My love affair with HR-57.
I had forsaken it for the better part of the year that I've been here, but going back last night, I rediscovered my love for it. No, not love, infatuation, because HR-57 is just the type of place that won't let it love you, it's too cool. It will let you visit it and whisper proverbial sweet nothings in it's ear, but then it'll turn away and go back to playing its sax solo.
HR-57 is a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of jazz and blues as an American art form. It's named after a bill passed in 1987 that establishes jazz as an American cultural tradition to be preserved; it designates it as "a rare and valuable national American treasure to which we should devote our attention, support and resources to make certain it is preserved, understood and promulgated". It offers workshops, music lessons, has a youth orchestra, has a recording studio, and more. It also has jam sessions four times a week, in which you pay $8 or so to sit and listen to some amazing (and, granted, some not so amazing) artists play jazz.
This is where it gets good.
HR-57 reminded me last night that listening to jazz is a lot like having sex, and being in a room full of people listening to jazz is not like having sex with all of them (which I know you thought I'd say) but rather is like everyone is having sex in little booths, and you can hear moans of pleasure echoing. Well, take that image and make it far less creepy than it sounds, and that's what it's like. The beautiful thing about HR-57 is that it is there not to make money, but to celebrate jazz as a form of music and a cultural tradition. Thus, everyone that goes there goes for the music. You see old men in fedoras sitting alone, drinking whisky out of a flask, and hipsters smoking cigarettes in big groups. At HR-57, you bring your own bottle of wine and corkscrew, because they don't play around with serving drinks (although they do have beer and wine). For $6, you can get a plate of collard greens, fried chicken, and red beans and rice. At HR-57 you sit in folding chairs and look at old posters of Dizzy and Ella and Miles and all the rest. At HR-57 musicians come and go, and they find their jam together, and they keep going. They play wonderful solos and everyone claps. You can pick out the nervous ones, the pros, the adventurous ones, the ones that only play the hook from Kind of Blue over and over again, and somehow it all works. Some of them probably play together all the time, others probably have never met each other until they're on stage.
HR-57 is a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of jazz and blues as an American art form. It's named after a bill passed in 1987 that establishes jazz as an American cultural tradition to be preserved; it designates it as "a rare and valuable national American treasure to which we should devote our attention, support and resources to make certain it is preserved, understood and promulgated". It offers workshops, music lessons, has a youth orchestra, has a recording studio, and more. It also has jam sessions four times a week, in which you pay $8 or so to sit and listen to some amazing (and, granted, some not so amazing) artists play jazz.
This is where it gets good.
HR-57 reminded me last night that listening to jazz is a lot like having sex, and being in a room full of people listening to jazz is not like having sex with all of them (which I know you thought I'd say) but rather is like everyone is having sex in little booths, and you can hear moans of pleasure echoing. Well, take that image and make it far less creepy than it sounds, and that's what it's like. The beautiful thing about HR-57 is that it is there not to make money, but to celebrate jazz as a form of music and a cultural tradition. Thus, everyone that goes there goes for the music. You see old men in fedoras sitting alone, drinking whisky out of a flask, and hipsters smoking cigarettes in big groups. At HR-57, you bring your own bottle of wine and corkscrew, because they don't play around with serving drinks (although they do have beer and wine). For $6, you can get a plate of collard greens, fried chicken, and red beans and rice. At HR-57 you sit in folding chairs and look at old posters of Dizzy and Ella and Miles and all the rest. At HR-57 musicians come and go, and they find their jam together, and they keep going. They play wonderful solos and everyone claps. You can pick out the nervous ones, the pros, the adventurous ones, the ones that only play the hook from Kind of Blue over and over again, and somehow it all works. Some of them probably play together all the time, others probably have never met each other until they're on stage.
posted by Brynne at 9:50 AM
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