                
|
 |
First Prize: Jamie Uptall
Eau Claire Memorial High School
Eau Claire, WI
Joy
It starts with a modest heeltap. A slight left to right shift of the back of the foot slowly creeping up my whole left leg. The motion travels to my lower torso and from my torso to the rest of my body. The contagion spreads. Soon my soul is submersed in the affair, smoothly rocking side to side. A grin the length of a bass string bends above my chin. My eyes crease into wrinkled gems of joy. My ears overfill like gluttonous goblets. I am fused with the sweet sound of pure jubilant energy that is jazz. Entering as one force, our saxophone section moans the shrill, vibrant whistle of Duke's train. It is two days before the Essentially Ellington deadline as our jazz band records Happy Go Lucky Local during class one last time before a live audience.
Although the apprehension and anticipation is high among the members of our ensemble, camaraderie is quickly established in the group and somehow transferred to the audience. This exchange of ease and spirit allows the music to exist and flourish. Encouragement from the audience as Jon imitates a boisterous train siren on his trumpet only deepens the musical conceit. The feel thickens. I begin to lose myself in a state of musically induced euphoria for the first time. I am barely conscious of my giddiness as we swing harder and harder and approach the climax of Duke's masterpiece.
I have lost total recollection of the technical passages, but somehow my fingers know on their own what to do. With each measure that passes in this intense bliss, I smile as hard as I can while still keeping the clarinet reed clasped between my beaming lips. My moment comes. I stand up exposed to the audience as the soloist. Previous nerves and worries that once consumed me have long since melted away, and now it is my turn to become the crazy, high pitched, screaming train whistle. I take a breath and energy emits from my clarinet that I did not know I possessed. I lose myself in the moment, cognitively losing track of minutes and seconds, chords and scale degrees, and play the best I ever have. I sit back down at what I innately know is the end and realize that this is why people play music.
We end the chart, a train gradually halting complete with screeching brakes and a swoosh of steam illustrated by the drum set. The audience erupts. My fellow musicians and I know that we have created something larger than ourselves: living musical energy that was experienced by others present. Music is a communicative and social art form, jazz being the most genuine genre. Duke was able to extract this energy through his compositions, allowing characters and emotions to be portrayed and understood equally by the audience and the player.
I walk out of the auditorium and realize in fifth period French I'm still grinning wildly.
Return to the Essentially Ellington Essay Contest
|
|
|
Jazz at Lincoln Center
Essentially Ellington
33 West 60th Street
New York, NY 10023
Email: ee@jalc.org
Phone: (212) 258-9812
Fax: (212) 258-9900
For general inquiries about Jazz at Lincoln Center, please click here.
|
|
