some thoughts on the death of concert music

In his recent articles in The American Organist magazine, my friend Haig Mardirosian has been tackling the problem of poor concert attendance and the seeming demise of concert music. Haig always writes articles that are both thoughtful and urbane. (You can read some of his earlier entries on his website.) His articles have inspired a few disorganized thoughts in my brain.

Haig is confronting a serious question that all musicians (and artists of any sort) face today. The arts are in trouble. Concerts are poorly attended. It’s hard to find funding for music. Even in the public school system, I know of teachers who justify their position not by the intrinsic value of what they do, but by the supposed improvement involvement in the arts gives to students on their standardized tests in other disciplines. “Music class can help your math scores.”

For my part, I think we are dead in the water when we start talking like this. As my friend Lane Harder says, “Always be prepared to make the argument.” So here is what I tell my freshman. “It’s fine that we have doctors, and lawyers, and all the rest. We need them, and that’s good. In the arts, however, we are doing something that is much more important. We are about the business of changing peoples lives. We give people life changing cathartic experiences that they can’t get anywhere else. The stage is a magical place of great power. It is a high calling to be an artist, and you better work hard so that you don’t have any weaknesses because we make our mistakes in front of crowds of people.”

I was having a discussion with a colleague the other day. We were complaining about the trend of State Universities slashing funding for the humanities. I told her about a close friend on the faculty Senate. In a session, he actually heard the Chancellor of the University say the phrase, “…and that will serve to fulfill the academic portion of the Universities mission statement.” My friend said to me, “I looked around to see if anyone else was as shocked as I was. I’m mean, he said ‘the academic portion of our mission’ like it was some little boutique thing we do on the side.” She responded to my story by saying, “and yet, when something terrible and tragic happens, they always come running back to the humanities and the arts because they need someone to teach them how to live and how to make sense of things.”

It does seem like our culture is changing. I often say to my students that Western Culture is dying, and I plan on going down with the ship. There is one thing, however, that I find terribly ironic in the whole discussion. The ship has become very large.

I don’t have actual statistics to back this up, but….There are more people practicing and listening to concert music today than at any point in human history. Mozart’s Vienna had about 250,000 people, and he had a hard time making a go of it there. He wouldn’t have been able to imagine the gargantuan modern city that is home to hundreds of arts organizations. Every major city in the world has an orchestra of extremely high quality. I’m quite sure that there are more composers writing quality concert music right now than during the 19th century. To be sure, the culture as a whole does not value it as much, but the pocket that does value it is larger that the population of Paris in 1850.

I’m not sure what that means. I do know it means that we should not be without hope. Perhaps, one of the solutions is to do what my good friends in the Chiara Quartet are doing. They play in the great concert halls, but they also play in local bars. They take the music to the people instead of just waiting for the people to come to them.

In any case, I imagine that one still becomes an artist for the same reason people have always become artists. You do it because you have to. The culture might not value it, but it’s something you do anyway. You do it because it is intrinsically valuable, and as my friend said to me, “It teaches you how to live and how to make sense of things.”

Gigging stories: outhomelessing the homeless

My wife has often said that I have a “European” sense of personal hygiene. My socks seldom match. I don’t iron my shirts. I stopped combing my hair around the time I successfully emerged from my 80s New Wave look. I don’t shave regularly.

It’s not that these are conscious decisions. It’s just something that slips my mind until I am rudely awakened. For example, one day last year, I got to church to practice. When I looked down to put on my organ shoes, I was greeted by this heterogeneous vision.



















My fashion sense is sometimes the subject of casual teasing by friends and students. Last Halloween, a student came to the University dressed as me. She wore a wig with a frock of messy hair. Her socks didn’t match. I even let her wear my magical, ubiquitous, and coveted green sweater. The only problem with her ensemble was that she was wearing a white V-neck T-shirt. When I saw it, I said, “When have you ever seen me wear a V-neck T-shirt? I’m sure I would never do such a thing.” The reply came in a simple, honest tone. “I’m sorry Dr. Knecht, but it was the wrinkliest shirt I had.” "I see. Thank you very much." I replied.

The nadir of my apparel epiphanies occurred when I was working in a downtown church that was frequented by the homeless. We kept some food in the pantry to hand out to the needy, and at certain times of the day, I was the only staff member around that could help. One day, a handsome black man named Alvin walked in. I met him and immediately brought him into the sanctuary and played some Bach on the organ for him. I feel like if you are having a difficult time in life, you probably need some moments of beauty and not just food. Homeless people are generally very appreciative of moments of beauty and quiet.

After I finished playing, we began to chat. It turned out that Alvin wasn’t homeless after all. He just needed some extra food. I retrieved a few cans of soup from the pantry as we continued to chat. Alvin was beginning to feel comfortable with me, so he finally opened up.
“Kurt, what I really need is a ride. There are two churches that I know about that will give me an entire bag of groceries. It’s too far to walk. Can you take me there, and then give me a ride back home?”

It was just about time for my lunch break, so I agreed. When I got hired, the church had given me a used BMW 735il that was in very good condition. We drove along the bay for about 10 minutes, and soon came to a church that was a block from my old high school. I decided to accompany Alvin in on the adventure. We walked inside, and I sat in the lobby while he spoke to the receptionist. When Alvin finished speaking with her, he sat down next to me. She vanished for a few moments. To my great surprise, she reappeared moments later with two grocery bags full of food. She gave one to Alvin. The second one was placed at my feet. I looked up at her quizzically. She smiled and said, “This is for you.”
“Oh!” I said. “I’m OK. I was just here with Alvin. I wasn’t coming to get…”
Before I could finish, she smiled very kindly again and interrupted me.
“It’s quite alright. You really look like you could use it.”

I looked down and saw the unmatched socks and the wrinkled, un-tucked shirt. I realized my hair was uncombed, and my face was covered in at least three days worth of facial hair. It dawned on me that her conclusion was not all that unreasonable. So, I just went with it. I looked up gratefully and said, “I see. Thank you very much. That’s very kind of you.”

“It’s really no problem. We just need you to come over here and sign for the food. We use this system so that people don’t take more than one bag per week. You are welcome to come back next week and get another bag of groceries.”

“Thanks” I said, as I signed the form. We left the church, got into the BMW, and drove off. Alvin stopped in at another church. I decided not to accompany him inside this time. He came out with more food, and I took him back to his place in the ghetto. Naturally, I gave my bag of groceries to him.

It's a little strange to be directly and viscerally confronted with your own eccentricities. I immediately drove back to the church and practiced some Bach. It had a quiet moment of beauty in the sanctuary, and I said, "I see. Thank you very much."

For further reading on the topic of "The organist as social worker" click here or here.

Viola violets in my garden

I made a little garden tonight using pencils, organ pipes, bells, and the harmonic series. The incomparable Jonah Sirota came strolling through with his viola mixing his rosin with the incense and the candles.

Gigging stories: the time I met Bob Marley

There is a wonderful loneliness that can settle into a church when you have spent several hours in solitude practicing some thorny section of a Bach Fugue. The tinted light from the stained glass dances around the high ceilings with the F sharps and the B flats. One afternoon after several hours of practice, I had worked myself into an eremitical splendor. I lifted my hands from the keyboard to begin a passage again when I heard an infinitesimally quiet, “Hello” from about ten feet to my left.

I turned, somewhat shocked, to see that a homeless man had wandered up into the gallery where I was practicing. It was not my first experience combining my position as an organist with that of a social worker. (You can read one of those episodes here.) I turned, looked at the stranger, and calmly replied, “Hello.”
He was a short man of slight build. He was fairly clean and looked to be in his late twenties. He responded in great surprise, “You heard me?!”
“Well, I’m a musician. We tend to be aware of sounds around us.”
“I didn’t think anyone could hear me when I spoke that softly.”
“Um…OK. I’m just practicing here. Do you like organ music?”
“I’m Bob.”
“Hi, Bob. I’m Kurt.”
“Music is very powerful and spiritual. It has a strong affect on the I and I.” At this point, he began to mumble and I heard something about “Selassie”.

Whenever a mid-Western, white, twenty-something homeless man starts espousing Rastafarian doctrine, I get the sneaking suspicion that his mind might be more volatile than I anticipated. So, I said, “Well, this is an organ that’s modeled after a 17th century Italian instrument.” He replied with an incoherent thought that included something about “Zion” and “Jah”. I immediately decided to move our conversation to a more public area of the building.
“Do you want some water?” I asked.
As we moved toward the kitchen, I reminded myself to start locking the door that leads up to the organ loft for future practice sessions.

As we drank water, he continued to talk about how Selassie had changed the I and I. I hopelessly attempted to follow a train of thought that was having trouble staying on the rails. I offered him some food, but he said he wasn’t hungry.
“Well,” I said, “is there anything that the I and I can help you with?” playing along for the fun of it.

In a stunning display of coherence, he said, “My main problem is that the probate court has declared me incompetent, so my parents have guardianship of me even though I’m 29.”
“Really?” I asked attempting to sound as credulous as possible.
“I just want to live in an apartment by myself, but they make me live in this home. I can’t get my money in the bank without my parents because of the probate court. So, I wanted to talk to the priest about vouching for my competency.”
“Well, he’s not here today.” Unable to resist, I pressed the issue.
“Um. Why does the court think you’re incompetent?”

Here he switched to what can only be described as a terrible Jamaican accent and said, “They don’t understand, mon. Just because someone starts wearing Rastafarian clothes, starts speaking in a Jamaican accent, mon, and changes his name to Bob Marley, mon, and only responds to people when they call him Bob Marley, mon, and when he does respond, he responds by quoting the lyrics to a song written by Bob Marley, mon, because he’s memorized the lyrics to all the songs that Bob Marley wrote, mon, because they speak to the I and I…just because someone dresses like and talks like Bob Marley, and makes people call him Bob Marley…that doesn’t mean that he believes that he is Bob Marley.”

After taking a moment to process everything, I said rather haltingly, “But…you can see why they might get confused…right.” It was of course the wrong thing to say. He immediately repeated the entire speech convinced of its inexorable logic.

“Well, Bob,” I said, “I have to go practice. You’re welcome to listen.” He declined.

I walked upstairs to the loft, turned on the organ, and immediately played “We’re jammin’” on a 17th century Italian style instrument.

The absolutely inimitable spiritual wisdom of

I constructed a long theological argument in an attempt to justify some selfish behavior. After patiently listening to me for 10 minutes, he simply stared and said, “You know, the Lord Jesus wouldn’t put up with all your bull shit.”

Unaccustomed to such plain speech from a member of the clergy, I immediately began a relationship that has lasted for about 25 years. During that time, I have often found myself quoting his inimitable spiritual wisdom to friends.

Here is a brief list of some of his more printable quotes.

• His advice to other clergy about hearing confession, “Here's the thing. If someone is confessing their sins to you and you start getting a hard-on, you need to tell them to get a different confessor.”

• Almost the entirety of his marriage counseling went like this, “There are no new sins. Just like monks take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. It’s money, sex, and power. These are the things you will fight about in your marriage. If you figure out a way to get past them, you will stay married. If not, you won’t.”

• On facing the inevitable discouragement that comes from working in a religious institution, he once said to me, “The Church is a bitch-whore that eats her young. Now, get in there and love that bitch-whore that calls herself the Bride of Christ.”

• Once I called him for advice on raising teenagers. He said, “I’m going to tell you something one of my elders in Christ told me when my kids were teenagers. ‘There are some aspects of raising teenagers that are difficult and unpleasant’.”
I responded saying, “Yes, and…”
He said, “That’s all I’ve got for you. Try not to let it split you marriage apart.”

• Once, when we were discussing some theological issue, he said,
“Circumcision is one of the great proofs of God’s existence. No group of men ever sat around a fire and one of them said, ‘Hey! I got an idea! Let’s invent a religion where you have to cut the end of your dick off!’ There’s no way that ever happened.”

Gigging stories: In memoriam Carter Albrecht

(N.B. This is not so much of a story about an actual gig as it is an example of the colorful characters you get to meet when you live the life of a wandering musician. In this case, the specific character is Carter Albrecht who was tragically killed in Dallas. You can read about his story here.)

After the war, my grandfather took various jobs piloting planes around the Great Lakes. He and my grandmother managed to scrape enough money together to put him through aeronautical mechanics school where they literally taught him how to build a plane from the ground up. At some point, he needed a new job. When a rich, old Lutheran lady bought a Cessna to fly medical supplies from Monrovia into the jungle, my grandfather packed up his wife and two sons, and moved ninety miles into the Liberian jungle. The Cessna was packed into crates and driven into the village of Zaw Zaw. Grandpa Knecht took the pieces out of the boxes, put the plane together, and maintained it for three years flying necessary medical supplies into the jungle. My father spent almost three years of his elementary school life in the “bush”. He was never interested in hanging around the other missionary kids because they didn’t know anything about the jungle. My grandparents let him run around with the natives.

So, I grew up hearing stories of the African jungle from my father. At some point, my father had mentioned that the Africans ran around the jungle barefoot. One day, I found a book in my grandparents’ house that contained a picture of the foot of a Liberian bushman. (Apparently, if you take a picture of the bottom of their foot it only steals the sole and not the soul). It was an inspirational photograph. The thick, leathery substance engulfing the bottom of the Liberian’s foot inspired a covetousness in me, and I was determined to acquire a similar indurate cutaneous innervation. So, I took off my shoes and walked on the hot asphalt during the hot Tampa summers. Spurred on by my determination to acquire Liberian feet, I pressed my burning flesh into the hot street. The end result was something like the callus that a hippie gets on the side of his foot from Birkenstock. My callus covered only my heel and the balls of my feet. Because of my incredibly high arches, the center of my feet have never touched the earth and remain soft and smooth as a baby's bottom. The balls of my feet and my heel, however, became insensitive to sharp rocks and even flame.

When I went to graduate school at Southern Methodist University, a group of musicians set up a little watchtower on the side entrance of the school between the Meadows School of the Arts and the Perkins Theological Seminary. Donna Mayer-Martin, the local medievalist, had stretched a tightrope between the two buildings so that the ghosts of Hildegaard and William Blake could talk to each other while balancing between God and Art. I learned how to roll a cigarette and use the words of a conversation in such a way that the smoke went up to the rope and tickled Dostoyevky’s ghost's nose . I ended my speeches with a flourish by extinguishing the cherry of the cigarette on a heel made tough from my Liberian foot fetish. Carter and Matt immediately befriended me. They were undergraduate piano majors who were easily impressed by a graduate student who knew how to put a smoke out on his bare heel. We would meet up during the evening practice hours and smoke on the steps to discuss “the ten thousand things”.

Carter was tall, good looking, and he wielded his cleverness and wit with the unassuming air of a master. Girls would walk up to Carter while we were smoking on the steps and flirtatiously say, “Um, Carter, what are you doing?” Carter would simply and unaffectedly respond, “We’re smoking. In a few minutes, we are going to take a break and practice for a while, but we’ll get back here on the steps soon to do what we came to school to do. We’re paying all this money after all.”

Despite the fact that physical education was not amongst the subjects of the trivium or the quadrivium, the Southern Methodists felt it was a necessary component of being liberally arted. Thus, every undergraduate was required to take a physical fitness class of some sort. The most popular course for music majors was Tai Chi. Students would practice their forms in front of the school. The beauty of their movements was contrasted with the awkwardness of Rodîn’s statue Eve in Despair which rested by the front door. Carter was considering the Tai Chi course. Yoga, however, was also popular amongst the music majors. Confronted with the choice of Westernized Tai Chi and Westernized Yoga, Carter attempted to balance his sense of Western integrity with the Oriental philosophy most closely fitting the needs of a performing musician. So Carter brought the problem of Zen and the Art of Registering for an Oriental Physical Education Class to Matt’s feet on a night when I was absent. When I arrived on Sunday, the click of cigarette lighters signaled the beginning of the story.

“Kurt, you know how I was thinking of choosing Yoga or Tai Chi?” queried Carter.
“Sure. Did you ever decide?”
“I was trying to decide on Friday, and Matt says…”
Matt jumped in through the smoke and said, “So, I said to Carter, ‘The only thing I know about Yoga is a body purification technique that some yogis practice. You make a gallon of warm saltwater. You guzzle the whole thing down as quickly as possible, throw up, and then your body is cleansed from impurities.’”
“You didn’t actually try this?!” I gasped incredulously.
“Well…” Carter said, “it was Saturday…and there was nothing to do…so, I got some water going on the stove and put some salt in it.”
“You drank an entire gallon of warm, saltwater?”
“Drank the whole pot.”
“Did it work? Did you puke it up?”
“As soon as I finished the last drop, I immediately ran to the bushes outside of my apartment and hurled like I never have in my entire life. I vomited for almost thirty minutes straight until I was dry heaving and couldn’t stop. As soon as I regained control of my body, I went into the house and had two hours of the worst diarrhea I have ever experienced. I was literally peeing out my ass for two solid hours.”
“Really?!”
“Yup. By the end of the process, three whole hours had gone by and I passed out in my bed at seven o’clock in the evening.”
“I can’t believe that you actually drank an entire gallon of saltwater.”
“You haven’t heard the weirdest part. I woke up the next morning, this morning, at 6AM. I felt completely light and airy. I was at one with the universe. The sun was shining, the air felt great, and I walked outside. There were birds chirping, and I knew that I was a part of all things. I was at one with the universe. I felt like Ghandi.”
Truly astonished, I said, “Really?! Well, what did you do?”
“What do you think I did?” Carter responded. “I had a cigarette and a cup of coffee as soon as possible. I hated feeling like that! I guess I’m signing up for Tai Chi.”

I started laughing, and out of the corner of my eye, I caught Jesus chuckling as he dropped a banana peel on the tight-rope for Alan Watts.

Aesthetics: Ficino's quick and easy Italian humanist guide to facial proportion

I have been re-reading some of Marsilio Ficino's commentary on Plato's Symposium. Ficino was writing in 1475 at the beginning of the Italian Renaissance. He is basically continuing the Platonic thought in the tradition of Plotinus. Beauty and Love are very closely related and are almost synonymous with the morally good. It is all tied up in a cosmology that is all but unusable in a modern context. He relates art to concepts like "the Angelic mind", the "World-Soul", and the "Body of the World." Of course, all love of Beauty is ultimately love of God for Ficino. That's a little different than St. Augustine's cautious attitude toward beautiful things, but they are both so indebted to Plotinus that some passages could be interchangeable despite 1000 years separating them.

One thing for which Ficino is invaluable, however, is a practical guide for checking to see if your face is a properly proportioned Italian Renaissance face. If your like me, you've already had that moment when you missed your bus stop because you were lost in contemplation over life's perennial questions:

"If I had been born in Italy 535 years ago, would my face be the sort of face that would have inspired Michelangelo, or would I have had to settle for a Bronzino or a Vasari? Is there any way to get an astrolabe or some other medieval measuring device to figure out if my face corresponds to the Fibonacci series?"

Fortunately, Ficino has given us an easier way, and you can use it while riding the bus!

1. Three noses placed end to end will equal the length of one face.
2. The semi-circles of both ears joined together will equal the circle of the open mouth.
3. The joining of the eyebrows will also give the same result.
4. The length of the nose will match the length of the lips, and so also will that of the ears.
5. The two circles of the eyes will equal one opening of the mouth.
6. Eight heads will compass the height of the body.
7. The same distance will also be measured by the spread of the arms to the side, and likewise of the legs and feet.

Of course, when I first discovered Ficino's method, I spent some time measuring my nose to face ratio with my hands. I have found that this draws practically no attention when using public transportation. People are always touching their faces on the bus, and you will likely draw more attention to yourself without some sort of eccentric behavior.

In addition to using the system, I am also proposing that we begin using his name as a verb. We can say things like, "May I Ficino you?" to ask someone before we check if their joined eyebrows are the same length as their mouth. Shopkeepers can say, "I've just Ficinoed that customer, and we will need a bigger hat size to compensate for the semi-circles of the ears."

For now, have fun Ficinoing each other, and please send your comments about other practical uses of the system and the stories of your own Ficinoing.

One of my favorite versions of "Manly Men"

This performance was sent to me by Mannenkoorts, a gay men's chorus in Holland, a few years ago. It is still one of my favorite performances. I love hearing it sung with the Dutch consonants.

Gigging stories: Masaryktown New Year's Eve 1999

One of the unspoken rules of gigging is helping your fellow musicians when they receive unwanted advances from listeners. If someone comes up to the stage with a song request, there are ready made phrases to thwart them. Normally, you say something like, “The next song we’re going to play has some of the same notes in it as the one you want.” If someone comes up to the stage with a more Romantic type inquiry, the musicians code requires that you assess the situation and help your fellow musicians discourage the groupie when necessary. In 1999, in honor of the new millennium, we broke the rules.

It was a New Year’s Eve gig. Baker had booked a small combo to play for a community party in Masaryktown, Florida. The band was to be Baker on trumpet, sax, piano, bass, and drums. Baker didn’t have a bass player for the gig, so I suggested we use my good friend, the J-Dog. (See another adventure with the J-Dog here. Check out the J-Dog’s music here.) The directions were cryptic: Drive thirty miles beyond the city on a two-lane road until you see a flashing yellow light. Turn left.

J-Dog and I arrived almost simultaneously and started to unload gear. The Masaryktown Recreation Center was a one-story edifice that primarily consisted of a social hall with a kitchen. As I went through the front door, I noticed a flyer that read, “Next Week: Joltin’ Joe and the Bavarians! Annual Big Polka Night!” I turned around and incredulously asked J-Dog, “What kind of place is this?” The fake wood paneling that covered every square inch of wall answered my question. In addition to the usual “book” that Baker used for gigs, I noticed several extra scores with the word “Polka” lurking somewhere conspicuously in the title.

“Baker, are you really making us play polkas tonight?” I asked. “It’s New Year’s Eve!”
“They asked for polkas. We’re playing some polkas.” He replied coolly.
I immediately launched into my polka lecture. “My mom used to play polka’s on the accordion when we were little. You know the one thing I always loved about my mother’s playing? She never smiled when she played. Myron Florin always smiled when he played on Lawrence Welk, and my mom never did. I always thought that God had a special place in hell reserved for people who looked like they enjoyed playing that instrument. You know, I’ve raised my children with two rules. Number 1: I’ll support you in whatever you want to do as long as you don’t go into politics. Number 2: Never play the accordion and the banjo together because it’s a secret formula for conjuring up the devil.”
“Kurt, just play the polkas.” Baker replied while rolling his eyes.

And so we played polkas. As the crowd gathered to dance, Baker started a polka and made it progressively more exciting by continually pushing the tempo. His strategy worked well until the tempo reached a fervor that outstripped the median age of the dancers. The youngest people at the party were in their late fifties, and many looked to be considerably older. Eventually, the tempo got fast enough to knock and an old man down. The polka stopped while we waited to make sure that the man on the floor did not require medical attention. As I considered my own responsibility in the possible hospitalization of an audience member, I imagined the conversation with the doctor.
“What happened?”
“Well, we were dancing to a polka, and the band just kept playing faster and faster. I tried to keep up, and the next thing I knew, I was on my back on the floor with pains in my chest.”

There should be some sort of Fibonacci series or Pascalian triangle trick that would allow musicians to calculate safe tempos for dancing depending on the average age of the audience. Alas, most mathematicians are poor dancers and unconcerned with such matters. When the man was safely removed from the dance floor, we began a beguine. It was around this time that a woman approached the bandstand between tunes.

She appeared to be in her late fifties. Her hair looked like it was probably ten years older than she was. It was the blond color that comes from the most expensive bottles of dye that can be bought at a Masaryktown pharmacy. There was clearly an admiration for one of the Protestant Evangelical schools of hair styling. At first glance, it appeared to be the Southern Baptist school, but, as she got closer, the vertical gymnastics and frosted highlights belied a clear influence from the Pentecostal Avant Garde. Her make-up seemed to strike a playful balance between Gauguin’s bold use of color and Pollock’s thick textured abstractions. Someone had obviously accidentally spilled a box of sequins on her dress before the party, and she had neglected to remove them.

As she approached J-Dog, and I began to jockey for position. Each of us wanted to be the first to regurgitate one of the standard lines for song requests. The woman surprised us all, went straight toward Baker, pointed her finger at him and said in an inebriated drawl, “I’m having a shlow dansh wif you before thish night is over.” We were temporarily stunned when her request turned out to be of a non-musical nature. Baker made some excuse about not being able to dance while he was playing the trumpet, and we continued playing the set.

The breaks between sets are times for trading insults and telling stories. I also take time to meet the people playing the job if I’ve never worked with them. There was an older drummer on the gig in Masaryktown. He had been playing for so long that he had gigging stories for all situations. We began by discussing the poor man that Baker had knocked down with his polka tempo. The drummer began talking about a gig when he fell of the edge of a stage. Baker countered with a story of playing a gig where someone had an actual heart attack on the dance floor. The band leader on the gig immediately called “Sentimental Journey” as the paramedics were carting the man away on the gurney. I met the saxophonist whose name was Kip. Kip was blond haired, rather heavy set, and just seemed to like to play music. Capturing the dialogue of a set break is a little tricky when you are playing with a pick up band. It goes something like this:

Kurt: Hey, how many bassists does it take to change a light bulb?
J-Dog: How many?
Kip: Oh, I know this one.
Kurt: None. The piano player can do it with his left hand.
Baker: What do you want to play in the next set?
Kurt: I’d like to play some Monk.
Drummer: Me, too.
Kip: Do you know “Straight no chaser” in F?
Baker: Sure. What else do you want to play?
J-Dog: How about, “Baker no chase-her’ in A flat?”
Baker: Ha, ha.
Kurt: Do we have to play another polka?
Baker: Yes. We’re putting at least one polka in each set.
Kip: There was a polka I used to play…What was the name…Oh yeah! It’s called the “I’m having a slow dance with you before this night is over polka.” Do you know that one Baker?
Baker: Ha, ha, ha. Now listen guys, I’m not going to dance with that lady.
Kurt: Look at you! You’re an old man, and the ladies are still all about you.
J-Dog: She was a scary one though. When she asked, I thought of saying the “We don’t know that one” line, but I was too tongue-tied by her appearance.
Baker: Guys, I’m not going to dance with her.

We went back inside and played two more sets. The food was pretty good. Being Bavarian type food, it was many different shades of brown. One of the most important features of a good gig is the food. Sometimes you take certain jobs just for the cuisine that will be served. You also avoid certain jobs if you know they won’t let you eat. My general practice is to hide about five large ziplock bags in my case for carrying home food to the family. We ate our fill and played through “Auld lang syne” at midnight. We were supposedly going to finish at 12:30am. The woman had not been seen for two hours. Finally, at 12:20 or so, she emerged from the herd of polka dancers and sauntered up to the bandstand. It was apparent from her jaunty gait that she had continued sipping the sauce throughout the evening. We were all waiting in eager anticipation when she surprised us again. She bypassed the band, went to the edge of the stage and started unhooking some of the helium balloons. “I jush wanna get some balloonsh to take home wish me,” she mumbled. She had completely forgotten about her original proposition. I’m not sure if it was the Y2K scare or a run of the mill “wild hair,” but as she was walking away, Kip and I simultaneously decided to break the musicians code. There was a fantastic manifestation of the collective unconsciousness as two voices spoke in unison, “You didn’t get your slow dance yet!” There followed a grand pause. Baker turned around to give the two of us a scowl. The wheels in her mind, being thoroughly lubricated with vodka, began to crank. “Oh yeah,” she said. “I’m shupposed to have a shlow dansh wish you.”
“Guess you better pick a song, Baker.” J-Dog said.
“Crazy,” said Baker. “One chorus!”

What Baker was saying to us (in the specialized vocabulary of musicians) was “Play the Willie Nelson standard ‘Crazy’”. “One chorus” is a term whose etymology lies in the old tin-pan alley songs. There was always a verse that preceded the song itself. For many songs, jazz musicians simply skipped the verse and played the chorus. When you are on a gig in modern times, to play “one chorus” means to play the tune through one time. This is not the normal way a pick-up band would play a song. The normal format is to play the “head” or “chorus.” Immediately following the completion of “one chorus,” musicians then take turns soloing by improvising over the chord changes. After the improvising is finished, you play the “head” or “chorus” again. That night, the meaning was clear: Play “Crazy” by Willie Nelson through one time, don’t take any solos, and get me off of the dance floor as soon as possible. Baker, however, had made one fatal error. He had already given us our paychecks on the last break.

We played through one chorus of “Crazy.” When we came to the end, I turned to Kip and said, “Take a ride, Kip.” Kip improvised through one time, and when we reached the end again, I turned and said, “Go around again.” J-Dog began to laugh. The drummer began to laugh. Baker began making ugly faces at us each time he spun the woman’s back to the bandstand. When Kip wanted to laugh, he had to wait till we began the fourth full time through the chorus. Before he started chuckling too hard, he maintained his composure long enough to turn to me and say, “Go ahead, Kurt.” As I began my solo, Baker had already been dancing with the woman for 3 minutes. By the time it was Kip’s turn to say, “Go around again, Kurt.” Baker had lost his patience. We had already played the tune six times and the “head” was nowhere in sight. Baker’s ugly faces had turned into vehement physical gestures. He would spin the woman’s back to us, raise his hand to his throat and make the universal cut gesture. When we finally played the “head”, we made sure to play the “turn around” at the end four or five times to extend the ending of the song. “Crazy. One chorus” had become a 7 minute dance.
As we were packing up our gear, the banter started again.

Baker: You guys are real funny.
Kurt: It’s the least we could do to you for making us play all those polkas.
Kip: Did you get her number, Baker?
Baker: No. I didn’t get her number.
J-Dog: Hey, Kurt. You know what next week is?
Kurt: What’s that?
J-Dog: Annual Big Polka Night with Joltin’ Joe and the Bavarians.
Kip: What?
Kurt: Yeah. There’s a sign on the door.
J-Dog: Maybe we can show up and see Baker dancing with his girlfriend again.
Baker: Next time, I’m waiting until after the gig to pay you guys.