Wasn’t planning to cry.
Was just going to put something on while the laundry dried—nothing heavy, just a bit of Coltrane maybe, something soft to go with the breeze. Sara was reading. The dog had wedged herself under the table like she always does when it gets too warm.
And then Naima started playing.
And everything stopped.
It’s the sustain in that final note, I think. The way the piano holds it like it’s afraid to let go. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just the way that song always sneaks up on me.
We’ve been here—what, eighteen months?—and I still haven’t unpacked half the boxes. But the vinyl, that came out first. I’d wrapped Giant Steps in three jumpers and a tea towel. Priorities.
I don’t talk much about Coltrane anymore. Not like I used to, back when I was trying to make disinterested Year 10s understand the difference between playing scales and speaking them. I’d tell them about how Trane used to practice until his mouth bled. That he wrote out the same progression in twelve keys by hand just for fun.
They didn’t care. Of course they didn’t. But I did. Still do.
Spain does something to your pacing. Slows it. Softens the grip you’ve had on things for years without asking permission.
I used to blast through my listening, one track to the next. Always on the move. Train commute, car stereo, the school’s half-functioning Bluetooth system.
Now, I sit. And I listen.
Sometimes, I catch myself mouthing the solos. Muscle memory. Embarrassing. Sara pretends not to see. That’s love, isn’t it? Enduring another human’s obsessions like they’re background noise.
She said to me once—back when we still lived in Croydon—”If I die before you, I want you to play Naima at the funeral.” I think about that more often than I’d admit to her.
There’s this jazz bar in Jerez we stumbled into by accident. No sign, just a saxophone case propped against the door like a quiet invitation. The guy playing that night had that sound—you know the one. Round, loose, like he was chewing the notes before releasing them. Not perfect. But true.
I shook his hand after. Told him I used to teach jazz to teenagers who hated jazz. He laughed and said something in Andaluz I only half caught. I think he was saying music doesn’t need a reason. Or maybe he was asking if I wanted another beer.
Either way, I said yes.
Sometimes I imagine a version of myself that never taught, never married, never had kids. Just followed the sax. Played backup in bars. Slept on floors. Maybe never owned a house but had stories.
And then I remember I have those stories anyway.
Like when McCoy Tyner walked into the hotel lobby in London and I froze. Couldn’t speak. Just nodded like an idiot while clutching a bag of M&S sandwiches.
Or when I cried the first time I played Alabama to a full auditorium. No one noticed—I was conducting.
Lately, I’ve been scribbling lines in a notebook again. Not songs exactly. Just fragments. There’s something about the wind here—it’s always almost a melody. I keep thinking I’ll write something proper. But maybe I won’t. Maybe the writing is the point.
Coltrane wasn’t about perfection. He was about searching. And maybe that’s what I’m still doing. In Cádiz. In Jerez. In the quiet between songs. Trying to make sense of all the noise.
If you’ve never really sat with Trane, start with these. But don’t multitask. Don’t talk. Don’t text. Just listen.
And if it doesn’t move you, try again in a few years. Maybe you’re not ready yet.
- Naima — for someone you miss
- Alabama — for something you mourn
- Acknowledgement — for what you’re still hoping to find
“Discipline is a form of devotion,” I wrote in the notebook yesterday. I’m not sure if it’s true. But it feels true.
Anyway, it’s what I’ve got. That and a record player. And a woman who still hums along even when she says she doesn’t like jazz.
