Basement Jazz Diplomacy: Learning to Lead by Listening
The argument started on bar sixteen. Ethan’s guitar amp was set to “prove a point,” and Maya’s tenor sax cut through it like a siren. I tapped the ride cymbal, pretending my swing pattern could glue us together while the laundry machine behind my kit added an impatient off-beat. The cement walls of my parents’ basement bounced every mistake back at us. We were four teenagers, two chart copies of Blue Bossa, and one unspoken belief: whoever played loudest was right. The dispute was over ownership—Maya wanted a second chorus for her solo; Ethan insisted the chart dragged and needed a reharm of the A section. Our bassist, Lina, stared at her strings as if the answers were between E and A. When our upstairs neighbor thumped the ceiling with…
