Real Cerebral

We are living in a very close-knit community. I say this because no sooner had a column on Illinois Jacquet appeared than a friend of mine showed up--looking agitated and somewhat annoyed.

"You shouldn't do that," he said.

"What?"

Write about Jacquet."

"Why?" I asked.

"That stuff's nowhere," he said. "That's why, it's just nowhere."

"People like it," I said, somewhat dumbfounded at his approach.

"People who don't know," he said. "That's who like it, people who don't know."

"And what do people who know like?" I asked.

His answer was short and to the point, "Bop," he said.

Bop is a word I'd heard many times before. Unlike Dixieland addicts, though, those who prefer bop seem to hold themselves intellectually aloof from the emotionally throbbing outpourings of the earlier jazz cults. This bespectacled friend was no different from the rest in this respect. I discovered this five days later when he called me on the phone.

"It's happening," he said.

"What's happening?"

"Konitz has moved into Storyville."

"Who?"

"Lee Konitz--plays a delicate alto."

Trapped. So we went to Storyville.

It was different, very different. Except for the music, there wasn't a sound in the place. People sat at their tables, hands folded, staring hard at the stand. There, in the middle of the raised platform stood Lee Konitz--himself staring at a small saxophone clutched in his rapidly working fingers.

We sat down. I turned to my friend.

"Don't talk," he said, "just listen."

He turned his head and started staring hard at the stand.

So I listened.

Konitz stopped playing--leaving a couple of notes hanging in mid-air. He pulled up the microphone and spoke: "We're going to play something I wrote with Lennie Tristano called . . . I'm sorry, I don't think we gave it a name."

He played. I listened. My companion muttered something about "flatted fifths." I listened some more. The number ended. Applause.

Konitz smiled and then looked embarrassed. "I'm very sorry," he said, "but I just remembered--I didn't write that. The next number is something I waxed 17 years ago." He started to play Sweet and Lovely.

Konitz looked as if he were having a hard time pushing 24. He had short cropped blonde hair and wore thick horned rim glasses. He was wearing a blue oxford button-down and a black knit tie, and seemed perpetually bent at the knees. Very tired.

The music went on and I began to get interested. It seemed tricky and pleasant; it was the feeling you get from looking at a midget juggling ice cubes. I looked smilingly at my companion. He looked dejected.

"Not inspired," he said.

"Huh?"

"They're not getting any kicks--just playing the job."

I drained down my beer, got up, and started to walk out.

"You see," my friend began to explain, "Bop is cerebral . . ."