On signaling, notes from a jazz bar

transcribed from my notebook on July 18, 2023

Credit: Ornithology’s website, I oddly have no pics from inside

I’m starting to become enamored with Ornithology, but maybe for the wrong reasons. It’s a jazz bar, but maybe its actual purpose gets misused. Don’t get me wrong, jazz music gets played. Tons of it. Every night, from 9-11:30 p.m. there’s an outfit of three to four players, performing songs they’ve committed to memory, boring through the annals of jazz history, mining legendary compositions for their most palatable tune. And more often than not, it sounds good. In truth, I enjoy every second of it. I, like the majority of the other Bushwick neighborhood attendees, often don’t know any better. The jazz, and the bar that surrounds it, is nothing more than a status symbol to us. It’s a signifier, a token that certifies that you have an understanding of the finer aspects of culture that surpass your peers. “The Jazz Bar.” It rolls off the tongue when you tell people that you’ve spent a weekday night listening to the scampering piano crashes and intrusive saxophone blares of nameless artists. 

It’s a curious crowd for this nameless artist. Save for the sparse, increasingly random yet consistent, assortment of jazz players in the crowd who wait for the chance to play in the jam session after the clock strikes 11:30, the audience is littered with young, dumb (but smart) Bushwick 20-somethings. These Bushwick 20-somethings (I wish there was another name for this community) fill the crowd as inattentive listeners. And “inattentive” is kind. I would say that 70% of the crowd talks to each other during every performance, every song, every measure. Whatever conversation they’re embroiled in is far more important than what’s occurring in the middle of the venue. It’s a war for attention, and the music is losing…badly. The person next to you, whether it be a date, a long-lost friend, lover -- supersede the pianist hammering away at the keys. But that’s the purpose of the “bar,” to meet with friends, chat, revel in each other’s company, and catch up. Maybe that’s the issue of the “Jazz Bar.” You’re asking the audience to divide 100% of its attention between two equally deserving subjects. I’m guilty of it (still, confession is not absolution). When someone I love and care about visited, I took them to this bar, mostly because it was close, but partly because I knew it would provide the proper background sound and lighting for a pleasant evening. I didn’t care what it sounded like, I just knew that it would sound “nice.” I didn’t care about the 12-bar blues, I had no qualms about what key or beat count the band decided on, I just wanted to make sure the person/people I was with enjoyed themselves. 

I, like my fellow Bushwick 20-somethings before, reduced jazz to a “mood.” It’s an aesthetic to be mined for a moment, utilized as an atmospheric filter. Yet, the artists in the middle of the bar play on. They persist, blistering through the background chatters and the shaking ice behind the bar. This gig is not background, nor is it secondary. For them, it’s all that matters for three hours. 

The players have meticulously crafted a setlist, but will deviate from it and improvise in a heartbeat. They communicate through their eyelids, shutting them and opening them, using covert signals to call out directions that would be indiscernible to the naked eye. They power through songs, weaving in and out of solos with a lovely rhythm. It never feels like an artist is trying to steal the spotlight -- every song is a moment for each member of the band, each break is a chance to shine. It gets even more thrilling past 11:30, when the performances cease and the jam sessions take over. The latent sea of musicians, who had listened intently for hours, then flood the middle of the floor, reaching for their weapons of choice. Ten-minute tracks ensue, as far too many of each instrument get the chance to improve. It’s a blank canvas, with a billion paintbrushes splattering their color onto the page, creating a beautiful mess that few have the patience to comprehend. 

And I truly understand none of it. I try my best -- I used to play piano and clarinet as a wee lad, so I like to trick myself into believing I have a semblance of a clue. But I really don’t. Which is why it’s better when I go alone. If I had someone here, I’d fall in line. Using the jazz bar as a reason to meet someone, as a reason to chat, as a faceless scene. Instead, I use it as a place to try and disappear into the music, existing somewhere between the cliff of emboldened artistic passion and aimless, youthful joy.