Can you dedicate a post to someone? If so, this one goes out to Claudio and Glenn.
Yesterday evening most of my closest friends were over to drink some wine and have some cake, it being my 36th birthday and all, a very homely affair with kids laughing, running and dancing around. "Look at that," said my mate Zak, standing in the study with my acoustic bass guitar around his neck, pointing at an old picture of us with Jurgen from Jazzanova while I was picking some oodles on a Charrango. After a while he paused for a moment and said "This is what we should be doing all day, making music, creating things, not wasting time at some office." Around that one snapshot were others from times past, and I came to realise that two very good friends were missing from our get-together.
Claudio was some thousand miles away living his happy life with his lady and baby boy, by now running his own one-man creative design company by day and playing gigs with his band HOTEL at night. I've known him since we teamed up at high school, jamming songs in the music room during breaks.Glenn was also living his and to a certain extent our dreams, a very gifted pianist and composer, on the road with various bands including his Jazz trio, a musical director for major artists and TV shows, writing tunes with his love Chantal, and goofing around with his two dudes whenever he had the chance. But life can be so cruelly short for even the brightest of us, and we have all been sadly missing him since a fatal crash in 2005. I write this in the middle of the night while my baby boy gently sleeps. If he had half the talent of both Claudio and Glenn he would know how much fun making music is. Somehow I like to believe it's already in him, that hearing them play went into my consciousness and became part of his DNA. And when he sits down behind his little red baby piano, plinks a short tune with both tiny hands, looks round at me and smiles, that right there is the proof.
The following clip is an amazing rendition of Astor Piazolla's Oblivion by the Corneille Roelofs Trio at Gouvy Jazz in Belgium. It was the band's last performance, two weeks before Glenn's death. If you're reading this, pursue whatever you enjoy doing most, don't let your talents go to waste.
