I’ve
got a ‘proceed and verify, proceed and verify’ type of cab driver this
afternoon. “Up at the next light
please take a right.” “This next
one up here?” “Yes. “ “Take a
right?” “Yes, that would be
great” “Right here at this light?”
“Yes siree.” I can’t blame
them. They probably have at least
one blow up a week, one blow up a day, with someone who calls them a dunderhead
for not knowing that they meant to turn left at that last light, seconds after
they look up from their phone.
Hot, sultry day. The air-nasty-quotient is high. Well meaning groups have sent out
emails reminding me that is good to keep breath to a minimum. We had a big rain the night before
last, but it didn’t have what it took to usher in some sunny clear skies. Riding now into more and more of the urban
core murk. It may rain again, but
if it does, I’ll be happy for the urban cleansing, but rather decidedly out of
luck, looking for a cab in the deluge.
John Stubblefield was clearly blessed with the world’s
finest first name. His last name
is rather memorable as well, presumably harkening back to difficulties with
plowing or perhaps shaving. He’s
on the big old fat headphones right now.
I took to looking him up, as he was one of the gents blowing on the
fabulous Roy Brooks and the Artistic Truth album I’d mentioned yesterday. I’ve got a thoughtful, resigned
post-bop album “Prelude” from the complicated year/period for jazz and most
music, back there around the bi-centennial.
There isn’t much about the man there on his Wiki page. I know he passed in 2005 at the age of
only sixty. I hadn’t realized he
played with the World Saxophone Quartet for a few years there and a half a
dozen other remarkable bop luminaries.
You’ll forgive me, my driver is verifying again. “Yes.” “Yes this turn.”
Yes, the same one. This one.” “This one here?”
Fortunately I found a thoughtful obituary from the The
Guardian. Born in Little
Rock Arkansas, John grew up in a divided home with a father who was a fan of Big
Band and a mother who thought jazz was the devil’s music. He made it to New York in 1971 and
played with Mingus until they apparently had an altercation. Why anyone might would want escalate
things with Mingus is hard to fathom. (I've read of Jackie McLean being pushed so, he pulled a knife on Mingus and of the big man from LA threatening Miles that he'd play his solos backwards in his face if he wasn't careful.) But apparently Stubblefield and Mingus made up and later he was a key member in the
tributary Mingus Big Band. I especially loved the story that later, when infirm he and that other saxophone player from
Little Rock, Bill Clinton apparently sat for an hour one time and spent their
time talking about the instrument..
I’m at San Yuan Qiao now. They are mid way through an extreme make over of the
ridiculous looking China Travel Service building, which used to have little
Lego like triangles all the way up the outside which looked foolish the day it
was unveiled from which the appearance diminished considerably, year after year. My favorite tree in Beijing is off to
the right. It is the big full set
of twin Jacaranda trees that sport such amazing purple flowers in the
spring. I wonder if I can get one
of those to grow through the New York winter? Traffic on the ring roads abysmal, as one might expect. Soon after though, things pick up. Only ten minutes late to my coiffing
appointment.
Hair’s done.
The price of haircuts has gone up from what it was last year and
has appreciated more dramatically than local real estate from the good old days when
first in Shanghai. I remember
going to one of the beautiful old Deco hotels in the French Quarter that had a
barber shop in a tight little space with all these faux gothic slits and tall thin
windows and a perfectly reasonable gent would get on with it for three or four
kuai as I recall. Every time now
the proportion of salt to pepper lying on the floor tilts decidedly brineward;
snow-white mounds with a twist or two from the pepper mill to show for. At least it all largely continues to grow
and 皓首苍颜[1] is still at bay.
Another one of these dumb days when it is about-to-rain, all
day long. It drizzles. People panic and start fumbling for
umbrellas, talking about cabs, and then it stops. The air is sopping wet with expectancy. But nothing is happening. Everyone will have to keep waiting
today.
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