Jazz

I've been to a lot of school productions and concerts over the last twenty years (with a fair few left to go, of course). Tonight was the 'Jazz Night' and Dan was playing guitar in the Jazz Band, who opened the evening with their version of Stevie Wonder's 'Superstition'. 

The song starts with the drums and the little little lad from year 7 startled me by catching the groove perfectly, complete with hi-hat fills. I've seen many a school performance let down by the drummer but the first few bars of this lad's playing laid my fears to rest, just as Dan and his neighbour came in with the fantastic guitar riff. It sounded amazing and became better and better as the rest of the sizeable band joined in.

To be honest, as the song finished, I wondered if the evening had peaked at the outset but, actually, it was brilliant all the way through. I've seen enough of these school performances to know how talented the young people are - I've frequently marvelled at their playing and dancing and acting - but there was something else this evening, something to do with it being jazz, I think, because there was evidence of real... soul. 

These weren't just performances of songs; the students had got inside the music and their performances showed that, lending the pieces a genuine depth of feeling and, at times, wit. I suppose at the ripe old age of forty-nine, it's easy for me to lose sight of the fact that our teenage years are full of emotions that are perhaps more routinely raw and vibrant and colourful than at any other time of our loves. There's no reason the music won't chime with their feelings the way they do ours.

I suppose my view of the evening is at least partly biased by how proud of Dan I was - how effortlessly cool he looked in his black shirt, casually riffing away in the jazz band - but I think it was the best evening I've ever had at a school concert.