-The Birds-
And the bees, as well, though the birds only arrived after my neighbor sowed the bird seed. The bees have been shooting precariously close to our faces ever since the flowering trees on our street bloomed last week.
I wasn't here for the sowing. For the first time in ages, I wasn't working on the weekend and was available to attend a semiannual jazz festival on the Jersey shore. Not surprising, perhaps, that my contemporaries did not show in record numbers, but the average attendee was a contemporary of Ray Charles, whom the festival honored.
Never mind. It's all about the music, right? Ah, but what is jazz about?
The first few acts hewed close to the "authentic Ray" style, although I noticed that they never strayed far from the popular Ray canon, either. If you've only heard "Georgia" and a few other billboard hits, you wouldn't have been surprised on Friday night.
Eschewing the trolleys and buses that carried less ambulatory fans from venue to venue, I hoofed it to the top of the tallest hotel, where a desultory waitstaff - pop-country fans all, reckon - charged me $4.50 for a beer brewed a few miles from my home. The singer hear clocked in at twenty-three, and was the oldest in the quartet. Pretty voice, pretty face, but at my age, one gets a bit turned off by a glamour-shot promotional photo and incessant name-dropping in the lyrics.
It's all about the music, right?
Later she took the stool next to me at the bar and asked the tin-eared waiter for a desert menu. No slice. I was about to tell her where she might be able to get some fudge at 11 PM, but froze when I felt her turn to regard me.
Funny, She was probably thinking. He doesn't look sixty.
the twenty-one year old pup piano player must have been thinking the same thing, because slalomed four tables of seniors to get between us.
Ah, I was thinking. But what is jazz about?
Fortified and counting the space between meals in pints, I grazed two blocks down to the drum-led trio at a bar known, at least in the peak season, to host young people. It absolutely is - I found my only two contemporaries in town, and was quite pleased to take them out for post-jazz midnight coffee.
I wasn't here for the sowing. For the first time in ages, I wasn't working on the weekend and was available to attend a semiannual jazz festival on the Jersey shore. Not surprising, perhaps, that my contemporaries did not show in record numbers, but the average attendee was a contemporary of Ray Charles, whom the festival honored.
Never mind. It's all about the music, right? Ah, but what is jazz about?
The first few acts hewed close to the "authentic Ray" style, although I noticed that they never strayed far from the popular Ray canon, either. If you've only heard "Georgia" and a few other billboard hits, you wouldn't have been surprised on Friday night.
Eschewing the trolleys and buses that carried less ambulatory fans from venue to venue, I hoofed it to the top of the tallest hotel, where a desultory waitstaff - pop-country fans all, reckon - charged me $4.50 for a beer brewed a few miles from my home. The singer hear clocked in at twenty-three, and was the oldest in the quartet. Pretty voice, pretty face, but at my age, one gets a bit turned off by a glamour-shot promotional photo and incessant name-dropping in the lyrics.
It's all about the music, right?
Later she took the stool next to me at the bar and asked the tin-eared waiter for a desert menu. No slice. I was about to tell her where she might be able to get some fudge at 11 PM, but froze when I felt her turn to regard me.
Funny, She was probably thinking. He doesn't look sixty.
the twenty-one year old pup piano player must have been thinking the same thing, because slalomed four tables of seniors to get between us.
Ah, I was thinking. But what is jazz about?
Fortified and counting the space between meals in pints, I grazed two blocks down to the drum-led trio at a bar known, at least in the peak season, to host young people. It absolutely is - I found my only two contemporaries in town, and was quite pleased to take them out for post-jazz midnight coffee.
posted by Benedict | 10:45 PM
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