Goodbye to New York, Part 2

"Who's playing tonight?"

"Wayne," responds a tiny, hunched-over man with a black and yellow cap sitting placidly outside a tiny, brick-lined doorway. "It's ten bucks," he says, as two twenty-somethings in Columbia tee-shirts enter the narrow stairwell with Heinekens in hand and smug faces, amused by themselves for inquiring about the musicians of a jazz world with which they are entirely unfamiliar.

We enter behind them, paying with crumpled, used and reused ten dollar bills, and follow them down the stairs into a dark, musky, scarcely-populated room. In the corner, a few disheveled musicians sit on a bookshelf, staring blankly at a half-full pitcher of cranberry juice on the dry bar. Small's has forks, barstools, cups, and even a microwave, but has never served anything but cranberry or the occasional apple juice, as I learned on my first visit there, when I attempted to order a Coke. Fifteen or so trips later, I have learned my lesson and now carry a bottle of water and a candy bar with me, in case the jazz inspires some chocolate craving in me.

I tell Katie, who has never been here, that the musicians arrive when they like. At 10:30, they've set up and begin to play. As they swing into their first number, I enter a trance, fixated on the welcoming picture of Louie Armstrong directly behind the band. I had been convinced it was a photograph of Duke Ellington, but after the set that night, the owner told me otherwise. Despite this new information, the photograph still looms in my memory constantly, as my first symbol of New York, a reminder of smoky, hazy nights spent at Small's and the eerie familiarity of a single smiling face.

Nick, an aspiring jazz musician and connoisseur of sorts, introduced me to Small's two years ago. Now, when I ask him to accompany me on one of my many trips there, he refuses, claiming it is "selling out and losing its cool." To me, though, Small’s is just beginning. I can't get enough of that dark enclosed space where New Yorkers blend with an occasional out-of-towner, businessmen fare well with musicians, and where both nobodies and somebodies go for relaxation and a good rhythm. I find myself constantly drawn to its sepulchral feel and familiar tunes, its secretive existence and early morning hours, its good taste in jazz and its ability to make me feel at home downtown. The dissenting chords, giant bass plucks, and harsh sax notes make me think, ponder, question, and perhaps most importantly, live.

When we leave Small's, I stay to talk to Mitch, the owner and peaceful collector of the cover charge. He begins our conversation with a simple, "good?", and I respond, "as always." We launch into a discussion of hungry mice, how to salvage the dying Fat Cat (his billiards/jazz club joint that isn't doing so well), what makes a musician (and a good one at that), the importance of style, and Walt Whitman. He tells me he's his biggest fan, and that in the 1950s, before this small hole in the ground was Small's, it was home to Lenny's Hideaway, one of the first gay clubs in New York, a place patronized by many of the famous Beat poets. I'm in awe of the history of such a tiny room and go back downstairs for a minute to see if I can feel the presence of ghosts or history or maybe have some lines come to mind, and they do. Duke Ellington saying “playing ‘bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.” Whitman's "What is it then between us? What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?" Whitman's "Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem." I go back upstairs, haunted, and continue my back-and-forth chat with Mitch, who plays violin on 68th and Columbus during the day and reminds me of an owl in some way, holding deposits of information and releasing them slowly to people who tap into them enough. I promise to return soon, and at one a.m., hail a cab to my uptown abode, fulfilled once again by an evening of rich jazz and conversation I've found only in New York.