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First I was born, and for me that was a turning point. Something just clicked, but not right away. I became a toddler, then a child. I was one, then two, three, four, five… In retrospect, it all seems so damned sequential. Were my first sounds musical? Cries, belches, farts; there may have been rhythm in them. For I have become someone who believes there is rhythm in everything, unless it is runny.
Then, so many trips to the emergency room. Ski accidents, bumper car crashes, kitchen chair plunges, all direct hits to my skull. The bloody head, the stitches, the admonitions. Take up an instrument, the doctors say; find a safe hobby. Beneath the reddened gauze, I am listening, weakened and vulnerable, open to suggestion. You might wonder: Were my head lacerations, perhaps, misdirected cries for help? In retrospect, I can say, definitively, no: I was becoming soulful. Year later, as I take an especially passionate solo, the astute listener shares my childhood pain, feels the rubbery nudge from behind, time suspended as my forehead launches toward the cheap plastic rearview mirror, blood suddenly gushing forth. Yes, I have suffered for my art.
Over time, I turn philosophical. A question arises: Which is better – to play beautifully for an audience that is indifferent, even hateful? Or to play horribly, and find the audience deeply moved? Poor, ignorant audiences with their creaturely tastes! Wretched, self-important musicians with their delusions of grandeur! And you ask me to write a bio. What do you want to know: The famous musicians I’ve worked with? The prestigious venues I’ve played? How pitiful.
Now you ask: What keeps me going? My answer: When the stars align, we have bandstand moments that are transcendent. They arrive unexpectedly and depart far too quickly. But during those few exalted minutes, or even seconds, there is complete timelessness; a sense of the infinite. Every note seems perfectly chosen and irreplaceable; among the musicians there is a shared purpose and focus so intense it can be literally dizzying. We experience the trancelike quality of religious revelation, and many jazz artists consider it a spiritual event. No two musicians describe it in the same exact terms, but they can all agree on how it will end: An overworked waiter stumbles, his heaping tray of dishes pitching forward, his arms flailing helplessly. The dishes clatter angrily as they fall, then explode on contact, their ceramic shards a photograph of the shattered moment.
The poor waiter squats miserably over his mess like a defecating dog. As I look over to him, I ‘m so overcome by the sheer humanity of it that my head aches in sympathy. I count off a ballad, slow and tragic, ready to try again.
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