A Holy Moment in Hell

It was my Folsom Prison moment. I stood there on stage with my sax around my neck, stunned like a trapped animal while 200 prison inmates wearing light-blue prison scrubs came walking single-file past guards wielding shotguns into the meeting room. The inmates quietly took their seats and looked up at the four of us with silent anticipation. We stood on the stage and met their stares in a speechless tremble. This group consisted of: April, the 22-year-old bombshell singer whose physical form seemed to embody everything that her velvety, liquid voice promised; Anthony, (16) a wet-behind-the-ears but gifted student of our regular drummer who couldn’t break away from teaching drums to do a free gig at the maximum security Central Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison; Brig, (or Brother Brigham, as I like to call him) our nonchalant pianist whose full-time gig is tuning pianos for the Lord at various LDS meeting houses in Utah Valley as well as tuning pianos in the musical households of many Mormon abodes, but who, despite his name, can be downright irreverent on the keys; and there was me on tenor saxophone, the leader of this group, 25 years old at the time, and tired of playing garage bands so I’d recently decided to form a jazz group. We could not find a bass player to travel to Gunnison and back to play a free gig to prison inmates.

My sister-in-law had an uncle in the joint doing life without parole. Long since reformed, her uncle spent his time practicing with the prison choir and desperately longed for someone to come and tune their piano. My sister-in-law asked if I knew anyone who would be willing to tune the prison piano. Brig agreed and suggested we bring the band down for a concert. Brilliant! Now in addition to tuning the pianos for the Lord, Brigham was going to tune pianos for the incarcerated souls in the terrestrial cells of the damned.

We made the 2-hour trip to Gunnison, battling the summer heat in Brig’s SUV, equipment and musicians packed in like we were on tour. I guess in a way we were on tour but this tour had only one stop, and we weren’t getting paid, and there would be no drinking at this show, and the audience was all male. Oh, and the bouncers at this show all had shotguns. The plan was that we’d drop off Brig at the prison, he’d work his magic on the prison pianos, and then we’d show up later and play the concert for the inmates.

We dropped Brig off and sat in the car as we watched him walk with his suit-coat in one arm and shouldering his piano tuning tools with the other, laboriously making his way though the several menacing checkpoints leading to the prison entrance. Each sentry scrutinized Brig and fingered through his tools before opening the gate and allowing him to move past impossible layers of metal bars and razor-wire. We knew that in a few hours we’d be doing the same thing.

With a couple of hours to spare we went into downtown Gunnison and ate at a fast-food restaurant called the Naked Chicken. I thought about bringing Brig something but knew that the guards wouldn’t let us bring any food into the prison. We then located a park and desperately tried to find shade. Eventually, we drove back to the prison. Once we made it past no-mans-land and found ourselves inside, the guards checked every piece of our equipment against a list we’d been required to send them weeks earlier. They weren’t about to let us slip a file and garden shovel into one of the inmates. We’d also been subjected to a rigorous background check a month or more prior to coming.

We were ushered into a big meeting room where two guys wearing blue scrubs were very ably setting up a PA system. Who gets to be a roadie in the Big House? I thought that was the job you had right before you went to prison. I met up with Brig and asked if he’d been able to eat anything. He said they’d given him a meal from the cafeteria. Then it dawned on me: Brig was able to honestly say he’s experienced prison food without the commitment of anything more than an afternoon sentence. I seethed with jealousy; I’d have taken prison fries over the Naked Chicken any day.

Up to this point, the idea of playing in prison had seemed pretty nostalgic but I hadn’t realized how proximal I’d be to these guys. . . you know, the criminals. As we were setting up, I kept looking over my shoulder. I couldn’t help but be suspicious. I mean these guys were in here for doing really, really bad things, right? You don’t arrive at a maximum security penitentiary for shoplifting candy from convenience stores. I started to get nervous that something bad would happen--I don’t know, a shiv into the ribs, a prison brawl, or being senselessly brutalized. As the leader of this group, I also felt responsible for all the others, especially young Anthony and April. After all, April was probably the only woman they’d see in who knows how long who wasn’t either: 1) on the wrong side of a pane of glass or 2) wearing something other than Prison Warden Chic and packing heat.

Soon enough we were set up and ready to play. Our hosts opened the doors and all the inmates, the hardened criminals, those who’d done unspeakable things and were capable of doing unspeakable things to me, began to enter the room. I watched as they walked in neat lines and filled up each seat then sat looking straight ahead at us, at ME. Oh, shit.

Once everyone was seated, the crowd turned very quiet and all eyes bored strait into us. The lights dimmed except a spotlight that shone directly into our eyes. I turned and faced the band as much to escape the probing glares of the criminals as to begin the concert. “Alright, everyone,” I said to the band with counterfeit confidence, “Blue Skies,” and began to snap in time, counting off the first tune. I turned back to the audience. The first note out my saxophone sounded like Anthony’s puberty stricken voice, unsure and squawking. Together Brig, Anthony, and I played a chorus and then April came in with her smooth, rich voice: “Blue Skies, smiling at me, nothing but blue skies, do I see.” Her able voice sounded strong and almost gave me a glint of ease. As she was singing, I was punching notes in the background, listening to the words and thinking, “Oh no! The only thing blue in here is the standard issue prison scrubs. People are going to riot, I know it.” We cranked out a couple of choruses, a few solos, and finished the tune with my heart beating twice as fast as before. My mind was racing with: “I don’t know what kind of music these guys like. For all I know they hate this stuff. I’m getting a shiv in the ribs for sure.” After the tune, I expected silence, like the way they came in, and feared possibly worse, a snicker or a boo. And for a second or two there was nothing but silence. Then, almost like someone had cued them, suddenly the room erupted with applause and cheers. I grabbed the mic and acknowledged April, who blushed as she was met with more applause and whistles. Who could blame them?

With only slightly more confidence, we entered the next tune: It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got That Swing. We played the melody and then I nodded to Brig to take a solo. He bowed his head in an act that seemed like reverence to the piano and began to play--or maybe he, too, was praying. He got right to work and pounded out a great solo, his fingers rippling along the keyboard like a small blur of falling water. After a couple of choruses, he nodded to me.

My turn. I closed my eyes and put my horn in my mouth. Then something magical happened. The feeling in the room turned completely electric. Even with my eyes closed, I became vividly aware of this impossibly perfect moment. Every eye and ear was riveted on me. I held everyone’s complete and unflinching attention. We were their prison visitors who were bringing them Blue Skies and a chance to swing a little. Suddenly, I relaxed and my playing opened up. Something incredible was channeled inside me as I began to sing out the bell of my horn. Maybe I was channeling my great uncle Lester, who had given me his horns when he died, the horns I was playing on then and still play now, the horns that I believe still hold a portion of him.

I played. And I played, and I played, and I played and let whatever grace my soul held at that moment find some sultry voice out the end of my saxophone. A sound came out that I’d never heard before. Notes like I’d never imagined flew off my fingers and out my horn into the ears and minds and hearts of 200 expectant people. I was in conversation with something inside that I didn’t know, something that had never been tapped. And though I had never driven this thing before, whatever it was, I stomped the pedal to the floor. I’m convinced that I was not the only one that night to feel this pulse, this magic.

Eventually, I finished my solo, we played once more through the melody, and with April’s voice singing and all the other musicians in unison, we stopped together after riffing on “Do wa, do wa, do wa, do wa, do wa, do wa, do WA!” Then, without even a fraction of a pause, out burst deafening cheers and whistles, an applause twice as loud and long as the previous. I couldn’t control myself from laughing; it was a mixture of equal parts self-consciousness and pure amazement at what I’d found in my soul and had somehow translated through my saxophone. It was feeling the excitement and appreciation and somehow even the love of these people in the audience, these prisoners who for a moment were free. Brig leaned over and shouted above the applause, “Scottro! That was the best you have ever played!” It was the single most incredible musical experience I’ve had in my life. And I realized that for a moment we were all the same: we were all in prison and we were all free, groovin’ on jazz and feeling something together.

The band played several more tunes, played a few encores, and then the lights came on. With a rush, I looked happily into the crowd and I saw smiles and happy faces. I didn’t see criminals anymore. I saw people. They hadn’t changed, of course. I had. I saw past the prison ID sewn on the chest down to the heart of these people that held a fundamental identity of goodness. Unlike when they came in, everyone was talking and laughing and commenting. I put my horn down and stepped off the stage and walked into the crowd and was welcomed with handshakes, slaps on the back, and congratulations and thank you's from these new friends, many of whom had an impressive knowledge of jazz music. “Hey, I used to play the trumpet!” one guy said. “My son plays the saxophone,” another one interrupted. These were regular people.

I found my sister-in-law’s uncle, Paul. He gave me a big hug and thanked me for coming. He didn’t look like a killer. He looked like he should be doing somebody’s taxes and playing golf. His gentle manner and endless smile continued to shatter any prejudice I once held.

As we were driving home, completely elated, I realized that if given the chance, I was capable of accessing something beautiful and amazing and unknown inside me. And if that magical part somehow could be liberated and expressed in me, then such was true for each person, even those doing time in prison, despite whatever sour notes they may have played in the past.

This is the essence of yoga. This is oneness.

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