BIG TIME JAZZ-BOOKING STORY

265. BIG TIME JAZZ-BOOKING STORY - 'you can stay with uncertainty a really long time' (nyc, Nov. 1968):

Terpsichords and violins together made the sound of an unusual jazz ensemble tapping sounds on tipcloths and bottlecaps - it was almost as if right then at that time there was 'time' being made - cool guys on platforms wearing tophats and blowing tight horns while their feet kept time and the bodies swayed and in the background a wild drummer interspersed their time and rhythm with his own time amidst a wild staccato beat broken only by moments piled upon moments and no words could suffice ever to break in through the haze of sound and the cacophonous ride of scale with music : out front and lounging along the few tables and chairs nearby were half-wasted people with twisted faces looking up just to watch what was happening and maybe getting it maybe not but in either case present for the execution so to speak and even though this was but a final rehearsal they listened and the real playdate was that night - a few late sets rolling way into the wee hours but everyone was already set : one time I was on the street while the trucks lumbered by - delivery guys and freight-loads coming and going - and it was a lame mid-afternoon day in a cold grey late winter climate and everyone seemed tired of the cold tired of coats and tired of just being but it was that time of year too when a person knows things are about to change and the body can sense the new light and absorb somehow the new temperature and movement of the very air so that any unsettled feelings of cold or weariness can be withstood merely by expectation and hope alone - things to come will be better than the present - I looked at the poster on the entrance-wall and realized I'd mis-read the word and that Terpsichord was the name of the ensemble playing and not really an instrument at all but also (as Terpsicore) the name of the Greek muse of choral song and dance which didn't really fit but so what maybe I'd just missed it all and some people out front were busying themselves with the back end of a big station wagon which was filled with bolts of carpet or something which they were throwing onto the pavement nearby as some Spanish guy kept taking them into the next building and this went on for a while as I watched and I wondered how and why all these people had come to be - just going about their tasks each day in such a wide-open world all these closed routines - and it was as if I saw the very future stretched before me in that I was knowing that at some point I too would have to come to terms with life in that respect - what to do with all these days and how to go about that vapid routine of living and as the things of time came by me over and over in repeated manners I sometimes thought to myself that 'anything' would have to be better than that - better than taking the place and the station amongst the haphazard rank-and-file I saw around me repeating their daily chores but I saw too that I had nothing I had no more promise to go on then did the window-washer across the way or the Spanish guy hauling carpet and even though I was for now in the advantageous position of just 'being' without connection it wasn't going to last forever but a part of me didn't want to engage just didn't wish to come up to the cruising speed needed to mesh with what was around me and I realized then that THAT was the calling of art or music or at least the finesse of sensitivity which made creative types always outsiders but realizing and coming to grips with that brought me nothing but comfort and in my way I sensed that maybe a comfort level of such a personal dimension was - in reality - the entire purpose of life anyway but NOT in the self-indulgent way of merely doing (or not) what one wanted but instead in reaching the inner achievement or attainment of personal creativity so as to make and weave the thread of one's life into a sensible form or at least some resemblance of that to those who watched (and to whom I guess it mattered) - outside the studio doorway on the third level of the building was a sign which read 'Matador Productions - Management and Booking / fine art and jazz ensembles' and believe me it sounded bigger than it was for in actuality it was merely a booking agent for 'talent' which in this sense meant jazz quartets of whatever merit which were booked around town at any of the various nightclubs and cabaret/restaurants that wanted to 'trade' on the Jazz name but were more than happy with second or third tier acts that no one really cared about and this is what I had been listening to - another set by another small groups of guys heading out for their night's gig - it was all run as usual by some chubby guy in a cheap suit and plenty of sweat and humidity named Goldsmith or Goldberg or somebody like that - usually failed perfume salesmen or sixth-grade history teachers who'd chucked one career for another but got by in both cases by doing nothing and trading off the work of others and they'd sit around and throw promises like darts and wait to see if anything stuck so that there were always people around dumb enough to believe all this crap who figured they really were on the verge of stardom and discovery by playing maybe just two more weeks at Hanley's Chop House or Trolo's Bistro and Cabaret or the Big Fixx Club or whatever - it was all the same and nothing ever mattered - they got their 30 bucks a night and they stayed late probably three or four nights in a row dicking with the chicks or getting laid easy and then they waited for the next one to do it all again and Goldsmith or whomever it was always got the big take and always talked big and got the next schedule card to fill out all over again and - yeah yeah it just went on - and these were always cheap green offices with poorly painted green or ivory colored walls and extension cords and phone lines brought in on temporary hookups - all cheap and all tacky just like Goldsmith or Goldfine or any of the rest and what I'd do was for five bucks a day was move things around or pull wires from here to there or hammer together another pedestal box for some jazz-cat to stand on and limelight his solo and once in a while I'd get to plunk away on a piano as some form of accompaniment to whatever I was hearing - no one cared and no one stopped me though I was never sent out with a job-crew or anything and I never cared but there was one time I was let out to fill a drummer's roll in a song or two while the 'drummer' was out doing whatever and twenty minutes later he was back and I was done - that was at some east-side club out by the UN in the 50's somewhere and yeah it was fun but I had no card nor license or nothing of that nature so it was on the sly anyway and yes fame and stardom like all the rest it eluded me too but I was able to stay steady and just dig the chance.