The Doorman's Diary: 4.27.12

The night started slow. We had accumulated around 10 people and the threat started to linger that we'd hover there all night. A couple came and were charging past me when I caught them. They looked incredulous that I was asking for five buck covers from them. They looked around and saw only a few people at the bar and said: "There's no one here, why do we have to pay."  The band was into Duke Ellington’s "Things Ain't What They Use to Be," when I bit hard down on my tongue rather than unleash what was on my mind. Instead, I said, "The crowd arrives later so you may want to come back then," and showed them the door. I hoped I was correct. It was early and the place did start to fill. One couple who entered saying, "This place is great. We've never been here before." They are the kind of people our jazz club dreams about. They were walking past and heard the music, which drew them in. For fun I asked them to give me their life stories -- from birth until now -- in two sentences. With little hesitation, the woman said: "In sixth grade, I faked playing the clarinet when I was in band and I just bought a new super-comfortable pillow-top queen-size bed I plan to snuggle in tomorrow because it's supposed to be raining." The quintet grooved into the Hank Mobley song This I Think of You when I thought,  ahhhh, a hedonistic woman who doesn't reveal her inabilities. The club had filled to that critical point where if anyone left, it wouldn't look full. But the crowd that was there was beautiful and they hung in there to the end.