Bad music, cheap concerts, and all that jazz

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The worst thing in the entire world — apart from death, disease, or maiming — is jazz. For reasons I cannot fathom, my parents love it.

They were in the Soviet Union when Metallica rocked out to a crowd of 1.6 million. They moved to America at a time when hip-hop didn't suck. They spent the first quarter of this century knee-deep in some of the best music in history.

But for some reason, they ended up loving bands that have an average audience size of four. Go figure.

They also love turtlenecks and beanies, but that has to be a coincidence. I'm trying not to hold it against them.

I've heard it said that telling a good jazz player from a bad jazz player is like tasting wines. You can never tell the difference and it ends up making your head hurt.

Nevertheless, I felt I owed it to dear old Dad to go to one of those concerts he liked so much. After all, one has to keep an open mind.

Okay, that's not actually true. When it comes to music, my mind is about as open as Fort Knox.

I would rather listen to a lecture on postage stamp manufacturing, bathe in wet concrete, or get stabbed in the leg with a spork than go to a jazz concert.

But it was Dad's birthday, so I went. And with a big smile on my face.

We got there a few minutes late, but we hadn't missed anything. The musicians were hitting some high notes, working their way down the scale, then going back up again.

I tapped the shoulder of the guy sitting in front of me and asked when the band would finish tuning their instruments. He shushed me so loudly that he left flecks of spit on my glasses.

Apparently, they were in the middle of their first song.

For the next number, the band brought a dancer onto the stage. "Finally," I thought. "There'll be some music I can tap my foot to."

The guy tapped his way across the stage, all right. But I couldn't make out any beat. He would have had more rhythm if he'd been tapping Morse code.

Behind him, the band was hamming it up. Then the saxophonist started a solo at the same time as the guy on the trombone.

It wouldn't have been so bad if they were in the same key, or at least the same time signature. As it was, even the more dedicated members of the audience began streaming at the eyes.

For the first few seconds, I thought one of them might do the honorable thing and bow out. But both just kept getting louder and louder.

In a vain effort to stop them, the band struck up a completely different song.

A train collision would have sounded more melodious. The walls shook. Plaster flaked from the ceiling. The crowd screamed.

And I found something I liked about jazz.

At that volume, it sounds exactly like Metallica.

Alexandra Paskhaver is a software engineer and writer. Both jobs require knowing where to stick semicolons, but she's never quite; figured; it; out.

Previously:
• 12/04/24: No dollars and no sense
• 09/17/24: Gone crackers
• 09/12/24: A matter of manners
• 08/21/24: Keeping things simple --- is hard
• 08/13/24: DIY = 'Destroy It Yourself'
• 06/26/24: All in a day's work
• 05/23/24: The state of the art
• 05/16/24: Rounding one's corners
• 03/22/24: Gone loopy
• 03/05/24: Philosophy rocks