Living the Dream

I was well out of college before I surfed the web for the first time.  I made the mistake of admitting this to a group of teenagers recently.  As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew that I was in trouble.  The mere fact that my students struggled hard to calculate my age was a bad sign.  One little slip of the tongue and I was officially old to these kids, most of whom weren’t even alive in the twentieth century.  They had never known a world that couldn’t order tube socks with a few clicks of the mouse, and here I was blatantly flaunting that “back in my day…” tone without so much as a thought to the consequences (okay, you’re right – calling them “tube” socks probably ages me, too).  In that moment, I was officially OLD! 

I remember turning forty (not that long ago – mind you) and having my son inform me, “Forty sounds old, Dad.”  I promptly challenged him to an arm wrestling match and kicked his butt.   

Besting my children at physical acts of prowess, though, provided only temporary fulfillment.  I noticed, too, that with each year I progressed in age, so did my kids.  The older they got, the more potential there was for coolness.  What was the ultimate in coolness? – Jazz.  It was time to instigate “Jazz School” in the Purvis household. 

We had actually been planning this for quite some time.  I (jokingly) claimed publicly that the only reason I had kids was to make my own family band.  My twelve-year-old boy has been banging on the drums for a couple of years now and seems to take to it quite well.  He has a good sense of time and his technique is progressing.  We had to wait a bit for my daughter’s hands to grow.  Her ten-year-old fingers finally appeared big enough to span a couple of frets on an electric bass, so I decided that it was time.   

After a brief study of Miles Davis, jazz chord theory and a jazz listening session, the three of us retired to the basement for our first official jam as a father-son-daughter trio.  Sam’s ears proved effective, as he laid down the same groove that Miles Davis’ drummer played during our listening session.  Ella continues to prove that she can do anything she sets her mind to.  Within minutes, she was laying down a walking bass line over the changes to Summertime.  I jumped on piano and our jazz trio was born.   

I was living the dream.  Age didn’t matter.  I felt as young as the two musicians that joined me in that jam session.  We played our music and communicated for the first time as jazz musicians do.  My children quickly learned concepts such as; form, head, solos, trading fours, time, groove, minor seventh chords, root, walking bass and swing.  We worked out an intro to our arrangement.  We designed an ending.  We communicated visually and aurally while swinging through the changes.  I was living the dream. 

Then I told that they couldn’t come upstairs for lunch until they had that song mastered, or until one of them could beat me at arm wrestling.  Take that for calling me old!

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