by CHRIS BARRY

Name: Bryan Highbloom

Age: 55

Occupation: Music therapist

Bio: Not so many decades ago, this animated Côte-des-Neiges heartbreaker was studying Islam in the Middle East, contemplating the key role music plays in non-Western cultures. “In these places, music is an essential element to a life, where here it’s entertainment.” Returning to Canada determined to use his own considerable musical gifts for the greater good, he volunteered his music therapy services—playing a variety of musical instruments to the ailing—to an initially skeptical administration at the Jewish General Hospital. Well-respected in free jazz circles, Bryan, probably the only music therapist in the world riffing on Coltrane and Sun Ra in the pursuit of better health, soon came to be regarded as a notable asset to the institution and was promptly awarded the full time gig he’s been doing for the past 25 years now. “The hospital is an intense place, and I play intense music.”

Will he provide the musical accompaniment to your death? Certainly. “I meet patients after they’ve first been diagnosed and stay with them until the very end—for sure. It’s kind of heavy for me, because I get to know these people so well.”

What kind of catchy numbers are in his “Say goodbye to the cruel world” repertoire? “I just know what to play. Because I have long-term relationships with so many patients, I’ll try and write something unique for each of them. I’ll get their input, find out what styles, sounds, instruments move them musically. You improvise—just like with music. Depending on the patient, you assess the situation and try to respond in the most open, heartfelt way possible. I do that for all patients, terminally ill or not.”

How music therapy holds up from a scientific perspective: Probably not all that well. “Look, it’s not science, and there are too many elements, or variables, to really test it empirically, but I know it works. If only that it makes people feel good—and you can’t get well unless you feel good.”

Is it not possible playing free jazz to a stroke victim who prefers the sounds of, say, Perry Como over Sun Ra might actually serve to annoy them, possibly aggravating their condition? “No, all music is useful. One time I was called to see a patient who wasn’t responsive to anything—his heart rate was being monitored and I could see even music wasn’t getting through to him. Then I started playing ‘Iron Man’ by Black Sabbath on guitar, and the guy came back. Later he remembered what had happened and told me. ‘That fuckin’ heavy metal pissed me off so much, I had to come back to life.’’

Does he ever come home at night wanting to kill himself from the constant exposure to death, illness and crying loved ones? “Yes, it’s heavy every day. Always hard. But whatever I feel is nothing compared to what the patients are going through. If I can bring them some joy, my sadness at the end of the day is nothing, I can deal with that.”

Last book read: Tropical Truths, by Caetano Veloso.

Words of wisdom: “Music is healing.”

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