you invest your life... Mumford and Sons, "Awake My Soul."
there's no more powerful evidence to suggest that emotions are completely free from logic than being shaken by the death of someone you've never met.
Clarence Clemons of the E Street Band passed away from a stroke that he was expected to recover from. i've never met him, and only recently have undergone and obsessive Springsteen phase. i'm not best friends with Bruce Springsteen or anyone in the E Street Band. i don't know Clarence Clemon's family. i can't quote his entire discography, or tell you what he majored in at college, or his favorite meal (this seems creepy, but i know Derek Jeter's is chicken parmigiana from an interview I read once).
i can tell you that the opening note to his sax solo in jungleland induces chills; not the kind that flash and disappear before you blink, but the kind that stick around for unnatural and inexplicable lengths of time. it's the kind of solo that you can hum along to. it gives the song a needed reprieve from itself, smoothing out a built up arrangement, and injecting it with soul. i can tell you he's so influential that my cousin, just on the heels of high school, is still influenced by his skills that were in his "prime" before she was born, though it's easy to argue he was never out of his prime.
i remember waking up to the sound of my grandfather practicing saxophone when we'd stay at their house, usually followed by duck hunt and super mario video games as we never had an N64 at home. i wish i knew then that i was more spoiled by my grandfather practicing saxophone than by the forbidden fruit of video games we never had, mainly because my dad can write computer games and my mom found the sound effects on these games annoying (and rightfully so). retired now and in his 80s, my grandpa still plays in four bands.
i don't think i appreciated the saxophone truly until about two years ago when i saw Billy Joel's saxophone player, Richie Cannata, play at the Bitter End during his Monday night open jam session. a Billy Joel fan, i appreciated the outstanding sax moments at the hands of this particular legend, but it wasn't until i saw him live that i truly connected to it's role in Billy Joel's music.
i've since met Cannata (one of the world's nicest men), and had the opportunity to ask him when it was that he first met Billy Joel. Cannata met Billy Joel's drummer, Liberty DeVitto, recording a bit for Sesame Street. an instant fan of Cannata's, DeVitto asked him if he'd be interested in playing with Joel, who at that time was "that piano man guy," a song that true Billy Joel fans generally roll their eyes at. after Joel saw Cannata play in an all horns band, he invited him to collaborate. the first song they ever worked on together was the infamous New York State of Mind. in my completely non-professional but not totally off base opinion, if there is a saxophone solo that melodically turns in your head with the fluidity of melted butter, you've probably created something genius. not a bad first attempt by Cannata and Joel.
on a separate occasion at the same open jam, Mark Pender, the trumpet player of the E Street Band, joined the group for the evening. here, Cannata shared that Billy Joel wanted to be Bruce Springsteen. i'm always fascinated when legends want to be other legends. it's a nice reminder that we're all just human beings.
last Tuesday at 11:02 a.m. i received a tweet from Lelia Broussard announcing that my friend and I won tickets to Bonnaroo, a music and pot festival in Manchester, TN. after a series of logistical obstacles (ex: how do we get to Machester, TN, are we seriously going to Machester, TN, where the hell do we find a tent in Manhattan, etc.) we began our journey at 1:30 a.m. that night/the next morning. though mapquest said that we should arrive 14 hours after we depart. a blown out tire and Bonnaroo traffic had us their 27 later. our return home involved two hotels, a stolen purse, an amtrak train ride, and at least 48 hours after our ride down never responded to us for our return. the time inbetween was of course, magic, exceeding the magic we dreamed of before we won the tickets and this idea was only an unaffordable dream. i never thought it'd be a dream of mind to stand in an open field on a 95 degree day with 90,000 people who hadn't showered for four days. my dreams when i was younger were to be a veterinarian or travel in outer space or something. dreams mold i suppose.
after lunch in much needed shade that Saturday afternoon, Mumford and Sons took the stage. i'd be lying if i said music hadn't knocked me on my emotional ass before, but this particular performance landed hard. they played "Awake My Soul" and "The Cave" back to back, and i began to cry as i could feel my soul untangling from life presenting itself kind of harshly lately and unemployment and uncertainty and being 24. i think Mumford and Sons was just really great. they were really great in that way that i can't describe to you; that inexplicable way that i always try to explain. it's sort of one of those you get it or you don't things. neither way is right or wrong, but it does seem to be who i am.
and now Clarence Clemons is gone. why is it that i'm choked up at the work of someone i don't know when people i've met fall out of my life and i'm unshaken? i suppose when you connect to something, it doesn't matter if you know them or for how long or who they even are. you feel like you've accessed something brilliant and don't want to let go; that someone or something understands you despite the fact that it's oblivious to who you are; that you are linked to something by way of fate or luck or something in between and that the importance of this exists in a vacuum. this link is strong enough to override the technicalities of actually having encountered who/what you're soul feels tied to. "knowing" someone or something formally means nothing when it already feels so familiar.
i'll never take my grandfather's saxophone solos forgranted again.
-k.
RIP The Big Man
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