God,
I never felt lonelier
than
when the shinkansen would pull in
and
I heard that electronic chime—
the
one to tell us passengers
here
comes the next stop announcement
in
Japanese. It almost sounded like
someone’s
phone, because no one’s phone
sounds
like a phone anymore,
or
a ringtone version of a Milt Jackson line,
a
vibraphone riff from somewhere
in
the middle of one of Milt’s ten thousand runs
through
“Django” or “Bags’ Groove”
or
“Two Bass Hit.” I missed hearing him
twice
back in Michigan, years ago
at
the Serengeti Ballroom and the Bird
of
Paradise, and now missed him all over again—
missed
my CDs and headphones, the live
and
studio versions, the alternate
takes
and outtakes, but especially his solos
that
strayed beyond what I’d given up
precious
brain cells to store away
so
I could replay at will. My dream job,
back
when Milt was still alive, would have been
to
be John Lewis in his tuxedo at the piano.
To
play like that, of course. To play at all.
But
also to be so close I could listen
to
Milt every night, every night—
those
ten thousand sweet transactions
between
the mallets and the vibes.
This
string of four or five notes, not quite
a
melody, not close to a song, might’ve been
a
little something Milt threw in for flavor
or
to egg John on, something to go back to
throughout
his solo, like an inside joke
or
an old lover’s name you can never
really
let go of, just the way I keep hearing it
now,
lonelier each time, as we slide
into
Shinjuku, Shiojiri, Nara, Shin-Osaka.
-- Matthew Thorburn
from This Time Tomorrow by Matthew Thorburn (Waywiser Press, 2013)
