Stop. Right here, Right now...
I want to take a moment, right in the thick of the deluge, of last minute links, and posts and promises to listen, and offers of consideration, to the F to the Y and the C
TO STOP.This will not be an offer of anything like that from me - if you haven’t heard my music by now, there are CERTAINLY some ways for that to happen.
That’s not what I want to share tonight. Here’s what I want to share...
I want to let you know how beautiful it is for me to see Lucy Kalantari’s son Darius dance to my music, and for her to take the time to post a film of that.
How I cried as my friend Shambhu Vineberg recorded his guitar on a song we’d written on Mother’s Day 2014, on a session that happened to be held the day after my mom’s funeral in September of that year.
How I’ve been able to be in the same room with, or collaborate around the planet with via the miracle of ProTools and Dropbox, to capture performances of - forever - MY MUSIC, by some of the greatest musicians on the planet.
How I feel when I am told by Star Burritt that my music makes an autistic boy happy, and quiet, and peaceful.
When I can have my sweet 13 year old daughter Sammy Rose Oster join me in dance, for the first time, captured by Craig Merrill on film, on a song I co-wrote and performed with, one of my musical idols for the past 40 years, my friend and producer Will Ackerman.
To sit for 100 hours at a mixing board with Tom Eaton, polishing performances into diamonds, pieces so brilliant that just yesterday we received a note from Bob Ludwig, one of the world’s greatest mastering engineers, telling us how “crazy awesome” great our NEXT record sounds, and that he hopes to work on the next “NEXT”.
I want to share how grateful I am to all of my G family, and their friends, who came out to my show last Thursday night at Fenix in San Rafael, and those that came to my show the week before at Lily Pad in Boston. It was magical, and I am grateful, to be told by some that those shows were perhaps some of the best shows they’d ever seen.
And how powerful it was to sit in Carnegie Hall, watching my friends Wouter Kellerman and Vincent Lyn, and Melissa Bailey and their bandmates, make such beautiful music in one of the greatest rooms on the planet.
How thankful I am for the patience and understanding and support of my love Janene Becker, who has witnessed the outpouring of time and effort and hope and sweat that has been these last few years.
I’m grateful for Grant Maloy Smith and Eileen Sherman, for their tireless efforts to create the Indie Collaborative, and for the event I attended in Los Angeles. To see SO MANY artists offer their talents, TO OTHER ARTISTS, to share their music, yes to gain visibility, but ALSO TO CREATE CONNECTION - REAL HUMAN AND ARTISTIC CONNECTION.I am CERTAIN that new music will come from these connections. I am positive that not only will support be gained for awards to be won, but MORE IMPORTANTLY, new music will be created and released into and add joy to a world that dearly needs it!
I am thankful for Kenya and Oscar Autie, for creating the G-Party group here on Facebook, and for Michael Lazarus for creating the FYC group. And there are others. And I thank them. To me, this is the best (and sometimes the worst) of social media in action.
I’m thankful for Al Walser and Linda Chorney, for Laura Sullivan and Eric Sullivan and Ricky Kej and Varsha Kej and Kerry Gogan and Wouter Kellerman and Tholsi Pillay, to Lucky Diaz and Alisha Gaddis, to Jennifer Gasoi and to all those INDIE ARTISTS I’m missing, for SHOWING US THAT IT IS POSSIBLE TO WIN!
Remember Roger Bannister? Some of you will, many of you won’t. He was the first man to break the 4-minute mile. NO ONE had EVER broken four minutes running a mile. EVER. And you know how long it took for the NEXT runner to break four minutes? SIX WEEKS! When they asked him how he did it, Bannister said he relentlessly visualized the achievement in order to create a sense of certainty in his mind and body.
All of the artists above, and the many others that support them through their hard work, have paved the way for the rest of us TO BELIEVE THAT IT IS POSSIBLE. TO BREAK THROUGH. TO WIN.THAT THIS IS NOT ONLY A GAME THAT CAN BE PLAYED AND WON BY BIG MACHINES AND CORPORATIONS, OF BIG DOLLARS AND MAJOR LABEL DEALS, that the Indie Artist can have a seat at the table too.
Can stand up at the podium, under the big lights in the big room, see their name up on that big screen, next to artists much more widely known then they, to hear their name called, to hear the orchestra play as they walk up those shiny stairs, to read the thank you’s on the piece of paper they had so hopefully prepared before they ever knew they’d win (I wrote my first one in 1982...think on THAT), to have a gold statue placed in his or her hands, as a symbol of not only excellence in music, but also hard work and perseverance.
Of the support of their peers, through tireless effort, hours on planes and at the computer and on the phone, of mailings and postcards, and yes, silk bags and little amulets and pretty ribbons, all neatly wrapping YEARS of hard work to create an album worthy of a vote, of a nomination, of a Grammy.Where else can an independent artist, who has sweated and bled both dollars and blood, share their art with the world, to connect with not only Grammy voters, but the world at large, and share their music.
To live out the heartbreak of category moves, of their projects being left off of the ballot (and witnessing the outpouring of support from the artists that they’d likely “compete” against)It is important, to me, to just stop in the middle of all of this, to think about, to feel, the truth of this.
I want to end with this question. WHY DO YOU WANT TO WIN A GRAMMY? I suspect that the answer would be very revealing indeed. Go ahead...ask yourself...WHY DO YOU WANT TO WIN A GRAMMY?
Here are a few of my answers, in no particular order:
To make my Mom and Dad proud (even though they’re both gone from the planet - my Mom left last year as I finished NEXT). It’s just TRUE. I’ll always want to make my parents proud.
To know that my FIFTY YEARS of trumpet playing has reached such a level of excellence, that MY FELLOW ARTISTS, so many beautiful and fine and accomplished artists, deemed it worthy enough to write the number next to my entry on their ballot, out of the hundreds of others they could have chosen.To prove, to MYSELF, that all of the years of practice, of shitty road food, of hiding vodka bottles in my horn case, mixing it with free cranberry juice behind the kick drum to save money, of hours in vans, of nights away from my loved ones, of missed notes and failed auditions, of new age derision from old age jazzers and young turks, of playing Proud Mary to the backs of 5 drunk people in the San Fernando Valley at 1:15pm on a Tuesday night, of dancing like a trained monkey to the whims of a club owner that doesn’t give a shit about me or my music, or anything else other than the dollars at the end of another shitty night, WILL HAVE BEEN WORTH IT.
There is something permanent about the words “Grammy nominated, or Grammy winning artist” that can NEVER BE TAKEN AWAY. That will be associated with an artist’s name forever. That might open a door that would have remained closed, that might get a phone call answered, a song heard, a bigger room booked, and perhaps, a bit more money in the bank.
But most of all, winning a Grammy, for me, means that what I believed as possible for myself, BECAME REAL. And all of it...ALL OF IT, starts and ends with THE MUSIC. I am PROUD to be an indie musician, PROUD of the music I have created, of the friends I’ve made and will meet throughout this amazing journey, and of the beauty I have added to the lives of countless people through my music - people I would have never met unless I had reached out and shared my songs for hours and hours and hours as I followed this BIG DREAM of mine, to follow the road as best as I could, to Grammy Gold.
It is WORTH IT. Every second of it. I have given it my ALL, and I can look in the mirror with pride, knowing that I have done my best. And make NO mistake - I can and do hear the words “and the Grammy goes to...JEFF OSTER, for NEXT”, I can SEE myself walking up those shiny stairs, I can FEEL the weight of that Grammy in my hand, and damn, it feels GOOD.
May it be so, for MANY OF US.
-Jeff Oster - Alameda, CA. 10/22/15
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