The tune keeps popping up. The way the track goes from nothing, to something will happen. The hiss of the expectant room and three bass notes, held breath of unseen musicians, waiting, waiting.
I studied it back in my little teaching room in the back of the guitar shop so many years ago, approximating the bass line with one hand, reaching over, and tapping chords with my right hand on the fretboard to play the piano chords.
If I go like this, it sort of sounds like it. The bass teacher next door was lukewarm. Good enough for me.
Another era, another season–and the start of actual spring, Holy Saturday in the River City: Running softly under budding pear trees that lined the quiet street, a sudden silver chorus of voices laughing at an outdoor restaurant, like little decorative bells tumbling out of a bowl on some coffee table, bumped by a joke.
Gaining the door, the worn handle cool and reassuring it was still five minutes till closing. The used records sitting, ignored for once. Deals were for the noontime hour. This pressing must be new.
“Got the anniversary copy of Kind of Blue?”
“Yeah, I think we’ve got a few left, but in stereo and mono.”
Oh no. A choice?
I’m usually on the wrong side of grumpy old guys, but that evening in Richmond, it worked.
“I think the mono sounds better” he sniffed.
The record, in a sleeve, in a cover, wrapped in plastic, in another bag, a twenty-five dollar ritual, a tribute to the elders of jazz.
Back along the quiet street, voices at the restaurant subdued now. Back along the wet pavement and sodium vapor lights and into the vast spring night and hours on the road to a house I haven’t set foot in for years. A careful drop of the needle, and the hiss of the expectant room sprang up in the living room I’ll never see again, a lifetime ago.
That was my favorite time to listen to Miles Davis’ So What.
Although…maybe it was yesterday on the dementia ward.
I’ve been telling stories for Alzheimer’s patients, telling them about music and the stars and jazz. Sometimes they fall asleep, sometimes the laugh, sometimes they cuss me out, and once, a lady kept trying to spank me. (Boxing training helped for that. No, silly, no uppercuts, just circling footwork.)
Yesterday afternoon a new audience waited. We heard from ragtime and Louie Armstrong, Duke Ellington and talked about what swing is.
“If I play Johnny Cash like this on my guitar, now that’s not swing. But what about like…so.”
Oh, did we have fun. But it was time to wrap it up. Dinner waited.
“Ladies ‘n gents, thank you for having me by. Life can be tough sometimes, and the world often ugly, so I’d like to bring you a moment of beauty. Here’s Miles Davis playing ‘So What’ from 1959.”
I held the little bluetooth speaker up, and pressed play. The hiss of that invisible, expectant room filled the air.
Paul Chambers and Bill Evans began to weave a spell. Miles Davis, unseen, walked to the pulpit, and at exactly the right time, started his sermon.
The message leapt out of the speaker, hovering over the old folks and the staff, sitting, listening, quiet, receptive.
Then John Coltrane witnessed from his heart.
After a few dozen measures, life returned to normal, but we all went back to our paths the better for it.
So what?
The song answers for itself.
Take a listen. And a moment of beauty and truth.