Sitting in with Rusty McCarthy and Maya Bannerman at the Tranzac last night. It was very good. He sent me the songs in advance and I listened a couple times, I tried them one time but I didn’t really know them the way one knows something if played seventy times, nonetheless I showed up. When the second set started they invited me up. Soon as I sat at the piano, realized I didn’t remember any of it with certainty. The sensible thing was playing by ear which I can also do, it just means being more careful and only right hand oriented. That is what happened, all seemed well. In the email with the list of songs, Rusty also mentioned Mary Margaret O’Hara might sit in too but I did not see her there. We finished, I left the stage and then she was there. Sort of Mary Margaret’s style, appearing or disappearing using magic. He called her up, she didn’t want to…but was persuaded. Then he called me back too. She has sung on some of my records, always adding spells straight out of every Harry Potter novel. I love her, who doesn’t, but I never played on her songs. It was When You Know Why You’re Happy from Miss America. She and Rusty started to play and I wondered how to be present in the groove. My back was to them. I thought about the usual things one thinks about like aligning myself with the bass pattern or the rhythm or am I colouring too much, am I interfering with her vocal? Am I raising the harmonies or am I ruining them? Only near the end did I remember over these last fifteen years, I always hear Mary playing improvisational music with all sorts of whackos that also often are my whacko music friends too. I mean I recalled she is a fan of improvisational sounds and even in this form, which she did on David Sanborn’s Night Music years ago, I bet she won’t mind if I challenge the structure a little differently and so I started doing that too, carefully, adventurously. eventually into a safe harbour the ship docked. Something new for the CV next to having been head butted by Wesley Willis and kissed by Odetta, though I wish I could also have the Harry Potter power to sit outside myself and watch the whole thing. Hold on, maybe writing like this just did.