I went to dinner during a Christmas parade and heard a saxophonist I had never heard of. I didn't know that evening would eventually lead to a four-hour conversation, an unexpected friendship, and one of those glorious accidents that occasionally make life considerably richer.

I met Keith Oxman almost entirely by accident.

It was during the Christmas parade in downtown Denver in 2022. I was having dinner at a wonderful restaurant where a four-piece jazz group was performing.

I had never heard of the saxophonist.

But I knew immediately that he could play.

Really play.

There is a difference between someone who knows how to improvise over chord changes and someone who genuinely understands the language of jazz. Keith was unmistakably the latter. Bebop was in there, along with decades of other influences and experience.

What struck me almost as much as his playing, however, was his relationship with the other musicians.

He didn't seem particularly interested in dominating the bandstand. If anything, his relationship with his bandmates seemed more like that of a mentor than a featured soloist.

The band didn't seem to be connecting particularly well with the crowd that evening.

I remember thinking that a familiar standard—or, given the occasion, even a Christmas carol—might have pulled the room into the music.

But I kept listening to the saxophone.

After one of the sets, I approached Keith.

I asked him a couple of questions.

Within about five minutes, I learned that this unassuming saxophonist had played with Buddy Rich, had experienced some of the darker realities of the professional music world, had walked away from it for a period, studied accounting, discovered that he didn't particularly want to spend his life staring at numbers, and eventually became a jazz educator.

It was quite a five-minute conversation.

And it was my introduction to Keith Oxman.

A MUSICIAN WHO KNOWS THE LANGUAGE

Keith is a rare breed of saxophonist.

He genuinely knows how to play bebop.

That may sound like an odd distinction to someone who doesn't play jazz, but musicians will understand what I mean. Bebop isn't simply a matter of playing fast eighth notes over complicated chord changes. It is a musical language, with its own vocabulary, phrasing, rhythmic sensibility and history.

Keith speaks it.

And yet, if you compliment him, he's quite likely to tell you that he isn't that good.

I disagree.

Strongly.

Keith possesses something that interests me far more than virtuosity for its own sake: musical authority without the need to constantly demonstrate it.

He knows what he's doing.

He doesn't need everyone else in the room to know that he knows.

Perhaps that's one reason I hope someday to record a jazz-influenced R&B album with him. I'd want Keith there not simply because he can play a great saxophone solo, but because he understands what music needs—and, just as importantly, what it doesn't.

FOUR HOURS AT THE TATTERED COVER

Sometime after that first encounter, Keith and I arranged to meet at the Tattered Cover.

I expected a brief conversation.

We talked for more than four hours.

That's when I began to understand that the man sitting across from me had lived through a remarkable amount of jazz history.

Keith grew up in Colorado. His father was involved in the record-distribution business, so music was part of his world from an early age. Over the years Keith encountered and played with musicians whose names occupy an important place in jazz history.

One of the stories that stayed with me concerned Sonny Stitt.

Keith told me about meeting Stitt in the late 1970s. At some point, the legendary saxophonist took enough interest in this young Colorado musician to invite him to his hotel room and offer advice about his playing.

Think about that for a moment.

You're a young saxophonist trying to find your way, and Sonny Stitt says, essentially:

Come here. Let me show you something.

Keith also told me stories about his time around Buddy Rich and about musicians he had known throughout his career.

But somewhere during those four hours, something more important than jazz history happened.

I realized I liked this guy.

A lot.

He was inquisitive. Honest. Humble. Smart. Witty. Giving.

There was no pretense.

No need to remind me every few minutes whom he had played with.

No endless waxing poetic about the profundity of jazz or his place within it.

We just talked.

And talked.

And talked.

I walked away realizing that I had probably just made a friend — one it would take me about two years to work up enough nerve to actually text.

THE TEACHER

Today I have the privilege of seeing Keith most weeks through the Colorado Jazz Workshop, where he leads the group in which I perform.

This has allowed me to see another side of him.

Keith is an outstanding educator.

I don't use that description casually. Over a lifetime spent in universities, graduate programs, professional training and music instruction, I've encountered a lot of teachers.

I would easily place Keith among the five best educators I've ever known.

Part of what makes him so effective is what he doesn't do.

He doesn't humiliate people.

He doesn't sneer at a bad solo.

And believe me, not every solo lands.

We're adults learning and playing jazz at very different levels. Taking a solo in front of other musicians can make someone surprisingly vulnerable. You know when you've lost the changes. You know when that phrase didn't go where you wanted it to go. Usually everybody else knows too.

Keith knows.

But there is always another chorus.

Another suggestion.

Another joke.

Another opportunity to get it right.

And occasionally, somebody plays something genuinely good.

On a few occasions, Keith has actually applauded one of my solos.

This is tremendously important scientific evidence that I must have played exceptionally well.

At least that's how I choose to interpret it.

But I'm only half joking.

Praise means something when it comes from someone whose judgment you respect.

A nod from Keith matters.

A compliment matters.

A pat on the back matters.

He probably doesn't realize how much.

BUILDING A CULTURE OF JOY

There are musicians who build careers.

There are musicians who build reputations.

And then there are people who, often without announcing that they're doing it, build communities.

I think Keith Oxman is one of those people.

Jazz clearly means the world to him.

He could have followed an entirely different path. He tried accounting and discovered that whatever security or opportunity it might have offered wasn't enough to compensate for spending his days doing something that didn't feed him in the same way music did.

So he found his way back, spending much of his life surrounded by the thing he loved — playing, recording, teaching, listening, encouraging, passing along what other musicians had once passed along to him.

There is a wonderful symmetry in that.

Decades ago, Sonny Stitt took a young Keith Oxman seriously enough to spend some time talking to him about his playing.

Today, Keith does versions of the same thing constantly.

Most of us aren't going to become Sonny Stitt.

That's not the point.

Keith takes the person standing in front of him seriously.

And sometimes that's exactly what a developing musician needs.

DENVER JAZZ ROYALTY

I've heard Keith described in terms that amount to Denver jazz royalty.

Perhaps that's accurate.

He has certainly earned an extraordinary amount of respect within Colorado's jazz community. He has played with world-class musicians, recorded extensively, taught generations of students and spent decades contributing to jazz in this city.

But that's not really how I think about him.

At his core, I suspect Keith is still something very close to the young man who loves two things enormously:

Playing saxophone.

And playing chess.

He's appreciative of the people who make it possible for him to spend his life doing what he loves. He is curious about other people. He's funny. He listens. And for someone with so much musical experience, he seems remarkably uninterested in making himself the most important person in the room.

Perhaps that's why other people make him important.

ONE OF THOSE GLORIOUS ACCIDENTS

Sometimes I think about the improbability of friendship.

Had I chosen another restaurant that evening, I might never have met Keith.

Had I not been paying attention to the band, I might not have noticed the saxophonist.

Had I decided not to walk over after the set and ask a couple of questions, there would have been no five-minute conversation, no four hours at the Tattered Cover, no eventual text message, no Colorado Jazz Workshop — none of the jokes, the encouragement, or the occasional applause after one of my solos.

Life is filled with people we pass without ever knowing what might have happened had one of us simply said hello.

I'm very glad I said hello to Keith Oxman.

People contribute to a musical community in different ways. Some fill concert halls. Some make great records. Some teach generations of students. Some mentor younger musicians. Some encourage older musicians who are still trying to get better. Some preserve the traditions that were handed to them. Some make people laugh and remind everyone why we started playing music in the first place.

Keith has spent a lifetime doing all of those things.

He does something else, too.

He helps build a culture of joy.

A place where somebody can take a chance.

A place where a mediocre solo isn't a catastrophe.

A place where a good one gets noticed.

A place where people keep showing up because the music matters, but so do the people playing it.

I barely knew Keith when I realized I considered him a friend.

Now I get to see him almost every week.

That's one of those glorious accidents.

People sometimes call Keith Oxman Denver jazz royalty.

Perhaps he is.

But that's not how I think of him.

I think of Keith Oxman as a great friend to Colorado jazz.

And somehow, through the wonderful randomness of life, I get to call him my friend too.