It was a little before 7:30 p.m. I was sitting on a browned, elongated ottoman in Josselyn House’s piano parlor, casually known as “The Jarlor.” The heterogeneous furniture had been arranged into a rough semicircle. Behind it was another row of chairs pointed toward the entrance, where the piano sat. As the performers got ready, friends sprawled on the couch, with many opting to sit cross-legged on the rough pseudo-Persian rug.
Assistant Professor of Political Science and Josselyn House Fellow Claire Sagan introduced Melanie Giselle and the musicians that accompanied her: pianist Ben Allen, bassist Knox Barber and drummer Corey Garcia. Sagan acknowledged the Harlem Flophouse as well, and emphasized that this event would be a part of a series. Moreover, she thanked the Raymond and Davison House Fellows that had helped her arrange this event: Assistant Professor of Anthropology China Sajadian and Associate Professor and Chair of Education Jaime Liborio Del Razo, respectively. Sajadian’s newborn was also present.
Giselle took the center of the room, sporting a flowy red skirt, slight micro bangs and a philtrum piercing. The first song was bossa-nova inflected. Melanie took a step back and held both her mic and head low. Then the piano began, and I realized that an instrument I thought I had understood can sound completely unfamiliar. Allen’s playing seemed to move laterally beneath the song, filling spaces that I had not noticed were empty; a phrase would begin casually and then fold back upon itself. Allen would raise from the piano bench, slamming the keys, squeezing his eyes shut. Then came the bass.
Barber gave the music a foundation. The bass did something to the body of the listener, giving my foot a reason to tap. I had no idea when it had started. Thus began my introduction to jazz: involuntary movement. I came into the Jarlor with essentially no jazz vocabulary. I could not distinguish the conventions, nor could I have told you what made one solo technically remarkable. So I listened in the most primitive way possible.
Giselle then introduced a song dedicated to the moon, which felt fitting considering Sept. 25’s waxing gibbous moon, phasing into the Harvest Moon weekend. There was a piano solo in which Allen seemed to take the melody apart. The rest of the band conceded their improvisations, becoming a kind of atmosphere around the piano. Then Garcia took over on drums, wielding a pair of brushes. He moved his brushes around in a continuous whisper, creating and dispersing sound at once. I became fixated on his foot as it kept thumping absent-mindedly—a small, repetitive motion underneath the kit, keeping some private time underneath the public one. And then I realized that I was doing the same thing.
I was slouched on the ottoman, shoulders rounded, one foot thumping against the floor in time with his. For 30 seconds, the drummer and I had arrived at exactly the same posture from the opposite side of the room; it seemed absurdly intimate. He was performing, and I was merely seated there trying to understand what he was doing, and yet our bodies arrived at the same conclusion. The hauntings of the Jarlor had faded, and the music had finally taught me how to sit, unstiffened.
There were moments when I felt like Sajadian’s newborn: unknowing yet having the pleasure of discovering something. A solo would end, and the room would clap. I would look around half a second too late and join in. Someone would make an appreciative “oh yeah,” and I would wonder what, exactly, they had heard that I was unequipped to understand and, thus, missed. Gradually, my self-imposed embarrassment faded, and I began to understand that there was to be no musical singularity in my ears.
Because the audience was facing the entrance, we had an accidental view of the world outside the concert. Every few minutes a head appeared behind the glass, which became a kind of fourth wall; they were in flux, between campus life and whatever was happening in the Jarlor. Right when I got into the groove, the first set ended. A 15-minute break had commenced. Eventually, Giselle seated herself on a stool and began a solo acoustic set. The room became quieter in a way that felt like sheer observation, as opposed to mere silence; without the bass, piano and drums around her, there was no bridge between her voice and the room. She explained how she grew up in Uruguay and sang many songs about peace, meditation and the like.
After it ended, many stayed back, flocking to Sagan and the performers. I did not stay to ask questions. I could have performed the little ritual that follows an intimate concert: That was beautiful. Where did you learn that? What was that last song? I love your skirt. Instead, I left. Not immediately: I stayed there for the strange interval where the Jarlor stopped being transformative, yet had not quite returned to its ordinarily haunted state. People gathered their things, chairs shifted and the spell began to disperse. I would like to think I have, unknowingly, loved jazz my whole life. Jazz musicians seemingly know something that audiences do not and that other musicians end up discarding.