People ask me, ‘what’s the beef with you and jazz?’ Well, the answer is, I hate jazz. ‘Why poor old Jazz?’ You say. Well, I hate the sound made by jazz performers manipulating jazz instruments for the delight of jazz respondents. I think of it as musical barf.

Well, I didn’t say that - that was Kids in the Hall‘s Bruce McCullough. But in my younger years I adopted it as a mantra of my own musical tastes. But as I’ve aged, I’ve mellowed, I’ve learned to expand my base of musical appreciation, learned to tolerate, and dare I say even enjoy the sound of jazz.  But last night Bruce’s words came back to haunt me, over and over again for three hours of non-stop free-form improvisational jazz piano.

My dear husband, whose own musical taste runs the gamut of artists whose music you would tactfully call “an acquired taste”, has introduced me to several of my new favorites, from Tom Waits to Bjork. Hoping to score again, he got us front row tickets to this piano recital. The sounds that emanated from the piano did not meet even my most broad definition of music. Atonal and without discernable rhythm or melody, I was completely lost. I’m really not sure if anyone really gets free-form jazz. During the concert, I looked back through the audience, which naturally seemed to be composed of many people who were really getting into it. Am I missing something? I amused myself with the thought that much like the parade-goers seeing the Emperor’s new clothes, the audience was composed completely of poseurs trying desperately to impress their intellectual friends by pretending to “get it”. And here I was, trapped in the front row, trying not to look as stupid as I felt.

It felt like I was watching a Bergman film, without subtitles. I knew there had to be some talent and passion and deeper meaning to it all, but without knowing any Swedish I wasn’t ever gonna get it. And I certainly didn’t learn Swedish over the course of the performance. At intermission, Jeff told me not to try so hard, to concentrate on how the music made me “feel”.

So I did.  “Bored”, “Uncomfortable”, and “Fidgety”. I looked around some more. “Fresnel!”, I thought, looking at the moulded glass lenses on the stage lights, “there’s a word I haven’t thought of since I did theatre lighting in high school.” I switched the rings on my fingers from middle to index, and back again. I shifted in my seat, my chin propped in my hand, my face frozen in what I hoped was a facsimile of rapt attention.  I listened intently to what sounded to me like two cats chasing each other over the keys of a piano, and gave up, instead listening to the soundtrack my brain creates when bored, playing the same song I hear when suffering from insomnia, a repeating stanza of insecurities and fears, interjected with random recollections that would often send me off on a new verse of stream-of-consciousness nostalgia.

At long last, the concert was over. As we exited the performance hall, we passed underneath a giant Chihuly chandelier. We overheard another concert-goer say to his date, “Now I get that there’s a lot of artistry and talent involved in this glass-blowing stuff, but why bother?”

My point, exactly.