Getting on

I was a freshman in college in Santa Fe in 1972. On a lark we rumbled up to Albuquerque to catch Sha Na Na. An astonishing opening act called Steely Dan limped off the stage, scorned alike by the greasers and ironic hippies. My new college friend Anji grabbed my hand and pulled me under the stage risers. In a minute we were backstage in a circle sharing a bottle of -- catch this -- Jose Cuervo with the glum Fagen and Becker et.al. Skunk Baxter, I think, too. Pretty cool. Until I spoke up and said to Fagen, "Man, you guys are great. You must listen to Traffic." He looked at me like I had just vomited on his foot, or like I was a Sha Na Na fan. We gathered it had been a pretty dispiriting tour. "Traffic?" he sneered. "You kidding? We listen to Sonny Rollins."

I bought Saxophone Colossus. Oh my.

By 1978, Sonny Rollins was my favorite jazz guy. I was then a grad student living in New York City. One night I went to the Beacon Theater to see something called the Milestone Jazzstars, one of those odd things record labels used to do -- putting together a group of their signed musicians who normally didn't play together. It was Sonny Rollins, McCoy Tyner, Ron Carter and Al Foster. Oh my. At the close of In A Sentimental Mood, I felt something wet on my face. I was coated in tears that I hadn't even known I was shedding.

There's a recording of the same program I saw, taped I think at the last concert on the tour, that goes in and out of print. Here's a link: Milestone Jazzstars. It's a masterpiece.

So now it's forty years since Donald Fagen turned Sonny Rollins on to me, and thirty-four since I first saw him live. At 82, he still produces some of the deepest explorations of the soul. I've read that he calls it a search for perfection that never gets there, like a frustrating itch, except one that lasts a lifetime.

Three of the more revelatory concerts I've experienced in the last few years were by octogenarians: Sonny Rollins (I try to see him whenever he's in town, like tonight; it's always worth it), Ornette Coleman (likewise), and Ravi Shankar (likewise). Four if you include Joao Gilberto, who is now 81, but was in his late 70s when I saw him. Quietest concert ever. His voice was a whisper, his guitar a breath. A very ornate breath. They all had the air that performing is something spiritual, and fun, and not a pursuit of more glory. They have plenty of that. Shankar was 89. I swear that his hands and mind moved at the peak of his powers. Usually there's something different, slightly diminished as musicians near the end. By the first time I saw Dizzy he was in his 60s and his timbre was less bright. (Ha! About as important as a few specks of dust on a Leonardo.) But I have no doubt that had I seen Shankar in his 40s, it would have been no more or less spectacular than what I heard from him at 89.