It happens every six months or so, but the jazz club and neighboring night-life establishments are dead. It’s as though our corner of the city enters the Twilight Zone. Just like the TV show from the early 1960’s, I begin to suspect the few guests we have are space aliens or transmutes or just too clean cut and friendly to be real. On a night like tonight, I keep my eye on the door… not to welcome customers to the club but to make certain it doesn’t seal up or transform to drywall or exterior brick. Afterall, the door is my way out… beyond it is another dimension. A dimension of sound... a dimension of sight... a dimension of mind. I can move into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. But I was in luck. No drama that I could detect. The guests we had enjoyed the quartet. A couple sitting up front asked, “Can you play any Dave Brubek?” The band looked at each other. At first I thought they were flummoxed. Then the drummer laid down a beat that the electric piano player defined. It was clearly the best performance of Take Five occurring anywhere in the world. And I was one of probably a half-dozen people privileged to see and hear it.
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