This is a record of my trip down to Blues Alley in Georgetown to see my
roommate sing with her band. Great Night!
http://www.bluesalley.com/
A little background: As I got off work, and headed home through the 5 o’clock
traffic, I could not help but think about the course that life takes. I have
struggled lately with the concept of “destiny”, chaos theory, and random chance
coming into play in people’s lives. I understand that we all play small roles
in each other’s lives (or large ones), but I am uncomfortable with the idea
that all of these roles are part of some greater plan.
Take music, since this
is, indeed what this extraordinary night is ultimately about.
My point: There are musicians, writers, actors, and artists who meet just the
right people, at just the right times in careers, and it launches them into the
stratosphere of publication, fame, and wealth. Is this destiny? Talent,
however, sometimes seems to be irrelevant. While on the other hand, truly
talented individuals often toil in relative obscurity, and never achieve the
recognition so richly deserved. This is my explanation for most pop music
today, and much of the sitcom fare of the Television airwaves.
Where are our Mozart’s, or even our Beatles of the new Millennium? Where are
the innovators? And why do we as a people stand for mediocrity, when there are
so many exceptional individuals out there, many of them known personally to us?
Why is history replete with this lesson? Does God, arguably the author of this
great destined plan, care about excellence? I choose to believe so, thus
putting my ideas of destiny at risk.
To put this in modern terms, it is the classic Gates/Jobs debate of the past 25
years. Yes, Apple is the better computer. But Gates had broader application,
and publication, and therefore, we fly about the internet, (usually) on the
often defective wings of Microsoft. Even this journal entry is being composed
on a system far inferior to that which Apple can do.
But, I digress. Yes, people, I do think like this all day long, why do you
think my conversations run on in wild tangents?
Back to the Music. My sister and I had
reservations for the 10 p.m. show, so we headed down about 9. It was sleeting
slightly, so we stuck to the major thoroughfares. We took the 270 to the 495,
to the GW Parkway, and went over the beautiful Key Bridge into what for me
would qualify as “old stomping grounds.”
The (Francis Scott) Key Bridge has old-style French lights, and in the light
fog off the Potomac and the sleet looked like a French Impressionist painting.
It was very lovely. Treacherous, but lovely.
I have not been in Georgetown in years, but my teenage years were full of
weekend nights down there, going to clubs, movies at the Key Theater (well just
the Rocky Horror Picture Show, but I did play Frank for a few years).
This
area, especially at night, feels as familiar to me as the concrete walk running
down to my parent’s home. The roads are no better paved than they were in those
days, and as we made our way over M street’s chunky asphalt that often has
holes that go clear down to the old cobblestone and beneath, it seemed wise to
get out of the sleet by making a right on Wisconsin and parking in the
Georgetown mall.
As a cheap teen I would have NEVER done this, opting instead to drive around
looking for a free street spot or some old alley where I could park my Mom’s
Monte Carlo next to a dumpster. Not tonight. I parked my pansy Volvo in the
very lap of opulence, and excess. At $4 an hour, I know actual babysitters who
make less for watching live children.
We
made our way up through the mall, passing endless unique boutiques of rich
do-dads. None of the familiar chain stores here, real estate is too
precious. We walk past fountains of
brass frogs spitting water, out into the night and the real Georgetown that I
came to know as a teenager.
The brick sidewalks were slick and sleet covered as my Sister and I jaywalked
across Wisconsin Avenue. Blues Alley’s address may be Wisconsin Avenue, but it
is indeed up a real, easily overlooked alley. We waited outside in the light
sleet while the previous show’s patrons exited.
I expected my roommates’ family, and the families of the band members, whom we
did see, but in our line were a surprising number of Russian-speaking people,
perhaps here to appreciate Jazz, America’s only truly original art form.
A blonde woman clutching her boyfriend’s arm started screaming as a
medium-sized rat ran up and into a hole by the door of the club. What is a true
city alley without a rat, huh? The bouncer said its name is Hermione.
As you enter Blues Alley, you are immediately struck by how small the place is.
To have been here in the 60’s and to have seen Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie,
or Charlie Byrd here would have been overwhelming. It is Jazz at its most
intimate-bold, in your face, and true. I wondered how the enormous Yamaha Grand
Piano had gotten through the tiny doors. It had been there for a while. I was
really drawn to it, as if it put off some otherworldly energy.
My Sister and I sat over to the side, and ordered Dinner. I had heard the crab cake
Sandwich was good, and in the $10 range, which was about right budget wise. Sis
thought the food was so-so; I thought it was very good. Cheese on a crab cake
is a controversial topic for me, as it often masks the taste of the crab. I
would have liked it better without the cheese.
The band playing is a 7 piece Jazz Band. There are Keyboards, a guitar, a bass,
a drum kit, a trombone, a sax, and a 6 string electric violin. Much of what
they played was free-form Jazz, with the guitar often taking the lead. The
guitarist played a hollow-body black Ibanez with abalone trim-gorgeous! The
horn section does not usually sit in with the band, nor does the violin. The
Violin player has appeared on the last three of Lenny Kravitz’s albums. They
were amazing.
The first few songs reminded me of early Chicago recordings-before the demons
of pop stole Peter Cetera’s root R&B soul. The horn section really played
well, though I would be surprised if the sax player was much older than 19.
Some of the Jazz arrangements were very tight-more like Basia arrangements. I
really liked that.
My roommate sat in for 2 numbers. She had told us that she was so nervous for
the first set, she had just held on to the mike stand, but that nervousness was
not apparent for the later show. Before she went on, I was able to speak with
her. I told her she smelled really good-which she did-like flowers! And I had
the chance to tell her that I could not be any more proud of her than I was at
that moment. I teared up. She had come a long way from my 17-year old self
telling her 13-year old self she had to sing music from the Who that was
already “classic rock” when we were performing it in the ‘80’s in our little
band.
She sang a spirited version of the Beatles “Oh Darling!” and after finishing
said “That’s one of my roommate’s favorites.” I could not have been more
touched. The second song was one she wrote, and how cool was it that her own
music was being played at such a prestigious venue! I am telling you, it was
the best.
The Band’s last few songs had such a hauntingly familiar quality to them, that
I could not put my finger on it at first. It had a swirling, mystical feel, with
a blues drum beat. Then, it came to me, and I felt so silly that I had spent my
entire adolescence listening to that sound, that I had taken it for granted-it
had become background for the lyric poetry that was the music of The Doors.
It was that instrument that set the Doors apart from any other Rock band-that
swirling sound-like rain through wind chimes that fills Riders on the Storm’s
haunting beginning jam. A Hammond Organ, played by a nodding Ray Manczarek
filled their sound with an ethereal quality like nothing else. I, however, had
fallen prey to that common seducer-listening for the Voice.
The Doors were a Blues Trio when Jim Morrison joined them with his deep voice,
and spooky poetry. I had forgotten how their music was good for its own sake,
without the insane helmsman that everyone remembers. Silly Rabbit, it was good
of this lovely band to remind me that it is all about the music.
Afterwards, I was able to go up onto the stage, and see the keyboardist’s
Hammond Organ. I had been so enamored of the Grand Piano, and all of the
Legends that had no doubt sat at that instrument (not the least of which is the
immortal Eva Cassidy) that I had ignored the little keyboard.
As I brushed my fingers up the piano, hoping that some leftover energy would
somehow infuse itself into my own little spirit, I also touched the Keyboard of
the Hammond. If there ever was a sound that exemplified my teenage years, it
was that sound. Somehow, I am drawn to it, the way I am drawn to Handel’s Water
Music, Bach’s Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring, or Barber’s Adagio for Strings. It,
for me, is the essence of Home.
I have spoken to my roommate in depth about my struggles with destiny. She, for
one is a big believer in it. I told her that tonight, as I heard her sing, on a
stage, where she absolutely belongs, where I have always known she belonged
ever since I first heard her singing at 12 years old along to INXS tunes with my
Sister, and I made her be in my little garage band, that perhaps she was
embracing her destiny after all, and that she was almost making me believe in
the idea that we all have one. She said, “I will get you believing in it yet!”
Perhaps she will.
Jaywalking back across the wet streets of a sleeping Georgetown, I stopped
halfway across, and did a little spin. “I am finally Home.”
