Stress in The Spotlight

Tony Gieske, jazz writer for the Hollywood Reporter and a passable cornet player, recently toured a few of Los Angeles’ open-invitation jam sessions. Instrument in hand, he set out to test himself, note for note, against the free-agent talent in this city of undiscovered stars.

You hope your belly is doing its job down there below your beating heart. It’s your turn to blow. You’re scared because you see a big blob of unknown emptiness right in front of the bell of your cornet.

Fighting that emptiness on the broad new stage of The Jazz Spot in Los Feliz, trying to follow one of the infuriating young players who come in for the Tuesday night jam session, turns out to be rough no matter how you rest your breath.

This night, for instance, there are three boss tenors, a cute flute player, a hateful pair of trumpeters and a bumptious alto player who quickly kicked off “Centerpiece,” the tune you suggested when they asked you--the newbie with the hopelessly out-of-it instrument-- what you’d like to play. Turns out the alto player doesn’t know about the little slowdown in the last eight bars of Harry “Sweets” Edison’s unforgettable blues, and that gets you sore at him. But you’re sore at all of them, because they all play rings around you.

Pretty soon a tall guy gets onstage to plug the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, which hosts the session, and it turns out that these young sharpies are fellows of the institute. They’d been coached by recording stars such as James Moody, Kenny Barron, Barry Harris or Clark Terry. OK then.

You leave, hoping the competition isn’t so fierce down in Leimert Park, where Billy Higgins’ World Stage hosts a come-one, come-all jam on Thursday nights. You’re encouraged by the way the fellows stand on the sidewalk with their horns in their cases, talking under the dusty L.A. trees.

Mostly you don’t know their names and they don’t know yours. But they know exactly who you are and how often you practice as soon as you step onstage. Your path through the silence teeters, veers, staggers, wends and sways; perhaps it even swings for a couple of bars.

A very young trombone player comes up next. This guy has a frightening glitter in his eye. He plays “Ladybird” faster than any trumpet player and fades you right into the woodwork.

A couple weeks later I see this trombone player at the Hollywood Bowl, in the brass section of the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra. His name is Isaac Smith, and he’s the hottest young trombone player in town.