Birthday Jazz: Swinging On A Star.

By Erica

Is there something in the back of your head that you used to do and keep meaning to do again? But you just never get around to it? I’ve been talking a lot over the past year about revisiting the small live jazz (sadly, no more folk music) haunts of my youth. My sister Lindsay, having heard enough, made that happen for the continuing festival otherwise known as my birthday.

My love of live music really started, not with the huge concerts of the 60’s, but with The Gaslight on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. Unlike the Gaslight of Mrs. Maisel, the original one didn’t have a bar and even in high school we could hang, listen to folk music (Richie Havens was a regular), and think we were beyond cool. Being sung to at close quarters—well, you feel like they are singing just for you. The strings, and your heart, reverberate.

After college, it was The Village Vanguard (still exists, no food), The Village Gate (now closed, where I heard Dave Brubeck but couldn’t get tickets to see Hendrix), and The Blue Note (a favorite of my treasured Uncle Zan who was, in his single days without funds, a regular).

I never, though, had been to the famous uptown jazz club, Birdland. The night we went, the John Pizzarelli trio played with a young pianist, Isaiah Thompson, whose fingers trip over the keyboard like magic. It was intimate, not glitzy, with bar type food that was just right. And, then, wonder of wonders, they played, “Would You Like to Swing On A Star.” That song was the anthem of my childhood, which I distinctly recall singing at the top of my little lungs along with Uncle Zan who could croon with the best of them. More Karma. I will go back…and then back again. It’s also, by the way, a bargain.

So lesson learned. If there’s something you think about doing, just do it.

For this birthday, people I love are giving me their greatest gift—their time. I will take as much of it as I can get and can’t wait for more.