Street Music

Some of the best live music I've ever heard has come from atop (or even beneath) the street. From my trip to New Orleans in October of 2003 where the best jazz I heard was the street musicians in Jackson Square to last night with the keyboardist/singer in Union Square subway station, I cannot walk by a street musician without stopping to listen.

Street music always seems to get to people, exponentially more than whatever noise is in their earbuds. I don't know if it's the power of live music -- which is undeniable, but a post for another time -- or the genuine surprise to be hearing something with such high quality juxtaposed so closely against the riffraff, but people actually stop and listen and typically enjoy what they hear, assuming what they hear is decent.

Watching by-standers' reactions is a testament to the power of music. I've seen grown men swell up at a solo violin in the tunnel between Times Square and Port Authority; I've seen (and been among those) gaggles of folk in business attire let trains pass by without them on it just to listen to another song in Union Square. I've had to swim through the masses gathered around anywhere the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble plays.

In a fast-paced world (and what is New York City but a world unto itself) where people are noticeably frustrated if they can't take the exact route -- step for step -- they feel is fasted to transfer from one train to the other (when there is no train waiting and the extra twelve steps isn't the difference between making it and missing it), it's amazing to watch that music can really get people to slow down and enjoy their lives for whatever brief moment.

I've bought a number of CDs from these street musicians over the years. They're never as good as the live thing, even the dixieland band that recorded their CD live in New Orleans to try to capture the live sensation. It isn't that the music isn't as good on CD, but the experience isn't. What makes it so amazing is the unexpected nature of it. It's the fact that you actually have to stop and listen and that, unlike headphones, the real band can't come with you wherever you go.

I never learn my lesson from the less-than-stellar CDs I buy; I still buy more. I really wish I could sit down with them and talk to them and say, "I'm a musician, too, and what you do is what I want to do. I want to see my musician physically change people instantly on a daily basis." (Of course, I'd like to get paid a little more for it than, y'know, nothing...) But I can't stop and have a conversation with these people, and I like them to know that I support what they do and I appreciate them. So the really good ones who don't have CDs for sale, I pop a dollar or two in their cases, give them a nod, and go on my way.

I usually follow these street concerts with silence; I turn off my own portable audio and just let myself hold on to the fleeting moments of the sounds I just heard.

And within minutes, I forget everything from the performance except the feeling of it. And then even that fades within hours. Until the next concert I stumble upon, of course.