The Orange Juice Project

For the uninitiated, this is not a vain attempt at promoting Orange nectar for Cappy.  It is in fact an attempt at doing justice to the melody woven by three great performers on a memorable night, when a lot of people lost their "jazz virginity". :)  In a country that loves its history and folk music, it does not come as a surprise that the turn-up for the Kerem Gorsev performance was more than overwhelming.  Jazz might not feature as the prominent trend-setter in my country but it was heartening to see so much enthusiasm bubbling in the crowd, though I do realise a lot of them were excited about the free wine outside, just before the concert.   I know, because I missed out on it - damn, knew working out in the gym was going to bite me on the arse some time or the other!    

The best part of going to a concert is to have company, and I now know how amazing it feels to be hanging out with a group, and how happiness can be infectious.  We rushed in, booking rows of seats for each other, jackets on seats, sweaters, jerseys, bags, hell I even kept a pen to mark my territory! ;) And then like agents, negotiating who gets to sit where, fending off unwelcome guests, bargaining on blocks of seats so that the entire MBA batch could sit together.  Finally, after a tussle for 15 minutes, we all were there, seated cozily in our seats, only to realise those on the other side would have been a better catch, but who the hell cares as long as we are almost up front.  What was to ensue in the next one and a half hours was what could have melted an avalanche into a rivulet that tinkled through the mountains in the calmest of forests.  

A prelude with "My mind", the group broke into a melancholic tussle between the piano and the drums - fighting for control, as the notes wove in and out with varying speeds and pitch.  When the piano set in with its sedation, the drums would jump in with a nerve-racking rhythm that would make the feet automatically start tapping.  The music would entice you, draw you forward from your relaxed position, as you rest your chin between your folded hands resting on your knees, ever intent, and waiting for that sudden cliffhanging moment in the song when you'd almost carry on in the trance and be caught by surprise.  At the end of the first song, think Marisa read my thoughts when she said, "what would be ideal right now is a glass of wine" - for such panache deserves the class of an audience that knows its wine ;)

If the melancholy got us drawn in, the next piece of "Respect" switched gears into the realm of the subconscious - a humdrum fell and a monotonous beat filled the air, the pianist dissolved and the entire room went into the subliminal.  Nobody blinked for hundreds of seconds together, the composer bobbing his head back and forth gently, as if possessed spiritually into a higher form of existence.  Elevated.  As he pressed the closing note on the composition, a silence persisted, he remained seated, head bowed down, and as he rose, the applause broke the pin-drop calmness for the first time.   The ode to calmness came in the next performance, as he related to us the story of a 1923 black and white movie  in Turkish, and dedicated the next song "Serenity" to it.  Serenity was followed with "Sunrise" and though both elucidate contrasting feelings, am going to try and explain the fervour they created in the same key-strokes.  

With a flourish of the hands, the drummer from USC, a graduate, smiling, sweat trickling off his bald head, he opens Sunrise and plays an innings of a lifetime, something even Bach and Beethoven would have paid homage too, and such is his grasp on the audience that the transition to the piano is applauded with a standing ovation from the audience.  If Sunrise belonged to the drums, Serenity was nestled in the emphatic bass, the stringed lurker in the background who came to the fore with a scintillating pluck-and-hold presentation with the 5 stringed bass.  Smiles passed in glances between all three, an acknowledgement of prowess and how each one felt honoured to be playing in the others' company.  Majestic, truly unbelievable.

Like all albums, the title song had to be embedded in the middle, and likewise, it was time "Orange Juice" was played - a flurry of notes danced on the symbols of the drummer, slid through the strings of the bass, ending up on the piano deck, as the three created the masterpiece for the evening, the high-note, the ode to the evening of joy and celebration.  The audience caught on, commotion brewed up as we swayed a little, had to remember a jazz concert does not necessarily require a head-bobbing acknowledgement like a rock concert does ;)  "I remember your face" and "Long Way" wound up the evening as the same nimble and deft touches to the instruments induced in them an orgasm that lasted in people's memories for days to come.  

A night to remember, and yet I still feel haven't done justice to what the ears were treated to that night :)

PS The photograph posted is my notes for the night :)