i feel contagious
When the clapping inside the club had dissipated, and the band had exchanged some words, the band leader stepped up to the microphone to make an announcement.
I stood up from my seat when he said that a guest would be joining the band for the next tune. I straightened out my vest, and made my way (un)confidently towards the stage. When I got up there and grabbed the upright bass, I put myself in position to play. I looked out at the audience, who looked back. Being nervous, the lights on the stage seemed glaring, and I had to squint to make out my father in the audience, but we were ready to go.
1,2,3,4.
The longest countdown I have ever heard.
We took off, navigating through the chord progressions of a song we had never rehearsed together. Jazz is about improvisation. It is about listening to everyone else’s sound and adding your own to thicken the plot of the music. That night the drummer added to the music with the jazz shuffle, the saxophonist with a bright melody, the pianist with a slur of lush chords… and I? I was rhythm incarnate for the minutes that followed. I was above the crowd, above the stage in fact. I was floating up there along with the music.
Between the simmer of the cymbals and the rampaging lead of the sax I was holding the low end of the piece, plucking the strings violently, following these music school graduates through a jazz piece foreign to me. Intimidating is an understatement.
When the time for my solo came, nothing seemed to matter anymore. I had been shaking on my way to the stage, but now I was made of steel. My fingers crossed strings like a car crossing highway lanes in a car chase. I was unstoppable.
I stood up from my seat when he said that a guest would be joining the band for the next tune. I straightened out my vest, and made my way (un)confidently towards the stage. When I got up there and grabbed the upright bass, I put myself in position to play. I looked out at the audience, who looked back. Being nervous, the lights on the stage seemed glaring, and I had to squint to make out my father in the audience, but we were ready to go.
1,2,3,4.
The longest countdown I have ever heard.
We took off, navigating through the chord progressions of a song we had never rehearsed together. Jazz is about improvisation. It is about listening to everyone else’s sound and adding your own to thicken the plot of the music. That night the drummer added to the music with the jazz shuffle, the saxophonist with a bright melody, the pianist with a slur of lush chords… and I? I was rhythm incarnate for the minutes that followed. I was above the crowd, above the stage in fact. I was floating up there along with the music.
Between the simmer of the cymbals and the rampaging lead of the sax I was holding the low end of the piece, plucking the strings violently, following these music school graduates through a jazz piece foreign to me. Intimidating is an understatement.
When the time for my solo came, nothing seemed to matter anymore. I had been shaking on my way to the stage, but now I was made of steel. My fingers crossed strings like a car crossing highway lanes in a car chase. I was unstoppable.