Jazz Night

JAZZ NIGHT

Friday night and the blues led you to Meadow and Broad Street for the constant lover of live music with the Jazz and blues. Maybe another story in Richmond that encompassed a hard workweek. Maybe an escape that can be heard and tasted through the taps and the muse.
It was a second home for me when I was nineteen. This was back when the cover was three dollars instead of four, and the red white and blue shine by beer cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon. I revisited this old hangout after an honorable discharged from the U.S. Army. Another soldier in transition during unemployment through troubled times of war and a depleting economy. The hard stuff set passively on shelves to be sipped or gulped.
The dim lighted corner bar could be seen as a night oasis for fine dining. Although management had changed hands, jazz night always prevailed. A driver or passer by could sit at the bar or find a table or booth which would be a pleasant resting-place for a shelter from the cold of Richmond. Serving the customer despite the packed bar and there was an excellent chef , two bartenders, and a wait staff.
I was sitting at the bar when she came to sit beside me. She was one of the featured jazz vocalist of the evening, but she would have corrected you by saying her style was more blues with a little bit of jazz if asked.
Her name was Miss Lady E., and she had been singing there for about eight years. Her lively hood consisted of working at the hospital with a degree in mental health. Immediately, when she sat down her drinks were served, and she knew the bartenders and owners by name. The whole place started to fill at around 9:30pm while she was talking to me.
“The last time I sang. I was 13, and you don’t say the blue you sing the blues.”
She was there every Friday as she went into her personal view singing the blues.
Her son was in the military in the 236th. His occupation was in transportation, she told me. He was in the first gulf war, and when he was over there she couldn’t sleep at all. Miss. Lady E. said she was always beside a TV. He later died during his time of service, creating a time of depression. Although that was her field of study in college the skills didn’t help to release some of the pain as good as singing.
The band was still setting up, the conga drums were set, and the drummer brought in his cymbals. That night there was at the start of the evening a tenor and alto saxophone, electric bass, piano, drums congas, and chimes.
The tenor saxophone player stood up at the mic next to the alto who I had never seen before. He had long hair and a cowboy hat, and he was going up and down the scales. As the tenor, whose name was Doc, made sure everything was ready for the nights show.
The booths were starting to fill as the keyboardist and drummer quickly found out there was hardly any elbowroom. The beats and melody erupted the cramp space as the first song rose to the ceilings. The altos tone was perfect, but this listener might have misjudged his playing at the beginning of the evening. I was quickly proven wrong as the solo dropped my jaw proving himself as an equal on stage. Silk fingers quickly smoked the keys as a slapping bass took the place under siege. The traffic lights outside occasionally shined green and red as the jazzman at the keys called the shots for the second number.
The tenor player had another solo, and I had been there enough times to know the solos or at least a few. He usually played Old McDonald, the farmer and the dale while ending with shave and a hair cut. Then the alto came on howling with the snare and the toms of the drum set. The electric bass joined with harmony. The randomness began dancing in two groups. As this point of the night it was what ever moves you for January 21 2005. It was cramped anyway used just for the wait staff to serve the paying customers some how there was still enough room to dance. As the new girl from the street ventures in the men at then bar paused at the sent of her perfume. Even the aristocrats the businessmen the high dollar high roller cliental would say it was better then the boos.
The percussion and drums shook that lucky ladies hips, and it kept them clapping for more. Another alto saxophone’s echo throughout the streets beyond 7-11 and the medians. The trumpet player came in late but ventured into the set without losing a beat.
Ladora or “Roe,” was called to the mic for her version of ‘Bye Bye Blackbird.’ Her voice projected delivering more fulfilled spirits then what was served at the bar. Miss Lady E. gave her a standing ’O. Her song ended with the place in a saturated perfume and boos euphoria.
The man at the keys with the same silky smooth fingers caressing the bar already ambushed by the bassist. Another version of Summertime was sung as the cold howled at the windows. The trumpet player triggered the boom for another solo by a new Tenor pushing through like a fret train. The horns were handled like a woman through the “woes and the baggage.”
The pick me up touch the crowd for another Friday night of jazz serenading the city limits of Richmond. I decided to pay my bar tab as Bush preached against bigotry on the TV during a review of the inauguration. Hard times for many I was two dollars shy from paying my bar tab. As Miss lady E. was singing several people folded dollars in her pockets. She didn’t know what to make of that as she came back to sit down beside me. I was still thumbing through my wallet as she recognized the problem.
After applying for about twenty jobs and the honorable discharged I was reduced to this embracement. But Miss Lady E. one of the featured vocalist handed it over as if it was nothing. I said. “Thank you.”
I thoughtfully slid it across to the bartender. The blues was still lingering when I left and it would be there when we got back.