Lessons learned

Many years ago, as I failed to become a great jazz musician in New York, I was granted the joys of studying saxophone with Joe Allard.

Joe was the greatest teacher since Socrates, who was his hero. All the top sax players went to Joe with their problems.

Socrates was Joe’s hero because at the beginning of most of Plato’s Dialogues, Socrates told his interlocutors that he knew nothing. Then he asked what they knew.

In most of the Dialogues, Socrates’ inquisitors had to acknowledge, finally: “Yeah, OK, maybe we don’t know that after all. So what do you know?”

And in most of the Dialogues, Socrates said, in effect: “I don’t know. You said you know. Now you say you don’t. So let’s start with some simple questions.”

Socrates would be so yesterday today. But not Joe.

Joe told me he tried to teach principles — but that he had no system. “Principles may,” he said, “but need not, lead to a system.”

Joe told me never to try to imitate someone: because you don’t know whether he developed his style to compensate for some flaw that you might not have.

Implied is that if you copy someone, you might develop a flaw you never had in the first place, and might never have developed, had you not tried to be like Your Hero.

The Classical — yes, Classical, big C — example of this is Lester Young, holding his horn sidewise, up in the air, because he didn’t have room on the crowded bandstand to play any other way.

And Lester Young, the President, is one of the lush springs from whence the tenor saxophone begins.

But that doesn’t mean we should imitate him. Or try to be like him.

Which reminds me of a true story. Back in the day, 50 years ago, when I was studying with Joe and tryna be a jazz musician, I went to the West End Bar on Upper Broadway every Wednesday night, because that was where the Vice President played, Paul Quinechette.

Paul was called the Vice President because he played like Pres. Even held his horn that way, though there was no need for it, because there were only four cats on Paul’s bandstand.

I went there week after week, sitting up front, loving every minute, with my eyes, my ears, my whole self. Not because I wanted to imitate the Vice President, but because it was the closest to Lester Young I’d ever get.

One night on a break Paul sat down next to me. Had he had noticed me sitting there week after week, digging him? Would he talk to me? Did I dare?

As his favorite waitress, Freshpot, set a stein full of beer before him, the Vice President asked me, “Are you a horn player?”

(Omigod, he’s talking to me!)

“Yes,” I said.

“Can you finger the horn?” the Vice President asked.

I thought it was a trap. I ran through the options, or my brain did: A quip? A modest demurral? (Hell, I was woodshedding six hours a day.) Nah, just tell the truth.

“Yeah,” I said. “I can finger the horn.”

And the Vice President told me: “Well I hope you can finger it if you’re a motherf—ing horn player.”