Jazz Me

I don't consider it coincidental at all when random awesomeness happens in my day. I was practically on the verge of tears today. Nothing seemed to be going right, and my day was full of awnry, angry callers who just wanted to argue and rant. Back to back calls of nothing but people screaming at me. There's only so much of that a person can take. I was trying to go to my happy place, but there wasn't enough time. I had just set foot on the beach when the phone would ring. I was contemplating pill usage, faking a sudden illness, or even pulling the fire alarm. Sure. Anything to stop the endless cycle of madness that was happening on the phones at work today. (I'm just kidding about the fire alarm.........'cause that's illegal.)

I had reached the "power hour" of my shift. One more hour to go before I could relieve my headache and head home. At this point I had resigned to having customer's bent on yelling at me. I almost felt this next call going that direction. It started out on what should have been a simple call, but seconds turned to minutes and I got stuck helping someone who had experienced identity theft from the "bastard Indonesians" (his words, not mine) apparently one too many times, to take my simple account resolution as an answer to his problem. I could feel this headed in the wrong direction. So before it went too far down that road, I put my big girl panties on and just dealt it. I was going to be on this call for way more than the 5 minutes it actually required for me to fix his account.

What should have been five minutes turned into forty. He ended up being very pleased with the outcome, but that wasn't the cool part. After we got on the right track and a happier note, and while he was supposed to be diligently working on account resolution, he decided to strike up a conversation about life in the states. It was the middle of the day in Sydney, but nearing the end of the night here. He started asking me about Phoenix and whether we had lakes nearby to escape the heat. Yes and no. Lakes yes, but not any like I was used to. I grew up in Michigan. I was used to lakes everywhere, and a giant one that was so big it was like an ocean...but with fresh water. 

The conversation continued, and by this point I had given up on this call being anything but endless. Why not just stretch this out for the remaining hour? This could be my last call!! :) Since I had given up on it being short, I figured I might as well enjoy it. He said something about how I got to head home after the call, and asked what one does when they get home at such a late hour. I told him I do what everyone does when they get home from work. I eat dinner, and relax for a while and then go to bed. Lately, I've been listening to jazz and doing some reading at night before bed. "You like jazz?"

The next 20 minutes were spent discussing my time living outside Philadelphia, the home of jazz. I told him that Philadelphia has several jazz radio stations, and he asked me which ones, so he could listen online. It had been so long since I had heard them myself, that I had to do a quick internet search. WJJZ...I remembered that one. Kind of a mix of newer stuff, but generally, at home I listen to the earlier stuff - the classics. Ella, Benny, Duke, Dean, Frank, Billie, etc, etc, etc. 

He proceeds to tell me about his eclectic music collection, and the stack of vinyls he was sitting next to. He's a sound guy...and a music buff. He's like me. He's got an eclectic music collection from everything from hard rock to jazz, but his favorite is jazz. He gives me some albums I need to listen to, and I tell him about WJJZ. I tell him about singing in the jazz class, and about jazz in Philadelphia. It reminds me of Ortlieb's Jazzhaus.

I swear that place was used in the Prohibition Era. Long and narrow, with a tiny stage in the middle. And to get in, you had to go down a flight of stairs from the street, and there seemed to be no sign for the place, whatsoever. If I hadn't mapped it on the GPS I wouldn't have known where to find it. I almost felt like I needed to knock on that steel door, and have a special password to get in. No special password needed, but a reservation was handy. There were so few tables, it was hard to get in. The music was classic. A simple band - a piano, string bass, sax, trumpet, drums and a singer. And they played all the good stuff. The bassist in the band also played for our swing singers' group.

It was a bit of nostalgia. Another jazz lover. There aren't many of us, but we're around. I feel like only the cool people like jazz (that's not really true...I guess). It's a special kind of love in music, and it's not for everyone. You can't tap your foot to it, sometimes you can't even dance to it (rhythmically, at least). You just have to sway, and enjoy it. It's a soul thing. And that is why I love it, and why I get so happy when I find other people who love it...because they're usually true music lovers like myself.

I spent all this time on this call just to fix a simple problem, but I feel like it did more for my spirit than anything else. A bright spot in my day. A trip down memory lane, and a stop at appreciation station...thankful for all the music lovers around the world connected by groovy tunes...and phone cables.

Cheers, mate.

:)