Snap, snap, snap. Standing in the back of the auditorium with his head held down, listening intently, and snapping along to the rhythm was my middle school music teacher. I was on stage, playing piano with a trio of 50-year-old wannabe jazz musicians, performing at the end of a week-long jazz improv summer camp. For adults.
I was 13.
A lot of kids played sports. I did that too, being tall and lanky and a coach’s favorite recruit - but my heart wasn’t in competitive sports. My interests were art and music. Thinking and reading and dreaming. Feeling things, deeply. Looking to understand the world.
School taught me that I was smart but feelings of being an outsider were often at the forefront. Playing piano in my middle school jazz band didn’t give me popularity street cred. I'll never forget the time Mr. Nearpass, my music teacher, put on a gorilla mask and ran through the cafeteria with a honey bun on a styrofoam plate with a birthday candle singing (or rather grunting) happy birthday. In front of everyone.
I found my community in music. We were all a little weird, a little different. We were damn good, too - the #1 middle school jazz and music program in the state of Indiana. And Mr. Nearpass was our leader through our coming of age moment. He could inspire you and demand a lot from you. He took us seriously, and I was willing and ready to be taken seriously.
Jamey Abersold’s Summer Jazz Workshops were held in Louisville (I say “were” because I believe the last workshop was in 2012. The website is still live, and you can read about this amazing experience here). People came from all over the country to participate, some my age and others well into retirement. If you wanted to learn to understand and play jazz music, no matter what your instrument, this was the best workshop to attend. The first day starts with auditions and theory quizzes that determine proficiency and class choice. The last day concludes the week with a performance from your trio, where you improv in front of all to see and hear.
There are many memories of this experience that I'd label as profound. Not profound in the moment, but in how the experienced shaped who I am. Hours in practice rooms transcribing Horace Silver's "Song for my Father" on blank sheet music, pecking out the song note by note until I got it right. Sharing a piano bench with some of the best jazz pianists of my time who were teaching me the fundamentals of improv.
For other kids, their participation in sports taught them the principles of how to work as a team and the importance of discipline. For me, music helped me embrace my creativity, be in tune with my emotions, and see beauty in the world. It shaped how I solve problems.
When my hands hit the piano keys at camp, or today when I’m listening to jazz, I feel something hard. Some people say they see color and I’d say I feel music in a way that’s indescribable.
Humans have feelings. Deep, thoughtful, confusing feelings. For whatever reason, we love certain sounds that harmonize, we love rhythms we can tap our foot to. We pick out songs and make playlists for the most important moments in our lives and the most mundane. We look for patterns in music, hence why we call songs catchy. Jazz has patterns but they can be harder to pick up on and less familiar. The 5/4 time signature is a distinct pattern you won't find in a radio hit. That difference and uniqueness is what I'm trained to hear. Jazz has been championed by the strange and unusual. I love it because it is against the grain. It’s defiant (hello, Severance). Growing up, jazz taught me to find meaning in the differences between us, not the similarities.
When it came time to naming this agency, I knew it had to reflect myself in the most personal way. Five Four is named after that odd, funky 5/4 time signature. It's a nod to the experiences that made me who I am. It's a reminder that we at Five Four march to the beat of our own drum. We stand apart because we're confident in our beliefs and our talents. We want to connect deeply with others. We seek to understand the world around us and its culture.
We will stay true to this because its simply who we are and always have been.
