The Brown Note

by John M. Ellison IV

*Dragnet voice* the names have been changed and/or modified to protect the innocent.

To keep my musical skills sharp and find potential musical collaborators, I’m a part of a jazz ensemble program.  I’ve been doing this for awhile, at first it was for a grade.  But the way it’s set up, I just audit the class now so, it’s just for fun.  Well, there have been a few moments that are quite memorable.  In this case, this story is about professionalism, respect and dignity.

The jazz ensemble consists of the jazz standbys, rhythm and brass.  The rhythm section consists of bass, guitar, drums and keyboards.   The horn section consists of pretty much every brass instrument you can think of.  Anyway, the rhythm section and the brass section were cooking on a classic Jazz composition; we usually get a 10 minute break after playing for like an hour.  It’s fairly intense.  This is nothing unusual, but enough to recharge ourselves from playing tunes like “Footprints”, “Speak No Evil”, ”Sing, Sing Sing”, basically a lot of head tunes and big band arrangements.  When the break started…I noticed a foul smell.  Whenever there’s a 10 minute break, I’m usually waiting it out in the rehearsal space, but this smell was too intense for me.  Bottom line: I had to evacuate.

I met up with one of the guys, one member who played drums, that we’ll call “Todd” said with a shocked look and said “dude, what is that smell?”  I responded “I don’t know.  It smells like G.G. Allin’s ghost visited and wanted to see how we were doing.”  Todd laughed.  I knew Todd would get the reference because he was a rocker.  I remember when I first met him, he was wearing a Bad Brains T-shirt and about the band and even there incarnation as “Mind Power.”  Todd wasn’t just some run of the mill “coat hanger” who got some gear half off at Hot Topic.

Later on, the guys that played in the rhythm section were all outside of lobby of the music department.   We were all trying to catch the chilled fresh air.  After a minute, we addressed the elephant in the room and all ended up playing the childhood favorite “Guess That Smell.”  Another gifted guitar player, that well call “Reid” guessed “I think someone hit a sewer line.”  Another band mate by the name of “Hawk” walked out in true “Hawk fashion” with that surprised look and said “Dude shit himself!” One of the older members shit himself!” We were all shocked, thought it was funny.  In retrospect, Reid was actually the closest guess.  Oddly enough, one of the guys started eating a Swiss Roll.  I said “Dude!  How can you eat a Swiss Roll knowing someone shit themselves no more than 5 minutes ago?  You ever thought of what a Swiss Roll looks like?”  We all got a laugh out of this.

Later on, the band director, who we’ll call Prof. Dean, came out and explained what happened and what the smell was.  Prof. Dean said that the smell was actually the leaking of the musician’s colostomy bag.  It seems the musician in question acquired a colostomy bag from a life threatening surgery many years ago.  The mood went from playful teasing to empathy for our musical brother.   We honestly felt bad about this. Prof. “Dean” said, to us “if you think you feel bad.  Think about how embarrassed he feels.”

After talking about this, a group of kids that might have been around 8 or 11, walked up to the door.  Another guy in the jazz ensemble, we’ll call him “Craig” for this story said to the kids “Hey!  There’s a Go-Go band in there bringing the funk!”  One kid with a bright look in his eye went “Really?”  Since I was behind “Craig” I shook my head and motioned for the kids to scram!  Not to scram, in a bad way, but in that “Run to safety!”  There’s something bad in there” kind of scram.  The kids caught on and briskly walked off.  We kind of got onto “Craig” for the attempted prank and projected the quasi-false outrage to him.  “Craig” felt bad and said karma was going to get him.  Well, in a way it did.  He had to go back inside the room and get his instrument.  But, it all kind of got us, because all of our instruments were still inside the room and we had to get them out!  Luckily I could hold my breath and I had my stocking cap on.  So, I could just breathe into the cap as a filter.  Looking back, I guess its better it happened now than at the upcoming performance.

Thing about it is, “Prof. Dean” was there the whole time dealing with the stench and assessing the situation.  I’ve always admired “Prof. Dean”, I mean his credentials are impeccable but this was something that solidified his professionalism in my eyes.  Moral of the story: Everyone deals with crap, but it takes a strong person to deal with real shit.