Jazz

Most nights in years past he would be in bed by now—fast asleep, perhaps dreaming about someone or something, or maybe lying awake pondering the day before or ahead—but now, sleep was a bygone thing. Max looked around him. Now, his nights were occupied by a whirl of voices, of clinking glasses, a state of reverie surrounding him. Jazz was his new norm. 

“You have about 5 minutes,” the manager said, walking up to the band. An air of wariness swept through the band; it would soon be time. The drummer sat up straight. The pianist cracked his knuckles. A trumpeter licked his lips and wiped his mouthpiece. Max, though a saxophone prodigy of sorts, wasn’t much of a veteran performer—this was his 3rd week of gigs, the 3rd week since he’d been fired from his job as a newspaper correspondent. His 3rd week of living in his small apartment, with little pay and struggling to survive in the streets of New Orleans. 

His eyes moved over the sight swimming before him; this was the New Orleans nightlife. The sound of wine glasses, the faint smell of food and alcohol mixed with the scent of varnish, the movement of the waiters and the men and women and in between trying to escape the rush of life for the rush of drink and dance, to once again feel free. A freedom that would dissipate come dawn. 

He tightened his mouthpiece, glancing at the manager. Two minutes. 

One minute. Thirty seconds. They tensed up and readied. The cymbal crashed, the snare cracked, and the drummer was off. The bassist joined. A clarinet solo followed, and then with a bright, ringing stab of sound, the trumpets were off. The night had begun. 

Max held his saxophone, counting the beats until his entrance, tapping his foot: five, six, seven, eight. He placed his mouthpiece on his lips and began to play. 

– – – 

New Orleans was a city of music—at every bar, club, restaurant you went to, performances of all types were taking place, especially around the holiday season. For Max, it wasn’t hard getting a job as a performer at The Catwalk, one of the most famous establishments in the city and known for its wild shows of big band jazz. And Max loved big band jazz. The chaos, the buzz of activity that permeated the music, that clash between the instruments—to be in the center of all that and hear it play all around him, melding with the sound of his own instrument—was intoxicating, and Max couldn’t get enough of it. Even on off nights when he was free to wander, he would roam around the city, seeking free performances and listening to other bands in different restaurants, immersing himself in the music.

But Max’s greatest connection to big band jazz was that he wrote his own, a hobby he’d had for years ever since he’d first picked up a saxophone. At his desk, Max wrote on cheap notation paper, painstakingly drawing each note by hand, having only his mind to imagine what the music would sound like. He had never been fully satisfied with one of his pieces and had come to New Orleans to seek some inspiration that would help him write something he actually loved. 

It was on one night exactly a week ago at around 2 AM, when he found himself sitting in a small bar on the opposite side of the city from his apartment, waiting for the band to set up and begin playing. His coworker, the pianist at The Catwalk, had said this was the best band in the city, and, half excited but half skeptical, he now sat at a table some ten feet away from their stage, with a glass of soda and his score out in front of him; he had been stuck on his most recent piece and hoped this “best band in the city” could provide him that stroke of inspiration he so dearly coveted. 

“What’ve you got there, young man?” Max looked up, seeing a man suddenly standing over him. With a head of styled brown hair and an unkempt beard dotted with the snow outside, he had a warm smile and large stature—his light wrinkles and demeanor made him look to be in his late 40s. 

“Just a hobby,” he murmured, instinctively reaching forward to adjust his papers into a neat stack, hiding the unfinished portions of his score. “It’s unfinished, so…”

“You can do a lot with an unfinished score,” the man said, sitting down on the opposite side of the table. “Mind if I take a look?” 

He reached forward and, to Max’s surprise, moved the first few pages aside and went straight for the fourth one—where the notes stopped halfway and several instruments had empty staves. Nothing had been written past that. Max had no idea why the man was now nodding, smiling, and murmuring to himself as he read over what little was written on that page. 

“You mind if I borrow this for the night?” the man said, eyes not leaving the manuscript. “I swear it’ll be back in your hands by dawn, if you’re willing to stay for that long.” 

“What’re you gonna do with that?” Max asked. “It’s not finished, I —” 

But the man had already gathered those four pages and stood up from the table. “I said, young man, you can do a lot with an unfinished score.” He turned and melted into the crowd of people and waiters, leaving Max confused and wondering if he’d just been robbed. 

But at this point, the band was ready, though a few instruments were left vacant. However, the lights around the stage dimmed, spotlights slowly brightened, and then with a crash of drums and a sharp blast from the brass section, they were off, and Max’s mind turned away completely from the encounter he’d just had.

His coworker wasn’t wrong — they were brilliant. Max had never seen or heard such coordination between members; it didn’t even feel like they were a group of fifteen, it seemed as if they were one entity playing all fifteen instruments at once, the instruments blending seamlessly, the players sharing one mind and soul. He watched with attention, hungrily absorbing every detail he could glimpse in the dim light—the occasional glances between the sections as keys changed and tempos swung this way and that, the swells and dips in volume as one section entered as another exited — he couldn’t believe it. As the night went on, things only got better and better, and Max sat there, taking it all in, captivated by their performance. 

But two things soon crept into the back of Max’s mind: first, why the piano and two trombones were still devoid of players, and second, where the man he encountered earlier had gone. 

In about an hour, he got his answer. As the band took a break, he saw the mysterious man approach them, before his vision was blocked by a large group of customers being escorted to one of the back rooms. When he was able to see them again, they were already back on stage, fiddling with their instruments, and distributing sheet music amongst themselves. Now, the two trombones had been taken, and at the piano sat none other than the man who had taken Max’s score. 

Once again, the lights dimmed, but when the music started, Max’s eyes widened. He knew those chords. He knew those notes; he knew that sudden entrance of the brass; he knew that music—it was his piece; he knew all the parts by heart. But there was only about a minute of music written. What they were going to do, once they hit that break point, Max had no idea; all he could do was listen in trepidation as the fourth page of music drew closer, until he could count the seconds remaining on one hand. His heart beat faster and faster, and even though he wasn’t the one on stage, he felt a wave of anxiety wash over him. 

And all of a sudden, what had been his music became something else—everything seemed to go off in different directions at once—as each section began playing something new, a variation on what was written previously, a continuation of a pattern, or in the pianist’s case, something entirely new. Max watched as all the performers’ eyes simultaneously looked away from the score, instead directed at each other, at the crowd—they were improvising. Max could barely process the sudden change, but he could hear the music come to life. It was heavenly. 

His vision seemed to swim; the sound of the bar, the voices of the waiters and customers, seemed to melt away—the band was all he could hear. They danced and swung with his music, taking it to unbelievable heights and depths he never could have dreamed of. They spun his score into a beautiful disorder, twisting the chords and trading solos wherever they liked, running free with his music. Max seemed to fall into a trance, his mind following but

not processing everything they were doing; it was beautiful, beautiful. Like nothing he had ever heard or dared to write in his life. 

He forgot entirely where he was and why he was there—all that mattered to him was that music. All that he remembered from those hours was that music, his music, turned into something more. He couldn’t remember how he got his score back or when he ever got back home—only that he had rushed home after somehow securing the original copy of his song, sat down at his desk, fresh notation paper in his hand, and hoped to write down all the different parts he remembered from that band’s improvisation. 

He couldn’t. To his frustration, though he remembered what the band sounded like, he couldn’t dissect the notes and couldn’t think analytically of the sound at all. When he tried to, whatever he put down didn’t look right on paper or sound right in his head. Had he remembered it wrong? He didn’t know. All that Max knew was that he couldn’t recapture the magic of that night. 

– – – 

Max sat at a table to the side of the stage, wiping his mouthpiece down. The band was on break—the drummer massaged his palms, the trumpeters cleaned out their valves and reviewed sheet music—and everyone was still buzzing with activity, ready to return to the stage whenever they needed to. His mind was still on that night, still wondering about that band and his score. He still hadn’t reached an answer on how to find such beauty in his own music again. 

“Back on stage, boys!” their drummer called, and the group rose in unison and began taking their places. Within minutes, everyone was poised and prepared, as the pianist and drums led them into their next piece. Max counted until his entrance, until just 6 counts before, he made a split second decision. His heart pounding in his chest, his breathing accelerating, he looked up from his score into the crowd, which, all of a sudden, he could see with perfect clarity. 

Leaving the piece as it was written behind, looking onward into the unknown world of heavenly chaos and beauty beyond the score, a world he so dearly coveted, Max raised his saxophone to his lips and began to play.