The Triumph of Desire
As I write this, it is February 2003, just over 20 years since my trip (with Jack and Gary) recorded "Standards Volume 1". Our country is about to go to war with Iraq. There is a noticeable lack of poetry in the world. As a result, the world does not seem a place where joy and transcendence can thrive anymore. Aspiring to greatness seems a thing of the past. Imitation is all we know. Marketing is all we see. Jockeying for power positions of questionable (if any) intrinsic value is the norm. Knowledge is becoming more and more segmented and less than skin deep. Youth is beginning to forget that its job is to look inward. Money and fame, alone, are motivations. What is integrity to this world? What is meaning? Why play music at all? What difference could it make?
In July of 2002, the trio was scheduled to play the jazz festival at Antibes, France, on the Cote d'Azur. It was an outdoor festival with an open stage behind which lay the Mediterranean Sea. I first played there back in 1966 when I started touring in Europe with the Charles Lloyd Quartet. Since then, I have appeared there 13 more times, spanning almost 3 more decades (the first performance under my name was in 1974). Some of these appearances were solo, but trio has come to be an almost yearly phenomenon, performing in 1985, 1986, 1992, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001 and 2002. Another appearance will take place this year. Usually these concerts are distinct highlights of our tours, perhaps because we know the place so well. This time, however, we had a problem we had never had. It was raining for days before the concert (very unusual for July), and predictions were that it would continue raining through our concert date. Since they had little experience with rain at that time of year, there was no backup venue for us. Although we had a few days off before the concert, all we did was sit in our hotel rooms and look out at the stormy weather. Every day I would talk to my road manager, Steve Cloud, to see if some other ideas arose. When you are on tour, it is very hard to wait.
Eventually, the day of the concert arrived and we found ourselves driving, in the rain, to the site. The weather still looked miserable. We couldn't do a sound check so there we were, in little faux-backstage unheated (or cooled) rooms with no bathrooms, gazing tiredly out at the rain, which persisted as though it was a permanent feature of the landscape. Gary was 67 years old and had just recently undergone treatment for cancer followed closely by a major operation. He looked absolutely lost and forlorn in his room. Jack, 59, had, just the year before, been hit by one of the wall panels put up on this stage, as a particularly nasty bit of wind came by (that was the windy year), and had had his share of physical ailments in the last few years. I, 57 at the time, had recovered slowly from CFIDS (ME or Myalgic Encephalitis), having been brought down by this terrible disease in 1996. I had a deteriorating spinal condition, bulging discs in my neck, various arthritic conditions, and an inflammatory shoulder problem. Needless to say, the drive to the concert site this particular day was not inspiring.
One important ritual at the festival site was that we would have dinner backstage (basically on the beach) and watch the sun go down. It was always a turn-on helped us get ready to focus on the music. This time there was no sun and we sat inside, morose, depressed and not very talkative. By dessert, Steve asked me to make up my mind if we were definitely canceling or not. Naturally the promoter did not want us to, but our contract made it clear that we could under these conditions. I asked Gary (who sat across from me) if he felt like playing. He hesitated a little, and then said, "No". This was scary. Gary never sad that. I knew he was weak and recovering from his operation, but something in me clicked. I asked for an espresso. As I sat there waiting, the setting sun peeked out for just a nanosecond. It changed everything. Even though it went right back in, I took my espresso and a chair outside during a brief lull in the rain, sat down and thought about what we should do. We were already here. If e could play at all, we should play, I thought. We needed the therapy. We needed the music.
They had hung clear plastic drop cloths all around us so that our instruments would not get wet, but Gary quickly discovered a leak just next to his bass. He was distraught (as I would have been, had the piano been mine) and they tried to fix it, but he resigned himself to trying to stay aware of it at all times. My piano sounded waterlogged (having been on stage during most of the weather) and it had indeed started raining harder again as we did a very short sound check, but something wonderful was happening in the music despite all these things. Within seconds, we were "in the zone". I looked up at Gary and Jack, who were both smiling broadly. They couldn't help it: the sun is always there, behind the clouds. What ended up on the recording represents, to me, the triumph of desire over circumstance, the triumph of youthful exuberance over age, and our need for music and wisdom. There was a fluidity of ideas and a rhythmic commitment to the groove that went on for the entire concert, despite the odds against it. Since this music was an unwitting gift from the sun to us, I pass it on - a little, flawed gem of sweet swinging in the rain - from the three of us to you, our faithful listeners for more than 20 years. When we were on stage in the middle of the music, nothing else mattered. We were home.
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