Today I finished recording my first album.
For any musician who has dreams of traveling the world and performing on the biggest and brightest stages, the first album is a monumental step. For the first time, I found myself in a position to capture my passion for music and life in little snippets of time. A recording captures the heat of the moment. A recording captures the pulse, sweat, and core of a musicians pure passion for his craft, and then can be sold for all to hear.
The question at hand though, is why record?
I record so that I can share my passion for…well… for “all to hear.”
As a musician, my favorite part of performing is opening my eyes after a solo to look out into the audience to see feet tapping, eyes wide open, and smiles stretched from ear to ear. For me, the ultimate goal of any performance is to shatter the invisible wall that always seems to exist between the audience and the performers. A performance is an experience, a moment in time to be shared with those that have come to take part in the musical adventure. Not observe, but to take part. I remember growing up as a child and listening to all the musicians who had mastered this magical ability: Pete Seger, the Buena Vista Social Club, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, the Mighty Clouds of Joy….the music that I have always been drawn to and the musicians that I have always admired are those who know best how to SHARE their passions to the point that one in attendance can only surrender themselves to the moment, stand to their feet, and exclaim in any shape or form a sign that they too can feel the passion that seems to be radiating from the stage.
Trained in the Suzuki classical piano method, I was taught at a young age that music was a very serious thing. I will always remember performing in recitals as a little kid. I remember burning through difficult classical piano etudes, and then upon finishing standing up erect at the side of the piano bench, making a quick yet firm bow, and then rushing off to my seat, the whole time shouting in my head “don’t smile, don’t smile, don’t smile, don’t smile, don’t smile….” or “don’t make eye contact, don’t make eye contact, don’t make eye contact…..”
It wasn’t until I played my first dance gig in high school that I fully grasped the importance of sharing your passion with someone. As a pale freshman from Chicago, I found myself playing with a jazz combo outside a palace in Portugal. Surrounded by people who spoke a language and who were from a culture more foreign and strange to me than teenage girls, I picked up my trumpet and played my first notes. In no time, a little old Portuguese woman magically appeared before us with a an adorable old man. They began to dance. Their hips swayed with the swing rhythm, as gracefully as the saxophone melody, his feet as quick as the rat-a-tat-tat of my brothers’ snare drum. It was at that moment where I truly understood the importance of sharing your passion. If you can find your passion, the next step is to share it, because in the process of sharing the flame that is your passion, you have the power to bring light, warmth, and fire for the passions of others.
Today I finished recording my first album.
The memorable experience though, the part that I will cherish for the rest of my life, is how I was able to share the moment with so many talented musicians. The recording was done for a band that I lead with my twin brother John, titled the “Fatum Brothers’ Jazz Orchestra.” As a 16 piece jazz big band, comprised of some of the top young jazz lions in Chicago, much less the United States, I found myself sharing this monumental moment with 15 cherished friends and musical heroes. I quickly realized that to go into the recording studio for two days, roll up my sleeves, and embark on a 16 hour journey with so many talented, musical, hilarious, close-friends, and incredible characters was yet another way in which I could share my passion. Each member of the band played a vital role in the recording process, and over the course of two days and too many takes to keep track of, everyone stepped up to keep each others’ passions burning. There I sat on my stool in the back with the trumpet section, head-phone,s on listening to Dan Chmielinski lay down the bass tracks with the intensity and passion of John Henry working on his railroad. Then I looked up to see the mighty Rajiv Orozco standing before me, bending notes on his alto saxophone with such grace and ease, Johnny Hodges would have awoken in his grave. I looked to my left down the line to see Drew Hansen and Danny Bressler, my two best friends since 6th and 1st grade respectively, nailing their trumpet entrances and swingin’ their asses off. And of course, my twin brother John, driving the band and kicking the bass drum with as much more power and authority as when he would kick me in mom’s womb.
And all I could do was smile.
In my last post, I wrote about “fostering,” your passion. I wrote “if you are reading this, if you are breathing, alive, and have a pulse, I believe that you have a passion.” This time, I must add, that if you are reading this, if you are breathing, alive, and have a pulse, I believe that you have a passion, and I believe that you have the means to share it. How can you share your passion? What tools do can be found in your toolbox that will enable you to inspire the passions of others? Who will you share your passion with? Who shares their passion with you? How do they do it?
Today I finished my first album. Today I captured my passion, a passion that was shared with and fueled by the contagious passions of 15 incredible friends. On July 30th, we will be releasing our collective passions with the goal to share them with all that care to lean in and take a listen. That is one way in which we aimed to share our passion with you.
So now it’s your turn. My match, and the matches of millions of people are waiting to be lit. Come light our fire. Share your passion.
