These are the kinds of questions that I have heard over and over through the years from non-musicians... and even some (especially classical) musicians! The spell woven by an adept jazz musician can be provocative, thrilling, touching, haunting, relaxing, surprising, and infuriating. The sound from a well-made musical instrument in the hands of a master is a lovely thing. But the very beauty of that sound is as deep as the mystery associated with its making.

definitions play the head: to play the main melody of the song. trade fours: to take turns playing solos for four measures; a common way to feature the drummer. lay out: to stop playing. The trumpet player might lay out during the bass solo. out chorus: the last time through the main melody.

All music is communication and jazz music specifies a language and a style for that communication. During my forty or so years of playing jazz music, I have thought a lot about this great mystical/musical activity. I have always (since age 6) been able to play but I think my understanding of the process has been fifty years in catching up to my abilities. The first album I recorded was in 1976 in Holland and I gave it the title Mystified probably in recognition of the fact that at that early time I didn't totally understand what I was doing! I was on the path toward mastering a language. I'm still on that path.

For the past six years, I have taught an adult education class called "jazz/music appreciation." The students in the class are people with limited music experience and understanding. In this way, they are fairly typical of the general population. I was fortunate to be able to bring into the class some of the Northwest's leading musicians who would play through tunes with me and then talk with and answer questions from the class. The most commonly asked questions were 1) how do you know what notes to play, and 2) how does one know when to do things, like start or end a solo, end the song, play the main melody,.... These things that experienced musicians take for granted, were the main source of the students' mystification. In one of these classes, the great guitarist Dan Faehnle made the point that down through the years, jazz musicians have purposely made such things seem mysterious and inaccessible to lay people so as to cultivate that special aloofness that typified the jazz subculture. Through the forties and fifties, jazz musicians happily cultivated their status as outcasts and bohemians. After all, if you could "hang" with the likes of Diz and Bird, then you could stay in your cocoon of coolness and justify your poverty while at the same time, blaming the "straight" world for their lack of understanding.

My how times have changed! The last couple generations of jazz musicians have produced people whose openness and love of the music prompts them to teach the skills that they have learned so as to pass on the tradition to younger generations. Trumpeter/composer/teacher/historian Wynton Marsalis comes to mind as an exponent of the new openness of jazz. Here in the Northwest, another trumpeter and arranger, Thara Memory, is also a great teacher and jazz communicator. Thara is the musical director for the Mel Brown sextet and to watch this band play can be the ultimate experience in the power of jazz to move an audience, and a great example of the interplay between musicians and the communicative skills of the director.

So maybe it's time to attempt to answer questions 1 and 2 above. First, how do we know what notes to play? The general formula is deceptively simple sounding. Musicians agree on what song to play from our mutual lists of known songs. We then play the main melody (sometimes called the "head") one time through, and then somebody steps up and solos over the structure of the song. Pretty straightforward. After the first soloist finishes, he or she is followed by another soloist who does the same thing until the last soloist finishes at which time we again play the head and end the darn thing (or "take it out"). A typical jazz song or "standard" might be something like the great Cole Porter song, "What is This Thing Called Love." It is a typical 32 bar song form. It has four sections. Two A sections, followed by the B or bridge section, and back to a final A section. We refer to this form as A A B A.

A: What is this thing called love
This funny thing called love

A: Who can solve its mystery
Why does it make a fool of me

B: I saw you there that wonderful day
You took my heart and threw it away

A: And so I ask the lord, in heaven above
What is this thing called love

Now it is the soloist's job to play through the tune, making up a new melody as he goes. This is the tricky part. Because in order to make up a new melody, the soloist has to have a vocabulary. And for one to develop a vocabulary of jazzy melodic statements, a person can't avoid some serious study which will involve lots of listening to the great established players, studying music theory, and just working it out on your own. The process can take years to a lifetime. The song above has a certain chord structure or "changes." In order to play over the changes, the soloist has to know what scales or modes fit with various chords. Most young players start by learning "licks" or "riffs," pat phrases that they might copy from records of their favorite artists. Years of study and some imitation might lead to the players gradually weaning themselves off the licks and creating their own approaches to inventing melody. This is the beginning of developing their own style.

Moreover, the soloist has decisions to make not only about where to take the solo....what notes to play and how to phrase them and at what volume....but also how long to play. The soloist can play one "chorus" which is once through the song, or several choruses depending on how verbose a particular artist is. Back when I recorded my Mystified album, I was on a European tour with the late tenor saxophonist, Joe Henderson. Having played with masters like Art Blakey and Miles Davis, Joe had developed a tendency in his own bands to play long - I mean really long - solos, playing as many as twenty choruses, sometimes soloing for 10 or 15 minutes. He took me aside once and said "Say Tom, why don't you solo longer? Some day you'll be in bands where you don't get much solo space, but in this band, you can play as long as you want." But in those days, try as I might, I just couldn't solo longer than a few choruses. I just didn't have that much to "say." I would end up repeating myself and playing total nonsense in the attempt to stretch myself. I became mentally weary.

I still feel that truly gifted players can make a musical statement with an impact in two or three choruses... easily. Joe Henderson happened to be one of those old school geniuses who would take the audience on an incredible, albeit long, musical/emotional journey.

Attend a jam session some day and you'll witness the process and protocol of jazz musicians playing together in a casual setting. Ron Steen is one of the Northwest's best jazz drummers who for years has hosted weekly jam sessions where players of all abilities come together and jam on familiar tunes. Novice players and singers are thrown together with veterans in a process that results sometimes in total magic and at other times...well...it's just short of magic. Ron does an artful job of fitting players together based on styles and abilities, balancing egos and temperaments. And he insists on players understanding the basic principles of playing together. Every player is expected to know the tune that's called...or not play ("lay out"). Everyone is expected to listen to the solos and keep their place in the song so that they know when to come in, when to "trade fours" with the drummer, when to take it out/play the head, and...one of the most elusive problems of them all...how to end a tune. Watch the eyes and body language of the players...or a (self-appointed) leader who may tap his head which means play the out chorus or head. Sometimes his eyebrows are slightly raised and so this becomes more like a question, "should we take it out now?" The piano player might point to the drummer, which would be like saying "no, not yet, let's trade fours with the drummer. In these sessions, there is an ongoing communication playing out before the audience.

And so it goes for any jazz band. For players at a high level of skill and experience, the communication becomes more subtle and cryptic. This is particularly true for bands that have been together a long time. As a piano player, I mostly give cues to my band mates by some slight head movement. (I could opt for the more theatrical one arm straight-in-the-air pointing to heaven approach but I'll leave that to Peter Allen.) Similarly guitarist Dan Balmer in his band of highly seasoned veterans, often pulls his guitar slightly out in front of his body and tilts the neck up about ten degrees to signal his mates. And sometimes cues are strictly musical. A well constructed solo will follow the short story-esque structure of development: rising action, climax, denouement, and for the next-in-line soloist, if he is truly listening, then there will be no doubt as to when to start his solo. Also the good listener/player can use the "vibe" or some element of the just finished solo as a jumping off point for his own solo.

But then sometimes the good old English language works just fine. In a slow dreamy ballad I like to limit the whole presentation to just a few choruses, TOTAL. So I may turn to the bass player at the end of a chorus and say "go to the bridge" so as to take it out before the piece gets too long and tedious. But there's more communication taking place on a bandstand than just that which flows between players. There is an even subtler and more mystical communing that comes from the core of the artist and goes out into the world to be picked up by the other players and the audience. It is this kind of soul to soul channeling of music that gives it its great power. That playing music comes from some special place deep in the conscious or unconscious being is evidenced by the sometimes odd physical manifestations that accompany playing music. When I was young, I loved to listen to my records of the wonderful pianist Errol Garner. I noticed in these recordings that there were these strange guttural sounds that could be heard in the background while I listened. I soon learned that this was Errol himself kind of grunting and groaning along with the music. Nowadays many musicians that I know and respect make these kinds of sounds as their "inner voice" leaks through during their playing. When I hear Dan Balmer or Ron Steen or Keith Jarrett or Elvin Jones "vocalize" along with their playing, it demonstrates that the music is not just in the head or the hands but comes from some inner place of creativity. These vocalizations and sometimes- rapturous facial expressions are the byproducts of the process of creating music.

Look closer at this inner place of creative activity. It establishes in the mind and body a state that athletes refer to as "being in the zone." It's that alpha wave-emitting, endorphin-releasing state of bliss that one feels down in the soul when engaged in whatever activity taps in to that deep well of inventiveness. It's a very spiritual place, and I'm sure that just such experiences as these were what made early mystics write poetically about the nature of God and the heavens. For musicians, when they are connecting on a profound level...with the other musicians...and with the audience...and with their own core....there is a strong sensation of the instrument "playing itself." Most thoughts just go away and there is this feeling akin to floating dreamily through space, riding a wave, or soaring through the air. You have become a conduit for a communication whose source is almost unknowable.

Of course this magical condition is not attained every time we take the bandstand, but it is always the ideal to which we strive. We try to assemble the best players to achieve the deepest grooves to attain the highest emotional state possible. When all these elements come together built on a broad base of knowledge and experience and crafted with empathy and sensitivity, you have the makings of a very satisfying experience. This is the magic of music.