I'll be seeing you

Most of you know that I was trained as a musician about a hundred years ago. Not just a musician, but a singer of jazz (how sexy does that sound?) I learned this love of jazz from my father who played a killer jazz saxophone in a band and listened constantly to Big Band vinyls in our basement. (I was weaned on Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller. Ask me about Tuxedo Junction.) I practiced the art of jazz singing ardently in high school and college; as a solo artist and with jazz groups (a la Manhattan Transfer, New York Voices, Real Group, Take 6,etc.) And then, as all mediocre musicians do when they graduate from college, I (with a heavy heart) gave up the singing. (Because: A) I really wasn’t very talented; 2) I really hated practicing; and d) There really isn’t much of a market for jazz singers unless you want to live a life of poverty and work only between the hours of 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. …unless of course you’re really talented and/ or you really want to practice. And then, well, see points A and 2 above.)

At any rate, I miss those days of singing standards with a small band in a smoky bar. And I do still quite love jazz. Especially the old torch songs, sung by the geniuses of the genre: Ella, Billie, Sarah (the ORIGINAL one-named artists... you didn’t have to ask which “Ella” someone was talking about. It was just Ella.) These ladies could level you with a note; captivate you with the smallest inflection of the voice; make you drown in their pain and longing—feel, to the depth of your being, the sheer and utter agony of being in love, by the mere and oh-so-subtle way they drew a breath before they started a new phrase. These ladies, they were communicators of emotion.

I think we’ve established by now that I am a lover of language. I like words. A lot. And anyone who has spent time listening to these old torch songs knows that they contain the most brilliantly written lyrics of all time. (You make me smile with my heart. Is there a better image ever written in song? *Thank You* Mr. Hart. ) My father and I on occasion tussle over whether any good lyrics have been written since the golden age of Broadway. I argue that there have been some good lyrics since then …he holds firm to the belief that people don’t write songs like this anymore. I think we’re both right to some degree. Yes, there are some good recent lyrics penned in the last few decades (please go fall in love with Colin Hay if you have not yet done so), but overall, Dad, you’re right. Not much like these old tunes is written anymore.

Now, because I love words, and because I love jazz (any music actually), I often find that there’s pretty much a constantly running soundtrack in my head. And I would wager that there’s a jazz standard to address just about any emotion-driven situation we might encounter in life. I’m always having snippets of tunes, fragments of lyrics, pop in and out of my head, almost like I imagine other people have basic sensory-driven descriptors pop into theirs (e.g. Some people might observe “It is spring” and “I am sad.” I look at the same situation and say “Spring can really hang you up the most.” Basically, I think in song lyrics.) And this was my weekend.

I was on a business-related outing these last few days. On the road …again (Ha! Willie Nelson writing some applicable lyrics...) for my work. And this was a jam-packed three days in which we had a very long way to go and a short time to get there (wow…Jerry Reed. Thank you too.) Normally, especially when I’m on business, I don’t mind being shuffled rather expeditiously from one place to the next: Just point me where to go, and tell me what to do, and there I’ll go and I’ll do that. But what made this trip hard was that this business was to be conducted in J’s hometown.

And man, if the people with me on this trip didn’t just set the ol' jazz standard soundtrack in my head off. It was like I pushed play on Billie's greatest hits album…and put it on repeat.

We lunched there in a place where J and I had one of our first lunch dates. We did a walking tour of the buildings J took me to when he was first showing off his fair city to me. We went to entire exhibits dedicated to J’s favorite historical figure. We drove *literally* through the backyard of J’s parents' place. (And all I wanted to do was jump out of the car and go have dinner with the family.) I’m not sure why I wasn’t prepared for it-- why I thought that being in J’s town, in the town that has come to feel like *our* town would be comforting and familiar. Instead, it made me miss J terribly, and wish so much that he was back with me, walking hand in hand down the city streets, listening to the music of the city, bantering with each other over who was the most important figure in U.S. history, with the day completed by J snatching my leftovers from me to give away to the homeless and the hungry that line the streets.

It’s funny how things are cyclical. One of the most popular songs during World War II (when women sent their men off to war and waited patiently for them to come home again to them) was a song by Sammy Fain and Irving Kahal from the ill-fated Broadway show, Right This Way. In my head, the entire time I was in our city, I could hear Billie Holiday singing these beautiful, poignant, heart-wrenching words:

I'll be seeing you
In all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces
All day through.

In that small cafe;
The park across the way;
The children's carousel;
The chestnut trees;
The wishin' well.

I'll be seeing you
In every lovely summer's day;
In every thing that's light and gay.
I'll always think of you that way.

I'll find you
In the morning sun
And when the night is new.
I'll be looking at the moon,
But I'll be seeing you.

Thanks, Billie for saying it when I couldn’t. For summing it up when I felt it. For expressing it with just the right amount of longing, sadness, hope and resolve. Yet again, you were right on the money.