“We said no mussar tonight, right? So leave me alone!”

Before he could answer, someone got up to the microphone. She could hardly understand anything he was saying, although Duvie and everyone else seemed ecstatic, laughing and applauding. And then this person put down the microphone and sat down by the piano and began to play. As soon as he did, someone else began to play the drums, and someone else plucked on the long strings of the double bass.

It was a funny kind of music, she thought, without a real beginning, middle, or end. It just seemed to ramble on from place to place without giving you a clue what was coming next and why. It wasn’t that she didn’t like it, she just didn’t understand it, the way you understood wedding music that had a beat you could dance to and came with words everyone knew by heart. And even though the people around her were nodding and snapping their fingers, it didn’t seem to have any particular rhythm.

“Isn’t this fantastic?” Duvie said, his eyes shining.

“What kind of song is that? What are the words?” she asked him.

“It’s not … a song. It’s…” He stopped, exasperated. “They are just making it up as they go along. Somebody starts and the others kind of feel the vibe and pick it up and add their own. It’s like they’re each doing their own thing, but also making something together.”

She listened to him, surprised. It was probably the most intriguing and intelligent thing she’d ever heard him say. He wasn’t stupid, she acknowledged, sipping her drink, trying to hear what he heard. Then someone new came onstage and started blowing a kind of horn. A trumpet, like in the Bais Hamigdash?

A strange feeling came over her, spreading through her chest and stomach along with the alcohol in her drink. The notes were sad, but sexy, too, and a bit dark, she thought, suddenly understanding the lighting. If you could hear the color blue, it would sound like this. When they stopped playing for a moment and everyone hooted and applauded, she found herself clapping as well, genuinely looking forward to when they would begin again. The next set seemed happier, almost jolly, but equally unscripted and wandering. She wondered how the musicians knew how to do that—to put their feelings into the music—and if they all really felt the same way at the same time, or if they just adapted themselves to get along and support each other? She wondered if they took turns taking the lead, or if everything they did surprised each of them as well?