Poem: "Become Music Again"
This poem is spillover from the December 6, 2016 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from siliconshaman and this image. It also fills the "thrift shop" square in my 12-1-16 card for the iPod Shuffle Music Fest.
This microfunded poem is being posted one verse at a time, as donations come in to cover them. The rate is $.50/line, so $5 will reveal 10 new lines, and so forth. There is a permanent donation button on my profile page, or you can contact me for other arrangements. You can also ask me about the number of lines per verse, if you want to fund a certain number of verses.
So far sponsors include: technoshaman
FULLY FUNDED
280 lines, Buy It Now = $140
Amount donated = $57
Verses posted = 23 of 85
Amount remaining to fund fully = $83
Amount needed to fund next verse = $3
Amount needed to fund the verse after that = $.50
Warning: This poem is about as fluffy as Shiv ever gets. His head is still a mess, but good things are happening to him. Boss White helps a lot, but Shiv doesn't always know what to make of that. Hanky warning, especially for musicians.
Become Music Again
After Shiv got out of prison,
Boss White made sure that he
didn't have too many chances
to get into more trouble.
Inside of a week, it drove him nuts.
He wasn't a secretary, dammit,
he was muscle. He was meant
to scare people and get into fights,
not push papers around a desk.
So when Boss White sent for him,
Shiv slunk into his office already
slouched in anticipation of getting
even more office work to do.
"Buck up, boy, I got something here
that I think you'll like," the boss said,
taking out a heavy black case. He
popped the latches with a clack.
Shiv leaned forward to see ...
bits of dim silvery metal.
It took a moment for him
to recognize the pieces of
a saxophone, its silver finish
dull with tarnish but the pearl
still bright on its buttons.
"I, uh, can't play that," he said.
"Can't rightly teach you how to play
without a horn, can I?" said Boss White.
"I suck at school," Shiv said, hunching
even further into himself like a turtle
trying to hide inside of its shell.
"Do I look like any teacher you
ever had?" his boss drawled.
Shiv looked at the tough old gangster
and admitted, "No, I guess not."
His fingers itched to touch the horn,
so he stuffed his hands into his pockets
to keep them out of mischief.
"Go on and touch it, boy,
it's yours," Boss White invited.
Tentatively Shiv reached out
and trailed his fingertips over
the smooth metal. It wasn't
sharp, but it was crisp and
bright inside his mind.
"It's pretty," he said.
"I don't deserve it, though."
"Did I ask you if you did?"
Boss White said. "Now, if you
really ain't interested, just say so
and I'll pass 'er along to someone else --"
Shiv's hands clutched reflexively at the case.
"That's what I thought," Boss White said
with a warm chuckle. "Just watch
while I put the pieces together."
His big brown hands cradled
the parts of the saxophone as he
slotted each one into the next.
"Now what?" Shiv said.
"Now I take it apart, so you can
put it back together," Boss White said,
suiting his actions to his words.
He talked Shiv through the assembly,
one piece at a time, until the horn
lay whole and heavy in his hands.
The metal was gray in most places,
almost black in others, shiny silver
where fingers had rubbed it often.
A few scratches and tiny dimples
marred the finish in some spots, but
Shiv didn't think they'd hurt the tone.
"Is it supposed to look like this?" he said.
"It needs a little lovin' care," Boss White said
as he brought out a cleaning kit plus cloths
and bottles of polish. "Take it apart, just like
I done before, so we can clean it up."
He showed Shiv how to dab paste on
the worst of the tarnish and buff it off,
while the lighter areas cleaned up
just from rubbing with a cloth.
The true color of silver emerged
under their efforts, like the moon
sliding out from behind a cloud.
Shiv grinned. "It's working!"
"Sure is," Boss White said.
"Give it one more go-over with
the buffing cloth, then assemble it,
all by yourself this time."
Shiv struggled to obey.
He was good with his hands
and he could learn from watching
a decent demonstration, but this
was still new and unfamiliar.
"Is this right?" he said anxiously,
running his fingers over the finish.
"Let's find out," Boss White said.
He pulled out his own saxophone.
"I started on an alto, like yours there,
and switched to tenor later. Alto is
easier to learn on, but small as you are,
you might try soprano later. Start like this."
He blew softly into his horn, which
made a low sweet note that raised
goosebumps up and down Shiv's arms.
Shiv tried to copy everything that
Boss White was doing, but the alto
honked and squeaked in his grasp.
"I stink at this," he said, slumping.
"Everybody does when they start,"
said Boss White. "When I was first
learnin' how to play, I stunk so bad
it drove my momma out to the park.
She wouldn't let me quit, though,
and I ain't lettin' you quit either."
"But I'm no good," Shiv said.
He wished he could do better,
but it was just hopeless.
"You'll get better as you practice,"
Boss White said. "You're so tense
most of the time, that ain't helpin'
you blow the right notes. Relax
your face more, and try again."
Shiv tried, mouthing around
the funny taste and sharp edge
of the reed, feeling with his lips
for a better grip on the mouthpiece.
When he blew, the horn farted
and stuttered, then for a moment
it made a piercingly sweet tone.
"Holy shit," he said. "I did it!"
"You sure did," Boss White said.
"I knew that you had it in you, yes I did.
As much as you've come through, Shiv,
you're a natural for playin' the blues,
and I know you like jazz too."
"Why would you go to the trouble,
just for me?" Shiv said softly.
"I saw that horn sittin' in a thrift store,
lonely as could be, and I thought of you,"
Boss White said. "I knew you'd need
somethin' to hold onto once you got out."
"People say I'm noisy enough
as it is, though," Shiv said. He'd
gotten smacked for it plenty of times.
"People are stupid," Boss White said
with a rude snort. Then he looked at
Shiv with a challenging glint in his eye.
"May all that has been reduced to noise
in you, become music again."
The words shivered through him,
making Shiv vibrate in his chair.
"I don't know where to start," he admitted.
"Start at the beginnin' and go on from there,"
Boss White said. "Learn to play one note at
a time, then run some scales." He showed
Shiv how to do it on the tenor sax.
This close to the music, the sound
of it rippled all along Shiv's skin,
penetrating and vivid.
He tried to follow along, but
it was difficult to hit even one note,
let alone string them in a scale.
It was also boring.
"I know that look," his boss said.
"You can be a lazy little cuss, so
how 'bout I give you a goal
worth workin' toward."
He played a song then, singing
between the riffs, about someone
called Mack the Knife, its lyrics
all bright steel and deadly edges.
Shiv leaned so far forward that he
almost fell off the front of his chair.
"I love it," he said. "I can't
play that, but I love it."
"Course you can't play it yet, you're
just startin' up," said Boss White.
"It's a good song for beginners,
though, so after you practice for
a while, then you can learn it."
"Play it again?" Shiv whispered.
Boss White played it again, and
it was like their lives spun out in song,
the violence and the beauty together,
just knowing that you could take something
awful and turn it into such amazing music.
That was enough to motivate Shiv
into squawking his way through the notes
until he managed to string them together
into a ragged, pathetic scale.
"Well done," Boss White said, and
the praise made Shiv feel warm inside
even if he didn't trust it since he'd
obviously done a rotten job.
"Uh huh," he said.
"You can practice in the board room,
any time there's not a meetin' there,"
said Boss White. "Aim for half an hour,
but if you can't make it that long at first,
don't beat yourself up about it."
Shiv took out his datebook
to pencil in some practice times,
but Boss White snapped his fingers
for it, and Shiv handed it over.
The boss jotted down music lessons
as well as practice times, then
passed it back to Shiv.
It felt strange and new inside
his head, almost stretchy, and
he wasn't sure what to do with it.
"Time to wrap up," said Boss White.
He showed Shiv how to clean the horn,
explaining each step in order as he
demonstrated on his tenor saxophone,
which was basically the same as
Shiv's alto, only a bit bigger.
Listening to the instructions, Shiv
followed along. He was getting
more familiar with the instrument.
"Did you ... do this on purpose?"
he wondered, smoothing his hands
over the pebbled black leather
of the saxophone case.
"Well, yes and no," Boss White said
as he got up and shooed Shiv to the door.
"I didn't go shoppin' around music stores
lookin' to buy you a sax. I did spend
a couple weeks thinkin' on how
to keep you out of trouble."
"Don't mean to make extra work
for you, boss," Shiv said, scuffing
his feet against the floor.
Boss White clucked his tongue.
"What do you think boss work is,
but puttin' trouble where it's wanted
instead of where it's not?" he said.
"Could've been anything caught my eye,
just happened to be that horn in a thrift store.
Pretty little thing, even a bit beat up like
it was, and it reminded me of you."
Shiv thought about the slim, beautiful shape
of the saxophone and how the tarnish had
come all off to show the shine underneath.
It reminded him of how Boss White had
treated him when Shiv first showed up
in Omaha, his body still so battered from
Boss Batir's sendoff that he could hardly move.
Lieutenant Brown had found Shiv and
brought him to see the boss, who had
taken one look at his mind and body
and sent for the gang's patcher.
Shiv hadn't liked that one bit, but
he had enjoyed the velvet touch of
Boss White's mind against his own,
the gentlest thing he'd ever felt, and
by the time he woke up in the flop room
at least he could move again.
It was Boss White who had taught him
how the wildness of his life could be
contained or freed at will, just like
closing and opening a knife.
All that, and now this; it sent
his thoughts tumbling around
in his head like clothes in a dryer.
Shiv didn't know what to say
about all that except, "Thank you,"
so he said that and brushed against
his boss on the way out the door.
He wasn't a hugger, but he knew
that contact boosted telepathy, and he
really wanted this to get through.
Boss White rubbed his big warm hand
up and down Shiv's back, just the once,
and ruffled the floppy mess of his hair.
The velvet caress of his mind nearly made
Shiv's knees buckle, but the boss caught him
and got him back on his own two feet.
"You're welcome," Boss White said.
As Shiv headed up to his room,
he thought that maybe learning
a few manners was worth it after all.
* * *
Notes:
Blues Moon has an office floor under the jazz club. The basement contains the working part of the lair. The largest office below the lunch room belongs to Boss White. The one across from it is the guest room. The big corner office in the upper right is the patch room. They actually don't have an exercise room in their own lair; instead they have a group membership at a nearby gym.
Boss White has a big ebony executive desk and library bookcase, again reinforced with ballistic panels, alongside a small sitting area with black leather chairs and an ebony coffee table. What looks like a corner window is actually a bank of sixteen viewscreens, often tuned to display a city view.
In the board room, the table is gizmotronic, with viewscreens in front of every seat, and connections to the control screens at head and foot plus the big display screen at the end of the room. The walls are decorated with photographs of famous musicians. The room has sound-absorbing panels, both for privacy and so it can be used for musical practice when meetings are not in session. Such panels come in tan but also many other colors.
The saxophone spans a family of instruments, generally classed as woodwind despite the brass body. Most people learn on the alto, from which they may later switch to a higher soprano or lower tenor. Read the steps or watch a video on saxophone maintenance, and start exploring how to play an alto saxophone. A basic cleaning kit will take care of most instruments, but when it's been allowed to get this grungy, you are going to need more serious metal polish to clean it up. When learning to play sax, it helps to watch video lessons. Pick out some free sheet music here.
Shiv plays a Weltklang Alto Saxophone in shiny silver with pearl buttons.
Ideally, children and adults put a lot of thought into choosing which instrument they want to learn. In practice, the choice is often made for them by parents or a music teacher. With luck, those people use a test or careful observation to make a good guess which instrument will work well. It doesn't always pan out. Boss White has used observation, taking into consideration Shiv's size, his musical tastes, which instruments he pays the most attention to, what will best give voice to the music inside him, and the telepathic impressions. So for instance, Shiv is small and needs a modest-sized instrument; he loves jazz and blues, particularly the brass and woodwinds. Sax is actually a hybrid: a brass body, but the reed mouthpiece of a woodwind. But it's really the issue of voice that settles it: Shiv's whole life sounds like a saxophone wailing on a street corner. In the rain.
Some people can have skin orgasms from music. This page describes more of the effect and includes videos of several songs known for inducing skin orgasms. The really interesting thing? When I decided to try it -- because I do get pleasurable shivers from music -- I could feel the shift as my skin listened for the music, and then responded when it turned on. Apparently the shift is perceptible, at least to me, when my brain cross-connects different areas that usually don't work together.
"Mack the Knife" (aka "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer") by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht is a jazz standard. See a video of the sheet music. Boss White's performance resembles this one by Louis Armstrong.
Practice is essential to build and develop any skill. In order for this to work, you need to practice the right way: mindfully. (An exception is skills you want to be automatic, like thinking in another language. That takes subconscious practice, which is different.) In practicing saxophone, it helps to establish a routine. Follow the steps. Shiv is lucky to have a teacher who knows him well enough to set up a decent plan for him to follow -- and who is dominant enough to make him stick with it long enough to realize that he has real potential here.
This microfunded poem is being posted one verse at a time, as donations come in to cover them. The rate is $.50/line, so $5 will reveal 10 new lines, and so forth. There is a permanent donation button on my profile page, or you can contact me for other arrangements. You can also ask me about the number of lines per verse, if you want to fund a certain number of verses.
So far sponsors include: technoshaman
FULLY FUNDED
280 lines, Buy It Now = $140
Amount donated = $57
Verses posted = 23 of 85
Amount remaining to fund fully = $83
Amount needed to fund next verse = $3
Amount needed to fund the verse after that = $.50
Warning: This poem is about as fluffy as Shiv ever gets. His head is still a mess, but good things are happening to him. Boss White helps a lot, but Shiv doesn't always know what to make of that. Hanky warning, especially for musicians.
Become Music Again
After Shiv got out of prison,
Boss White made sure that he
didn't have too many chances
to get into more trouble.
Inside of a week, it drove him nuts.
He wasn't a secretary, dammit,
he was muscle. He was meant
to scare people and get into fights,
not push papers around a desk.
So when Boss White sent for him,
Shiv slunk into his office already
slouched in anticipation of getting
even more office work to do.
"Buck up, boy, I got something here
that I think you'll like," the boss said,
taking out a heavy black case. He
popped the latches with a clack.
Shiv leaned forward to see ...
bits of dim silvery metal.
It took a moment for him
to recognize the pieces of
a saxophone, its silver finish
dull with tarnish but the pearl
still bright on its buttons.
"I, uh, can't play that," he said.
"Can't rightly teach you how to play
without a horn, can I?" said Boss White.
"I suck at school," Shiv said, hunching
even further into himself like a turtle
trying to hide inside of its shell.
"Do I look like any teacher you
ever had?" his boss drawled.
Shiv looked at the tough old gangster
and admitted, "No, I guess not."
His fingers itched to touch the horn,
so he stuffed his hands into his pockets
to keep them out of mischief.
"Go on and touch it, boy,
it's yours," Boss White invited.
Tentatively Shiv reached out
and trailed his fingertips over
the smooth metal. It wasn't
sharp, but it was crisp and
bright inside his mind.
"It's pretty," he said.
"I don't deserve it, though."
"Did I ask you if you did?"
Boss White said. "Now, if you
really ain't interested, just say so
and I'll pass 'er along to someone else --"
Shiv's hands clutched reflexively at the case.
"That's what I thought," Boss White said
with a warm chuckle. "Just watch
while I put the pieces together."
His big brown hands cradled
the parts of the saxophone as he
slotted each one into the next.
"Now what?" Shiv said.
"Now I take it apart, so you can
put it back together," Boss White said,
suiting his actions to his words.
He talked Shiv through the assembly,
one piece at a time, until the horn
lay whole and heavy in his hands.
The metal was gray in most places,
almost black in others, shiny silver
where fingers had rubbed it often.
A few scratches and tiny dimples
marred the finish in some spots, but
Shiv didn't think they'd hurt the tone.
"Is it supposed to look like this?" he said.
"It needs a little lovin' care," Boss White said
as he brought out a cleaning kit plus cloths
and bottles of polish. "Take it apart, just like
I done before, so we can clean it up."
He showed Shiv how to dab paste on
the worst of the tarnish and buff it off,
while the lighter areas cleaned up
just from rubbing with a cloth.
The true color of silver emerged
under their efforts, like the moon
sliding out from behind a cloud.
Shiv grinned. "It's working!"
"Sure is," Boss White said.
"Give it one more go-over with
the buffing cloth, then assemble it,
all by yourself this time."
Shiv struggled to obey.
He was good with his hands
and he could learn from watching
a decent demonstration, but this
was still new and unfamiliar.
"Is this right?" he said anxiously,
running his fingers over the finish.
"Let's find out," Boss White said.
He pulled out his own saxophone.
"I started on an alto, like yours there,
and switched to tenor later. Alto is
easier to learn on, but small as you are,
you might try soprano later. Start like this."
He blew softly into his horn, which
made a low sweet note that raised
goosebumps up and down Shiv's arms.
Shiv tried to copy everything that
Boss White was doing, but the alto
honked and squeaked in his grasp.
"I stink at this," he said, slumping.
"Everybody does when they start,"
said Boss White. "When I was first
learnin' how to play, I stunk so bad
it drove my momma out to the park.
She wouldn't let me quit, though,
and I ain't lettin' you quit either."
"But I'm no good," Shiv said.
He wished he could do better,
but it was just hopeless.
"You'll get better as you practice,"
Boss White said. "You're so tense
most of the time, that ain't helpin'
you blow the right notes. Relax
your face more, and try again."
Shiv tried, mouthing around
the funny taste and sharp edge
of the reed, feeling with his lips
for a better grip on the mouthpiece.
When he blew, the horn farted
and stuttered, then for a moment
it made a piercingly sweet tone.
"Holy shit," he said. "I did it!"
"You sure did," Boss White said.
"I knew that you had it in you, yes I did.
As much as you've come through, Shiv,
you're a natural for playin' the blues,
and I know you like jazz too."
"Why would you go to the trouble,
just for me?" Shiv said softly.
"I saw that horn sittin' in a thrift store,
lonely as could be, and I thought of you,"
Boss White said. "I knew you'd need
somethin' to hold onto once you got out."
"People say I'm noisy enough
as it is, though," Shiv said. He'd
gotten smacked for it plenty of times.
"People are stupid," Boss White said
with a rude snort. Then he looked at
Shiv with a challenging glint in his eye.
"May all that has been reduced to noise
in you, become music again."
The words shivered through him,
making Shiv vibrate in his chair.
"I don't know where to start," he admitted.
"Start at the beginnin' and go on from there,"
Boss White said. "Learn to play one note at
a time, then run some scales." He showed
Shiv how to do it on the tenor sax.
This close to the music, the sound
of it rippled all along Shiv's skin,
penetrating and vivid.
He tried to follow along, but
it was difficult to hit even one note,
let alone string them in a scale.
It was also boring.
"I know that look," his boss said.
"You can be a lazy little cuss, so
how 'bout I give you a goal
worth workin' toward."
He played a song then, singing
between the riffs, about someone
called Mack the Knife, its lyrics
all bright steel and deadly edges.
Shiv leaned so far forward that he
almost fell off the front of his chair.
"I love it," he said. "I can't
play that, but I love it."
"Course you can't play it yet, you're
just startin' up," said Boss White.
"It's a good song for beginners,
though, so after you practice for
a while, then you can learn it."
"Play it again?" Shiv whispered.
Boss White played it again, and
it was like their lives spun out in song,
the violence and the beauty together,
just knowing that you could take something
awful and turn it into such amazing music.
That was enough to motivate Shiv
into squawking his way through the notes
until he managed to string them together
into a ragged, pathetic scale.
"Well done," Boss White said, and
the praise made Shiv feel warm inside
even if he didn't trust it since he'd
obviously done a rotten job.
"Uh huh," he said.
"You can practice in the board room,
any time there's not a meetin' there,"
said Boss White. "Aim for half an hour,
but if you can't make it that long at first,
don't beat yourself up about it."
Shiv took out his datebook
to pencil in some practice times,
but Boss White snapped his fingers
for it, and Shiv handed it over.
The boss jotted down music lessons
as well as practice times, then
passed it back to Shiv.
It felt strange and new inside
his head, almost stretchy, and
he wasn't sure what to do with it.
"Time to wrap up," said Boss White.
He showed Shiv how to clean the horn,
explaining each step in order as he
demonstrated on his tenor saxophone,
which was basically the same as
Shiv's alto, only a bit bigger.
Listening to the instructions, Shiv
followed along. He was getting
more familiar with the instrument.
"Did you ... do this on purpose?"
he wondered, smoothing his hands
over the pebbled black leather
of the saxophone case.
"Well, yes and no," Boss White said
as he got up and shooed Shiv to the door.
"I didn't go shoppin' around music stores
lookin' to buy you a sax. I did spend
a couple weeks thinkin' on how
to keep you out of trouble."
"Don't mean to make extra work
for you, boss," Shiv said, scuffing
his feet against the floor.
Boss White clucked his tongue.
"What do you think boss work is,
but puttin' trouble where it's wanted
instead of where it's not?" he said.
"Could've been anything caught my eye,
just happened to be that horn in a thrift store.
Pretty little thing, even a bit beat up like
it was, and it reminded me of you."
Shiv thought about the slim, beautiful shape
of the saxophone and how the tarnish had
come all off to show the shine underneath.
It reminded him of how Boss White had
treated him when Shiv first showed up
in Omaha, his body still so battered from
Boss Batir's sendoff that he could hardly move.
Lieutenant Brown had found Shiv and
brought him to see the boss, who had
taken one look at his mind and body
and sent for the gang's patcher.
Shiv hadn't liked that one bit, but
he had enjoyed the velvet touch of
Boss White's mind against his own,
the gentlest thing he'd ever felt, and
by the time he woke up in the flop room
at least he could move again.
It was Boss White who had taught him
how the wildness of his life could be
contained or freed at will, just like
closing and opening a knife.
All that, and now this; it sent
his thoughts tumbling around
in his head like clothes in a dryer.
Shiv didn't know what to say
about all that except, "Thank you,"
so he said that and brushed against
his boss on the way out the door.
He wasn't a hugger, but he knew
that contact boosted telepathy, and he
really wanted this to get through.
Boss White rubbed his big warm hand
up and down Shiv's back, just the once,
and ruffled the floppy mess of his hair.
The velvet caress of his mind nearly made
Shiv's knees buckle, but the boss caught him
and got him back on his own two feet.
"You're welcome," Boss White said.
As Shiv headed up to his room,
he thought that maybe learning
a few manners was worth it after all.
* * *
Notes:
Blues Moon has an office floor under the jazz club. The basement contains the working part of the lair. The largest office below the lunch room belongs to Boss White. The one across from it is the guest room. The big corner office in the upper right is the patch room. They actually don't have an exercise room in their own lair; instead they have a group membership at a nearby gym.
Boss White has a big ebony executive desk and library bookcase, again reinforced with ballistic panels, alongside a small sitting area with black leather chairs and an ebony coffee table. What looks like a corner window is actually a bank of sixteen viewscreens, often tuned to display a city view.
In the board room, the table is gizmotronic, with viewscreens in front of every seat, and connections to the control screens at head and foot plus the big display screen at the end of the room. The walls are decorated with photographs of famous musicians. The room has sound-absorbing panels, both for privacy and so it can be used for musical practice when meetings are not in session. Such panels come in tan but also many other colors.
The saxophone spans a family of instruments, generally classed as woodwind despite the brass body. Most people learn on the alto, from which they may later switch to a higher soprano or lower tenor. Read the steps or watch a video on saxophone maintenance, and start exploring how to play an alto saxophone. A basic cleaning kit will take care of most instruments, but when it's been allowed to get this grungy, you are going to need more serious metal polish to clean it up. When learning to play sax, it helps to watch video lessons. Pick out some free sheet music here.
Shiv plays a Weltklang Alto Saxophone in shiny silver with pearl buttons.
Ideally, children and adults put a lot of thought into choosing which instrument they want to learn. In practice, the choice is often made for them by parents or a music teacher. With luck, those people use a test or careful observation to make a good guess which instrument will work well. It doesn't always pan out. Boss White has used observation, taking into consideration Shiv's size, his musical tastes, which instruments he pays the most attention to, what will best give voice to the music inside him, and the telepathic impressions. So for instance, Shiv is small and needs a modest-sized instrument; he loves jazz and blues, particularly the brass and woodwinds. Sax is actually a hybrid: a brass body, but the reed mouthpiece of a woodwind. But it's really the issue of voice that settles it: Shiv's whole life sounds like a saxophone wailing on a street corner. In the rain.
Some people can have skin orgasms from music. This page describes more of the effect and includes videos of several songs known for inducing skin orgasms. The really interesting thing? When I decided to try it -- because I do get pleasurable shivers from music -- I could feel the shift as my skin listened for the music, and then responded when it turned on. Apparently the shift is perceptible, at least to me, when my brain cross-connects different areas that usually don't work together.
"Mack the Knife" (aka "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer") by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht is a jazz standard. See a video of the sheet music. Boss White's performance resembles this one by Louis Armstrong.
Practice is essential to build and develop any skill. In order for this to work, you need to practice the right way: mindfully. (An exception is skills you want to be automatic, like thinking in another language. That takes subconscious practice, which is different.) In practicing saxophone, it helps to establish a routine. Follow the steps. Shiv is lucky to have a teacher who knows him well enough to set up a decent plan for him to follow -- and who is dominant enough to make him stick with it long enough to realize that he has real potential here.