lesson in sound

D club, a celebration for Clifford Brown's 75th anniversary. Jeremy Pelt, Tom Harrell, Terence Stafford, David Weiss on trumpet. MISTER Jimmy Cobb on drums.

And lessons in sound.

A) Sound takes 1, 2, 3, 4. Each and every one of them had their own musical signature. A broken smoky quiet whisper was TH's. A screaming strutting brassy uawuaw was JP's. TS is elegance and fire.

B) Sound attitude. JP walks onstage chest first, wears shades, big squared chunky shoes, scans the audience for friends and family, talks a lot and smiles in proportion. TH walks onstage in a leather jacket and a curtain of white scruffy hair. He never raises his head, keeps it down, eyes glued to the floor, all the time.

C) Sound of silence. TH has paranoid schizophrenia. It has been said that his otherwise shattered personality comes together only when he plays or composes. He's on some new medications, hopefully they will increase his confidence. He's seldom and embaressment for his sidemen. Occasionally though he will hear voices urging him to stop the playing as the audience is not liking it and so he will, he will cut his solo short. Or he will misinterpret a gesture, a pose and assume he's not welcome and leave.

It doesn't happen tonight. He wanders on and off focus on his solos, sometime true gems of minimalistic inspiration, sometime confused attempts to get somewhere, somewhere, somewhere. Overall touching and beautiful.

But not as beautiful as seeing him serenade the city. On a pause offstage as DW was taking his solo, TH had his back to the public, and was fingering his trumpet, its bell pointed to the stunning view of the skyline right outside the huge window. He seemed to be at peace.

D) Sound like you want: JP and TH alone onstage, the cocky and the anassuming, one head held up high to the sky, the other bent low as if in apology.

E) Ultrasound: at a table a few feet from where I was, a woman, maybe 8 months pregnant, her hands resting on her round belly, which was barely covered by the thinnest of white fabrics, a Provençal shirt. As the guys onstage were kicking it up a few decibels, the baby started moving, you could see the outline of what was possibly a foot or the head stretch the skin and dance to the waves of sound as they traveled from trumpet to placenta.

A jazz fan is born. Before she is born. I'm sure it's a girl.