My Life in Jazz, Part Two:

The College Years- The Beat Intensifies

The day had arrived for me to be uprooted from my garden variety suburban environs.

The only life I had ever known.

And be dropped into an entirely new and different place altogether- college (or “university,” if you’re Canadian).

Even though it was only a little over an hour drive from home, as the landscape transformed into seemingly nothing but cornfields for miles, it became clear that I was truly entering a world that was totally foreign to me.

I had stopped paying attention to the scenery. The sign for the university seemed to appear out of nowhere as we were suddenly turning onto a road, winding past a peaceful lagoon draped by weeping willow trees. Looming in the distance was a cluster of tall, modern looking dormitories that resembled an industrial complex.

It was one of the oldest dorms on campus, and by far the smallest. My mother and sister Marybeth were getting out of the car to start unloading my belongings. But I wasn’t budging. Instead, I sat crouched down, embedded deep into the back seat, knees hunched up nearly to my head, clearly not at all ready to get out of the car.

My future at that point seemed like a bottomless void. Staying wedged into the back seat felt like the best option, at least momentarily.

I eventually dragged myself out of the car. The three of us, armed with milk crates and boxes, headed up a double staircase with ornate iron work that led to the front entrance, which was supported by tall, classic columns. As we walked in, a cheerful girl who seemed to be the “official greeter” smiled at a returning student and welcomed him back by name. It only accentuated to me the fact that I was an unfamiliar face to everyone I was about to encounter.

We passed by two roommates who had just finished setting up their stereo.

One of them, blonde and curly haired, was sitting in a chair, jerking his body intensely to the song “Billie Jean” with a crazed look on his face, his eyes nearly popping out of his head. “That guy is weird,” my sister commented.

At this point, everything felt weird and hostile to me.

But as overwhelming as it all seemed, I wasn’t completely without guidance.

Marybeth had graduated from this same university just a year earlier. She had thoughtfully taken the time to jot down a list of pointers and facts about the campus and its environs, to help me acclimate to my new surroundings. A variety of topics were covered such as:

• how to prevent having my clothes shredded in the dorm washers and dryers
• what stores had the best discounts
• a detailed list of the local pizza joints and fast food haunts
• what part of the lagoon was home to an aggressive group of ducks that were to be avoided

And: which floors in the library were for serious studying – and which ones were inhabited by sorority and fraternity types that would just sit and gawk at each other. (I did eventually end up on the sorority/fraternity floor once along with a friend, and MB’s intel had been dead on. We ran for our lives.)

I had no idea what to do with the chicken, since I had no refrigerator and did not plan to consume the entire thing in one sitting. I began to unpack. My belongings were unremarkable- clothes, some music books, a jar of pennies, a few records and cassettes, mostly Moody Blues…

And the crown jewel:

My Casiotone MT-45.

A miniscule 4 octave keyboard with 8 preset sounds, and 8 drumbeats, plus a couple of secret drumbeats that I had accidently discovered by inadvertently landing in between the standard settings.

I had played that little keyboard constantly since the day I had received it as a graduation gift, writing masterpieces on it such as “Blow Chow”, a song about vomiting, set to the Casiotone’s cheesy but accurate disco beat. It included the poetic line:

If you detest all this mess, just remember:

you can eat again for free.

FROM THE INDY RELEASE: “ROLLERBOOGIE: THE peristaltic YEARS”

An internet search reveals that Casiotones were “small, with miniature keys designed for children’s fingers, and were not intended for use by professional musicians.” As I sat there alone in my new room with my little keyboard, it really was as if I was just a kid with a toy, feeling totally overwhelmed in a world where I didn’t seem to belong.

But at least I had Marybeth’s list and a chicken.

Yes, I know: It all sounds very overdramatic for something that millions of people go through every year.

I felt invisible to them.

One thing I noticed quickly was that a great deal of jazz music was pouring out from some of the rooms surrounding me. It wasn’t the kind of jazz that Dad liked, whose record collection included trumpeter Herb Alpert’s frothy lounge pop, the jazz-rock confections of Ramsey Lewis, Dixieland artists Al Hirt and Pete Fountain…

This strange music wasn’t anything like those records, nor did it sound much like the big band arrangements we played in high school jazz band. It was fast and crazy. I couldn’t tell any of it apart and I didn’t care much for it. Who were these people? 

When I had applied to this university, I was only vaguely aware of its jazz department. It was a much bigger deal than I had realized.

It had recently been ranked the number one college jazz band in the country by a prominent jazz magazine. It made sense that I was surrounded by people that were so hard core about jazz.

And what were those odd sounds I was hearing? 

It was mostly bebop.

When Bill Bois (aka Virgindog) covered jazz in his Theoretically Speaking series here at TNOCS, he made the point that “jazz is musicians pushing the art and themselves and each other as far as they can go.”

That is bebop in a nutshell.

“Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early-to-mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo (usually exceeding 200 bpm), complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key, instrumental virtuosity, and improvisation based on a combination of harmonic structure, the use of scales and occasional references to the melody.

Bebop developed as the younger generation of jazz musicians expanded the creative possibilities of jazz beyond the popular, dance-oriented swing music-style with a new “musician’s music” that was not as danceable and demanded close listening.”

…which to my ears at the time, sounded more like noise than jazz.

It was too fast and complex for me to make sense of it. As I got to know many of the jazz guys and was continuously exposed to it, I indeed began listening more closely and eventually warmed to bebop, as well as many other styles of jazz.

By the end of that first year, I was immersed in the works of artists such as Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley and Oscar Peterson. I didn’t always musically understand it, but I was really beginning to connect with this music.

In addition to the top jazz band at the school, there was a second level and a third level band as well.

When they announced that auditions were being held, I signed up, thinking, “hey, with my experience in high school jazz band, I could maybe make that third band.” I don’t remember exactly what I was asked to play, but the notes weren’t written out for me, like they had been in high school, and I had to demonstrate that I knew how to play the chords in the best inversions for them to transition close to one another.

I discovered quickly just how little I knew about jazz.

I was also finding out in general that I was surrounded by people who had been dedicating their lives for years to being the best they could at their craft.

When I had not been doing so at all.

My new teacher, a diminutive Hungarian taskmaster, laid it out for me point blank:

She told me we needed to start from the beginning and rebuild my entire technique and basically relearn to play piano.

A switch was flipped.

I understood that I was at the bottom and that I had to work harder than I ever had in my life if I wanted this.

And I did want it.

For the next 4 years, I would find myself in a small room with a Steinway grand as my good friend, practicing 3-8 hours a day. Sometimes I would practice deep into the night, too tired to continue but not ready to stop.

I emerged from this experience a different player, as well as a different person, consumed by the music and knowing that wherever I ended up in life, music would be a part of it.

At the same time, I also became more serious about jazz.

I signed up for jazz piano lessons to learn how to really play jazz and improvise. My progress was slow, and the more complex scales and chords escaped me. I would never sound like those albums I was hearing in the dorm. And I would not be as adept at it as those around me who were already fluent, but I was slowly getting the basic concepts.

For my final exam, I had to play “Autumn Leaves,” with the chords in the left hand tightly voiced, while playing melody and soloing in the right hand.

I was on my way.

…to be continued…

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I’ve put together a playlist with a variety of tracks from bebop and other post-big band styles of jazz, many of which sound tracked my college days. Enjoy!

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