Further evidence that Thebes was wrong...

[Mallette]

Thank God it's Friday. What a week. Stock market all over the place, except up from the toilet. Not much news but bad news. I still gotta job, but I am slammed. Still, I am grateful...dog tired and weary, but grateful. I really need to unwind. Fact is, I finally can. After 14 years, I can finally have a beer. May two. Probably twenty, after all, I gotta whole dollar to spend. I'll remember this day. FDR is my hero, and I am a Republican fer chrissake!

'Course I'd been drinking at Tiny's for years, but only after banging on the door, waiting for Beau to open the little door and recognize me, and the stuff that passed for "beer" tasted suspicously like Missisippi River water that somebody had belched bubbles into...but it was what we had. It really wasn't what we gathered at Tiny's for, though. I made better beer than that at home, and cheaper too, I might add.

I wandered down Bourbon. Like all the streets in the Vieux Carre 38 feet wide...just barely big enough to allow the passage of the giants who originated here. There was a cold front and the Gulf mist that rose in protest could be seen easily as it formed glowing spheres around the street lamps. The street shimmered with wet, chilly light. My 59 year old eyes applied a six point star filter that made me think of the guiding star of so long ago...but these didn't hover over mangers, but over the birthplace of Jass and on these streets there were many ways to heaven...or some other plane... and each had a star.

I knew which one was mine and went straight through the wide open great red wooden door. Beau was there, but his smile said, "Dave, we made it. Prohibition done, man!" Oddly, in spite of the already growing mass inside, my seat at the bar was awaiting right under the old sign stating "All kinds Jass played here." Visibility was about the same as outside, maybe worse. Smoke swirled slowly and thickly and a non-smoker visiting here daily either had to keep coming or buy his own after more than a week. I straddled and said "Tiny, gimme a beer. A real beer. A friggin' LEGAL beer NOT made from river water!" He grinned a grin that let you know why we call it "the crescent city" and put a pristine mug under the tap and pulled back on the lever. Gawd, whatta sight for sore old eyes! Fresh, clean beer pouring like Niagara in an America that, thank Godalmighty, was free again! Tiny made the 4 foot slide to my open and waiting hand which paused not in a continuous motion that led within seconds to an empty glass heading in the opposite direction stirring the languid smoke in its passage.

I'd just started to savor the second one when Armand waddled in. While not that old, Armand Hugs was royalty in the ivory tickling business. Relatively young at 23, he'd nonetheless come up through Storyville, and by the age of 15 learned "In the Mist" by having Bix Biederbecke himself stick his arms around him at the piano and say, "Armand, boy, HERE's how it's done..." We exchanged pleasantries and he headed towards the stage. I was so ready. No I wasn't, need another beer. Then I caught sight of Thomas carrying his battered old cornet case. MAN, Tiny's puttin' on the Ritz! The cornet Thomas Jefferson was carrying had been given to him by Louis Armstrong, though hardly into middle age already a legend, at least for 20 blocks in any direction from where I sat...and this was our whole world. Not far behind was Joe Capraro with his guitar, and Sherwood Mangiapane trying desperately to part the Red Sea so he could get his bass through. This was gonna be a night to remember!

There was plenty of fine flesh present, but there was always time for that and I wanted no distractions as they all tuned up to the "A 454" that Armand repeated on Tiny's battered old upright and made sound like a concerto. Downing the last of their first beers, the horn deeped, and the piano sounded, then the guitar and bass melded as "Float Me Down the River" rolled over me like the tide. Thomas trumpet commanded, but rode on Armand's ship. The hard brick walls of Tiny's place made Joe's whistle of the melody seem like it was 6 inches from the ear. A first time visitor wandering past would have been SURE that was Louis singing in there, but to those of us from these parts we knew that as Thomas. Well, talking about transcendent music is like listening about great painting, so let me get to the point. The set continued with "Shade of the Old Apple Tree" done such that it seemed to clear the hanging smoke and replace it with an apple tree from way up north, around Monroe. "Back of Town Blues" that Louis would have deemed more than fit, and the set ending so the guys could grab another REAL beer with "When You're Smilin'"...what a surprise!

Yezzir, 5 cent beer is back and I am drinking 20 of them tonight for the dollar the PAW let me have, and it’s a pretty good deal.

Thank God it's Friday, December 5, 1933 and the night is YOUNG!

Notes after listening to Side B, GHB-129 "New Orleans at Midnight"

Estate Sale, 1.00

Dave

[skonopa]

Thank God it's Friday, December 5,
1933 and the night is YOUNG!

And 8 years and two days later...

But, don't you just love how music transports you back in time like that though?

In my case - letting the awesome sounds of a very talented Swedish band in the form of Seventh Wonder washing over me. A bit more modern (2005), but none-the-less just as incredible in my opinion.

[st. patrick]

Dave, responding only to the title, not the substance of the post . . . .

Marty may occasionally be misguided or misinformed, and on very RARE occasions he might even be led astray by those tantalizing twins (the man is only human, for goshsakes), but I am told that Thebes has NEVER been wrong.

[Mallette]

Well, back in Houston nursing a doozy of a hangover on a bright (squint) Saturday morning 76 years later.

I am studying this recording. It is an engineering masterpiece. I can usually mind image the space and microphone positions on high quality recordings but this one stumps me. It is not "dry," like one of the Toscannin NBC studio recordings, but the returns from the walls are very short like cork or some similar material. It has the quality of seeming to couple to my listening room seamlessly. I write a lot about the shortcomings of 2 channel in conveying a realistic sense of "Virtual Presence" but here it works just fine. It gives me a sense that it might even be a multi-microphone setup where either by chance or brilliant work the mikes are very time aligned and in phase. Perhaps all omnis in a small space as described above. A puzzler, but what a nice one!

I will keep noodling on this. It's awesome.

Dave

[jt1stcav]

That's a dollar well spent, especially when it drags you by force back thru time and you enjoy it so much you feel like you're actually there reliving the event!

Cool...

[oldtimer]

You should be ashamed of yourself picking on Marty. On the other hand I can think of not much better than sitting around a table with Mallette and Thebes, drinking something good and shooting the bull...

[Groomlakearea51]

[Y] aand interrogating Thebes ref the twins.....[6]

[Mallette]

aand interrogating Thebes ref the twins.....

I wanna see the videos...

Dave

[thebes]

Ah New Orleans where the the hwole town's corrupt, the booze flows all night and the music never stops. Read your story and got out the hootch. I mentally slipped into my Thebes the Hi Fi Detective persona andended up in a backwater dive called Fini's Bar in a seedy corner of Kansas City.

Just posting now because my liver function just kicked back in. Here's a little of what happened:

"Lately though it hadn’t been going so well. The cases were few and far between, my heart
had been broken by a steel-eyed beauty with a thing for amplifiers, and my own
stereo system was missing something. I’d tried cheering myself up by taking a
roll of nickels to the jaw of a deadbeat client, but it hadn’t worked so here I
was at Fini’s-staring at water rings and feeling sorry for myself.

At first I ignored that magical musk of woman and fine
perfume, the last thing I needed right now was another broad in my life. She asked me for a light though, and
reluctantly I turned toward her and found myself staring into the cool blue
orbs of a Nordic beauty. I’d seen her
before. She was known as the Ultimate BarFly. Platinum blonde, with long
eyelashes, high cheeks, full red lips offset by an intriguing mole on her right
cheek. She had long violinists fingers
and encapsulated in a red cocktail dress was a body built by Fisher. From the nape of her neck to her stiletto
heels she was man’s ultimate fantasy and worse nightmare. She was mother,
sister, lover, devious, intriguing, haunting, exasperating, imperious, gentle,
warm, primal and caring. She could drink with the boys, tell bad jokes and
drive you crazy with the flick of an eyelash or toss of a chin.

She new everything there was to know about men and for some
reason still liked them. She was a cat and I was her latest mouse."

Of the great music towns, New York, Chicago, Memphis, New Orleans I feel the music of Kansas City is the most overlooked. Check out the sondtrack from the movie "Kansas City" if you're looking for a musical thrill.

Great story Dave.

[thebes]

I am told that Thebes has NEVER been wrong.

Correctomundo! I never get lost when travelling either, only misplaced.

[Mallette]

I am told that Thebes has NEVER been wrong.

Correctomundo! I never get lost when travelling either, only misplaced.

That's true. I understand once your baggage showed up and you didn't...

Dave

[jtnfoley]

Thebes has baggage? []

On a semi-related, semi-OT note... has anyone heard the treatment given to New Orleans on the Simpsons musical episode? I was given the CD as a joke: track 6 'Oh, Streetcar!' (The Musical)(A Streetcar Named Marge) will have you in stitches.