August 21, 2012: Post 588 (2012 Day 234)

August 21, 2012

Daily Comment

"It's all jazz!" said the  white-haired, cowboy boot-wearing older guy drinking his PBR next to me at the bar. I was waiting to take my turn jamming with I-didn't-have-any-idea-who. Nothing I was hearing, or had ever heard at this weekly Wednesday-night open jam, made me think of jazz. The instrumentation was wrong, and the songs were covers: mostly blues, some rock, maybe a little R&B, once in a while. No jazz.

I asked him what he meant.

He said, "What is jazz? To me, it is a performance where a group of musicians state a theme, then improvise, make up something based on that theme. The group supports the soloist, meaning they spontaneously make up parts that sound good with what the soloist is doing, and they follow the soloist wherever he leads. At least that's when it's good."

But, I asked him, what about the current group - a group of guys playing Grateful Dead covers - is like jazz? Maybe you think they didn't, but I can hear that they rehearsed their performance. They're trying to copy someone else's improvisation.

"Same thing. There's no rule that says it isn't jazz if you play the same thing twice. That's the thing people don't understand about jazz, about jazz performance. There are set pieces. And, in some cases, there are players who decide they like what they improvised enough to come back to it in other performances. They may have felt it was just perfect for that piece of music, or it connected well to the audience (the feedback when that happens is very addictive). You go back to that  part over and over, because it feels good."

"And that's just like life. Life is jazz. You make it up as you go. And, whatever you do, you're never really alone doing it. You're always putting things out there in the hope that someone else will harmonize, someone else will take it and extend it, someone else will add something and make it new and fresh - and you are playing that same role for all the people you come across in this life."

"It is all made up as it's needed. Yes, we prepare, but the unexpected comes our way a lot, we're surprised, and then we have to decide how we're going to deal with that. Harmonize? Unison? Are we going to take it and run with it, extend it, turn it in a new direction, or just let it go, unaccompanied? Those are the same decisions you make when you're playing jazz."

"If it works, we'll go back. If it doesn't work, we'll learn from it, and try again. It's all jazz."

It all resonated with me. I  felt like I had heard a big idea. 

From that point onwards, my thinking about my own musical performance changed. It stopped being about showing off, trying to show other bass players, other musicians, how good I was (or not). Instead, I thought about how what I did supported the music being made right then and there, and judged how well I played not by what happened in the bass part, but how the song came out.

The conversation took place more than 20 years ago, circa 1991, at the Berkeley Cafe in Raleigh, North Carolina. I'm quoting from memory; so the words might not be exact, but the ideas are. 

That is when I dedicated myself to being an ensemble player, and gave up my rather immature, unformed and long-held idea of finding myself, somehow, a lead actor in a Beatles movie. It wasn't a considered decision - it wasn't accompanied by analysis or discussion.

My name was called, and, as I picked up my bass, I turned to the guy and said, "I think you're really on to something there."

After my set, back at the bar, I told him I thought he was really on to something. He looked at me like he didn't know what I was talking about. "Well, really, it's all blues," he said.

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Food and Diet Section

Today's Weight:        205.0 lbs 
Yesterday's Weight:    204.4 lbs  
Day Net Loss/Gain:     + 0.6 lbs

Diet Comment:

OK - yesterday, I went shopping while I was hungry, and bought a rather large quantity of turkey jerky, and then ate it all in two sittings late at night. Hence, a little gain. Today is lunch out day with Al, so I skipped breakfast.

Food Log

Year 2012 daily weight from December 31, 2011.

Breakfast

Skipped.

Lunch

At Ling-Ling's Chinese Buffet:

From the Mongolian Grill: Chicken, bean sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, snow peas, onions, peppers, mushrooms and kimchee.

Dinner
Roast turkey and hard-boiled eggs with guacamole and mayonnaise.

Snack
A cocoa-kale protein shake (almond milk, whey protein (36g protein), kale, cocoa, vanilla, cinnamon, stevia-inulin blend).

Liquid Intake
    Coffee:    30 oz,   Water: 88+ oz

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