Daily Blague

Kathleen couldn't find her cell phone, so we decided that trying to meet on the Upper West Side without a restaurant in mind was a bad idea. It would be better if she came home after the doctor's appointment and we went to dinner from there. She walked in just as I was buckling my belt; I had finished writing just in time. We still didn't have a restaurant, but I remembered that the last time that we went to the Blue Note, we had dinner at Ennio and Michael, an Italian restaurant in LaGuardia Place, right around the corner from the jazz club. Not only did they take my reservation for a table in half an hour, but we were actually there in half an hour. Sometimes the FDR is the only way to go, even if you do have to drive all the way across Manhattan at its widest to get to Greenwich Village.

At a quarter past nine, we were in line outside the Blue Note, not far from the head. We were even closer after a woman from the club culled people who didn't have reservations. It wasn't very cold, and the rain that was already falling in New Jersey hadn't reached Manhattan (it would arrive much later, long after we were tucked in), so we had no complaints. "Oh, that's where the IFC is," I said, noting the marquee across Sixth Avenue, and wondering if you can still change at 51st Street for a train that will take you to West Fourth. 

At about ten, they let us in, and, not surprisingly, we got ringside seats. Boy, the place looked scrubbed. Kathleen attributed the clean feel to the same factor that had struck her at the Village Vanguard: no smoke. But it seemed like more than that to me. I'd have said that the entire place had been refurbished after the Mayor's smoking ban. True, it had been a while since our last visit. But I think that the Japanese who run the place (don't they?) have simply cleaned it up. There was a Japanese couple seated next to us. The gentleman was very tired, and actually rested his head on the table from time to time before the set began. But for the most part the room really did look and - more important - sound like a night club. But for the attire, the place sparkled. The Blue Note sparkling? It used to be so ... college.

We were there to hear Cassandra Wilson, who's singing at the Blue Note through New Year's Eve. Kathleen and I were slow to warm to the charms of this great blues singer; it took "The Weight," on Belly of the Sun, to win us over, but won over we were, Kathleen especially. Ms Wilson uses her bottomlessly dusky voice to deconstruct her material; she can make a standard sound completely unfamiliar, singing it as if it were jazz recitative. The effect is earthily meditative: if Ms Wilson were a Wagnerian, she'd be a great Erda. As it is, she reminds me of a completely unleashed Carmen McRae. The more I talk about Cassandra Wilson, the higher the contradictions and paradoxes are going to pile up, so I'd better move on to her great backup, which has a Latin tightness even when the rhythms are pure Delta. It is also colorful, especially since Gregoire Maret added his harmonica to the blend. Bass player Reginald Veal, percussionist (!) Jeffrey Haynes, and guitarists Brandon Ross and Marvin Sewell made a fine blues band. Here's the Muddy Waters number, "Honey Bee," that opened the set.