The Jazz Musician
Jun 4th, 2010 by Rabbi Simcha Weinberg in Portion of the Week
A Different Kind of Musician
The saxophonist had one foot forward and was moving his body back and forth in a slow-motion Karliner shakel. I can’t picture him playing in an orchestra pit.
The trumpet player was shaking his head up and down while listening to the other musicians. He was in a different place when he expanded his cheeks and blew away. No, a jazz musician is very different from a classical performer.
The dance of the music, its flow and creativity, all demand that the musician sink into the music in a manner I’ve never seen in other forms of music. The Jazz musician is usually a “character,” whose formal skills are hidden by his total absorption.
“Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before the entire congregation.” And then, the man who felt so helpless that he fell on his face, stands up to argue with God. One minute, he is falling on his face, overwhelmed by the challenge of the people. The next, he stands with strength and determination before God.
Moshe not only spoke with words; he was the jazz musician, using his body to express his message. The man who had the courage to shatter God’s Luchot (Tablets) did not need to fall on his face because he felt helpless. Moshe Rabbeinu – Our Teacher – lived Torah as the Shira – Song – it is. Everything he did, everything he said and how he said it, was to express the music of the moment; the joy and the devastation, the thrills and the fears, the highs and the lows.
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Rebbe, this is a beautiful posting and typical of what makes your teachings so uniquely your own. Your words are words to live by and what you describe is a way of life to emulate and/or try to incorporate into our own various and unique paths.
The following is an excerpt from a letter I wrote in January 2008 to the great Jazz pianist Cedar Walton after hearing him perform at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola in New York City with Vincent Herring on Sax and David “Happy” Williams on Bass. Its perspectives complements Rebbe’s posting:
Dear Mr. Walton,
Whenever Vincent or Dave took their solos, you added “highlights”, playing a few notes here and a few notes there while they played. Your notes always ring with a pure, crystal clear and beautiful melodic quality. Again and again, you would add these touches to the music and complete the picture around the music being played.
I realized while you played that that is exactly what G-d does.
We live our lives, which is our song. The late, great Jazz guitarist (and inventor of the electric guitar) Les Paul once said at a performance that we each have our own melody.
While we’re “singing” our song, all around us, G-d is adding notes and flourishes all around us, complementing and completing the picture.
Mr. Walton, you also possess this gift when you perform with your bandmates. You don’t steal the attention from their playing. Your notes are quieter than theirs. But I couldn’t help pay attention to their beauty and how they complemented the music. This modesty is, in fact, greatness. And it led me to realize, that this is one of G-d’s ways too, to stay in the “background” as it were, but to make life so beautiful – with artists like you. [Él-Ad note: this lends a new chidush!! As Moshe Rabbeinu was the humblest of all people, he came closest to emulating G-d's own 'humility'
Wow!!!]
The Jewish sages teach, “Great is G-d who created man in G-d’s image. Greater yet is G-d, for telling us so.”
Just a bit of Torah she’B'Ahl Peh, as R’ Shlomo says, we’re allowed to add a thought onto others’ thoughts:
Sometimes, someone’s presence, even without any discernible action, provides inspiration and changes the entire atmosphere. And ,that, may be the essence of Khein, Grace.