If Only You Knew

My first love wasn’t jazz. It wasn’t even music in the way people usually mean when they say that word. My first love was sound as an experience, a wave that could wrap around me, lift me, and pull me into a world bigger than my three-year-old self could understand.

I remember it clearly, though I was barely tall enough to peer over the furniture in my grandmother Ms. Pike’s house. My father was a musician, and that day he was rehearsing with his band. The room was alive. Guitars bent light into melody, singers painted the air with harmony, horns pushed sound into the corners, and then there were the drums. Thunder and heartbeat in one. I was transfixed.

Something happened in me in that moment, a feeling so pure and overwhelming it burned itself into memory. It was love, though I didn’t have that word yet. It felt like falling off a bike and being pulled into your mother’s arms. Comfort, safety, and a thrill you can’t shake. That feeling never left me. Even now, decades later, music still hugs me back when I need it most.

Music has been my most constant companion. It is the one thing in my life that doesn’t lie, doesn’t sugarcoat, doesn’t flatter. At its best, it whispers back, “I love you too.” At its worst, it reminds you how far you still have to go.

Because here’s the truth: music is merciless. It is beautiful, but it demands everything. It will make you sit alone in a room for hours, days, and years chasing sounds no one else can hear yet. You go into that cave by yourself, and if you believe in God, maybe with your Creator. But mostly it is just you, your instrument, and your honesty. You have to shed, not just practice, but shed. Shed your weaknesses. Shed your mediocrity. Shed the version of yourself that wants shortcuts.

Ellis Marsalis once told me, “You never can tell who will develop into a good player.” And he was right. Because when you start down this road, there are no guarantees. You can practice for ten thousand hours and still never be recognized. You can pour your life into it and never be celebrated. Most of the world will only ever see the polished product, the concert, the album, the solo. They don’t see the years of missed notes, broken sticks, failed attempts, or the aching silence of an empty practice room.

It is the same with sports. Nobody watched Kobe Bryant shoot a billion jumpers alone in a gym. Nobody counted Steph Curry’s missed threes before they became swishes. We celebrate the spectacle, not the sacrifice. And outside of sports and entrepreneurship, our culture rarely values the long-haul pursuit. The kind of thing you toil at for a decade before you even glimpse the results.

That is why I admire every musician I meet. Every artist, in fact. Because if they are still here, still creating, then I know they have walked that hard road. They have sat in that cave. They have learned what it means to love something enough to let it break you, shape you, and still call you back again and again.

Music is hard. It was hard when I first started, and somehow it is even harder as an adult. But it is also the most honest mirror I have ever had. It reflects who I am, where I have been, and how much farther I can still go. And for that, I will always be in love with it.

Later,

DD