Music
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The Music in My Soul
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I’ve studied music—piano lessons from the age of six. I can listen to a melody and adequately duplicate it. I’m what is described as a musical egghead, known for having a “good ear.” But classical music required more disciplined techniques than hammering out show tunes. Those dreaded scales and the metronome ticking bored me. After 15 years of piano lessons, my knowledge was incomplete, though I had learned to enjoy classical music—a serene Bach Suite for cellos, the music spilling out in soothing glissandos.
A year ago, I listened to a friend talk about his years in the world of jazz—describing the musicians, all virtuosos, masters of instruments that were loud, bold and strong. This was America’s own unique music, very new to me. Fusion, jazz, the blues, hot jazz, improvisation and interpretation. Music that broke all the rules and conventions. His passion was deep. I realized that this music was not just about playing the notes. It was about capturing the spirit. I started listening to musical artists whose names I barely recognized: Herbie Hancock, Branford Marsalis, Dexter Gordon, Tony Williams, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and more. My list of favorites grew longer. New concepts of rhythm, harmony and tone made jazz an intensely personal experience between performer and listener. Listening closely to Miles Davis’s trumpet solos in Solea, the notes zigzagging across octaves, suddenly veering into something unexpected. Holding my breath, I wondered if it would end in jarring discord or sweet resolution. That’s what Miles meant when he said, “Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.” The dark heat of his music is magical. I just discovered Abdullah Ibrahim, a South African jazz pianist—now 84, a brilliant interpreter of musical innovation. In “Dreamtime,” he played six notes of an octave, stretching each sound like a thread spun from a silkworm’s cocoon. He created a melody that is initially repetitive—but every note backed with lush synchronicity from Ekaya, his septet, making each sound exquisitely different. One night, I listened to Round Midnight—the soundtrack to a jazz film directed by Bertrand Tavernier, featuring Dexter Gordon playing the tenor saxophone. A tumbler of Scotch in hand, I contorted my body into an armchair and listened to something new and brilliant. The dark-coffee-syrup sounds took me to other places—the streets of New York as the pink dawn saturated the skyline, to Paris on the Pont Neuf at midnight, then home to the Embarcadero on a foggy night in San Francisco. Mind and body had embarked on a sensual journey which some suggestively call “streetwalker music.” A music critic reviewing the next release, The Other Side of Round Midnight, laconically described Dexter Gordon as “Long Tall Dexter.” I smiled—this music is like a long swallow of a carefully aged golden whiskey that will transport you to beautiful places. I was hooked on jazz. Note: Round Midnight is a 1986 American-French musical drama film directed by Bertrand Tavernier. It stars Dexter Gordon. The film is a wistful and tragic portrait that captures the Paris jazz scene of the 1950s.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Elsa Fernandez grew up in Asia. She has lived in San Francisco since 1970 and never gets tired of this lovely city. She has traveled the world and still gets excited flying back home and to finally land at SFO. Her family is scattered around the world—India, Australia, Dubai, England, Ireland and Argentina. She is a political junkie and majored in Journalism and Political Science. She loves music and plays the piano quite well (one of her dreams was to own a piano bar in upcountry Maui . . . she would probably call it the Maui Moon!). Writing poetry is an emotional outlet for her.
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Vistas & Byways Review is the semiannual journal of fiction, nonfiction and poetry by members of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at San Francisco State University.
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Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State University (OLLI at SF State) provides communal and material support to the Vistas & Byways volunteer staff.
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