pat loughery

I had a beautiful day today – had to cross Puget Sound on a ferry to rehearse a wedding party for a wedding that is tomorrow night. I took the car and listened to some music and some N. T. Wright on the iPod (wow, I love this toy). Wright, in his Creation and New Creation lecture, makes the point that expressing creativity is in fact participating in God’s creation, nearly at the same level as practicing compassion and justice and mercy. I loved that point.

The weather is fantastic today – 75+ and completely sunny. The place that the ceremony is at is gorgeous – on the water, plenty of old growth trees and lovely flowers and a native American feel to the lodge. The rehearsal goes well, and as the party is leaving to go to the dinner following, I beg out so that I can go see my cousins from the Bay area who are in town tonight and tomorrow night only on a trip for her work.

I miss the 5:30 ferry by like 7 minutes and am 3rd in line for the 6:30 ferry, and with nearly an hour to kill I take my iPod, my Frost & Hirsch and go looking for a coffee shop, finding a little one just up the hill. I nod and smile to the 60ish gentlemen hosing down the sidewalk and go inside.

The lady running the counter is trying to close the shop early, but says she has enough stuff left for a strawberry milkshake if I want one, and that sounds like a good plan. We get to talking about nothing much – where am I from, where are they from. I get an inkling that I should pursue this a bit more. The guy’s now inside and says he moved from LA to this area to be with his kids after his ex-wife moved north with them.

Somehow it slips out that he’s a musician. I ask what he plays; he plays saxophone. Tenor sax. I mention that I used to play in college and was semi-decent, but not much since then – I pretty much made the conscious decision that I was either going to have to dedicate several hours a day to practicing the instrument or give it up. I chose the latter. I love good jazz though. Tenor-driven jazz especially. I ask him whether he gigs around town and he lets slip (with the lady running the counter egging him on) that he has a regular gig at one of the better clubs in Seattle, Tula’s. Then, that he taught at the local fine arts college here for 20 years. This guy’s good.

I ask him what style he plays, and he’s pretty humble and answers with a “well, a bit of this and that” kind of feel.. The lady behind the counter says, “stuff like John Coltrane and Dexter Gordon.” Yeah, he says. Post-bop stuff.

The last name drops me in my tracks. Everybody knows John Coltrane, but Dexter – that man was fantastic, the most beautiful sound ever. I mention that Dex is my favorite player. Hardly anybody who’s not a serious jazz nut knows Dexter. They made a movie based largely on Dex’s life, Round Midnight. Fantastic movie.

The guy tells me how he used to tour on the road and tells me a couple of musicians he played with. Big folks. Really big folks. He recorded with Santana.

All of this I’m drawing out of him – he’s not reluctant, he’s just not going to brag.

The conversation comes back to Dexter. “He was my mentor, you know?” “Seriously?” “Yeah, he taught me, we were good friends. When he died and they had a celebration of Dex, I played at it.”

By now I’m astounded. I’m talking with a disciple of Dex. THE Dexter Gordon.

I ask the man when he’s gigging next, and he gives me a few dates. Next up is July 3rd, an afternoon thing at Tula’s that is kid-friendly.

He talks about teaching at the local college. His current band is young – him, plus three guys from 21 to early 30s. He tries to run ’em ragged and not let them see him sweat :-).

I found out that he was out at my local high school’s arts festival a while back. I was there, too – I got called out of the festival on an emergency, or I’d have heard him.

I tell him that I stopped playing after college – it’s too hard to put a group together and live a regular life, and it takes so much time to practice this instrument to be good at it. I ask him how much he plays these days. “Well, usually I start about 9am, and sometimes I get done by noon and then pick up around the house.”. 3+ hours a day, and he’s been at this for longer than I’ve been alive. I express respect, and he looks at me funny, waving his hands around his abdomen. “But you have to understand. I just – I HAVE to play, I have to get it out.”.

The lady behind the counter goes over to the stereo and puts on one of the guy’s CDs. It’s great stuff.

So I spent 45 minutes today talking to Hadley Caliman. I haven’t heard his name before, but I’m certainly going to take my family to hear this man’s art, to hear him create life. Wright’s right (ha) – I don’t think I would have felt the holy presence of God any less if we were talking about how much the people of the Sudan need justice, or we were talking about serving the poor in our towns. There’s something life-giving about creativity, and especially skilled practice of creativity.

I am amazed what following a simple leading of the holy spirit will do. Did anything of Kingdom importance, eternal importance happen today? No, and yet… my Father led me into great joy today, simply because He loves me. Of that I’m convinced. It wasn’t evangelistic or missional, but it certainly was joyful to me.

The strawberry milkshake was awesome too.

You can read some of Hadley’s story here.