Thanks to my friend Marco, I had the opportunity to attend a concert at Blue Note in Milan.The original venue opened in New York City in 1981 and now boasts four additional international jazz clubs that are considered to be some of the world’s most famous jazz venues.

Amidst a personalized and intimate setting I sat on the edge of my seat listening to Sarah Jane Morris belt out chords that made my body shiver and my heart pound.  With wild curly red hair, she looked and sounded like Janis Joplin, singing with a raw release that so many singers today try to restrain. Her songs centered around politics and life, peace and destruction, love and heartache; all of which evoked a fury of emotion to boil within my body like a volcano ready to explode.

Again, thanks again to my friend Marco, I was able to watch two additional concerts at the theater in Correggio.

I had the unique opportunity to watch the first concert behind stage as he is a sound tech.

Unknown Rebel Band, was a particular sounding group, a blend of big band jazz and alternative new age sounds, my favorite being the crunching of a plastic bag.

The second concert, Danilo REA Quartetto, was a regional orchestra from Emila Romagna. Watching from the theater balcony, the combination of a bass, violins, cellos, clarinets, drums and piano inspired me like great music does, and I found myself straining my eyes as I tried to write in the dark the sensations I was feeling:

The lights are erect like an orchid, supplementing the room with an elegant grace and protruding from the theater booths like a flower hidden beneath the rainforest’s canopy and searching for light. Bending. Curling. And, spiraling in different fashions but all in the same direction.

The red velvet curtain that hangs from the ceiling to the bottom of the stage is  like smooth silky cream pouring from a bottle, coming down slowly, rich and thick and drawing your attention to the movement. It’s creamy texture is a luxury to be savored, unlike nonfat milk whose liquid is practically transparent and is poured from the container without a second glance or thought–just something to wet cereal or lighten the color of black coffee.

The music flows from the strings of the violin like water dripping from a spring. Harmonious. Relaxing. Gentle. Angry. Passionate.  Varying in melody and in rhythm; heavy and light, smooth and rough, strong and soft.  The notes flutter through the air as they make their way across the floor, thirty or so rows deep, up the four levels of balconies and to my ears where they dance on the cusp of my eardrum–a tickling sensation that causes me to smile rather than laugh, and to think rather than listen.

I begin to relate to the story being told, one note at a time. The music draws my emotions out of my body like a person taking items from the fridge: a bottle of anger, a container of pride, a plate of love and a box of surprise.

The conductor, straight like an arrow, moves with beautiful grace as his arms and hands fly through the air with a fluidity and precision that only comes when you let your body release itself from the draw of a bow and allow yourself the freedom to glide your way toward your target. Your mind and body free, but with unwavering aim.

Dressed in black and tan the orchestra resembles death. The violin, only a fragment from a tree (Rosewood or Maple perhaps) has been chopped down, cut, shaved, sanded, stained and mounted back together much like that of a casket.  The image before me is an image of mourning.

And then–just like that–with the first pull of the string the mood changes from that of grief to a sensation of infinite freedom that accompanies death. The notes pass through the air like the soul on it’s transcendence to heaven or hell. Death is invisible and so too is the music coming from the violins, exiting the instrument for the last time to find a final resting place in the ears of the audience–it is they who decide the fate of the notes.  Are they to enter a place in their hearts and be carried away continuing to beat and make music in the souls of the living or cling to the nothingness that fills the theater when all have left, all have gone home and the only thing remaining amist the empty isles is stagnant air thick with rejection?

A final breath, a final note, and then all is silent as the notes release themselves from the material object that created them and float lightly off stage leaving the glow of the lights overhead to enter darkness, uncertainity and a glimmer of hope coming from the cracks beneath the exit doors.