Foot pedal and cymbals, the beat, and the girl and the hi-hat solo.
The audience watch her deliver from the shadows.
“Hello Mr Jackson, your table is ready.”
Last minute folly, the table reserved from the back of a deadbeat bus, at a late-night jazz-hall at the end of a downtown boulevard.
The sound terrific, the saxophone, the beating in my veins, the bass lifting my pulse. And on the back wall, a kaleidoscope of jazz bar musicians – Jolson, Davis, Berry, and Baker, all framed complete.
And the audience roars like thunder.
five or six cognacs,
excessive, heavy drinking,
turmoil and decline.