Haibun 130

late night jazz

when i was in college in the sixties in east lansing michigan there was a late night jazz show on one of the local fm stations. the dj always began his show with the words ‘this is rockwell and these are records’. one night my roommates had all gone home for christmas and i stayed behind to watch a peaceful snowfall blanket and shut down the city. there were three rooms on the second floor of the old house and the landlady was a sweet old southern bell in her eighties. her husband had been an engineering professor and had died years earlier and she had taught in the art department and now rented out rooms to lazy hippies. she did not hear that well so we enjoyed the music of the day as loud as we wanted.

not quite alone that night with ‘rockwell’ and his ‘records’. but he was teaching me jazz and a new ramsey lewis trio album was out. i had ‘borrowed’ my roommates stereo (which he never let us use) and cranked up the sound. they were playing a beatles song and suddenly the music stopped. and ‘rockwell’ told me to listen hard and check out the way this trio played into each other. my god. they were handing off the riffs to one another while they played right on with their own. amazing……..

wonderful when you can be in tune with another that way isnt it. to this day it makes me smile to remember that snowy night.

a hard days night
catching my breath
on a g string