I dreamt I was watching a show on the history of Jazz, and was immersed in it. On a train rocking along going back through the tough times of the 20s, 30s, 40s in black and white. From desperate poverty and outright racism came a song and dance that was more than victorious. It was Jazz. I don’t remember much but the end now (though there was a scene in which uncle Ted entered, with which I shared a moment of sympathetic adoration, comprehension of what Jazz was).
I was in a club watching Dizzy Gillespie perform at the end of his life. When I got there, I sat at the bar. Someone gave me some weed. I took a seat at the front of the spacious place across the empty dance floor from the band, where Diz stood leading. I fumbled with the weed b/c it was mixed with tobacco, separating it out as I could, but having a hard, distracting time trying to be inconspicuous. A guy next to me obviously wanted a toke, watching me, what I had. Finally I managed to half-way sort it out, but gave up, distracted again by the music, the performance.
Diz was having a great time and I became enthralled with his masterful mischief. At the end, the band had stopped but he was still scatting along, doing a little dance. I walked along with him as he sang and shuffled his way back toward the bar, across the big, clean place. As we approached the end of the empty floor, and our conversation –at least one other person was now hovering, wanting to talk to him– I asked him if he possibly remembered meeting Eric Molin. A subtlety pleased look of recognition came over him.
As he smiled back at me I told him that was my dad, that he had left me his trumpet –I got goosebumps, and pointed them out to Diz– and that dad had studied with the same teacher, Dizzy’s first, at which point his expression became a bit less comprehending. I said, “I love you Diz,” as I backed away, and the supremely celebratory scat and shuffle now became mine as I left him, singing my bebop, doing my little dance.
