Sundays at Vic's

Laptops and espressos, newspapers, kids in strollers, dogs, bicycles, and jazz - Sundays at Vic's. Four years ago, January '03, a piano suddenly appears in Vic's plate glass front window. It has a sign-up sheet on it. I'd been looking for a place with a piano to do a regular gig, the kind you can invite people to by saying, "We're there every Tuesday." I call the number on the sign up sheet and learn that the owner and a regular customer have gone in together on the piano to bring live music into Vic's. I propose to bring in a jazz group once a week, where players can sit in and come and go, but a core group stays the same. After a few weeks of phone calls it's decided - we'll play Sundays from noon to 2 pm.

Since then we've probably played that time slot about two hundred times, a testament to the allure of a gig with a real piano, a steady audience, a relaxed, creative vibe, and hours that don't interfere with other gigs. Did I mention free coffee? Some weeks, but not many, it was just me. Mostly I was joined by unamplified acoustic bass. At some point, amazing musicians began to make themselves noticed. A guitarist new to town from New Orleans didn't even ask to sit in, he just started talking about music on a break and it was obvious he could play. So we became a trio. We naturally gravitated to a 30s chunk chunka chunk chunk swing feel because it felt so good. We made it a point never to use charts or fake books but rather to wing it with songs one of us knew well enough for the others to follow.

At some point Amy came in and asked if we ever let singers sit in. Never mind it turned out it was just so she could meet the bass player. He's gone and she's in the band. And then there was the tall, mild mannered student of Zen from Vermont who came in every few months with a small clarinet case, but never opened it. After a year or two, he'd assemble his instrument and play smooth, mellow, warm low notes the made everyone look up from their laptops and NY Times and smile.

The bass players continued to disappear. One had to move back to Montreal before he was deported, the other, Venezuela. One night at a post concert party for the Boulder Philharmonic, I snuck through a potted palm to avoid the gridlock and bumped into a striking blond woman holding a violin case. "Aren't you clever?" she said with an eastern european accent. It turns out she was the clever one - she could sight read Tico Tico faster than we could play it and interpret Ellington like Ray Nance.

One thing that was always out of the question at Vic's was a drumset. It was in the contract, the loudest sound had to be either the milk steamer or the coffee grinder. That's where Andrew comes in. When you watch the video, you see a little drum being played with brushes, but you hear a drumset. Tricky, huh? It's like a system of checks and balances. A singer with no mike, a bass with no amp, a drummer without a drumset. Change any element and the whole thing falls apart. I've learned to play so quietly at Vic's. But you know what? When you play light, it sounds better. When you get a group together with the shared ideology of holding back and swinging - it swings. You'll see, it's on the DVD.

Music for music's sake. Sunday's at Vic's. The tables are pushed aside and a vibraphone is set-up. Ian walks in hugging his bass, wearing a t-shirt and a wool hat in the winter. We play "It's Only a Paper Moon" and Amy tap dances, then a four year old walks up to the piano with a dollar. A couple about to get married listen from a booth and hire us on the spot. Our theory? - if it works at Vic's, it will work everywhere. Why should only the privilaged few, the caffeine addicted, be rewarded?

Vic's is the microcosm. The essence.

Jazz can be become so overly cerebral, intellectual, cultish, a secret society. Or it can be reduced to the gestural, the atmospheric. It can become pantomime, histrionic. It can be done for effect. It can be played with a jock mentality. It can obsess on a certain mood, emotion, or energy level. It can be played on autopilot, cruise control. It can disappear behind the clinking of cocktail glasses. It can blast you out of the room - especially the practice room. It can be myopic, cross-eyed. It can be a good place to hide. Or, in following the paths of the great ones, it can lead you into the middle of the woods with no way home. It can mean absolutly nothing, or it can break your heart.

And yet, if you love it, you keep coming back. Back to the part that is undefinable, undefined. More than anything, it's about the people you play with and the people you play for. It's about letting the song reinvent itself as if for the first time. It's about giddiness, happiness, joy, love, beauty. It's about your most ancient ancestor banging a stick against something and howling at the moon. It's getting lost in the deep pools of a baby's eyes. It's walking with your girlfriend, holding hands on the last week of school. It's looking out at the room and seeing everybody's head boppin - the people at the tables, the people behind the counter, the rhythm section, eyes closed - and you're boppin too. It's - that's right, you guessed it.....

Sundays at Vic's