Learning Jazz is like walking up/ climbing a mountain.
The mountain is endless.
At any point you're free to stop and build a camp. Or settle permanently and perhaps build a log-cabin or a mansion to live in.* Some people build their homes near base camp. Others simply keep going until they run out of life for walking with.
If you have a very powerful telescope and you point it up the hill of jazz, waaaaay past the treeline and a bunch of glaciers, you might be able make out a small group of figures, older guys with a little stiffness about the hips, still strolling gently uphill. You'll maybe catch a glimpse of Sonny Rollins' shock of white hair or Herbie Hancock, iPad in hand. Still walking, still learning.
Everybody's journey up the Hill of Jazz is different.
This weekend I did the Global Music Foundation's Easter Jazz Workshop.
This was a thorny thicket on my journey up the Hill of Jazz. Not that I knew entirely what to expect when I decided to take this particular route up the hill.
Initially I got snagged on some pretty big thorns (Voicings wuh argh urgh? Ear skills way more advanced than I have?...uhmmmmmmmm heyulp!). So I took a deep breath and started fighting my way through. Grasping branches (ouch, ouch) and nettles by the hand and just starting to try and haul myself up the sharp ascent. After a couple of days of thrashing about like this I was very tired. I pretty much wanted to slump in a heap, weeping gently and slide into the nearest available hollow to sleep among the tang of leaf mulch.
At some point though some form of inner resourcefulness kicked in. I remembered to look into my rucksack and pulled out some tools. A very useful exercise from my piano teacher that probably saved my arse once I figured out that this was the most efficient way to spend whatever practice time I could snatch.** A pair of psychological gardening gauntlets that protected my hands from worst spikiness of the thorns. I had no idea I even owned those gloves. Interesting.
Once I was nicely tired out things start feeling slightly surreal. But that's also when you start to notice the beauty - little forest flowers caught in shafts of sunlight. Snatching a few minutes to play whatever the I wanted on the most glorious perfectly tuned oh oh oh Steinway ever! Sneaking into Hall 2 to practice on the freshly tuned piano on the stage (shhhhhh!).
Then I started to really sense that I wasn't alone in the thicket and to hear clearly the voices of the others struggling their way through too. The sounds of their battles and the whoops of encouragement. And then finally hearing that what had initially sounded like barked instructions from the tutors were morphing into a constant stream of "Yeah! Go on! Yeah!" ***
Going uphill through a densely wooded thorny thicket is still hard-work. However you approach it getting through is knackering. Right towards the end I got in a horrible pickle with a masterclass tree that looked looked OK from the outside. It even had pretty blossom on it. But it turned out to have the sharpest thorns of all - stage fright thorns that you just don't see until you touch a branch. I thought I heard the growling of bears under the Steinway too. My brain froze up and I wanted to run away. My head was so full of new ways to grasp nettles and beat back creepers that it completely dumped an entire tune. I disentangled myself by simply jumping into improvising and on the way back out the tune came to my fingers just fine. From this I learned that muscle memory can be useful (believe me if someone is aiming a well timed capoeira kick at your head it can really really help you get out the way) but in jazz you also need a backup of some kind.
Then, almost unexpectedly, it was all over and I burst forth into warm sunlight.
I walked up on stage with my lovely encouraging ensemble group and tutor. I sat down at the piano. I looked out at where the audience were but they were hidden behind the wall of light (how did I forget that this phenomenon existed?). Then I looked at my new friends in my ensemble and I realised....
Oh. I belong here. This is right.
I played the piano in Hall 2 at King's Place.
I did not get eaten by bears!
And it was FUN!****
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* I am now imagining a log cabin big enough to house a Steinway baby grand. Oh...that's a fantasy to while away many happy hours. Me, in the woods up a hill in a warm and cosy place with a fantastic piano. Heaven. (I will also have cats)
** Oh Handout 14b, how I love thee.
*** I wish to note here that Canadian trumpeter and educator Kevin Dean is ace in more ways than I have time to write here! Fantastic musician, patient and encouraging teacher and a true gentleman.
**** I gave up playing the piano aged 18 because I had become demoralised by stage fright brought on several years earlier by a failed violin exam. The fact that this was fun...that it felt right...I can't begin to explain here what that means to me....
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