Life is full of searching for things to jazz up your life

1985

I’m driving to work in Los Angeles, listening to KKGO, an all-jazz FM station. A song from a new album comes on, by a musician I’d never heard of.

Captivated, I buy the cassette (hey, it’s the ‘80s). And play the album often, especially that one song.

Life happens. Time passes. Ten, 20, 30 years. Marriage, kids, moves. Cassettes, CDs, satellite radio.

Despite the passage of time, that single tune — hypnotic, punchy, upbeat — keeps playing on repeat in my head. And not just for a while. For over thirty years.

Problem is, I can’t recall the name of the musician. Or of the song. Or of the album.

From time to time, hoping for a Proustian prompt or a Rosebudian remembrance, I studied lists of jazz albums and songs from the 1980s, hunting for a clue that could jog my memory.

Occasionally, I even called used record shops in New York, Chicago or L.A. known for having large jazz collections. I’d chat with the person answering the phone, tell them roughly when the album was released, and hum the opening chords of the tune, hoping for some Jeopardy-like bolt of lightning. Needless to say, that didn’t get me anywhere.

2019

I’m driving home from work, listening to the jazz channel on satellite radio. Suddenly, the song starts. Those familiar chords instantly return to me with absolute clarity, as if no time had passed.

I pull over to the side of the road, and finally hear the name that had eluded me for so long: “Whisper Not.”

First composed by Benny Golson in 1957, “Whisper Not” is considered a jazz standard and has been recorded by hundreds of musicians. Hundreds! Who am I, the Rip Van Winkle of jazz?

When I got home that evening, I downloaded every version of the song that I could find. I realized that the cover I’d been searching for was performed by Jon Faddis, a jazz trumpeter, on his 1985 “Legacy” album.

Since that night, I’ve listened to Faddis’s cover dozens of times. I don’t think I’ll ever stop.

2020

I’ll be the first to admit that my mildly obsessive search was quirky and inconsequential. In fact, you probably think it was ridiculous. And yet, we’re all searching for something.

As Walker Percy wrote in his novel “The Moviegoer,” “The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life … To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.”

Although my own search was trivial, many of us are engaged in vital personal searches. For love and acceptance. For health and contentment. For career fulfillment and financial security.

Fact is, all of our searches are worthwhile, even the trifling ones — to search is to be alive.

Looking forward, I’ve got several new searches underway. Some are mundane, some are Kierkegaardian, and some are downright silly.

I don’t expect to stop anytime soon. After thirty-five years, the search goes on.