Plenty to be vexed about over the weekend. That sorority kicking out all the fat and/or brown girls (attention, Michael Apted – kindly check in with these young women at seven year intervals and let’s see which group finds more happiness and success, the shallow goose-steppers, or the ones who joined a sorority, not realizing what a sorority is). That, and I discovered that a fluffernutter should never be made with hippie peanut butter, even when that’s all you have in the house.
But did I get disheartened? Not one smidge. I had tickets to Jimmy Scott.
I’ve wanted to see this man perform for round about ten years, since roughly the beginning of his Second Career™, and so excited was I, my chronically tardy ass arrived 30 minutes early to meet my man at work. Having no taxicash on me, I gave the cabbie my driver’s license so he’d sit whilst I jumped out and fetched the boy. I then insisted we suffer through a misbegotten meal at Iridium (not worth mentioning, so I won’t), in order to snag seats all up on the stage.
I wanted to count Jimmy Scott’s nose hairs, and no amount of overcooked pork was gonna keep me from being in line when the doors opened.
Wife Jeanie helped the unsteady crooner onto the stage, where the mythical creature, just as comfortable in a tux as in a ‘do rag (spellchecker just rescued me from making an inadvertent Homer Simpson joke), and donning the former this evening, perched atop a kitchen chair and tapped his lavender alligator shoes, keeping time with the death tempo.
There was some confusion over the name of the band. The Jimmy Scott Quartet? The Jazz Expressions? I think they were the Jazz Expressions one bass player ago. TK Blue on tenor saxophone and flute, a newb whose name I didn’t catch on bass, Dwayne “Cook” Broadnax on drums (and cook, he did), and Aaron Graves, doggie-stylin’ the Steinway and governing the goings on with a pleasant calm not unlike that of the babyhead sun smiling down from a Teletubbies sky.
Little Jimmy needed lyric sheets. And someone to turn the pages for him. He jumped in at the wrong place a time or two. Risked fewer than a dozen words of banter. But the voice is still cinnamon butter, and Jimmy Scott spreads it with a generous hand and a smiley soul. Like dropping a jar of jam on a hard tile floor. Percussive, yet smooth. A chaotic crash, smothered by a cashmere blanket. The evening was too far from sold out, and our early show audience was invited to stay for the second set, without paying another admission. That made me sad. And I couldn’t even stifle my sorrows with a decent fluffernutter when I got home. D’oh!
But did I get disheartened? Not one smidge. I had tickets to Jimmy Scott.
I’ve wanted to see this man perform for round about ten years, since roughly the beginning of his Second Career™, and so excited was I, my chronically tardy ass arrived 30 minutes early to meet my man at work. Having no taxicash on me, I gave the cabbie my driver’s license so he’d sit whilst I jumped out and fetched the boy. I then insisted we suffer through a misbegotten meal at Iridium (not worth mentioning, so I won’t), in order to snag seats all up on the stage.
I wanted to count Jimmy Scott’s nose hairs, and no amount of overcooked pork was gonna keep me from being in line when the doors opened.
Wife Jeanie helped the unsteady crooner onto the stage, where the mythical creature, just as comfortable in a tux as in a ‘do rag (spellchecker just rescued me from making an inadvertent Homer Simpson joke), and donning the former this evening, perched atop a kitchen chair and tapped his lavender alligator shoes, keeping time with the death tempo.
There was some confusion over the name of the band. The Jimmy Scott Quartet? The Jazz Expressions? I think they were the Jazz Expressions one bass player ago. TK Blue on tenor saxophone and flute, a newb whose name I didn’t catch on bass, Dwayne “Cook” Broadnax on drums (and cook, he did), and Aaron Graves, doggie-stylin’ the Steinway and governing the goings on with a pleasant calm not unlike that of the babyhead sun smiling down from a Teletubbies sky.
Little Jimmy needed lyric sheets. And someone to turn the pages for him. He jumped in at the wrong place a time or two. Risked fewer than a dozen words of banter. But the voice is still cinnamon butter, and Jimmy Scott spreads it with a generous hand and a smiley soul. Like dropping a jar of jam on a hard tile floor. Percussive, yet smooth. A chaotic crash, smothered by a cashmere blanket. The evening was too far from sold out, and our early show audience was invited to stay for the second set, without paying another admission. That made me sad. And I couldn’t even stifle my sorrows with a decent fluffernutter when I got home. D’oh!
Honestly, I don’t know why Jimmy Scott hasn’t been elected god by now.
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