The ingredients of jazz

What is Jazz, really? It’s a word used in a variety of contexts, claiming to be an apparition of some kind of life force. It’s what a child sees, hears and feels as each new experience imprints upon him or her. To children, life is a mixture of ingredients that stir the emotions and imagination, create fervor in their heart and soul and help curb the hunger of an increasingly inquisitive mind. These ingredients combine to create a melting pot of music, expressed by Carei Thomas with each composition he produces. Voted "Best Jazz Artist" in the 2003 annual "Best of" issue of City Pages, the Twin Cities news and arts weekly, Carei caresses the black and ivory "keys of life" like one who truly knows the "keys of life"—life as a melting pot of ingredients.

As the only child of a mother and father who divorced when he was 4 and remarried when he was 14, growing up in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, Carei lived in a melting pot—a mosaic of colors, tastes, sounds and purpose. A village of sorts, where families helped nurture each other's children and influence their perceptions of the music around them. Jews, West Indians, Italians, Greeks, Serbs, Czechs, Africans, Portuguese and whites filled the streets and mixed with one another in the outdoor markets.

It was a community of immigrants who came to America to work and make a better life for their families. Each ethnicity was represented, as vendors shouted out in their native tongue to passers-by, "Buy my fruits, vegetables, pastries, pastas, breads and wares." The horses and carts click-clack on the cobblestone streets, a mother scolds her child who is sneaking a mango from a vendor, neighbors stop to chat; "Get the latest news right here!" the man selling the paper hollers. Noise and commotion are jazz to Carei's ears.

Carei welcomes a bumblebee to land on him, and when it departs, follows it so that he may see where on earth it is going and what its purpose is. He follows it beyond the village to a path leading to a hill, where on the other side is another community, life condition, culture, mixture of ingredients. Across from his home in Pittsburgh is a hotel for the rich and famous, a few feet away is a bathhouse for prostitutes. He goes to church and the deacon preaches righteousness. Carei witnesses the same man enter the bathhouse. Carei's exposure to diversity, contradiction and chaos are the ingredients he uses to create eclectic and moving jazz. His mission and passion has always been to explore and understand the billions of artistic ingredients in nature and mix them up into a jazzy expose`.

Carei is exposed to businesses owned and operated by blacks and other ethnic groups. Everyone supports each other. He has no idea that "being black" or "not being white" isn't a good thing, until he moves to Chicago at age 16 where blacks and whites are polarized. Carei comments, "In Pittsburgh, blacks weren't isolated as a group of 'thems.'" He learns of blacks being tortured, lynched, murdered for no crime other than the color of their skin. Carei faces a new reality, a new mix of ingredients that further influence his music.

After high school, Carei goes on to junior college, and at age 23 he's drafted into the army—another diverse mixture of ingredients. He comes back to Chicago, works at the post office, and enrolls at Roosevelt University in Chicago where he gets his degree in liberal arts. He also earns a degree in music theory from The Chicago Musical College and a degree in Music Education and Music Therapy from The University of Minnesota.

In his early "Chicago" years, Carei hangs out at Bohemian joints where people share poetry, music, and philosophy. He studies philosophy, taking a special interest in Kierkegaard, reads the work of e.e. Cummings, and studies jazz and classical music. During this time, Carei smokes marijuana, does acid, mushrooms, barbiturates and other drugs. He dresses well, expensive suits and hats. He's popular with the ladies. Carei says, "Life was an experiment—art, drugs, women, I did them all."

Carei meets a Missionary woman from Minneapolis who is visiting Chicago to "help at a food shelf, and help black people," Carei said. He moves to Minneapolis with her, marries, and has three children— two boys and one girl. His drug addiction worsens, he has two extramarital affairs, and eventually he and his wife divorce. Carei enters drug treatment and then lives in a halfway house. Before Carei begins treatment, he works at schools teaching art therapy.

He becomes a counselor, and then the position, "Culture Director/Coordinator" is created for him. He meets his current wife Joyce, a second grade teacher at the time, while working in the schools. Carei and Joyce don't marry until years later when they run into each other at Cedarfest—an annual Minneapolis summer festival—two years in a row. Joyce says she pursued Carei. She says, "I liked how he interacted with the students and was able to help them express themselves."

She also says she was attracted to his intelligence and spirituality—he practices Nicherin Buddhism. Joyce adds, "He's a good cook and I'm not. He taught me how to cook. He makes the best crab cakes, knows how to mix spices, and makes his own barbecue sauce." Let's just say that Carei knows how to mix ingredients and make jazz out of anything. Carei and Joyce are a perfect match for each other. She helps him write grants for various arts and jazz projects, and Carei says, "Keeps his head on his body." "Artists aren't always in their bodies if you know what I mean," he adds.

I look through a few eloquently written resumes` Joyce has created for Carei. This is a man who has truly worked hard and put his "Buddha-natured" talents to good use. He is classically trained in piano. He claims, "I can perform as a concert pianist, and on electric keyboards or a banjo at a bowling alley. I have broad interests: I like spoken word, fine art, and good music in all genres. I seek to create situations for myself and others to develop their creativity."

Carei has produced over 300 compositions and received many grants and special recognitions. He's earned at least 27 awards and honors, 35 composition commissions, and participated in at least 33 interdisciplinary projects. Carei is a member of and affiliated with many arts organizations, and is on the Board of Directors for the West Bank School of Music and the High School for Recording Arts. He's performed at various jazz and arts venues such as The Dakota Bar and Grill Jazz Club, Southern Theatre, Weisman Art Museum, Ordway Theatre, Intermedia Arts, Landmark Center, Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

He's also performed and worked on various projects for schools such as The West Bank School of Music, Macalester College, Metropolitan State University and the University of Minnesota.

Carei's life has been a turbulent, jazzy ride. He's suffered from many health problems: hepatitis, Graves disease, and Guillain-Barre syndrome, which is similar to lupus in that the myelin sheath protecting the peripheral nervous system turns on and attacks the body. It came on without notice the day Carei was to be discharged from the hospital after getting a blood clot from tearing his quadriceps tendon. He was paralyzed and couldn't even close his eyes. Joyce helped nurse him back to life, but Carei also attributes what he says is 96 percent recovery to chanting and having faith in the devotional prayer of Nicherin Buddhism. He says chanting is what cured him of the other illnesses, and kept his jazz flowing.

The Southside’s Master Jazz Artist remarked, "What I like most about what I do is that I can reach and affect people of all different faiths, colors and backgrounds with my music. It's all about diversity." Music, especially jazz, is a melting pot of diverse ingredients specific to, but similar to all cultures—a universal language communicating the "keys of life." It is on the streets, in the wind, in our conversations and it gets you through each day. Carei will celebrate his 66th birthday in July, but the spirit of the child remains with him, following the bumblebee over the hill to find more ingredients to create more jazz.