Jazz in the dark

I'm not sure how I came to love jazz.

Okay, let me back up a little bit. I'm not sure "love" is the right word. You probably need to understand the basis of this relationship to know what I mean.

I can kinda-sorta trace my musical history back to when I was very small and would borrow my mother's albums - real albums - to play on my record player. If you're too young to know what I'm talking about, let me draw you a picture:

These "albums" predated vinyl. Or maybe they were early vinyl, but having broken one or two, I can tell you they were two pressed layers with a thin piece of paper sealed between. So they weren't light, and they had NO flexibility. If you remember vinyl "boxed sets," you can visualize what I'm talking about, but the records in the paper sleeves that lived inside the box were heavy, clunky things that played at 78RPM, meaning one cut to a side - two, at most. An album might contain as many as 4-6 discs. And one disc probably came close to weighing as much as my whole Eric Clapton boxed set from the early '90s. (Or was it late '80s? I think '90s...)

Mom didn't have a lot of albums. She's a "Depression Baby" - ever frugal. She still buys only what she truly needs, whether the need is physical or spiritual. So I know these albums were precious to her. She had a radio/phonograph - a great, hulking thing that was actually quite compact for the time I first remember it, in the late '50s. It had the speaker in the front, along with the tuning and volume knobs; behind that, the top lifted to allow access to the turntable. [There's a comparable model on eBay, pictured above - get 'em while they last! :-)

When I got old enough to handle them carefully and demonstrated with my own little "kiddie song" 78s and 45s that I could operate the tone arm without dragging, Mother let me take her records to my room sometimes. I would spend hours playing "Begin the Beguine" and "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes," dancing with my imaginary friend, Manny Lee (don't ask - I have NO idea where he came from), and making up stories woven with music.

I took piano lessons in grade school and high school. The piano probably saved my sanity during those grindingly depressing years. I quit lessons at one point, for political and moral reasons (my teacher went off on a racist rant in the middle of a lesson, and I walked out), but I didn't stop playing. I actually majored in music one semester during my first trip to college. Loved applied lessons; hated theory.

I haven't played much in the ensuing years, but music still lives at the center of my existence. There's a radio, stereo, or CD player in almost every room in the house. In recent years, my iPod Shuffle has kept me going through wicked workplace toxicity; I can crank up Janis Joplin to the point where nothing can compete with "Piece of My Heart" and "Mercedes Benz," and the gossip just goes away.

I had my first-ever "contact high" in 1974 at a performance by the Paul Winter Consort on the campus of San Jose State University in San Jose, CA. The joint came down the row, and I obligingly passed it to the next person over without taking a toke - I'd never seen a joint before, up close and personal, and I had no idea what to do with it except pass it on. Turned out I didn't have to do anything. The air on our row was pretty dense, and I misplaced myself somewhere between the smoke and the music and didn't relocate the home planet until sometime the next day. Although truth to tell, when I listen these days to those old PWC records and think about how jazz affects me now, without "enhancement," I think it may have been as much the music as the weed.

Sometime in the '90s, I won a couple of tickets from a local radio station to see Joe Lovano at a little club in Raleigh. By that time, I'd been listening to jazz for years; my favorite way to spend a Sunday morning was playing hooky from church, sewing or writing and listening to Kitty Kinnen, the Sunday morning jazz DJ on my favorite mostly-rock station. Kitty was at the club that night; we chatted briefly between sets. The thing that sticks in my mind, though, is my epiphany.

As I said, I don't know when I really got into jazz. Maybe with Paul Winter; maybe even a couple years before, with Jimmie Spheeris. But I do remember that night, sitting at our table, listening to Joe and watching the percussionist. I love percussion, too; I wanted to play drums at one point in my merrily ADHD past. I love the physical effect, the reach-out-and-grab-you punch, of down-and-dirty percussion at close range. And I remember staring at the shimmering cymbals over the top of my glass of red wine - I only had one - and watching the light dance off the metal and knowing without even thinking (although I heard the words in my head, like a message from the Universe):

Music is a physical entity, and this is what it looks like.

It seemed, in that instant, I could see the sound waves emanating from the cymbals.


I told you that to tell you this:
A few years ago, I sang in a couple or three choirs conducted by Harry Pickens, a brilliant jazz pianist, composer, and educator. He's one of the most fun choirmasters I've ever worked with, and one of the most capable. He can pull a top-flight hour-long performance from a wildly multi-cultural (and multi-lingual) 50+ voice choir with only a handful of rehearsals, and have no one mad at him when it's over. He can fuss out the goof-offs and make them laugh at the same time. It's a true gift from the Universe, that.

Ever since that first choir, I've made a point of going to performances of the Harry Pickens Trio whenever I can. It's not as often as I'd like, lately; the best local venue - the Jazz Factory - shut down a couple years ago, and it's hit or miss since then. One night, I was determined to go to a concert Harry did with Voces Novae at Christ Church Cathedral downtown, but got lost and didn't make it until half an hour after the performance started. I went home rather than distract everyone by opening the street door in the middle of the concert.

But tonight, I got there. Harry and trio played at Second Presbyterian Church in St. Matthews, and in spite of almost being T-boned by a crazy Volvo-driver who ran the stop sign at St. Matthews Avenue and Napanee Road (and continued on oblivious for a couple more blocks - I resisted the temptation to follow and deliver a lecture), I arrived and found a seat before the concert began.

I was rewarded in the first set with several favorites, "What a Wonderful World" and "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" among them. The lights stayed on in the beautiful sanctuary, and I was able to crochet musical prayers into the shawl I'm making for a young friend. (The acoustics, by the way, are unbelievably good at Second Pres. The sanctuary is a good-sized room, but at one point, Harry walked away from the mic while talking, then asked, as an aside, if we could hear him. And we could -- perfectly.)

The second set began with Harry asking who knew about Earth Hour. It happened this evening -- one hour set aside for everyone globally to turn off their lights, as a demonstration that we two-leggeds are smart enough to know how to conserve what we have. (I knew about it from the Lion Brand Yarn weekly newsletter that came in yesterday's e-mail, along with two lovely new free crochet patterns.) And then he said that, except for the ones that were legally required for safety, they were going to turn off the lights and play in the dark for a bit.

The next half-hour was a journey for me. I didn't have to worry about getting sleepy in the dark, because I'd had a good nap this afternoon. (Naps are sacred time. Seriously.) I couldn't crochet, because even after my eyes adjusted, I couldn't see enough to pick up where I'd left off. I can work without looking once I get started, but not right off the bat.

So there we were, suddenly -- just me and my brain, in the dark, us and the music, and nothing to do with our hands. And I realized, I don't do "still."

I do yoga. Once or twice a week, I take my mat and my wobbly self to class and I learn to focus, to zero in on a mantra or a pose as a state of being. I work at just breathing, just being. I learn to redirect my thoughts to non-thoughts. I use those two hours or so a week to turn off the left brain and give the right brain a little time to recuperate, if not heal.

But it's not the same.

No, it wasn't that hard. My right brain is in pretty good shape, especially for one whose owner is so into words. But it was enlightening.

Unlike yoga class, no one directed my attention. There was no voice telling me what to do, how to move, where to focus, what to align. No one instructed me how to keep my balance. There was the music, there was my brain, and there was my brain on music.

It took me a couple minutes to adjust to the fact that crochet was out. You need to understand, I use crochet as a way to pay attention during meetings. If I can occupy my hands, the right brain stands a chance of shutting up long enough to let the left brain absorb the discussion. I've pissed off a few Big Cheeses, crocheting in their meetings, but I assure you they were pissed because I distracted them, not because I wasn't paying attention. They had no way of knowing whether I was paying attention, unless they asked me afterward something about what they said - which they didn't.

But I realized tonight the vast difference between paying attention by making the right brain shut up so the left brain can listen, and paying attention by just letting the right brain do it all. Crochet is a work-around. Not-crochet is work. Not-crochet is true focus. In fact, I think it's what we reach for in yoga class, if we really reach. And I don't think I'd been there before.

Once, sitting there in the dark, the words moved back in. It was right at the end, with "The Shadow of Your Smile." It was one of my favorite songs "Back Then," along with "Windmills of Your Mind" and "Autumn Leaves" and a lot of Jacques Brel - back when I played the piano at 3 a.m. because I couldn't sleep, when adolescent anxiety almost succeeded in pulling me over the edge of the abyss. I still know all the words, and they came back.

But even then, that verbal brain couldn't take over completely. The visual brain was in control. And the image I saw was a skinny girl, sitting at a piano in the middle of the night, knowing her mother was awake and listening and not mad at all at being awakened. A skinny girl with sandy braids and green eyes too big for her narrow face, her long fingers reaching well over an octave, tentatively improvising between the written notes and singing softly the words she'd long since memorized. A skinny, wistful girl who had no idea about being in love, reaching for the emotion of love let go - as envisioned by her three-times-older self, who learned some decades back what letting go feels like for real.

It was a mind movie of the first order. If they gave out Oscars for that category, I think we'd have a good shot.


This isn't much of a concert review. It is a from-the-heart account of where my history with the jazz greats of the 20th century -- Gershwin, Hancock, Porter, and others -- has brought me. And how it feels, at the age of 55-and-a-half, to be transported back four full decades and be glad the music kept me alive so I could be here now.


So, see - "love" is completely inadequate. I love Toll House chocolate chip cookies. I love Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia frozen yogurt. I love Anne Lamott, Barbara Kingsolver, and the Beatles. And Clapton, and Janis. And Dean Martin. On another level, I love my kids and my dogs and my husband - not necessarily in that order. I love my siblings and my mom. Across the Divide, I love my dad and my Uncle Paul. We can keep going deeper if you want.

Or we can just say "love" isn't enough. Jazz doesn't satisfy my emotional self or my intellectual self or even my crochet-brained self. Jazz, as it existed tonight at that ever-alive moment in eternity, doesn't satisfy. Jazz is. Jazz defines. Jazz writes the script, sets the stage, picks the cast, designs the lighting.

Tonight, I saw it again: Jazz, for me, doesn't reflect life. Jazz is a simple, almost tangible form of life. If you turn off the lights, put down the crochet (or the book or the phone), and let it carry you downstream - if you have the nerve, the courage, the daring to let go control of your left brain and allow the gut-level, physical, tangible Music to take over - Jazz is life.

One from the Vault - originally posted August 2, 2008 on MySpace

How I clean house

Day 1: Invite some people over for dinner.

Seriously. There's nothing like the threat of public humiliation to motivate action. The trick is to allow the exact right amount of time. Less than a week, and you won't get it all done. More than a week, and you'll end up putting off starting until it's too late, and you won't get it all done...

Day 2: Inventory.

Walk around the house - all the rooms where anyone might conceivably go, either on purpose or accidentally-on-purpose - with a notepad and pen. (Assuming you can find them. If you can't, take a break, run to the Kroger, and get pens, notepads, some chicken chests, some Laura's Lean beef patties if they're on sale, some olives, some fresh produce that looks good - as long as it's not something you have in the garden, and if you're not sure, use your cell phone to call home and check - and some milk. Oh, and some ice cream, and maybe a six-pack of Goose Island pale ale.) Okay, where was I? Oh, yeah - walking around the house with a notepad and pen.

So walk through every room and carefully list everything - I mean everything - that needs to be done. I mean details. I mean ALL the details. I mean, imagine it's your mother coming over, and your mother always did think you were Domestically Impaired. List everything from mopping the floors and dusting and cleaning counters to swabbing toilets and doing laundry and cleaning your closet (just in case anyone should peek) to organizing the bookshelves and making sure all the thread in your sewing box is sorted by color.

Everything.

Get a bowl of ice cream.

Sit yourself down at the dining room table (after you clear a spot by putting all the kids' stuff on their dining chairs) and start sorting your list into three categories:

• Emergency (i.e., someone will die if this doesn't happen),
  
• Important (really needs to be done if you ever want these particular guests to speak to you again), and
  
• Would Be Nice (no lives or friendships in the balance, but you'd be happy if you could get to it).

Day 3: Start cleaning.

The objective on Day 3 is to beat into submission as many Emergencies as possible. Tackle each one with as much vigor and focus as you can muster, and whomp on it until it's down to the size of Important. Then move to the next one and whomp some more. With luck, some elbow grease, and as long as it hasn't been too long since the last time you invited people over, you could potentially get all the Emergencies down to size on Day 3.

If not, that's what Day 4 is for.

Day 4: Step back, take a deep breath, and reprioritize.

Sit down with a bowl of Cheerios and your list and re-sort. At this point, you'll need to escalate some of your Importants ahead of the former Emergencies - after all, they've had three days to spiral out of control.

Start whomping. You should have the hang of it by now.

Day 5: Don't panic.

You'll look at your list on Day 5 and realize there is no freakin' way in hell you're going to get everything done in time. Reprioritize again, this time marking the things at the bottom of the list for possible delegation, elimination, or restructuration. (Note: This is my blog. I can make up words if I want to. And if I like them, I may use them again. Get used to it.) For example, you may be able to persuade your spouse or some handy offspring to install one of those toddler-proof cabinet-clippy things inside your closet door to throw off snoopy guests. They'll get nervous about getting caught with their fingers inside the door trying to trip the clip, and they'll leave the closet alone.

Then clean some more, until you either run out of steam or run out of focus or run out of Soft Scrub. Or ice cream.

Or Goose Island.

Day 6: Panic.

Seriously, hon. This is going to be an all-nighter. That's why it's better to extend the invitation for Saturday evening rather than Friday. However, if it's for Friday and today is Thursday, you can still handle it. Just plan on taking a quick nap in one of the ladies' room stalls tomorrow afternoon.

First, start early. Use your lunch break to plan the dinner menu and figure out a schedule so you can multi-task. You know, things like, "While meat is marinating, mix salad." And, "Start meat in oven 1 hour before dinner; set timer for 30 minutes and put beans in when it goes off; reset timer for 30 minutes." (Make sure everything that goes in the oven can cook at the same temperature.) Make a shopping list. Then when you get home, work on your cleaning list as long as you can stand it. When you reach the breaking point, break. Go to the Kroger and get everything on your list, plus more ice cream and some Diet Cokes. (And none of that "unleaded" stuff. You're going to need the caffeine!)

Go home, fix a bowl of ice cream and a Diet Coke, and sit down with your list. Reprioritize. If you've applied enough elbow grease and you've been reasonable in your expectations, you'll find all that's left is a couple of Importants, a handful of Would Be Nices, and half a dozen or so potential Scratches.

Get on it. At this point, you can start moving back and forth from Important to Would Be Nice, just for variety. Just make sure you don't cut yourself short on the higher-priority items.

When you don't think you can clean anything else ever again in your life - stop. Take a shower to wake yourself up, then go get another Diet Coke and start pre-cooking. Anything that can be cut up, marinated, mixed, seasoned, and/or refrigerated in advance should be cut up, marinated, mixed, seasoned, and/or refrigerated in advance before you pass out from exhaustion.

Day 7: If this is a Saturday, you're in good shape. Get up around 10 and go for the gold.

However, this being "my way," there's no way it's a Saturday. You wouldn't make it that easy on yourself. So...

Come up with a really good reason you have to leave work an hour or two early. If you have a really good boss, "I have people coming over for dinner and I'm so nervous I could throw up," will work fine. If you don't, get creative. You're smart. You can think of something.

Go home and start the first items on your cooking list. Then go over whatever's not yet checked off on your cleaning list and reprioritize. It's acceptable at this time to start marking things off from the bottom - you can, without guilt, now say, "That ain't happenin'!"

About midway through the cooking list, take a break to set the table. (By the way, if one of the Importants on your list wasn't "wash the table linens and fold them so you don't have to iron them on Friday," then you'd better have put a new tablecloth and napkins on your grocery list.) Work back and forth between cooking and cleaning until about 40 minutes before your guests are due to arrive. (If you're really smart, you've figured the "working back and forth" thing into your to-do list/timetable.) This gives you time to shower, dry your hair, slap on some mascara and lip gloss, and hide whatever clutter you didn't get to yet before the doorbell rings.

Then take some ibuprofen for the aching in your back, your feet, and your head, pour yourself a glass of wine, and sit down and look around at your apparently clean and really quite pretty house! Enjoy it while you can - there will be a mess to clean up after dinner!

(Next time: How I prepare a holiday meal...)