There is a man who plays guitar, and I like the way that he plays. I met him when I heard music coming from the Coal Yard Coffee company on Bonna Avenue in the Irvington suburb of Indianapolis Indiana. I wrote about that experience in “I Run Into Music,” (Weekly View, 05/12/2016.) I enjoy hearing jazz guitar; my boyhood acquaintance, George Benson (we called him “Georgie”) was my first introduction to the magical sounds of the instrument, and I have looked for and listened to many others, since. Once I heard “the sounds of music” from the coffee house, I became a follower of the man who produced them.
I have many CDs with music that the guitar man has composed and recorded; when he invited his fans to join him on his lawn in Rocky Ripple, Indiana, I gladly attended and was happy to tip money into the open guitar case. One of the video recordings on my phone is of his gravid wife, playing saxophone. Their child has the same name as an album by Herbie Hancock, an album that is a tribute to singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell. I have followed the man who plays guitar in his musical movements, and one day, after the release of another album, I asked him if I could interview him. He demurred, and I did not press him.
One of the albums that the man produced gave me an education about Bob Dylan. He covered songs that Dylan had written that I was aware of but had not spent much time listening to. When I did some research into Dylan’s songs, I found that I had missed some important commentary on the times, that were “a-changing.” Al Hunter, a columnist for this paper, wrote of Hattie Carroll, one of the subjects of Dylan’s music. Another song has some implied references to the divisions in the country because of the Vietnam conflict, and the lyrics end with “life is brief.” Also on the album is a song titled “The Death Of Emmett Till,” a chronicle of an event of which I was aware, though I had not known of Dylan’s recording.
The man who plays guitar bid farewell to Indianapolis and moved to Baltimore, Maryland. I attended his farewell performance at The Chatterbox, one of Indy’s coolest jazz clubs. I hoped that he would be playing at the Blues Alley, a Washington DC jazz club that one of my favorite vocalists, Eva Cassidy, used to frequent. He did, and I encouraged my sister, who lives in “The DMV” (District, Maryland, Virginia) area, to see him, but she was unable to fit it into her schedule.
Though I have not been granted the pleasure of personally interviewing the man who plays guitar, I can infer from his choices of music – particularly Dylan – the kind of person that he is. He also did some musical interpretations of one of my favorite authors, Indy’s own Kurt Vonnegut. If his music reflects his thinking, then I like the way that he thinks, as well as the way that he plays.
I plan to see the guitar player again. The co-owner of this publication, Paula Nicewanger and I plan to attend his performance when he returns to Indianapolis to play at the Jazz Kitchen on Wednesday, April 9th.
cjon3acd@att.net