Zen Retreat

Today I am traveling to New England where I will partake in a 5 day silent meditation retreat run by Zen Buddhists. Last year I did this same retreat and it was essentially a life-altering experience. (I did blog about it in Jan 08) The first couple days were brutal, but the last couple were beautiful. I learned that my mind doesn't always have to run the show. I credit the meditation practice that I did so intensively at last year's retreat, and continued throughout the year, as a very big reason why I was able to break into the Dueling Piano business this year. First, I was able to access increased concentration and was thus able to memorize music, after having been convinced that I was the single most forgetful piano entertainer in NY. Secondly the increased focus/concentration helped helped me immensely on stage get through stage fright and to focus while there were so many things going on, including playing with a drummer, something I had never really done before. This year I will know many of the people and I won't feel quite as alone as I did when I began my retreat last year. I come back New Years Day, which is also the day my roommate comes back from his travels. The following day I will be going to my hometown where I will attend my cousin's wedding. Then...who knows?

Shopping for Christmas

I've been back in NYC for the better part of a week, spending the holidays with friends and family, as it should be. A Latin friend of mine made a comment about how differently Americans celebrate Christmas and the holidays versus how his people celebrate back home. He was very polite, but I think what he meant was that we are so focused on shopping and retail and expectations, while back in his country, family just show up with food, wine and guitars and sing, drink, eat and dance the holidays away, and gifts aren't part of the identity of Christmas. This Christmas I didn't really shop for gifts. Instead I have tried to get together with people and have dinner or just time together. I was on 5th Ave, the retail capital of the western world 2 days before Christmas, and I couldn't identify one single person that looked like they understood the meaning of Christmas. At the moment of that realization I remembered the employee that got killed opening the doors of the Walmart on black Friday. It all hit me like a slap in the face and in a moment I realized clearer than ever that we, as a culture, have completely derailed. The things that aren't important have become our Gods. We give lip service to spirituality and religion, but greed and selfishness has become our spiritual principles. I think about animals in the wild. Do any other mammals commit suicide? Perhaps we have created a construct for ourselves that is so far from our true nature that it is impossible to achieve any lasting happyness or contentment by f0llowing the rules of the masses. And what about that man who committed suicide when he realized that he lost billions in the Madoff scam? It can't be any clearer. Our God is money and our religion, Greed, and when we lose that, we lose everything. It's beginning. The same thing that happened after the crash of '29. Bankers and investors throwing themselves out of windows because they have lost "everything." Today the New York Times announced on the front page that "Holiday Sales" were down 8% this year. That's big news. But what's bigger news is that such a statistic is so important to us as Americans that it made it on the front page of our biggest, most respected newspaper. What does that say about us as a people? I didn't see a metric for Holiday Spirit, but I wonder if anyone would care whether that went up or down even if there was such a metric.

I am hopeful that we have a president-elect that seems to understand that the direction of this country needs to be changed radically. But I think that our failings as a society go so far beyond Iraq and the Stock Market crash (see, I capitalized the "S" and the "M"...i didn't even realize it until after I had typed it!!) that he will merely be trying to fix the symptoms of a deeper cancer. Our values are so upside down that unless we can change them so completely, this society is doomed for complete failure.

Back in NYC

Yesterday I made the journey back to NYC, going from 75 degrees and sunny to 34 degrees, wintery mix and windy. Yeah it sucked, but I'm happy to be home. I was glad to be in FL, and the gig definitely stretched my abilities as an accompanist. I also had some amazing alone time, riding my bike all around this beautiful island at sunset, and just chilling out by the pool. I met up with some friends from NYC for dinner the last night I was there. We at a restaurant across the street from where I would be working in a short 2 hours. I had the Caribbean Grilled Red Snapper, and it was expertly cooked. The chef is a local celebrity and she made the rounds at the tables and we all complimented her on her food. Fast forward 2 hours, I was on stage performing across the street, and who walks in but Alice, the chef from across the street. So on the microphone I get everyone's attention and tell everyone that we should all applaud our celebrity chef Alice. And further, that I know she's an expert chef, because (wait for it....wait for it...waaaaiit...) "I just got done eating Alice's snapper!"

OK, it was supremely tacky, but funny as hell!

Earlier that day I was watching a street performer juggle fire while on a unicycle that was over 8 feet tall. It was amazing to see, but what was more entertaining was how he handled this woman who was heckling him. The two memorable zingers he threw out to her were: "Who lit the fuse on your tampon?" and then facing the crowd, "I remember when alcoholics used to be anonymous!"

The trip ended well. I made a new friend with one of the singers I worked with who also lives in NYC. (The guy who's name I forgot on stage.) The last night I got so much love from my audience, many of whom had been there every night to hear me perform. I don't know if I will ever want to go back, or even if I will be invited back. There are some serious personalities and politics at work here. But I do know that I did an outstanding job, and that the people that matter the most, the audiences, all knew it.

Fitting in

It’s 4:43am on Saturday. I just got home from work. It was a good night at work for the most part. The people were nice, and appreciative, and they participated and they listened. There was an older black woman with gray hair that sat right in front and requested the most wonderful standards, including The Shadow of Your Smile and Misty, and she listened with such intensity that I though she was a musician. I asked her and she told me her father was a piano man and she felt as though I was channeling him. She got teary when I sang Someone to Watch Over Me and Wonderful World. They were his songs. It was a moment.

I must confess I’m feeling less than stellar. It’s very difficult to articulate, but I feel as though I don’t belong with the people that I’m working with down here. They are all NYC piano bar people that have a certain “way” that they do things. There is one singer in particular who, although ridiculously talented, is also very difficult for me to work with. I asked her for her book, so that I could practice with it, and she told me she was “very particular” as to whom she gave it out to. So my rehearsal with her music was much more limited than I would have wanted and as a result, I have not been the best accompanist for her. She, in turn, has been quick to criticize and rather unforgiving. In a way, it’s been a growing experience for me, because it forces me into a very high level of concentration when I accompany her, and although I am not perfect, I am conscious of much more than if she wasn’t so critical. But it goes beyond that. Not too many people have been warm to me here. They are all cordial, and some even nice, but not warm or inviting. There is one singer who arrived a few days ago, and we are sharing the band house. He is a nice guy and we’ve begun to bond. But he had an issue with the other pianist that is down here. This other guy fucked up two songs of his in a row and left him high and dry on stage, feeling and looking like an idiot. So we talked about that, and we’ve rehearsed his entire book today. Tonight, I knew it was so very important to him that his sets with me go great. And, musically they did, and in a large part due to my concentration and desire to be perfect for him. But through my high level of concentration on his music I made a fatal error of referring to him not just once but two times by a wrong name. And he was upset and kind of came at me on stage. I understand why he did, but even so, it didn’t feel good. (Footnote: he arrived back at the house while I was writing this entry and honestly and rigorously complimented me on how well I had played for him tonight. After which, I, in turn, showed him this past paragraph that I had just written. His comment was that it was all true, and that I shouldn’t change a word, and then he gave me a friendly kiss and went to his room.)

Last week there was a singer I referred to in a previous entry that I developed the greatest respect for. I played for her all week, and she was crazy talented. All week we were part of a crew of bartenders, wait staff/singers and pianists and we all sort of bonded, but then the last night she was here I felt as though she was completely brushing me off, not engaging me in conversations, not laughing at my jokes (while laughing at every one else’s) etc. etc. It’s damn difficult to describe, and it was very subtle, and yet, it was real and very inexplicable (at least to me).

I have not gotten one iota of feedback from the people who hired me. Oh, they are friendly and gracious, but have not uttered any compliments or criticisms. Not one. I’m not looking for my ego to be stroked, but if I’m doing a job for you, I would like to know that you are happy with it, or if you are not, tell me how I can make it better.

The thing is, I don’t really know why I don’t fit in. I just know I don’t. Some of these people have alcohol or drug addictions, but some don’t. Some are better musicians than me, but yet in certain areas, I’m a better musician than they are. I’ve been told that one of the singers doesn’t like it when someone has a better night then they do, or gets a better audience response. It’s a complex hodgepodge of personalities down here. I’m not sure what to make of it.

Facing Demons

Most of us have one or two people in our life that have caused us such angst either now or perhaps in the distant past that we get a physiological response at the mere thought of that person. There have only been two such people in my adult life and one of them was performing in the club I am currently playing at in Florida, immediately before I arrived. I haven’t had to deal directly with this person (let’s call him Brittle Ego Boy) for 4 years, since he got me fired from a steady gig I had in NY because of a 3:00a.m. verbal indiscretion at a NYE party. I had let it slip that Brittle Ego Boy had a drug and alcohol problem and he was known to literally fall off the piano bench after drinking vodka out of a Gatorade jug all night long on the job. In my defense it was all true, and pretty much common knowledge. But regardless, I knew I was wrong and humbly apologized in writing (replete with chocolates and a hallmark) to Brittle Ego Boy, but he would not have it and proceeded to pull the strings to eventually get me fired. I don’t know if it was the unfairness of the situation, the pettiness about it, or the humility in my apology that was so totally rebuffed, but it really deeply bothered me for a couple of years after.

Fast forward to 3 weeks ago. I found out that B.E.B. was working this Florida gig immediately before I was scheduled to come down. I found myself playing the same tapes again in my mind and my body physically reacting with a quickening of my pulse and raising of my blood pressure. And then I came down here. The first night I was here, B.E.B. was the topic of conversation among the staff. It seems that he got himself drunk and was obnoxious, self aggrandizing, and completely the worst accompanist the singers have ever had to work with. He bragged about his fancy New York apartment that he owns that is apparently worth $650,000 and will be worth $1.2 Million in 5 years. He repeatedly craved validation from the GM that he was just the best piano player they have ever had come down from NYC. As I listened to the really nice people that I have now been working with for the last 9 days completely trash his personality and his accompaniment skills I realized that Brittle Ego Boy was just a paper dragon all this time.

Florida Keys

I have been in the Florida Keys for a few days now, working a "New York style" piano bar. Basically that means that I am playing lots of standards and broadway and the wait staff are all professional singers that come up every hour and do 15 minute sets. Just about every musician that they hire has worked the piano bar scene in NYC. Most of these people I have heard of and some I've bet before. I'm really enjoying the gig so far. They have a 7 foot Yamaha concert grand piano that seems to play itself. What that really means is that the sound is so delicious that you become more and more inspired with every passing note, that you play better and better. I use a lot of contemporary harmonies involving minor seconds and dominants with sharp 11's or sharp 9's, flat 5's, etc. that sound so complex and lush on this instrument it makes you want to explore new chord voicings and try new cadences.

The staff I am working with are great. There are two singers from New York, both of which are talented, but one is particularly noteworthy. She has a voice and a style reminiscent of the great singers of the 50's and 60's, particularly Ella. She does a version of Bewitched that made that song come alive in a way I've never experienced before. She is so talented it's really scary. I just wonder if the world we live in today is capable of recognizing such talent given the low bar that we as a culture seem to accept in our music and entertainment choices. Anyway, it's exciting to work with her, although she lost her luggage with her songbook on the plane on the way here, so I have to play everything using my own music and transpose it up a 4th or 5th for her. On one hand it's always good to stretch my abilities like that, but on the other hand, I know I'm not playing as good as I could for her since I'm focused on finding the right chords. Anyway, life is good. I'm here for 2 weeks.

Dueling dream

I dreamed i was in college (but it was now) and was doing this Dueling gig. My partner had already gotten up on stage and begun his first song when I realized that I was walking around completely naked. I signaled him that I was leaving for a minute and then ran to my room to get some clothes. I couldn't find my room right away and now I was actutely aware of my nakedness. Finally I found my room and my roommate (who I didn't know) was there with his girlfriend. I quickly got dressed, but realized I had put on a turtleneck and a wool sweater. Knowing that this would be absurdly hot on stage, I proceeded to take off the sweater, but as I was getting ready to run out the door I realized that I had just replaced it with another heavy wool sweater. This repeated itself 3 or 4 times until I got it right. I ran out the room and realized I left my microphone and songlist on another piano in the school. So I found that and ran back to the performance space, almost 50 minutes late. By this time I had two partners on stage and they were both pissed.