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smackenzie"I know why no one's here," he said. "It's pouring rain."
"Fuck," Sam said. Scott blinked at him and then glared. But it wasn't as if anyone in the club was actually listening to them yet, and Joaquin was sitting way in the back with a big basket of fried plantains, so he couldn't hear them either. He sat back there so he could watch the crowd, not listen to the musicians. "Sorry. I don't have an umbrella. I hate waiting for the bus in the rain."
"Dori's coming to pick me up afterwards. She'll give you a ride home." Dori was Scott's girlfriend. She didn't take shit from Scott, but they'd been together almost three years already, so she was used to him. She wouldn't mind giving Sam a ride home, and in fact if Scott hadn't volunteered her Sam would have asked.
"Ok, boys, it's time," Teddy said, taking his seat behind his drums and twirling one of the drumsticks in his fingers. Now Scott glared at him; Scott seemed to think that his position as manager and time keeper meant he got to get them started at gigs and practices. Teddy just grinned and twirled his drumsticks some more.
"Two minutes, something simple," Sam told them. He swung his saxophone up and played a third-second run of notes, more to get everyone's attention (the people sitting out in the club as well as Scott and Teddy). The other two boys got the hint and they swung into their first song.
Sam always had to concentrate to listen to the trio as a whole unit - he kept unconsciously separating the instruments. (That was fine for small groups, but sometimes listening to an orchestra gave him a terrible headache.) Sometimes it was easier for him to weave his way through an improvisation if he could disentangle the drum from the bassline, and separate the cymbal from the snare from the toms. It was like knitting, he imagined, tying the threads together one by one until you were finished and could hold up the sweater you'd made and see the big pattern. After the gig he'd replay the show in his head and see the big picture.
Tonight they sounded pretty good, all things considered - all things being Sam arriving a little late and a sparser crowd than usual, although it didn't look as though Joaquin was too upset. Sam and Teddy thought that maybe Joaquin was in some kind of Cuban mafia and the Bluebird was just a front. Scott thought they both watched too much TV. But how else could you explain how the place stayed in business with so few customers? Although, on the other hand, they didn't go often on the weekends. You would imagine that Friday and Saturday nights might be busier than Wednesday.
They played standards for about half an hour before launching into a piece that one of Scott's college professors had written, and from there they swung into a good long improvisation, each of them taking turns leading and (basically) showing off. Sam listened to Scott and Teddy as they each took the melody, evaluating them with half his brain and following and supporting with the other half. Teddy was good - not great, but good, and certainly nothing to be ashamed of - and if he'd just practice a little more he'd be even better. That was the thing with Teddy, he never practiced unless forced, or if his neighbors were bugging him, in which case he'd play the loudest, most obnoxious drum fills you ever heard, and at midnight. Scott, on the other hand, practiced a lot, and you could hear it in his playing. He also really loved his bass, and really loved playing for an audience, and if he got a little flashy sometimes, well, he wasn't a flashy guy in his other life, and at some point you kind of expected someone to start showing off, and it couldn't be Sam all the time.
They played for an hour, took a fifteen-minute break (during which time Sam always had to pee and Teddy usually got something to drink, which meant that at the end of the set he was dashing for the men's room), then played for another hour. A couple of people straggled in during the first set, both of them dripping wet and apparently just taking refuge from the rain. Both of them were still there when the boys finished, even though the rain had stopped. Scott was impressed enough with that and with their musicianship to wrangle alternate Thursdays out of Joaquin, as well as their usual Wednesday gig. Sam and Teddy were impressed enough with that to let him schedule pratice for every other day that week and the next, in preparation.
"We kicked ass tonight," Teddy said in the back office, where he went to keep Sam company while Sam took Ella apart and put her away. (It was either that or get sucked into the conversation with Scott and Joaquin, and every time Teddy did that he said something silly. Besides, they trusted Scott to make a good deal.)
"Yeah, that improv was good. We're really getting better. No one got up and left, no one fell asleep, Joaquin must've eaten a whole tree's worth of plantains" - a sure sign he was enjoying himself - "and two people came in during the first set and stayed."
"Kick ass."
"There has to be a more jazz term for it. You've read Kerouac, what does he say?"
Teddy shrugged. His Beat fascination coincided with a fascination with red wine and clove cigarettes, both of which made him kind of nauseous now. The Beats by association also made him feel a little ill. "I don't remember. We'll have to make something up."
"Good deal."
Scott stuck his head in the door and said "Hey, Sam, Dori's here if you want a lift. She's gotta get home so we have to leave." He came all the way into the office with his double bass, packed it into its case, collected his coat, and went back out, hauling the big heavy bass case behind him.
"You can bury a man in that thing," Teddy commented. "You think Dori will give me a ride home too?"
"You live in the other direction, dude," Sam told him. He gave his sax one last gentle stroke and snapped the case closed. "Is it still raining? You can stand to wait if it's cleared up."
"But it's boring waiting by yourself."
"So wait for the club to close and Leo will give you a ride." Sam grinned, hoping Teddy got the double entendre. From the grimace on Teddy's face it seemed he did. Not that Leo was a bad-looking guy, because he really wasn't, but he was... weird. And if Teddy thought he was weird, he had to be really very strange.
(Leo wasn't in fact strange at all. But he had a goatee which Teddy didn't like. And Scott and Sam both thought he had crush on Teddy, which just made Teddy nervous, and one of Teddy's coverups for nerves was to say the person who made him nervous was weird. It was a lot easier than admitting you weren't sure if you liked guys or not, but you thought you might. Sam would have understood that, actually, but really all sex talk that revolved around him personally made Teddy nervous. He'd much rather talk about the person who wanted to sleep with you.)
"You're really funny, Mackenzie," Teddy said drily. "I'm gonna ask Dori anyway."
She said "No," and "You live in the other direction, Teddy," and "You can take a cab, you know," and then Teddy said he got the hint, and Scott rolled up the passenger-side window and Dori drove away.
Sam took a hot shower when he got home, listened to Peter Baron's Miles Davis CD (which wasn't scratched when he played it on his stereo, which meant the problem was with his Discman), had some orange juice, and finally wound down enough to go to bed. It had started raining again by then, and he fell asleep playing a mental melody to match the rhythm of the raindrops on his windowsill.
(He hadn't gotten a really good look at either of the two people who had come into the Bluebird during their set, and so hadn't seen and wouldn't recognize later the man who was going to change his life.)
words: 1,408
total words: 10,549
"Fuck," Sam said. Scott blinked at him and then glared. But it wasn't as if anyone in the club was actually listening to them yet, and Joaquin was sitting way in the back with a big basket of fried plantains, so he couldn't hear them either. He sat back there so he could watch the crowd, not listen to the musicians. "Sorry. I don't have an umbrella. I hate waiting for the bus in the rain."
"Dori's coming to pick me up afterwards. She'll give you a ride home." Dori was Scott's girlfriend. She didn't take shit from Scott, but they'd been together almost three years already, so she was used to him. She wouldn't mind giving Sam a ride home, and in fact if Scott hadn't volunteered her Sam would have asked.
"Ok, boys, it's time," Teddy said, taking his seat behind his drums and twirling one of the drumsticks in his fingers. Now Scott glared at him; Scott seemed to think that his position as manager and time keeper meant he got to get them started at gigs and practices. Teddy just grinned and twirled his drumsticks some more.
"Two minutes, something simple," Sam told them. He swung his saxophone up and played a third-second run of notes, more to get everyone's attention (the people sitting out in the club as well as Scott and Teddy). The other two boys got the hint and they swung into their first song.
Sam always had to concentrate to listen to the trio as a whole unit - he kept unconsciously separating the instruments. (That was fine for small groups, but sometimes listening to an orchestra gave him a terrible headache.) Sometimes it was easier for him to weave his way through an improvisation if he could disentangle the drum from the bassline, and separate the cymbal from the snare from the toms. It was like knitting, he imagined, tying the threads together one by one until you were finished and could hold up the sweater you'd made and see the big pattern. After the gig he'd replay the show in his head and see the big picture.
Tonight they sounded pretty good, all things considered - all things being Sam arriving a little late and a sparser crowd than usual, although it didn't look as though Joaquin was too upset. Sam and Teddy thought that maybe Joaquin was in some kind of Cuban mafia and the Bluebird was just a front. Scott thought they both watched too much TV. But how else could you explain how the place stayed in business with so few customers? Although, on the other hand, they didn't go often on the weekends. You would imagine that Friday and Saturday nights might be busier than Wednesday.
They played standards for about half an hour before launching into a piece that one of Scott's college professors had written, and from there they swung into a good long improvisation, each of them taking turns leading and (basically) showing off. Sam listened to Scott and Teddy as they each took the melody, evaluating them with half his brain and following and supporting with the other half. Teddy was good - not great, but good, and certainly nothing to be ashamed of - and if he'd just practice a little more he'd be even better. That was the thing with Teddy, he never practiced unless forced, or if his neighbors were bugging him, in which case he'd play the loudest, most obnoxious drum fills you ever heard, and at midnight. Scott, on the other hand, practiced a lot, and you could hear it in his playing. He also really loved his bass, and really loved playing for an audience, and if he got a little flashy sometimes, well, he wasn't a flashy guy in his other life, and at some point you kind of expected someone to start showing off, and it couldn't be Sam all the time.
They played for an hour, took a fifteen-minute break (during which time Sam always had to pee and Teddy usually got something to drink, which meant that at the end of the set he was dashing for the men's room), then played for another hour. A couple of people straggled in during the first set, both of them dripping wet and apparently just taking refuge from the rain. Both of them were still there when the boys finished, even though the rain had stopped. Scott was impressed enough with that and with their musicianship to wrangle alternate Thursdays out of Joaquin, as well as their usual Wednesday gig. Sam and Teddy were impressed enough with that to let him schedule pratice for every other day that week and the next, in preparation.
"We kicked ass tonight," Teddy said in the back office, where he went to keep Sam company while Sam took Ella apart and put her away. (It was either that or get sucked into the conversation with Scott and Joaquin, and every time Teddy did that he said something silly. Besides, they trusted Scott to make a good deal.)
"Yeah, that improv was good. We're really getting better. No one got up and left, no one fell asleep, Joaquin must've eaten a whole tree's worth of plantains" - a sure sign he was enjoying himself - "and two people came in during the first set and stayed."
"Kick ass."
"There has to be a more jazz term for it. You've read Kerouac, what does he say?"
Teddy shrugged. His Beat fascination coincided with a fascination with red wine and clove cigarettes, both of which made him kind of nauseous now. The Beats by association also made him feel a little ill. "I don't remember. We'll have to make something up."
"Good deal."
Scott stuck his head in the door and said "Hey, Sam, Dori's here if you want a lift. She's gotta get home so we have to leave." He came all the way into the office with his double bass, packed it into its case, collected his coat, and went back out, hauling the big heavy bass case behind him.
"You can bury a man in that thing," Teddy commented. "You think Dori will give me a ride home too?"
"You live in the other direction, dude," Sam told him. He gave his sax one last gentle stroke and snapped the case closed. "Is it still raining? You can stand to wait if it's cleared up."
"But it's boring waiting by yourself."
"So wait for the club to close and Leo will give you a ride." Sam grinned, hoping Teddy got the double entendre. From the grimace on Teddy's face it seemed he did. Not that Leo was a bad-looking guy, because he really wasn't, but he was... weird. And if Teddy thought he was weird, he had to be really very strange.
(Leo wasn't in fact strange at all. But he had a goatee which Teddy didn't like. And Scott and Sam both thought he had crush on Teddy, which just made Teddy nervous, and one of Teddy's coverups for nerves was to say the person who made him nervous was weird. It was a lot easier than admitting you weren't sure if you liked guys or not, but you thought you might. Sam would have understood that, actually, but really all sex talk that revolved around him personally made Teddy nervous. He'd much rather talk about the person who wanted to sleep with you.)
"You're really funny, Mackenzie," Teddy said drily. "I'm gonna ask Dori anyway."
She said "No," and "You live in the other direction, Teddy," and "You can take a cab, you know," and then Teddy said he got the hint, and Scott rolled up the passenger-side window and Dori drove away.
Sam took a hot shower when he got home, listened to Peter Baron's Miles Davis CD (which wasn't scratched when he played it on his stereo, which meant the problem was with his Discman), had some orange juice, and finally wound down enough to go to bed. It had started raining again by then, and he fell asleep playing a mental melody to match the rhythm of the raindrops on his windowsill.
(He hadn't gotten a really good look at either of the two people who had come into the Bluebird during their set, and so hadn't seen and wouldn't recognize later the man who was going to change his life.)
words: 1,408
total words: 10,549
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Date: 2002-11-07 07:50 am (UTC)