Please, call Me Duke
Meena often played for Nav. She was grateful that he said music should be her main priority, and she liked showing him her progress. Sometimes she sat down at the piano and played the latest song she was studying, but Meena preferred to show him recordings of practice sessions. They'd dim the lights in the music room and replay the session. To Nav, it looked and sounded exactly as if a second Meena playing a second piano was in the room with them.
Tonight's performance was especially important for Meena. It featured the hardest song she'd attempted so far. And it wasn't just a solo piece. A key element of jazz was the way magicians improvised and collaborated with other musicians to make each performance a living, breathing creation that was never the same twice.
Meena hadn't been able to do this on the plantation. She had an excellent keyboard and a very good VR teacher, but no one to play with. Still, she'd been able to develop the technique of a top pianist, and she played classical pieces with the same kind of skill of Rubinstein, Gould, or Beethoven. Obviously, those men were born with genetics that allowed their genius to flourish. Meena's genetics were even better. The skills required to play with dexterity. To hear the music's soul. To pour one's heart into the performance. Those were all skills Meena possessed to a greater degree than all the generations of maestros who came before. Lots of people thought it was impossible to bioengineer brilliance. Lots of people were wrong about lots of things.
But Meena couldn't jam on the plantation. The girls regularly performed classical pieces together, and Meena enjoyed those sessions, but no one on the island knew anything about jazz. They had no understanding of the concept of swing, or improvisation. Playing with the other girls made Meena feel she was chained to a metronome.
Like so many things, Meena's studies changed after Nav built her home. The music room had every possible feature, plus space to add ones that were yet to be invented. The VR instructor could add virtual musicians perfectly capable of jamming with Meena. And wow, could they ever swing! For the first time in her life, Meena could play jazz the way the founding giants performed. She'd had extraordinary technical skills before Nav bought her. Now, she was acquiring the living soul of the music she loved.
Tonight she was going to play a song with a lot of very ambitious piano elements, and it required a large jazz orchestra. She felt ecstatic by the time she mastered the song. She made a good recording that she could play if she got nervous, but she wanted to perform this one live for her Master.
Her nerves made it hard to concentrate as she got ready. She wanted to look like a professional jazz artist, so she had Feva style her hair in an updo. She chose a long black dress with tasteful cleavage in front and none in back. You couldn't even see her nipples because she wore a bra. And not a sports bra like she normally wore. This was a real old-fashioned bra, made of lace, and elastic, and an underwire that was completely unnecessary. Bare arms and shoulders. Black heels that were neither too high nor too low. The gown clung to her curves nicely, but not in a way that diverted too much attention from her music.
Nav was waiting when she entered the music room and stood before him. "Master, I'd like to introduce you to some friends of mine," she said.
A drum set appeared on the display wall, and a grinning man sat down. "This is Gene Krupa. He used to play with Benny Goodman's orchestra." Krupa made a sharp salute toward Nav. "Hidee Ho, Daddyo," he said.
A big man walked up to a big bass violin. "This is Charlie Mingus," Meena said. "I particularly like his style."
"I particularly like playing with this young lady," said the Mingus avatar. "She makes me feel young again."
"I know just what you mean," Nav said.
A chubby man walked in with a saxophone. "This is Charlie Parker. Charlie might be the best instrumentalist in the history of music."
"Call me Bird. Everybody calls me Bird."
Two men with trumpets entered. "This is Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong. Mr. Davis is the most popular jazz musician of all time. Mr. Armstrong invented the style of jazz that became the most popular music in the world."
Davis just glowered, saying nothing. In a gravelly voice, Armstrong said, "There are two kinds of music. Good music and bad music. Your girl and I play the first kind." Armstrong had the warmest, kindest smile Nav had ever seen. There was a white handkerchief in the hand that held his horn.
There were others. Artie Shaw and Sidney Bechet had clarinets. Regina Carter and Hillary Hahn had violins. It went on, and on, and eventually the number of avatars in the room's virtual space was equal to five times as many actual people as the large, open space could hold. The last person to enter was a dignified man in a tuxedo, speaking with diction as clean and crisp as everything else about him. He held a baton.