My extreme fascination with music has taken over many parts of my life, listening to on average 200,000 minutes a year of music (thank you Spotify), which amounts to almost 139 days of music. A statistic I wasn’t aware of until I somehow accomplished it- maybe I need to go outside more. A large part of this obsession is based on familial priorities of music, as my dad owns an extensive record collection, which I have repeatedly told my brother I insist on taking when he passes. But beyond these records, I find that my background in piano and ballet has heavily impacted my tastes and has created a desire to involve music in almost every part of my life. I have curated soundtracks for any scenario, awarding myself the privilege of music while walking down the street, driving, sitting, and talking to others.
What's so horrible about this obsession is how much I prefer music to people! Music helps me travel from the comfort of my home, taking me to every inch of the world, exposing me to life and culture, language, and sound. It makes me feel something unlike any other form of media or art that is available, made by humans for humans. It almost feels as though every musician or contributor has taken some of the inner lining of their soul and woven it into each piece they make. Creating an infinite loom of layered emotion and feeling that goes beyond any other form of expression, even words.
“If the world was mine, I’d tell you what I’d do
I’d wrap the world in ribbons and then give it all to you”
Thanks to my parents, my ‘musication’ (music education) has been diverse and extremely in-depth. I grew an appreciation for classic female jazz artists like Etta James, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday, as well as artists like Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, and my personal favorites, Chet Baker and Miles Davis. With an appreciation for any sub-genre of rock, folk, classical, musical theatre, country, and just about anything with ‘real’ instruments. Because my dad firmly believes that someone cannot call themself an artist if they can’t at least play some kind of instrument.
Maybe I like Miles Davis because of him, and all the memories I have as a teen listening to jazz with my parents in our living room on dusty old vinyls my dad collected. In these special evenings, my parents taught me poker so I could best my peers in college, and I tried my mom's Grey Goose martini for the first time (which I hated). We would play cards until my fingers were red and raw from gripping my hand with anticipation, laughing with my parents while listening to their stories from work and hoping to distract them enough to win a game every once in a while.
Memories like these are perfectly encapsulated in music; a single moment in time can be etched onto the record of our life and forever memorialized in a song or voice. Even now, as I listen to "In a Sentimental Mood" by John Coltrane and Duke Ellington, I think back to Christmases with my brother and parents in Monterey Bay, California. The feeling of the cold, crisp, foggy air and the water dripping from the intertwining mess of Spanish Moss that hung on the tree outside the patio of our home. I remember my sweet childhood dogs, Gracie and Audrey. I remember when we brought Gracie home to that house, and she couldn’t eat anything besides pumpkin and rice. I remember how I would squish my little bottom at age 7 into a large Chinese-inspired pot at the front of our home, using my blanket as a cushion. I would grab my binoculars and ‘spy’ on our neighbors, and in the background there would always be jazz and country. I remember my brother breaking his whoopee cushion the same day he received it from Santa Claus. I remember him asking me which side of my blanket I wanted on top of me when he tucked me in to go to sleep. I always picked blue.
Even now, as I am listening to this music, I am tearing up thinking about these fond memories, my heart is aching, wishing and wanting to go back. Hoping to feel how our family felt in those perfect moments of absolute bliss. Music makes me forget my childhood innocence at this time; it paints a romantic picture of perfection that I'm sure my parents and brother would break in an instant with reality.
But the divine romantic aspects of these memories are a representation of what music does to the soul. Creating niceties that didn’t exist before, drowning you in a pool of what once was and how you wish to remember it. Sometimes forcing an artificial memory in place of the real ones.
However, it is impossible to say anything is artificial about the music scene in New Orleans. New Orleans is a city of culture and jazz; music billows out from every building, filling the streets with singers, buskers, bands, and bucket drummers. The French Quarter exists as a physical box keeping in all the gooey goodness of this music. You can’t walk through any part of the quarter without hearing a trumpet, a drum, or some kind of lick you can’t quite place.
Each instrument carries a tune of its own, and each band its own chorus. Leaving you feeling enraptured with the magic of the city, as one block of music ends, another picks up where it left off. Culminating in a never-ending party of laughter, dancing, drinks, and memories.
In my time walking these streets, I am reminded of Halloween when I was 11, living in Santa Barbara with my parents and brother. I would trade candy with other kids for my favorites, as I attempted to be as practical and diplomatic as possible. I always carried extra clothes with me to school ‘just in case,’ and visited my brother in his ‘yurt’ in our backyard. I remember the summer days spent in the pool, our backyard being filled with palm trees, olive trees, and fruit trees of every kind. The blackberry bush that would stain my fingers pink after picking and eating berries until my belly was full. I remember my brother's wedding reception and how I couldn’t believe he was leaving me, and how beautiful I thought our family was. I remember the Christmas I snuck a peek at the gifts and was scolded by my parents, rightfully so. I remember my brother teaching me how to skate on his long board, and I remember him asking me which side of my blanket I wanted on top of me when he tucked me in to go to sleep. I still picked blue.
The ecstatic beauty of music keeps these memories alive, living for me, replaying in my head every time I have ever felt homesick or missed my family. The music has followed me in every home I have ever lived in, in every place we stayed together, and every tragedy of each move was overplayed by the vinyls and love. And even in my now adult years, I still get emotional thinking of how much we have all changed and grown, how much I love our additions to our family, and I am just so grateful.
I imagine these feelings are universal, in some capacity, we all waltz back in time when we walk through the quarter, or romanticize our past when we see some great big lovely mansion in the Garden District. Because in these places, these real physical places, we hear music. And music does connect us, remind us of who we are, and it places us in our current reality. Every single person I have ever met can confidently name a tune that brings them back to a special moment, person, or time in their life where everything was rose-colored and perfect. And as I wander through this great big city of music, and I look at all of the other people around me, I hope they feel as touched as I do, and I know they do.
For a place as special as this, practically vibrating with the actual drums of the city, carries the key to unlocking these memories. Isn’t this why people come here? To listen to the music? To be reminded of all those little things that make you, you?
This unique experience is so alluring and addictive, drugging you with every lullaby and voice that melts even the coldest parts of ourselves. It is this feeling in this city of jazz that brings us back out every night, hoping to feel as we once did, and have the oh-so-therapeutic experience of missing, longing, and loving.
That is why so many come here, why I came here, to visit the music and hear it in the most outrageously named bars and clubs. Trekking to the ‘Spotted Cat’ and the ‘Snug Harbor,’ desperately hoping to walk down memory lane, and to do so with my fellow humans in a dark, lit room, swimming in smoke and tears. Watching those who seem blessed by God to artfully pluck their instruments or play the piano with such grace, I fear I am watching something alien at work. The fear is overridden by that universal experience, the hope of being reminded, of being given the time and space to process all that we have gone through, in a room together. I always picked blue.