Jazz

I realized the limits of my music knowledge during a session with a Jazz mentor despite studying piano for the last 20 years. If you were to compress his musical acumen into a metaphorical 100-page cookbook, this inaugural lesson started on page 85.

His name is Jim - a stout man with a faded New York accent, curly hair, and hazel/green eyes that has since retired from a career in electrical engineering. With a degree in English, Physics and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy, I imagined his mind idling while cruising at 90 miles-per-hour during our conversation. His colorful sense of humor, intellect and smoked ribs embodies the gesture of a chef's kiss. He lives with his wife Helen in what my dad calls 'The Treehouse' just up the hill from the Berkeley college football stadium.

I grew up discretely wishing for the rare moments when he would play the piano during his Labor Day barbecue. There were times, however when I feel like he could sense my eagerness - like a cat that doesn't want to be pet by a needy child - and would sometimes casually decline when too many people asked. That changed in 2017 when I finally had the courage to ask him to teach me the basics. My Jazz Theory Analysis course during undergrad provided me with enough confidence to sit alongside him for once instead of across the room. If I could go back in time to give myself a piece of cryptic advice, it would go something like this: 

If classical music works in three dimensions, then a jazz musician like Jim dabbles in a fourth dimension.

I spent the majority of my life learning the rules, techniques, and precision to 'color' in the musical lines by invoking a composer's style from 300+ years ago. However, the complexity of what was shared in that one hour lesson - whether he cared to realize or not - was how to bend the rules at every corner and break them like it's truly nobody's business. I'm sure he would laugh at how silly that sounds.

I walked away from the lesson with more questions than answers and would spend the next three years deciphering a five-chord progression that he had me scribble down on a post-it note. At the end of the lesson, I sheepishly asked the existential question: "So, what is Jazz?". After a heavy sigh, he replied: 

"Well, if you want to understand Jazz, you have to feel the Blues".

I was unsatisfied with this nebulous answer at first, but now it almost always makes my eyes well up with tears thinking back to how he said it. Jazz sounded like a bunch of noise to me while growing up, but the Blues is a clear signal that cuts through everything.

After many years of ruminating about what he meant, I think of it as a sorrow that can become something beautiful if you let it. A pain that you have to embrace in order for it hurt in a good way - like the wilted beauty that flowers develop as they die. Too little? Unsatisfying. Too much? Distressful. I realize this may sound a bit sadistic, but my appetite for Jazz at that point felt as if I was waddling away from a Brazilian steakhouse like Fogo De Chão vowing to never eat again only to wake up the next morning still hungry.

Recently, I was struck by the idea that I have yet to come across a physician with a jazz background. I was in a state of borderline delirium after six night shifts with the emergency department and began to notice parallels between the specialty and music improvisation. Maybe one day I will publish a proper recording worthy of sharing, but for now you will have to settle with a modest collection of pieces that have inspired me to keep practicing piano while on the journey toward medicine. 

In the meantime, it is a one-man-band by yours truly called: Code Blues. 

~mdc
March 13th, '26