NEW YORK, Sep 9, 2002 -- Fat Cat Billiards and Jazz is one of those Greenwich Village clubs where the decor resembles the basement of a fraternity house. The furniture is beat up and the johns are grungy.
Which means that it's a great place to hear music. Admission is $25, the only alcohol is beer at $5 a pop and on any given night, you might hear something of surpassing beauty.
The newspaper listing said that Fat Cat's headliner was the Ali Jackson quartet, and posters touted someone named "E. Dankworth (a.k.a. Skain)."
My son the jazz fan had heard through the grapevine that E. Dankworth was really trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, so he persuaded me and his two sisters to go with him. We got there early for the 10 p.m. show.
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| Wynton Marsalis with Mr. Rogers, 1986 (wyntonmarsalis.org) |
The house holds only about 80 people. The crowd was mostly young. Ali Jackson strolled in first and spent a good quarter-hour adjusting the tension on his drums. Pianist Aaron Goldberg arrived next. Then a man in a dark blue suit politely shouldered his way to the front "Excuse me, little brother," he said to my son as he sidled between the tightly packed chairs. It was Wynton.
He and Goldberg talked quietly for a long time, and not one fan bothered them. Eventually bassist Bob Hurst made his way to the front and had to lift his instrument over the crowd to reach an open space by the piano.
Wynton was warming up quietly on his trumpet. He played a couple of riffs that seemed to catch on with the drummer and the bassist. Pretty soon they were playing a 12-bar blues, and they were off and running.
Magical moments
The space was so small that no mikes were needed. You could hear all the subtleties as the musicians traded ideas back and forth.
They played something uptempo called "Uncle Bob." Then "Darn That Dream," in which Wynton made his trumpet weep. And then "Caravan." It was one of those great jazz experiences that cannot be repeated: Four great musicians were creating in the moment.
They could not have been doing it for the money. Just do the math. Eighty people, 25 bucks a head, about $2,000 from the door. Maybe half of which goes to the house. Each musician gets maybe $250. But nowhere else would they have the opportunity to play with each other in front of an audience, which helps inspire them to perform. It's all about keeping their chops in working order.
Kids take you places
This is the world that our son aspires to as a music student in New York. And this column, which seems to be about jazz, is really about him. If it weren't for him, I would not have had the opportunity to rediscover a love of jazz, which I had learned from my father. I would not have been at Fat Cat and would not have heard the incredible beauty of Wynton's improvisations.
Our son had the good fortune to have a music teacher at Towson High who inspired a love of the art form in his students. That experience put him on the road that led to studying music in New York.
As a parent, you think that you are going to guide your child through life, but really it's the other way around. Your kids take you places you never would have gone. They open you up to experiences that you otherwise would have missed.
This one is our third and last child. So we have an empty nest. This is supposed to be what every parent wishes for. I don't feel that way at all. I'm going to miss that boy.
Note: Fat Cat is still there in the Village, and by all indications from their website, it is a much nicer place to hang out than it was in 2002.
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