Why Are You Here?

Bassist Rufus Reid opened his master class at UNT last month with this question.

There was a pause. Then a couple students raised their hands.

“Because this is the place to be,” said the first. “Because this is the best jazz school in the state,” another corroborated.

Reid then told a story about a gig he played as a young bassist. The band had had a pretty good set, he thought. He was packing up and talking to a few friends who came to greet him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw an audience member who was waiting to talk to him. The man waited for a long time as Reid put away his gear and reconnected with old friends. Reid wasn’t keen on being interrupted and thought maybe the man would eventually leave. When Reid finally finished and his friends had gone, the man was still there. Somewhat impatiently, Reid turned to greet him.

The bassist then saw that the man was crying. The man shared that Reid and the band’s playing that night had spoken to him in a way that he desperately needed. The man had patiently waited a long time in this tenuous state to share these words with the bassist. Taken aback and humbled, Reid explained to the students that that was when he first started to understand what it meant to be a musician.

Reid did not draw a direct line back from this story to his initial question and my guess is that most of the young musicians in the audience did not make the connection. Reid is gracious enough and wise enough to let their answers to his question be their own correct answers for themselves. Indeed, Reid might have been older than many of them when he had the experience he had just shared. When he was their age, he likely would have given an equally one-dimensional answer for why he wanted to be a musician. But as he got older, he started to understand the responsibility he had.

I think there is a lot of mystery around why we are drawn to music, the instrument we choose, the styles and musicians who speak to us. I think it is normal that as young people we have a rather selfish understanding of that pull. But as we get older, if we don’t connect with a larger understanding of what we are doing, I think we will be lost.

Involved in institutionalized jazz education for decades, the eighty-year-old bassist remains a generous and engaged teacher. Sharing that story with the UNT jazz students who may not yet have a big picture answer to why they want (or are compelled) to become jazz musicians, shows the hope Reid has that musicians will find the why and the what it’s for, the ethical impulse of being a musician. The eventual understanding that you are here to help care for people.