Miscellaneous

On a Sunday evening in November, we of Pronto were interrupted, nay, visited by the Jazz Flute Prophet.

Our evening had consisted of some exploratory, slightly self-indulgent jamming. At the conclusion of one of these jams we heard some knocking at our door – a rather rare occurrence. In walks a somewhat heavy, 65 year old, white haired, goateed man in a black pullover fleece, pleated blue dockers and some shiny loafers – HOLDING A FLUTE WITH AN LED CLIP LIGHT TAPED TO IT.

He walks in and asks if we’d heard him jamming along in the hallway.  Of course we didn’t hear him, as he was jamming along with us on the other side of the door to our studio, i.e. not inside our studio.

The first 2 minutes weren’t recorded, but by the grace of Jared Samuel (who put the computer *back* in record once it was clear we had a situation on our hands), we have nearly the entire encounter and subsequent “jam session” preserved for posterity.

One of the visuals that is hard to make out from the recording is his one handed playing technique.  The other hand is holding a lighter close to his mouth which he lights, and blows out a couple of times before making the flame “dance.”

I think it would have been less awesome if he came in and started really shredding – redefining jazz flute and laying to waste our own musical abilities.  I don’t know if he ever figured out what key we were in, or if keys even exist.  His ambitious, inspired amateurism is nothing short of miraculous.  Like a specter, he disappeared as quickly, and mysteriously as he appeared (to get to the gig at the Turkish Club on time…)