Swinging

I played a lovely gig last night with Len Aruliah (saxes) and Lorne Kellett (piano).  I hauled out my electric bass for the first time in nearly a year.  The event was an in-class concert for my Douglas College "Intro to Music" class.  Len brought in a few standards "That Old Feeling" and Alone Together", plus a few of his tunes and a few by Kenny Wheeler and Lee Konitz.  Of particular note was Len's contrafact on the chord changes of "I Can't Get Started", a thing that he calls "Initiation".  He wrote a really beautiful and inspiring melody.  As usual, it was a lot of fun to play with Len.  Lorne was in especially fine form and the two of us really stretched the standard material; almost to the breaking point at times.  I had forgotten how much fun it is to play bass and have the ability to affect the harmony and time feel in such a fundamental way and I also enjoy the extra sustain that the electric bass gives in comparison to the guitar. I think I will be playing more bass this year. The students had a great time listening and asking questions and we had a lot of visitors from outside the class.

On the way home I was thinking about how energizing and life-affirming it can be to play swinging music with such great musicians.  Every once in a while, I have an experience like this that reminds me that it is a privilege to be a musician and to have ready access to this kind of profoundly human creative interaction. I will now coast through a peaceful weekend on that high and try to relax a bit.