Many who play jazz will agree with me that we’ve all had moments when the music seemed to float through us, that we stopped thinking and simply let it happen. I compare it to a strange kind of out-of-body experience, when one suddenly begins playing better, stronger, effortlessly. It’s a rare, delicious
feeling that, for me, sometimes lasts to the end of the song. It lasted through the whole evening maybe five or six times in my life… always with a good trio or quartet.
Other good, intuitive players always helped that special feeling to happen. Being able to momentarily play better than you know you can is a fantastic experience, misleading you into thinking you have reached a new plateau and will continue to play at this new level. Quickly learning that isn’t true, you keep striving for those fleeting moments every time you play, those fleeting moments of greatness that become an intoxicating temptress who never leaves, once she has her hooks in you. And if that sounds like we have somewhat addictive personalities, I’d have to say, “Yes” on that level.
Jazz musicians have “aha” moments just like anyone else. Most of us continue to learn, improve and refine throughout our musical lives. For me it was always a struggle to improve my technique. The spontaneity of the craft usually came naturally. Most of us who were able to “get inside” the music developed a little quicker and became more versatile. and versatility becomes important when you play with a lot of different folk in a lot of different circumstances over the years. Even with mediocre players, playing jazz is still, at the very least, fun.
One doesn’t mess with practice mode if one is playing with the good guys, because then you have to be on your toes, be at your best! That is when the magic moments most likely occur. When everyone was playing well, when the music was really good, then, for me, my brain would stop transmitting what I wanted to play next, but I was playing anyway… and it was good! Hell, always better than what I’d been wanting to play the moment before. Then, I was still playing, but sounding great, and was not thinking about what to play next… almost observing what I was doing and where the music was going. It was coming through me, and I wasn’t controlling it! Sometimes I would stop breathing for a time, then have to gasp for a breath… it was that dramatic for me!
That’s the best way I know to explain my particular jazz reverie. As I grew older, and played with better bands, better players, it began happening more often, until I began waiting for it, anticipating it, trying to make it happen. It was like chasing nirvana… as long as you would seek it, you would never experience it. I finally figured that out, and it slowly began to happen again. It’s an old friend now, that magical time in a song I’m playing when something outside me takes over, and plays what I’d always wished I could have played. It’s maddening, and delicious! And as long as I leave it alone, and not force it, it will visit me and take over. The enduring magic of jazz!
“Once Miles Davis asked me, “How do you play from nothing?” And I said, “You know, you just do it.” And that actually is the answer. I wish there were a way to make “I don’t know” a positive thing, which it isn’t in our society. We feel that we need to “know” certain things, and we substitute that quest for the actual experience of things in all its complexity. When I play pure improvisation, any kind of intellectual handles are inappropriate because they get in the way of letting the river move where it’s supposed to move.”
Keith Jarrett
But I mentioned “practice mode” earlier. It’s a real thing, for sure, and it’s tricky, if you’re trying to figure out if a player is playing his heart, or simply “practicing.” Because much jazz is so broad, so fluid, one can get away with practicing on the gig, and few, if any, will notice it, or know what’s really happening. With the really great ones, I’m convinced that even most of us other jazzers can’t tell for sure if the great one is practicing or playing his heart. I’ve listened to hundreds of players with that very thought in mind, There are a few I never figured out… Coltrane, Art Tatum, Monty Alexander, Thad Jones… to my perception they could have always been doing either, or both! And there are others, just can’t remember them right now.
MU Williams & me, playing in Helena, MT, in the On Broadway restaurant
But why should a jazz player have to have his heart in the music to play his best, and does it even matter to the average listener? He probably doesn’t, and the average listener probably doesn’t. Maybe only to me. Inspiration is a fleeting temptress for us all in one way or another, and we each chase her in our own private way. I’ve asked a lot of guys that question, and most of the jazzers are, “Eh, it either happens or it doesn’t. You can’t force it. Don’t wait for it, just let it happen, man.”
And they’re right. I know it’s true. And they don’t, for the most part, make a big deal out of it. But for some weird, maybe even sick reason, I like knowing (or thinking) that I might have visited some of the same lofty, magical heights that these great ones obviously did, and that it might have been because I learned how to attach my heart to the music. And perhaps, perhaps… that is the whole secret to it after all.
Steve Hulse
