NYC

I was in New York last weekend. A collaborator, A, invited me to Zinc Bar on West 3rd in Greenwich Village. After dinner at the Grand Central Hyatt, where our meeting was held, and after a drink, we took cabs. I rode with a neuroradiology fellow, V, and her husband, D. We arrived at Zinc at 11 to find that the scheduled appearance by a guitarist, whom A had wanted to see, had been replaced by Buddy Somebody.

The 9 o'clock act finished and Buddy at piano led the trio with drum and bass. The club was half full and dimly lit with candles on the tables. I bought drinks to repay D who had paid for my cover while I was searching my wallet for a ten. Buddy introduced the flutist Herbert Laws in the audience who later played a tune. Buddy played vigorously and gloriously, shaking his head enthusiastically. I sat next to D who is the attending surgical pathologist at home. Around midnight V got tired, and they caught a cab, so I moved over to the sit with A, S - a graduate student, and A's friend W, a Swiss guy who was at ETH in Zurich when I did graduate work there. While we chatted, a pleasant woman sitting alone next to me swayed to Rhapsody in Blue. I learned that A, S, and V have a band that does 90's covers. The set ended, and after I returned from a cigarette outside, the party broke up. A, W, and S left, and the young woman by my side was deep in conversation with two young men, who might have been Brasilian. They left, and I was alone with my thoughts.

The crowd had shifted towards the bar during the break. At 2 Buddy returned to the stage, and announced that "friends will play". I noticed that many in the room carried instrument cases. A woman applied lipstick. The trio played a tune, and then Buddy addressed a man with shoulder length black hair sitting near the stage, "Join us if you like... If you hear it and think you can play it ... this is what it looks like." He flashed the chart at him. "Wait for us ... to get started," and the trio went through the tune once. The young man  listened and fitted the mouthpiece to his alto sax. A couple of bars before the next verse he walked on to the stage, played a sweet solo, and sat down to applause. There was more like that, including Lenore - with fresh lipstick - who sang "You'd be so nice to come home to". Buddy invited up a russian couple on piano and drums, a long haired bearded guy with glasses on bass, an alto, and a tenor sax player. Then a sunny piece by Buddy with Jean Luc, smiling at the challenge, on bass. At 3 the jam ended. I hailed a cab and came back to the hotel.