Just a Job

August 26, 2023

I realized recently that my saxophone is a job to me now. And then I felt free.

I have never noticed until this moment of realization that my abilities as a saxophonist were inextricably intertwined to myself. To my artistry, my musicianship, my soul.

A job is something to be done well. Realizing my saxophone is a job is emancipating. Like my identity as a saxophonist has broken off an old rusted mooring. My saxophone is now unmoored. From what? From ego? From reputation? From chops? From “winning the gig”?

From that sinister energy that is found in jazz music these days, a corroded sour remnant of the fierce competition of the original jazz musicians. Cutting contests, jam sessions, talking shit, vibing. All part of the original culture. The culture of intelligent and powerful musicians staking out their place among crushing racism, among a white supremacist culture that attempted to block the sun from Black lives. They built a music that danced as it innovated. Music that grew in sophistication while never straying from the people, always in the groove, always connected to the audience, always rooted in culture. It was molded by countless gigs in front of people, it was innovated among ears, and feet, and drink, and smells, and sex, and fighting. It was conceived from and among humanity.

The competition was a natural element of that. Human. Messy. Egotistical. It had to be bold, it had to fight for itself. It had to chew up those weak of spirit in order to stand on its own among the ever present hostility of White power structures. I wasn’t there of course, and I risk dancing on the line of mythicising a racial group. But I don’t mean to say it was perfect, far from it. It was sexist and aggressive and violent and unlawful, but it was powerful. And it was honest, an explosion of expression, of protest. Of self actualization in a hostile unethical country.

But that’s not what it is now. Now it is vile. It is sick. It is infected with entitlement and petulance. Adolescent pouting from adult, mostly, white men who throw temper tantrums wrapped in pentatonic patterns and synthetic scales and shapes that are unconnected to humanity. We put ourselves in prison, we incarcerated ourselves in awful classrooms lit by fluorescent lights, poisoned by wafts of asbestos. Drawn to white boards and dry erase markers, writing down complex symbols in the hope that we turn around and see confused faces. That is the high we chase sometimes, confused young adults, which we mistake for awe.

A pathetic attempt to feel like brilliant professors, indefatigably pondering the great mysteries of our time at great universities. Cognitive dissonance has us almost believing we’re the Oppenheimer of the lydian dominant scale, but that’s not what we’re doing, we’re severed from the music that we profess to love. Ears turned to tin, losing touch with those first few exciting and dangerous moments when jazz leapt through the speakers and attacked our ears and hearts. We now listen with a critical ear, analyzing the life out of the music. So then when music is finally made, it is also analyzed to death before it ever gets to the page. Music written from fear, fear of our peers thinking it’s corny. Fear of making anything vulnerable or with sentiment of any kind. That fear leads us all to gray sludge, nothing music. Ornate nothing. Gruel. No dance. No humanity. No sex. No fight.

And then I realized about my saxophone. It’s a job. It’s now free. I simply do the work to learn the music at home, learn it inside and out. Repetitions and rehearsal at home, re-hear. Hear and hear again, and re-hear until it’s in your bones. Then you go to the gig and connect. Connect with the band, connect with the audience. Bask. Surf. Enjoy. Unmoored from the modern sickness that has infected the academic jazz world.

I am a musician who plays saxophone. I am no longer a saxophonist. The sax is not my soul. The academic jazz world has somehow equated these things; who you are as a player is who you are as a musician is who you are as an artist is who you are as a person. It’s ingrained in the academic spheres. The academic spheres that have isolated themselves from everything else. Quarantined jazzers huddled together saying the same shit, listening to the same shit. Breathing recycled air. Stale. Haughty. Lost.

I go to Boise yesterday, to perform with the great tap dancer Andrew Nemr, opening up for Tito Puente Jr at the Treefort Music Hall. The whole band arrives downtown within minutes of each other, congregating at the Slow By Slow coffee spot. Tito’s band isn’t there yet, pushing our sound check back. Then further back, then further back still. We find a spot at a swanky food court, and sit and talk. Justin shares a tale about him and his brother Ryan going to a jam session on a college campus, where the hosts/educators knew them and said hello when they arrived. The music was flat and bland, and as the night progressed, it was obvious Justin and his brother wouldn’t be called up. Jealousy? Protectionism? Fear? Pettiness? What causes these educators to not welcome the Nielsen brothers to come join in musical fellowship?

I mention that a few recent academic jazz experiences have left me sour, often jazz jam sessions. I say acrid, like biting down on a battery. At times ugly, vapid, cruel, pointless. I ask Andrew about it, is there anything in the dance world that this reminds him of? He says that in the trad spaces, pursuing the old music, the dancers and musicians are supportive and cooperative. There’s joy in their music, in their community. He says bebop was the start of this acridness. That exclusivity. I mention there were bebop dances, but he says they weren’t communal. It was the dance world trying to keep a relationship with the musicians, but the musicians were no longer interested in that long established connection to dance. To the community.

I think he’s right. The old-timey fiddle scene, as I’ve seen through Shelby, remains positive. The electro scene and creative scenes were always positive. The noise scene. Even the pop scene as little as I’ve interfaced with it, is tremendously collaborative. Jazzers. Modern day jazzers though are alienated. Entitled. Moored. I want to turn around and shout to the younger ones: “Stop and turn back around, we went the wrong way!” As if we are spelunking in a narrowing cave, claustrophobic and scared, clawing at each other desperately and pathetically in the darkness.

Justin, Jens, and I continue this conversation later in the afternoon. Jens asks what is it about the academic jazz jam sessions that is acrid? Justin offers a solution: the self loathing.

Jesus. Yes. That’s it. The ego, the fear, the pathetic-ness, the blandness. The desperate attempt to connect the drivel that we’re doing to what the greats did. That worship of the beboppers, who freed the musicians from the tyranny of dance bands! From the tyranny of playing in sections with players not as brilliant as thee! From the tyranny of vocalists! Of dancers! Of performing popular music! Freed from the tyranny of gigs! Of steady work! Of cultural relevance! Of social resonance! Wait…. Whoops… we fucked up, turn back around!

Hitches, Habits, and Hauntings 

March 22, 2023

I was improvising with dear friends Sheela Bringi and Brent Kuecker today. They were in town on their way out to Boise for Treefort, and it was lovely to play music with them.

I have been working diligently on breaking some old physical habits as a saxophone. Mainly that I would tense up in my forearms, and raise my right shoulder as I started to really dig in.

I had always attributed these physical habits to wanting to activate a more aggressive approach during a solo. Like when it was time to sprint, I would clench. But a couple years ago, my body started to show some real signs of wear and tear due to these habits, and I knew I had to work on breaking them.

I’ve been doing (mostly) daily yoga, weight training, monthly massage therapy, and mindful practice on my horn since then to incredible success. I can catch these moments of clenching, and I work to soften and thaw in order to stave it off. It’s been really helpful, and I am still on that journey.

Back to today:

Deep in the improvisation, I was deep into the music making, listening to and joining in on the subtle phrases and rhythms of my friends. Suddenly I found myself playing an inauthentic gesture, an ego move, as if the stimulus was “OK, now play an extended hip line to remind everyone what a great musician you are”. It was a lapse among such lovely and honest music making. That’s when I felt that familiar hitch in my right shoulder, felt the tension in my forearm, a tinge in my back. Had the physical clench come before the inauthentic phrase? Did my old habit open up a door for the ego to come flooding in?

After the improvisation had finished, I almost felt the presence of that moment in the room. It was as if an old Jon had come in for that moment. An adolescent Jon who wanted to prove that a kid from rural Washington could hang with anyone. A more fragile Jon who clenched and shouted through his horn, demanding space on the bandstand, carving out room playing with professionals at a young age. A chip on the shoulder. A chip that I kept on by pinching my right shoulder up towards my neck. This specter came into the room with us, uninvited. A haunting of old habits, developed during a time of fear and insecurity.

I honored that old Jon today. Thank you for joining us, but you’re no longer welcome in my horn. If you want to stay, sit over there and check out what we’re doing now. The fear is gone, the need to carve out space is gone. The only thing that is important now is presence. A state of being that is conducive to deep music making. We don’t clench, we don’t hitch, and we don’t need to prove anything anymore. We’re just Jon.