JUST A SHORT ONE TODAY
BECAUSE I SAID SO
I went to the gold dome last night for the jazz. It’s great to be there at 10 p.m. to 10:30 to see the OCU students arrive and hug and chatter and drink. I like the atmosphere. The jazz can be very good or merely adequate and that’s part of the joy of live performance. Last night, a full squad played Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” and the song is so well known that, although they had never played together, it was really really good. However, therein lies the problem for a grandfather like me. Just about the time the jazz and crowd get together, say, 11 when everyone’s there who’s going to get there and they’ve all hugged and squealed and are finally settled in to listen and get into it and musicians are feeling it and feeding back through the crowd, lawzee!, this old geezer is thinking about comfortable houseshoes and brushing his teeth. I’ve sat there and filled a notebook with verbal descriptions of the room on Monday nights. I don’t know the names of any of them, nor, really, anything about them other than most of them are music or theatre majors at OCU. But, you don’t have to be Margaret Meade to observe some well-worn behaviors, those who are friends and who’s pretending, the competitions for attention, who’s coupled up, that sort of thing. I have a whole “soap opera” script for these kids, the waitstaff and musicians going on in my head every Monday. But, tonight, I’m just too tired for more than this.
