Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Compared to What?
I was just moving on from the Dead to jazz, a classic grad school maneuver in the late 1980s. Luckily, I lived in LA and both radio and live jazz performances were of exceptional breadth and quality. I don’t remember where I first heard “Compared to What,” but I remember that it shifted my whole point of view about music. I went immediately to Tower on Sunset to get the disk, raving to the jaded post-punk clerk how great it was; he just sneered and rolled his eyes but he had no idea what was really going down on that old recording - I popped it in the stereo at full-blast volume as soon as I got home and had a religious experience. I was converted to jazz, and was pretty sure I’d finally achieved coolness too.
Not too long after that, Les McCann was scheduled to do a show at the Vine, an intimate little Hollywood club. We were very happy to make it a priority to attend, and got there some twenty minutes before showtime - which was pretty impressive for us in those days. The place was very quiet - nice piano noodling on the stereo, 2 or 3 other couples in attendance at the cozy cocktail tables that speckled the floor. We seemed to be the youngest cats in the house. Since plenty of good seats up front were still available, we took a table stageside next to some other patrons and ordered some drinks.
Not too long after the appointed time, Les came out and put on a great show; his combo was as tight as a headgasket and they sounded great. But the audience really never got much bigger; Les made a few comments to some of the us about it, chatting amiably between selections with the guy next to me, the guy next to him.... at some point during the intermission the guy at the next table leaned over to ask me, “Excuse me, are you a musician?”
“No, I’m in law school; I’m just getting into this scene.” I tried to be as cool as I thought I was.
“I was wondering,” the man said, “because I’m a musician.” My vision of him deepened instantly. He might have been in his 50s, with sandy hair fading to grey that swept down over his ears and neck - a throwback style. His clothes were jam session specials - blazer, button shirt, slacks. His chin was square and he sported a thick but neatly groomed moustache. By his side, an attractive blonde woman of some maturity provided a gender counterpoint, stylishly but casually dressed with a few discrete pieces of nice jewelry sparkling in the murk of the club.
The man’s eyes said much more than the rest of his face; even as a wry smile barely creased his tan cheeks, his eyes - under impassive brows - challenged me to recognize him.
But I was a callow neophyte, I didn’t know squat about this universe of hipsters and groovesters. I spent too much of my time confronting my own ignorance in superegoistical lecture hall debates; I was ashamed to be so abjectly ignorant here. I feared that, if I asked him who he was, I wouldn’t recognize the name he’d tell me, embarassing him and minimizing myself among this small clutch of jazz studs and their hot squeezes. So I took the easy way out and said nothing. I just smiled, went on to another topic and eventually we both returned our attention to our respective dates.
Shortly thereafter, as the band returned to the stage, the trumpet player stepped out to warm up and my new anonymous buddy walked over to him; they greeted with an embrace and talked about the new horn he was blowing that night, admiring together its gleaming goldness. “Can I check it out?,” my neighbor asked, hands extended. “Um.... no,” said the man from the band. Unperturbed, Mr. Noname continued with the conversation till Les himself came over to say yo. They had a nice catch-up session for a minute or two; I tried not to eavesdrop but this was pretty big time for me and my attention was locked in despite my efforts to the contrary.
Les turned his massive frame and his attention my way. “And hey, how you doing?,” he asked me unironically with a magnanimous smile. “Do I know you?”
“No, hi, I’m Dan, this is Kelly; you don’t know me but I just picked up Swiss Movement and I wanted to catch the original in action.”
“Oh, that was you?,” he asked me, chuckling. “Well thanks for coming out,” he said with a grin at the nearly empty house and a massive handshake that was like wrapping five bratwursts around my hand.
That handshake enveloped and warmed me for the whole second set and my ride home, and, to some extent, even to the present time. When the show ended I said goodbye to my neighbors and we parted company. I never did learn who he was, and I still wonder.
MORAL: Screw thinking you’re cool; that goes double for trying to convince others that you are. If you don’t know something, ask. Les didn’t mind asking, so I shouldn’t have either. Unanswered questions only grow darker and more mysterious over time; unexpected answers abound for those with the guts to inquire after them. You may be afraid you’ll be embarassed not to know something - but compared to what?
