Every Moment is a Memory

I haven’t really been able to write much lately because of two things. One, the Christmas season is hectic and time-consuming, and two, our church was presenting a Christmas concert featuring my musical hero, Kirk Whalum(!), and our worship band (of which I am a part) was to back him up!

There may be one or two of you who don’t know who Kirk Whalum is. He is a world-renowned saxophone player. (He is the one playing the solo on Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You”)

I have previously written about him and his impact on my vocation.

Our Sunday band consists of keys, bass, drums, guitar,  percussion, and me on sax. When Kirk was approached about doing something for us on Christmas, he agreed and asked that our band be called on to back him! What an honor. Since we both play the same instrument, I pondered my role in the whole thing. I know that he doubles himself a lot on his records (You really should pick up some of his stuff. Any of “The Gospel According to Jazz”, “For You”, or the current, “Roundtrip”, should be a nice entree…), so I knew that there would be something for me to do in the show, but since I do horn arrangements from time to time, I thought that I could contribute in a more significant way.

I decided to write some horn parts for tenor sax and trumpet hoping that Kirk would approve.

Marc Franklin, the trumpeter with whom I normally play was unavailable and unswerveable. My next two choices were working as well. (Nuthin’ but the Devil!) I had asked the Lord to work this out for me, but I was still unsure of what would happen. My friend and former employer Curtis, about whom you’ve read, was free, as it turned out. I had forgotten about him since he is usually working when I am.

With that tear sewn up, I spent the next month or so thinking up parts and recording them, between keeping Max alive, caring for a perpetually sick pregnant wife, and working myself. Curtis came to my house a couple of times to rehearse what I had written, and I thought we had some good stuff. Parts that would complement but not confuse what Kirk would be playing.

Kirk asked if we could have two rehearsals, so I knew that that would give me many chances to watch his work habits and methods of practicing. I also sought to use the rehearsals as opportunities to talk one on one and pick his brain about recording music and becoming a better player. I normally HATE rehearsing because a lot of the guys around here (and probably there, too) use it as time to LEARN the doggone songs rather than to pull it all together!! I hate that! Does an actor learn his lines at rehearsal? No. My time is more valuable to me than to have you piddle it away because you had all this other more important stuff to do rather than learn the material in advance. Paging my current bandleader…

This band is different, though. Especially Dave Mason, the drummer. He is always ready! He will tell YOU what YOUR part is supposed to be. He has a gruff exterior, in need of some sandpapering, but he is true to the bone! True. And our new M.D. is as thorough as a prostate exam. But not as uncomfortable!

The first rehearsal was this past Saturday. 10 AM. This, for a musician (even for those like me who DON’T do drugs!), is like 4 AM for you! Everybody gets there in reasonably good time except for my friend and ace in the hole, Curtis. I text-messaged him twice, and called him as well with no success, but I had prayed to the Lord that my anger and doubt would be slow to rise. The rehearsal went on as scheduled. Kirk had not even been told that there would be HORNS backing him. I was resigned to doing the performance alone and doing well with my psyche an hour and fifteen minutes later when Curtis came loudly rushing in and tripped up on the top step of the stage! He looked like… well, like he had stuffed three New Years’ worth of partying into the previous few hours! I was “crestfallen”. (I know Brothers don’t use that word)

“I’m sorry man, my alarm didn’t go off! It was set for ‘PM’ instead of ‘AM’.”

 Okay.

Kirk, to my surprise, came over to Curtis and introduced himself as if this bull  had not just stormed into his china shoppe and knock over three or four tables.

Now, in case he reads this, Curtis is my boy! I love him. I’m not dogging him. But he’s got some iiiiissssuuues! He knew he had let me down. I told him more than once how important this show was to me. And I fought for him to be able to play. There was no trumpet in the budget. Yet here he was an hour late.

And it was as though the separate practicing we had done had never happened! This was worse than if he had not shown at all. It sounded like he had food stuck in his horn! It was AWFUL! He was asking me for parts that he should have known, and trying over and over and over and over and over and over to hit high notes that he could not hit that afternoon.

I was dying just a little inside with each cacophonous miss.

“Oh, Dear great and grayshious heav’nly Fawwver, why don’t he quit?!? Don’ he see he killin’ me?”

And Kirk wasn’t missing a THING, you hear me? Every missed note would bring him our way. I was afraid I was being lumped in with the mess that was going on. That is the thing about playing with another horn that many don’t understand: You are joined like fingers on one hand. You are playing chords. If one makes a mistake, the thumb can’t say to the middle finger, “You messed up.” The whole hand is wrong. And I wanted Kirk to be like, “Man, them horns sound good! My music sounds different! In a good way.”

But as it was, it looked as if we were going to hear the musician’s worst phrase, “Hey, man, lay out.”

 We muddled through the day, and while the rhythm section (bass, keys, drums, guitar) got an “A”, the horns got a “C” minus from me.

Kirk is smooth, though. This is what he said to Curtis and me after the session was over: “Hey, man, I’d love to get together with you guys after tomorrow’s rehearsal to iron out some of those parts. We could do it at my house.”

I knew what that meant. “Hey, man, y’all jackin’ up my stuff, and in lieu of firing you, I’ll give you one more chance to fix it. Y’all ain’t gonna embarrass me! ” Even though there were a few times when he noted that he liked some of what we had done, in general, we seemed unprepared and maybe even incapable.

Curtis was like, “Cool! Derrick you can ride with me!” I don’t think he got the hint on that day…

Truly, he stumbled down the steps as he left. No lie.

I didn’t know one could still be groggy from oversleeping after a three-and-a-half hour rehearsal…

We rehearsed the next day, Sunday, at noon after church in the sanctuary/auditorium. We all knew this. Church was out a 11:30, so practice would begin promptly at 12.

11:56 Curtis text messages me, “Church over yet?” I kid you not. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him show up on time!

He arrived only thirty minutes late (Kirk was like, “Heyyy, man! How ya doin’? All cheerful. No sweat.), but I’ll tell you what — what a difference a day makes! He successfully negotiated every step. He played great! All the parts I had written sounded like I had hoped, and practice went like butter! The whole thing was coming together, and I was once again excited. I had noted that these rehearsals were fun. More fun than the gig, because Kirk was telling jokes and giving insight into how to command the room. And playing and playing and playing! His horn sounded like “Pet” milk! I was in class. Taking notes.

I told Curtis, “Man, you sound good today!”

“Today!” he laughed loudly, and popped me on the shoulder. “Yeah, you were lookin’ at me yesterday like, ‘what he doin?’ Thass my bad, man. I had a lonnnng night!” Dudes can’t just say, “I’m sorry.”

I know I’ve written a lot so far. 1438 words. But indulge me as I tell you about the actual show…

The concert was to open with our own praise team, which did five tunes, accompanied by the great Andrew Gouche on bass. (He is currently Chaka Khan’s bandleader. Dig THAT!) Kirk would come out and close the show with us and his son, Kyle, on the bass.

Curtis had gotten to soundcheck earlier that day only fifteen minutes late, but before we started, and I complimented him, saying, “Yeah, man, from an hour, to thirty minutes, to fifteen minutes… Shoot! By the time the gig starts, you oughta be here to unlock the doors for us!!” Everybody laughed.

From the first moment onstage, he held the audience enrapt. He preached the Gospel profoundly, and tied each song into the Christmas message. He made them laugh, and cry, I’m sure. He joked, he danced a little, and he explained that his mission as a Christian is not simply to play in church, but to do just what he was doing that night in Japan, Jakarta, and Jonesboro. Preach Jesus, and Him crucified.

I know that some of you reading this might see a conflict with playing aught but gospel music, but I submit that there are things that YOU do outside of a church setting that belong to God as well! Jesus the Carpenter didn’t only build churches! Why is music the only thing that can only be done “in church?” (More on this later…)

I have met and spoken with Kirk on a few occasions, and his Christian character and humility has always been evident. In rehearsal, where the talk can get pretty raunchy, (even in church) he was Godly. Backstage before the show when only the two of us were in the room, he was a Christian. I am not nominating him for deification, I am only saying that it is obvious in word and deed that he follows Jesus and demonstrates Jesus.

So many times we see celebrities on television act one way only to have them anger and disappoint us in real life.

I am not a star-struck fan. I have worked with and been around famous people. (I’m gonna blog about my employment with a particular nasty recording artist in the future if I can figure out how to do it without getting blackballed!)

He is the big brother I have always wanted and never had. Someone to show me how to throw a football and talk to a girl. Someone to fight all those fights I had to fight alone. He, without his knowledge, showed me — shows me — how to squeeze tears and moans from my horn. How to say to my (”secular”) bandleader, with C sharps and E flats, “Quit   Bein’   So   Un   Professional!!!” The Blues! How to be caught up in the music I play without dancing in some corny, insincere fashion (I gotta get a wireless mike…) How to control an audience and open the door to the Christian conversation. He shows me the work ethic involved in getting so good, and that a person can be a world class player of the world’s “sexiest” instrument and be true to his wife and his God.

The show was AWESOME!! The playing was fantastic, and I’m told our horn parts were off the chain!! The Lord did it!

The shame of it is that only about half of the people we thought were coming came. There was no excuse. That show was transcendent. And not because I was on the stage. We could have had an altar-call after that show! No one wanted to leave. The entire balcony was empty. Some people were out of town, I know, but Kirk was at HOME playing in his hometown. And the tickets were TEN DOLLARS! That is practically free! Come on, now. We gotta do better.

It was my understanding, from all the rehearsals, that I would not be soloing. I was VERY cool with that! I just wanted to experience the experience. I just wanted him to like the lines I wrote. And I wanted to pick his brain.

Lo and behold, in about the third song, he plays his way over to me and points… and I was gone! I tried to play the best I ever had! In the seven tunes we played, I got three or four solos! When I had expected none. At one point, we battled — trading “fours” (four measure turns) and then “twos” and then winding like a rope, notes singing higher and higher and higher until we ended in altissimo harmony…!

I’m told (I never know what happened in the audience when I take a solo…) that the audience — made up of mostly non-church members — was caught up in the drama at each of our turns — aahhh. Aaahhhh. Ohhhh! Whooooaaah! Whooooohhhhh!!!

Curtis did his thing, though! He was great — as was the whole group — He played a great solo, too! Everything came together just as the Good Lord wanted. Through all of this, God is who I IDOLIZE, who I seek to impress.

It was the highlight of my musical life! My parents were there. Two of my sisters were there. And on the second row right in front of me holding Max (who was pointing at me saying, “Daddy!”) was my wife. I could see all of her teeth in that dark room.

I wish that night were some “Twilight Zone”, “Groundhog Day” moment that I was able to live again and again. But alas…

Backstage afterward, we exchanged information as I expressed a desire to fellowship and learn more about my craft and my walk with God. I love that dude. Cool as ice, and humble as a nobody.

Every moment of Kirk’s public life is someone’s lifelong memory. Seeing a celebrity is the highlight of most of our lives. I still remember seeing George Gervin and Artis Gilmore play for the San Antonio Spurs back in the eighties.

He is gone to some other town on some other gig with some other band. But I am still back there on that stage playing “Do You Hear What I Hear.”