The Jazz player, a true story.
I once had a chance encounter with a jazz musician which had a big effect on me and characterised some of the important qualities of living a creative life. At the time I was living up in the hills of Wales and periodically coming down to London. During one such visit I went to a jazz gig at the old Vortex in Stoke Newington, as part of the London Jazz festival. It was smoky and dark with only a handful of people in the audience. We did not need much empathy to realise that the turnout was dispiriting for the musicians. They were a jazz trio from LA and had just flown over for the jazz festival and a few other gigs.
In the first set it became clear that they were really good musicians, very competent and experienced, but while they were playing it became clear something essential was missing. The way that I thought of it at the time was that there was no creativity in their improvisation or set pieces . At the end of the set the drummer with a tone of desperation pleaded with us not to leave during the interval. I’m sure that quite a few people had thought about it, but everyone stayed.
I went to the bar to get some drinks for my friends and got into conversation with the main man who was a saxophonist. He was English but lived in L.A and worked full-time playing music. He had his own trio and also worked as a session musician with some of the big and famous groups. When I told him I lived in a Buddhist retreat centre in North Wales he became quite animated. He sometimes meditated at a Zen Centre in LA and went on Zen retreats. He found it made a big difference to his creativity, particularly when he was practising his instrument or had a gig. When he meditated during the days that he had a gig his jazz was far more fluid and creative.
He said he experienced an important relationship between the discipline of doing the scales diligently day after day and the creativity that happened in improvised performance. They were intimately connected, one feeding the other. His ability to be truly creative came out of all the discipline of honing his skills.
When he entered into that state of creativity even in a big venue in LA with thousands of people everyone knew it. There was something noticeably different in the atmosphere. The audiences awareness of his creativity affected him, which in turn plunged him deeper into the flow of creativity. At a certain point there would be no difference between him and the audience, it was as if everybody was participating in the creative process. For him this was the greatest prize of being a professional performer and what he valued most was maintaining that creative state of mind and following it wherever it went in the music.
At moments like that he didn’t have to try at all; it just flowed out of him. In the moment of creativity it is like being in an open dimension, without limitation, music just arose and passed away. Nothing was contrived, the notes arising spontaneously, as he jammed within the chosen ‘ tune’ He was there playing but not identifying with himself , nor was he ‘self-conscious’ about playing. The music came through him and used all the skills that he had developed over years of disciplined practice. There was no separation between creativity and him.
He was slightly sad for a moment when he said he was aware that he was out of touch with all of that in the last set. In that moment he was not at all touchy or reactive about how it had been and we were able to talk about it freely. It seemed to take a long time for the drinks to come, so we carried on talking about this relationship between the spirit of meditation and creativity. He saw a direct relationship between entering into an open state of mind in meditation and being open to creativity when he played the saxophone. He had a really good feeling for it and as we talked we both entered into that open vibrancy of mind that can happen in both meditation and creativity. Creative improvisation was happening in communication between us. There was inspiration in our words and we entered into a world of exploring what was of real value and significance to us. A sense of freedom and potential flowed between us. I suppose he felt supported and engaged in what was most important for him and for my part I felt as if I had met a soul brother. The vibrancy that existed between us in that moment is also at the heart of both creative improvisation and the spirit of meditation.
At the beginning of the next set when he came on stage he asked for requests I immediately put up my hand and mentioned a tune from one of Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue album. He knew exactly what I was talking about and hummed it to the group and gave them a few instructions. When he started playing everything was different. He had arrived in that creative place where the music just flowed out of him. I found myself becoming completely captivated, but early on took a brief glance at the audience, they were all completely with him. That creative interchange between performer and audience was growing deeper by the moment. He had arrived at the place of creative improvisation that he most valued and we all were right there with him. The music took me to a place of freedom and infinite possibility that stays with me still. I couldn’t tell how long the set was, as there was no sense of time. It seemed to me that he knew I was there and I was completely there with him, the concept of us being apart dissolved. My whole being seemed to vibrate with the resonance of the saxophone, He was taking me on a long journey through every kind of emotion. It was as if we went everywhere in the universe and then gradually and very gently we came back to earth and the Vortex club. After a pause the audience went ecstatic, he looked directly at me, smiled and winked.
