MAGICAL MOMENTS

This is a page that tells some stories from among many, which I feel have had significant meaning in my life. Here stories will be added as time permits.

The Mike Vax Story

THE STORY

When Juzeh - my son - invited me and Julia - my wife – to come enjoy an evening of Great Jazz featuring the legendary trumpet jazz musician Mike Vax, little did I know that destiny had just set me up for what I must call a deeply spiritual experience.

To fully appreciate the validation of this experience I must go back to the 60’s in the last century – wow! It sounds awfully old and distant to me – in Portugal, Europe.

I was then going through my teens, suffering the abuses of a fascist military republican military/religions system. One of my artistic and intellectual oases was a little privilege which I held dear to my heart. I was an official member of the American embassy in Lisbon – the capital of Portugal – where I lived during the school time of the year.

This privilege gave me the chance to use the embassy’s cultural center. Full access to artists, in both, visual and musical fields were available to study!

I did spend lots of time at the embassy reading about art and listening to music. A couple of LP’s were my favorites; they were of music selections of hits from Mitch Miller and Louis Armstrong. From among those songs one in particular stuck to my heart for the rest of my life - What a Wonderful World – released in the later part of that decade.

When the time for the intermission came around I was already on cloud nine floating among the many colors, tones, feelings, moods that only good jazz can instill simultaneously in the imagination of listeners. I remember making a comment to Mr. Getzen that if we only could take the Heart of America around the world in its pure form –Jazz – instead of weapons and war, we could bring the world to a much happier and better place all together.

Low and behold, in the second half of the program Mike Vax approaches the microphone and makes a comment to the fact that he is often asked; which from his extremely vast repertoire is his favorite piece? When he mentioned Lois Armstrong’s "What a Wonderful World," my entire life jointed me in the auditorium. Mike was saying that Louis Armstrong played that song to imagine how the world would benefit from letting musicians instead of politicians run our societies.

The image on Mike Vax in this page with Lois Armstrong is a small tribute from my heart to that of Mike’s for the beautiful gift of synchronicity that his gave me. Through the trumpet mike gave voice to Lois, and we all came together in a moment of magic that among of my best life-jewels treasure chest.

Several years ago while listening to Al Chez - the trumpet master on David Letterman show - I was truly removed from the awareness of my body and transported into a plane of consciousness that merged me with a cosmic sense of existence. From that experience I wrote the following quote: "Any instrument well played will open my heart, but only the heavenly scream of a trumpet will rapture my Soul"

I make this statement revalidated by this Jazz experience.

Incidentally, Mike Vax has a big band program and you may check his schedule to see if he will be performing anywhere close to you.