Submit
Improvising Uptown at a Living-Room Jazz Parlor in Sugar Hill, NY
A sign above the doorbell says wait until the light turns green, but you're not even sure if anyone heard you buzz. No box office, no usher, no line. This is someone's home. Someone you've never met. The light turns green. She's waits atop two flights of marble stairs, and you greet each other effusively before taking seats—yours, one of 50 padded folding-chairs in the makeshift jazz parlor's living room and kitchen; hers, the bench behind the upright piano. Delicate sounds begin to trickle from the keys, and soon she's joined by musicians who've taken time from their downtown circuit for this—an oasis on the outskirts of New York pretensions, where cookies are passed out during intermission and musicians feel every exhaled appreciation. Jazz the way it used to be during the Harlem Renaissance. And, as long as Marjorie Eliot keeps responding to that buzzer at 555 Edgecombe, it's got some time yet.
Add a Comment
