Writing as Jazz

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My Grandfather was 99 last month. He is a lovely man, sharp and spritely enough to be interested in my fledgling writing career and communicates regularly with me by email. His social life is better than mine and he has a bevy of ladies who take him to lunch groups and church services.

He retired as a manager in a factory and was delighted to escape from the tribulations of seventies industrial relations. He has had a full retirement that has lasted nearly forty years and with his youth his well past there is a twinkle in his eye that tells of a life well lived. In his youth he was a saxophonist in a local Jazz band and there is a vinyl record of his playing. He still listens and has passed on his love of Jazz to his two sons my father and my Uncle Brian.

Uncle Brian lives in Canada now but was over for the birthday meal and was complimenting me on my book “Splinter”. He had enjoyed the story although he did have a bit of a reservation that the boss of my gangster family was also called Brian.

I was telling Uncle Brian that if I was serious about being a novelist then I should probably invest my time in a Creative Writing course, which I keep considering and putting to one side as the muse takes me. I told him that life gets in the way and besides by the time I do the degree I could have written and self published three or four novels. Brian, who is a Doctor and eminent specialist in his field, compared the idea of being taught creative writing to being the same as his disappointment at some of the new generation of musicians who are coming out of Universities with a degree in Jazz music he sees in Toronto. His point was that technically they were very good but they lacked the spontaneity needed to make them excel.  

You can’t teach Jazz improvisation it has to come from the heart in the same way you can teach grammar and form but you can’t teach how to put heart into your story telling. Following my put down from the poisoned pen of the Creative Writing graduate lady this struck a chord.

Technically my writing needs extra precision but putting the words on the page and developing the story my brain comes alive. I employ an editor to help me with the finished story but the story and characters are mine alone and they definitely come from my heart.    

 

As a writer I imagine my pre-war granddad played in smoke filled drinking dens surrounded by be-suited gangsters and their molls, a la Bugsy Malone. Probably not, but he has a recording of his music and I have written a book so it is grounding to know that my creative urge is inherited from somewhere close to home.

 

Grandad is going to Toronto again this Summer and Toronto is a great place for Jazz. Last time I was there Brian took me to a buzzing basement Jazz club. I enjoyed the atmosphere and setting if not fully appreciating the Modern Jazz. It was all a bit "plinky plink, clash, plink" for me, but then I was kicked out of the trials for the cadet band for having no sense of rhythm.  I remember watching the audience and making up stories it was a great place for inspiration.

As a Jazz musician plinky plinks around with the rhythm and makes up the tune as he goes along, so a writer develops a story. The difference is that a live performance is over in minutes the music haunts the memory and taps the toe, a novel takes months to write and further months to fine tune and hone to a publishable standard. The words in the story are there to be critiqued, shot-at and derided, the notes of the Jazz musician are created free form and released into the world as soon as they are played for the audience to remember and relish.

A Jazz musician closes his eyes lost in the flow of his music. Can that be taught? They say you should write for your own enjoyment and the readers will pick up on the positive vibes. Can that be taught?

There is much animated debate on how to write, how to market and the dreary argument of whether you are a proper writer if you do not have the “gatekeeper validation” of an agent or publisher or creative writing lecturer. Who cares?

In the same way a Jazz musician blows their trumpet is it not better to just sit down, write and enjoy the creative process.  

Looking at the long life of my granddad who lived through two world wars and seen so much and he still enjoys his Jazz. I hope I am still enjoying life at 99 and when I look back I don’t think I will regret not doing a Creative Writing course. Do you?