The Jazz and The Darkness

I hadn’t seen my friend Mike for quite a long time. Seeing him now I recognized the Mike I knew years ago.

“Hey buddy so sorry to hear about your recent loss. Sometimes seems like we were playing music together just yesterday.”

He looked at me with the saddest expression; eyes half-closed, mouth turned down at the corners and slowly nodded his head.

“Yeah I know. I can hear in my head the boogie-woogie piano and clarinet piece we wrote. That performance was one of the things I’ve cherished all these years.”

Then he lit another cigarette from the one that was almost done, chain-smoking like he always had.

“So tell me,” I said, “what’s the biggest thing you miss about your wife being gone?”

Hesitating only long enough to blow out a cloud of smoke, he said, “Her light. Seemed that every time she came into a room the sunlight was brighter or the lamp lights ticked up a notch. That smile of hers was contagious too.”

Remembering her in my mind, I nodded slowly in agreement. Taking a sip of my coffee, I leaned back into my chair and closed my eyes for a second. And there she was, telling some joke or talking to the TV announcer, laughing that contagious laugh. Smiling I opened my eyes and looked at Mike again.

“Now all I have is this annoying darkness. And I can’t seem to find my way out of it. As much as I try to get outside or walk around or do something for a bit of relief, the darkness always surrounds me again.”

Then he looked over at me searching for some glint of light, some hope he could hang on to. Mustering all of myself in the moment, I said: “Well look. You have your memories and you know she had the kindest heart. Her beliefs carried her into the next adventure and I truly believe you will see her again.”

For a moment I could feel his spirits lifted.

“Hey do you remember that time the four of us decided to go to New Orleans?”

I laughed out loud and said, “Oh yeah. How well I remember that trip.”

“We’d decided to go without any real plan and just piled into your car and drove down there. It took about two days to drive down, but boy that was an adventure.”

“Hang on a sec… I think I still have pictures from that trip.”

He balanced his lit cigarette on the edge of the ashtray, slowly lifted himself up out of his chair, and ambled to the back bedroom. I could hear Mike moving things and then quiet. He came back into the living room with a photo album and plopped back down into his chair. Starting another cigarette he handed me the album.

“You have a look. I think those pictures are about 4-5 pages back from the front of the album.”

I flipped back several pages and found what we were looking for. About a dozen photos showed the four of us around that car, and then around New Orleans.

“Look Mike, there we were just after we got there piling out of that old Bonneville. Man I haven’t thought about that car in years. That was a great car and look at the size of that trunk. I bet you could’ve fit 15 people in there.”

Smiling I handed Mike the picture. He slowly took it from my hand. Slowly he found his reading glasses and began to stare at the picture taking in all the details. Then a huge smile crossed his face.

“Yeah I remember that old thing. Ran like a top and the bench seat in the back was big enough we could lie down and take a nap on the way. The only problem was when you hit the brakes too hard and we rolled off in between the seats.”

Then I heard the laugh that I’d heard many years ago. And I had to laugh too.

“We couldn’t quit laughing for miles after that stop.”

That made us both laugh even more, and I could faintly hear Mike’s wife laughing too. As if she was there with us enjoying the memories of that trip.

Looking back at the photo album I found another memory.

“Look at this one Mike. Do you remember?”

Handing him the photo I could see recognition in his eyes and his face started to smile again.

“Sure I do. You and I standing in front of Pete Fountain’s French Quarter Inn at 800 Bourbon Street right in the heart of the French Quarter. That was some night!”

“It was,” I nodded. “And those Hurricane drinks were outrageous. Normally I don’t like rum but after the first couple, it tasted alright. And the girls were drinking those Brandy Milk Punch drinks… ugh.” Laughing at my own joke I looked at Mike. He seemed more relaxed than when I got here and was apparently enjoying the stories.

“If I remember right you and I wanted to get into Pete Fountain’s dressing room, to see if he would let us play. The girls thought we were either crazy or too drunk to have any sense. So they went to a table by the door of the club and waited for us.”

“Right,” I said. “But you didn’t have your clarinet so you thought you could borrow one from Mr. Fountain.” Thinking about it now I had to laugh and laugh out loud, one of those belly laughs that you only get once in a while in this life.

The insanity of what we did that night finally settled in on Mike and he let out the loudest laugh I’d ever heard from him.

“I know, I know. It made sense to me at the time and you were a big help. Why wouldn’t Pete loan me one of his clarinets. Surely he’d done that before right?”

That last comment made both of us laugh even harder. Then Mike looked over at me with a look in his eyes from deep within.

“But you, all you had to do was play the piano. That was easy compared to borrowing a clarinet.”

“Yeah it was. So while you were backstage telling Pete Fountain God knows what I wandered up to the piano, just sat down and started playing. See if I can remember what it was… some Scott Joplin Ragtime piece or other. No I remember now, it was a Dave Brubeck piece. Take Five! That was it.

(Dear reader… you can listen to Take Five on YouTube over here… https://youtu.be/vmDDOFXSgAs)

Closing my eyes I could hear the tune. The band was on break but joined in as they wandered back.

“Pretty amazing stuff,” Mike said as he lit another cigarette.

“That reminds me, your wife really liked Thelonius Monk right? He was one of the great American jazz composers of all time.”

Mike put his head back in his chair, closed his eyes for a minute, then got up and went back to the back room. I could hear him shuffling and moving stuff around. After a few minutes I could hear him say something like “got it!”. When he came back into the living room he was holding an old album cover with Thelonius Monk on the cover.

Looking at me with tears in his eyes, he handed me the old cover with a vinyl LP still inside. Choking a bit he said, “Yeah she loved this… Round Midnight especially.”

My mouth fell open when I looked at the cover on the back. There it was Thelonius Monk’s signature.

“Dude! How the heck did you get this? When did he sign this for you? I didn’t think he ever signed anything. He was always sort of quiet and wanted to be alone, at least that’s what I heard.”

Mike sort of chuckled as he lit another cigarette. “We were in London at the time. You know, the business end of things in Chelsea. I just happened to see a street poster saying Monk would be performing close by. So we decided to go. But before we went she had to buy this album. Some funky old store in Picadilly I think it was. Anyway, she’s holding this album, we’re standing in line waiting like all the rest. And right there, Monk walks up. One of his crazy hats and that mental look in his eyes. He looks at her and says, Would you like me to sign that for you? And of course she couldn’t say a word, only hold out the album so he could take it. One of the guys following him had a marker of some kind, so he signed her album right then and there. I’ll never know what possessed the man to show up when he did, or why he singled her out, but she was always grateful he did.”

“And you know what? I haven’t listened to that album for a very long time. Would you mind putting in on for me?”

The sounds of Monk’s aggressive piano playing started to fill the air. Mike mumbled something about jazz and darkness then relaxed into his chair, closing his eyes. After watching and listening for a few minutes, it occurred to me Mike was finally relaxing.

So I switched the stereo (I remember when he bought that stereo in the early 1970s) over to a jazz noir mix, starting with “The Fragrance of Dark Coffee” followed by another 30 minutes of easier listening but still dark jazz.

At that point, Mike had dozed off and I could hear slight snoring. I made sure all of his cigarettes were put out and turned out the lights, quietly leaving him in peace with his jazz and his darkness.