I. Night club. The beat pounds through the walls of the room, washing over the audience, drowning them in the excitement of the piece. The pianist's fingers fly over the keys, pouring out a spice of melody too fast to count. The bass sweats to keep with the tempo, heart pounding and fingers burning, playing on pure adrenaline, longing to speed things up even more. A wild grin on the drummer's face, smashing his cymbal with total abandon and perfect control, (one) two (one) two (one) two (one) two racing through his head. The passion is contagious; the crowd is wide-eyed, overwhelmed by the music. Every mind is on fire. No one is sitting still. II. Street corner. Ragged jacket. A poor man plays the saxophone on a downtown sidewalk just past noon. He holds it with care; it's his whole world, all he's got, save ten bucks in change in the case by his feet. His misfortune is the blue stream flowing out of him through the smooth sounds of his instrument, funneled from the depths of his soul. His solo is accompanied by the stray clink of a quarter, a dime from someone who doesn't know what it's like to have no place to go from here. III. Living room. My brother wrapped in music, nothing but the bass matters right now. He snatches at the strings, pulling out sound with a commanding but light-hearted touch. Standing by the big front window, silhouetted by the afternoon, so absorbed in his playing that he doesn't hear me when I ask him a question. No, he hears me, but he can't bear to kill the song when he's just about to get to the good part. I stand patiently for a while, but eventually wander back to what I was doing before. Minutes later, he gives me an answer. IV. Vegas. Still dazzled by the lights of the signs outside, I'm floating through the evening. We sit loosely in a dimly lit cavern on the 14th story, scattered with tables. The stars on the ground are more spectacular than the ones in the sky. Up front is the band, trumpets blaring, drums thumping ever so precisely just off the beat. A crash of applause signals the end of every solo and introduces the main theme again. Light dances on the brass and in the eyes of the players. V. Auditorium. Four flutes and a piano. I have to laugh as they strike up a familiar tune, so out of character for the normally stiff winds. Five-four time, ba dum, ba dum bum bum like an irregular heartbeat but it feels so right. The song slithers through the air, transposed to this unfamiliar silver tongue. I watch feet shaking in time with the pianist's all down the aisle, resting on the backs of the seats of the row in front of us. We let down our guard. VI. Living room. Sitting at the piano, striking an uncertain chord. Think fast change to a different one. It's 12 bar blues, my brother's got the melody, I'm trying to take up the slack. I hit all the wrong keys. We stop for a few minutes. He shows me how to invert the harmonies and suggests a new scale, another rhythm. We start up again, I try to do it right, but I trip and it sounds awful. He nods and keeps playing, grinning like I nailed it. VII. Car. Mingus mingus mingus mingus mingus, the case proclaims in defiance of my raised eyebrow. The CD flashes as it slides into the slit. Years away, somebody strikes up a tune I've never heard, but like at once. I stare out of the window in the back seat and watch as the sound illustrates the scenery exactly, as if it were written just for me, just for this. I get so lost in it, I don't even notice that the song ends until I blink and it's a whole new style. VIII. New Orleans. Deep in the heart of the city jazz is pumping, flowing out like blood to every extremity, every little bistro, every bright-eyed dreamer who wants to make it big some day, trumpet in hand. Walk down the street and find the place where jazz evolved. You can feel it in the air like a thick vapor, pulsing in the alleys and whipping into whirlwinds when someone finds their muse. It veils the stars but they shine more clearly for it, when the fire that lights the wild applause of the audience flares up in the midnight and burns the sky away until dawn. IX. Living room. Back at the piano, watching my hands as they fumble the shift to a different chord. I hear the sounds I want running through my mind, untouchable. My fingers couldn't keep up to that even with paper to follow. I shake my head and try it again, glad my brother isn't here to see this. I'm working to improve my improv, but as usual it's to no avail. Just have to keep settling for plain chords for now but it's hard. X. Auditorium 2. Standing by the racks of school cellos and basses, can't resist the urge to pick one up. Plunk out strains of half-known accompaniments, a couple lines of 'The Pink Panther' brings a smile to my eyes. A few people saunter over to watch, the real bassists scoff at me. I pluck quietly in a foreign dialect of music, until the director asks me what I think I'm doing and makes me put it up. I try not to laugh, and ease the huge hollow body back into its stand. XI. Downtown. A café surely sits along 5th, its doors wide open late into the night, music spilling softly into the streets for the passer-byers to wash their sins in. There must be a woman sitting at the table in the corner by a window, comfortably far from the slow trio playing across the room. She can see the lights scattered like marbles over the sides of the skyscrapers rising like a forest around her. She sighs, sipping the blue tune with her coffee, waiting for what. XII. Living room. Electric bass line. Amp switched on, set to full blast to my father's displeasure. We crank it down a notch. My fingers flit down the neck, the frets clacking against the string. My brother's tune moves like an eel, coiling back and forth into tiny crevices of the key with a fluidity to shock ice water. I follow more clumsily, but I am not ashamed. This is my brother in his element, this is what he is. I do my best to accompany; He gives me a solo every few minutes. XIII. Traveling. I'm laying in the back seat again, going don't know where, don't know why, but there's a trumpet in the background and the ceiling is crawling with slow soft shadows. They trace patterns in my eyes that I know I won't remember, shifting smoothly like the music playing on the edge of hearing. Outside, the city is filled with a hundred tiny suns, brightly shining into dark space, hanging on intricate honeycomb structures rising into the night. I watch casually then sink lower into the seat. I am mesmerized by the swirling gray and the trumpet trills quietly as I linger on the brink of sleep.