” was used in episode 2 which aired on October 3, and “Ain’t Misbehavin’” was used in episode 3 which aired on October 10.

Earlier this year, the Jive Aces were in Southern California performing at a swing dance, and we did a couple of songs together, just like old times.

My original song “Under Your Spell” was in the independent film "“Daughter of the Bride” which came out today in select movie theaters in the United States.

Our recording of “Jingle Bells” was used in the episode “Call me Chrismukkah” on the TV show Call Me Kat on Fox today.

Our 2015 Count Basie-inspired recording of “Jingle Bells” was used in the movie “A Christmas Open House” which was released on Discovery+ today.

My original songs “House of Make Believe” and “Under Your Spell” were used in two episodes of The Girl In The Woods which were released on the Peacock streaming channel today.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to The World Stage Art, Education & Performance Gallery in Los Angeles for a concert in honor of my mentor Henry Franklin’s 81st birthday.

Join me in about 45 min at 4.30pm Eastern Time on the WICN 90.5 radio show "Standard Time" with Al Dean.

All of the 140 packages have gone out now to the contributors of my “Renaissance In Blue” album campaign. The album will be released publicly in a few months.

Today I received a phone call from the mayor of Pordenone Alessandro Ciriani and councilman Emanuele Loperfido.