Last night, for the first time in I can't remember how long, I got the chance to sit down with some excellent musicians as a clarinet player and I am so happy to say I did not suck.
So why is this kind of a big deal to me and why do I want to write about it? Maybe because I had played for so many years as a guitarist in a lot of bands I got used to the fact that it was really easy to play with people. Or perhaps it was the fact that I spent maybe ten years in my midi studio, burying myself in electronic music, thinking I would make the next big thing and finally realizing that no, no one was that interested in my music. Want a free CD? I have about 100 left....
So I spent a lot of time by myself, with only my own self for musical inspiration, and did a lot more mouse manipulation than actually playing an instrument. I can tell you, for me, its not healthy, but it took a long time to realize that.
It was about two years ago, I began to hear, really hear, some music that I was only vaguely aware of, klezmer. And after trying to learn some Klezmer Brass All Stars trumpet parts, and pretty much killing myself and not being all that happy with the results, I began to become more and more enamored of the clarinet.
I thought I would try and learn the clarinet by myself, same as I did with the saxophone. How hard could it be?
After some months I attend a few jam sessions and never felt so embarrassed in my life. Depressing. I am supposed to just be able to pick up any instrument and learn it, right? Wrong. And wrong.
I found a great teacher and I begin to take lessons, and come to understand just what a challenge I have given myself. Most people are smart enough not to try and learn something like the clarinet in their mid-50's but not me.
I also found out about the Greek and Turkish clarinet website just after I bought my first (of three so far) horns, and found it to be an excellent place full of very knowledgeable players (and damned fine folks too!).It was thru this site that I ran across a friend of a friend, Yankel Falk, and it was my good luck to get invited to this klezmer jam.
The occasion was a party for the French Klezmer duo Les Mentsch who are touring in the states.
I was really very nervous all the way out to the party, because all I could think was that I would be so terrible that I would embarrass myself. It didn't help that for the entire week before I felt like I could barely make a single nice sounding note on my horn.
When I arrive I find an entire house full of people, a lot of them musicians. Lots of people speaking French, which of course I don't being a cloddish American.
I meet the guys in Les Mentsch, and the accordion player actually speaks pretty good English. My bad luck, the clarinet player only speaks French.
I say hello to Yankel, and find out our mutual friend, a great accordion player is unable to make it to the party. Too bad, but there is another excellent accordion player in attendance, Eric, from the local (and very popular and very good) band Vagabond Opera.
I have a plate of some quite good food, and then a fairly good dose of wine to relax as the instruments begin to come out of the cases. My god, there are four clarinet players here counting me, and one of the guys also has a stunningly beautiful taragato. This is like a wooden saxophone, and this is a real beaut, made out of cocobolo wood, and the bore is huge on the end, like a blunderbuss or something.
Did I mention there were also two good violin players? And that I was nervous?
I try to stay in the background when the other musicians start to play, and right away I could see this was a different scene than the kind of jam sessions I had participated in when I was a rock musician.
You see, I really got to hate anything that had the smell of a jam session, since it almost always turned out to be who-can-play-the-fastest-and-loudest, and that bores the crap out of me. Besides, rock is so varied, so that most of the time if I knew the song, I was heartily sick of it, not inspiring.
So here is the first big difference: people here actually know a lot of klezmer pieces, and while I don’t know all of them, at least they are all pretty tuneful.
I also realize that I can just lay back a bit, and play around the chord structure, play a few licks, without having to try and get the whole tune. Its almost like I know how to play this thing a bit.
The songs are very fluid and one flows into the other, people swapping parts, no huge egos (yeah, no rockers here) and as I play more and more I begin to actually start to loosen up and enjoy myself a bit. It helps a lot that everyone in the room is really very loose and confident on their instruments, which makes it a million times easier for little old me to play along.
More wine, more songs, some singing, some belly dancing and bit by bit I begin to feel like I am able to play and get in some good licks.
Having two good accordion players does not hurt one bit.
Then I had the high point of the evening for me. Jack started to play a song that I had heard on the late lamented German Goldenstein CD and to my amazement, I was able to play this song with no problem - and I had never tried to learn it. This in spite of the fact that I have only learned maybe two klezmer tunes, and this wasn't one of them. And what a struggle to learn them!
Now if I was playing the guitar, this would be no problem - but I was certainly not playing guitar. I could scarcely believe it - what a great difference from the last time I tried to play with people. Perhaps all the endless scales and finger exercises were finally paying off. I have always thought that you have to get beyond thinking about where your fingers are, but simply think and play, before you can really get into the heart of any music. I had a bit of that, right then.
I was also pleased again with how wonderful my Buffet sounds - myself I am no match, by any stretch of the imagination, with the ability of the people I was playing with, but at least I did not have horrible tone.
There were some other wonderful moments. At one point Jack started singing a niggun, and we all joined in, harmonizing this way and that. It was very Jewish, very alive and wonderful, and I felt connected to these people in a way I don't feel normally unless I am in my synagogue and feeling centered and solid in my community. Nothing like it.
One last great thing: someone started a slow, quiet tune, and the clarinets all joined in, soft now and close harmonies, and is there anything in the world that sounds as good as these woodwinds? I have played in horn sections as a sax player and as nice as that is, the feeling is just so different with a mass of clarinets. I suppose I have drunken the cool aid, but here it is: I know what I heard and I loved it.
So I am well aware that you may play out all the time, jam all the time and its just normal for you, but for me this was a great night. I felt for the first time in ages that I was again a member of the tribe of musicians, that I belonged there. I am still parsecs away from where I want to be as a clarinet player, but at least now I feel that I am not quite so out in the cold.