Taking a Break -- #Fridayflash

This is a #fridayflash story. Comments, good or bad, are welcome. Constructive criticism is particularly welcome.

People in the bar were getting restless. They had come to hear some jazz. A 20 minute band break had turned into 30. The drummer was missing. Finally the musicians gathered on stage without him and started playing with the bass player picking up the rhythm on his own. Elena was singing the Girl from Ipanema. The guitar player looked at the sax player with raised eyebrows and shrugged. He hadn’t shown up in the underground garage to participate in the early coke break. Now after the second break everyone was buzzing along without him.

Cadillac Jim was sitting in his Toyota mini-van, tears running down his cheeks. Everyone wondered why his nickname was Cadillac when he drove a Toyota but that was not important now. He knew he should go back into the bar. It didn’t matter. He would not be able to contain his emotions and they would be incongruous with the jazz he was hired to play. But the demolition team, in the form of his future ex-wife, had turned his happy future into a slow motion implosion similar to the one he had seen on TV when the old basketball arena had been torn down last week. Both his life and the arena would be rebuilt in new locations with new designs.

Lily had slammed the Toyota door and run to her own car just minutes ago. She was hysterical. She had wanted to drive away immediately but her shaking hands prevented her from gripping the steering wheel. They had only been engaged two weeks and now they were not. She knew this might happen. His divorce wasn’t final when they met but his wife was already living with another man. The wildcard was his daughter. There would be a custody battle. His gigs were always at night so he had essentially been a stay-at-home dad raising his little girl while his wife worked long hours. He couldn't imagine daily life without his child. Lily understood that. During their relationship she and Janie had gotten so close that this was like a divorce for her, too. She was not only losing Cadillac but also Janie and there was nothing she could do about it.

Cadillac was startled by a knock on his car window. It was Jeff, the bass player.

“What are you doin’ man? You missed a whole set. Get your act together and get back inside. We don’t want to lose this gig. I brought you a little blow to get you back on track,” Jeff said.

“Sorry, Jeff. Lily’s gone. Kelly told me last night that she doesn’t want the divorce. She wants to try and patch things up. As soon as she found out about Lily she broke up with her Elvis impersonator boyfriend. I guess Janie told her about our engagement.”

“Wow, man. What are you gonna do? I feel your pain. You know how much trouble I’ve had juggling my wife and Liv. My wife plays dumb about Liv but I know she knows.”

“I just can’t imagine never seeing Lily again. Do you think there’s a chance she’ll still want to see me?” Cadillac asked Jeff.

“Trust me, man. She’ll go on seeing you. I learned long ago, when it comes to women in this situation they’ll always hang on. After all, 50 percent of something is better than 100 percent of nothing. Come on. We’ve got to get back. You want some blow or not?”

Final Bow: Billy Hall from Orlando Home & Leisure

My tribute has finally printed in the January 2010 issue of Orlando Home & Leisure Magazine. I imagine those of you outside of Central Florida may not know the name but you can read the article about him at http://www.ohlmag.com/ by clicking on the Online Version. Refer to pages 16 and 17.

I know I have written about Billy back in November when he passed away but he deserves an extra shout out from the jazz community. Tonight the Monday Night Jazz Jam, which he founded, will take place at the Grand Bohemian Hotel in downtown Orlando without him. WLOQ DJ, Yvonne Coleman, will host, as always. Yvonne makes time out of her busy schedule to continue Billy's dreams of helping those in need. All tips at the jam, EVERY PENNY, goes to help feed and clothe people who are cold and hungry. With the current economy and a week of hard freezes in Orlando, the numbers are multiplying. Everybody knows that they are not immune, so those that have, give. We all have to take care of each other. That's what Billy would say.

Leroy Cooper on Frankie Lee Sims & Sun Ra

Leroy talked about the jazz side and blues side. He describes some of his first experiences with real 'outlaw' jazz as he called it.

This is an excerpt from Leroy Cooper's memoir as told to me back in 2007. The material is copyrighted by Susan Cross and cannot be copied, published or duplicated without permission.


"My first automobile I got when I was playing with Frankie Lee Sims. And I didn’t know that he was a big man. So I got down on him. Then I heard these guitar players talking about Frankie Lee Sims. I said he was just another cat to me. I never did know what the story was and when to stop. He’d say, “Blow.” And I’d go voom, voom, voom. And I said to myself, when do you stop? And finally when you got tired of blowing, he’d get back to singing. No charts, no nothing. Just blow.

*****

That’s the way it was with Sun Ra, too. I used to rehearse with Sun Ra in Chicago. And that’s the way he’d come to me.

He’d say, “Play.” The cats in the band would look at you and say, “Play. Just play your instrument.”

That’s not easy to do. He would call me changes. Sun Ra might get a bell. Creativity. People was sitting there so high they don’t even know what day it is. I didn’t last with that too long. I got friends that loved them. They stayed with Sun Ra for years. I’d see them in New York and they’d say come down to the so-and-so and I’d say, I’ll be there. But I didn’t want to go to that.

This is just a snippet. There's much more about Count Basie, Duke Ellington, etc. who he considered more traditional because they used charts and books.