I don't know if you heard. Uh…
I'm not at Shaffer anymore.
Yeah, I did hear that.
Did you quit?
Not exactly.
Some parents got a kid
from Sean Casey's year, I think,
to say some things
about me.
Although why anybody
would have anything
other than peaches and cream
to say about me is a mystery.
Yeah.
That's a good laugh, right?
I'm sorry.
No, listen… I get it.
I'm sorry.
I know I made enemies.
I'm conducting a little, though.
They brought back the JVC Fest
this year.
They got me opening
in a couple of weeks with a pro band.
That's great.
Yeah. It's all right.
Truth is,
I don't think people understood
what it was I was doing
at Shaffer.
I wasn't there to conduct.
Any fucking moron can wave his arms
and keep people in tempo.
I was there to push people
beyond what's expected of them.
I believe that is…
an absolute necessity.
Otherwise, we're depriving the world
of the next Louis Armstrong.
The next Charlie Parker.
I told you about how Charlie Parker
became Charlie Parker, right?
Jo Jones threw a cymbal at his head.
Exactly.
Parker's a young kid,
pretty good on the sax.
Gets up to play at a cutting session,
and he fucks it up.
And Jones nearly decapitates him
for it.
And he's laughed off-stage.
Cries himself to sleep that night,
but the next morning,
what does he do?
He practices.
And he practices and he practices
with one goal in mind,
never to be laughed at again.
And a year later, he goes back to the
Reno and he steps up on that stage,
and plays the best motherfucking solo
the world has ever heard.
So imagine if Jones had just said:
"Well, that's okay, Charlie.
That was all right. Good job."
And then Charlie thinks to himself,
"Well, shit, I did do a pretty good job."
End of story.
No Bird.
That, to me,
is an absolute tragedy.
But that's just
what the world wants now.
People wonder why jazz
is dying.
I tell you, man,
and every Starbucks "jazz" album
just proves my point, really.
There are no two words
in the English language more harmful
than "good job."
But is there a line?
You know, maybe you go too far and
you discourage the next Charlie Parker
from ever becoming Charlie Parker.
No, man, no.
Because the next Charlie Parker
would never be discouraged.
Yeah.
The truth is, Andrew…
I never really had a Charlie Parker.
But I tried.
I actually fucking tried.
And that's more than
most people ever do.
And I will never apologize
for how I tried.
