While Bunny fixed me up with a Long Island iced tea, I asked her if she could replace Hot Fives and Sevens with my latest purchase. I had heard it was barroom jazz, so what better place to hear it for the first time than my favorite pub? I thanked Bunny for my drink and found a small table in the corner that seemed nearly as familiar as my bed.
As I sat back to listen, sip my drink, and watch the swirling, carcinogenic air, a portly gentleman stood up from the bar and waddled toward me. I say "toward me" and not "to me" because of his eyes. They looked beyond me and never at me, completely lost in thought and Guinness. The stranger stopped next to me, as if I posed an insurmountable obstacle to some other destination. He hovered above me for a moment while his eyes searched a dissolving smoke eddy over the pool table. Then, without so much as an introduction, he pulled up a chair and sat down. Finally acknowledging me with a tip of his hat, he lifted his stein in a barfly's salute. One question followed a lengthy pull on his stout: "Why did you take out my Armstrong?"
Belfast was so thick in his speech that I paused for a moment while puzzling his query. That pause was followed by another. I simply had no idea how to answer. Certainly, there are few excuses for taking away a man's Armstrong. I realized my only chance to justify the action was in the music - at least, I hoped so. I simply responded, "Listen." Though there was not a trace of conviction in my voice, that's what we did.
Somewhere in the midst of a jazz arrangement of "Moondance," my companion asked if it "had the stuff." I mulled it over, not knowing which question he had asked. Compared to Morrison in his prime or compared to Armstrong, Young, and Davis? I responded the only way I could - I answered both questions with the same answer: "It's fine, but it doesn't have the fire," quickly followed by, "Sorry about the Armstrong."
Looking both forlorn and proud, the Irishman replied, "His rock 'n' roll used to be jazz. Anyone who fed off of it could feel it. Lester Bangs captured but a wee bit of it on the page, and that fragment was still genius." As I sat looking confused, he took another sip from his stein and continued, "This, however...of course, it will be a big hit as background music for dinner parties, but no one will ask why it was taken out of the tape player."
With that, I watched him empty his drink and stand. A sharp "G'day" left his lips as he turned, again looking at the smoke. He muttered a frustrated "What now?" moved his eyes to the door, and left me to the pleasant sounds of "Don't Worry about a Thing."
-- Ben O'Connell
Copyright 1995, The Yale Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
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