I wasn’t able to make it on Thursday to the live streaming event of the Celebration of Life for Paul Plimley. Instead, I celebrated by playing music, high on drip coffee. I’ve always been terrified of goodbyes, and the feeling of great loss, even though there could be so many wonderful memories shared by everyone. I was obligated and found it fitting to communicate to the other side by playing music.
When I first got introduced to the world of creative music improvisation, somebody told me that “you can’t just approach those professional and trained improvisors and ask them to play with you.” I was naive at the time, driven by inspiration for some kind of ideal society that I thought could be conceived through improvisation with others. I thought it was a sort of music where all that is required is your presence. By presence, I mean, not just being on the roll call, but to have autonomy, integrity, empathy, and all of those unpretentious ways of being that create real connections between human beings.
Paul Plimley was one of those impressionable human beings who could see a lot of things in people and he always had a lightness of being (in the most positive sense), a bubbly exuberance (especially after a coffee) that suggested a kind of mischievous playfulness, that, to me, he embodied that “presence” I mentioned. Because of this, it kind of proved my friend wrong about the pros being unapproachable, which is a good thing, because sometimes if I know too much about someone’s accomplishments before I know them, I become irrationally intimidated or “starstruck” in a way that turns me into a blind mute. Fortunately, there was never the possibility of that happening here, due to Paul’s engaging unpretentiousness and warm friendliness.
I remember that whenever I saw Paul, without fail, he would always remind me about that one time he saw me playing the piano at the roundhouse in Anthony Braxton’s 8-hour-long premier of the Sonic Genome. The funny thing about that is I had played the violin, a bit of melodica for most of the concert, and had really only played the piano for all of about 30 seconds as it was being rolled slowly from one room to another. Yet, the piano playing from that event was always the first thing Paul would bring up when we saw each other, I’d be in the middle of saying “hel-,“ and he’d just start in with “hey Janine, I saw you play the piano at…” as if I was just playing the piano a moment ago.
Well, I told him how, as a child, I dreamed of becoming a concert pianist, but in studying the classical method, I was always terrified whenever it came to an exam recital. I shared with him that playing music had always been a comfort for me or rather something that I needed to do to maintain my happiness and well-being. I mentioned to him that at some point I didn’t have a piano, so took a big piece of cardboard and drew a piano keyboard on it to try to practice scale fingering. Finally after a while of there not being a piano around, I picked up a classical guitar that was there in the music room and started learning that instrument instead. All that to say, that Paul reminding me of that brief moment at the Roundhouse, I realized, was his way of “subtly” (wink wink, nudge, nudge) telling me that I should play piano again. And I did eventually end up buying a weighted Roland keyboard when VCC auctioned off their old midi keyboards and got back into playing the piano.
Reading all of the stories about Paul Plimley by his loved ones, friends and colleagues, and I have to admit, I didn’t even know that he had been a founder of the NOW Orchestra, and what a phenomenal force he was on the international and local jazz and creative music scene. I guess I could say that I was often busy with my studies or overwhelmed by being “awoke” by the power of creative music (not sure how else to describe it), that I didn’t do research on folks whom I admired and appreciated as friends… because, wouldn’t that be kind of like stalking? And who knows, if I had done the research, maybe it would have turned me into a deaf mute as I mentioned it tends to happen, I might have become starstruck by Paul’s gargantuan body of work and influence in creative music scene, though I’m sure that he wouldn’t have let that happen.
Paul Plimley really had a way of not talking too much about himself and all his past accomplishments, but rather be listening to others, drawing out the things that made people feel free to express themselves, living in the moment, and always keeping his mind constantly in motion (undoubtedly, all qualities of a good creative music improvisor). When sometimes we had the chance to play music together, I don’t actually have a recollection of seeing him as a pianist for the longest time. He always played the guitar, he would say he loved the guitar and point out that he was a huge Jeff Beck fan, so in the beginning, I really thought he was a guitarist. I am not sure if this was a choice not to intimidate me so as I would play the piano while he’d play guitar.
We connected on so many things, though often it was brief if we met at concerts. Paul was a wealth of knowledge and he made me talk (I’m not usually a talker), Finnegan’s Wake which I’d just read, blues guitarists, music history, Zappa, the idea of music and sound having the potential to heal. At the time I could relate about how creative music really opened me up, that I believed it could help others who experienced trauma or the effects of intergenerational trauma. It’s talking to folks like Paul Plimley inspired me to continue to pursue these kinds of ideas with creative music. I didn’t know that Paul had cancer, but now I remember, he often had a small cough in between sentences. I’m deeply saddened to hear of his passing and the way it went down. This is one soul that found a way to transmit sound through the vastness of time and space with the love and kindness he shared with us all. That’s immortality.
I’m honoured to have known Paul Plimley, and It’s been a while since I’ve had a place to set up my piano, but more recently there’s a constantly recurring sudden urge play, though I don’t have the means, and at these moments, I can honestly say that I’ve been having this Paul Plimley voice saying “hey Janine! Janine! I remember when I saw you playing the piano that one time… well, I think you should play more piano!”
I know it may seem like I’m talking about myself, but it’s mainly because I want to illustrate what a huge impact that people can make when their heart and soul is invested in the music and they transmit it not only through the sound, but with their intention, love and kindness. With that, I’m humbled to have shared creative music with, and to have received friendship and encouragement from the likes of Paul Plimley. And I’m overjoyed that I have still much more to discover about this amazing guitarist 😉
