Sam Kates II: Chanson Iconique-Part 3

Sam Kates Aspie Sax Player II: Chanson Iconique


XIII.
Sharon couldn't believe her ears. Sam was approaching a stranger and asking for help with his music! He had never done this--not since he had asked his mother for a saxophone all those years ago.

We don’t need to review the negotiations. Rex made a date with Sharon to meet them at Sam's house the next day, with his set-up, to try out the system with Sam playing saxophone. It would have made more sense to meet at Rex's place, so he wouldn't have had to tear apart his system, put it in the van, move it, then put it all together again; but Sharon took Rex aside and explained Sam's social limitations, one of which was that he couldn't work well in a strange environment. Rex had read enough about "Chicago's Musical Savant" over the years to appreciate this problem, and responded to the opportunity, to work with a famous musician, with open-hearted good will. No problem. We won't use the school's rig, I have a better set-up at home anyway.

The next day, at 9:00 AM Rex Highroad was hooking together wires every which way in Sam's living room, while Sam was impatiently rehearsing the Rembrandt Self-Portrait piece. Rex had all the equipment laid out in logical sequence on a folding table he had brought in, and he sat before it in a rolling desk chair that happened to be hiding on the back porch. Rex had to make a trip back out to get another extension cord (surge protector, please), but he had the system ready for Sam to start recording by 10:00. The process was stream-lined. Rex knew what he was doing, Sam knew what he was doing. There WAS the problem of the click track--Sam had to try several times to get the first pass down, because if you allow even a slight tempo fluctuation with a computer time clock, the notation gets screwed up and it sounds like garbage. But between Sam adjusting to the constraints of the metronome, and Rex inputting tempo changes at spots where the music must accelerate or decelerate, they got a usable 1st track of the four-minute piece after about an hour. From then on it was eeeezy.

Here was the idea: Sam would play a part on his saxophone which the computer turned into notation. At that point Rex assigned that part to an orchestral voice in the synthesizer (he brought a better one to Sam's house than the one he had used for the demo last night), thus transforming what was heard in the room as a saxophone into a violin, or an oboe, or a trumpet. Then Rex played back this new part and Sam added to the composition one layer (one part) at a time. The first part had been a solo saxophone part (well, duh), and then they went all through the orchestral parts one at a time, Rex directing Sam to input them in orchestral score order. It was a little tricky getting the cello parts (which play way lower than the saxophone) and the flute parts (which play way higher than the saxophone), because Sam had to transpose in his head, but that was no trouble for Sam, and all Rex had to do when the track was done was push the transpose button, and, voila, instant cello.

It was also something of a hassle for Sam to get used to the headphones pressing on his ears; you wouldn't think that this process, going right into the notation program as they were, would require headphones, but that little mic attached to the saxophone had a bitchy little habit of picking up a slight resonance from the other parts as they played back, especially during rests. But Sam was so into the creative process, he was willing to sacrifice comfort for clarity. There were still places where the mic picked up something extra, or flubbed some intricacy of notation, and without Rex to edit out minor glitches in the transcriptions, Sam would have been lost. But the process worked fine. When the complete score existed in score notation, they went back and re-recorded the original solo sax part in real time into an audio recording program, and there it was--a four-minute piece for solo saxophone and orchestra featuring a perfectly presentable orchestral synthestration and a wonderfully played live saxophone part. Rembrandt's Self-Portrait 1659--Composition for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra by Sam Kates. It took about six hours.

Just as they were finishing up, Sharon announced that she had to leave for work. Sam started to fret a little bit, but when she reminded him she was going to the Moonlight Room, he burrowed into the couch and blew a screeching high note on his sax, still strapped around his neck. She laughed and left--anyway, Rex was still there.

They listened through the piece again. They listened through the piece again. And again.


XIV.
Rex was clearly having the time of his life. He felt like Salieri watching Mozart compose, as this miraculous music unfolded before his very eyes. Every layer revealed some new astonishing facet of this complex and ravishing composition; as detail upon detail brought the finished vision more clearly into view, his respect and adoration of Sam was compounded. He felt he was witnessing the birth of a Mozart Symphony, a Bach Cantata, a Messiah. The Holy Child thought reminded him of something--the wise men brought gifts.

"Hey, Sam, I forgot something in the van--I'll be right back."

Before Sam could protest, Rex had scooted out the door, and before Sam had time to miss him Rex was back--carrying TWO six-packs of Coors.

"This calls for a celebration, Sam!" he announced with jubilation and trembling.

"Celebration?"

"You got any ice?"

Most serious beer drinkers would scoff at the idea of ice in their beer, but it was either that or drink it warm (it had been sitting in the car all day), and who ever heard of drinking warm beer? Rex  went to the refrigerator, got the ice, poured out two glasses, and handed one to Sam. Sam had smelled lots of alcohol during his years at the Moonlight Room, but nobody had ever given him any to drink. He never thought he would like it, but he was caught up in Rex's enthusiasm and took the foaming flagon without hesitation.

"To Sam Kates, composer extraordinaire, deluxe!" exclaimed Rex, his glass held high.

"Sam, extrare ducks!" mimicked Sam.

"Damn straight!" said Rex.

They drank and listened. Listened and drank. Drank some more, listened some more. It took awhile, but halfway though his third glass Sam noticed a queer, lazy, loosening feeling in his chest. The music sounded a little further off, but somehow more pleasant--it was singing in his body now, not so much his ears, not so much in his mind. You could tell that Rex was feeling it too.

"How d'ya you like the beer, Sam?" asked Rex after the tenth play.

"Bubbly," said Sam. He held up his glass and admired the active yellow stuff. "Makes Sam--makes me--bubbly!"

"Damn straight!" said Rex.

The intimacy that comes over partners in booze had begun to spread through the room and draw them into each other. Rex was still sitting, leaning far back now, in the rolling desk chair he had sat in all day, and Sam was still snug in a corner of the couch with his saxophone lying idle on his lap, the neck turned up sideways the way sax players do to keep from chipping the reed. Somehow, they were sitting closer to each other than they had been before. There was still ten feet between them, but somehow their foreheads were touching. The quiet was tacitly agreed on. Out of the silence the solemnity of the celebration came out of Rex in a wondering, wondering question:

"How do you do it, Sam?"

"How do--I--do it." It wasn't a question. Was it a question?

"How do you hold," he groped, "all that music in your head like that? HOW DO YOU DO IT?"

Sam knew that something unaccustomed was expected of him, and he retreated a little, but the high, the looseness, brought him back. "Dunno."

"C'mon--"

Sam ceremoniously unclipped his saxophone from its neck strap, and laid it carefully on the couch. He was stalling. He was searching inside for words.

"C'mon--"

OK. "The picture--FEELS to me. The music FEELS to me--I put them together."

"Yeah."

"This color sounds like this, this color sounds like this, the light, the eye--the feel goes to my fingers."

"But," Rex starts on the second six-pack. The ice is almost gone, but he put some cans in the freezer about an hour ago. Good boy. "But," as he passes back from the kitchen to his seat, handing Sam his number four, "all those parts, the form, the counterpoints. So perfect. So--right. So--" groping again, "so like that painting, but so new. So CHICAGO!"

"Many fingers," Sam sighs.

"Many fingers?!" The idea takes a moment to well up into laughter. "Sam's brain has many fingers! HA HA HA!!"

"Sam's brain has many fingers! HA HA HA HA!!!"

Together they chanted the refrain, "Sam's brain has many fingers! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!"

They were still singing and laughing, "Sam's brain has many fingers! HA HA HA!!!" when Sharon arrived home.

She took in the scene immediately, and turned on Rex like a mother bear. "You got him DRUNK, YOU STUPID ASSHOLE!"

"Sharon, I'm okay. I'm okay!" His look of hilarity calmed the storm somewhat. "Sharon!" He stood up to demonstrate. "Sam's brain has many fingers! Sam's brain has many fingers! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!"

Then he ran to the bathroom to throw up.

XV.
Sharon hustled Rex out of there in a cab--he left all his stuff in the living room, his van outside. Then she went into the bathroom to attend to sick Sam. There was a mess in the toilet bowl, but Sam was lying on the floor smiling. "Sam. Many fingers. Hee hee."

She cleaned him up, rinsed out his mouth (yechh), and dragged him off to bed. You've seen this scene before--the arm over the shoulder, sagging legs, Sharon straining to lift him, Sam's silly grin, hee hee heeing, even conducting with his free hand, "Sam's brain. Fingers. La la la."

She lowered him onto the bed, him dragging her down with him, his arm still around her neck. She rested a moment. Then he looked into her face an inch away. "Sharon," he whispered, and put his other arm around her. She hesitated, then relaxed into his embrace. They collapsed there on the bed, legs entwined, not purposefully, but accidentally as they fell together. "Sharon. Stay."

She stayed.

And as sleep overcame them both, a sweet sympathy enveloped the two of them, as natural, as unforced, as unintentional as shadow of night creeps over an infant's eyes, ever so slowly, ever so gently, ever so calmly. Sleep was rest, was peace, was silence, was Sam and Sharon together. She didn't resist as she thought she would, as she thought for only an instant she should; and Sam was unaware of the sex part of it, of the Sharon is a woman part of it, he only knew he felt her next to him, draped over him, and it was warm, and safe, and good. She only made one adjustment--his shirt still smelled slightly of Coors and vomit, so she carefully unbuttoned it and pushed it aside. With her head on his bare chest, Sam's arms around her, their legs still entwined, they slept. . .

Rosy-fingered dawn, mixed to purple by the blue curtains, pressed its nose to the window and whispered them awake. Sam first. He looked down at Sharon's head on his chest and smiled. His muscles wanted to move, but he would rather die than have Sharon's bright curls move an inch from their current, exhilaratingly comfortable position. However, his breathing accelerated, and that woke her soon enough.

"Good morning Sam," she purred, and yawned.

"Sharon," said Sam. He was really working hard here. "Hi Sharon." And this next bit is important because it was the first time Sam had ever used words to maneuver another person to do his will. "Head hurts." His head did hurt a little, to be sure, but that's not why he said it. He desperately wanted her to stay, to stay with him right there, and he somehow intuited the mother instinct in all women. It was a primordial thought motivated by a primordial instinct--and he got it right, thank God.

"Poor baby," she said. "That Rex Highroad, what an asshole," she thought, briefly, but then she was glad, glad for all of it. She shifted her weight not away from him, but further up, further on top of him, her breasts pressed against his bare breast. She massaged his temples with long slender fingers, her lips an inch away from his lips. He closed his eyes and sighed for so much melody. His head was in her hands, surrendered fully to her healing hands, and he belonged to her. His arms, still wrapped around her, tightened, bringing her ever closer, and in a moment their lips were touching. Not kissing exactly, more like simply breathing each other into each other. It went on like this for one of those eternal moments, and then her tongue was probing, their mouths shifting and turning onto and into each other. Sam got the idea right away. And he played her mouth like a saxophone, like an impassioned Someone to Watch Over Me, and they were kissing and kissing, closer, closer, with each kiss losing more of themselves in each other, each to each, and then Sharon was unbuttoning her blouse and removing her bra, always kissing, always close, and she was bare-breasted and leading his mouth to her excited, protruding nipple, and he suckled there on the bed for an interminable minute, and then the moaning and the pants, the pants off, off, and she was leading him inside her, and he got the hang of that, too.

XVI.
This time the sun was aglare, bright yellow reminder that life goes on, and the sweetness of the marriage bed must give way to breakfast. Neither one of them spoke, but as Sam gave her breast one last kiss, they rose together and wended their way, arm in arm, to the kitchen. She started the eggs and Sam looked for something for them to wear. He found a long smock-length tee-shirt for her, and he put on the outfit in his closet marked "Thursday". Today was Thursday. As he returned to the kitchen, he briefly regretted having to cover up that shapely ass turned toward him as she flipped the eggs at the stove, but she looked almost as cute in that long "Mellow 4" tee-shirt, hanging loosely down, just covering the V of her pubic hair, her shapely, nay, Grecian legs alluring, enticing him to press himself one more time against her.

It was done. They were a couple. Nobody ask Sharon how this came about. Nobody ask God how the earth moves in its irresistible orbit, or why the seats on the bus are that way—they’re that way because that’s the way they are. It was just done, and there was no going back. She loved him, and that was that. She felt like a fool, for the second time. This would never work. But she loved him, and anyway, why wouldn't it work? Sam wasn't that abusive asshole she met when she was seventeen. "No, he's an idiot savant who can't even write his own name. Okay, I guess he can write his own name, but--shit. Okay, what the fuck, maybe it will work. Anyway, it's done now, and that's that. What will happen has nothing to do with what is happening. I love him. Shit. I love him."

"Sharon," he said, the last of the egg gone from his plate. "My piece. Hear my piece."

Rex hadn't even powered down the system. All Sam had to do was push the play button. They sat on the couch, his hand on her thigh, and they listened to Rembrandt's Self-Portrait 1659--Composition for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra by Sam Kates.

The cello begins a soft rustle of wind and wave, joined by the viola, then the rest of the upper strings. There is a darkness, a tense ripple of unrest as some grotesque sea creature scuttles its way into the bassoon and then the trombone. Then the solo saxophone enters with the main theme, the Rembrandt theme, the hero lost in dark and deep, but striving. Gradually the theme is lost in a hurried variation, as the original cello harmonies mount into an accelerated high wind part. High wind is right, because the tempestuous flute, supported by cymbals and snare, is flashing its way between the saxophone and its goal. The saxophone is turned back again and again as the sea overwhelms its quest for--for what? For arrival, for peace, for some ineffable sign of identity, of who-ness, of Rembrandt. And then there is a breakthrough and the light of the lightning softens in a downward flute arpeggio, and the saxophone finds its nest, its oasis, its haven. The eyes of Rembrandt are softened in shade, and the stern look of the sea is mellowed into placidity. One last burst of wave in the cello yields to the Rembrandt saxophone, resting on its rock, alone, but not alone.

"It's beautiful," she says. And she not only loves him, he who lives in this terrifying, lonely, rarefied, heroic world, she adores him, she worships him. She rose and took his hand. "It's beautiful. You are beautiful." He kissed the scar on her forehead, and they went back to bed and worshipped each other for another hour.

XVII.
Today was Thursday.

"I want to play tonight," he said. It was that simple.

Rex called around noon. We don’t need to review the negotiations. He would leave his stuff there at the house. Call me tomorrow. It was that simple. He had a more practiced hangover than Sam, and needed a day of dark and science fiction movies anyway.

They arrived at the gig arm in arm, and Sam went to the bandstand while Sharon donned her Moonlight Room apron. The kid from Northwestern was there, too, Chuck was his name--nobody had called him to cancel. That was okay, everybody was nervous about what Sam would do, and it seemed like a good idea to have a back-up onstage, ready to take over if--you know--anything happened. Sam was fine. In fact he was better than fine. He let Chuck play lead most of the time, and he followed along with subtle harmony parts, but, when it came time for the the solos Sam played with such authority, such fierce, smoking abandon, he pretty much made Chuck look like shit. There was something in the playing tonight that was like that first time he merged with Suzy Wright, a freshness, and energy that transcended the limits of Moonlight mediocrity.

Sam was playing over the top all night, and although his best efforts were directed toward making Chuck look good, he still magnetized the stage with his presence; and even when Chuck was doing the lead, all eyes were drawn to Sam. Chuck rose to the occasion admirably, and, as the night wore on, his playing noticeably improved. Sam was inspiring him to reach, and reach he did. But that wasn't the main thing--it was that Sam was reaching too--reaching INTO Chuck, taking him in, and sharing his vision not on an auditory level, but psychically, as two souls intertwining. Perhaps Sharon had taught him that. They began to read each others' minds, and the music soared out of that bar, out onto Lakeshore Drive, sailing over the traffic and the lights, down the street past the lions, and hovering over Buckingham Fountain. As Rex had observed--(Rex was there, by the way--he felt invested in Sam now, and had to check out his jazz gig just to--you know, just to see.)--Rex had observed that Sam's piece had not only captured the mystery and drama of the Rembrandt painting, it also somehow captured the spirit of Chicago in its driving, seeking lines, impelled toward a place, a bulwark of identity that was not only Sam but everything that Sam touched--including the lights, the lions, and the fountain.

By the end of the 4th set, the last set, the place was jammed; it was as though some great beacon were shining out over the city, bringing them in and keeping them there. Sam called up the last tune: Someone to Watch Over Me. The band gasped at this choice, because they knew there was something weird with Sam about that tune. Sharon put her dishes down and waited, holding her breath. Fred started in on his typical intro, and, as the last arpeggio rang into the calm, Sam took a big breath. He played a straightforward, unadorned head, a less-is-more kind of thing. He read through the bridge and into, "I'm a little lamb who's lost in the wood, I know I could always be good, to one who'll WATCH over me." At this point something strange began to intrude into the simplicity--he began to play unexpected digressions. They fit the tune, to be sure, but somehow they pushed the tune into another dimension. He kept coming back to the Gershwin melody, but those digressions, the fills, kept leaning toward some more abstract concept. By the time he got to his first solo, Someone to Watch over Me had been totally abandoned for this OTHER thing. Sam started leaving the changes behind. He was playing a lamb lost in the woods, and it was really fucking lost! Fred stammered for a bit, then went with it. Chuck joined in duet, and before long the band was sounding like John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderly doing Evolution. Jim Meyer was freaked--he thought he was listening to insanity--but every time he almost pulled the plug, Gershwin would reappear with a twinkle in his eye, and the stability of the music reasserted itself. Only Rex and Sharon knew that Sam was quoting from his Rembrandt piece, making Gershwin do double duty as a head and as a frame for that other more advanced piece.

Jim Meyer shouldn't have worried--the crowd went with it, came along into that desperate lonely wood, and gloried in Sam's imploring soul of sound. The interlude lasted more than six minutes, and at the climax, he and Chuck were wailing at the top of their registers. Then there was a unison silence. Sam waved out the rhythm section and played the first phrase a cappella. One at a time they followed in, and at the last phrase, sam took his horn from his mouth, leaned over the mic, and sang, "I'm a little lamb who's lost in the wood, I know I could always be good, to one who'll WATCH over me." Cymbal roll, last virtuosic fill, first Chuck then Sam, and the tune ended. Sam turned to Sharon at the bar and threw her a kiss.

The audience went wild.

XVIII.
So, you see, Sam had found himself. Never mind that he found himself in Sharon--to all the romantics in the crowd, they know that's the way it oughta be. There are just a few more bits to tell:

Rex Highroad quit his dumb adjunct faculty job at Wilbur Wright College to manage Sam full time. He made a demo of some of Sam's new 3rd stream versions of old standards, and got some investors to buy some time at Uptown Recording Studios. Sam Kates: Outside In got a favorable review in Downbeat Magazine, won a Grammy for best progressive jazz album, and sold 150,000 copies in the first four months. Rex also engineered the MIDI version of the remaining six pieces in Sam Kates' Pictures at an Exhibition, and nagged the management of the Chicago Symphony until they gave it a listen. Guilini wouldn't touch it, but guest conductor Pierre Boulez liked the piece and programmed it about a year later, with Sam as the soloist. The eighth piece, the encore piece was a surprise for Sharon. It was called simply Sharon. When he walked back onstage to play it he spoke to the audience in clear, articulate, grown-up English. "Sharon is me, and I am Sam."

Aunt Maxine could now die in peace. Sam would be okay.

Glennallen, Ak
June 21, 2011