Reading glasses suck.

No, let me restate that: Reading glasses are a boon, but having to wear them sucks. And it particularly sucks, sucks to the fourth power, when one is trying to read big band charts on a bandstand.

Am I the only horn player who has this problem? I seriously doubt it.

I go through reading glasses like they’re M&Ms chocolate-covered peanuts. I buy them, lose them, buy them, lose them. So I get the cheapest ones I can find–I mean, reeeaally cheap, $1.99 glasses which I purchase at Ace Hardware in Hastings. They do the job just fine for most purposes, but playing in a big band is not “most purposes.” It’s a purpose set apart that poses some peculiar problems.

For one thing, those classy, low-slung bandstands which are so much a part of the big band tradition place the music a couple feet away and well below my natural line of vision. I compensate by scroonching forward and down in a manner that would inspire admiration in a circus contortionist.  This gets me closer to the music, allowing me to read it.

Most of it, that is. There comes a point, as I approach the bottom of a chart, where the music dips below the frame of my glasses, and I’m confronted with a decision whether to scroonch even farther–and believe me, four hours of scroonching in this manner does nothing to improve either my posture or my attitude–or else attempt to read the remainder of the page without the assistance of lenses.

Now, my vision isn’t so bad that option B isn’t feasible, at least in theory, but a funny–though not knee-slappingly so–thing happens when I attempt it: I lose my place in the music.

This leaves me frantically scrambling to find my place while the rest of the band chugs merrily onward. Eventually, Eric or Hugh or whoever is playing tenor next to me points to a spot on my chart, and I dive back in with varying levels of success, depending on my familiarity with the arrangement. It’s frustrating and embarrassing.

Life would be so much easier if I could trade the bandstand for a good, old-fashioned music stand which adjusts easily for height and distance. Get those charts right smack in front of my eyeballs, where I can read them without the aid of a telescope, and I’d be fine. But no, that’s not how it works, not with a big band, where low-rise bandstands are integrally woven into the mystique.

That, my friends, is why I emerge from big band gigs with the posture of a Cheeto. Reading-glasses-induced scroonching is doing me in.

I may be a well-maintained 53 years old, but I’m still 53. That’s not old enough yet to qualify as a curmudgeon, but there are times when I come pretty close, and an entire evening of imitating a hunchback is one of them.

So why do I continue to put up with the frustrations and, in all seriousness, the physical discomfort? Because I enjoy playing the music. I’m not primarily a big band musician; my natural habitat, where I really spread my wings and fly, is small combos. But I came up through big bands, and I’m glad for the opportunity to still play the great old arrangements from time to time. I mean, you can’t get a better jazz education than you’ll find in the music of Duke and Basie, you know? That’s why I continue to pay the cost of tuition.

There’s no problem with the library, none whatever. I just wish I could find some reading glasses that would enable me to read the books without a hitch from cover to cover.