I love music. I mean I really, really love certain kinds of music. It makes me alive. It is raw communication. It is straight soul-to-soul. My favorite is jazz. By tapping into all of the possible nuances of chords, scales, harmonies, time and rhythms, there is so much freedom to express yourself more completely and yet more spontaneously. I love it.
Yesterday I spent the whole day immersed in jazz, here in Long Beach at the IAJE jazz conference. I am in heaven.
The day started with a conversation in a forum setting between a local radio interviewer and Gerald Wilson and Sammy Nestico. They are both jazz composers and players with over 160 years of history between them. They reminisced and gave anecdotal stories of growing up with jazz, and writing and playing with people like Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and many others. It was way cool. Several of us in the audience were from Phoenix, including Randy Wright, Jim Lloyd and his wife, Ron Goodwin, and Ruth Elliot. I have played music with them all.
Later we heard a local high school band, with guest soloist Wayne Bergeron, who is one of the most in-demand trumpet players around. The high school was amazing -- the future of jazz is in good hands.
Then we heard a performance the Bobby Shew and the Capitol Project playing Clifford Brown / Max Roach music. I don't know who the sax player was -- some tall, very skinny guy from Sacramento, but he really knew his way around that sax and that music.
I bought a couple of CD's -- one from John Pizzarelli that I am listening to now. He sings the Bossa Novas from Joabim. I really like it.
In the evening we heard performances from Sisters in Jazz, Clifford Brown Institute, Roy Haynes, and the Bob Florence big band. Soloists in that band included another of my favorite trumpet players -- Carl Saunders.
At times during the day I felt like I should just hang up my horn -- there is no way in will ever by in the same league as many of these players. Other times it was just, man, I need to really work on my scales. Right now I am thinking that again -- jazz is all about raw communication. For now I will communicate with the words I know. I still want to learn more. Then I can get my point across better.
There are still two full days of the conference left. Can it get any better? I can't wait to find out.