Listen with your ears

I was at Pearl’s Jazz Club in North Beach San Francisco a few years ago. I was there to see a friend of mine play, Bruce Foreman. Bruce is a great Jazz guitarist from the Bay area, and had a weekly engagement at Pearl’s with his trio.

I arrived there with Bruce just shortly before his 9pm set was to commence. The club was packed but I managed to grab a table in the back. As I looked around I noticed that there was quite a variety of people and seeing that many were on a first name basis I assumed they were regulars to the club.

Just after the first set a girl came over to the table and asked to sit down. As there were no other seats available and I was by myself at the table I didn’t want to be rude so I said, “sure have seat.”

After a brief introduction and some small talk I learned that she was a native of San Francisco and a regular at Pearl’s. By the way she spoke and dressed I really got the impression that she was a bit of a throwback from the hippie era. The musician’s had begun the second set yet she continued to talk and didn’t seemed to focused on the music aside from a brief tapping of the foot or a “yeah, cool man.” She then began explaining to me how great she thought John Coltrane was, especially his later experimental music.

I then said something that set her right off on a rant. I told her that I wasn’t a huge fan of Coltrane, especially his later experimental stuff. She then proceeded to tell me I had no idea what I was talking about and if I didn’t like Coltrane I knew nothing about jazz. That made me think about what she was really trying to say.

Obviously she associated with John Coltrane or what he represented to her on a much different level. Did she really like what she was hearing or did she feel that she was someone special by associating herself as a fan? Did it mean she was special in some way? In the 60s many college students used to walk around campuses with Coltrane albums under their arm as sort of a badge of honor or a way of showing others what intellectual group they were apart of.

This is a sort of behavior that is not unique to music. It is also apparent when speaking about wine or wine tasting. If a person is aware that a bottle of wine is expensive or known to be well known among wine connoisseurs they will, more often than not after tasting it, say that the wine is excellent even though it may not be their true sentiment. What provokes this kind of behavior? Is it the need to be apart of something greater or to avoid being seen as someone with a weaker understanding of wine?

I didn’t bother telling this girl that I was a musician and from a purely analytical musical standpoint I did understand what Coltrane was, as a musician, trying to achieve. The truth is it didn’t matter because from the point of view of a listener that kind of analysis doesn’t matter. There is no right or wrong. Something appeals to you or it does not. This is why we are able to have so much diversity

in art and music, or even wine. Different styles appeal to different people and for many different reasons.

Use your ears to listen with, not your intellect or logic. Either something moves you or doesn’t. That doesn’t make your true reaction wrong just because someone else feels differently about it. However, at the same time, don’t be closed minded to new things. Keep an open mind and give new forms and style a chance before you discard them.