[Note: In the following essay MHS student Ben McCarthy talks about the impact of jazz on his life. MTM welcomes contributions from readers.If you have an event, passion, or interest you would like to share, please email editor@mytownmatters.com for more information.]

Guest Essay by Benjamin J. McCarthy, MHS class of 2010

It’s a cold Saturday morning.  Rain spills from the grey New England skies.  The wind cries like a saxophone, the rain its applause.  I am fourteen years old, soon to enter high school, and unbeknownst to me, soon to be the pianist in the jazz band.  I rub my eyes, tousle my hair, and prepare myself for another unexciting day.  As I lie down on the couch, my attention is drawn to my father’s record collection.  As I rummage through the cardboard covers and run my fingers through the dust, I stumble upon an old jazz piece, John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme.”  Intrigued, I put the record on the turntable, lift the needle and place it gently onto the record’s edge.  As it spins hypnotically, I become more and more entranced. The sounds blend surrealistically.  These musical expressions of human sentiment flow mellifluously from the speakers through my ears and into my consciousness.  I have never heard anything so sublime.  So this is jazz…

It’s a Saturday morning, rainy once again.  I am now seventeen years old and a senior in high school.  Just awakening, with my eyelids at half-mast, I wonder how I will spend my day.  It seems like a good time to unwind and listen to music.  I fall onto my old, cozy couch, shuffle through my records and choose “A Love Supreme,” just the way I had almost four years ago.  Not only has this composition become an old friend, but I have learned to play it as well.  After several years of playing piano in the jazz band, I can now understand the source of the power and feeling of each bass thump, each drum strike, each thundering piano chord, and each soaring saxophone note.  Coltrane’s music once again colors my whole world.  I experience the music, live the music, become the music. I now speak the language of jazz.

I have a deep gratitude for the discipline of jazz.  Learning jazz requires a close study of its complex theory and an appreciation of the many small nuances of its myriad components.  It takes a trained and attuned ear to be able to discern its refinements.  I have honed this skill through diligence and the discipline of regular, painstaking practice. Paying close attention to the subtleties of jazz has taught me to always be aware of gradations, a technique which can be applied to any academic activity.  Among the valuable skills I have learned as a jazz musician is to first seek, then find and ultimately express myself in my own voice.

Jazz has also taught me about the chemistry of a group and the importance of careful collaboration.  John Coltrane and his band mates did not just simply score “A Love Supreme;” they gave it vibrancy by the commingling of their natural gifts, their nimble minds, and their musical virtuosity.  Jazz has no stable or pre-determined formula. Jazz is feeling. With this feeling, one expresses one’s self without using words.  French writer Victor Hugo said it best: “Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.”  Playing jazz, I have learned to “speak” through the eighty-eight keys on my piano.

At fourteen, I never expected that jazz would have such a huge impact on me.  Now three years later, I have come to understand that this music has completely changed my life. Jazz has taught me to embrace the music’s ability to express my soul.  According to pianist Bill Evans, “Music should enrich the soul; it should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise.”  Jazz has stimulated remote regions of my brain, stirred the depths of my soul, and led me to discover my true self, my essence.