Saturday Nights and "C Jam Blues"

The last two years spent in Birdtown was also when I really started getting into jazz. In a small town, you took whatever you found, even if it wasn't necessarily the best representation of the genre. Well, one Saturday afternoon in the fall, I hit pay dirt. I bought a handful of jazz LPs at a yard sale from some hip people in Port Dover. A couple of Keith Jarrett's, and Miles Davis At the Blackhawk were among the titles from that haul, but the prize of the lot was Charles Mingus at Carnegie Hall. This 1970s live album has only two songs, one on each side: which I likewise recorded to a C-60 cassette. (In those days, I would usually play an LP just once- when I made a tape of it, so I could listen to the music wherever I went.)

The last two years spent in Birdtown were also in the height of a recession. The economic downturn brought out the worst in everybody- even in a small town "where nothing ever happens" there were rashes of car thefts and store robberies. As a result, I was always nervous when I worked the Saturday night shift at the convenience store. One already had enough to worry about, with the drunken weirdos from the neighbouring apartment buildings raising hell, never mind all this other shit! Well, once 11 PM rolled around, and I could lock the doors to Fort Apache, elated that I survived another Saturday night unharmed, my 11:01 ritual began. On the ubiquitous Realistic tape recorder-player would go Side A of Mingus at Carnegie Hall: a rousing 24-minute rendition of Ellington's "C Jam Blues". This would be playing full blast while I performed my closing duties (counting the float, putting money in the safe, filling the coolers, etc.). The wall of sound by saxophonists Charles McPherson, John Handy, George Adams, Roland Kirk and Hamiet Bluiett remains one of the most joyfully raucous things I've ever heard: long lines of honks and squeals like an 18-wheeler and a freight train having a love child. Mingus' sound was often eccentric, and this track especially seemed the perfect soundtrack to clean out one's headspace after several hours of the usual assortment of bizarre Damon Runyon characters from the neighbourhood; and in light of the potential occupational hazards, it also made one glad to be alive.

But you don't have to take my word for it.  Here's a sample to hear for yourself!

6AM Reflections

In the final two years I lived in my hometown before moving to Toronto, I worked two jobs. One of them was doing early morning and weekend shifts at the convenience store up the street from my mother's house. The early morning part, however, didn't last that entire duration, despite my boss' good intentions, as it became apparent that the only signs of life in the store at 6AM were me, my Thelonious Monk cassette, and maybe the milkman. Oh, and this. It seemed every morning at a certain time, a squirrel would run down the telephone pole by the curb, and a bird would always stop and look into the glass of the front door. Always thought it was quite touching to observe patterns of nature such as these, which would have gone unnoticed otherwise. Was an even greater experience if it was scored with the opening flute part of Monk's "Reflections".

A Moment of Zen

One day in the summer of 2007, after I had driven my father to and from his sister's funeral in London, Ontario (because the poor man's back was hurting too much for him to drive himself), I started thinking about the past, as one often does in times like this, and took a drive around Norfolk County to pass by old haunts on my way back to the big bad city of Toronto. As dusk emerged, I had found myself on the four corners of Main St. in Delhi, beside the law enforcement office where my dad worked until he retired. This location was special to me due to the memories had at the Delhi Harvest Fest, which occurs every year on Main Street, right outside the office's front door. Sometimes too, we'd hang out in the office before or after the festival each year. On this 2007 night while I was sitting in the rental car reminiscing, as the sun nestled behind the trees, and the buildings were silhouetted by the magenta sky, there wasn't another soul on the street. The only sounds came from the car radio- Tillsonburg's easy listening station 101 FM, chosen because this was what my dad would always have playing in the office and his jeep (and for all I know, they were probably playing the same Frank Mills songs). Then as now, I was moved by this mixture of image and sound: the world seemed at peace. We easily forget how much deceptively simple moments like this mean to us, and for that matter, we easily ignore the beauty of such daily rhythms of nature, because we're too caught up in our own routines. Lately, during many times of stress, my subconscious mind has suddenly recalled this image, and with it, that feeling of peace I had at that moment. It is this image (and all it implies) that I need to have more of in my life right now.