Hail Of A Day

I have never considered myself a huge jazz fan, not because I don’t like the music. It’s just intimidating.
Especially, since I’ve become a musician myself over the years. And by musician, I mean the 3 or 4 chords I know on the guitar. Jazz is like dinner with an Oxford professor in a 5-Star restaurant, and I have shown up to dinner with flip-flops, jeans, and a National Inquirer rolled up under my arm.

Last night, while in New York, I was privileged to visit the world’s, arguably, most famous Jazz Club, Birdland Jazz club video. I sat on the stool at the bar and listened to a virtuoso, Regina Carter, as she and her 5 piece ensemble gave me a proverbial lesson in REAL music. From note one, they owned the stage and everyone in the room. What a crowd the jazz scene is! Everyone is sipping their scotches, tapping their foot, thoroughly paying attention to the stage, and soaking it all in. Black, white, Asian, old, young. Everyone was there for one thing: music, pure music. There were no calls for favorites. Everyone there is there to hear something new, and that’s what Jazz really offers.

It’s a study in chaos. Chaos that can come on as subtle as a breath of wind on a dandelion or a strike of lightning to a redwood. Jazz musicians are jazz musicians because they love this chaos. They thrive in it. The dichotomy of a jazz musician is that they can and are often the most humble, predictable looking people, but when the music starts they are the gods of chaos, evoking tears of awe, and piercing you with a pain you can feel. The mastery one has to have of their instrument to possess this ability is part talent and part obsession, but all work. They are the perpetual student, never satisfied to be on top.

I watched as one man came in and just sat at the edge of the stage. Clearly he knew the musicians. He sat there and reverently ate his meal and closed his eyes nearly the whole time, letting the music wash over him as if he was trying to see the music without his eyes.

So I have endeavored to study jazz more. I realized last night that all come to Jazz with a feeling that they have more to learn than they will ever learn. Just consider me a new fish in a big ocean.