In the Dark: An Unexpectedly Spiritual Evening of Jazz with Jack DeJohnette

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

When a sudden, thunderous storm knocks out power, a concert is transformed into a spiritual experience

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The most extraordinary experiences are not necessarily orchestrated as such. Sometimes the Universe intervenes to transform a typical event into a transcendent one and we are left looking back, thinking Wow — I’m not quite sure what happened there, but it was amazing!

Recently, I had such an experience.

Jack DeJohnette, pictured above, for those who may not know of him, is a legend in the world of jazz. He’s one of the most brilliant and prolific artists of the genre. Lesser known outside of jazz circles, his name often in the shadows of the other legends he has performed with — Miles Davis, Bill Evans and John Coltrane among them — Jack is wildly accomplished as a pianist and drummer, with a tremendous range that stretches from standards to experimental and even New Age. He also lives in my town of Woodstock, NY and generously offered the community his talents on the piano during a solo performance to benefit the Byrdcliffe Guild.

From the moment I first spotted the concert posters in town, I knew I was going.

The evening was set in a rustic barn, the stage illuminated by strings of tiny lights to draw attention to the piano in the middle. The usual clatter of shifting folding chairs and murmuring guests gave way to passing breeze, a gentle rain — and then kapow! With a deafening crack of thunder and a sky lit brightly by lightning, an epic storm unleashed a torrent and fierce wind which quickly took out the power. Suddenly, all was black. So black, that you could not see the person sitting next to you. No piano, no weathered beams, no anything. I toyed with opening and shutting my eyes and could see no difference at all. These were no concert special effects.

And then, amidst the stillness of the room and the tapering pitter-patter of the rain, the piano came alive.

Jack felt his way to the stage, his fingers onto the keyboard, and he started to play. And the entire room knew that they were witnessing something sublime, something spiritual — a slice of grace. The music was lush and diverse, transitioning from peaceful to arresting, foreign to familiar. But for me, the experience expanded far beyond the exceptional performance.

My late father was a jazz musician. He earned his way through college playing trombone and piano, and then set his passion aside to fall in line, working at the family business, a machine tool shop started by his grandfather and later assumed by his father. Yet, he didn’t completely closet his first love. Our home was filled with music, day and night. Every few months, it would be my chore to organize and put away the hundreds of vinyl albums that had piled up on the floor beside the stereo. And every so often, usually around the holidays, my father would sit me down with him at the piano and teach me the hauntingly lush chords of John Mehegan, who authored a series training books entitled Jazz Improvisation. I loved the sound of those chords, and they comprise my (very) limited go-to repertoire today, if ever I find my self at a piano.

So, as I’m listening to Jack DeJohnette in that dark barn, with seemingly no one around me and no source of the piano I’m hearing, in fact no distractions of any kind at all, I hear my father. He comes and sits next to me — not really in a chair so much as floating a few feet above, but close enough to touch my shoulder. And without speaking, we begin to talk. About music. Dreams. Family pains and immeasurable joys. This was a conversation I didn’t know I needed — but of course I did. I heard things I needed to hear just then, and realigned my purpose and passion in this life. I gained perspective on elements of my past, and equally on my dreams for the future. Our discourse seemed to go on without a beginning or an end, devoid of any sense of the passing of time.

And then I heard applause…the music had ended with artistic precision, my father effortlessly disappeared, and I rose to join the now-standing ovation. As I looked around, I could still see nothing, although a few people began to shine their iPhones toward the stage to shed some light on Jack, who was now standing and laughing — I believe that he, too, was transformed by the show, Mother Nature and all.

Mentally, I reentered this space and these people with a profound shift, as if my spirit had been altered, elevated, enriched. Indeed, it had. It made me think about the distractions in our lives and how they can create a kind of cloak around our awareness.

When we can eliminate distractions, we open ourselves up to receive energy on different levels.

And if we can tune into those quieter frequencies, which I believe are around us all the time — we just don’t hear them — then we can connect with deeper voices. These may be from others, or often, that voice is our own, our intuition.  And we can communicate with others on this same frequency, through prayer, telepathy or whatever name you’d like to call it — a frequency that transcends time and space.

If this sounds a bit woo-woo, know that this energetic channel is more real than our physical communication, which is often laden with bias, untruths, social or political correctness, etc. The problem is, you have to be willing to receive communication with the same tools you use to send it. You can’t send out an energy-gram and expect the reply to come in a text or phone call (although it could). But if you truly listen, you can feel the response — you simply need to develop an openness and awareness of these feelings, and trust in them. Meditation and silent walks or moments in nature are often the most effective ‘environments’ for such communication, as they are free of the louder frequency distractions of our lives.

One of the greatest paths of discovery for me of the last several years is understanding and tapping into this sixth sense (and I’m at the mere tip of the iceberg). It is available and accessible to all of us, and its only limitation is the degree to which we actually believe in its power, or even its existence. The experience of this concert performance provided a reminder to me of how real this all is — and how much more work I have to do to become one with this path of consciousness. But the joy is in the journey — as you start to tap into the power of this energy field, it is truly fun to experience the results. And who doesn’t want more fun and a sense of deeper connection in their lives?

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You may also enjoy reading Jazz & Spirituality: The Mindful Music of Jazz DeJohnette, by Peter Occhiogrosso.