On Hearing/On Listening

I play the tenor sax, and at sixty-five, I’m usually the youngest in this band. We play the oldest of old standards— very

Photo courtesy of the author

little from after the War plus novelty tunes, blues. The most senior player is a trumpeter who, even if you ask him, won’t give his age. I don’t ask.

The trumpet is a very physical instrument, and Sam confessed to me once that he never practiced. The band leader introduces him as having “that fat New Orleans sound,” which, I think, is likely a result of him being as old as he is and never practicing on the most unforgiving of horns. It all depends on what you mean by “fat.”

Sam is a sweet man. His wife comes to the gig sometimes and sits at a front table, and she is also sweet, which may be one reason Sam is so sweet. The turn in this story comes when I tell you that Sam is also a good musician. He seldom looks at a chart, always offers me his chart if the leader calls a tune I don’t know. Sam doesn’t need to look at the music. Sam can hear everything.

Except that Sam can no longer hear very well. That’s the second turn in this story. In our pleasant conversations on breaks, I can see Sam’s eyes reading my lips. Sometimes his responses to me are non sequiturs that seem to change the subject. We’re talking about a player he likes; then we’re talking about a good movie he just saw. Sometimes he speaks so quietly himself that I can’t really hear him either. He wears a hearing aid in each ear, but these little machines are notoriously ineffective when the background noise is as thick as it usually is in a lively bar when the band is on break.

The band itself doesn’t play loudly. Sound “onstage”—actually a cramped space near the front window so the owner can fill as many tables as possible; sometimes the bell of my saxophone seems to disturb the closest diner’s primavera—is reasonably clear. Most of the time Sam does fine. And when Sam hits the right notes, the bluest notes, the audience loves him. Like most audiences, of course, they listen with their eyes. Their eyes hear only this round and sweet man of indeterminate age, seated behind his trumpet as if it’s an extra, somewhat awkward appendage. They can see that he is having a good time. And thus, so are they. Miss, what’s the special tonight?

One time, on a simple blues, Sam is playing his solo, the bell of the horn in the air, angled over his unneeded music stand as if he’s emptying the last of a sweet liquid into his mouth. He has that fat sound; the notes splotch and settle on pitch. Problem is, those right notes fall clearly into a key other than the one in which the rest of the band is playing. The bass player, who like Sam has an ear that I admire, looks puzzled for a bar or two, then catches my eye and we both smile. Now the guitar player hears, and the singer. Sam plays on. Every note a good note, a right note, if only the rest of the band were wrong.

The audience watches on, chats on, eats and drinks and, not knowing how to listen, doesn’t hear. The musicians are listening but must pretend they’re not. And after all, it was always that kind of gig, where all of us in the band could drink a few beers, have fun, but still do pretty well when we counted up the tip jar around one am. Sam plays resoundingly, falling off the curb on a few notes, as the trumpet would have it, but I’m not sure anyone in the crowd notices that either.

Then, after Sam’s chorus, the singer comes in, spot...