Audiences of solo piano performances from jazz masters have come to expect a degree of avant-garde extravagance. Last spring, I realized this while waiting for Chick Corea to perform his set in Baldwin auditorium. The concert promised to be part music, part performance art, and entirely self- indulgent.
“I’m surprised to see that people your age are into this kind of music,” an elderly woman to my right commented. I smiled, making conversation to back my apparently unexpected love of the art form. With more audacity, though, I may have mirrored her sentiments of surprise back at her.
She, along with, quite frankly, most of the audience, was older than my parents. I would have expected people of their age to find a traditional big band with lots of singing more enjoyable than the abstract soundscape that Chick would soon be sculpting. In retrospect, it was somewhat inconsiderate of me to feel this way, since myself and most of those I know who are into jazz enjoy almost all subgenres of the art form.
Despite the subtle insult to my generation and my mental reaction, I continued the conversation, appreciating the chance to talk with someone who I otherwise would never have met. As the conversation progressed I felt more connected to everyone in the room, imagining a similar love for the music in every stranger around me. Music’s ability to bring people together and create a sense of community is obvious to anyone who has ever appreciated a piece of art. We talked about how we heard of the concert. We reminisced on how we were first introduced to the music. We traded favorite albums.
I told her mine was "Return to Forever," while she said hers was "Children’s Songs." Although at the time her choice surprised me, I now realize the sense of it. "Children’s Songs" is a group of solo piano works meant to evoke a sense of innocence and naiveté in its simplicity. It most likely gave my elderly friend a touch of old youth. Similarly, my choice of a favorite album became more obvious as well. The edgy, dark "Return to Forever" became the perfect choice for a high school kid yearning to be cool and sophisticated.
Thinking back on this conversation, the auditorium in my memory degrades from a concert hall to a costume party, with each guest pulling different traits from the music to wear as masks, hats, and capes. The music becomes a means of enhancing oneself instead of a way to connect with others. Sure, relating with others might be easier for a time, but how much is real and how much is feigned? Can the mask become permanent? And if it can, is it truly part of the individual?
Existential questions of human personality aside, there is one artist who can very strongly relate to permanent pieces of clothing. Rapper and producer MF DOOM wears a trademark mask in the style of Doctor Doom from the Fantastic Four comic strip. Because he is very rarely seen without the mask, fans joke that he never takes it off. The mask is arguably as much of his persona as his music.
As if to prove this point, he is infamous for sending out imposters at his shows. Surprisingly, this aspect of performance art is lost on some fans who pay to see MF DOOM. In retort, though, DOOM argues that if the guy on stage wearing the mask lip-syncs well enough, then the audience can not tell the difference. As a result, he fits the DOOM persona. If the audience came for the music, they should be happy.
But the audience at DOOM shows, like that of Chick Corea concerts, doesn’t pay solely for the music. They come out to be close to the performer whose music they love in order to experience his or her personality. For instance, in between songs at the piano concert, Chick asked the crowd if we’d like to hear some John Coltrane. Nodding eagerly, the audience waited for an interesting, original, thought-provoking interpretation of a Coltrane classic. Instead, Chick held his phone up to the microphone and played a Coltrane studio recording out of its thin, metallic speaker. People pay upwards of one hundred dollars for quality material like that.
Still, musicians are performers, and it's unclear whether the personal nuances of their shows are part of their everyday traits or simply another costume. Likewise, after choosing and wearing their favorite pieces of music for long enough, listeners may not be able to tell where their true self ends and the tailored persona begins. The mask might be indistinguishable from an extension of their face.
At the end of the concert, Chick invited the audience to join him in song. At his direction, every section of the audience sang a different note of a chord while he played along. The voices joined. Although the audience had a good sense of pitch, the majority were not singers. The sound was raw and plain, as if it was some strange, uninvited reflection of the audience members’ core. Chick didn’t mind; he played through the cacophony. The auditorium became one, with the traits of the piano and voice being combined into a primal, surreal costume that was quickly donned by all. The legitimacy of the persona held no import. It was beautiful, and that was all.
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