Friday night my wife took me to a Kellylee Evans concert. Kellylee is an emerging artist who gives a jazz twist to a variety of musical genres. I really can’t describe what happened, but I’ll give it a shot.
Energy poured into “The Studio” in the form of a diminutive dame shorn of shoes. She sang with a voice serenely smooth yet strong; soft and strong, her voice invited me in. I crossed the threshold and the door closed behind me. Slowly a table was set. She took music that I might not otherwise imbibe – hip-hop, rap, various genres of music, along with jazz standards – and wound them round her voice, which is as peculiar and precious as scotch – neat with enough peat to pull disparate sounds into a sensual singularity.
She sang, she danced, she transformed a wooden audience into a waving, singing, swinging body. We drank from the same well and became one, if only for this moment of magical escape. But no, that isn’t quite the right word: it wasn’t so much a magical escape as a momentous immersion in the power of music. Here we discovered the joy of being in the presence of Song, in this instance we glimpsed another way of being in the world – a way of joy.
At one moment in the concert Kellylee said: “Thanks for coming out tonight and supporting live music.” Not “me,” not “the band,” not a thousand things you might otherwise imagine. No, she honoured “live music.” It made me wonder how often people encounter music in the flesh. Is our addiction to technology the kiss of death for musicians, for music? Who knows? It seems as if some folk are permanently plugged in – constantly under musical siege. But something different happens at a concert. There is a power in the presence of the songstress and her fellows as they call us to cast aside our control if only for a moment – for a pure moment as they chase the muse where she leads. Something happens in this loss of control, in this gathering around song, in this seeing a new of being in the world – swaying our way into abandoning ourselves to joy. She starred our Friday night.
As I went for a walk Saturday night, I thought of Friday. Kellylee Evans made our night shine. She sang me to the moon, where I could see constellations from a new vantage point. I drank deeply from her vocal well and was wondrously quenched with a new kind of thirst: a wanting more of this wonder at beauty, goodness, and truth, if not Truth.
stillvoicing 
I can hear you are still in the arms of the muse. I think what we enjoy so much is the sharing of the abandonment to that higher power, we are willing to suspend the mind and engage the spirit. Strangely enough, I have been pondering the power of music all week and with your inspiration may finally put pen to paper – or fingers to keyboard. Marie 🙂
Yes, indeed it was a great evening. Glad to hear this post met your prompting to follow the muse in your own way. I hope to hear what comes of it!
I love live music! Glad you had a fun evening out!
Oh, it was grand indeed. i bought one of her CDs and will likely buy more!
What a glowing review! I was at a concert Friday night, too, with three of my friends but it didn’t have nearly the effect on me as this one did on you. (I went to hear Lee DeWyze, who won American Idol a few years ago. He is a local guy my daughter’s age.) I’m going to have pull KellyLee Evans up on Spotify RIGHT NOW ~
Sorry to hear your experience wasn’t as potent as mine. Alas, that is the other side of live music I guess! I hope you enjoy her. I had a link in my post that takes you to a YouTube recording if you run out of luck with Spotify.
What an amazing evening you must have had. I love the fact that Kellylee thanked you for supporting live music. What a shining star she must be 😀
It was amazing! She was indeed a shining star, and her joy for music, for life, for people was infectious.
I’m glad you had a magical evening and and experience to remember. There is something beautiful and honest about live music in a smaller venue- especially when it isn’t over-instrumentalized (I don’t think that’s a word :)) I’m not a huge fan of blast-your-eardrums concerts.
Thanks Janna. “:Magical” is the right word. It was an equal but different experience I get when I go to the symphony. There I experience a sublime joy that lifts me up. At the jazz concert I felt a kind of overflowing joy that made me feel grounded.
I suspect the key word here is tucked right into the middle of your post – “immersion”. So often we’re unwilling to allow ourselves to be immersed in any kind of experience, and yet that’s where the magic happens. Appreciation of art, music, literature and film depend on a willingness, however imperfect, to give ourselves over to the experience. Even language learning and cultural adaptation are dependent on that kind of open receptivity.
When you get right down to it, the process isn’t so different from falling in love. When it happens, it’s the best experience in the world. And sometimes, once the euphoria is past, we find that the relationship endures. (The euphoria: buying the CDs. The relationship: finding we’re still playing them in the car two years down the road!)
Yes, I think immersion is so important and I think your examples are all apt. I’m especially intrigued by the learning a language reference. My experience at languages has taught me that if you aren’t will to make a fool of yourself, learning to speak another language is impossible. I suspect the same is true with falling in love, and writing poetry, and…
Beautiful, A. The reflections and how she starred your night.
I once mentioned on my board that I discovered these three virtues are the cornerstone of the Classical homeschool model we follow:
beauty, goodness, and truth. Blew me away bc at that time I had just realized I was drawn to exploring truth and beauty on my blog.
So glad we walk together.
I so agree. What a different world we would be in if these three led all of our communal projects.
Let us hold onto them. =)