127: Time to do the work
RIP David Sanborn / Co-Intelligence Book Club! / AI and Bacon
Several times a year a particular song gets stuck in my head. It’s one of the weirdest collaborations in music history—featuring the king of funk Bootsy Collins, the composer and pianist Carla Bley, jazz bassist Steve Swallow, and David Sanborn’s Night Music Band, including guitarist Hiram Bullock. The song is called “Healing Power.”
The soloing by Swallow, Bullock and Sanborn is tremendous.
But you have to watch the intro.
Remember, this is on national TV back when they thought there were rules.
Bootsy: “…so we was putting the LSD and the acid in malts, and on our fries… But it’s okay now, we’re still here.”
Sanborn: 😳
A few years ago my wife and I got to see Sanborn play at the Dakota in Minneapolis, and he graciously hung out after. I asked him about the Bootsy interview. “Oh man, I wasn’t worried about the network! No, you see—my mom was in the audience for that show!”
RIP David Sanborn.
He made so much incredible music with so many people. But it’s the few, oddball years of hosting and producing Night Music that I’ll remember. Name another music show putting Conway Twitty, the Kronos Quartet, the Residents and Ethiopian pop singer Aster Aweke on the same episode. Or Sonny Rollins with Leonard Cohen and Was Not Was. Sanborn played “I Want to Be Your Dog” with Sonic Youth (in their first national TV appearance)—on the same bill including the Indigo Girls, Daniel Lanois, Marc Ribot, Evan Curie, and Diamanda Galas. This in-depth review does Night Music justice.
We need more of that courageous, inventive collaboration in the world.
AI and Bacon
Speaking of collaborations: I’ll be co-hosting “The State of AI in Social Media Marketing” for Social Media Breakfast on Friday, June 21 starting at 8:00 a.m. with Ryan Peña. If you like bacon, creativity and AI, please register to join us. We’ll aim to provoke, incite and entertain.
It’s time for a Co-Intelligence Book Club!
Have you finished reading Wharton Professor Ethan Mollick’s book Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI? I have and I’d love to talk about it with fellow readers.
🤖📕 Wednesday, May 29 at 2:00 p.m. CST via Zoom - Click to Register and Join the Conversation
I’m particularly curious what you’ve made of Mollick’s assertions and recommendations, i.e. Treat AI like a human; or the need to invest 10 hours; or Endless Interns. How has he described risks and literacy—and to what depth or degree?
Looking forward to discussing it all with you next week!
So much has changed in 12 months, except human nature
Yesterday I had the opportunity to talk about AI and art with Kelly Groehler, CEO of Alice Riot, and host Chris Farrell on Minnesota Public Radio. The three of us spoke on the same topic a year ago, and it was nice to revisit the scene.
LISTEN HERE
In the last 12 months we’ve shifted from single-task to multi-modal LLMs (ChatGPT 4o or Google’s Gemini for example), both Meta and OpenAI have made access to industry-leading AI capability free to billions, and while generative image quality has risen dramatically, rates of hallucinations have begun to decline.
It’s a wonderful time to be professionally curious, to invest a dozen hours in the (free!) tools to learn how they can enhance your work, passions, and communities. But it feels like most people remain on the sidelines, clinging to negative AI stereotypes they learned consuming fiction. One of the callers remarked, “I’m surprised by everyone’s positive tone.”
I’m a glass more-than-half-full person on this issue. And I think I understand the risks and concerns—but I sure hope those hesitations don’t preclude an ability and willingness to comprehend beyond the clickbait headlines.
The chart above illustrates our reality. And it’s daunting! But it can also be energizing. It’s a choice.
As Kelly put in during our conversation (and I’m paraphrasing): The gallerists, record labels and publishers are not going to do the artist’s work for them this time. If artists want to succeed amidst an age of AI, they must get involved in it firsthand. No one else will do the hard work for you.
Last but not least, I took last week off, and have been organizing final projects from my two MCAD classes. I’ll begin sharing final projects next week.