the butcher, the baker

candlestick park, the legendary sports venue of northern california, hosted its final event tonight.  i saw a baseball game there about twenty years ago.  rocking my black cross colour jeans and matching tshirt, i felt like a million bucks but nearly froze to death that evening. barry bonds, pre-roids, went deep and helped the giants beat the expos.  and this reminds me of two stories:

i played in a jazz trio back in college.  saxophone, bass, drums - and i was totally outclassed.  i was definitely the weak link in that group, and that was the first time i experienced becoming motivated by that inferiority. playing with the mustafas marked the first time that i ever really cared about learning tunes, thought much about improvising, and practiced my saxophone to actually get better.  we played standard rep and a few originals.  we were doing a casual somewhere and the bass player called out a blues.  i couldn't remember how the melody went and was starting different tunes.  he kept looking at me, shaking his head, barking out "wrong head, man", and turning around the opening to offer me another crack at it.  i really wanted to punch that guy in the face, but learned two valuable lessons - you owe it to your bandmates to be prepared, and you can't bullshit your friends.

i played in an electro-acoustic quartet while i lived in minneapolis.  about ouch! was a really fun band, doing all original music and plenty of free jazz.  i ran my horn through a bunch of effects alongside a great guitarist, a talented drummer, and a remarkably creative electronics guy.  we played a bunch around the twin cities and cut a record up in ann arbor.  we toured the album a little bit, and played a hit at the candlestick maker in chicago.  we crashed at the drummer's grandma's house, and she hooked us up with cozy crocheted blankets and yummy polish food. only four people came out to our show, but it ended up being one of our best ever.  the final tune was a free thing, and the other three guys were killing it.  man, i wanted to play so badly, but i just couldn't find the right spot to jump in and not screw up what they were doing.  i sat out.

i think about these two moments often.  i have to remind myself to work work work, study study study, prepare prepare prepare, and then make sure that what i'm doing actually serves the music properly.

t-i-o-n shun shunshun shun

i can't be the only person shuffling around the earth's surface who thinks about that schoolhouse rock bit every time i write out a word with that suffix.  i hum it whenever i type or write out that four-letter cocktail. that's either some type of ocd tick or my own personal tradition. this holiday season brings traditional routines to life, often met with wide smiles and warm hearts. prince once sang that there is joy in repetition, although i'm pretty sure he wasn't referring to christmas customs.



some family rituals are etched into my mind from childhood. my mom would teach me & my sister how to make christmas candy, something he has shared with my own children.  we used to go to the 11:00 candlelight christmas eve service, and often help set up the homemade luminaries that lined the sidewalks of our church.  i remember slipping under the covers of my parents' bed on christmas morning, giggling with my younger sister while my dad arranged flood lights and our super8 movie camera.  every year we would alternate who opened the first package, wrapped in a big black garbage bag (which, cleverly, was used to gather up all of the trash before it piled high in the living room). the entire family would walk our dog "popcorn", go have lunch at the farm with my grandparents and extended family, and return home to mess around with our newfound loot.

my mom always played music while we opened presents.  our dilapidated record player would keep spinning two albums in particular:  kenny rogers & dolly parton once upon a christmas and the oak ridge boys christmas (pretty creative title, guys).  these albums became iconic in our family.



i usually do musical things during the holidays.  i have regularly played the ellington/strayhorn nutcracker suite, showed up at the elementary schools and played sing-a-longs for the kiddos while talking about life as a musician, and annually drug my saxophone studio out into the community to play jazzy quartets while wearing santa hats. i used to play piano for my church, including a service where i put all of the christmas hymns in the key of D.  last year i recorded a tune for the isu president's e-card, and last week soloed with a handbell choir for their vespers show.

the wife and i have developed our own family traditions. we pin our family ornaments from the ceiling, pose for makeshift cmas photos, hang lights all over the place, write and edit and laugh at our family cmas letter, put up the nativity, and drive around the town in search of neighborhood light spectacles.  we still wad up the wrapping paper and chuck it at each other, make christmas candy together, start with the stockings and keep the christmas tunes cranked throughout the days on either side of the 25th.  our favorites include james brown funky christmas, johnny barstow a bowtie christmas, and we always kick it off with this tune by mr. sinatra.



playing those old bird licks or treating melodies like miles tips your hat to their legacies.  mixing up the hot fives with kurt rosenwinkel honors both time periods. understanding and acknowledging how the great ones did it is important, but creating your own practices and holding fast to them is truly seeking what the masters sought.