The Decade - 2000 to 2009

[Jim Alfredson]

Last night I was reflecting on the last 10 years and how they've been, in almost every way, the best 10 years of my life and the most productive by far. Some seriously bad times but thankfully the bulk was dominated by amazingly good times. Just briefly:

2000 - In early 2000, my dad had a triple bypass. This was a good thing in that it made him realize he had a lot to live for and he started taking better care of himself. He had been seriously depressed since my mom's passing in 1997 and the heart surgery was a wake-up call of the highest magnitude. In many ways the next 8 years of his life were some of his best; he quit drinking, he quit smoking weed, he re-married, he saw the birth of his first grandchildren, and he was happier than he had been in years. It was a great transformation to witness. He and I also became much closer, if that was possible.

Also in late 2000 we formed organissimo! What can I say about that!? It's been a wonderful experience creating music with Joe and Randy. Can't wait to start writing again for the next studio disc!

2001 - I moved back to Lansing and met my soon-to-be wife at a wedding. She was a bridesmaid, I was playing in the band (Root Doctor). We moved in together six weeks later.

2002 - Married my wife a year to the day we met. To say it was life-changing is an understatement. I love her more every day.

2003 - Released the first organissimo record in March, which was a big step for us. Also started these forums about the same time! In August of 2003, we bought our home. organissimo also played its first big festival, the Clearwater Jazz Holiday in October.

2004 - Zora came into our lives! What an incredible experience. My children... words fail me. Having children changes you in such a profound way. Unfortunately this is also the year that Alison became sick with a still unexplained and unsolved neurological condition. Thankfully her neurologist has been able to mostly suppress it but we still have no answers as to what or why. My sister also had her first child, the second grandchild of the family.

2005 - organissimo released "This Is The Place" which helped put us on the map for sure. My dad re-married on Zora's first birthday. A lot of great gigs! Also met Greg Nagy who has become a dear friend, a valuable collaborator, and someone who pushes me. We all need someone like that in our lives.

2006 - Root Doctor released "Been A Long Time Coming". I'm proud of that record. Had a slew of wonderful gigs with both bands.

2007 - Thanks to Barack, we play the Tel Aviv Jazz Festival! High point of our gigging career! Thank you, Barack! Root Doctor released "Change Our Ways", our best recording imo and it gets nominated for a BMA. I'm extremely proud of that record, my arrangements, my writing, and my playing. My younger sister has her first child, the third grandbaby. Unfortunately Alison's grandfather passes late in the year. My dad begins teaching me the piano business during the summer and I really enjoy our time together. I play a really cool gig with drummer Danny Gottlieb and guitarist Corey Christiansen in Park City, Utah.

2008 - Stella arrives! She is something else. What an amazing child. I love her dearly. I can't wait to see where she goes. Alison's grandmother dies early in the year. My father dies in May having only seen Stella once. organissimo releases Groovadelphia, our best record yet (imo). Root Doctor releases Live At The Cadillac Club. Lot of really fun gigs this year, too. I nervously take over my dad's piano business.

2009 - The year starts slow but I engineer Greg's solo disc, released in May, which is currently nominated for a BMA. We finally get the grant money for restoration of our house. Scarlett shows up in October (sweetie petey!) I released my solo disc as a tribute to my father, In Memorandom. I also bow out of Root Doctor after 10 years to focus solely on organissimo. Good things are afoot. I'm finally feeling comfortable tuning pianos and work is steady.

So, the decade in brief. Pretty amazing.

I firmly believe 2010 is going to be the best year yet. Bring it on! Life is good!

Hope everyone else is excited for the future!

[porcy62]

Thanks for sharing, Jim.

Actually after reading the title's thread I had in mind some caustic and pessimistic joke about my decade, but after your post... well, all my best to you and to your many "bands".

[AllenLowe]

you should add - health insurance plan passed by Congress (almost) - it will be a few years until it kicks in, but this will basically insure, as you reach old age like me, that you will NOT be bankrupted by a catastrophic illness (among other benefits).

[ejp626]

A mixed bag as in most things. I moved to New York in 2000 and had the best job of my life, bar none. Unfortunately, my wife disliked living in New York and we moved back to Chicago (then to the UK, then back to Chicago) and my work career has been trending downhill since then.

On the personal side, I had two beautiful children and they are finally starting to be somewhat independent (one is in kindergarten, the other starting preschool). I wrote a play and am more creative than I have been for a long time. I'm on the board of a small theatre company.

But still some major pieces need to get put back together again, particularly on the work front. I think 2010 will be pretty much more of the same, but have some hope for 2011.

[jazzbo]

The beginning was pretty stressful, with a constant battle to stay with the agency I spent more than 24 years with by the end of my state career. It had gone south fast and was in its peak of crappiness by 2002. I made a severe job change to stay employed and was unhappier by the day. Faced with her own challenges working at the University, my wife was frazzled but a great haven for me. When I finally got a bit of a chance to relax into my job, my wife was diagnosed with lymphoma and we spent two years battling the disease, ultimately unsuccessfully. I had to fight to remain employed all over again, and also to have every bit of time I needed to be a support for her throughout her treatment. I just managed to do that up to her death and literally while I was at her deathbed my job was changed radically again and for the worse, and I lasted it out bravely another seven months and was able to retire myself out of it.

I got through my grief, I gained some financial independence, and I gained a new love in my life all in 2008. 2009 has been a year of comfort and ease in many ways. Additionally, I've been able to help a few friends and that is a good thing. I consider the decade closing off well for me, and I'm beginning to think of employment. Still no clue what to seek, but it will come to me soon. It will be good to get back in the stream of things, a different stream I hope.

Edited December 27, 2009 by jazzbo

[papsrus]

Got married (No. 2) in 2000; rediscovered music after ignoring it for far too long; got on an airplane for the first time in about 25 years in November of 2001 and flew to New York City just to show that if fear was their goal, the bastards would not prevail; made gobs of money in the stock market; lost gobs of money in the stock market; got divorced (No. 2); came clean after almost 20 years with my true solemate, who is with me now; began rescuing, fostering and adopting dogs (and a cat -- Peanut); managed to hold on to my phony-baloney job while everyone around me seemed to be losing theirs; began volunteering for the first time in my life; discovered organissimo; quit smoking; started playing (loosely speaking) the alto; became pals with my dad again (why do we sometimes waste the prime years of our lives ignoring the important things?); and am looking forward to surviving, thriving and growing as much in the coming decade as I hope have in the past one.

Best wishes to all of you for a happy and prosperous next decade!

[AllenLowe]

interesting to think about, because 14 years in Maine has been a strange and unpredictable experience - near complete personal and musical isolation, only one or two friends to speak of, maybe 5 gigs and a complete reversal of professional fortune (as a musican I have gone, as I like to say and to paraphrase Groucho Marx, from obscurity to a complete non-entity). Maine is cold, hostile, shallow and afraid of anything that is slightly different; almost anti-semitic, in a genteel (gentile?) way, viewing the odd Jew or two who makes any attempt at achieving a public persona into more of a curiousity that belongs behind some kind of bars.

and yet, the kids love it here, and my son , who has Aspergers and who would likely have not survived true city life, graduated high school and is working. So, with nothing else to do I've written 3 books, done two major historical reissue projects, and taught myself guitar (also started composing again, but that represented a block that took over 10 years to break). And I will add that I found this place, which is the one element that has kept me from complete withdrawal. Also, finally found a band, though, of course, finding a place for that band to work is another story. And yet I've retained a sense of assurance of my own abilities, enforced by nothing in Maine but my few contacts with the jazz work of NYC (as in Rudd, Shipp, Sandke, Ribot, et al).

now I have to figure a way to get the hell out of here.

Edited December 28, 2009 by AllenLowe

[BillF]

As I was born a few weeks before the beginning of 1940 (i.e. when boogie woogie was in the ascendant and Muggsy Spanier's Ragtime Band and Goodman and Charlie Christian were recording), the decades and I have run in parallel, so that the noughties has been the decade of my 60s. As I finished work on my 60th birthday, it's also been a decade of retirement. I was a higher education lecturer, which is not supposed to be a bad job, but am I pleased to be no longer working! It's not that I disliked the students or the academic work - they were fine - it's just that in the nineties "management structures" were put in place, which meant that I was told how to do my job by people who'd never heard of Clifford Brown! So I'm pleased now to be at home where I can devote my time to Clifford and the others and to sharing that experience via the internet with people who've actually heard of Clifford!

Edited December 28, 2009 by BillF

[rdavenport]

Got the sack for the first time in my adult life, got married, had 2 children. Went grey and developed a careworn appearance, hit 40, discovered gardening and post-1964 jazz.

Edited December 28, 2009 by rdavenport