It Feels Like Family

Some of the most interesting people I've met since I moved to Philadelphia back in '92 have been street musicians.  Some have become friends.  Some have become music mentors.  We met Charles who plays haunting melodies on an electric violin.  He tends to play in Old City now, but he was a favorite in Suburban Station, where musicians love to play in the winter, because it's heated.  Once the "no amplification" rule was instituted there back in August, Charles stopped playing there.  Now, with the temps dropping below freezing, buskers tend to head inside, if possible.  Charles, on the other hand, simply prays for warm days and wears gloves with the fingers cut out to get through the winter on the streets.
Charles played the wonderful violin solos on our first album, August Sky.  The melodies are haunting, as he plays through a delay pedal, which gives it a resonating reverb and echo.  Sounds like he was playing in a cathedral.  Very appropriate for our dreamy ballads.  If you want to listen, go to www.cdbaby.com/augustsky1.  Charles has been our friend for ten years.  When he's not busking in the city, he balances out his chi by camping and hanging out in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey.

Then there was Faruq.  We met him on the streets in Old City as well, sharing his bleeding soul with his jazz trumpet.  We hit it off when he heard us play our song Flight, which brought him to tears, as his son was killed in a drive-by shooting.  He joined our band as a result.  Faruq changed our sound.  He changed the way I listened to music.  Faruq made me work hard and get away from the straight folk/rock/pop world and enter the more freeform world of jazz.  Very unfamiliar territory for me.  Oh, I can appreciate jazz, but it's like a foreign language in some ways.  Faruq introduced me to thinking like a jazz musician.  Some of the songs on the second album Flight reflect the jazzier sounds of major-seventh chords.  He also played on our second cd, but more importantly, played with our band for several years, performing all the instrumental solos.  Faruq left Philadelphia to return to Atlanta.  I miss his big laugh and his honey horn.
And the beat goes on.  I met a young musician at Suburban Station named Huston West.  He has a high- pitched Appalachian singing voice and plays clawhammer style banjo.  Think Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou.  He loves to play with me and I with him.  His bluegrass style makes me shift my thinking, use muscles I didn't know I had.  Like Faruq, he's stretching me.  Together we actually draw an audience that stands and listens.  It's much more of a show than playing solo.  Playing at Suburban Station and local open mics has given him good exposure and he recently opened up for someone at the Tin Angel.  His youth is in his favor.  He will go places.
Music has brought us musicians together like family.  In some cases, I've met brothers I'd probably not have a connection with otherwise.  Faruq was a jazz musician, African-American, and Muslim.  We wouldn't have met in the mosque or in a jazz club.  But we did meet on the streets, making music, where the sky is the limit with what instrument you play or what kind of music you make.  This music is the bond between us, taking us to a place beyond age, race, or cultural differences.
May the beat go on, forever.