One
thing led to another and I had clicked on a Danish biopic on Dexter
Gordon. Always handsome, as statuesque
he as he was articulate in a slow baritone like fashion when he was a young man. I couldn’t say if it was junk, though I
suppose it was junk that weighed him down like a thousand Lilliputian threads
when one catches up with him ten, fifteen years later in the clips from the
eighties. His utterances are still
sensible, thoughtful, but the time it takes to complete a thought becomes
unendurably long and all one can do is feel sorry for the giant.
I can recall reading liner notes from One Flight Up, recorded
in Paris in 1964, where he praises European players in general and notes the
lightening fast Danish bassist Neils Henning Orsted Pederson (NHOP) in
particular. Cut to
Neils-Henning and he is also young and shiny and then old and grizzled. (You gotta be Dorian Grey to escape
that one.) But during his clip,
which I assumed he’d talk about his time playing with Dex, he instead shares
something very interesting about how the band leader who taught him and others
a lot about discipline was Lucky Thompson, who always seemed like such an
earnest voice, fated with such an unlucky trajectory.
I went to a friend’s home for dinner last night. How lucky to have friends to join up
with. I get so sick of all the many
local, family style joints around here.
I got out of the cab and figured I’d go to some market and grab a bottle
of wine to bring with me. I was in
the French concession so I reckoned there’d be something acceptable. Up Ruijin
Lu, down Jiangguo Lu . . . but by
now I was late. There was a super
market that looked, shall we say, a bit Chinese. I plodded and found the “wine” section and confirmed that it
would absolutely not do.
I caved and called. “Hey, where do you guys buy your
wine? I don’t want to come empty
handed.” This led to a suggestion
of a place that was too far and a suggestion that I forget the whole idea. That hadn’t been my purpose. But perhaps I’d just throw in the
towel. Is that a florist? That might work. No. It’s a laundry.
“OK. OK.” “Yeah, we have a bottle here already.” “OK, am I going left or . . . hey wait.
I’ll call you back.”
I passed a sliver of a place with three young guys drinking
wine. There on the wall were some
boutique-like looking bottles arrayed, not for pour, but for sale. I was looking for a rose from Provence.
They had a rose from
Provence. I’d been relieved
of the responsibilities for any libations, but that wasn’t the point. Some alignment of civility was now assuaged,
as I strode out of this tiny shop, with my bottle in a rough, reused, blue cloth
bag.
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