Happy Heavenly Birthday Al Jarreau
Al Jarreau’s “We’re in this Love Together” played on my car radio, as I drove, wearing a white dress, to meet my Columbus School for Girls classmates for our 1981 high school graduation. I sang along, smiling and bubbling over with excitement, hearing his resonant, optimistic voice, and anticipating college and living on my own.
Jarreau’s raison d’être was to sing, and no obstacle could stop him from persevering. He performed for years in clubs in Milwaukee and Los Angeles before Warner Brothers Records signed him to record his first album—We Got By—in 1975. Breakin’ Away (1981) launched him to fame after it went platinum and earned him two Grammys. Over the next few decades, Al recorded dozens of albums, gained fame in Europe, and won five more Grammys in the jazz, pop, and R&B categories.
His songs pulse with enough optimism and zest for life to inspire anyone in a slump to pick themselves back up and try again. I’d listen to each new song repeatedly until I knew every word by heart. These songs, often accented with scat, syncopated rhythms, and even vocal sounds that mimic instruments, wove their way into my life experiences until I perceived this man with the most resonant and jubilant voice I’d ever heard as my friend “Al.” Decades later, I’d hear a certain song and an event from my past would flash cinematically in front of my eyes.
While in college at Clemson, I’d sing along to “After All” in my apartment, while fantasizing about meeting my soul mate,” “Mornin’” while my skin tingled with elation at the lyrics “I can, like any man, reach out my hand and touch the face of God.”
“I see every day as a song,” Jarreau, now deceased, said in a 1978 interview, which appeared in his biography, Never Givin’ Up. “Most of my songs have to do with living, with encouragements that I say to myself and want to say to others.”
Decade by decade, new Al Jarreau songs intertwined with my life’s experiences. While strolling along the moonlight-illuminated flanks of Tucson’s Santa Catalina mountains, I sang “Somehow Our Love Survives,” a song that Jarreau performed vocals for on Joe Sample’s 1990 Spellbound album. Al Jarreau sings clear and strong “After the hero stumbles, after the lady cries, after the fortress tumbles, somehow our love survives.” I’d been falling for the wrong men, but Al’s uplifting song offered hope that lasting love might still be on the horizon for me.
In 1994, I flew overseas for the first time, destined for Bangkok, Thailand. Scorching temperatures, lush tropical trees, gridlock traffic, high rise buildings, and Buddhist temples greeted me. The thrill of visiting an exotic land mingled with unease. My host asked about my musical tastes and had eagerly shared the Tenderness album after learning of our mutual love for Al Jarreau music. “We Got By” and “You Don’t See Me” boomed from my host’s speakers and reverberated through my being. Al’s voice grounded me in this place halfway around the world.
On a three-day Inca Trail hike to Peru’s Machu Picchu in 1996, I listened to “Heaven and Earth” through headphones. Strolling through Andean Mountain heaven while tendrils of low-lying clouds swirled around me, a surge of elation from the exertion and the resonance of Al’s voice moved me to gaze upward and thank God. I’d bathed under icy waterfalls, hiked from desert through jungle and into high mountain climes, watched alpacas graze in meadows of waving grass, bought candy from children in remote villages, and would soon descend into the sacred city of the Incas.
“I believe we are all rooted in that central core, that creative source of the universe—which…creates beautiful things. Like the lily, the mountain, and the tree, we are all part of it,” said Jarreau in a 1976 Downbeat interview that appeared most recently in Never Givin’ Up. Every step on the Inca Trail felt like a miracle and Al’s song inspired hope that my “heaven and earth” travels might lead me to a man I would love forever.
Two years later, I finally met the man I now call soul mate. Jarreau’s Tomorrow Today album was released in 2000, the year after I met Chris. In 2001, we married outdoors in northwest Tucson with a minister beside us and the Santa Catalina Mountains providing a stunning backdrop. Our DJ played requested Al Jarreau songs at the reception.
A meteor flashed across the sky that 2008 morning I drove toward the pool before dawn and heard Al sing “Alonzo declared that he must reach to heaven—for heaven. Don’t you know Alonzo lifted up his hands to pray?” Hearing his melodic voice temporarily released the heaviness in my heart over my father’s serious illness. I prayed that he would survive his cancer treatments and be back to skiing and sailing again soon. In the last few measures of the song, Al hits a stunningly high note, showing off his incredible voice range. Then his voice faded away, and I felt isolated and alone in my dark car, worried about my father’s future and my upcoming visit to see him.
Sadly, my father passed away later that year. My husband’s parents both left our earth around that time also, two more lights in our lives seemingly extinguished. During the darkest days in my life, I’ve sought comfort in swimming, in prayers to God, in listening to Jarreau’s voice.
At a concert at the Desert Diamond Casino outside Tucson, Al radiated charisma, joy, and enthusiasm that reverberated like electric energy in the air. He sang tracks from his 2005 Love Songs album, including “Secrets of Love” and “After All.” My skin tingled with elation as his songs and energy enveloped my being. The lyrics and melodies spoke to me, and at times, I felt this ethereal connection with Al, as if the song he was singing had been written just for me. As he performed beside his wife, Susan, I bounced in my seat, held my husband’s hand, and wished the night would never end.
Chris and I attended one final Al Jarreau concert in Scottsdale in 2017. I will never forget that night. Or the day I learned my beloved singer left this earth. I mourned his passing as if I’d lost a close friend. He was Al to me, not Mr. Jarreau. He sang to me while I drove, walked on trails, danced at my wedding, psyched myself up for Masters swim meets, traveled to distant countries. What would life be like without another album to anticipate that would mark my trip to the Greek isles, the birth of a grandchild, turning 60?
Jarreau himself answered my question. “In the grand scheme of it all, there is only life,” Jarreau said in a 1978 interview that’s also in Never Givin’ Up. He knew he would one day leave his body, but his foundation as a Christian had led him to believe that his spirit was immortal. I believe that, too, that Al’s spirit lives on, that the essence of every one of us is eternal. And even though I can’t anticipate a new album or another Al Jarreau concert for now, this amazing performer, whose songs marked many eras of my life, continues to mentor me, encouraging me to trust God, be optimistic, and live life in an authentic and loving way.