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May 27, 1998
a new bed...
Went to a local furniture store early in the morning to pick up our new king-sized bed. Although I was quite enthusiastic about the whole deal, I soon learned that we would have to come back after 3pm in order to receive it. Oh well, I guess 10am is a little early for these guys. Mid-morning I was surfing the web, updating my journal, and working on the website while listening to Keith Jarrett's La Scala album, a live performance of solo piano at the famed La Scala Theatre in Milan, Italy. Jarrett improvised the entire concert in three movements, roughly 70 minutes of music. Listening to the very opening flourishes of this work, I found myself in tears, really getting into the heart of the piece. And like a fine wine aged to perfection, Jarrett gets into the subtleties of playing the piano, something of which he has mastered in the course of time and due to his possessing perfect pitch. I found myself reading the liner notes in the CD booklet and again became inspired by an experience Jarrett had after the concert at La Scala: Solo Concert La Scala February 13, 1995 After the concert at La Scala, a small man in his sixties came backstage with what appeared to be several orchestral scores under his arm accompanied by a young relative (grandson? great nephew?). I thought the young man was probably a fan and had brought his relative (a musician, obviously) to see my concert; totally improvised concerts being relatively rare. It turned out, however, that the older man had been the assistant to the conductors at La Scala for every production for the past 25 years, and had, of course, heard all the music at the hall in those years. He spoke no English (the young man translated). With tears in his eyes at times and gesturing towards his heart to try to convey that his feelings were stronger than words, he told me that he had all my albums and had for many years been a great fan of my music, but that nothing had prepared him for the experience of this live solo concert at La Scala. He said it was the strongest, most moving (again putting his hand to his heart and with tears in his eyes) musical experience he ever had, even though he had heard countless concerts at La Scala and even though he had all my recordings. My wife and I looked at each other, not really knowing what to do or say. I thanked him, but there was no proper way to say thank you for reinforcing the fragile ( and at times, distant) knowledge that music IS in the making of the music. The heart is where the music is. Keith Jarrett Keith Jarrett has been one of my all-time favorite jazz artists, but when he solos on piano, he transcends all styles of music, and in his musical stylings one can here romanticism, stride, classical, post-modern, jazz, and gospel. His solos are long and very involved. For the uninitiated, they could appear to be boring and repetitive. It is only when the listener makes a concentrated effort to really listen to what is going on, then can the listener "hear" the beauty and genius of his creativity. Well, I listened to the entire album today and was totally amazed. The thing I learned about listening to jazz music, is that there are aspects of a performance that might not be grasped during the initial listening, and that only upon several listenings does one begin to hear more things that weren't caught on previous listenings. You could listen to a jazz tune and learn something from it at a later listen, which is really remarkable when you think about it. It goes to show you how much was really put into a top-notch performance, all the subtleties that go into performing this music is incredible! My solo on Sing, Sing, Sing (I thought) was much better than yesterday at UCSD. I received a great response from the audience, just not as spectacular as the Croce's gig last Saturday, but tonight's solo was encouraging. The crowd was a little tougher tonight, but that happens on some nights. But I had the feeling there were a lot of people there that came for my drum solos. But also, there were a few people that I did recognize, especially two from yesterday's UCSD gig. I expressed my feelings to the band about not being able to use my own drums for the Frank Sinatra show this coming Friday. I was really upset over that, and although lots of concert-type engagements do this when multiple bands play, I felt I needed my own drum kit to fully demonstrate my best performance. I really didn't care when some of the guys in the band mentioned that some of the best drummers in the world perform on whatever drum kit was available. I truly felt that in order for me to give my best performance, especially in front of celebrities and Vegas socialites, I needed my own kit, period. Oh, well. The agent that I talked to over the phone was a very nice person. She just wouldn't take no for an answer and insisted on having the "house kit" on stage, and that there just wasn't any room for another drum set. Well, I am completely and utterly bummed out about this. The Sinatra gig is just a few short days away, and I don't have a good feeling about it. The other members of the band were frustrated about my concerns for using my own kit, and I guess it kinda left a sour taste in everyone's mouth after the gig tonight. I really conveyed to everyone that I was not a "happy camper". I hate looking like a "prima donna" regarding this, but I am nervous about Friday's gig and I really wish I could use my own drum kit.
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