Tonight I left the house. Turned off the radio, the TV, crammed my CD changer with my favorite driving jams and headed to the Valley. A very special singer friend of mine was making a rare, impromptu appearance at a jazz club there. I knew she’d have a tight band and I figured I’d know just who they would be. The place was small, arranged in supper club fashion, probably holding about 150 people max. It was half full when I got there and the band was just warming up.
I saw a few familiar faces. It was good to see them. People were dressed up; drinking champagne and brandies: a handsome crowd, very attentive. The band, as I expected and knew, were hot on it. After a couple instrumentals, Moqui, my friend, appeared casually, grabbing the mike and perching on her stool. She started into the refrains of "What a Difference a Day Makes"—a jazz standard if there ever was one. She sang with true grit and gusto, real joy. That’s one of the reasons I love to hear her sing: that unfettered joy that she emanates. Just as I found myself lost in the music, lost in her swagger as she snapped her fingers and closed her dreamy eyes, she took the tempo way down. "What a Difference a Day Makes" … she whispered at the end of the song. But instead of the response that usually follows, "… and the difference is you," she simply asked, "What more can I say?" as the piano trickled out. I’m not sure about everyone else in the room, but given the trying horror of the events of this past week, for me the statement hit a deep, deep chord.
As I listened to the rest of the set, she sang many more standards, like "Fever" and even a Carol King song. But every once in a while she’d land on a tune that resonated in a whole new and terrifying way for me. The wonderfully joyous, reaffirming language of "Up on the Roof" had a dramatic new impact. The song begins, "When this old world starts getting me down." She began it slowly, with just a light piano, the rest of the band set free for a drink or two. It was chilling. I suppose it’s similar to that post-break-up cliché where every song on the radio sounds like it’s addressing your personal love-life traumas. Well, a lot of songs out there will never sound the same to me again.
I work for a music house. Music is important to me. I would venture to say that in many respects, musicians are a kind of extended family to me, and a good concert is akin to a spiritual experience. It’s my drug of choice, if you will. It’s a powerful force, whether you are working and living in it or enjoying it at your leisure. Whether it’s convincing you to buy a certain product or manipulating you to tears. It communicates in a way that simple words or graphic pictures do not. It gets under the skin and lives there, often uniting people with feelings that are inexpressible. I don’t care if you’re tone deaf. There’s a tune out there for you.
It was nice tonight for my friend to gather her tribe together and celebrate the joys and sorrows that are our lives. It was special and, as it always has been, spiritual in its way. There are so many things we take for granted in this life. So many things we unintentionally abuse. It was moving to pay attention to certain lyrics in a whole new way, unsettling though it was. I think we will be paying attention to many things in our daily lives in a whole new way after the events of Sept. 11th, and throughout the events yet to come. I only hope that these new experiences elevate us to new levels of understanding of the world and our place in it, and that this hard-earned understanding can be as harmonious as this special night was for me. I pray.
