HOW HE THINKS ABOUT MUSIC

Bill Williams stood in the auditorium with all the other hopeful auditioners and muttered fiercely to himself. “Bunch of untalented upstarts, wouldn’t know Mozart from Hayden, not to mention real rag time, or authentic jazz from rock and roll. Why, I’d been playing on stage before any of them was even out of diapers.” He looked around him at the fiddles and guitars some held, and the battered black cases at other folk’s feet and bet himself that most of them could only play the one instrument. He, on the other hand could play just about anything.

You name it, he could make it sing: strings, horns, piano, drums. And he hadn’t had the luxury of lessons either. No sir. Good old fashioned hard work, daily practice and discipline, and a God given talent the Lord had seen fit to bless him with were what had gotten him to where he was today.

Well, maybe not this particular day, but as a musician generally. It was a sin and a humiliation that he had to audition at all. The pure fact of his name alone should have been enough for a guaranteed seat on the stage.

It’s true he’d never been a headliner, but he sure as heck had played with the best all down the years. His list of bona-fide gigs would make anybody sit up and take notice. It was also a known fact among real musicians that he was humble as well. An important attribute when there were so many prima-donnas making the rounds.

He was just as happy with second chair violin as first, back up guitar vs lead, even bass: stand-up or electric didn’t matter, anything that was wanted.

No, what counted with Bill was being on stage in any capacity and making a joyful noise with his fellow man.

Maybe if he’d started his career sooner, it would be his name on the marquee or at least he’d be the guy sitting in the shadows of the front row doling out rejections or approvals. But the fact was he’d listened to his mother to face his responsibilities and marry that mousey girl so the child could get born all legal and respectable.

Then the girl’s Pa gave him a decent job in his fancy office, and he was stuck. Selling insurance wasn’t Bill’s idea of heaven but it paid the bills when plenty of other’s were hurting for any job at all.

A lot of water under the bridge since then, he couldn’t remember for sure what had made him finally leave. Maybe it was the boy, what was his name? Started with a C. Bill wasn’t cut out to be a father, and the boy was a handful from the first time he opened his mouth and said no – his eyes blazing at Bill like a slap in the face.

Bill had tried, Lord knows he’d tried, but in the end he just couldn’t face it anymore, felt whipped like his soul would disappear with a pop one day, it was getting so squashed by that life. So one day, he just drove off with his tenor sax, his coronet, and his Martin guitar in the trunk and never looked back.

He’d had a good long run with more to come, and thankful for it all. Just then he heard his name called, “Bill Williams.” When he pushed his way up to the stage the guy looked at his worn tux and his slicked back gray hair and said, “What you got for us, Pops?” Hearing those words Bill knew he’d never get this gig, but he pulled out his soprano coronet and played a scintillating Bird riff anyway. Not even three minutes in this spotlight before the guy interrupted him, “Thanks, we’ll call you.”

But the two minutes on stage was better than nothing and he had another audition in forty-eight minutes across town. “Thank you!” Bill said, and he bowed low, packed up his horn and strode regally off the stage.

As always, the consummate musician.