lundi 20 février 2017

Jazz upon a time





             A piece done during my Oxford University creative writing workshop session.


  I thought the picture was lost. I knew it had existed at some point but it had become wholly abstract like some vague idea one has or keeps in mind till it becomes unreal. Last time I saw it, it was in a tin box among other photographs. It was before my moving out from the old place. Now it resurfaced sepia colored.
  “ Hey man! I know you, haven’t we seen each other before?” It took me some time to realize the guy had been talking to me. He had already disappeared swallowed amid an exhilarated and laughing crowd gathered to listen to the Dave Brubeck quartet. They all went down the stairs leading to the jazz club. It was 1960, I was 19 and it was a summer of first times. First day as a dishwasher in the club’s bar, first visit to my father living in Seattle coming all the way from Korea, first jazz concert. I had found this job hoping to be less of a charge for him during my stay. As I went through the back entrance, walking in the corridor, I perceived, above the hubbub, the warm vibrations of the double bass and the drum which arrested me and kept scintillating on my skin, through my body. Once settled behind the counter, with the sole view of a row of dirty glasses, I could not see a thing of what was happening on the stage. But, as the first swinging blue measures of music played, jeez, jazz had hooked me.