In the groove

Listening to live recordings of jazz is pretty high on my list of enjoyable pastimes. You often hear great musicians floundering (just a little) as they search around for the groove. Once they find it, the entire group accommodates the riff until....inevitably....they track out of the groove and another musician takes over. Jazz is such a spontaneous endeavor to suss out new means of expression that it can sometimes be off-putting to those unfamiliar with the art form. And that shouldn't be surprising. Imagine listening to a carefully crafted classical piece where accuracy and faithfulness to the score are what's appreciated. Any deviation from the script destroys the magic. Jazz, and sometimes rock and blues, depend upon the new: the daring, the wrong turn down a path that doesn't always work, the skill of the musician to not only mid-sentence course correct, but find a new path that magically brings everyone together in that most welcome of musical paths, the groove. There are lots of ways outside of music to hit the groove: when you start clicking with a project, engage in a conversation where there's a 1:1 communication, or when everything's working perfectly in your HiFi system. The trick for me is to know when I'm in the groove so I can maximize every single second of that magical moment. What's your favorite groove?