blog (January, 2005)
in search of
Today was a gratifying result of my scheduled downtime for repair the first half of this weekend; I'm hoping not just momentemporarily.
Wedged between two experiments in physical communication and directed movement, this afternoon I was lifted above my seat's armrests at Severance Hall (Jazz on the Circle) by legend Ahmad Jamal. Like how. He would be hammering keys through the stage floor and out through my teeth, and know just how to reverse in half a bar and float everyone up to cloud melody.
But how transplanted from a smoky lounge club -- with heads raging and hollering, and the sound so compacted it drills into wall corners and echos in your eyepits -- to be a stage centerpiece under this cathedral ceiling where everyone's wearing their sunday best and must mind to clap at the right places, and sure there's a man a few rows away turning behind him to say I didn't pay twice thirty to have my darling hear your comments throughout the performance.
Nah, Severance is a beautiful venue, and the performance left little to ask for. I'm just a snot, and I like to call people phonies and lament my unhads.
Jewels are hard to find -- you have to dig.
-- Ahmad Jamal