The legend.
Close to 80 years old if not already an octogenarian. Rumor is that he's spent
more of his life stoned, than straight. It's close to performance time
and he saunters in. The club owner jokes that she's afraid to knock on his car
window to get him in sooner for fear the startle would give him a heart attack.
His enabling band mates are waiting and have his stool and jazz guitar ready. He floats to his stool and launches the first song, playing exquisitely,
albeit less aggressively than in his youth. The sax player is
wonderful--alternating between his alto and soprano. He carries two songs with
his soprano, one of which is Gershwin’s Summertime. I like the bass player too
and get talking to him at the break (while the old guitarist gets his bearings
in his smoke-filled car). I learn the bass player teaches guitar at the main
university in town. His love is classical and jazz guitar but he's played bass
all his life. I say, "Man, you have the perfect build for the double
bass... big hands, strong forearms, and you"re tall." He responds,
"I know, I know... everyone tells me I'm a bass player, not a guitarist,
but the bass is too easy--the guitar is more challenging." Now, not only
do I like the professor, but I respect him, and his pursuit of his elusive
muse: the guitar. An interesting couple is new to the
city, having moved here from the South West. He's a physician; she's using the
move to start fresh, having spent 20 years as a decorative wall and trim
painter. She plans to now paint canvases. An attractive young woman enters the club. The waitress' eyes light up and she hits on her while serving. I ask the waitress, "How
do you tell which side of the fence a woman plays on? " I didn't hear the
response because the music was too loud, but did learn the woman of her
attraction is married, but had answered a critical question she asked her
ambiguously... so the door, as far as she's concerned, is ajar. I wonder how
many unfulfilled yearnings are spawned in this room?
