On Arrival

Improvising in Music and Life

This is an unpublished editorial illustration created for Kavita Shah‘s article ”On arrival“.

“WHEN I STEP ON STAGE, there is always a moment that hangs in suspense. The audience chatter previously filling the room comes to a hush. A wave of applause is followed by dead silence. Expectation permeates the room: What will happen next? Will there be speech or music? Who will play the first note? What will it sound like? More questions race through my head:

Is there a full house, or is it too dark to tell?

Do I already have the public's attention, or will I have to earn it? Is my microphone at the right height? Is the band ready to go?

And then, relief: the music begins, coming not from me but from some other place, carrying us all away swiftly on a journey in which performer and audience are equally complicit…”