Last night I saw an extraordinary guitarist called Julian Lage playing with Gary Burton, Scott Colley and Antonio Sanchez at the Blue Note. I had seen him before about 6 years ago but either he was much better this time or I've learned to appreciate him more. His solos were lyrical and complete, his phrasing was exceptional and his sound was pure and penetrating, even in the acoustic mud of the Blue Note. He comes across as some kind of otherworldly, elfin creature who seems to be taking a borderline erotic pleasure in the music, but at the same time he projects a kind of boyish innocence an unself-consciuosness that stops it being uncomfortable. A great player.

The other stand-out was Scott Colley, a killer player I first heard with Tony Williams and then on the great record by Bojan Z., 'Transpacifik'. Huge sound and groove, patient and honest soloing. Antonio Sanchez, who played a monstrous set with Pat Metheny and Christian McBride a few years ago here in Milan, was in cruise control for most of this one since with three harmonic instruments (piano, guitar, vibes), there wasn't much space to do anything else. Always worth watching though.

Teaching-wise, I'm getting rearranged again, this time by Stephen Krashen. He's a downright kind of theorist, like Michael Lewis, with very clear ideas about correct methodology and practice. Basically, he states again and again that explicit knowledge of rules during language learning is at best useless and at worse counterproductive. His approach to learning is to relax, go with the flow and immerse yourself in the language (or whatever subject) you're studying. My experience of learning Italian would seem to back this up. I've never studied a 'rule' - guidelines for correct usage, yes, but a rule, no. If you're surrounded by something all day, every day, and are also motivated, says Krashen, you can't not learn. Who knows. It might be true of language, but it's certainly not true of, say, playing a musical instrument.