It’s not about intellectually understanding the music. It’s not about critically evaluating the music. It’s all about feeling the music—letting it really get to you; get all around and inside you, completely.
Too many things in our world are terrible. We are subjected to harsh realities every day in news reports, in ever-more explicit TV shows, in the crimes and injustices that touch our communities and, sometimes, our families, friends and ourselves. So much of these crude and hateful happenings result in people becoming hardened to reality, and not allowing themselves to feel too much about anything or anyone. It has become a sort of protection from the dangers of simply being alive in our times.
I don’t want us to lose our feelings. In fact, this blog is offered to help make feelings stronger in us all. It’s clear in the very title that my main reason for sharing artists and their songs here is to have you feel the music. I hope that by allowing ourselves to feel in this way it will come a bit more naturally in other things we do. Sure, it’s a relatively little thing, letting yourself feel a song, but it can, I firmly believe, lead to bigger and better things.
Stefon Harris is all about feeling the music. He is a vibraphone player, described as “one of the most important young artists in jazz.” When he is performing you can actually see him feeling what he is playing. You can also see how he feels what every other musician on stage with him is feeling too. He listens intently to what each musician is saying and then he responds and supports, accents and expands on all that he hears and feels. The result is a beautiful creative experience that is the product of everyone involved.
All this feeling translates to a wonderful respect for the music, the musicians, the people in the audience, and even the space in which he and the group perform. As Stefon has said, “The bandstand…this is an incredible space…really a sacred space. When you are here you have no time to think about the future or the past, you really are alive in this moment.” He explains that within that moment responding to the ideas of each other is an accepting way that allows for creativity to exist. Rather than “bullying” others into playing only what you want, which results in “a chaotic sound,” Mr. Harris is about listening to and feeling the music he and the others make to allow everyone’s creativity to thrive.
You’re invited to watch Stefon Harris and the other truly fine musicians as they play “City Sunrise.” It shows on his face just how closely he is listening and letting in everything that is being played. Check out his soloing beginning at 4:57 of the video, and notice how his performance comes up through his hands into his body as a total feeling of the music surrounding him. Catch how the pianist, Harold Lopez-Nussa, is watching, feeling, complementing Stefon’s performance, and then feel how his solo builds to a swell that invites every other player back in to create the completion of the song.
As I said before, it’s a small thing, to feel a song, but what a lovely thing to begin building upon.
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