Practice Profile: Alex Terrier

One of the best parts about having relocated to the New York jazz scene is the access to so many other musicians at various stages of their artistic "development." The default expectation is that the talent level is going to be really high, and you run into a lot of amazing people up here...so I thought it would be cool to profile some of the different players that I've met and really examine those concepts with which they are currently working.

Like I wrote about earlier, jazz is a life-long study, a huge challenge just to achieve the technical proficiency to play the music at a high level. Jazz musicians are constantly searching for new ways of practicing which will enable them to raise their musicianship. In a way, I suppose it's like code-breaking: you try dozens or hundreds of combinations, not randomly but within some sort of logical system, in hopes that one will unlock a sense of greater understanding. There is no one magic bullet-- usually progress is made through the process of searching-- but people come up with some very innovative solutions...

...which brings me to Alex Terrier. Alex is a fantastic young saxophonist, who hails from Paris, France. He actually attended Berklee College of Music on the Joe Viola Scholarship-- which was created in honor of the legendary Joe Viola who was one of the "founding fathers" of Berklee, as a saxophone guru and a wonderful man (Joe was my teacher, friend and mentor for 10 years until his passing in 2001). The scholarship is supposed to go to a very gifted and advanced woodwind player, and Berklee couldn't have made a better choice than Alex! Since graduating Berklee, Alex has been touring, recording and teaching worldwide though he's based in New York.

I had the pleasure of sitting in with Alex's group a few weeks back, and I was extremely impressed not only with his advanced musicianship but also his respectful and diligent approach to music in general. One of the first things to grab you when listening to Alex play is his flawless technique. He executes the most acrobatic of passages with a casual ease that belies the skill needed to do so.

Alex was kind enough to share what he's currently working on with me, a series of exercises designed to build technical and rhythmic fluency. The basic idea is to take a particular underlying pattern of music (which has its own inherent challenges), and then vary the pattern's rhythm. Alex does this very logically and mathematically, starting with grouping of 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's, 6's, 7's and 8's.

By the way, I feel like this entire entry should have one of those "technical stuff" icons that the "For Dummies" books have to warn people about upcoming content (which is not at all directed at any readers here, by the way!), so please accept my apologies in advance for too jazz "shop talk."



Anyway, I asked Alex to tell me why he developed these specific exercises, and this was his response (edited slightly for length, and stick with him, these are some great insights):

"I keep the metronome at 60 [beats per minute] and go through each exercise. I think it is important especially for improvisers to be able to play them without reading, not to be able to play them as it is during a solo, but to have them in the fingers available just like a library of data in which you can instantly go and pick something. I really internalize each example so that it feels natural. I play the most common ones with different articulations but when it comes to odd groupings (quintuplets and on) I tongue [saxophone articulation] on the down beat to emphasize the feeling of those groupings. Also one thing I find useful is to take one pattern like that and transpose it on each degree of the scale with the metronome always. Sometimes I take two groupings and transpose them. One can also take one grouping of quintuplet and one grouping of triplet for instance...

...I guess I came up with those exercises over an extended period of time and for several reasons: one is to practice the time, which is a very important thing, and to master odd groupings which will make it a piece of cake to play 8ths and 16ths right on the pocket. Also I like to imply a different tempo from what the rhythm section is playing so if you play quintuplets with a 8ths swing articulation that's pretty sweet. One can also take the half note triplet and feel that pulsation as your quarter note or half note, but I guess that would be an entire other chapter.

Also it gives me the opportunity to practice scales in a new and more interesting way than just going up and down and speeding up the metronome.

But really it is all about feeling the time as a space in which you are free and not constricted to play 8th notes and 16th notes. You can play very different if you feel the quarter note, the half note, the whole note, two bars or an entire 8-bar section.

Also, when I say it is important to memorize and internalize them, it is because when I'm actually playing I DO NOT think about all that. everything one seriously practices will come up somehow when one improvises, but the goal is to be natural and fluid, just like one speaks or thinks for himself."

Anyway, a special thanks to Alex for taking the time to share his work and ideas. I tried playing through his exercises and can attest to how challenging and enjoyable they were. Alex is the kind of person who takes the time to answer any questions that you have and I'd encourage you to check out his website (www.alexterriermusic.com) and get in touch. I know that he makes many of his exercises available to friends and fans...

So, what about the rest of you? I'd love to hear what you're working on! Let's get more of these great ideas out there...

"But Principal Skinner, it was the reed" (Vando Jam)

Can one digress before one even begins? I guess I won't know until I try (incidentally, relaxed writing standards are one of the nice things about being a jazz musician as opposed to a lawyer). Anyway, I hope people are familiar with the Simpsons episode entitled "Lisa's Pony." Basically, Homer screws up with Lisa and in order to win back her love he needs to buy her a pony...and hilarity ensues. This is required watching for saxophonists because of how Homer screws up. He is supposed to get Lisa new reeds as she has a performance in the school talent show that night. Instead he takes a detour at Moe's Tavern and Lisa is forced to play on a bad reed. The result is painful, and she is humiliatingly stopped by Principal Skinner, prompting this immortal exchange:

Principal Skinner (clapping sarcastically): Let's hear it for Lisa Simpson and her wacky saxophone.

Lisa (softly and tearfully): But, Principal Skinner, it was the reed...

Principal Skinner: Sure Lisa, it was...the reed.

So, if you have ever played the sax then you know how critical having a good reed is, and if you haven't, well, it's hard to imagine how something so tiny can make such a huge difference. And they are pricey and notoriously fickle-- a box of ten frequently only yields three or four playable reeds, plus they have tragically short life spans...

Which finally brings me to the subject of this post, the Vando Jam, which I attended this past Monday night (July 13). "Vando" stands for Vandoren, which is one of the largest reed companies in the world (they also make a lot of other woodwind products). They sponsor a jam session that takes place on the second Monday of every month, from 8pm until midnight. It's a bit of an oddity by New York jam session standards in that (1) it's really early (most sessions start after midnight); (2) it's not that well-attended due to limited advertising and the monthly schedule, and; (3) it's in a really swanky location, the Iguana on West 54th Street. Honestly, most jazz clubs are dives, and this place is in the shadow of the Ed Sullivan Theater (of Letterman renown) with trendy martinis and a good-looking crowd...of course, they hold the jam in an upstairs room so there's not much mingling with the crowd :-)

So you're left with a session made up almost entirely of musicians, primarily horn players. The result is a very "educated" audience and a bunch of very talented guest artists. The session is led by Mark Gross, an amazing alto player, which makes sense because if you're going to lead a bunch of saxophonists and represent Vandoren, you'd better be pretty good! Gross is that and more-- he has impeccable time and technique as well as a powerful and commanding tone that grabs you right away. I thought that I could hear some of the influence of Kenny Garrett and Steve Coleman, as well as Coltrane, in Gross's, but he definitely has his own sound and approach.

Gross' band was great too. He had Benito Gonzalez on piano, and Chris Brown on drums (as Gross said, the "real" Chris Brown). Not only is Brown a fantastic drummer, but after the session opened up and another drummer replaced him, he reappeared a few minutes later holding an alto sax-- which he played at a very high level as well :-)

While the tunes were pretty common jam session offerings (On Green Dolphin Street, Billie's Bounce, The Days of Wine and Roses, Softly As In A Morning Sunrise), the overall musicianship extremely high and the players exhibited a wide range of styles. I got a big kick out of a soprano player who had an almost-eerie command of John Coltrane's "sheets of sound" work from the early 1960s (a little like Frank Tiberi). But it was a real pleasure to "sit in" (another jam session term) at an amicable session where everyone knew what to listen for and picked up on so many of the nuances that flow through jazz solos. An audience of one's peers, so to speak. I played on "The Days of Wine and Roses" and had a lot of fun sharing and harmonizing the melody line with Mark and a few of the other players...

So keep an eye on the calendar. On the next second Monday of the month, ask yourself if you can think of another place to hear great players for free in a comparatively-luxurious setting-- and still be able to get up for work the next day. If you can't, come check out the Vando...

***I would also like to point out that I have used Vandoren reeds for the past 18 years, so if there are any Vandoren reps out there, I too would be more than happy to accept a corporate sponsorship. My availability for corporate sponsorships is by no means limited to saxophone accessories. I alternate between exercising in Nike and Adidas shoes. I enjoy trail mix from Planters (although the generic is pretty good too, but I'll switch if that's part of the contract), I often drink a cup of Starbucks coffee before I begin a practice session, and I am currently typing on a Toshiba laptop. And I firmly believe in the efficacy of Glide floss for all wind instrument players...anyone? :-)

Draw! The Art of the Jam, Part I

I remember taking a legal philosophy class where we dealt with the concept of a "meta-question." I figured it's about time that I tackle a "meta-topic" here-- the jazz jam session. I really believe that someone could write a dissertation on this topic, so at the very least this will take me a couple of posts...and it may not be entirely sequential so please be lenient :-)

The jam session is, in my opinion, the central nervous system of jazz. It exists in every town and in every country where people play jazz. It has existed for at least a century, and probably a lot longer. In fact, if one were to calculate the total number of notes played at every jam session in history, that number would be roughly 10 times the global economy! Ok, I made that last part up. Seriously though, these things are pretty prolific. Jazz is a social music, and whether you're new to the scene and want to establish yourself and learn who the players are and what they're about, or you're a grizzled vet and want to see old friends and scope out new talent, you'll head to a jam session.

But jam sessions are also complex animals, managing to be both an Esperanto version of "We Are the World" and an episode of Fight Club rolled into one. The jam session has other names as well, including the slightly-less-inviting "cutting session." And while I'm no etymologist, that seems like a pretty accurate description as the musicians literally cut away at each other on the bandstand until only the best players are left standing. I'm often intrigued by how the audience only hears/sees the music, unaware of the old (and often epic) ritual taking place before their eyes. I suppose it's perceptible through the energy of the music...

Obviously, jazz has many sides. Sometimes it's gentle, sometimes plaintive, melancholy or even a little goofy (though still really hip :-)). And sometimes it has an almost violent ferocity, which I believe is forged in jam sessions.

I'll finish this segment by describing my first experience at a real jam session. Growing up in the Boston suburbs I had a lot of exposure to jazz-- great teachers and school programs, easy access to Berklee and a steady stream of jazz greats who came to perform at Boston clubs. But it had been cushy. So in the 1993 I decided to give the "bigger" scene a shot, and I hit Wally's. Wally's is a Boston institution, a hole-in-the-wall located in the South End/Roxbury neighborhoods, and has been a proving ground for decades. Legend has it that drumming revolutionary Tony Williams played there regularly until he joined Miles Davis' trailblazing 1960's quintet...

In later years, the best players from Berklee and New England Conservatory would serve as the house band for the Sunday afternoon jam session. Branford Marsalis was there in the 1980s, followed by Antonio Hart, Christian McBride and Roy Hargrove. By the time I got there, the group consisted of Teodross Avery, Aaron Goldberg, Reuben Rogers and Mark Simmons.

I had never played at that level before, and I received a thorough butt-kicking every time I set foot in the place. They would call obscure tunes, or would take traditional tunes and make them virtually unrecognizable by playing them at ridiculously fast tempos. Sometimes they would throw in a double-time feel (making the tune seem twice as fast) or introduce more complex metric modulations-- basically all of the things the top players were experimenting with and attempting to add to their vocabularies.

Sometimes you'd be forced to "battle" a far superior horn player, trading improvisational choruses in a way that felt like playing a musical version of the basketball game of HORSE-- match the shot or get off of the stage/court. And there were unwritten rules of conduct and competency that were enforced: if you played too long, the rhythm section would literally stop playing! My hands would sweat so much that my fingers would slide off the keys, and I could never sleep after a Wally's session from the excess adrenaline...

So if you've hung in this far I'll give you a breather :-) That's an opening take on the jazz jam session under the microscope. I'll be coming back to this often as New York has the greatest jam session scene in the world...and I'd love to hear your experiences either as a player or a listener, so please drop me a line or leave a comment!

Brava Anat!

Photo credit: Osnat Rom

Ok, I know I just wrote about the "3 Cohens", but I can't ignore great music :-) I had the incredible pleasure of hearing just one Cohen-- Anat-- during her week-long engagement at the Village Vanguard.

On clarinet.

You may wonder why that deserves a separate paragraph. I'll get to that. First, the show details. Entitled "Benny Goodman and Beyond," it featured Anat leading a stellar group comprised of Benny Green on piano, Peter Washington on bass, and Lewis Nash on drums.

Now back to the clarinet. At Berklee, we would not-so-affectionately refer to the clarinet as "the misery stick." While capable of producing a beautiful sound (well, not when I played it, but theoretically :-)), it is far less technically forgiving than the saxophone, and has really assumed a very minor role in the jazz world over the past 50 years, with Eddie Daniels and others as notable exceptions. During the big-band era, however, it enjoyed considerable prominence and one of the most popular and influential musicians of the day, Benny Goodman, was a clarinet player...

For that reason, Anat's show was quite aptly titled. Despite some marvelous individual work by various musicians like Daniels through the years, people still tend to associate the clarinet with Benny Goodman. Anat graciously acknowledges Goodman's long shadow, but has proceeded to take the clarinet to new places. While her set featured such traditional songs as "Tiger Rag," "St. Louis Blues," and "What A Little Moonlight Can Do," Anat offered a fresh interpretation of each. For starters, she has a modern-- and superb-- rhythm section with which to interact. Green's chord choices and comping patterns, Washington's sophisticated bass lines and Nash's poly-rhythmic responses all lend a new twist to older compositions. Her arrangements also seemed designed to highlight the group's different strengths as soloists, offering ample time for everyone to stretch out, explore the songs and interact.

But the real reason this show stood out was due to Anat's brilliant clarinet work. I'm not accustomed to hearing someone make a clarinet sound as easy to play as a tenor saxophone, but she did. I've heard people say that when you watch a truly great actor you forget that it's an actor playing the part and think only of the character-- I believe that the same is true with an instrumentalist. Within a few phrases I stopped marveling at Anat's clarinet technique and began marveling only at her musicality. She can weave the same intricate post-bop lines of a saxophonist through her solos, but with a clarinet's timbre...

And just as greater technique can unlock new ideas for improvisers, so can the natural qualities of an instrument. If you listen to some of the older Benny Goodman recordings, you'll hear him glide and "soar" above the other instruments due to the clarinet's voice-- it has an elegance and clarity of sound that probably comes from its classical origins (for an example of this, check out his version of "Memories of You" with Rosemary Clooney). Anat seemed inspired by the clarinet's capabilities as she added more glissandos to her modern vocabulary. There were a number of moments where she would seem to pause her lines and let a few of the rich higher notes ring out-- which certainly energized both the audience and her bandmates.

Finally, as I mentioned the last time I heard her perform with the rest of her family, she plays with an expressive joy that infects the audience-- I can't remember the last time I saw so many people smiling at a jazz concert! :-) I really recommend going to see her live the next time she is performing...this town is full of great players and innovators, but you're cheating yourself if you pass up the opportunity to hear someone literally revive a beautiful instrument and blaze a new trail. Plus it's always cool to say that you heard someone before they become a household name, although after winning a number of prestigious jazz awards, you may not have much time left for that in Anat's case...

Brava Anat!

Jazz: Art or Craft???

If you'll pardon a quick dip into more philosophical waters, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about jazz's role in the artistic cosmos. I suppose a couple of summer days in stuffy practice rooms will do that to the best of us :-) Anyway, the basic question I have is whether one would consider jazz to be more of an art or a craft?

I'll have to tip my hat to Kenny Werner for this line of thinking. Kenny is a visionary musician, one of the leading pianists and composers of his generation. He is also an excellent educator and author (his book "Effortless Mastery" is considered required reading for any aspiring jazz musician), and I've had the good fortune of studying and playing with him since moving to New York. But he made an interesting off-hand observation one day at NYU, where he suggested that someone should write a story about jazz students as they constitute something of a rarity in our society: where else, he asked, do you find young people living an almost monastic existence entirely devoted to the study and practice of an art, and all without hope of any financial remuneration?

Well, I'm not enough of a storyteller to undertake that project, but it did get me to thinking about the enormous amount of intellectual and physical effort that it takes for someone to succeed as a player in the jazz world. Everyone is different, but it's not uncommon to see someone devote 8 to 12 hours a day mastering their instrument, learning a "standard" repertoire, and simply becoming familiar/comfortable with jazz's stylistic nuances. Take trumpet legend Clifford Brown's recording of Cherokee. As a jazz student, I suppose that step 1 would be recognizing the brilliance of his solo. Step 2 would be understanding how impressive it is to keep a consistent swing feel at such a fast tempo. Step 3 would be reproducing a similar feel at that tempo, and the last step would be the ability to make music and innovate there. I know that I'm over-simplifying things, but humor me :-)

Step 1 is pretty intuitive. If you like jazz and improvisation, you are going to get excited listening to this cut. For me, Brown's solo is a five and a half minute adrenaline rush. Step 2 is also a quick one-- just try tapping your foot at that tempo for the entire song and see how tired you get!

The difference between steps 2 and 3, however, is almost unimaginably vast. Just the physical content of Brown's solo represents years of practice on his instrument. He plays a number of "eighth-note" lines (which means he is playing notes at twice the speed of the actual tempo), so think about how much time it would take to learn to produce sounds on your instrument and then string them together in rapid succession, let alone doing so in tune and recognizably! And his solo does not take place in a vacuum-- rather, it reflects the language of his musical generation. Coming of age in the late 1940s-early 1950s, Brown had studied and absorbed the way the bebop pioneers like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie approached soloing over similar tunes (Cherokee was one of the most popular bebop vehicles of the day). Brown actually publicly credited trumpeter Fats Navarro for influencing him on numerous occasions.

There are myriad other factors as well. Brown, like all jazz musicians, plays with a “swing feel” (that’s a whole separate topic, as many consider learning how to swing a lifelong pursuit). In a nutshell, the easiest way to hear swing is to listen to a jazz musician and a classical musician play the exact same passage. Jazz musicians interpret the phrasing differently and in a way that syncs up with the pulse laid down by the bass and drums. All of these influences/ingredients went into creating Brown’s masterful solo, and an aspiring jazz musician would have to go through the same steps in order to reproduce an authentic version of Cherokee…

…which brings us to step 4. With all of the unwritten rules and traditional expectations, how does one innovate on a tune like Cherokee? By the 1940’s bebop players began regularly playing Cherokee—a love song-- at very fast tempos to take advantage of the rich chord changes. By the time Clifford Brown recorded it, there had already been dozens of other recordings made, and every jazz musician in the world had played it countless times at late night jam sessions (and we still do today :-)). How did Brown make his unique? How would I?

Ay, there's the rub :-) I don’t have any answers for this one—I think of myself still wrestling with stage 3! But that’s the ultimate goal of any jazz artist, to achieve one’s own voice, to come up with something that will satisfy yourself and (hopefully) others. The most talented among us achieve that, but so do the most dedicated. Which brings me back to Kenny Werner’s observation and the accompanying long days in the practice rooms. We spend so much time and effort just learning to play this music authentically—which is a joy – but it’s easy to lose the creative forest through the technical trees. I don’t know enough about other artistic disciplines to comment on their processes of development and creativity, but I’d be curious to see how they correspond.

And I’d be really curious to hear your thoughts! Thanks for reading all of this :-)

Old Friends, New Music

From the "Road Not Taken Category" (or more accurately, "A Detour" :-))...

I just attended a beautiful show at the Village Vanguard entitled "The 3 Cohens Sextet". It featured siblings Anat Cohen on tenor sax and clarinet, Yuval Cohen on soprano sax, and Avishai Cohen on trumpet. The stellar rhythm section consisted of Aaron Goldberg on piano, Matt Penman on bass, and Gregory Hutchinson on drums.

Yuval Cohen is a special story for me. When I was at Berklee College of Music in Boston in the mid-90's, Yuval and I became great friends as we were both students of saxophone legend Joe Viola. Yuval, while a far more advanced player than I, was always gracious and a wonderful friend. I spent a lot of time picking his brain about saxophone technique and playing sessions, liberally interspersed with games of chess and basketball...through Yuval I met his younger siblings, Anat and Avishai, both prodigious talents who also came to study at Berklee from Israel. My family even had the pleasure of hosting them for a wonderful day at the ocean in Gloucester, Massachusetts. One of the things I remember Yuval telling me was his dream of one day writing original music for, and starting a band with, his family.

Unfortunately, what was a very promising start to a music career was halted when Yuval developed a medical condition during an international tour that left him unable to use his hands. When I last visited him in Israel, he had stopped playing completely and had begun a career in, coincidentally enough, law...

Well, Yuval is back and then some. With a lot of hard work he regained the ability to play and has subsequently put his legal work on hold to resume a thriving musical life. He has formed his dream band with Anat and Avishai (both of whom are now at the top of the New York and international jazz scene), and "The 3 Cohens" are in the midst of a week-long date at the most storied venue in jazz. He is truly an inspiration to me.

So, onto the music! I attended the 11pm show on Wednesday, and was thrilled by a generous six song set. The evening featured music by all of the Cohens, including an uptempo arrangement of "Ornithology" by Avishai, Yuval's innovative re-harmonization of "Love and the Weather," and Anat's original composition, "Yuvali." All three Cohens displayed a remarkable virtuosity on their respective instruments, but that's par for the course in the upper echelons of the jazz world. What sets them apart-- as individual players and as a unit-- is their warmth and communication, which seems to feed their creativity as well. I can't remember the last time that I witnessed a group of musicians so attuned to each other. In a music scene renowned for it's detachment, the Cohens were rooting each other on, dancing, and letting out low whistles after particularly cool solos. And it translated into greater creative energy for each of them, for the rest of the rhythm section, and engaged the audience. Truly a pleasure.

As for the rest of the band, the superlatives get a little old, so I'll leave it that they are each "monsters" (that's a high compliment in jazz parlance). Matt Penman and Greg Hutchinson are some of the most skilled, creative and in-demand musicians on the jazz scene today. And Aaron Goldberg is simply amazing. Aaron and I actually go back further than Yuval and I do: we played in a school jazz band together in 1989-1990. He was good when he started, really good in short order, and soon became amazing (simultaneously attending Harvard while the rest of us were slogging through music school). He is now one of the world's leading voices on jazz piano, and he thrilled the audience and his band-mates with spell-binding solos and sensitive interpretations of the originals...

The 3 Cohens have released several recordings, and I highly recommend them all, particularly their latest, "Braid" (which also features Aaron Goldberg). They bring joy to their music and you will love it.

I'll close by saying that even though my evening was about the music and warm reunions (they are still the same good-natured and humble people they were as students), I couldn't help but think about what an inspiring story Yuval, Anat and Avishai are. They have worked their way from being complete unknowns from another country to trailblazers on the New York jazz scene, they have had overcome all sorts of adversity and odds, and their love and support for each other is apparent and heart-warming. I thought about meeting them as kids almost 15 years ago, and it makes me wonder what other special talent is hiding in unusual places...

Congratulations again, guys. You sound wonderful. Joe Viola would be very proud...

You can't Park here...

Take a moment the next time you're walking through any of the parks in Manhattan-- not just Central Park but smaller ones like Washington Square Park, Roosevelt Park or even some of the wider concrete spaces like Union Square-- and you might just have the chance to hear some truly beautiful and original music performed by the legions of talented musicians who take to the streets to support themselves in the summer (hmm, apparently they are so good that they inspire run-on sentences...)

The technical term for it is "Busking," and it is a tradition stretching back to at least Roman times (and applies to numerous forms of art and performance). Obviously the quality can vary, but I have personally been amazed at the level of musicianship that I see around town. There's a jazz urban legend about New York that there are dozens of sax players better than Coltrane driving cabs around the city. I had personally put this in the alligators-in-the-sewers category, but the first time I caught the "E" train from the West 4th Street subway stop I heard a solo sax player who sounded like a late period John Coltrane/Eric Dolphy hybrid. So I now approach sewer drains a little more carefully...

From the jazz musician's perspective, it's a no brainer. Which would you rather do: pay $30/hour to practice in a dingy, roach-infested, air-condition-free practice warehouse, or sit outside in a beautiful urban park and share your music with people from all walks of life, many of whom will throw you some money? Right, next question. The only potential problem is city regulation/enforcement. For the subways, NYC licenses a limited number of performers, but the parks are theoretically fair game as long as you're not holding an amplified concert or something.

Unless you're me. When it comes to outdoor performance, I must have obtained my degree from Murphy's Law School, because in 17 years of attempts, I have never once failed to encounter some sort of problem (and including such diverse locations as Harvard Square, Tel Aviv and Paris). It's gotten so bad that I feel guilty accepting invitations to "busk" with other players. A few days ago a good friend of mine (and excellent tenor player), Connell Thompson, asked me to sit in with his group in Central Park. Perfect weather, perfect spot-- on a pathway right above the Bethesda Angel Fountain with a few park benches for people to sit and listen. It was a nice acoustic quartet with bass, vocals, guitar and tenor sax and they were playing mostly standards, and people were really getting into it. I showed up, played one song ("It Could Happen To You," ironically enough) and an unmarked silver car immediately drove up. A Kojak-looking man rolled down the window which prompted the following exchange:

Kojak Man: You guys are going to have to stop, you are in a pathway.

Guitarist (after looking at the wide open stretch of concrete that Kojak just drove up on): Ok.

Kojak Man: And just in case you were wondering, I'm the police.

Guitarist: We weren't wondering, but ok.

And thus ended my Central Park debut. Though not before I was tempted to start playing "Don't Stand So Close To Me" or "Gee, Officer Krupke." Sorry guys!

So, the next time that you see some musicians busking in a park, take the opportunity to stop and listen to what just might be concert-quality music. You might be hearing the next John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley or Eric Dolphy. And you may not have long before they get chased away. So throw money and watch out for the gators...