In the early 90s (in my mid 20s), I was studying guitar at Musicians Institute in L.A. Our improvisation class was taught by a fusion guy with the obligatory curly mullet—nice enough, but also kind of a doofus. Our assignment was to bring in a recording of a guitar improvisation to listen to and analyze.
I was trying to understand free improvisation at the time, and I brought in this track by eastbay stalwarts (this was before I moved to the eastbay) Henry Kaiser, Hilary & John Hanes, with John Abercrombie. I thought it was ‘fusiony’ enough that the instructor would find some way to talk about the logic of the thing.
He cued up the CD and the sound came over the speakers. I could see his face trying to figure out what to make of it.
About halfway through, he turned the volume down, gave kind of a dopey smile to let us know he was kind of kidding, but mostly not, and said,
“You call that music?”
My (unknown to me at the time) autistic brain went into analysis-and-resolution mode, which can chew through a moment like this in milliseconds. Without missing a beat, my unconsidered response was,
“You call that a haircut?”
By which I meant no ill will whatsoever. I was just pointing out that one’s musical choices are not unlike one’s tonsorial decisions. But, of course, there wasn’t time to give the backstory of the decision-making process that caused my response.
There was a long pause. Then suddenly, the tension was broken as everyone in the room, besides the instructor and myself, erupted into laughter. The instructor and I just looked at one another with curiosity, awe, and a sense that we would be laughing as well if we were just witnesses, and not protagonists.
After that, thankfully, there were no hard feelings, at least that I was aware of. There was a quiet peace between us, even when I would ask overly complex (unknown to me at the time) autistic questions.
Actually, now that I’m remembering, he told me once after that that he had a dream where I was reaching my arms out to him, and pleading, “Daddy! Daddy!” I remember masking heavily (before I knew that was a thing), and trying to hear his dream in a neutral way, and not hear it as creepy, but to respect his experience, and not react.
Thankfully, that was pretty much the end of that episode of that story.
Branes.🧠