Collaboration

Collaboration
By David MacDonald
11/26/07
written in jazz speaks (I added several "s"s and "m"s onto the ends of words for jazzy effect.)


         There's a Comfort Suites not far from where I live, and in one room of this hotel, there's a bar. Every other Tuesday, me and the other cats of Bethlehem head downtown to that hotel, walk straight to that rooms, and chill. The simple reason for this is that every other Tuesday, emanating from that hotel bar, are some of the grooviest sounds that I've ever had the opportunity to witness with my own ears, instead of through a pair of headphones. The band is called The Tony Gairo and Gary Rissimiller Orchestra. Before I continue, I wanna tell you ‘bout this jazz man, Tony Gairo. This cat is one of the jazz saxophone teachers at Moravian college, and I've never heard a piece by him that I haven't liked.
         Well, about two months ago, I was just hangin' arounds in my music room, relaxin' to the Miles Davis Quartet, when my old man walked in after a hard day of work. He told me that we'd gotten a flyer in the mail for some sort of ballet. Now, being the sort of cat that I am, dancing doesn't generally interest me. I understand the general idea of moving your whole body to those funky rhythms, but beyond this mild comprehensions, I was a child in the face of dancing. Naturally, the ballet didn't appeal to me... at first. When Miles had finished "Well You Needn't," I got up and wandered around the house for a whiles. I was just about to begin wetting my reed for a few quick hours of jazzin' out to "Cannonball's" warm, rich tones, when my eyes lighted on something that was, like, totally whack. The little flyer read "Collaboration: A jazz ballet by Tony Gairo, November 16th and 17th." My eyes were bulging bigger than Satchmo's cheeks, and I bopped to the calender to check out my schedule. I was busy on the sixteenth, but the seventeenth was wide open.
         Hours drew to days, and those soon gave way to weeks. On the 16th, I went to a youth rally at a nearby church, and grooved out to some rock and roll, but all that times, I couldn't get my mind off of that ballet. I knew it was gonna be the most jazzy concerts of the year. Finally, on the 17th, the youth rally ended. I drove home listening to Coltrane playin' the blues. I do recall that I was feelin' a bit blue myself at the time, though I can't seem to think why. But that's the way it always is, isn't it? Yes indeed, I never can remember why I've got these shades of blue all through my soul, but what I do know is that the other color primarily involved in my life is that funky shade of green, and what's a little blue in green now and then anywaym?
         At seven of the clock, I arrived at Foy Hall, where the concert was to take place. I was meeting my brother, a very jazzy character indeed, in the balcony. The lights went down, and the band walked on, amid a tidal wave of tears, jeers, and cheers. Now I said that Tony Gairo was a sax teacher at Moravian, well the other one, Neil Wetzel by name, was to be conducting the orchestra. My own saxophone teacher, by the names of Kyle Hummel, was sitting in there too, with his alto sax shinin' in the light like the moon at night. Well, Neil Wetzel stood up there, and said "For the first half of the show, our dancers will be you. All are welcome to come out here on the floor and dance, ‘cause the first half of this show is comprised of dance songs entirely." Man, you shoulda been there. They jazzed out to "High Society," and Dizzy Gillespie's own "Manteca." Man, they even played "Superstition." It was the jazziest concert of the year.
         After the first half of that groovy concert was finished and couples feverishly dancing in the throes of young love had cleared off floor, Neil stood up again and the real ballet began. At first it was slow, but onlys on purpose. The bass notes rang out over the whole concert hall. Yes indeed, it was so jazzy that I couldn't help movin' around a little to the rhythms myself. Finally, after an hour ended the jazziest concert that I heard with my naked ears of the entire year. But do you know the one things that would have made it better? I'll tell you what that thing is. If I coulds have heard the ballet without all those dancing broads in front of me, man, that concert would've been totally mad whack, man. Not that it wasn't anyway.