None Other Than

It’s a Tuesday night, but I’ve managed to marshal the whole family into a cab.  We’re heading into the city during rush hour.  We may get lucky.  We may not.  But regardless, we’re heading in to see some jazz in Beijing.  Blue Note has opened a club here in town.  It’s at a lovely, if highly inconvenient venue, down in the Legation Quarter near Qianmen.  I suspect foreigners who decide these things are lured by the storied history and the proximity to Tiananmen Square and the regal, secluded setting. But in fact it is the most over policed, sclerotic, ill accessible part of the city.  Heading in, I’m most unsure of when we’ll actually arrive there at the club. 

Tonight, we’re heading in to see Dee Dee Bridgewater.  I don’t know that I’ve ever seen her live before.  I was looking for something to take the girls to over the holiday last week, but there was nothing that fit.  But I noticed she’d be here, this week, on a school night.  Originally we were to have gone to see her last night.  But the little one came home with a headache after a trip to the nurses' office at school.  So (father with an almost imperceptible but resolute upper lip,) we bailed.  Tonight, we’ve made it at least this far, into the cab.  

I bought my wife a copy of Dee Dee’s album ‘Red Earth’ a few years back.  She’d made it with a number of West African musicians and it is varied, anchored and lovely.  We’ve imbibed lots of other works of hers in the years since.  Her first album from 1970 is a wonderful jazz album, “Afro Blue.”  After that she had a few disco releases that were less interesting to my ears. Most of her career is as a jazz musician though, reflecting the tradition she was born into, in Flint Michigan (her dad Matthew Garrett was a jazz musician) and married into, (her husband Cecil Bridgewater was a jazz trumpeter.)  My appreciation for her deepened considerably when I heard the Roy Brooks and the Artistic Truth album.  It’s a glorious live recording with a number of distinct and memorable tracks.  The last song, Eboness is a confrontational, self affirming anthem of black nationalism.  The singer struck me as almost punk-like, in her raw engagement with the audience.  I was so intrigued to note that this forerunner of Jello Biafra on the disc was none other than Ms. Bridgewater.  

I’ve tried to explain to my daughters that the number of true luminaries from the tradition are passing, every year.  To see someone of her stature is rare and important.  To support the arts in the town where you live is a civic responsibility.  Sometimes even if that means heading out on a school night.  I did what I could to explain that Amy Winehouse and Adele would have all looked up to Dee Dee and that if singing is your craft, you may as well listen to the best and see what they do live.  I was given similar advice when I was learning guitar.  It didn’t matter to me at all at the time.  But later is proved prescient.  I’ve done what I could to set this all up as something worthwhile.  And in doing so, have probably poisoned the well.  Now all that’s left is for Ms. Bridgewater to show em’ what’s she’s got and, with a little luck, exceed the top shelf expectations, that I have posited.