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  • Too Grand To Be Two: Adventures in Jazz

    Too Grand To Be Two: Adventures in Jazz

        The wonderful thing about having a diverse and interesting group of friends is that you often end up in places you never expected, doing things that truly amaze you. This past Sunday proved to be one such occassion. Jeff, our keys player, had invited me to come check out a couple pianists with him--at the time I was existing in what could charitably be called a perfect storm of chaos, so naturally I accepted without much thought or research whatsoever. To be fair, Jeff has excellent taste in music, so I felt I was in good hands. However, I should have known that I was in for something when he stearnly stipulated that I  was NOT wear any dress that had anything akin to googly eyes attached to it. And sure enough, that Sunday, I found myself being directed by my GPS up into the literal heights of sophistication. The address Jeff had given me was, in fact, a house--a house imbeded in the hills up above Sunset, looking out on a stunning view of Los Angeles along with a handful of its other tastefully wealthy bretheren. Those hills, by the way, must have been designed to keep the less fabulous away--my sad little Saturn wheezed and puffed and barely made it to the top. Because of the aforementioned labored ascent, I arrived just barely on time, and was ushered into the house by Jeff before I could truly pepper him with questions about what, exactly, the fuck this was. 

       The house consisted primarily of one enormous, central room, off of which a large balcony jutted and a cliff fell steeply away. It was sparsely decorated--a few pictures here and there, but the main attraction was clearly the two pianos set up to face each other in the front of the room, and the two pianists sitting at each one. The pianists were set in startling contrast to each other--one a younger man, devistatingly hip, with long dreads and a crisp suit, the other older, slight, with round glasses and the air of a benevolent professor just roused from a nap. There were, respectively, Gerald Clayton and Shelly Berg. For you jazz nerds: I'm sure I need say no more. For everyone else: Shelly Berg is a deeply respected and widely acclaimed jazz pianist, as well as former professor of Jazz Studies at USC and dean of the Frost School of Music in Miami. Gerald Clayton is his protege, who in his late twenties has already recieved several Grammy nods. To put it more bluntly: as we were settling into a pair of folding chairs in the back, Jeff whispered reverently, "these are probably two of the best pianist alive today".  This became clear the second they started playing. 

      Jazz is a funny creature: unlike a lot of popular music, it lacks any kind of linear narrative, instead unfolding and twisting away in different directions like a staircase in a Dr Suess book. In the right hands, it can be a strange, playful, visceral experience, where the listener is treated to glimpses of the shifting personalities of both player and song. In the wrong hands, it becomes a never-ending nightmare. Luckily, these two pairs of hands were the right kind. Berg and Clayton traded back and forth seamlessly, catching eachother's motifs and expounding on them, creating an effortless musical conversation that filled the room. Their physical styles were very different--Clayton played with an off-the-cuff cool, while Berg seemed to slip into an ecstatic revery all his own, bouncing up and down on the bench and panting. However, if you closed your eyes (and I did) you couldn't tell where one pianist stopped and the other picked up. My favorite part was towards the end of the first set, when Berg and Clayton traded ballads. At one point, Berg launched in to a gently embellished version of "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face". As a vocalist, I sometimes struggle with hearing the emotional expression in instrumental arrangements as clearly as I do with vocal ones. But Berg captured tenderness, wistfulness and poignancy of the song so clearly that it brought tears to my eyes. 

      The drive back down felt strange and alien, the way you feel when you wake up still half-way through a dream. For a small moment I was not standing outside looking in on legend, but so close I could touch it. (Thanks Jeff!). These moments always seem to mess with the way we measure time-I could have sworn they'd only been playing for half an hour when intermission arrived (an hour and a half later). And I will hold that memory clearly, and dearly, for the rest of my life. 

    Picture courtesy of www.fallsrivermusic.com

  • Elton John: or, Why You Can't Take it With You

    Elton John: or, Why You Can't Take it With You

       Hey friends! First of all, for that one person (I'm assuming/hoping there is at least one) who actually reads this on a semi-regular basis: I apologize for my absence. I'm in the middle of a move and have had frustratingly inconsistent access to WiFi. I considered writing this whole damn blog on my phone, but...the idea was highly un-appealing and would have resulted in me throwning my phone against the wall, so here we are. However! I'm nearly settled, so hopefully such complications will not arise again in the future. Moving on...

        A couple nights ago I had the great privilege of volunteering for a MS charity event. It was one of those big, fancy, 2K-a-plate affairs that only the strangest and/or wealthiest of people attend, so it goes without saying that it was both entertaining and alien to be thrown into the mix. I had the good fortune of working the jewelry booth during the silent auction--mostly I just tried to keep my jaw off the floor as people casually threw down 9K like it was pocket change. For a necklace they "kind of" liked. There was even some comedic relief, as a few of them asked me what I intended to bid on. I laughed heartily. 

      The best part of the evening, however, was the entertainment. These events usually have a certain structure--silent auction, live auction and dinner, musical or comedic guest, gift bags. This time the entertainer in question was none other than Sir Elton John. The volunteers are allowed to stand in the back and watch the show, so naturally I completely lost my shit. It was an incredible performance--just Elton and a piano (which he played so hard the stage shook), for a room of less than 300 people. There are some artists that just aren't quite as masterful in the flesh as they are recorded--I can say with absolute certainty that Elton John is not one of them. His voice was clear, powerful and perfectly in tune the entire time, and he didn't miss or fumble a single note. However, as I stood there watching him play, I  became increasingly aware of something odd occuring around me. The vast majority of the people in the room--all of whom were thrilled to see him--weren't actually watching HIM. They all had their phones out, and were watching the performance on their phones as they recorded it. There was this frantic desire to have physical evidence of the moment for a future date. I'm not exempt from this--my brain was whirling and I was kicking myself for not having a better camera on my phone. But there's something, I think, lost when you attempt to capture a permanent moment instead of enjoying the transience of the one you're in. We really only have two choices when faced with an event--we can experience it or we can document it, but we can rarely truly do both. If you document it, you loose some of the emotional potency of the moment. If you experience it, the only evidence you'll have is the memories you hold--and no matter how strong, those start to loose their color and fade a bit as more and more time passes.

       It's a difficult question: do we hold on tight to the experiences we have, make them tangible, or accept that we can't, in fact, prolong them, but enjoy them wholy for as long as we have them?? I'm not sure there is a right answer. In this case, though, I lean towards the latter. Music is ephemeral--it's a concept, not a thing, and entirely rooted in emotion, not tangibilty. We can take as many pictures  or videos as we want, but nothing we do will re-create that sensation at a later date. And maybe, just maybe, at the end of the day that's not as terrible as it can feel. The worth of a moment is increased exponetially by the fact that it is both fleeting and unique. So next time, I hope I'll have the courage to put down my phone, close my eyes, and fully appreciate what I have for as long as I have it. 

  • Love and Music, Music and Love

    Love and Music, Music and Love

       Sometimes, just to torture myself, I try to pin down WHY, exactly, I like the music I like. Not just the "'cause I love it! It sounds great! How could you NOT love that song?! The musicians are fantastic!! They lyrics are fantastic! You're an idiot!" aspect of liking something, but the logical, practical,  "x>y and z>x so it serves that y<z" part of it. Divorced of all emotion, what are the unshakeable, set-in-stone reasons I'm drawn to something? But attempting to be objective when it comes to taste is like trying to catch crawdads with your bare hands (something I have, indeed, attempted)--just as you think you've really got a hold of the fucker, it slips away and you're left holding water and feeling foolish. The only other thing I can think of that even remotely mirrors this experience is romantic love/lust.  

       As it turns out, that assumption is not so far off. We have the same pupil-expanding, heart-racing reaction to music that we're attracted to as we do to people we're attracted to. Both flood the nervous system with dopamine, which in turn translates into anticipation of a reward or pleasure. So we have the how, and the physical response. But why? What triggers that response?? There are plenty of maxims (the philosophy, not the magazine) for this, such as,  "You marry your mother/father" or "Your musical taste is shaped by the music you grow up with". And, to a certain extent, that does hold some truth. But I grew up with a lot of Coltrane, and I have almost zero jazz on my ipod or in my record collection. I USED to love it--but as my tastes have formed outside the realm of what's familiar and available, I've outgrown that love and found myself reaching in a different direction. This--this I have no answer for. Do I still enjoy listening to Ella Fiztgerald sing "Love for Sale"? Absolutely. But does it evoke the same intense emotional response, and incite me to play the song over and over like I do with, say, "Tokyo Storm Warning" (Elvis Costello)? No. I feel affection, nostalgia and respect for the musicianship of the former, but my reation to the later is overwhelmingly, inexplicably emotional and physical. On paper, one is not better, more respectable, more impressive than the other. Actually, on paper, Costello might come out slightly behind Ella--after all, pop is rarely treated with the same reverence as jazz. There is no explaining, rationally, why I like one but am head-over-heels for the other. 

       Most things in life, I think, can be explained rationally. Why we choose our friends-they have a similar sense of humor, like the same activities that we do, hold the same moral pricinples. Why we choose our jobs--financial security or, on the flipside, a disregard for financial security but a desire for personal freedom and flexibility. Why we live the places we live--jobs, family, low rent, a desire to be surrounded by a multitude of cultures or a tight-knit community. But why we fall in and out of love with the things we, well, love-especially something as non-essential as music--that, indeed, is inexplicable. 

  • Our Songs Are Not Our Own: The Strange Story of Hallelujah

    Our Songs Are Not Our Own: The Strange Story of Hallelujah

       Because I'm a poor sleeper and a fairly exciteable human, I try to go to yoga every Monday night to a) valiantly try to undo some of the etched-in-stone knots in my back and b) chill the fuck out. For those of you who've never taken a yoga class, you basically spend 55 minutes being tortured by some attractive, lithe person and contemplating how strange it is that muscles you didn't even know existed in your body are now on fire. It's a good time. However, at the end of those 55 minutes you do what's called "shavasana"-lying perfectly still in the dark, for five minutes, and trying to empty your mind. Meditation, more or less. The woman who teaches my class is fairly young, so she likes to have soothing-but-au-courant music on while this is happening. So last night, as I was lying there pretending to be dead, "Hallelujah" came on. It was the Jeff Buckley version that most of us are most familiar with, and as I listened to that keening voice I realized I'd never actually heard the original Leonard Cohen version. Naturally, this started all the little cogs and wheels in my brain whirring, and as soon as the lights came on I scurried home to look it up.

      "Hallelujah", it turns out, has had more cosmetic work done than a contestant on The Swan. Over the years it has changed hands more than three hundred times, with each artist adding their own signature somewhere on the song. However, the most influential changes have been wrought by three artists in particular: Jeff Buckley, John Cale, and of course, the writer himself--Leonard Cohen.

      The Leonard Cohen version is undeniably lovely, especially the chorus. The song vibrates from the power of a huge gospel choir, full instrumentation, and Cohen's strange, gravely, half-talk-half-sing voice. BUT. It is also undeniably off. "Hallelujah", performed the way it originally was meant to be, comes across like a good-looking guy in a well-made suit two sizes too big for him--both are very attractive, but somehow they just don't fit eachother. Cohen's "Hallelujah" feels a bit dirgy, the potent lyrics muted, practically lost in the pomp of the arrangement. It's too big, too perfectly in time, too arranged. Cohen knew this, too. He wrote 80 verses to the song, apparently getting so frustrated that at one point he started banging his head on the floor. The song was a bit of a commercial flop, and he continued to grapple with it for years--until John Cale came along and transformed "Hallelujah" for the first time. 

       The name "Cale" set off bells in my head, but the dots didn't connect until I looked him up--John Cale is one of the founding members of The Velvet Underground. His fortuitous cover of "Hallelujah" came about when he was invited to collaborate on a tribute album called (somewhat derpily) "I'm Your Fan" in 1991. After perusing Cohen's catalog, Cale settled on "Hallelujah", and asked the songwriter to send him the music and lyrics. Cohen sent him fifteen--FIFTEEN--pages of lyric. Undaunted, Cale sifted through the manuscrift, picking out the verses that he found most suggestive, and set to work. Most of the verses, as it turned out, were verses that Cohen had only performed live--only one or two were part of the recorded version. If you've never heard the Cale version, it's certainly a far cry from the original. Cale's voice is round and powerful, full of a resonance that Cohen's doesn't posses, and the arrangement is dramatically stripped down to only vocals and piano. Cale's version still carries a similar defiant, almost admonishing undertone, with the words and chords firmly punctuated, but aside from that the two arrangements are night and day. It also caught the attention of the public at large--the song began to be used for both film and television, and Cale re-recorded it for two more of his own albums due to popular demand.

      Then Jeff Buckley appeared. A young American singer-songwriter and guitarist, he was moved deeply by the Welshman's version of "Hallelujah" and, in 1994, recorded it himself. Maybe it's because of Buckley's subsequent and tragic death, or the loose, wispy arrangement, but the haunting quality of "Hallelujah" finally shines through. Buckley does not so much punctuate as gently place both notes and lyrics, which make the occasional anguished howl of "Hallelujah" that much more heart-breaking. The final verse:

    "Well maybe there's a god above/but all I ever learned from love/

    is how to shoot at someone who out drew you

    it's not a cry you hear at night/it's not somebody who's seen the light/

    it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah"

     hits you like a punch to the gut. With all the power and emphasis that Cohen and Cale carry in their arrangements, you never hear the vulnerability in the music you do the way in Buckley's version.

       Cohen wrote, performed, and recorded "Hallelujah" numerous times. This was not a song abandoned, locked away and forgotten in someone's attic. By rights, his should be the version we know and love best. But it's not. It's can be a painful lesson to learn, but what we create does not, in the end, belong to us. We only channel it. Music is immortal--we are not. It can be difficult to seperate something you love dearly from yourself--I certainly struggle with relinquishing autonomy over all my music, even when I know I'm passing it into the hands of people who's tastes and visions mirror my own. But if we hold on too tightly to the things we love, if we determine them ours and noone else's, we lose sight of what they actually need. I don't know if this happened to Cohen. My guess is it did. I do know that he, by all accounts, spent years struggling with this song, unable to see past his own version. It was only when he placed it in the hands of someone else that it truly took shape. 

    Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallelujah_(Leonard_Cohen_song)

       

  • Five Bands, Five Facts: Fun Things to Know For Tomorrow's Show

    Five Bands, Five Facts: Fun Things to Know for Tomorrow's Show!

     I'll admit it: I felt like a big old weirdo creeping around the internet this morning, digging up dirt on the lovely musicians we'll be sharing a venue with tomorrow. But, since I know you'll all be there (EHEM) and may not be familiar with any of the other artists, I figured I'd broker a bit of an introduction. Hopefully, this will spark your curiosity and encourage you to stay for one or two more of the acts when we're finished!! First up:

     CAREY APPEL is a singer/songwriter born and raised in the LA area. Her sound mirrors the folksy, country-in-the-classical-sense of the word sounds of singers such as Patty Griffin and Melody Gardot. She'll be on tomorrow at 8pm. FUN FACT: Ms. Appel is also a sharp business owner and runs her own label, Heather Road, named after the street she grew up on. (more info: www.careyappel.com , facebook.com/CareyAppelMusic).


    MOI NAVARRO is an indie rocker best known for his intense, soulful lyrics and jazz/funk/folk sound. He describes his music as "marrying a set of meaningful lyrics with an intense, unique and beautiful melody". He'll be on tomorrow at 9pm. FUN FACT: Most recently, Moi's music was the highlight of SESAC's spring feature article. (www.moinavarro.com)


    LUKE MULHOLLAND BAND identifies as a jam/blues band, influenced by artists such as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, as well as The Grateful Dead. Formed in the fall of 2007, they've built quite a following since, and have toured alongside legends such as Blues Traveler and Carlos Santana. They'll be on tomorrow night at 10pm. FUN FACT: The titular musician, Luke Mulholland, is a fellow Berklee grad (wooooo!!!!). (www.lukemulholland.com , facebook.com/LukeMulhollandBand). 


    CONNIE LIM is a pop vocalist and pianist, on the scene in CA since 2008. Originally a med student at UC Berkley, Lim found she could not deny her love of music and began playing feverishly around the San Francisco area. She signed with Nashville-based label DigSin in 2012, and was one of The Voice's top 60 contestants in their first season. She'll be on tomorrow night at 11pm. FUN FACT: Lim went to high school with our bassist, Jason!! Such a small world. (www.connielimmusic.com , facebook.com/ConnieLimMusic).

    FOXY AND THE SOUND  are a bunch of couthless hooligans that make bluesy, soulful rock. They also like beer, BBQ, and making new friends. They'll be on tomorrow at 7pm. FUN FACT: They had their first official gig as Foxy and the Sound roughly 8 months ago...at Witzend!!! (Bitch please. You're already ON our website).


    Have a great, safe Friday everyone (especially everyone in Boston--please be extra safe) and hopefully we'll see some of you tomorrow!!! ALSO: don't forget, if you print that lovely little picture above out and bring it with you, you get a big discount. So print it out or get thee to a Kinkos ASAP. 

    photo credit: Witzend.com







  • Adventures in Double Sided Tape and HaskaLA: Gig @ The Silverlake Lounge

        I'm pretty sure I look like someone's morning-after nightmare right now. Not because I necessarily, ehem, WAS, but because last night's show was such an explosion of awesome, quirky, high-energy and talented bands that upon arriving home I mostly managed to get my shoes off before passing-the-fuck out. But that, my friends, is the price you pay when you get a line up like HaSkaLa, Fungus Finklestein, Cats on Mars, and Foxy and the Sound under one roof. 

       This gig was a little last minute for us. Aron, our fabulous guitarist, is friends with the bassist in HaSkaLA who invited us to play with them just last Thurs. If I'm being truthful, I was a little nervous about how it would go down--we hadn't rehearsed in two weeks, and I was concerned we'd be a little rusty. This nervousness was sliiiightly compounded by the insane, Oh-my-God-What-Just-Happened show that HaSkaLA put on. How to describe it??? There's no way I'll ever do them justice, but here's the closest I can get: take a tight, well-oiled  Ska band. Turn up the energy to 112, put them in costumes that would make  Mardi Gras look kind of white-bread, and, well, you have something that's kind of in the proximity of HaSkaLA. I can honestly say I've never seen a band use every single tool available to them to such a calculated and effective degree. The stage, the audience, anything that was in that room, they made use of in some way to enhance their performance.  It was unbelievably impressive--not to mention educational. You learn a lot from watching the way other bands work, and when you stumble upon one with such incredible stage presence, well, you'd be an idiot not to take mental notes. I would not want to have to go on right after them. 

      However, to their credit, Fungus Finklestein did not shrink away from the challenge. Exhibit one: their guitarist's guitar was in the shape of a hand giving the middle finger. Aron and I spent most of their set marveling over it. They, too, had their own distinct sound and look: A sort-of punk rock, Zoltar The Fortune Teller vibe. This was enhanced by the large red accordian the lead singer played wildly--manaically?--the entire time. Their sound reminded me vaguely of Talking Heads--there was a lot of similarity to David Byrne's choppy, oddly inflected but undeniably appealing vocals. Fungus Finklestein managed to get the crown as riled up as HaSkaLA, inviting audience members up on stage to play cowbell and ending their set with a punk cover of Killer Tofu (for those of you unfamiliar with the song--just google "Doug" and "The Beets". You can thank me later).

     We had one of our best sets to date, I'd wager--maybe a bit squiffy in places in terms of technical prowess, but my fears were definitely unfounded. I feel like a tool saying this, but--it's incredibly exciting when your band, and the music you've all been working so hard on, really starts to gel--you just know the chemistry is THERE. Of course, it doesn't hurt to have an enthusiastic, screaming audience either, which is what we were blessed with last night. Once we got going, the only thing I was even remotely worried about was whether the clothing tape on my dress would reliably keep my boobs from making an unwanted cameo of their own. But fate was kind, and everything stay in its proper place.

      Cats On Mars rounded off the night. Aron, our beloved guitar player, was a boss and did back-to-back sets with us and them last night. How his hand didn't fall off is a completely mystery to all mankind. Cats On Mars did not disappoint--Aron had described it to us as a "K-Pop, J-Pop, video game space rock band" which is really about the most fitting description I can think of. Their fearless leader, Tommy, is a fellow Berklee Grad who does a lot of video game composing, and it shows in his music--each instrument was deftly and specifically arranged to match the overall sound to a T. Julie, the bass player from HaSkaLA, also plays in this band, so the night truly came full circle.

      The music was great, of course. But my favorite part of last night was the incredible show of support that all the bands, and all the patrons of the Silverlake lounge, showed each act. Everyone was there from start-to-finish, whooping and whistlng and cheering eachother on. And I have to give credit to the Silverlake Lounge, as well--they're obviously doing something right if they pull in random folks and regulars on a Tuesday night to see bands they've never heard of. In conclusion: thank you, thank you to everyone we met and listened to last night. And for those of you that were'nt there--we'll be starting the party alllll over again on Saturday, so hopefully we'll see you then!

  • Puppies and Beer Make Everything Better

    Puppies and Beer Make Everything Better

        Between yesterday's events, and the gravitas of the last two posts, I feel like everyone could use a little break from seriousness. So today, I hope you have one of the following awaiting you at some point: puppies, beer, or an attractive dude who looks like he may have just peed his pants. And for those of you in LA--swing by the Silverlake Lounge tonight around ten and I'll buy you that beer. Promise. 

    photo credit: www.advertolog.com

  • Boston.

    Boston.

        I'm sure this is redundant--at this point, every voice across the US has risen in support of Boston after today's tragedy. I can't say for certain that it's not even a little macabre--as Louis C.K. once said, the way we tend to fixate on tragedy can be, frankly, somewhat ghoulish. But Boston is my city. Not the one I grew up in, but certainly the one that shaped me as a musician. Quite a few people that I love dearly lived, or still live, there. It seems wrong, rude, cowardly to simply gloss over it. To not say SOMETHING. So. For all my Berklee people, for all my Boston people. Meager as it is, this is my something.

       I will never understand the desire to hurt someone else. That's such a platitude, but honestly--we damage each other enough just by virtue of being alive and human. Why--when there's so many ways in which you can, will, and probably have accidentally hurt someone else--you would choose to go out of your way to cause pain is incomprehensible. But the ability to make sense and the ability to occur seem to rarely run parallel to eachother, and here we are. 

       Naturally, terrorism in any form, in any place is appalling. But it's especially searing when it happens in a place you know and love. Like any city, Boston has its flaws. Those freeze-the-tips-of-your-eyelashes-cold winters really suck. There are certainly some folks that fit that overloud, overproud, and did-that-seem-kind-of-racist? Boston sports fan stereotype. Rent is out of control and watching as the T goes express just as it reaches your stop is beyond maddening. But I love it. I nearly lost my mind with excitement when I found out I was accepted to Berklee. I know everyone's experience there is different, but some of the teachers I had-well, I'm not sure I'd be who I am without them. Kenwood Dennard taught me how to approach every piece of music fearlessly. He calmly and completely believed in every students' ability to conquer even the most difficult songs--I had the good fortune of taking both a Jimi Hendricks and James Brown ensemble with him, and doing vocal transcriptions for both (if that tells you anything). Larry Watson simultaneously inspired and put the fear of God in me. I never saw him bullshit a student--if you half-assed something, or just plain old didn't do a good job, he would let you know. There were no divas in his class. But he was never unkind, and along with his blunt feedback, he always gave you the tools to improve. It was up to you to use them-but if you were willing to let go of your ego and move out of your comfort zone, he was absolutely, 100% in your corner. 

        But along with the professional, I also have hazey, booze-soaked and ridiculous memories from that city. I re-connected with a couple friends that I hadn't seen since elementary school there--I also made new ones, extraordinary people without whom my life would certainly be a little less bright. More than once, Christian from the Chit Nasty Band carried my ass home after one too many red solo cups. I was lucky, too, in that I never had a bad roommate. I remember one winter, after moving into our new apartment, throwing a "christmas party" (despite the fact that we had zero furniture) and supplying people with nothing but the worlds most disgusting eggnog (for some reason--soynog spiked heeeeeavily with Captain Morgan) and PBR.  And burnt cookies, I think. Another roommate and I weathered an inexplicable two days where our heat WOULD NOT SHUT OFF during the summer. You form a special bond with someone when you're both in your underwear, silently taking turns sticking your head in the freezer. And that one was a dude, too. 

       I'm not entirely sure what the point of this is. Maybe an attempt to imbue Boston with...anything other than the shock it's associated with currently. Sometimes the worst part about tragedy is that it engulfs us and robs us of any characteristic but just that--tragic. Static. And I want people to see the city the way I still do, in all its' strange, vibrant glory. Maybe it's a reminder to both myself, and the people I know, that I love them and appreciate them and will try not to take them for granted. Maybe it's both. Regardless--my thoughts and love to everyone today. Especially you, Boston. 

  • It Was Unexpectedly, Heartbreakingly Beautiful

    It Was Unexpectedly, Heartbreakingly Beautiful

        Buckle up, kids. I'm about to get allllll kinds of sentimental. 

        When not writing songs/blogging/rehearsing/gigging/harrasing bookers/giving away lemonade/engaging in dick-related conversation with my bandmates, one of the things I do to make rent (and pay for the aforementioned lemonade) is work as a research assistant for the Office of the Independent Monitor. I know, I know. It sounds like one of those made-up companies that exists solely to sound important and siphon money into off-shore accounts. However, it's actually a department set in place to monitor LAUSD's compliance to special education law. I've worked for them sporadically over the last year or so. It's been incredibly interesting--it's often also been very sad. ( Stay with me--there's a point, I promise!!).

      Twice a year, the OIM has something called the Hearing for the Modified Consent Decree. It's a day for the parents of special education to come in and express any concerns or grievances re: LAUSD and special education they have to the OIM. There are two hearings, so it ends up being a grueling twelve hour day. My role in this whole thing is taking the minutes for the hearings and keeping track of the time-and obnoxiously ding the bell when each speaker's time is up. It's pretty emotionally charged--a lot of parents cry. I cried the first time I did it. You have a front-row seat to the strain, frustration and pain that families with disabled children deal with daily. Needless to say, it's draining to sit through, and most of us collapse post-hearing.

       However, yesterday was different. In the midst of all the sadness, one of the parents came up to thank the OIM for helping her son, who suffered from autism. He'd always loved music, and they had made it possible for him to go to a performing arts school and study cello. There, he'd blossomed, and his skill surpassed everyone's wildest expectations. He was with her today and, if the OIM didn't mind, he'd like to play one of the Bach pieces he was working on for them, as a show of thanks. Naturally, they said yes and her son came down and set up. He was wildly distracted as first--shouting into the mic, then darting off to a different corner of the room--but as soon as he sat down and put bow to string, a preturnatural calm came over him. He brushed the bow against the strings a couple times to test whether it was in tune, and then began to play. His music was in front of him, but he didn't look at it once. He managed to imbue the music with a roundness and soulfulness that I'd never heard in that particular song before. It was stunning--it bounced off the walls and filled the room so that for five minutes, the sorrow of the day was forgotten as everyone reveled in an unexpected, life-affirming moment. 

       As the last few notes trembled, then faded into the air, applause broke out. Some people had tears on their face, but this time they were tears of bittersweet joy, not frustration. The young man (who's name I don't want to mention for privacy reasons) bounded up, back to the self he was before he started playing, burst into an unrelated monolouge, and then shuffled away with his mom. The concerns and complaints resumed, but the music had lightened the air somehow. Long after he had stopped playing, the room still echoed with the sound of it.

      I thought about this a lot as I attempted to drift off to sleep last night. The transformative power, indeed, the INCREDIBLE transformative power that music has on us. We vibrate when the strings vibrate, our heartbeats and feet fall in line with the beat of the drum, we're compelled to sing along with the voices that tocuh us most. There's something that lies, mostly dormant, in each of us, which springs to life and illuminates us whenever we hear, or create, music. I know this--I feel it every day. But it was still breathtaking to witness it yesterday, and in such a potent moment--a person who on a day-to-day basis simply CANNOT connect emotionally--even to those closest to him--creating a universal and intimate tie between himself and a group of strangers. It was powerful. It was humbling. It was unexpectedly, heartbreakingly beautiful. 

    photo credit: www.artrenewal.org

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