Synchronicity #1
I played in my first band, (the first one that actually had paying gigs) when I was in 7th grade. I sang and played guitar. Everyone else was a year older. I did play very briefly in a band when I was in 6th grade. With high-school guys. But I suspect it was just because my Dad owned a music store and they were hoping for free equipment, until they discovered I was just too bad a player to put up with. But I digress. The gigging band was Jon Kolger on bass, Tim Armstrong keyboards and Jeff Hamilton on drums. Jeff went on to become a jazz legend, playing with everyone from Lionel Hampton, Woody Herman, Ella Fitzgerald, the L.A.4… on and on. Atta boy Jeff! So get this…
The first gig we ever played was for a sorority alum party held at the local Holiday Inn in their lounge called “The Blue Note”.
This was in Richmond, Indiana. (Everyone else was late to the gig and I opened with a solo version of “Rocky Raccoon” to kill time. Good for me!). Now fast-forward twenty-five years.
I was in NYC for the first time, on a trip with Mary before we were married. One early evening in our hotel, and with no plans, I looked in the Village Voice to see who might be playing nearby. At “The Blue Note”, (legendary NYC jazz club) was…here it comes…. The Jeff Hamilton Trio. Yes THAT Jeff Hamilton. Of course we went. I hadn’t spoken to Jeff since Junior High. I sent a note up to his dressing room. He was great. Mary and I went up and had a nice conversation.
Now this is not a life-changing, message-from-the-Universe, kind of synchronicity (I’ve had those, stay tuned), but what are the odds? My first ever paid gig is at a little club called The Blue Note in Indiana and years later my first time in NYC, that same drummer is playing at “THE” Blue Note. A thousand miles away, a thousand years away, that particular night, that club, that drummer and I’m there, and notice?
So what does it mean? My take is that when our intentions, our emotions, our actions and our “sense of self” harmonize, then just like sympathetic strings vibrating, what we experience as Reality harmonizes as well. Things start to rhyme and reflect and somehow make deep sense.
Or you can say that we just notice coincidence. You can say that there’s no magic to it, it’s simply that of the millions of things that happen, occasionally they happen together and anomalies, by definition, get our attention.
I choose magic and meaning. And synchronicity #3, which I will post eventually, will show you why.
Speaking of forces of Nature, here’s a song. I wrote this with Gary Loyd and Rhean Boyer. This is Rhean singing.
