The Time of Our Lives

The jazz great Benny Carter turned 90 this month. They celebrated his birthday at the Hollywood Bowl. From far and wide, musicians came to salute him, there in the canyon beneath the stars. Their gift was timeless. Their hair, for the most part, was gray.

Age is a tricky, shifting thing. Just when you think you have a handle on it, it sets you straight. Carter, whom you’d expect to be barely upright at this juncture, picked up a sax at the end of the program and played a version of “Misty” that was filled with such pure yearning that you could feel your heart unfold like love itself.

His wife, a former schoolteacher, sat smiling in the audience. Carter’s demeanor was debonair. It made you think, so this is what 90 looks like. It made you think, I could deal with that.

Of course, dealing with age has lately gotten to be a very big deal. There’s a bulge in the population pipeline, and it’s not shaped like a spring chicken, if you get my drift. Because it has always been a fairly self-conscious little bulge, its fear of aging is getting lots of air time. Lots of prostate and menopause talk. Lots of playing dress-up with cigars and golf.

We are in our forties, my husband and I. We think: Now or never. We think: Life is short. On the night of Benny Carter’s birthday concert, we had scored some tickets to the Bowl, and the way we saw it, this was a major score. We thought: Make the most of it. Plan. Get there early. Bring wine. Map out alternate routes in case of traffic jams. Bring a picnic. Don’t overeat.

In the blue dusk before curtain, we talked about Grape-Nuts and cholesterol, about how old we’d be when all our kids finally finish college, which is: old. There were maybe 20 minutes left before the show was to start when my husband looked casually out over the audience and, suddenly, laughed in surprise. There, only a few seats over, sat his seventysomething parents, knocking back a slab of chocolate decadence cake and clinking champagne glasses with two old friends.

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There was only a split second during which we could see them without them noticing us, the smallest moment before their eyes widened and they waved with delight. But there’s something indelible about glimpsing the secret world of parents, even after you’ve gotten into the habit of referring to them as “Nana” and “Grandpa” to your kids.

Something about the way the women touched each others’ hands to make a point, something about the way the men held their drinks, made us feel as if we had magically stepped into an A-list party that had been convened long before we were born. One of the women smiled and smoothed her hairdo. One of the men leaned back, like an admiral, and surveyed the crowd. They seemed not like our family, but like emissaries from a more confident era, when you could go to the Hollywood Bowl and know everyone around you, when the city was still, in certain quarters, a small town.

We thought: So this is what you must have been like. We thought: And what will we be like, when we are you? We thought of all the changes that the world can throw at a person in a lifetime, and of what it must take to end up with chocolate and champagne.

The music, their music, spilled like a tropical wave from the famous band shell. It seemed to sing: Life is long. See how many incarnations of happiness are out there? Time enough to follow the notes. Let your heart unfold. Improvise.

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Well, the evening was lovely, as anyone will tell you in the aftermath of an evening at the Hollywood Bowl. And the nostalgia was a tonic. It’s tough to be unself-conscious when it comes to growing, but there’s a little less edge now on the thought of growing old.

They say, in both life and jazz, that it’s all about the present. Life is short, and it is long. I’ll buy that. And when I get the knack of living up to those maxims, you’ll be the first to know.

I expect to be, oh, about 90 by then. Maybe I’ll meet you at the Hollywood Bowl. We’ll celebrate. Get there early. Bring wine. Map out alternate routes in case of traffic jams. Bring a picnic.

Or, better yet, we’ll improvise.

Shawn Hubler’s e-mail address is shawn.hubler@latimes.com