Thrill-seeking

Play; Chick Corea, piano; Bobby McFerrin, voice

I don’t think that anybody who knows me would allow me to classify myself as the ultimate thrill-seeker. When it comes to that physical, wild-at-heart, live-life-on-the-edge, do-it-or-die disposition, my psyche is clouded with far more common sense than the penultimate adventurer could stand to ignore. What do you do with someone who needs a barf bag on a carousel?

Still, I have done some things that go against the grain of my steady-as-she-goes, buckle-up-for-safety, for-God’s-sake-get-me-off-this-double-ferris-wheel-I’m-gonna-die-you-idiot temperament. In the summer of 1987, I went white-water rafting down the Colorado River. At one point, everybody in our raft jumped from a fifty-foot cliff, plunging into the deep waters below. A few weeks after that, a friend and I rode, round trip, the entire length of Trail Ridge Road in the Rocky Mountain National Park on a scooter. In 2002, I ran … well, finished … the Marine Corps Marathon.

I have a slight propensity for Devil-may-care antics. But I typically reserve that facet of my constitution for the performance of particularly ambitious piano repertoire. I tend to choose piano works a few doors down from where a lot of pianists hang out. The rush, the surge, the charge one gets from the execution of something pianistically daring and demanding defies any discourse I could espouse to describe it.

Some may call it grandstanding. It’s hard to argue with that. Let’s face it; part of the nature of one who performs is to show off. But the performer also yearns to share with you, the witness, the listener, the beauty otherwise ensnared within his or her soul. Music performance is part show-and-tell, part PRCA rodeo.

When Chick Corea and Bobby McFerrin hit the stage, don’t look for a net. I’m sure that before they emerge from backstage, they have talked over what they’re going to do … but that’s just talk. Now, we gotta walk.

We have no real precedent for what these two fellows do. Mr. McFerrin has, I believe, a six-octave voice range. That’s unbelievable. And he doesn’t use his voice from a traditional singer’s perspective. After he sings a song one time through, he turns into a saxophone, a trumpet, a trombone, a banjo, a violin, a guitar … even a double bass. As far as Mr. Corea is concerned, he’s working with an instrumentalist that can communicate with words.

Both of these master musicians are improvisors par awesomeness. I’m sure that each keeps the other on his toes; Chick not knowing which instrument Bobby is going to channel, Bobby not knowing which chord substitution with which Chick is going to astonish his compatriot. Yet, both have this trust in each other’s genius. A trust that each will be able to respond in kind to the brilliance that passes between them. The kind of trust you find in a couple of thrill-seekers.

Before we got into the raft to hid the rapids, our guide asked each of us if we had any experience white-water rafting. “How ’bout you, Apland? You gone rafting?” Do I get to count the times I went through “It's A Small World” at Disneyworld? “Did you go alone?” Yup. “And I thought I was a thrill-seeker.”

Credits: To Robin, my scooter buddy. Hey, that was a great trip over the mountains. And that was one dicey thunderstorm. I’ll never forget it. Thanks for asking.