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In a recent interview with Phil Nimmons, the iconic Canadian jazz clarinetist, composer, and educator, I asked him about the role teaching and music play in keeping him energized—because, despite closing in on his 100th birthday, he is still actively doing both. He leaned forward dramatically, and forcefully rejected the premise of the question: “GETTING OLD SUCKS.” Later, the conversation turned to his 2001 album, Sands of Time, his final recorded performance of composed jazz music. He expressed his profound dissatisfaction with the record—indeed, his regret that it had been released. His improvised solos, in his estimation, were not up to his technical standard.

By 2004, Nimmons had moved away from playing compositions, and shifted his focus exclusively to free improvisation. By contrast, when he speaks of his free improvised duo project with pianist David Braid, it is with unmitigated joy. In this paper, I argue that for Nimmons, free improvisation has offered a restorative aesthetic terrain. Absent the rigid, physical (often masculinist) “technical standards” that Krin Gabbard (2008) and others have suggested define virtuosic jazz improvisation, the relative idiomatic latitude of free playing potentially offers greater scope for a wider range of bodies and abilities, including aging bodies. I look to Nimmons and Braid’s most recent recording, 2012’s Suite St. John’s, in order to answer Sherrie Tucker’s (2016) question: “What if that culturally drawn oppressive line between “ability” and “disability” becomes the thing to sound by improvisers across abilities…?”