Flanagan on Lexington
I attended a jazz concert with my son -- we caught the Tommy Flanagan Trio at the Jazz Standard on Manhattan's East Side. Loved it! Here's how my fingers tapped the palmtop keyboard between and upside the notes..
On seeing the Tommy Flanagan Trio at the Jazz Standard, 27th Street, Manhattan, January 2, 2000. Last updated 9/10/01)
Here's how it wuz…
Why write? ..Cuz...
Walking towards Flanagan, that mythical jazz pianist trippin' on the
Manhattan crust.
Zippin' with my son past everyone down old B-way,
Going our way, with the Pakistans, Uzbekistans, and all stripes of fellow ameriKANs....
headed to the east side, passing at 44th below the Concorde hanging model, angled like a forlorn seabird,
Below great Northern Lights of giant cinemas in the sky....
Down the tube to the Times Square shuttle, on the fly...
Watch your step!
Hop the gap between platform and car, two stops later and there we are -- not far.
Jazz Standard, club cool and dimly lit....
Peter Washington on bass, now thumbing it, fingering the everlasting soft-hand-rhythm...
Flanagan, smooth, bald, avuncular Afro dude, ancient avatar so humbly smooth...
Lyrical as a Parisian streetlamp by the mist-enshrouded Seine,
making melodious sense
Painted backdrop of 12-inch scratched glass squares, setting the scene as if by unawares.
Now 2 tunes by Bud Powell --
and then Giuseppe Verde's "Body and Soul "
o, didn't you know? - that's johnny green, in his lyrical mode. note by plangent note,
in thoughtful mode, until playful fast-paced melody ...
A tune from Gershwin's ""Girl Crazy" and Tommy asks...
what else is there is go crazy about?....
A woman in the throng meets the task - "Boy Crazy," she avers
Right on, the ladies infer
Capper now by dizzy g. , dontcha see.... where tommy rolls on spiritedly,
Louis Nash drums hand-rappingly,
fingers on skin, so seamlessly
Uplifted, powered we feel, by this night's Flan-Energy
—— Albert Fried-Cassorla, September 10, 2001