If you know me well, you know I’m a huge Manhattan Transfer fan. Huge. Since I was twelve. I stopped officially counting how many concerts I’ve been to after 50, and that was years ago. As a twelve year old, I guess you could say the four members of this group were, to me, like the Beatles. I had every album, knew every word to every song, had pictures up in my room, etc. I loved every member of the group, and of course looked up to them.
Now that I’m 47, not much has changed, except for maybe not knowing EVERY word… I’ve matured, they’ve matured, and although still together they’ve each branched out to do solo albums and assorted collaborations….
Well, Janis Siegel is branching out yet again with a new collaboration: The Requinte Trio.
The Requinte Trio is Janis Siegel, world-renowned Brazilian multi-instrumentalist Nanny Assis, and multi-Grammy nominated pianist and composer, John Di Martino. They have created a fan-funded project on ArtistShare.com called “The Requinte Trio Project”, which allows you many ways to participate, and in turn, the rewards are AWESOME. And I should know, I am a Gold Participant. Why am I telling you about it? Because I’m all about the Human Experience…
I grew up hearing “you can’t do that”… “just live with it”… “that’s dumb”… I never heard “hey, you can be whatever you want to be!” or “Go for your dreams!” or “You can do it!” or “Go for the gold!” or “Grab the brass ring!” Nope. I don’t know why. Maybe my Mom didn’t hear it from her parents…
My Mom never liked going to the doctor. She had a horrible cough. For years. “Go to the doctor!” I’d scream. “Yeah, yeah” was her response. At age 73 she was still working full time… One morning in May of 2012, she said to me “I think I need to go to the ER”… Um, what? Okay…. Stage Four Ovarian cancer. Ten days later, May 16th, two days after Mothers Day, she was gone.
Yep. The Human Experience. It’s been said we are not human beings having spiritual experiences; rather we are are spiritual beings having a “human experience” on earth. I believe that. And I also feel that I hadn’t been living my Human Experience to the fullest before my Mom died. Actually, I realized at age 40 that those little sayings, the “just live with it”, etc, were ingrained in my head so well that I carried them into adulthood. Well, fuck that. I realized I had the brains (and the balls) to start my own company, Tag UR It!, in the middle of a recession and have it be a success. I’m living my Human Experience to the fullest now, because you never know what tomorrow will bring, or if you even have a tomorrow…
Another reminder of living life like there’s no tomorrow is the passing of another important person in my life: Tim Hauser, the founder of my beloved group, The Manhattan Transfer. He passed away last October, the 16th, three days before I was to have lunch with him in his home…
So back to the Human Experience, the Brass Ring, the Gold, or in my case, the Gold Participant. I treated myself to a trip to NYC for my 40th birthday a few years ago, and fell in LOVE with the Big Apple!!! I’m a perfectionist and very anal, so naturally I studied the map of Manhattan for two months prior and developed a color-coded itinerary for every hour that I was to be in the city. First stop was Birdland, naturally…
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