Blowing Changes

I am no expert on jazz. If someone were to ask me if the theme to the classic television special A Charlie Brown Christmas is jazz, I would say yes — because it’s jaunty, and, for me, jauntiness is an essential characteristic of the genre. I know a few iconic tunes and albums — Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five,” Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, a few Billie Holiday songs — but that’s about as far as I go. And although my nickname in high school was (briefly) Jazz, it never stuck. I suspect I scored too low on the jauntiness meter.

Nonetheless, I’ve seen enough live jazz and jam sessions to know something of its soul. The guy at the piano starts laying down a lazy, meandering theme. The guitarist listens for a second — yes, key of D — and starts noodling along. The drummer joins in, and pretty soon there’s a game of syncopated hacky sack going on, with everybody bumping and nudging...