Swingin' at the Gates of Jazz

Customers or no, I always kept the place up.  It was just the principle of the thing.  The floors gleamed.  The glassware was spotless, ditto the bathrooms.  Just like when the town was on the circuit and the great acts came through like clockwork.

I even made sure the old grand — a Steinway, no less, and a ballroom model instead of a baby — was tuned.  Sure, the keys had gone a bit yellow, and a few of them were chipped, but that piano could still roar.  It’d been in the Savoy and before that in the lobby of the Commodore Hotel.  Basie had played that piano.  Ellington too.  And Monk, bless him, before the madness took hold.  

Why, one time, when I was young, Charlie told me…  Whatever.  As if anyone cared.  Sometimes it was all I could do to hang onto the towel.  

And now this: a Saturday night, the third one in June.  The Summer Solstice.  It should have been awesome for business, but around noon the weather had gone sour.  Instead of a warm evening for first night of summer, with tour buses lined up and down Third Street, we had heavy skies and a cold, damp wind.  

That was bad news, seriously bad.  In recent years, Lady Fortune hadn’t exactly smiled on my club.  It broke my heart to think about it, so I tried not to.  Still, the writing, as they say, was on the wall: if business didn’t look up soon, I’d have to close the place.  Shutting down the Gates of Jazz.  It felt like the end of the world.  Off in the distance, thunder rumbled, confirmation of my mood.

Two of the regulars, Wack-job Shirley and Wet Marvin, sat at a table, nursing beers.  Oh, and of course Big Pat was there.  Yep.  Big Pat, all five feet seven and a hundred and thirty pounds of him, held down his usual place on the piano bench.  He noodled a little, just a few riffs, but the notes trailed off before anything like a song emerged.  Mostly, the poor old guy just sat there with his shoulders slumped, staring.  His tip jar held a dollar and change.  Of course, given his audience, that was quite a haul.  He looked sort of cold.  Cold and miserable.  Or maybe just worn out.  I knew the feeling.

Anyway, I put on a fresh pot of coffee.  It smelled real good, like summer.  I patted Big Pat’s bony shoulder and set the cup on a coaster next to the music stand.

“On the house, BP,” I whispered.  “Don’t spill it on my piano.”

He started slightly and met my gaze.  His eyes had gone a little cloudy, but down deep, the sparkle was still there.  He tossed off a two-octave phrase, B-flat blues of course, and favored me with a nod and half a smile.  “Much obliged, Miss Annie,” he said and took a sip.  He closed his eyes and sighed.  “My, my.  You do make a fine cup of joe.”

“Yeah, well, just don’t get used to it.”

Thunder grumbled again.  It sounded a lot louder, like a storm gearing up for a hard night.  I went back to polishing the bar, for all the good it did.  

There was a crash, almost an explosion.  My ears felt like they’d collapsed in on themselves.  Sparks jumped around the room, and bits of plaster blew off the walls.  The lights crashed, flickered once, and went out.

“Who let the dog in?” shrieked Wack-job Shirley.  She cackled as if she’d reached the pinnacle of wit.

Wet Marvin blew his nose — I knew it was him because he was always doing that.  Hence the nickname.  “I warned Annie about that dog, Shirl-girl,” he said, “but she just don’t listen.”

“Don’t listen.  Nope,” Shirley said.  “And I was just gonna show you this nice pattern of rings.  I made ‘em on the table with my beer glass.

I puffed out a sigh.  My heart ached, but sometimes you have to just face things.  “That’s all, folks,” I said.  “Let’s call it a…”

But then the lights came back up.  They looked different, warmer somehow.  Thunder crashed again, and rain began to drum on the roof.  

All four of us jumped when a horn blared out front.  Was that the rumble of a big diesel engine?  The mother of all air brakes hissed, and I heard laughter.

 Wack-job Shirley scooted her chair back and lunged to her feet.  “Can’t a girl get a little rest?  I’ve a mind to go out there and give ‘em—”

I patted the air and, as quick as the old pins could manage, jogged over to her table.  “Hang on, Shirley,” I said.  “Stay chill.  I’ve got this.”

She humphed.  “Well, I never thought a classy place like this would—”  

The front door banged open, cutting off the rest of her sentence.  A man in a tux held the door steady against the wind and rain.  An elegant woman, all slink, high-heels, diamond tiara, and white fur stole, crossed the threshold.  

She was a real farm girl, that one.  She moved like she had a crop of wheat on one hip and crop of rye on the other, and when she walked, she rotated the crops.  She caught sight of me and switched on a megawatt smile.  “This must be the place,” she said.

“Er… Welcome,” I told her as I backed toward the bar.  “Welcome to the Gates of Jazz.”

Off to my right, Big Pat worked his way to his feet.  His double take wiped the floor with Buster Keaton’s best.  “Bbb… Bonnie?” he stammered.  “Bonnie delRay?” 

I swear, impossible though it seemed, her smile grew even brighter.  We’re talking welding goggles here.  “The same, Patrick,” she laughed.

Big Pat swayed.  He clutched the corner of the piano.  “But you.  You’re… You…”

Bonnie shrugged, a gesture that brought livid Baptists and vice squad raids to mind.  “So, you on the keys tonight, Patrick?” she asked.

The old man’s eyes darted in my direction.  Why not?  I gave him a nod and a thumbs up.

Big Pat grinned and his eyes twinkled.  He pulled his shoulders back and stood up just as tall as he could manage.  “Well, I suppose I am, Bonnie,” he said.  “Yes.  I am indeed.” 

“Well let’s hear what you’ve got then,” she said.

He settled onto that old piano bench and eased right into “Ain’t Misbehavin’.”  After playing the form straight through, he went off, exploring uncharted territory.  Going places I hadn’t heard him visit in years.  BP wrapped it up and slid right into another Waller tune, this time “Honeysuckle Rose.”  Somehow, his voice had shed its old-man quaver.  He sounded relaxed and strong.  And totally in his element.

Bonnie sashayed over and watched Big Pat work.  She bent at the waist, put her elbow on the corner of the piano, and her chin on her fist.  Her dress was cut belly-button low, and if she was playing cards, you’d say all her chips were on the table.  I had a brief flash of worry.  What if the old man had a heart attack?  What the hell; he’d die happy, playing Fats Waller with a pretty girl batting her eyes at him.

But Big Pat never faltered.  He played like the storm had blown forty years off his hands. I wanted nothing more than to grab a chair and listen, but right then the door banged open again.  Trailing a cloud of tobacco and reefer smoke that would give the Surgeon General nightmares for a year, more people crowded into my bar.  At least half the guys wore fancy tuxes, and even the casually-dressed men sported suits and ties.  And I swear there were a handful of zoot suits, complete with spats, Panama hats and four foot watch chains.  

The women were all sequins, feathers and fitted gowns.  They had red lipstick and eyebrows sharp enough to cut ice.  At least a third of them brandished cigarette holders.

I reeled in my jaw.  Strangeness aside, everyone, without exception, looked like they belonged in the Gates of Jazz.  Jazz danced through the smoke and the perfume.  Jazz sang in the women’s banter and in the men’s baritone laughter.  These people moved like jazz.  Laughed like it.  They loved it just as much as I did.

Outside, the storm lashed the front of the club, but inside, we got down to business.  I hustled back behind the bar and started making drinks.  And what drinks they were!  Nobody wanted a microbrew from West Nipomo.  And you could forget about robust Cabs and buttery Chardonnays.  

Suddenly, it was all Manhattans and Martinis.  Alexanders, made with vodka instead of brandy.  Somebody wanted a Sidecar.  Another demanded a Singapore Sling, the original version from 1915.  The cash register, had it not been electronic, would’ve rung its bell off.  We needed this night.  I needed it.  But I couldn’t possibly do it alone.

“Wet Marvin!  Wack-job!” I shouted. 

“What?”  

“What?”

“Party’s over for you two.  Get your sorry butts into the kitchen.  I’ve got more customers than I can handle.  You want to keep this joint open, you gotta pitch in.”

In perfect unison, they tilted their heads to the side and gave me The Look.

I waved them toward the kitchen door.  “Yeah, yeah.  You guys keep it together for me, and I’ll pay you five percent of the bar take.  Each.”

Shirley rolled her eyes.  Marvin sniffed.  He arched an eyebrow.  “Highway robbery,” I muttered.  “Okay.  How about five percent each plus tips?”

Marvin snapped a sharp salute.  “Aye-aye, Cap’n Annie,” he barked.  I swear, he all but sprinted for the kitchen.

“Finger foods, Marvin,” I yelled.  “Plates of ‘em.  There’s tons of stuff in the pantry.  And don’t forget to wash your hands!”  Thank the Gods of Jazz that I’d just done the week’s shopping for the club.

Wack-job Shirley gave me a grin the size of a Kansas City T-bone.  Her eyes looked clear and focused.  She paused on the way to the kitchen, and I listed the ingredients she could prep.  Shirley asked a couple of shockingly-lucid questions, nodded once, and followed Marvin.

The crowd kept growing, and before long I had more customers than the Gates of Jazz had seen in a decade, probably longer.  Across the room, Big Pat seemed to have shed a few more birthdays.  He sat up straight.  His left foot kept time while his right worked the pedals.  I put my head down and focused on the drink orders.  

My stomach lurched as a tight press-roll on a snare backed half-note triplets on the bell of a ride cymbal.  Big Pat grinned over his shoulder as some guy on tenor sax speared the stratosphere.  What the hell?  Three new musicians, all in black suits, ties, and shined shoes, had claimed the space around the Steinway.  

I squinted through the smoke.  Was that Nate Carter?  And who was on doghouse?  Last I’d heard, Willy Nicholson was in a memory care facility in Fresno, but there he was, looking fine and making that big old bass sing.

They rolled into an old barroom ballad.  “Angel Eyes,” I thought, but halfway through, they turned the corner and popped into a swing version of  “I Thought About You.”  Carter traded fours with Big Pat.  They ran through the form one more time and KO’d the ending like they’d been playing it all year.  The drummer, who looked just like a thirty-something version of Kenny Rosen, tapped his sticks together four times and the quartet launched “How High the Moon.”

Who were these guys?  The sons of people I’d known years ago?  Reincarnations?  Ice lanced through my belly.  Was I dead?  Was this some sort of afterlife for jazz-loving bartenders?   Some kind of time warp?

I shrugged off the icicle.  I felt fine — better than, actually.  If this was the afterlife, bring it on.  The orders continued to come fast and furious.  The musicians, whoever they were, sounded like the young, strong geniuses I’d known in my youth, more than a half-century earlier.  

Every solo smoked.  Every tune swung.  At every table, all across the room, the crowd sat, eyes locked on the quartet.  Meanwhile, six tuxedo-clad gentlemen rearranged the tables, making room for a handful of couples to dance. 

 The band played ’til closing time.  The audience members jumped to their feet, and the applause went on for ten minutes straight.  Outside, the storm kept battering the old building, but the thunder and the rain sounded like cheering to me.  I unplugged the sign in the window and, tired down to my bones, leaned against the edge of the bar.  What now?

Big Pat stood up.  He mugged for the crowd.  “Thanks folks,” he said.  “You guys are great.”  He jabbed a finger at the tip jar — now a beer pitcher stuffed with Jacksons and Franklins.  “My cup runneth over.”  The applause started up again, but BP waved it off.  “We’re digging this big time, but we need a fifteen minute break.  A little R&R.  We’ll be right back.”

In the end, Big Pat’s quartet played ‘til quarter to five in the goddamn morning.  I was washing glassware when I realized that the music had changed.  I glanced up just as Pat riffed his way through a two-five-one in Eb.  It sounded fine, and he followed it with the mother of all blues piano solos, but I did a double-take: Carter, Nicholson, and Rosen had vanished.

Something else had changed, something about the vibe in my club.  It took me a while to get it.  Finally, I realized the storm had finally blown itself out. 

Big Pat kept playing.  He finessed the intro to David Egan’s “The Blues How They Linger,” which was weird, since he’d come up years before Egan had been born.  Pat’s voice sounded tired but clear and strong.  When had he learned that song, let-alone memorized the lyrics?  

Weirder still was how my old friend adapted Mingus’s musical eulogy to Lester Young, “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat,” for his solo.  Chills scampered up my back as Big Pat worked his way into the last verse of “The Blues How They Linger.”  The final Eb7 rang out.  

The old man stood.  He gave a low, solemn bow.  The audience applauded for the longest time.  Whatever this night had been, it was over.

I was dead on my feet, which by the way, felt like they’d carried me to the top of Kilimanjaro and back.  Shrugging off the exhaustion, I stationed myself by the door.  Big Pat, Shirley, and Marvin dragged themselves over and stood by my side.  The House of Windsor had nothing on us; like some royal receiving line, we shook hands with the guests as they filed out of my club.  It was cool and still outside, without a hint of clouds.  The air smelled clean.  Crisp.

Bonnie delRay was the last one to leave.  Amazingly, she looked just as fresh and sexy has she had when she first waltzed through the door.  She held Big Pat’s hands in hers and stared into his eyes for a second before leaning in and planting a firm kiss on the old man’s lips.  When she stepped back, Bonnie hesitated, like maybe she wanted to say something, but then she just shook her head.  She turned that megawatt smile on all of us, waved, and vanished into the bus.  

The door to the Greyhound hissed shut.  The big diesel rumbled to life.  With one final blast of the horn, the bus headed into the sunrise.  

I saw my friends out and locked the door.  As I tottered to my apartment, I jammed my hands into my pockets and, surprised, pulled out rolls of cash.  I remembered then; the last half hour or so, there’d been no more room in the register.  In forty-five years, I’d never had a month, let-alone a night, remotely like this one.  

The Gates of Jazz would live to swing for another year.  

Copyright © 2021, Michael C. Glaviano.  All rights reserved.