To Be a Kid

It rained tonight, but not before we got in our first set. By the time Chris and I set up at Moody Brews, the air had that thick, wet asphalt smell that only comes before a June rain in Arkansas. Heavy and humid, but still a good night for music. Trey was set up early and ready.

We played a tune I had never played before. It's called "To Be a Kid," and it's the second track on a suite Chris wrote with his wife, Kelley Hurt, a few years back. The No Tears Suite. They wrote it to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Little Rock Nine, nine Black high school students who bravely walked through the doors of Little Rock Central High School in the fall of 1957 while the entire world watched and the Arkansas National Guard tried to stop them. Chris said they just wanted to put the spotlight on those kids. That's all.

I was in the audience the night the suite premiered at the historic grounds of Central High School in Little Rock, and I remember how the music felt in that space, like it was waiting to be played there. Kelley's voice over Chris's piano. It made you understand why people make music at all. The sheer talent level on that stage. The ensemble included GRAMMY-winning drummer Brian Blade, Rufus Reid on bass, Bobby LaVell on tenor saxophone, Marc Franklin on trumpet, and Chad Fowler on baritone and alto saxophone.

I didn't know then that I would be playing it myself one day on a Friday night at a brewery a few miles away. I didn't know my son would be learning it too.

My grandmother, Mamie Ruth, was there in 1957 with my uncle Finley and aunt Ruth. Uncle Finley and Trey share a birthday. August 28th. He was born in 1952, and my son was born in 2011. That would have made my uncle five at the time, with my aunt not even being one yet, still in a stroller. My grandmother was deeply involved in the civil rights movement, and that morning, she was outside that building in support of those nine kids. She graduated from that school herself, back before it was called Central, when it was still called Little Rock High. Most of my aunts and uncles on both sides went there. It was just what you did in this family, in this city.

I was supposed to go there too, back in 1998. But Rex Perry recruited me to Parkview instead, and that detour changed everything about who I became as a musician. I remember touring Central during my 9th-grade year. My mom and I walked the halls. You could feel the history. I’d heard stories my whole life about it. It felt like destiny. But when we made it to the band room, something felt off. Music was the most important thing to me at that point in my life, and Parkview felt like home to me. I've thought about that fork in the road more times than I can count.

My son Trey starts at Central High this fall.

The man who taught me to play saxophone was named Bob Fletcher. He gave me private lessons, not in a band room full of students, just the two of us, one on one. He taught my mom and dad as their band director at Central High. And before any of that, he sat in the same band room at Little Rock High and played clarinet next to my grandfather, who played trumpet. The same grandfather I only know from a memory of a hospital bed. Bob Fletcher had such an impact on my family's musical journey. My first band experience was at a Central High football game. My parents took me so that I could meet Mr. Fletcher. He held me in his arms while he conducted. It wasn’t until I was in college that he ever even mentioned to me that he knew my grandfather.

My junior high band director was also named Mr. Fletcher. That's not a typo. Two different men. The second, Danny Fletcher, gave me my first professional gig, subbing for him with the Four Tops. Yeah, the actual Four Tops. Around the same age as Trey is right now.

Little Rock may be the capital city of Arkansas, but it still feels like a small town. You turn over a pebble and find your whole history underneath it. The same buildings keep appearing. The same names. The bloodlines running through the music program and the civil rights movement, and a Friday night set at a brewery where the air still smells like rain.

Tonight we played "To Be a Kid." Trey is learning it, and it’s not lost on me that this fall, he walks into Central High School. The same building my grandmother stood outside in 1957 in support of nine brave kids. The same school I was supposed to attend, but didn't. The music Chris wrote to honor those nine kids turns out to have my family running all the way through it, in ways none of us planned.

We ended up opening the bay doors and playing in the room where we hid our gear from the rain. The crowd that filled the courtyard huddled together under the shelter of the back patio of the brewery. The rain was just enough to knock the temperature down a little, and there was a nice breeze. That's the thing about living in a place like Little Rock long enough. The ordinary just keeps turning into something else. Even if it smells like wet asphalt.