Rest Day - June 26th, 2019
Rest days are for resting, and also for necessary work. Today I did all my laundry, cleaned my tent, and repaired the slow leak in my air mattress (the previous patch was not quite right). I did a fair amount of climbing the stairs in Tim and Sonja’s three-level home.
After taking a nap I wrote out a chord chart for the song Almost Like Being in Love to take to a jam session at the restaurant Apres Diem in downtown Atlanta. My brother Tim drove us to the session, where we met Rick Harris, a jazz musician I know from Washington, DC. Rick and I hadn’t seen each other in at least 30 years. It was fun to share stories and catch up after all that time. Why does it not seem so long, even though it’s roughly half my lifetime?
After the first set by the house band, Rick, who often sits in at the session at Apres Diem, got me an invitation to sing. I’ve sung in a jazz setting only once before, at a birthday party for my friend Audrey Cozzarin. After I said hello to the members of the band and distributed copies of my chord chart (the latter being met with varying levels of interest, but I made sure everyone knew of the unusual chord I wanted them to play in the final A section), the band started the introduction.
I haven’t performed as a musician since… When was it? I gave a concert on Valentine’s Day in 2011 in which I sang and played guitar, accompanied on bass by Trifon Dimitrov, a repertoire of Chopin Preludes and Beatles’ love songs. There was also the party for Audrey Cozzarin, which might have been after 2011, and one song I sang at the memorial service for the wife of a neighbor. So it’s been years since I’ve performed. It felt great to be on the bandstand, and I did a decent job out front of musicians I had just met.
After taking a nap I wrote out a chord chart for the song Almost Like Being in Love to take to a jam session at the restaurant Apres Diem in downtown Atlanta. My brother Tim drove us to the session, where we met Rick Harris, a jazz musician I know from Washington, DC. Rick and I hadn’t seen each other in at least 30 years. It was fun to share stories and catch up after all that time. Why does it not seem so long, even though it’s roughly half my lifetime?
After the first set by the house band, Rick, who often sits in at the session at Apres Diem, got me an invitation to sing. I’ve sung in a jazz setting only once before, at a birthday party for my friend Audrey Cozzarin. After I said hello to the members of the band and distributed copies of my chord chart (the latter being met with varying levels of interest, but I made sure everyone knew of the unusual chord I wanted them to play in the final A section), the band started the introduction.
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| The bandstand at Apres Diem |
I haven’t performed as a musician since… When was it? I gave a concert on Valentine’s Day in 2011 in which I sang and played guitar, accompanied on bass by Trifon Dimitrov, a repertoire of Chopin Preludes and Beatles’ love songs. There was also the party for Audrey Cozzarin, which might have been after 2011, and one song I sang at the memorial service for the wife of a neighbor. So it’s been years since I’ve performed. It felt great to be on the bandstand, and I did a decent job out front of musicians I had just met.
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