A Letter from Chris Suarez

LET’S MAKE SOME JAZZ

Last week I spent some time in New York. For all of its frenetic energy - the traffic, the pace, the cab rides, the noise - it has always been a city that calms me down. There is something about New York that brings me some peace. It’s as if the cells in my body know I am home. It’s as if they know they were born just across the Brooklyn Bridge. Either way, being in the city is very similar to being in the woods for me. Both give me time to think.

It’s been some months, but late Friday night I walked up to Greenwich Village and caught the late show at my favorite jazz club. I used to come here often when living in NY and going to school here. It has been here since the early 90’s and this little basement that fits no more than 50 people has been a breeding ground for talent in the New York jazz scene. It’s pretty raw. It’s authentic. It’s regular people, listening to regular musicians, having regular conversation.

For the first set, I sat in the chair right in front of the piano, close enough to touch it. I love that seat as I get to watch the musicians make decisions at the moment, recover from mistakes (if they can even be called that), and feel what they are producing. For the second set, I moved back to watch from the small, somewhat kitschy, bar. It allows me to see the musicians perform, but also watch the audience react. Such good people watching at a jazz club.

It struck me that Friday night as I listened to a duet and then a quartet that Jazz is much like any relationship or partnership - personal or business. Jazz isn’t meant to be choreographed or overly rehearsed. There are chord changes and broken times. Jazz is free and improvised, with constant rhythm changes. There are mistakes and there is forgiveness. One of the musicians may head down a new path or take a detour, but the others follow along, not missing a beat, happy to be on the journey together. With all of that, there’s always harmony.

It takes massive cooperation, incredible respect for each other, and willingness to at times lead and at other times take the back seat in any set or during any song. And yet, the result, what we as the audience hear, is just magic.

Any relationship has some elements of jazz. Life can’t be predicted. We will deal with changes in pace, and rhythm. We will deal with so many mistakes, and need lot’s of forgiveness. There will be detours and shifts in direction. At times we need to show up as the leader, while at other times we need to be willing to follow. But when great people form strong relationships, great music is made.

One of my favorite things to see at a jazz club is open mic. Musicians will come in from different parts of town, or different cities. They have different backgrounds with different styles and different instruments. They get up on stage and figure out a way to make some incredible jazz music together. They have fun, and so does the audience.

The best business partnerships feel and sound like jazz. The partners may look different, have different perspectives, be excellent at different things, and play different instruments. They will most certainly mess up, go off script, change keys and chords, and find themselves in some interesting rhythms. Undoubtedly partners will clean up some messes for each other along the way, just like at the jazz club. But great partners figure it out together. There is music in partnerships. And music moves people. It’s what the power of partnership is all about.

Sure, I could head uptown and listen to a solo being performed at Radio City Music Hall, at Lincoln Center, or at Gershwin Theatre. But I’d much rather see some real and raw jazz performed by incredible music “partners” at an undisclosed location in the basement of my favorite jazz club in the middle of the Village.