A Few Minutes with Mingus

Tonight was quite a night, in many good ways. Julia and I went to the grocery store, where she carefully guided the kid-sized shopping cart up and down the aisles, and then to the town's gymnastics club, where we tried out their toddler class. Julia is usually pretty reluctant to participate in activities right away, but tonight, she almost literally jumped right in: running warm-ups with the other kids, letting me toss her into a pit full of foam cubes, hopping along a trampoline track, even swinging from the rings. She had a great time, and yet was a-okay with heading home early to have dinner.

As she was finishing her third apple of the meal, she heard me whistling a Charles Mingus tune and asked, "What Daddy singing?" I told her, "A jazz song. Do you want to hear it?" She bounced in her seat: "Yeah, Daddy!" I put on the CD and started my favorite Mingus song. "What dat song's name, Daddy?" she asked. "It's called 'Peggy's Blue Skylight,' honey." She looked over at me to see if I was joking. "Who Peggy?" I told her, "Peggy was just a woman in the song." I handed her the CD case so she could look at the picture of Mingus. "He played guitar!" I looked at the photo: "Actually, honey, that's a bass, but yeah, it looks like a big guitar." She studied the picture some more, holding the CD in one hand and a slice of apple in the other. "When do the words start, Daddy?" I chuckled. "This is a jazz song, honey, and lots of jazz songs don't have any words. You just listen to the song and the music helps you feel a certain way. How does this song make you feel?" She put the CD case down and looked at me, smiling: "Dis song makes me feel like concentrating on my apple!" I almost fell out of my chair laughing. Mingus could have used that as a song title.