Better Late Than Never Department: Playing Jazz in Public

You can ask anyone—I'm not one of these people that talks about living your dreams or following your bliss or any of that. Many of the dreams we dream are stupid dreams that will never come true, and much of the bliss we follow is a butterfly bliss that will dance ahead of us, effortlessly eluding our childish grasp, until we wise up enough to realize that bliss comes when it comes and doesn't much like pursuit, actually.

And yet.

And yet.

A few decades ago, a friend came back from his freshperson year at college with a bunch of jazz records. We were both crazy about music, and this was a revelation. I listened and listened and listened, and by the time I was 20 I was convinced I had to learn jazz piano. And I put my best effort into it. I took lessons and listened and practiced and studied and when I got out of college I joined commercial bands so I could justify practicing more. The drummer in the first band was the friend who got me hooked in the first place. I did that for three years. But in the end I saw that I wasn't ever going to be the jazz pianist I wanted to be. And I didn't like the professional musician life, the Top 40, the clubs that smelled like stale beer and cigarettes when you took your gear in the afternoon before the job. Everyone wanted to believe that I loved it, because that's the mythology, but actually I didn't love it. "I play bad music for bad money for bad people," I would tell them. And at the end of three years in the business, I quit the whole thing.

I played with people every now and then, but after a while I discovered the newspaper business, and then magazines, and photography too, and that suited me better, really. I still had the piano, but I played only now and then, sometimes only once every couple of months. And that went on for, well, a few decades. The vinyl albums sunk further and further back in the closet, and music mattered less and less.
 
And then a few years ago I went to a party and ran into a guy I had worked for years before. We got friendly, and it turned out he had been a bass player with a successful rock band in the 80s, and he was interested in playing jazz now and then. Just casually, no big deal. So why not? We got together a couple of times, enjoyed it, made it a regular thing. We started playing for parties he and his wife had. We started thinking more seriously about it, researching tunes we wanted to play, talking about technique, inviting other musician friends to sit in.

Then a drummer came by to play with us, and we liked him and it seemed mutual, so that became a regular thing. The drummer started egging us on to play for the public, and we started considering the idea, not without some trepidation. And then the bass player sagely decided that the way to make jazz connect with the public was to have a singer. So he advertised on Craigslist, and got an answer, and this nice person who sang very well and was good at lining up jobs started singing with us.

And then she signed us up for a set at a little ad-hoc jazz festival in Philadelphia.

This set me off on months of feverish practice. It seemed far off when it first was arranged. Surely, I thought, I could bootstrap myself to the point where the one set would be no big deal. But we all have demons, don't we? I've discovered that. Every single person I've ever met is walking around with demons inside. My own demons said I wasn't good enough and would have stage fright that would make this a disaster and who did I think I was, anyway, wanting to play jazz in public.

I told the demons they could take a flying, basically. I practiced and practiced. I went to open-mike events and played. I was nearly hallucinating with nervousness the first time, somewhat better the next, a little better the next.

And then the big day.

Was I nervous, when the time came? Yes, folks, I was nervous. I played very tentatively, until the end, when we played the big rousing fast number. By then I knew it was in the bag, so I played aggressively for that one last tune. And that was as good as it could have been. I couldn't have played with masterful confidence this first time, it simply wasn't a realistic goal. But I kept it together, played pretty much the right chords at the right times, held my own. It wasn't a disaster. It was actually, at times, a lot of fun. I'd grin at the other players, making a point of enjoying the whole thing.I was making music, pretty good music, with my friends. Occasionally I would risk a glimpse at the audience, especially when they were clapping. It was like looking down when you're climbing a mountain, but looking down is where the thrill comes from.

So finally we hit the last big chord for the finish, and we were done. No humiliation, no disaster. Just a sense of jumping a big hurdle, and landing safely. "I'll take that," I said to the drummer, as I stood up. And then I packed up my gear, just like back in the day, and went and got a free beer that pretty much amounted to my pay for the occasion, and sat and listened to another band play. They were really good. I enjoyed their music. But I also enjoyed the idea that I'd taken a risk, but done the work beforehand and maintained the right attitudes and handled the fear well enough. I'd played piano in a jazz trio for the better part of an hour, in front of an audience, and lived to tell the tale. It wasn't perfect. But I hadn't let my friends down. And that matters, folks. That matters.

So we'll build on this. I'll play jazz in public more, and better. That youthful dream will get fulfilled, if it be Allah's will. Better late than never, no doubt about it.

I don't know what this means about dreams in general. But I know one thing—if you want to play an instrument, or learn to draw or paint, or do anything at all, if there's anything that you think you could care about, give it some effort. And give it some time. Maybe you'll only learn how hard it is to do that particular thing. At the very least, that makes you appreciate people who are accomplished in the field. But maybe you'll get somewhere yourself. You won't know if you don't try. I can tell you that it feels good, getting something accomplished. Getting the work done, playing your parts, not letting your friends down. Putting a little more good music out there. Brightening people's afternoon on a hot day in the city. I can remember, you know, the  days so long ago when the conviction came on me more and more that I wanted to play jazz on the piano. And yesterday, I did. It was a long time coming, but it was worth the wait.