Jazz Festival

Corbett | January 17, 2007 1:14 AM

I was the only person at an obscure little downtown jazz club where they were having an avante garde jazz festival. I stood at the back of the club, and realized it was only like 8 feet wide, and 30 or so feet deep, about the size of a shipping container, except with wood floors, brick walls, a bar, and a stage at one end.

There was a black guy in a Sears Roebuck suit playing a pretty mean blues guitar. Or at least I thought it was a blues guitar. I walked up a bit closer and realized it was half of a bicycle frame wrapped over his shoulder like a tuba, and he was strumming the spokes, and using the cranks as a whammy bar. To change keys he would shift gears.

I'd never seen anything like that before, and when he finished his set, he clicked the rest of his bike together and got ready to ride off. I had to talk to this guy to figure out how he just what he did, so I caught him on the sidewalk.

"Hey man, that was some bizzare shit you just played. Where'd you come up with the idea of playing a bicycle like a blues guitar? How'd you get it to make any sound?"

"You know, I used to play the sax, but it was a drag carrying it to gigs across town on my bike, so I figured I'd just find a way to play my ride. Two in one sort of thing."

"That sort of makes sense I guess. So what's in that black briefcase sitting on the stage with you?"

He eyed me suspiciously. "You a cop?"

"Nope."

"You playing the festival?"

"Nope."

"Ok, I guess it doesn't matter then. I'll tell you since you look like an honest enough cat. It's a DAT player and some speakers."

"You mean you use that as your backup band, right?"

"Dude, you think I could actually play that shit on a bicycle wheel? I need that tape to cover for me, and make people think I'm really playing that shit. That's how I get paid. I record it all from a CD, then act like I'm playing it. This is avante garde, man, you think anyone pays for avante garde unless you got a gimmick?"

Then he got on his instrument and rode off.

Category: Dreams

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