I was recently asked what I am thankful for this Thanksgiving week and I realized that we as jazz musicians have a lot to be thankful for. This is the week to take time, reflect, and celebrate!
Musicians have something to look forward to doing when we wake up in the morning. Music gives us something to be excited about and a purpose in life moving forward.
Ability to express ourselves with no intermediaries. Jazz musicians can pick up an instrument and just play. We don’t need sheet music or a composer to write for us. We can connect with our instruments directly and challenge ourselves to play expressively. We can write music that reflects our emotions or things that are happening around us.
We have an endless challenge but also an endless curiosity and an endless desire. The challenges in music will never be conquered and we will always make mistakes. We can be thankful for the desire that we have to move forward, to embrace our musical mistakes, and to work to improve ourselves with no end goal in sight.
We have career opportunities. We as musicians have a much easier path than many of the other arts to have careers and make money. My grandmother was a talented visual artist who had the ability to paint effortlessly with both her left and right hands. She mostly painted countless numbers of paintings, but she also could sculpt—she molded amazing chess sets out of mud from a creek in her back yard. Once when I was young I went to an art show where she was featured and was proud to see her paintings on display. Afterward I was hopeful she had sold some of her work and when I asked her if there were buyers, she just laughed and said no. That was a huge lesson for me because it made me think about an artist’s motivation, the rewards (or lack thereof) of being an artist, and what all of this meant to my own pursuits. I am fully aware that I can make more income than my grandmother did with her art. Jazz musicians (myself included) have the ability to find income by serving others as a side musician, providing background music, playing function work, being in wedding bands, doing recording studio work, arranging, etc. Musicians have a tremendous ability to find income that so many other creative artists do not have.
Enjoyment. We have an enjoyable career with lifelong friends, common goals, common interests, shared struggles, and shared triumphs.
Community and fellowship making the day-to-day grind feel a bit more effortless.
Low burnout rate in comparison to other careers. Musicians seldom if ever get tired of playing music.
As a teacher — we can be thankful that what we are teaching is valuable to the students. I always tell them that regardless of wherever they end up and what they end up doing with their lives that their musical skill will always be with them and it is knowledge and skill that they can value decades from now.
As a student — learning music is a valuable life skill that will always be meaningful.
Here are things that I am personally thankful for:
a wonderful family and a comfortable existence
the opportunity to:
have the privilege to pursue music as a career,
to be surrounded by some talented colleagues,
to have my new album on MCG Jazz entitled Analogy of the Sun
to have recorded two new albums as a leader in 2021 that will be released in 2022
to have my new jazz album Against All Odds coming in February 2022 on Origin
to oversee a growing jazz program at a major university with curious and talented students and colleagues
to be a guest artist on at least seven different albums that were released last year