It Takes All Kinds to Make a City, Part 2

My husband, a professional jazz musician of note here in Colorado, recently informed me about a local gentleman who calls himself The Jazz Whistler. Peter had the displeasure of witnessing this man's craft at a jam session a few weeks ago. The Jazz Whistler, a former employee of Hewlett Packard who quit his job to pursue his music career as presumably one of the world's foremost authorities of jazz whistling, maintains an email newsletter announcing his upcoming gigs so his fans will know where to find him. Somehow my husband ended up on this mailing list, and it is worth mentioning that the only event listed in the Jazz Whistler's newsletter was in fact the very informal community jam session which Peter decided to drop in on.

Mr. Whistler, as we'll affectionately call him, arrived on the scene a few hours early in order to painstakingly set up his elaborate amplification system. (Obviously, it's very difficult to project one's whistling over the piano, bass, and drums which comprise a standard rhythm section.) Once the evening officially began, he sat in on the first few tunes, warbling his way through "Autumn Leaves" and a few other standards, including "Round Midnight", in which his unaccompanied introduction proved to be in the wrong key entirely. The house band finally got him off the stage, and he didn't return until later in the evening, but only because the wife of one of the musicians showed up and couldn't believe there was such a thing as a jazz whistler, so they had him come up and play again just to prove it to her.

Now, clearly this man has a dream, and has thrown large sums of money at pursuing his dream. He has paid other musicians (real red-blooded, instrument-playing ones) handsomely to perform on his self-produced album. He has a mailing list, for crying out loud. However, the phrase "Don't quit your day job!" seems to be tailor-made for Mr. Whistler. On the one hand, I want to have respect for a dreamer who unhesitatingly follows his heart regardless of practicality. On the other hand, Peter's complimentary copy of Mr. Whistler's compact disc will remain shrink-wrapped in our basement where hopefully a cat will pee on it.