Solo Saxophone Through the Words of Jan Freeman

In December of 2019, I had the pleasure of performing a solo concert in Holyoke, Massachusetts presented by Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares. It was one of my more memorable experiences performing solo.

The folks of Holyoke were very welcoming and very appreciative. It was a cold night out, too. As we were leaving the venue to attend the post-concert reception sponsored by one of the guests, Glen Siegal, the director of Pioneer Jazz Shares, and his wife Priscilla Page informed me that the temperature was three degrees. Which explained my uncontrollable shivering. I'm mentioning this only to point out that even though Mother Nature had given the concert-goers reasons enough to stay home for the evening, the Wistariahurst Museum on 238 Cabot Street was still packed with folks providing much-welcomed warmth and enthusiasm for the evening's concert.

One of the concert attendees was Jan Freeman, an award-winning poet from the western Massachusett's area. Jan's work is extensive. She is the author of Simon Says, nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Jan's poems have appeared in many anthologies and journals, including American Poetry Review, The Women's Review of Books, The Southern Review, to name a few. She is currently at work on a new collection of poems, Mobius.

So, I was honored that she was gracious enough to lend her talents to write a poem inspired by the evening's concert. The poem is entitled The Door Is in Front of You (For Sam Newsome).

Look! Open your eyes
Music rises from the keyhole
You see only walls without windows
but the windows are here!
The door looks like a wall
but it is a wall on a hinge
Notes slip through the keyhole
Sound flows in and flows out
You are not tethered to the silent house
Darkness does not protect you
The entire world is the four notes
of the saxophone responding faster and faster
until you see the light in the keyhole
You see the hinge and you step forward
You press your hand against the thick wooden surface
and push yourself in as you push yourself out
Here the door exists, the walls that are not the door
fall 

Below is the concert. A special thanks to Dennis Steiner on the wonderful camera work and video production.