The Doorman's Diary 6.20.14

http://gusstoys.tumblr.com/post/4410897476/jazz-yello

When I arrive the mood of the jazz club is set by an inebriated group courtesy of the boutique brewery a couple of blocks away. We carry their beers so after taking the brewery tour, consuming massive free samples, they are shoved out the door with tokens they can cash in at the club. The concept is to expose people who get plastered for free to a club where you pay a cover to sit quietly and enjoy music. I see flaws in the logic, but what do I know… I’m just The Doorman, a piece of animated furniture in the jazz club. As the band members arrive and ready the stage, the tipsy tour starts to literally stumble out into the street. A cool jazz dude ably sidesteps a swaying guy blathering on about finding a real bar that sells beef jerky. The cool jazz dude sits down at the bar with a clear view of the stage. He removes his summer fedora and casually places it over a 5x7 sketchbook and art pen and orders a burgundy. As the quartet moves through songs by Hank Mobley, Sonny Stitt, Horace Silver, and some of their originals, I can see his appreciation grow. Later I learn he’s from the North Side and doesn’t come to this part of town without cause. The allure of jazz brought him here and his sketch of the bass player confirms that visual artists can see music. His sketch and the Romare Bearden print of Harlem jazz on the wall behind him gets my head spinning around the collision points of art and music….visual jazz.

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.