by David Kleinman

Ever since we moved to Chicago, my family has been going to concerts at Ravinia. My first (when I was 10) was Itzhak Perlman; I was bored. It was sort of cool, I thought at the time, that people could sit and have a picnic and listen to music, but I liked DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. Man, I tell you, I used to listen to that song, "Parents just Don't Understand," all the time. At that point in my life (like my ten-year-old nieces now with "Oops! I Did It Again") I could listen to a song ten times in a row and not get tired of it. I could not appreciate a violin maestro.

The second concert I went to at Ravinia was The Righteous Brothers. I complained the whole time about the "gay" music and eventually upset my mother. My parents had fell in love to this music, and here was their punk kid ripping it to shreds. Looking back, I think I actually liked the concert, but I was obsessed with what I called "being cool," and those old guys just weren't cool in my book.

Years passed, and I made the adult decision not to attend ravinia because I thought it was "totally gay." My parents went about ten times a year-Itzhak coming once a year.

In high school I got into Led Zeppelin and the Doors and Jimi Hendrix. At that point I was not even ready to crossover to Phish. In fact, I was known to shout "No Phish!" whenever someone put them on. By the time I got into college I was ready to traverse to the Grateful Dead, Phish and the like, and eventually jazz. And now, in graduate school, I try to listen across an entire array of music: from minimalist to blue grass to jam bands to techno to whatever comes my way that is made with heart and mind. The more streams the music crosses the better. The more music streams I cross the better.

At some point I made this transition: from liking only what was in the mainstream and mostly what was made just to make money to liking what I consider "good music." Now, I cannot and will not be the arbiter of what is good music, but I think I can makes some sort of decision on a music's eminence. It is hard not to hear Miles Davis's Miles Ahead as high-quality music when that album grows and grows in its scope and its affect every time I listen to it.

For my mother's (she is a music teacher) fiftieth birthday I took her to see Keith Jarrett at the Symphony Center on Michigan. The whole evening I kept smiling and wondering to myself why I had been so stupid when I was younger and how did I get to be so lucky? to see music in such a highly evolved form. The "Autumn Leaves" encore left me breathless. The Symphony Center does not let too many jazz musicians play there (though Medeski, Martin & Wood and Cassandra Wilson are due next year). Jarrett crosses between the jazz and classical and rock streams. (He got his start with one of Miles's seventies bands.) Sometimes Jarrett's music is so slow one can barely detect a tempo; at these times the music floats on a melody stripped down and whispering on the wind. Sometimes the amount of passionate notes is stifling. Sometimes he sticks to a country melody that just has to make you smile-its simplicity is so beautiful.

For my twenty-second birthday my mother took me to see the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) perform Stravinsky's Firebird. That night, in true literary fashion, we ate at Russian Tea Time, which, coincidentally, is right down the street from the Symphony Center. I got introduced to Stravinsky in college while I was studying Miles Davis; Davis has always said he stole all of his scales from Stravinsky and Khachaturian. Stravinsky's music let my brain fly to such places; such magical, conflagrated places. It all made so much sense that I was seeing a crossover composer with my mother after I had crossed over to art music.

That was in December. Ravinia, being an outdoor venue, has concerts in the summer. I decided that I would go with my family to as many as possible. After all, I could sit on the lawn, eat a fine meal, and drink some fine wine with everyone else now that my musical and intellectual tastes had evolved far past "Parents just Don't Understand."

This summer we saw the CSO perform a couple of times, and we went every night to the jazz portion of the summer line up. I thought the highlight was going to be Cassandra Wilson and Marcus Roberts with local avante garde style gurus DKV Trio performing a late night set. DKV's set set my brain afire again; it lasted an hour but seemed ten minutes. They were playing only what they felt at that moment; true improvisation, which yielded true music.

I thought this until the other night, when Bela Fleck and his Flecktones graced the stage with a slew of musicians. Accompanying Bela was Andy Narell (steel drums), Paul Hanson (jazz bassoon), Sandip Burman (tabla), Paul McCandless (reeds), and Howard Levy (back on harmonica "the tall, skinny Flecktone").

My experience with Bela beforehand had been listening to Live Art and Bela Fleck and the Felcktones. I liked the music, but to a certain degree I thought it was just busy fingers. Anyone can memorize the scales and patterns a thousand ways, but the passion that moves the soul seemed to be lacking.

This all ended when they began to play. They began in true, refined fashion with a horn rondo that turned into a ten-minute funk jam. I knew right then I would enjoy the show. The stream of music they played crossed so many genres: classical, jazz, rock, funk, eastern, Cajun, bluegrass. . .

What I found most interesting about the music was that its underlying rhythm was the hippie funk (or phunk) that almost all jam bands have, but the melodies and improvisations were truly drawn from the jazz and classical masters. One could dance to it as well as sit and listen. Very little music I hear can be grooved to as well as listened to. What I think jam music is really trying to get at is crossing these streams, listening music (art music), and dancing music.

While my mother likes a lot of music, jam bands are not her favorites. She likes classical; she likes jazz. She doesn't really understand music that is there to be danced to, not listened to. At the Flecktones show we were both blown away by the crossover playing of Paul Hanson on the bassoon. Both of us exclaiming, "I've never heard the bassoon played like that!" The bassoon is not an instrument that one gets funky on, and Mr. Hanson did just that-playing it like Maceo Parker on the alto saxophone.

This September my mother is going to her first Phish concert; perhaps she will cross streams as well. This will be the true test of the crossover; can someone from the classical world who has listened to classical her entire life hear that Phish is making art music? even though they rock. I think so.