That’s that

So, on my way to the concert Friday night, I’m stopped at a yield sign waiting for traffic to let up enough for me to merge. The guy behind me decides it’s let up enough to go ahead and merge. Unfortunately, he completely forgot there was a car in front of him. Mine.

I suppose there are worse things than a traffic accident to take one’s mind off of things and help one lose some of one’s nervousness and settle down before performing in a concert. I calmly got out of the car and honestly, at first I couldn’t see any damage. We looked underneath and around, and all I could see were some vague scrapes where the dirt had some off my car. Me and the perp didn’t even bother to exchange info, as I simply couldn’t see anything wrong and wanted to go back to thinking about the concert.

The concert was standing room only. Literally. The audience was siting on the staircases at the top. I had about ten or twelve supporters of my own there, only one from where I work, the rest colleagues and former colleagues of Mrs. S. Our band played first and we led off with Splanky. I had the first solo and it was really the only time anyone was going to hear me. The rhythm section and I nailed the behind-the-beat opening, played our 24 bars, then I soloed. I dropped in a Pop Goes the Weasel lick halfway through, but otherwise stuck to an unadventurous but nice sounding blues-scale-based line. It received the usual lukewarm opening solo applause. (Later, somebody told me they thought I would be soloing a lot longer, which was why they didn’t clap.)

From that point on, I was home free. The pressure was off. The rest of the concert went well, even if it ended up being a little long.

Fourth ever jazz concert is done and gone. Back to practicing from The Jazz Piano Book and working on technique, plus I’m going to start a new, critical listening project which I will outline in some detail soon. Updates to Yoity Tot are also long overdue.