The Passion of Jazz and Other Short Stories

finished playing, the jam session started. All different people from the community stood up and played jazz, from a black piano player to a latin trumpeter. After a few songs, Jim stood up and took his guitar on stage. He improvised over the standard, “It Don’t Mean a Thing.” He dove into the music with gusto, propelled by the energy of the band playing with him, the rhythm section upping the ante and pushing him to climax. He peeled out on his solo and ended with an upward flourish and rapid riff. Rita smiled broadly up at him from the audience in appreciation, a smile that was to stay with him in his memory for years, cementing her first experience of his “little thing” on the side.

  After the jam session, Rita asked, “Do you think I could learn to sing like you play?”

  “I don’t see why not. You have the talent. You just have to apply it, to put the same energy you put into Puccini into Ellington.”

  “Could you teach me?”

  “I could.”

  “Will you?”

  Jim smiled, taking her hand, and they walked out together.

  Over the next few weeks, Rita and Jim began meeting whenever they could outside of class. Jim had her sing various songs from the Real Book, the famous fake book that contained many well-known jazz standards, while he accompanied her on guitar. Rita began picking jazz up quickly, since she already had a strong knowledge of music and theory, and a virtuoso’s natural energy that she lent to everything she sang. Jim only had to give her minor instruction, pointing out the swing feel of the tempo here, and the syncopation of the phrasing there.

  One Friday night, Jim took Rita out to another jazz club, this time the Village Vanguard. They listened enraptured to Ahmad Jamal, who was playing in his brooding, introspective manner. Afterwards they attended another jam session. Rita stood up on stage and sang a song they had been working on together, “My Romance.” To Jim’s knowledgeable ear, she sounded beautiful. As she sang, “My romance doesn’t need a thing but you,” she laughed, looking back and smiling at Jim, who played guitar behind her.

  Their night out excited them so much, they could hardly wait to continue working together on Saturday morning. They went to the garden and sat on a bench next to each other, Jim strumming his guitar as she sang “Autumn Leaves.” The energy of their music felt so great to Rita, she felt a strong desire to connect with Jim completely. At the end of the song, she snuck a glance at him with a desirous look in her eye. At just the same moment, Jim looked up at her with a similar look. Was he thinking the same thing? she wondered. Or was it just natural to look at each other when the song was over? They both quickly broke eye contact and moved on to another song from the Real Book.

  Several days later, they played together in a practice room. Jim sat at the upright piano, playing a little bit as Rita sang. He was not trained on piano, but he knew the notes and found it useful to shape ideas about songs on the instrument. “Are you hearing that part like this?” Jim asked, playing a phrase from the song they were working on.

  “Yes, or maybe a little more…let me see,” Rita said and sat down beside him, playing a couple phrases on the piano. As she played, her bare forearm brushed against his. They both felt the electricity of skin against skin. She paused in her playing a little bit, and looked up slightly. He looked up slightly too. But then they quickly went back to playing the piece.

  The next week, they again sat together in the garden, talking about jazz. A master class on Debussy was about to begin, but they wanted to take every moment they could to devote themselves to their side interest. Rita spoke of several of the standards she had discovered in the Real Book, saying how she liked their classical influence. But then as she stopped speaking, their eyes were still locked on to each other. Neither of them said anything, they just moved closer to each other, as if to kiss.

  But just at that moment, a teacher walked by, saying, “Hi you two. Aren’t you going to the master class? It should be starting any moment now.”

  “Oh, yes,” Jim said. “We’ll be there right away.”

  “Great, I think you will find Mr. Pemley very instructive.”

  “Thank you,” Jim said, and they stood up to go to class.

  The end of the six week program came up on Rita and Jim quickly, and they still felt so interested in each other even though they had to leave. They both found themselves wishing they had a more intimate relationship. But they said their goodbyes, promised to stay in touch, and left, Jim to Boston and Rita back to the other coast, to San Francisco. Unfortunately, however, over time the distance got the better of them, and in a few years with college and new relationships they slowly stopped writing to each other and lost touch.

  Fifteen years later, Rita moved to Boston with her husband and two kids, her husband having obtained a job with a local corporation. Jim still lived in Boston, now with his wife and child. One day, Jim went to the grocery store just as Rita was coming out. They looked at each other, both feeling so shocked that each almost could not believe the other was present.

  “Rita? What are you doing here? Aren’t you on the wrong coast?”

  “I moved here,” Rita said. “My…husband…got a job out here.”

  “What a surprise. I hope you are liking it here.”

  “I’m adjusting. You know, making the move. It’s hard to believe we’ve been married ten years now already.”

  “Wow, me too. Well, eight. I got married when I was 25, not long after I graduated college.”

  “So, are you, still into jazz?”

  “You bet, I love it as much as I loved it when I was 18.”

  “Me too. I never made it as a classical soprano. But I still sing jazz with some musician friends I know.”

  “That’s great, good to know something I did touched somebody like that.”

  “You did, you really did.”

  They both paused. It was awkward to know what to say next, whether they should plan to see each other again, how they could possibly pick up where they left off, fifteen years ago.

  “So, maybe I’ll see you around Boston, then, I guess,” Jim said.

  “Yes, maybe. Hopefully…”

  “You wouldn’t want to go to a jam session, would you? Just for old time’s sake?”

  “I…I’d love to,” Rita said.

  “Great. Here’s my card. My number’s right there on the bottom.”

  “Great. Thank you. I’ll call you.”

  “Okay,” Jim said, smiling.

  That weekend they met at a jazz club and both went onstage to play. The old excitement of jazz was still there for them, and they gave energetic performances. Afterwards, Rita invited Jim back to her house, telling him her husband and kids were out of town for the weekend.

  They talked for awhile, and before long found themselves sitting next to each other on the couch. At a pause in the conversation, Rita’s eyes filled with desire, and she and Jim moved closer to each other. They moved their mouths towards one another. Their lips barely touched, but then Jim said, “We shouldn’t.”

  “I know, but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t.”

  “Yes, yes it does. If it was meant to be, we would have done it then.”

  “We should have done it then. I wanted you, so badly. I’ve never wanted anyone like that since then.”

  “Truth be told, nor me you. But that doesn’t make it…this…right. We have our commitments now. We’re not the kids we once were, now we have families, children.”

  “Maybe our families would understand, that we’d missed out on something great. Maybe we deserve this, after all that’s happened to us.”

  “No, we don’t. Not in this way. Not in the flesh. We have what we have in life, however it turns out. Maybe the most we could give each other is to think of the other when we hear a piece of jazz. Just think of me, when you hear Charlie Parker or Oscar Peterson or John Scofield, and remember me, the me you knew back at the Academy. That is our gift to each other, through the passion of jazz
.”

  Jim stood up and walked out of the room, leaving her life forever.

  Jim went back to the jazz club and rejoined the jam session. As he listened to the jazz, he remembered Rita and could see her smile, just as she was back at the Blue Note in New York. But then one of the other musicians interrupted his reverie, asking him where the woman was that was with him.

  “Oh her?” Jim said, “She wasn’t with me, not really. She was just the daughter of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.”

  No One There to Listen

  “Slow down,” Jill said to her husband Rob, who was driving their SUV on their family vacation to the Grand Canyon. “Slow down.”

  “Relax, I’m going the speed limit.”

  “No you’re not, the speed limit is 65. You’re going 80. Slow down.”

  “It’s fine. Kids, is it fine? Is our speed fine?”

  Billy and Laura, aged 8 and 11, sat quietly in the back seats.

  “See, they’re good with it.”

  “Listen to me, you’re going to get us into a wreck driving that fast, and get us a speeding ticket, which will drive our insurance rates through the roof, which will—”

  “Okay, okay, here you go, how about this?” Rob slammed on the brakes. “Let me move over into the slow lane while I’m at it.”

  Rob slowed the car’s speed down to a crawling 45 mph. “Is that better?”

  “What are you doing? No, not that slow.”

  “Oh, so I’m not going fast enough now, is that it?”

  “Stop,