This is an ongoing musical memoir. If you are just wandering onto this page and didn’t see the first two chapters of “Blues, Preludes & Feuds,” please read those first:
Prelude
4’33”..
…of SilencePart 1:
Chapter 1: Middle C is Not
“To have any sort of clue about what you should be playing, you need to know who you are, where you came from.”
I’m at the bar, on the receiving end of what promises to be a lecture by L’BoDean. He has just completed his first set at Orphans, which was—in spite or because of his resentment toward his audience—ferocious. Richie Havens’ cover of Here Comes the Sun is playing in the speaker over my head. I always liked his version better than the Beatles’. It has an aggression that is willing rather than waiting for the damn sun to come along.
We’re sitting in the dimly lit corner by the cash register. There’s no green room here. L’BoDean wants to be as far away from the action as possible. He waits for the start of his second set, hoping to avoid his fans at all costs. He doesn’t drink anymore, and doesn’t like bars, so he’s sipping a juice concoction of his own making. I do drink, am nursing an Amstel Light, but I also don’t like bars. I prefer to drink alone. He also doesn’t like second sets and may find a way to get out of this one.
“Hmm?” I offer, cynically. “So because I came from the North Side of Chicago, near the lake, from upper-middle-class, Jewish-American stock, I should be playing what? Watered-down klezmer?”
“Very funny, smart ass. Although, yeah, maybe you should. Actually, don’t.” He laughs.
“Trust me, I won’t. But my point is, who we are and where we came from are highly fungible things. Nebulous. Always changing. I mean, my ancestors came from Odessa in Ukraine, settled in Omaha three generations ago, headed to Chicago a generation ago. Is there something in my musical DNA left over from Odessa? From Nebraska? I don’t think so. Hell, I’m not even convinced there’s anything from Chicago. No, I take that back. I’m convinced there is almost nothing from Chicago, if we’re just talking musical styles. I’ve never even listened to Chicago blues, don’t even think about it when I’m playing blues. My blues, as far as I can tell—and I’m not altogether sure I can tell—comes from the Delta and Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Randy Weston, plus a little black gospel. The gospel may have come from Chicago, but I’ve never been in a black church that I can remember. I’ve never been to Mississippi, never remotely experienced what the folks who first made that music experienced. And yet . . .”
“And yet,” he offers, “you feel this music in your bones, right? Of course, you do. It was the musical food you ate, that you absorbed into your bloodstream. It became a part of your DNA because you needed it to survive. It is you. Or it became you over time. You didn’t need Chicago blues to survive, so you didn’t eat it. So, yeah, you need to know who you are. But when I say where you come from, I’m not talking about the geography, I’m talking about soul—where your musical soul came from.”
“Okay, but how much of yourself is really yourself vs. what you borrowed from others? I mean, sometimes I’m improvising something, and I know what I’m playing is influenced by McCoy Tyner . . . but it’s coming through the filter of my own experience. But it’s hard to tell sometimes if I’m mimicking or creating.”
“What you’re talking about are dialogues with history.” He checks his watch and peaks over his shoulder toward the stage. Seats are rapidly filling in for the second set, which he’ll now have to play. “Damn,” he mutters, then turns back to me. “Or dialogues with your heroes.”
“Dialogues? Talking to the past?”
“Sometimes arguing.” He does a couple of shoulder rolls and tilts his neck from side to side to work out the kinks, going through the various preparations to steel himself for another round. Like a lot of performers, he loves and hates performing. Loves it once he’s doing it—hates the idea of doing it, knowing the physical and psychological toll that the preparation and aftermath will take on his body and spirit.
“Listen to any great musician when they were younger. You can hear their big influences, but then you hear moments of their own ideas, struggling to be heard in the context of the musical world created by their forebears. You hear the Haydn in early Beethoven, the Bird in early Coltrane.” He turns back to me. “And the thing is this. It’s in those moments, where you’re simultaneously mimicking and fighting off your heroes, that you forge your own identity—your sound. It’s a conversation, an argument with history. When you’re first learning your craft, you accept your heroes’ ideas at face value. But then you build up the confidence to challenge them. If you just take what they give you, never question it, you become subsumed in their personalities.”
“Yeah,” I sigh. “That’s the problem in being faced with overwhelming greatness: It can feel like a prison that keeps you from moving on.”
“And unfortunately, too many of the very good, but not great, players get sucked into the minds of their heroes and can never find their way out. Those players—or composers—never really find their voices.”
“Like all the sax players who could never really get beyond Coltrane . . . ”
“Or composers—like you—who could never get over Beethoven.” He laughs.
“Are you kidding me? That’s ridiculous! I’m not trapped in Beethoven’s world.”
“I didn’t say that,” he says, laughing at my insecurity. “I just said you were a composer. And that composers in general have had a hard time getting beyond Beethoven. Not you, in particular.”
“Yeah, whatever.” I look away.
“Anyway, the point is that we’re all part of a long-running musical collective, a tradition or multiple traditions. But we’re also individuals within those communities. It’s your job as an artist to find and assert your voice within that larger context. Sort of like politics, in that way.”
“No, it’s not.”
“No, it’s not, not really. Though the business of music—that cesspool of greed and gangsterism—is all politics, unfortunately. Can’t get away from it. You can only hide in your musical monastery for so long before reality will force you out, force you to confront the world as it is, not how you want it to be.” He stands up. “And unfortunately, I’m forced to confront the bullshit reality of my second set.”
“So wait . . . ” I’m convinced he’s talking about me and my tendency to go into self-imposed exile for extended periods. “Are you talking about—”
“I’m just talking,” he waves me off dismissively and heads toward the stage. “You can finish my drink,” he says over his shoulder.
“Okay . . . thanks?”
He turns back suddenly and quietly says, “But, remember.”
“What?” I’m thinking he’s going to warn me about the drink.
“Remember that no matter what you’re doing—finding your voice within the community and whatnot—you’re ultimately doing just one thing.”
“And that is . . . ?”
“You’re trying to find the source,” he laughs and continues toward the stage.
“The source of what?” I yell back.
He doesn’t bother turning back, just shakes his head, limps toward the stage, and yells, “The source, man. The got damn source. Sheeiit.”
Next Chapter: 3. Drugstore At the End of the World