The Doorman's Diary 12.1.12

The jazz club is filling comfortably tonight. When I first arrive, I sit at the bar with the bartender and share a cup of coffee. A couple of women walk in and sit at the bar and order drinks. When the bartender serves them, he says to me: “I’ve got their cover charges.” I couldn’t help it, so I say: “I don’t know… two beautiful women… I’m not sure I would have collected a cover.” They’re flattered and literally giggle. My intent is a compliment, which is how it is taken (I think), but I think afterwards: “You idiot… don’t say stuff like that because it can easily be interpreted as being smarmy.” Later I learn that they are a daughter and mom—the daughter bringing her mom to enjoy the jazz music. How sweet is that? A guest vocalist joins the quintet tonight. She incorporates African chants, as a form of scat singing. She does a very interesting West African tribal chant as a prelude in the Horace Silver “Song for my Father.” She’s delivering the chant with vim and power while the keyboard, bass, and drums lay out an extended baseline for her exotic vocals. A young blonde woman jumps out of her chair, throws her arms in the air and dances freeform hippie style. She runs back and pulls a young Asian gentleman into her Dawn of Aquarius dream state. Only in America does it seem so natural that in a small jazz club there can be a black singer singing indigenous West African chants that move a blonde white woman and her Asian friend to spontaneous, impromptu dancing.