Free Jazz

I went for a walk with Matt and Clara, from Seattle, to the angel monument. When we arrived, we heard beautiful saxophone music. Following the sound, we found a gentleman at the bottom of a set of stairs, which decended into the ground about 10 meters from the plaza. He stood in front of a closed gate, the entrance of a pedestrain underpass, designed for seeers of the monument to forgo crossing the heavily trafficked street safely during the day. He had installed two battery powered lights pointing towards the ground, which reflected from the wet marble  surfaces of the corridor in a blue glow. He played facing his opened instrument case. His attack was largely breathy. Often you would hear seconds of air pushed through the instrument before he would bend it into the intended note. The result felt emotive and telling of his story. Upon seeing us as spectators, he set his saxophone down in its case and climbed the stairwell to have a cigarette and a talk. He did not seem interested in divulging his name, and we did not ask. He had lived in Berlin since 1984, and in the 29 years has played frequently in this very spot. 

"There is nothing like the sound that comes from this tunnel" he said, "it is like you are playing two instruments at once". 

With that, he descended back into the corridor. I and my friends followed and took a seat. He began slowly to demonstrate the power of the tunnel. He would sing to it and it would sing back. He created harmonies with delay. He barked notes through the instrument to develop layers of synchopations.  He understood how to play the tunnel. Somehow, Matt and Clara felt that they had somewhere else to be. They stood and departed on a walk back to the hostel. The rest of the concert was beautiful. The gentleman ran a gamut of musical expression, from standards, to a King Crimson song, to screeching and howling open jazz. I felt relieved that Matt and Clara were assertive to choose to leave; it narrowed my attention to the preformance to a level that invoked dancing. What was exchanged could not be recorded, it had to be experienced. After some time, the concert came to a close. The gentleman mentioned that he had work in the morning. He packed his saxophone, then had an idea to play one last song with flutes. He reached into the front pocket of his instrument case and pulled out two recorders, one smaller than the other. He held both to his mouth and played them simultaneously. Afterplay. There seemed nothing more appropriate than a handshake and a goodbye and we parted to our respective beds.