With Christina off on a school outing to hear the Chicago Symphony Orchestra last night and Kathy working, I had a chance to spend some daddy-daughter time with Anna.  As the evening moved along, I gave her the remote so she could put on whatever she wanted to watch.  She chose “Chess in Concert” (musical), because apparently her sister has been singing the music quite a bit recently. What followed was a very nice evening of wonderful music and some great performances.

The power of music (or art in general, for that matter) never ceases to amaze me.  Understanding that people don’t all experience it the same, it can bring out such strong and powerful emotions.  Seeing my girls engaging in that is really important to me… it opens up a larger and deeper world to them.  Hopefully they’ll both stick with it, even if only to be “engaged listeners.”

Listening to the show last night brought back a lot of memories, from the exceptional lady singers of Marillac HS, who I had the privilege to support as part of a few pit bands, to gigs I had years later playing music professionally with various types of bands.

In high school, the memories of sitting in the pit, listening to the wonderful voices coming from the Marillac stage are still there, over 25 years later.  To be able to plug into that, even if in a minor way, and try to add a little something extra to the performance is such a cool thing to feel and experience… even when you’re in the dark and all the light is focused elsewhere.  The sound is everywhere and the world is alive in the performance.  One change, one nuance in the tone, inflection, pitch… moves everything somewhere, it’s fluid, and you are just riding along with it.

While I only played with the First Concert Band for one year at the University of Illinois, I can certainly remember the incredible sound of playing Stars and Stripes Forever in the Great Hall of the Krannert Center… it might as well have been Orchestra Hall and the individual and collective musicians (and director) of that band were incredible.

A couple years later, I remember a fusion band gig where we were playing the Nature’s Table (unfortunately no longer there), we had a decent crowd, and were playing a song with an odd time signature… I looked over to the bar to see a woman dancing with her eyes closed.  Given it wasn’t in 4/4, it was pretty strange to see that, but it made an impression that made me want to raise the level of play.  I have no idea who the person was, but the impact of the music was clear and it was cool to experience.

On another night my sophomore year in Champaign, about an hour before a big band gig, I received a call from home to tell me that my father had a heart attack and was in the hospital.  Time seemed to stop.  My father had always been a strong figure and somehow the entire image and situation was WAY too much to take in.  I knew I couldn’t get back home that night, and went to the Music building as an utter emotional wreck, trying to figure out what I was going to do.  Sitting down with one of my best friends, I remember asking him what I should do.  I can remember to this day where we were sitting and pretty much everything about the situation.  His question was very simple:

‘What would your father want you to do?‘  (That was all it took.)

‘He’d want me to go on and perform.’

‘Then, you should play tonight for him.’

Over 22 years later, it’s hard not to become emotional sharing that part (Yes, Mike, I remember it that well).  I’ve been blessed with some incredible friends and situations like that remind me that we can have such a significant impact on people without intending to or even realizing it.  In any case, having played in the jazz bands for three years in college, I have no doubt it was my best performance the entire time I was there.  Maybe it was the emotion, maybe it was the intense focus, maybe it was just releasing everything into the music, I don’t know… but it was an incredible experience that I’ll always remember.  If that was meant to be a dedication, it said it all.

Several years later, I had a chance to sit in a few times for a high school friend who is a full-time professional musician, playing with a jazz trio at the Rockhouse Grill in Rolling Meadows.  The club is a little place in a strip mall and nothing particularly grandiose.  The gig was special both because the guitar and bass players were amazing pro musicians and the theme of the night itself.  The band was called “Free Food for Poets” because the evening was set up as an open mic night for poets to come and read their work.  So, various people would get up, read their work, and do a set, then they’d take a break and we’d do a set of trio music, and so on.  Probably 25 people in the place all night…and one of the best creative experiences I’ve ever had.  The audience was so immersed in what was going on that it was an awesome fusion of different energies all night.  Some of the poets were very dramatic, others subdued, some angry, some inspiring… everyone got respect, applause, and 100% of the audience’s attention.  For our part, we literally decided what we were going to play as we went.  We never rehearsed, we just performed, and it was quite amazing.  Both of them were so incredibly talented that it was like a journey in every moment, where we figured out where we were going along the way… they could take it up a notch, back it off, go up a couple levels, change the style…every trick in the book.  The audience absolutely loved it and was right there with us.  In hindsight, it would’ve been really cool to hear them play with my friend, given he’s an incredible drummer and a much better player than I am… I wonder where they could take it.  In any event, it was a very strong contrast to a pop music gig I was playing at the same time, where we’d play a big club with 700 or more people in the crowd on a night, but the experience was entirely different.  Not to say one form of music was any better than the other, but you can feel the difference when the audience is into what you’re doing, and even if it’s a lot less people, it really only takes making an impact on one person for it to feel like you’ve made a difference somehow in a performance.

Along those lines, one last memory that I’ll share came from playing a blues trio job at a place called the Dixie Q on Fullerton on the North side of Chicago.  The owner was a notorious jerk to the performers and insisted that you play in the parking lot, which was quite unpleasant (between light rain and cold temps) a couple times I played there.  One night in particular, though, I remember playing with a blues trio on a cold night where almost no one was there to hear us.  If anyone was out coming to the place, they certainly weren’t staying outside for long, so we probably played for about 12 people all night.  What was interesting about those 12 people is that two of them were a friend from work who brought his girlfriend over to hear us for a while.  It turned out that she worked with another woman who was the lead singer in a pop group that was looking for a drummer.  That turned into the pop band gig I mentioned above, which was a couple years (roughly) of some really fun gigs in a lot of larger venues, including Festa Italiana in Chicago at one point.  The other memorable piece of the night came from a complete stranger.

Somewhere along the way, early in the evening, a guy came along who stood outside and was listening to us play.  He seemed pretty into what we had going on, and he pretty much had to be, because otherwise it was awfully unpleasant to be out there listening to it.  In any case, as you tend to do at gigs, we had a chance to talk during the set breaks and it turned out that he was also a drummer and had played for many years in a band with his brother down in South Carolina before moving to Chicago about six months before.  After checking with the guys, as we got into the last set, I asked him if he wanted to sit in and play a couple tunes.  He lit up at the opportunity, sat down, played a couple tunes, did a nice job, and I gave him the rousing applause in lieu of a larger audience out in the cold.  As the night came to a close, he came up to talk while I was tearing down, to say thank you.  He told me that he had been in Chicago all this time, didn’t really know anyone, was very down and lonely, and was just on a bus on his way home.  He heard the music, decided to get off, and what a difference we just made for him.  Having a chance to play meant so much and it brought back those memories of being on stage with his brothers.  Such a simple thing, with such a cool result… suddenly we only needed one guy in the audience that night and it all made sense.

Overall, while my days of playing live music may be on hold (at least for the time being), I’m so happy to have the memories of what performing can do, what it can mean, and how it can feel… I hope my daughters are lucky enough to have those experiences and to meet the many amazing people that participate in it with you, both on and off the stage, in the lights and outside…

In the meantime, I’ll keep recording the music I love, and hoping some of that experience and joy comes through…

-CJG 02/08/2014

So, tonight was the last and final update for all the important things we needed to know about Christina’s upcoming trip to Washington, D.C.  I’m very excited for her, though part of me feels like we’re missing out on the experience she’s about to have.

With all the rules, regulations, and requirements whizzing by, I was curiously disinterested and trying to picture my daughter’s reaction to all these historical and significant places.  I suppose it’s like this sometimes as a parent.  We can’t always see and experience these moments with our kids, and that’s part of the process for them to grow up and be independent, but something about that wonderment, awe, and excitement is such an amazing thing to see in their eyes…I wish we could be there, if only as observers.

Talking to Christina tonight, she’s a little nervous at the prospect of being an airplane trip away from home, but I did my best to point out all the things that will be cool about doing something like this with her friends and arguably one of the most engaging history teachers I’ve ever seen.  It’s strange how we can shift into a different mindset when others need reassurance.  Even if I had reservations, the minute she was worried, my stuff just didn’t matter.  She asked if my work phone should be on the contact list (on top of my cell phone), at which point I reminded her that the cell phone will probably be in front of my face the entire time she is away.  That seemed to help.  That and a few observations that gave her a laugh, but aren’t appropriate to share here… 🙂

We’re now one step farther in a long list of things undergoing transition right now.  Overall, I hope she takes a ton of pictures and they make a lot of memories that she’ll cherish for a long time.  Times like this feel very bittersweet, but I know we have to let go and be open to possibility… in the meantime, fingers crossed, prayers offered, candles lit, and weather channel soon to be under intense review, hoping they have sun and some decent temperatures for the visit.

-CJG 02/04/2014