Tales From the Front

Walking the path of live or die in music

(Dig my own voiceover up top if you’re in the mood-ML)

One morning during my NYC renegade free jazz days I was standing on the 7 train platform in Queens during the morning rush hour headed to work. I had been out playing until 4am the night before, and had just barley escaped a mugging walking through Jackson Heights. There were no benches out there and I was sleepily leaning on my bass clarinet case. This was known as a one piece, a bass clarinet that is built as one long horn that doesn’t separate, so the case was fairly tall. I was tipping, in and out of sleep, when I lost my balance and my bass clarinet rolled off the platform right down into the tracks.

I immediately looked left to see if the train was coming, and indeed it was on the horizon. When you see the train coming like that you might be amazed at how suddenly it pulls up. I was in the state of mind then that all that mattered was playing. It looked like I could get down and get my horn and get back up on the platform, but that wasn’t clear. It was a beat up used horn worth $500. What went down into the tracks however was my music, and I went down in the tracks to save it.

While I was down there a woman screamed and people thought I was possibly committing suicide or something as I chose to go down there. The train was getting much closer, you could feel and smell it. I threw my horn back up on the platform, and then pulled myself up with about 15 seconds to spare. I was offered no help.

Once we pulled out that same woman was staring at me in the same subway car, and rightfully so. I had risked my life and survived.

During this time there would be days when I wouldn’t have a gig or a session and I would just be getting back on that 7 train at the same time every day after work at Tower Records. I would walk down the same stairs and walk into the same car and sit in the same area, deep routine vibe. The 7 train then would be parked, open, and waiting to pull out. The 7 train was also majority people that were not born in the Disunited Snakes. Jackson Heights where I lived then was, and maybe still is, one of the most diverse places on Earth. There was one street that had a Mosque and a Synagogue across the street from one another.

One day I was in the 7 waiting to leave after work when a racist white man in a trench coat started coming on to the train doing these long racist speeches about how everybody on the train was below him and why he was so superior. He was largely ignored for his ignorance, but I started to get wore out by him day after day. One day I had enough and went into my NYC renegade/free jazz superhero vibe, the same one where I went down into the tracks to save my horn.

I have a pretty strong speaking voice and can turn up if I have to. I summoned “the voice,” and put it on him heavy. I told him he was gonna stop with the racist speech or get lit up. He complained but folded. Mission accomplished, or so I thought.

A few days later, here he comes again with the racist speech. I remember asking myself if I was true to my word. Taking action without thinking (Aries) I verbally lit him up again, but I went to the next level and pushed him out of the car on to the platform where he stumbled and almost fell. I yelled at him some more, reminding him that I told him that this was what was waiting for him. He looked at me with astonishment and fear. Case closed, or so I thought.

I didn’t see him for a few weeks, and then here he comes wearing that same trench coat, but not giving the racist speech. I decided to wait and see how it played out.

I was then shocked to see him pull out a bag of miniature flowers, and walk up to every passenger and give them each a flower with a gentle smile.

He had been turned to the light.

I’m not saying I did it, but I’ll accept that I did challenge his darkness. That’s what we Don Ayler type trumpet players can do, with or without the horn.

We are the music we play.

I’ve witnessed the power of music more directly. When I was first arrived in Philly I needed a job and all I found was one as a hospital housekeeper. One of my tasks was to clean rooms after patients were discharged, one way or another. One week I kept entering a room for 2 patients and one of them was an old Asian man, who was blind. He was in pretty bad shape and wouldn’t move or say anything while I cleaned the other side of the room.

On the third time I went into his room I was surprised to see him sitting up in a chair in the middle, wide awake but with his eyes closed. He did not acknowledge me making noise cleaning.

He then proceeded to sing religious spirituals in a full bore baritone voice. He sang them with complete devotion, seemingly feeling them down to his core. I was there for 40 minutes, and he sang for at least 20 minutes as if he were leading a service in church. There were no nurses present, so it I was the only person in this space with him.

A few days later I came back in and he was gone. I don’t know if he left in person or in spirit. He had shown me the power of music in direct application. Whether he was healing himself, or preparing for the journey home, his soul was singing about his path, no matter where it may have led.

Down the road in Philly I was working for Door Dash and Instacart full time. This level of hustle drains the souls energy. One morning it was brick cold and I had to warm up my old car. I developed another work routine during this time, and would sing variations of a song I had called “Cold Car, Bright Sun.” I went to the next level and started filming these renditions and posting them on Instagram, trying to see how many different ways I could do it. I was trying to warm myself up acknowledging the cold car, but feeling the bright sun, which was me trusting life, and walking my path.

My usual parking spot was right in front of my row home, but I was in another spot right on the corner where I live. My neighbor had her car parked in my regular spot. I was in my car warming up and singing Cold Car, Bright Sun when I heard a MASSIVE CRASH. I was so into my song that I was disoriented.

Right behind me where I would 9 times out of 10 be warming up for work and singing my song were 2 wrecked cars. Another driver had completely lost control and totaled my neighbors car. The driver side where I would be was completely destroyed. People were coming out of their houses to help, and someone called 911. The driver had survived and was helped out of what was left of her car. My neighbor was not in her car. Both cars were up on the sidewalk in front of my house where I was seconds earlier walking out to my car.

What cosmic forces had me singing on the right while I could have been killed on the left? The only explanation I have is that my path must continue.

My story didn’t end on the subway platform in queens. My year as a hospital housekeeper didn’t take me out. I survived driving in Philly 40 hours a week for 2 years without an accident. I had my knee replaced. (I was singing to my wife Sue and listening to Trane in recovery) The contrast can be thick: I was unloading 12 pallets of perishable freight off an 18-wheeler with an electric jack when my phone dinged. My friend DM Hotep had sent me pictures of the new Marshall and Jamaaladeen album that I did the cover painting for. That same path led me to study with Ornette, play with William Parker, Giuseppi Logan, and Bern Nix. The same path said tour Europe with Sabir Mateen, and tour myself in Sweden.

I’m still here, and still walking my path.

My story has in fact, has only just begun..

TBC this Thursday when Airlift plays the music of Giuseppi Logan.