Saturday, May 17, 2014

Al's Suprise Guest




Heading off for a meeting this morning in a cab and I was texting and not paying attention.  Normally I always tell the cab driver, take a particular short cut.  Passing by, cognizant suddenly; a moment of anxiety.  Let it go.  Then another crack at this short cut to the road by the river, but I didn’t mentioned anything and we just continued on.   The driver was competent, confident.  Because we took this method, we approached a key bridge on Jingmi Road from a distance. It was plain to see, as we pulled up, that it was a disaster in the making. 

I asked the driver if he didn’t think that going straight to the highway, given the circumstances, might not be preferable.  He pondered this, and, before we were committed to the charnel up ahead, we did a “u” turn and sped off in the other direction.  Needless to say, had I insisted on the short cut, there would have been no such opportunity and we have been forced to join the crawl.   Glad then, at my previous distraction and decision to have kept silent. 



Next challenge, will the airport express way be clogged as well?  Usually it's a God-awful mess going in to the city from this location.  With every turn of the way out there, new reasons for trepidation presented themselves.  Sometimes this side road is a mess, but, today, it isn’t.  Sometimes the entrance to the high way is impossible, but today it’s clear.  And now the moment of truth, getting on the actual highway itself, this could the beginning of a very bad situation . . .

And oddly, it is absolutely, utterly clear. 大吉大利[1] for the morning commute. 

Now, three meetings, five shots of espresso, and a bowl of noodles later, I’m back in a cab.  It’s nearly seven PM.  We’re moving towards the summer solstice and we still have at least another hour of daylight left.   Coming down now from an elevated entrance out in Shangdi, round down on to the fifth ring road it is all rather ugly.  Traffic is moving steadily at about 10 miles per hour.  Our guest we had in Beijing was treated to a excellent meetings, the last one of which was particularly fascinating, where you almost felt like you witnessed a form of pure, collaborative innovation that resonances that would pulsate for years to come.  Today is a clear, temperate, sunny day; the kind of day that makes you wonder what all the fuss about pollution in Beijing is all about. 

I was up too late with too many things to do to really read the news today.  I haven’t really had on any music either.  Got an interesting email back from the gent to introduced me to Teddy Weatherford that confirmed that the only song he’d ever found recorded by the man was also “My Blue Heaven.”  Perhaps I’ll throw another Harlem Stride man on when I get back.  Indeed, perhaps its time to put on the main man himself, Mr. Fats Waller.  More on him and his big smile and untimely death, soon.



It’s good to finally settle down upon Mr. Waller.  I’ve always known of him and I could place the voice quickly.  But I don't think I would have ever really thought to put him on.  Listening now, its clear what an influential figure he was, not just on pianists but on entertainers in general.  His rolling, jiving, slapstick is a period window that seems to bridge a vaudeville, black face pantomime with the piercing bebop innovation Monk and the provocative, cutting humor of Muhammad Ali.

There is a story about him that sounds like it should have been turned into a play.  He was exiting a club in Chicago and a bunch of gangsters kidnapped him and brought him  to be the "special guest' at Al Capone’s birthday party where he was ordered to perform at gunpoint.  He apparently proceed to do as he was told and got on with his show, and with the drinking ponderous amounts of alcohol to fuel this unique form of stage fright and later leave with a fat tips for his labors. I’m enjoying “I Had to Do It”, 1938 which was, also, apparently “forced upon” him.  Pneumonia took him down before he even reached forty. 







[1] dàjídàlìgreat luck, great profit (idiom); everything is thriving

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