An awesome set of ears...

[Damon Rondeau]

Last night I played some jazz with friends, including the 19-year old stepson of the tenor player. This kid is an absolutely awesome musician.

He's completely blind and he's obsessed by music and sound. Plays drums in a gigging band right now, but he'll blow your doors off on keys or accordion, too. Last night he blew MY doors off sitting in on clarinet all night!

His social skills are a little immature right now, but I must say it's disconcerting to have a 19-year old remember EVERYTHING YOU PLAYED in a tune and give you a rundown on where you made mistakes and where you were out of tune. Our piano player is really good, tons of education and experience, but she got "disconcerted" by J, too.

Anyway, at the end of the night he's quite overjoyed at having played some jazz with grownups, and he's really delighted by the DB. Wants to have a go at playing it. Never touched one before....

Imagine this, then: I'm standing behind the bass, off to the right, holding the bass up by its shoulders. J is standing to the left, fingering the strings OVERHAND with his right hand, pizz'ing with his left hand. That little SOB was playing amazing stuff going way up the neck within seconds.

Watching his (very fast) orientation process was fascinating. He's exploring his fingerings, finding fifth and octave doublestops. Once he zeroes in (first or second try), he's off to the races. Then he's CONNECTING these positions right away, getting all over the first octave of the board. And his tone is good, way beyond what you'd expect of a first-timer.

It was a unique musical experience for me, to play with someone whose ears are EVERYTHING to him and who exploits it so fully in music. Unbelievable.

And: his clarinet didn't squeak once.

[Joe Taylor]

What's his name? Someone that hot is going to go places fast.

Joe

[Wrong Robot]

I met a cat like that once. Though he wasn't blind. He had perfect pitch, and an amazing seemingly natural ability on any instrument.

he was a tenor sax player, 17 years old, already gigging full time(making his living off it) He decided he needed another instrument, to broaden the amount of gigs he could get.

He picked up DB, within a year of playing he was already impressing some of hte most venerable and amazing players I've ever known. And they told me(I haven't known him that long) that he was pretty much that good from the first time ever playing.

Supposedly, as he told me, he also had a perfect memory, and hte abilty to visualize things in his mind. Like, if he heard a piece of music being played, he was able to visualize a chart appear, then if he wished to play that piece, the chart would be in his mind, and he would be able to read it as if he was reading sheet music.

Musicians like this, are always very interesting to meet, I got very mixed feelings. He also was very socially immature, he showed respect to his elders, but that was it, very very crude sense of humor, and he was kind of a jerk to people that weren't musicians.(or people that considered themselves musicians, but didn't know anything about music or their instruments)

this kid's name was Tom catanzaro, he is going to the New school in NY, on a full ride.