The word-a-day calendar word has to be melancholy. When I arrived, the owner and bartender were busy hanging plastic garland with red bows on the suspended ceiling lights. Bah humbug. I noticed the bartender was out of sorts so I asked and he told me why. A good friend of his had attempted suicide. Yikes. Then a lone wolf sat at the bar and said that his wife of 28 years had died four days ago of brain cancer—she had been diagnosed a month earlier. Geezus. The oppressive, depressive gloom began to fill the club like The Orkin Man’s roach fog. I was hoping the jazz duo featured tonight could lift everyone’s spirits. No chance, bucko. The singer and pianist launched into a set of dirges about lost loves, stormy weather, and missed opportunities. The Billie Holliday song, God Bless the Child, was pretty much the theme until they launched into Send in the Clowns, which is probably my single-most despised song. What made the first set especially disconcerting was the bubbly banter between the songs. The singer is this likeable, upbeat, quirky-funny woman between a collection of songs that clearly fill the hooded-executioner’s iPod.
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