134. American Jazz

            I have always loved music. I like to hear it, I like to play it, and I like to sing it. The only instrument I can competently play is the Baritone (aka Euphonium). I started playing the trumpet when I was in sixth grade but by junior high my band teacher thought I should move to the Baritone. I don’t know if that’s because he thought my mouth was better fit for the larger mouthpiece or if it was because he needed some middle brass players in the band. Either way I’ve been playing the Baritone off and on ever since seventh grade which was 45 years ago. I also learned the basics of piano but as far as playing that instrument? Well, let’s put it this way…I am nowhere near competent.

            Usually, when you play in a school band, you play a lot of concert music or pep band. I always enjoyed pep band because we were playing old fashioned Souza type marches or pop music reconfigured for band instruments. But to listen to band music, well, that was never really my thing. But to hear a jazz band marching down the streets of New Orleans? That is pure magic. By playing the Baritone I fell in love with jazz and jazz is a truly American art form. But I still play mostly concert music on my Baritone because that’s the kind of band I’m in. While there is a certain disappointment for me in that, I have learned an appreciation for jazz and when I sing in the shower I’m more likely than not going to sing an old jazz tune as I “Fly me to the moon” with that “Old Black Magic.”

            I love the crooners like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin and the dames like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holliday. So in these cooped up days of Covid-19 quarantine I’ve been tuning in to “KJEM the Jazz Gem of the Palouse” or a little Diana Krall and Michael Bublé (who are both British Columbians and from my back yard, albeit not American) who spent some time at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival in Moscow, Idaho in their younger years. Because of where I live I’ve also met and been entertained by some of the greatest American Jazz artists. I love that jazz has such a high place in American culture and I love its many varied forms from New York, Chicago Blues, New Orleans, Kansas City, and, yep, Moscow, Idaho. Get out those old jazz records and have a listen.