I had been distracted. It took me several days of re-running NQMM’s new album, Set 02, before I finally got a chance to be touched by the songs, today. Thank God because for a while I thought that I had lost it! Or that they had lost it after the change in members. Well, they lost a bit of it, I guess, but not all of it.
Backtracking to last Saturday, an open café right at the lobby of a theatre – not all that classy, I saw some musicians playing jazz. A grand piano, a guitar, someone was on double bass and another on drums. I wanted to call them a jazz band but then again, not really. Those were the few staple players (I suppose) but were joined by another one or two others who could be out-rightly amateurish bathroom singers/players or perhaps professional in skill but not in title. It was a platform for these non-pros to have a go and demonstrate their secretly (or not) honed skills. There wasn’t even a stage! Just a space, a semi-circle formed in front of the glass panes that were the walls of the café so that we could look right into the streets on the outside and that formed the backdrop for their ‘stage’. Little round tables dotted the carpet on the inside where the patrons of the café would sit. It was full house on that day, last Saturday, and the crowd – mostly of our parent’s age but there were exceptions, they gave the musicians their full attention. They were not making small talk, or writing or reading. They were plain listening. And I liked that.
I stood there for about 5 minutes before two old, old men, black, together with a younger man that looks Jamaican (although I’m not all that sure what Jamaican looks like but he really gave me that Jamaican feeling… harhar!) had their turn to perform.
They were obviously good and contrasted greatly with the saxophone player who played before them. The sax player was performing for his first time and I caught him grinning as he scooted off to one side of the café, a corner still against the glass windows, rejoining the other musicians who were waiting, nervously I suppose, because it would be their turn soon.
I don’t know too much about jazz other than to enjoy it but I could tell from the sound of one old black man’s saxophone and the other’s voice that they were old souls. Not just simply old, but old souls! I cannot describe it but perhaps you might have heard this sort of sound before. From the sound, you can tell that at some point in their lives, they were in turmoil, they had suffered. Whether or not they are suffering now or if the wounds have healed, that’s not important because they had grasped the meaning of it and they knows what it is and they use it cleverly in their songs. The songs maybe sad but listening was a joy!
I do not think they felt particularly touched or emotional while they were performing. I think they are more professional than that. I was probably more emotional as an audience. At one point the singer was gesturing animatedly at the band to go one key higher and looked really agitated when they didn’t. The voice that came out right after was still smooth as silk and sad as anyone can imagine. He was singing wearing a pink and grey chequered pullover and a white shirt within it. That the pullover was pink made me amused because the colour just simply didn’t fit with the kind of voice and music he was doing. It was probably nothing, maybe he just liked pink! But at that point I thought it just showed me his commitment and resilience. I am ridiculous, I know but I felt this is one dependable singer who would go on be it a pink shirt he had on, no shirt perhaps or if the lightning threatened to strike him dead.
I’m just really Tou2 Ru4 (I love this word) in my appreciation.
On the topic of me being ridiculous, last night while walking home, I saw a flock of birds (to put it generally but they maybe Herons because I stay at Heronbank which is named after those birds) fly south (but it could be any other direction) and I was touched! I don’t even remember why! The birds were in the shape of an arrow and some were lurking behind, probably some sort of defence formation for them, and they were flying rather low so I could really see them and they were grey and had long necks. And I just thought of SHE’s song, you know, that song… … and I was bloody touched!
Looking as unglamorous as ever, hugging a free duvet I got earlier in the evening, side by side, my friend and I stood for a while, our vision in their wake.
I promised to talk about my class. It is not the most interesting thing to talk about at this point but if you must know, basically we have only 6 people in our course. They all seem very smart and articulate to me and they all have had more professional experiences or have had done similar courses before. Since there are only 6 of us, I can briefly tell you about each of them.
1) John is a father of three. He looks like a stern man but I guess he is not really. He worked at a business magazine as a journalist a few years ago and seems to know a lot about journalism. He is quite a practised writer and had submitted some of his works for competitions and awards etc.
2) Angie is, as she described herself, a middle-class, middle-aged, British housewife. She also has kids. She also, right before joining us, took up a writing seminar in Cambridge but was focusing more on poetry than fiction.
3) Kirsten together with Jane has eccentric dressing. Kirsten has red hair and she likes to wear cutie stuff. It is somewhat Goth in a sense but not in the black lipstick and nails sense, more like a toned down cosplay (think pastel pinks and reds). I think Kirsten is really, really good at writing. She’s the jewel among us. Can tell. She also took a writing course at Oxford before this.
4) Jane always has eyeshadow on and more often than not, it stands out as a huge contrast on her face. She just completed her undergraduate degree in Lit at Warwick so she’s very familiar with the department and all.
5) Sarah looks a few years older than me although I can’t be sure. She seems to have very nice skin and she seems more… … ‘normal’ as in someone whom I feel is closer to me in this stage of my life. Maybe I shouldn’t use the word ‘normal’.
6) Then there is me.
Because they are all locals, they get along a lot better with each other, small talk and all. But they are well, polite to me at worst, nice to me at best so I don’t feel all that left out.
The lecturers are pretty interesting and the lessons too. I will have a lot of writing to do… I don’t even know why I’m blogging when I should jolly well be writing my homework!
I think I’ve spent more time than I’ve allocated here so I’ll write more next time! Friday tomorrow!
Ming and JY, good luck for auditions!
Halfway through dinner 2 hours ago.
The ulu driving range where I'm attempting to learn some golf.
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