Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Jamming at Jadzia’s

I told my old buddy Dave Porush about last Saturday’s party at Jadzia’s International Emporium of Mystery and Conviviality and he said: “Building world peace one jam at a time!”

That’s about it. It was the event of the season, Farewell to Summer – Perry’s Birthday, and the folks were jammin’ ‘till the wee hours of the morning, though I had to leave early (writing deadline, dontcha’ know). There was the food of course, wonderful food, and people from all over, though I’m told that the contingent from Tajikistan couldn’t make it because their flux capacitors blew and the Martian shuttle couldn’t fly in replacements in time.

With all these people there was talk of many things, of shoes and ships and sealing wax, and the wisdom in Saturn’s rings.

And the music, that’s why I was there. I’ve known about Perry Robinson for years, but never heard him. And now I’d have a chance to jam with him, him and his Rastafarian buddies. What fun!

And it was. I didn’t know any of the musicians, except for the DJ, Lazarus Deuxx. It was a nice mix of young and not-so-young, men and women – but, alas, no children (too late at night I suppose), and all levels of expertise and experience.

That’s so important, you don’t know how. We’ve become besotted with expertise – and, yes, expertise is real, and important, but it’s not all. So there are the experts who are put off in a category beyond reach of mere mortals and mere mortals forget that they too are musical beings. That’s not good for us. We all need to embrace and be embraced by music, not merely through listening, but through the making.

And that’s how it was at Jadzia’s. As the night wore on Perry was holding court in the kitchen and outdoors on the deck, the Israeli bass player was feeding me horn lines, the chanting Rasta was cuing the keyboardist and Gerry was holding it down, while maintaining a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet mind you, on the djembe. Transcendental.

Jah Love!

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