Kidd famously played along with squeaky doors at SUNO. I heard him play with the sound of the air conditioning at Columbus’s King Arts Center during a workshop for elementary school students. I listened and learned and thought I understood. I listened and played with the sounds around me. I wrote a poem about it and performed it with Kidd and Bluiett and others. Then one day a few years ago, I started hearing the music in the air conditioning and the door squeaks and the washing machine thumps. I wasn’t just hearing notes and rhythms. I was hearing full orchestrations. If I analyzed the music and tracked down one sound or another, they were always something real that combined with other real sounds to make music I could hear. I called Kidd and he nonchalantly affirmed this and I realized this was what he’d been telling us all along.
Here’s When You Listen To Kidd Jordan.
