I'm not a person who writes really abstract things with oblique

Host: The studio smelled of brass, dust, and memory. A faint light from a cracked window painted long streaks across the floor, illuminating a pile of sheet music scattered like fallen leaves.

Outside, the city hummed — a soft, blue note of traffic, rain, and distant jazz. Inside, the world held its breath.

Jack sat by the old record player, a muted trumpet resting in his lap, its surface dulled by time. Jeeny leaned against the piano, tracing her fingers along its chipped ivory keys, her reflection trembling faintly in the lacquer.

The sound of a record spinning — that soft hiss before the melody — filled the silence.

Jeeny: “Wynton Marsalis once said, ‘I’m not a person who writes really abstract things with oblique references. I look at abstraction like I look at condiments. Give me some Tabasco sauce, some ketchup, some mayonnaise. I love all of that. Put it on a trumpet. I’ve just got to have the ketchup and Tabasco sauce.’”

Jack: smirks faintly “That’s Marsalis for you. Turning philosophy into lunch.”

Jeeny: “It’s more than that, Jack. He’s talking about balance — flavor. The real art of blending what’s complex with what’s honest.”

Jack: “Or maybe he’s saying art shouldn’t be pretentious. You can play all the fancy notes you want, but if no one feels it, what’s the point?”

Host: The record began to hum with a soft, mournful trumpet — Louis Armstrong’s ‘What a Wonderful World’. The sound curled through the room like smoke, thick and tender, wrapping around their voices.

The rain outside grew heavier, each drop a percussive counterpoint to the horn’s melancholy.

Jeeny: “So you think simplicity is truth?”

Jack: “I think honesty is. Abstraction’s just camouflage — a way artists hide when they’ve got nothing real to say.”

Jeeny: “That’s unfair. Abstraction isn’t hiding — it’s searching. It’s the language of things we can’t name.”

Jack: “Then maybe we shouldn’t name them. Maybe the truest art is the one that speaks plain, the kind that hits you in the gut — like blues, or gospel, or a street trumpet at midnight. You don’t need a philosophy degree to feel that.”

Jeeny: smiling softly “No, but you need a heart. And not everyone listens with one anymore.”

Jack: “That’s because they’ve turned art into equations. They analyze it instead of tasting it.”

Jeeny: “And you’re any different? You analyze everything — even your own grief.”

Jack: pauses, looks away “That’s because it’s the only way to stop it from eating me alive.”

Host: The trumpet swelled — a high, aching note that seemed to split the room in two. Jack’s hands tightened around his instrument. Jeeny’s eyes softened with something between empathy and defiance.

Outside, a flash of lightning turned the window into a mirror, catching both their faces — hers alive with light, his carved in shadow.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s why Marsalis talks about ketchup and Tabasco. He knows music — like life — needs heat, needs imperfection. Otherwise, it’s just theory.”

Jack: “Or maybe he knows that art without seasoning is sterile. Like a sermon without sin.”

Jeeny: laughs quietly “That’s almost poetic, Jack. Are you saying sin gives art its flavor?”

Jack: grinning “Damn right. The blues wasn’t born in a cathedral.”

Jeeny: “No, but it found its redemption there.”

Jack: “You always bring it back to faith.”

Jeeny: “And you always bring it back to cynicism. Maybe we’re just different instruments in the same song.”

Jack: “Or maybe we’re playing in different keys.”

Host: The record crackled — that nostalgic hiss of something old refusing to die. The music slipped into silence, leaving only the rain, steady and deliberate.

A streetlight outside flickered, throwing fractured light across the trumpet in Jack’s hands. It gleamed faintly — a wounded star.

Jeeny: “You know, abstraction and emotion aren’t enemies. Think about Picasso. People called his art chaotic, but every distorted face was born of pain — the Spanish Civil War, human cruelty, his own heartbreak. Abstraction wasn’t confusion; it was truth seen from another angle.”

Jack: “Yeah, and yet most people walked right past his paintings without feeling a damn thing. Because art that hides too much stops speaking. You want to reach people? Give them ketchup. Give them something they can taste.”

Jeeny: “You think truth has to be digestible?”

Jack: “I think truth has to be real. Art should sting a little. Like Tabasco.”

Jeeny: softly, almost whispering “Then maybe abstraction is the burn after the bite — not the flavor, but the heat that lingers.”

Jack: pauses, looking at her “You’re saying the mystery is the aftertaste.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. And without it, all you’ve got is noise.”

Host: The rain slowed to a drizzle. The room filled with the faint sound of dripping from a cracked pipe, each drop in perfect tempo.

Jack raised the trumpet to his lips, as if to test her theory. A soft note escaped — imperfect, raw, alive. The kind of sound that carried both pain and promise.

Jeeny closed her eyes, listening — truly listening.

Jack: “You know, Marsalis was right about one thing — philosophy’s useless if it doesn’t swing.”

Jeeny: smiling through the sound “So play it. Stop talking and play it.”

Jack: breathes deep, then plays a low, trembling riff “There. That’s honesty.”

Jeeny: “No — that’s confession.”

Jack: “Same thing, in the right key.”

Host: The melody swelled again, fuller now, rising through the dust and into the ceiling beams. The air itself seemed to vibrate — not with perfection, but with presence.

When the last note faded, the silence that followed was holy.

Jeeny: “See? That’s what Marsalis meant. Art doesn’t have to be abstract to be deep. It just has to tell the truth — in sound, in rhythm, in breath.”

Jack: sets the trumpet down gently “Truth, not technique.”

Jeeny: “Feeling, not formulas.”

Jack: “Fire, not theory.”

Jeeny: nods, eyes glinting in the candlelight “Exactly.”

Jack: after a pause “And maybe a little ketchup.”

Jeeny: laughs, the sound soft but radiant “Always a little ketchup.”

Host: The record player spun to a stop, its needle resting in silence. The rain had ceased. The air hung heavy with the ghost of music, the aftertaste of truth.

Jack looked at Jeeny, a small, tired smile curving his lips. For the first time that night, the cynicism in his eyes softened into something warmer — not faith, but understanding.

Outside, the city pulsed again — cars, footsteps, horns — a thousand imperfect notes colliding into symphony.

And as the light flickered across the trumpet’s face, it gleamed — honest, unpolished, human.

Because music, like the soul,
isn’t meant to be pure.
It’s meant to be played —
with a little heat, a little spice, and just enough truth
to make the heart swing.