The Spaces Between: Music's Shift from Solitude to Communion

Tucked away on the third floor of Knight Library, the Douglass Room whirrs with quiet magic. Over 22,000 vinyl records line the walls—silent, waiting, heavy with sound. Light filters in like dust through old film, casting soft glows over forgotten jazz sleeves and scuffed turntable covers. It feels like stepping into a memory someone else left behind.

Drawn in by curiosity more than direction, I found myself on the floor, fingers tracing the spines of aged records, hopelessly scanning for any sign of John Coltrane or Duke Ellington. Knees pressed to the carpet, the world outside faded. Every shelf promised a portal, every faded label a secret.

I picked a record without thinking, guided more by feeling than intention, and set the needle down gently. A low crackle surfaced, like the record was stretching wide awake after years of silence. Then bells, xylophones, and light drumming. The room slowly bloomed with sound, alive and loud with color. The music moved through the room like the instruments were right there with me, each one close enough to touch.

Each silence between songs felt like a breath, a pause to absorb where I had just been before, being swept somewhere new. The music guided me through time—slow, deliberate rhythms pulling me in close, quick bursts jolting me back to attentiveness. At that moment, I wasn’t just listening to the music, I was inside it.

I could feel every tone, every beat as it was struck. The silence between songs crackled like kindling, a moment to catch your breath before being swept into another dimension. Each track had its own personality, its own little world. The slower melodies led me gently; the faster ones pushed me forward. It all felt alive.

What makes listening to vinyl feel so different is how tangible it becomes. The record spins and I stay grounded, attached to the moment. I can hear the music traveling, like it’s being brought back to life just for me. A live quartet playing another show—right here, in this room. And I hold the power: to change the tempo, the volume, reverse, skip, stop, or flip the record entirely. There’s comfort in the control.

Flipping to the B-side feels soothing. The two personalities of a record gently blend into each other, one rhythm picking up where the last left off. The instruments speak to one another, and I get to be at the table, listening. The piano commands, the drums follow; the bass accentuates, the horns comment. There’s structure in the chaos.

Some records were scratched or worn. They muffled or chopped the sound, turning the music into something eerie and ghostly. Like someone was remixing it from another realm. Sarah Vaughan’s voice floated through one of these records, “How Long Has This Been Going On?”, warm, powerful, with goosebumps racing down my arms. The vinyl crackled as the sun set, and it felt like she was right there with me in the room.

The library was overwhelming in the best way. Thousands of records stacked like secrets waiting to be heard. Stan Getz speaks to the soul. His saxophone, his soft drums, his gentle guitars—all of it like a bossa nova lullaby. On vinyl, I can hear every breath before a note, the instruments placed across each ear like layers: cello and drums on the left, guitar and piano on the right, saxophone cutting down the middle. It’s like a marinade of sound.

Listening to Duke Ellington’s Eastbourne Performance was like attending a concert as a ghost. I could hear the audience shift, cough, clap. I heard the grandness of the space, the banter, the echo of jokes. It made me feel present, like I was really there—blindfolded, with only my ears to guide me.

Sometimes, a song would end and fade into silence, then be swallowed by applause as the next began. If I closed my eyes, I could feel the space, imagine the stage, believe I was in it. It felt like time travel.

I kept thinking: how can all these discs stay silent in one room? I felt bad for the ones that hadn’t been played in years. Like they were just waiting, aching, to replay the song they’ve held onto for so long.

When I finally put the records back, I felt a little sad. Wondering who would hear them next—and when?

After hours spent alone with the records, just me the turntable, and the ghosts of old performances, I found myself craving something different. Vinyl is intimate, solitary. It's a kind of listening that draws you inward, invites you to fade into sound without interruption. But music doesn't always belong to the silence. Sometimes, it needs to be shared. 

I wanted to hear music breathe in real time, in a room full of people where every cough, clap, and collective inhale became part of the performance. I wanted to feel it live, not just as sound, but as energy moving through a crowd. That’s what led me to The Jazz Station. I didn’t need control this time. I needed communion.

Walking into The Jazz Station to see The Steve Owen Quartet ft. Paul Krueger, the energy was somber, but not in a sad way. There was a stillness, a kind of quiet reverence that hung in the air. People greeted each other gently, soft music lulled the room, and it felt like we were all part of something shared and sacred. The environment was carefree, almost suspended in time. Cohesive chatter floated through the space, easing the anticipation of what was to come.

The beginning of the performance felt like a painting. Every instrument projected life, color, mood, each one speaking its own language. This wasn’t a space presented to you; you became part of the space. Immersed.

Each solo in the opening was a different kind of attention. Not showy, but intentional. Present. Live music is so visceral. So lively. So everything. It’s unpredictable and time-sensitive—fleeting in the best way. No two performances are ever the same, and you can feel the musicians constantly evolving the music as they play. It’s evanescent and expanding at the same time. Fragile and ephemeral.

At one point, we played Two Truths and a Lie.

(Yes, mid-show. Yes, it worked.)

Steve Owen mentioned that he doesn’t like announcing the names of songs. He believes we should feel what they mean instead. And honestly, I understood that. Each piece bled into the next—booming, fast, then suddenly tender and soft.

The relationship between the piano and drums stood out to me especially. The piano and drums felt like a divorced couple, familiar with each other’s rhythms, but always on edge. Sometimes they cooperated, other times they clashed–screaming at one another. It was push and pull, they collided, they chased, they fell back in line. It felt raw and instinctive.

The Steve Owen Quartet with Paul Krueger, didn’t just perform at The Jazz Station, but built a world and let me and the audience live in it for a little while. 

What struck me most, moving between the quiet corners of the Douglass Room and the shared luminosity of The Jazz Station, was how profoundly space reshapes the way music is felt. One setting is solitary, internal, built for introspection. The other is communal, full of exchange and energy. But both are immersive. Both hold the power to make music feel like it’s happening just for you.

In the Douglass Room, I was the sole witness. The crackle of vinyl, the soft whir of a spinning record, the breath heard between each note—everything felt close, personal, intimate. The room became a time capsule. Music wasn’t just playing to me but was unfolding around me. There, I was the audience, the curator, the conductor. I held the needle, and I chose the journey. It was quiet magic, me and the music, with nothing between us.

At The Jazz Station, the experience shifted. I was one of many, a piece of the crowd. But that didn’t make it less personal. In fact, it created something more electric. The music responded to us, the crowd—to our energy, our silence, our applause. Every note felt like a conversation between the musicians and the room. There was no control, no pause button. Just presence. Just now. That kind of vulnerability makes live music feel alive in a way recordings can’t replicate.

In one space, I was invisible and fully seen. In the other, I was part of a living, breathing whole. Both versions of listening left me changed.

Music doesn’t just live in sound, it lives in space, in time, in how we enter and exit the moment with it. Whether I’m alone with a dusty Coltrane vinyl or surrounded by strangers swaying and tapping their feet to Steve Owen’s quartet, the music finds a way to meet me exactly where I am and configures a new space for me to feel it.

Ultimately, music is a gateway, a way of entering spaces both internal and external. In the Douglass Room, it was an intimate experience, a slow conversation between the needle and the grooves of the disc, unwinding quietly in the solitude. 

At The Jazz Station, the music became a collective pulse, entwining through the crowd, shifting the atmosphere with every modulation. Both experiences were powerful, but in different ways respectively.

In one space, I was alone with the music, in full control of the experience. In the other, I was part of something larger, surrendered to the ebb and flow of a body of energy. Both were transformative. Both changed the way I listened and heard the world.

Music, I’ve realized, is not just about the sound. It’s about the space it fills and how we move within it. Whether it’s a solitary environment with a vinyl record or a visceral live performance that connects us all, music finds a way to meet us exactly where we are, and for that brief moment, that pause, it transforms us.

If you want to learn more about jazz's evolution since the early 1920s, explore "Jazz: The Evergreen Genre" by Ellie Acosta, which dives into how jazz has laid the foundation and shaped the culture surrounding American music, and where its influence can still be found across many genres today.

…coming soon