I swear, this starts off horribly, but there’s a point here.

So, we’re at my father-in-law’s wake (told you this starts off horribly) and the funeral home people offer to have music playing. “Usually, it’s whatever the deceased would like, because people remember the deceased liking the music.” Fine. Thing is, my father in law, “from yard”, or, island-born Jamaican, loved reggae, and…well, maybe you don’t play reggae at a wake. Or maybe you do.

Anyway, my in-laws didn’t want to play reggae. Sensing that they had other things to think about, and every one of them was on the edge, awaiting an unknown number of people coming by and with the patriarch of the family laying in a box mere feet from them, I huddled the funeral home attendants.

“I’m thinking something light, not melancholy, good background music that doesn’t sound too chipper but is still good music. What you got?”

They told me that they had access to Spotify, and could hook that into the speakers in the room. I turned to my in-laws, all in states of distraction. “I got the music, y’all. No reggae, but nothing too loud, nothing distracting. I got it. Y’all do your thing.”

I turned back to the funeral home people. “Spotify? Okay, do the Bill Evans playlist. Put it on repeat, but I doubt it’ll run out. Piano-centered, good music, not too chipper but not sad either. Put it on random, and that will work.” They nodded at me, and seconds later the sounds of a piano solo were on, low and slow. My eldest sister-in-law, trying to be the one in charge, looked at me with amazement.

“What is this? What did you have them play?”

I told her, and she asked incredulously, “how did you know to put this on? How did you know this guy in particular?”

I told her I didn’t want to get into the specifics of my jazz listening history, just that I thought of some parameters and that he would fit them. She walked away to tell my wife “He just KNEW this guy’s music would work. How?” My wife shrugged; she had listened to me talk about jazz enough to know that I kinda knew my shit, but now was not the time to speak accolades. There were people to say hi to, to reminisce with, to try not to cry in front of.

I didn’t do much that day; I was around for my wife when she looked for me, I thanked people for coming, I talked to some people I knew and met a ton I didn’t. But I did a good thing that day, and it all came down to knowing my music.