Note: there’s nothing particularly Mormon-y about this post, except that it deals with what one Mormon has done to stay sane during the pandemic.
Back in May, two months or so into the pandemic, I finally did it. Lying in bed at probably one in the morning, I posted on Craigslist:
Need to play in a jazz combo? Me too!
I hadn’t played with other musicians since my freshman year of college (which, I’ll note, was a long time ago). But since stay-at-home started, I’d been practicing my saxophones. More, probably, than I had since my freshman year. And once the pandemic was over (because even in May I though maybe it would end sometime soon), I wanted a chance to play.
On the last day of May I got a response. He had an idea—what if we met in a park near his home? We could play distanced, safely, but critically, we could play.
It took a little bit of time to arrange, but eventually we hit on playing roughly every other Sunday at 4:00. We ended up with a rotating case of players—sometimes it was me on soprano, him on guitar. Sometimes we had drums and bass, sometimes we had trumpets. Once we even had a violin.
We play mostly jazz standards, with occasional other songs worked in. Here’s “How High the Moon”:
Sometimes we’d do other songs. I transcribed Stanley Turrentine’s version of “Can’t Buy Me Love” (basically a 12-bar blues with a weird tag at the end of the head).
At our most recent session, we played “The Saga of Harrison Crabfeathers,” a song none of us (except the violinist) had ever heard or seen before. But with a name like that, how could you not play it?
At this point, we’re probably done for the season. Chicago’s temperature is dropping, making it harder to play outdoors. (I have high hopes that a week from Sunday will be warm, but I fully expect those hopes to be dashed.) And we’re not playing indoors until there’s a vaccine.
In the meantime, though, playing in the park has given me something to look forward to, something to get me through this pandemic.
So what has gotten you through? (Note that it’s cool if your answer is Netflix; I didn’t play in the park because it was productive: I played because it’s what I love, with the added bonus that it provided a couple hours for my family to be outside.)
If you’re interested, I could generally convince my kids to film two songs a week. I’ve put them all here.