And if that wasn’t enough, the gods of fun and movies had given us the weekend double blessing of a showing at the Atlantic theater of “The President’s Analyst.” Now Dad, himself by now a psychoanalyst, thought the idea was a hoot. And there was the added bonus of Godfrey Cambridge, a popular Black comedian at the time, was in it. We had his album “Ready or Not . . . Here’s Godfrey Cambridge,” and played it as much or more as we played Bill Cosby’s albums like “Why Is There Air.” He excited us because he was more controversial, darker skinned and had a different kind of cool. His comedy had a racial edge to it, unlike Cosby.

Godfrey Cambridge was the first of the Black comedian to film crossover figures. Before Cosby, Richard Pryor or Flip Wilson. The few films he did are classics, cult or otherwise.

I knew that it was some kind of a spy movie because on the side a high rise building downtown was a movie poster showing Coburn in the center of a collage with surrounding figures, of uniformed men with guns and suits, and Coburn sitting next to a couch with a shadowy figure lying down. I knew that scene. I had been to Dad’s office. Besides, I had a touch of that little boy mind and spirit tat proclaimed “I want to be -“ and whoever that was, usually a sports figure or actor. In my fantasy mind, I still wanted to be a hip spy. The weekend would be perfect. The Four Kirbs having fun together.

Life was better, almost good. I was used to school now. The nobody bothered me, including Burdell. My hair put me at the top of the stairway to cool, and my general attitude of live and let live, placed me in that sweet spot of no hassles, no attention, just me and a couple of friends getting by playing table football, pretending to do school work or not, as the days rolled on. I almost joined in on a dancing contest - Pips looked so good to me - but a little voice inside said “don’t push it, Mark.” So I didn’t.

It was a Thursday and warm and still sunny, so I went to shoot hoops and shoot the shit with Karl and Mike. It was a school night, so I headed home well before the street lights came on. Besides, there was tv to watch on a Thursday: Daniel Boone at 7:30 after dinner, then the Flying Nun and Bewitched. These fun shows made it easier to wake up and face one more day at school before the weekend. I lost happily in my own mind bouncing the basketball between me and Karl as Mike peeled off, running up the hill to his house on Brandywine Place.

Karl said, “How come there are all those cars honking horns?”

I thought for second. “A wedding? All that noise it must be a big one. Mom’s physical therapist, Dr. Juanita Joyce, is getting married next weekend. I not invited to this one. Too bad, man, wedding food is great. Last summer, remember I told you about when my dad’s secretary, Veronica got married?”

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Veronica was the first woman, a real woman, not a movie or television star, that I was crushed out on. Dad ran what he called the “poor people’s clinic,” a psychiatric facility. One thing they did there that was unusual, even innovative, was play therapy. Kids would use blocks, toy animals, Barbie dolls and G.I. Joes to communicate things they didn’t have words for, like violence on the home front.

She was what was called “high yella” or a creole mama. She was tall, light brown skin, and shaped like Jayne Mansfield. Stacked. Her breasts were almost eye level to me, and she would pinch my cheeks and hug me. When she got married to a heart surgeon, Dad said the wedding feast would be amazing. I begged to be invited. It was amazing. She looked incredible. And the food. The food. There were giant roasts of ham and something called steamship round of beef. Potato salad, mac and cheese. This was what I thought a wedding receptions were about. Years later at another, shall we say, family wedding, I learned this was not always the case.

The sirens were coming down on Atlantic Street, past the shopping center down the hill. Neighbors across the street came out of their homes talking nervously. What was going on? The air suddenly felt thick as I approached my house. Waves of anxious feeling suddenly came over me. I was taken back to flashing ambulance lights, Mom on the gurney yelling to not let Chris and me see her die. Karl’s mom yelled out from her porch. “Karl! Karl, come now!” Her voice was shaky and quivering.

The street lights were on but none in the house. In the low light shadows Chris sat at the dining room table eating a sandwich. He had on a toy motorcycle helmet. He had a sudden obsession with motorcycle cops. I asked him why.

“It’s the rioters. If they come, I’m ready.” He knocked on the helmet. Rioters? Now? It wasn’t even the long hot summer. From inside the den solemn television voices emanated. I looked and saw something that would be forever baked in my memory: Mom and Dad crying big tears.

The television voice belonged to news commentator Walter Cronkite. “All major cites are on high alert as the unrest grows and spreads. If you’re just joining us, at 6:00 p.m., civil rights scion, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was fatally shot while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was supporting Black and white sanitation workers on strike. He was pronounced dead after his arrival at a Memphis hospital. He was 39 years old.”

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The phone rang. Dad picked it up. I didn’t know what to do so I went to the refrigerator and pulled out two cinnamon buns, put loads of butter and maple syrup on top and put them in the oven. Seeing the parents so upset was scary. Dad hung up the phone and shook his head with a grim smile.

“Who was it?” Mom asked. It was Aunt Marion.

“She said they’re already tearing up Newark. It’s a mess.”

“It’s going to get worse. Them fools is gonna tear every damn city apart.” I thought, is this gonna make Mom sick and have to go to the hospital?

I could hear the sounds of Chris playing downstairs and I went down there too.

The records I was playing didn’t cover up the sounds from outside: distant sirens, helicopters, honking horns. The phone rang. Mom picked up. Mrs. Bailey said there were Black militants driving around and shouting through megaphones “They killed Martin! Brothers, get your guns!”

I don’t remember going to bed or to sleep.

The next morning, we went to school as usual, but everything felt different. Police cars whizzed back and forth. Vehicles, stores and houses we passed had “Black family” “100% Black” and “All Soul” written on them. A race riot was blossoming and people wanted to let the mobs know that your property was BLACK OWNED. I stopped to get a candy bar and root beer. I needed relief. The cashier, old white Mr. Brinsfield, the owner of Brinsfield’s Pharmacy, wiped his red eyes. “No charge today, Mark. Tell you mother if she needs something, to order it quick. We’re closing soon.”

The gas station near the school had a line of cars. The news talked about people getting gas to make Molotov cocktails to attack police and burn buildings.

We trickled into the classroom. There was no teacher as usual. Dee Dee sat on the desk looking mean, as usual. There was chatter about what was going on. Pips said, “My Uncle said Detroit is going crazy. They burning down the place and shooting police.”

The principle came in. She looked sad and uglier than usual. We waited for the usual berating. She gazed at the floor for a long few moments of tense silence. Then she fixed us with her usual gaze. “You may have heard that a great man has been killed. He was our greatest Negro leader, a prince of peace, a godsend, a man who lead our race out of the wilderness towards a brighter day. He was there to help garbage men fight for decent wages and freedom from racism.” She put her head in her hands.

I looked over at Larry. His father was a garbage man. But they had a house. Things were hard in the south I gathered. She looked up and tears were flowing. Her face, always off gray and mottled, had smears of makeup dropping down from her eye bags.

“He was a hero to our people. He fought and won laws, he changed laws, so we could be more free. And now he’s dead.” She broke down crying now. I was face down on my desk now, thinking, ‘please lord, let this be over soon’.

“But what makes me sad, what cuts me to the quick, is that - ” She paused and drew deep, ragged breaths. “But what makes me so sad is that because of you kids, you bad, bad children, Martin Luther King died in vain!” She shouted loudly, a mix of anger and grief, crying and yelling, “He died in vain! Vaaain. VAAAAIN!” She sobbed uncontrollably, held up by the wall that she had collapsed into.

We were young, but not stupid. We knew this was bullshit. I looked sideways at Mike. Karl and Larry caught my eye. Stephan was the first; he started snickering, head down on the desk. We tried to look sad, tried not to laugh. But once it started it spread like wildfire. Mike was next. His laugh burst forth. He tried to make it seem like he was sobbing. Snot shot out his nose. I saw that and cracked up. More laughs rose up. We knew we weren’t bad. The laughs, coughs and fake sobs soon died down. The principle pulled herself together and turned back into a mean old hag.

“Because of the riots breaking out in our city and around the country, school is hereby cancelled until further notice. Now go straight home.” She walked stiffly out the room, and we let out a loud cheer and made for the door. Shell yelled out, “No running, walk!”

The hallway was a chaos of bustling kids. We ran out into the spring morning. Some kid screamed “This is great! There should be riots every day!”

We spilled out dancing in the street. National Guard soldiers rode by in jeeps and armored cars. One jeep had a machine gun just like on The Rat Patrol. Otherwise, it was a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

There was talk at the barber shop about whether this would be a long hot summer. There was fallout from the Tet Offensive in Vietnam. Some neighborhood boys had come back with a grim prognosis about the state of things.

“Man, we ain’t doin’ shit over there, ‘cept killin’ and dying.” said one brother.

Another gave this analysis: “Ali was right, the Viet Cong ain’t done shit to me. The South Vietnamese are corrupt. It’s a money pit, man, a waste. At least I made some money on the side.”

Eric Ashby chuckled. Today he had two vertical lines in each of his thick eyebrows, which made his laughing face extra funny. “How’d you make that money? You can tell us, pops ain’t here.”

“Let’s just say that I helped morale. The weed they grow over there is fantastic. They know capitalism, too. Buy low sell high, get high.”

That brought big laughs. But it wasn’t funny. It was general knowledge that the war was unwinnable. Martin Luther King spelled it out in his usual plain language: “The bombs in Vietnam explode at home – they destroy the dream and possibility for a decent America.” This was not lost on many Americans. I was one of the young ones slowly starting to understand the world and question things. I started with reading Ebony and Jet Magazine and their articles on Black militants, civil rights activists like MLK and his side kick Reverend Ralph David Abernathy, who Dad admired.

Dr. Kings statement and loud opposition to the war may have sealed his fate. He got heavy criticism for moving from integration to a broader political perspective. Many Negro leaders thought he was moving too fast, that integration was enough and not to “push it.” They didn’t think he was being patriotic.

I was feeling a strange pull inside me. I still loved cartoons and playing games of imagination, but I kept that part of myself secret, known only to my brother Chris and best buddies Karl and Mike. We still had moments where we played as we used to play. We turned sticks, crochet mallets, Chris’s hockey gear into guns, swords and Thor’s hammer. Even though some of the other boys in the ‘hood would call it goofy and “white boy’s music.” I loved the Banana Splits show. They were a cartoon rock band consisting of bizarre, animal creatures that were men, of course, in life-sized costumes. The music was a mix of heavy rock and sing-along pop. The musical numbers had the Banana Splits in amusement parks frolicking with kids. It was the kind of zany humor and crazy-colored psychedelic sets and song and dance numbers that made us big boys acting like little kids. These moments allowed for relief from the simmering dread of illness and the exciting, scary becoming of teenagers.

Mom’s energy was improving. Her physical therapy helped her ability to move around. That allowed some of the family good times to come back. We made a trip to the Museum of Natural History, just like back in the good old days. Dad reminded us of how my knowledge and obsession with dinosaurs led me to almost act the fool, running from one skeleton to the other; how he and Mom chuckled proudly as I showed off my smarts to other kids, especially the white ones. Afterwards, we went to Gusti’s, our favorite place to eat out. It had been a long time.

“I don’t think you want to order clams on a pizza this time.” Dad reminded us of that experiment where I decided to try it, and nearly gagged. This was a reminder of the old normal, when illness was a problem and we all did things together. It had been a while, so I happily dug into my plate of spaghetti and perfect meat balls.

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She could do some things, but she wasn’t up for a night of music. Chris, as always, sought to spend as much time as possible at the foot of her bed, talking, laughing and worrying about her. This meant that it was me and Dad.

With the one record policy we had on shopping trips to Sears and Roebuck, I could peruse the record bin for that one platter. I chose a record with a cool cover and intriguing title. “The Soulful Drums of Joe Dukes with the Brother Jack McDuff Quartet.” The letters of the title were the color of bold gold. Joe was on the cover wearing an Afrocentric kufi cap behind the drums. His drumsticks were a blur. The record cover, a grainy blue black with the drums, cymbals and Joe illuminated by ghostly light, radiated a jazzy, Afro-Black hipness that forced me to buy.

When we played it at home, Dad smiled. “Yes, Brother Jack McDuff, I saw him at the Bohemian Caverns one of those nights Helen drove out the house.” He smiled wistfully, like he was remembering the end to a good story. There were a couple of times when they quarreled to the point of real heat. Mom had a smart-ass sense of humor that got on Dad’s last nerve. Because she was his wife, he had to take it. I chimed in one time with laughs and a “good one, Mom,” which brought searing looks and the threat of the back of the hand from both of them. The back of the hand was like a nuke: a threat and a deterrent that was never to be used.

The Bohemian Caverns was down by the university on U street in what was cultural center of Washington, DC., known as Black Broadway. The Lincoln Theater was famous for hosting performances by jazz, gospel and Opera greats, like Marian Anderson, Mahalia Jackson and Duke Ellington. On the same street was the famous Ben’s Chili Bowl. A few doors down were the Caverns. I only heard about it and couldn’t wait to go. I put on my one dashiki-like shirt and fluffed up my little ‘fro as high as I could. Dad sad we were going to meet a couple of his buddies from Howard U and the Hospital Center.

The owners of this jazz club took the name Bohemian Caverns all the way. When you walked through the door, the staircase down looked like a cavern, with rock lined walls of mache that looked like real rock. Above our heads as we descended were stalactites that you had to duck. After a few feet of pitch blackness, you walked through a doorway into a cozy club. We headed for the bar where Dad’s friends were.

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“Hey, there he is, little Eddie.”

“Hello Doctor, glad you could make it. How’s Helen doing these days?”

“Not bad, but you know.” Dad shrugged and his friend nodded. “This is my boy, Mark. Mark, this is Dr. James Johnson.”

“Call me Jimmy. The other Jimmy tonight.” He laughed at his own joke.

The other friend, Dr. George, was dressed in a full on dashiki and matching pants, his tight Afro was topped with hat made of the same print. “Hey Ed, this your oldest boy? Alright. Call me DG.” He didn’t hold out his hand he just gave me the nod. The nod! That was the subtle acknowledgement of a fellow Black man. A wordless “I see you, brother.” I felt so cool, down with the fellas, Dad’s guys. I had never seen Dad with his friends, aside from our doctors, Joe Earl the dentist and Louie our regular doctor. We went to our seats.

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It was about 10 o’clock, not long before recess, and no teacher had shown up. This happened a lot so we weren’t surprised or confused. It was just another day. The principal strolled and stood at the head of the class. I noticed that her hair was not in her usual severe bun but was flowing down to her shoulders. It was lighter than her skin, bordering on a rusty blond color. Principal Goldilocks, I thought with a chuckle.

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She scowled with her arms crossed, as usual, so we quieted down. Behind her was Dee Dee, who strode in with an apelike gait, while fixing us with a dead-eyed glare. Her face was the definition of mean and ugly. Her frumpy house dress reminded me of the smocks worn by the patients on the geriatric ward at Mom’s hospital. She plopped down behind the teacher’s desk, arms crossed. She looked at us with a blank eyed stare and a slack-jawed, open-mouthed grimace of a smile. I felt my stomach drop like I was on the first seconds of a roller coaster.

“We are having a shortage of substitutes,” she said, “and this class is known to be a problem.” We gave each other sidelong looks and suppressed laughter. “So, I’ve decided for the time being, starting right after recess, Dee Dee will be in charge. She is here to keep order and collect workbook assignments.”

Murmurs of surprise and protest rose up. My head hit my desk with a clunk. Could it get any worse? I wished I could have snuck out of the classroom unnoticed like I did from daycare nine years ago. Old times, good times.

“I repeat and you best hear me. She is in charge and she will keep order.” With that, she left. The bell rang and we filed out very quietly. We were afraid of what was coming our way.

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It was a somber recess. Our playground was devoid of things like a slide, monkey bars, even a couple of basketball nets. This was a church after all. We played games like freeze tag, dodge ball, murder ball and a new game called foursquare. But today none of us were playing.

The bell rang signaling the end of recess and we slow-walked back inside.

At the sound of the door closing, Dee Dee got up. She walked slowly from behind the desk. We all knew to keep our heads down with not a smirk or giggle or anything that could bring her wrath. A girl looked up at her as she walked by.

“Who you lookin’ at? You fuckin’ around with me?”

The girl spoke with a little sass in her voice. “I ain’t lookin’ at you, I’m just lookin’,” she said. Dee Dee immediately started swinging on the girl, punching her in the face, twisting her arm and pulling hair. I was frozen amid the shouts and screams from the girl and my classmates. A so-called teacher was wailing away like a thug on a kid half her size. We were terrified. This was a madwoman and the meanest person I’d ever seen. The girl got up, wheezing, bleeding and crying, Dee Dee shouted her down.

“Sit back down in the goddamn chair.” Dee Dee swung her arm back raising a savage fist, ready to strike. The girl whimpered and sat back down.

Then Dee Dee performed a routine that was to be a daily occurrence. She went around and, no matter how quiet and cowering we were, she bent our arms behind us, waaaay past the point of pain, until we screamed. Or at least winced, acquiescing to her painful power play, with little or no resistance. This took some time. The worst part was hearing people’s cries, and other stifled sounds. I didn’t make a sound but had a white flash before my eyes as I fought for a second, before giving up and accepting my fate.

She came to Stephan . . . He fought her back she started hitting and he hit back. She got his arm just enough to pretend she succeeded. Stephan remained defiant. She pushed him and he pushed back instantly like a snake. That’s Stephan, always coiled. His jaw clenched. She pushed. He drew back a fist. She postured, muttered some curse words, then moved on.

I wish I had picked up on this salient fact then and there: if you fight back, bullies calculate, quickly, whether or not they want to continue. This applies to wars, diplomacy, interpersonal relationships, and other matters of foreign policy.

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After school, instead of running off, most of the girls remained, talking in tense voices, while looking around to spot Dee Dee if she should come their way. The girl who was punched in the face - after this day her nickname was Punchy, though it was weeks before that nickname stuck - sat on the building’s stairs, holding a bloody handkerchief and staring into space, clearly shocked. Burdell showed amazing kindness and empathy by sitting beside her and putting an arm around her shoulders. She and the other girls whispered intently.

Today Punchy was noticeably absent. Not surprising, really. The following days started out as always, with arm twisting. Today, though, it wasn’t as bad. Or maybe since we got the treatment yesterday, we were ready for it.

This is how it went, for real, day after day. As the weeks went by, she eased up. Some of my classmates had a lot of absent days, and a few of us resisted more and more. There were rumors of parents hearing of this and complaining. I, for one, never said anything.

“How was school, Mark?” Mom asked.

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DUCHESS Live at Birdland

First, a late afternoon show at the iconic jazz spot, Birdland, was a reminder that it’s good to be alive, even if one can look around and see a decaying world on the eve of destruction. Duchess is a three-part vocal group that is a homage to the Boswell Sisters. You can get more information about this group and my warm fuzzy feelings about them here: www.instagram.com/p/DZgXReFFVeF/.

I was there when they had their debut show at the aforementioned 55 Bar. They have had many shows since, but none as awesome as their performances in New Orleans when they were a major part of the Boswell Sisters’ celebration. They were one of several groups from around the world in attendance. The Boswell’s were, as I stated, a racier version of the Andrews Sisters, like Little Richard to the Andrews Sisters’ Elvis. Duchess focuses on fun, including wacky hijinks in their shows. This is a much needed tonic to the army of jazz musicians earnestly reproducing serious music by the greats that often reflects life’s serious and grim aspects.

It had been years since I had seen them, and most of those times I was working behind the bar. This show was a record release party for their album (CD and, yes, vinyl!) A Marvelous Party. They were their usual selves: laughing, telling great stories that illuminated things behind the music, showing love to the musicians, the audience and themselves, while gently ribbing each other. Songs like “Lucky Day” and “Are You Having Any Fun?”, from their album, are celebrations of the little things that make life worth living. Their show was not all laughs and kick-up-your-heels fun. They played two songs that end their record: the ironic anthem of existentialism, “Is That All There Is?” and the classic tune “Danke Schoen,” a gratitude journal in the form of a song.

Like many shows I attend, this one had many familiar faces of musicians and fans from my past in New York in general and the jazz scene in particular. It reminded me that I can sing “Danke Schoen,” too, in humble thanks for the love I get from my friends, family, the NY music tribe, and the readers of Sounds and Stories on Facebook.

It being quite early in the evening, and with the summer sun still shining, I decided to walk the few blocks to Jazz Cultural. The hard part of the walk was making it through the post-Puerto Rican Day Parade revelers, and the gauntlet of restaurants beckoning me: “Kirby, Neapolitan pizza over here. You can’t just eat Two Boots.” “Hey Kirby, Indian and Chinese food! In one place.” “Breakfast Buffet, all day.” Yikes! I pictured me on the scale and my doctor, Dr. Faith, shaking her head, sadly. I kept moving.

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STEVE TURRE Live at Jazz Cultural Center

I sauntered over to Jazz Cultural. I love to go to clubs not knowing who is performing. For a decade and a half at the 55 Bar, I either saw music at work or stayed after my shift to see the late show band. Now I have to plan and spend money. Oh well, it’s worth it because live jazz, like jazz in general, is an outlier that has not yet been completely co-opted by corporate piracy. It is music that is always evolving and is deceptively subversive. These are qualities worth paying for and supporting.

I got there after the start but in time to hear trombonist, composer and band leader, Steve Turre, introduce the song Pharoah’s Dance. It started with a free jazz intro highlighted by his trombone. The band accompanied him by playing loosely together in the loping cadence of old field hollers by chain gangs (as recorded by John and Alan Lomax, musical anthropologists, in the 1930s). The melody kicked in with a strident authority rooted in spiritual and freedom jazz that had me happily singing along. Luckily, I was seated at a table along the back wall and didn’t disturb anyone. I first heard music like this on the radio. The Washington, DC jazz station WHUR, had a show called Black Fire, where the DJ played this kind of post-hard bop, Coltrane influenced, Afrocentric style.

He dedicated the piece to McCoy Tyner and Pharaoh Sanders. This was jazz at its most intense. And here, Turre, piano player Eric Lewis, and trumpeter Wallace Roney, Jr., played blazing solos that defined the term Black fire. The star of this song and others during the set was James Carter’s incendiary soprano sax. He made the horn scream relentlessly, and into upper registers I hadn’t heard before that had me twitching, nearly falling out of my seat.

After a short rap about his hometown upbringing in Oakland, CA and the political and cultural scene in the sixties, he played a song called “Flower Power.” It was mellow, especially compared to the previous song. The dreamy melody evoked the feelings that the title implied. The drummer, Orion Turre, his son, played a driving but relaxed jazz/boogaloo groove. As the players soloed, he brought Elvin Jones Latin vibes that pushed the music along. Turre’s solo featured him on various conch shells, big and small, changing them to fit different registers of sound. What I always thought was an interesting texture and a cool gimmick, was deeply musical and had the quality of a preacher testifying in a Black Oakland church as he egged his son on with gestures and hard looks, into a bout of call and response. The final song. “Blackfoot” featured Orion in solo intro to the piece. First, he made the drums speak with his hands, then used mallets, rumbling and crashing in ways that reminded one of Jack DeJohnette and Elvin. The head of the tune had a unison frenzy of tenor sax, trumpet and trombone that honored trombonist Grachan Moncur. The song took the frenzy into an upper orbit faster than the fastest bebop.

This is the kind of jazz that, as much as I liked fusion, got me inspired: strident melodies, hard driving drums, and strong bass lines. Freedom jazz. Or maybe I should call it, striver’s jazz.

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NOE THE GUITARIST HARMONICA

Full of the joy of jazz and the energy of uplift, I knew that I couldn’t let the evening go, so I went downtown to Greenwich Village to check out Arthur’s Tavern and my fellow 55 Bar Alumni Association member, Kyra, who holds down the bar. Sundays have a steady line up of the Creole Cookin’ Jazz Band and Noe Socha. The Jazz Band has played there since the nineties, with a member who more than ninety. Talk about a regular gig.

I arrived just as they were packing up and making room for Noe Socha. This is another artist holding it down at Arthur’s. I don’t like to toss words like icon or genius around, but this man is a genius. His finger picking guitar style is positively virtuosic. He shreds jazz, blues and rock as good as anyone you are likely to ever hear. Even more impressive is his harmonica playing. He plays with the flashy, fluid agility of a sax player and reminds this listener of Stevie Wonder. He started his set with a version of Bill Withers’ “Use Me,” and jammed his way into an instrumental version of Jambalaya (On the Bayou) that featured a spicy bass solo by Mike Nonno and drums that at times sounded like a full-on NOLA brass band. This song morphed into an impromptu “La Bamba” where Noe played harmonica and guitar. Part of this man’s genius is that he plays both instruments as if it’s two separate players. He ain’t just strummin’ and blowin’, he’s playing complex, soulful and fiery lines that duel each other, support and overtake each other, then rise in unison. It is a reminder that on any given day, in any given club or space, you can come across amazing talent. Arthur’s has a no cover policy and reasonable drinks. Kyra’s photo of the truly iconic New York blues matriarch Sweet Georgia Brown (RIP), who played here over the decades until her death, looks down benevolently from the wall.

After the show was over, I staggered out, completely satiated and had a choice: subway home or more drinks. Hmmm.

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The thing about NYC that makes it different from other places is, to quote - surprise! - Stanley Crouch: “New York changes, but it’s always interesting.” A broken clock is right twice a day, even if it’s digital. Mr. Crouch broke a lot of clocks in his time. Google it. But he’s right about our city and this especially speaks to the jazz world. The beloved 55 Bar closed and the scene that it was a vital piece of has been diminished. There are new places that have picked up the slack. They’re in Brooklyn, the Lower and Upper West Sides of Manhattan, and Midtown. Restaurants and bars are having jazz nights and open jams. As Mighty Spike Wilner said in a recent Facebook post, “the fact that all these clubs are now opening is an indication that our music is healthy. In the age of AI, people need something real and something human.”

Mighty Spike’s joint, Jazzcultural, located on W. 46 street, is one such place. It’s human and affordable and a place where musicians and fans hang before, during and after shows.

My first foray to his new spot was in April to see Greg Hutchinson. Full confession: I never heard of him, just knew he was a drummer. At the door Spike greeted me warmly and as is his practice here, let me in without paying the cover, largess that he is extending to musicians and devoted regulars to the jazz scene. As is my practice in these situations, I use the savings for beer and/or seltzers. We must support!

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I got to the festivities late, but in time for Emmanuel Michael’s guitar soliloquy on the Wayne Shorter tune “Fall,” from the album Nefertiti. This song is one of my favorites in all of music. It was a treat to hear music from this, my favorite period of Miles’s music. Michael’s guitar work reminded me of Sonny Sharock, mellowed by age and time, mixed with sprinklings of John McLaughlin from the late sixties. He filled the space with otherworldly, soulful and sweet riffs, accompanied by plaintive horns playing the minimalist melody. Davis and Shorter created tunes at once simple but specific in what they evoked musically and emotionally. This is a code I would love to crack. Each player took the musical baton from the previous soloist and played with space and heartfelt emotion. Throughout the song, Hutchinson played freely, creating timbres and textures, accenting throughout, bubbling up in the spaces between soloists and passages, in a way reminiscent of Paul Motion.

The set drew from his album, “Kind of Now,” which celebrates Miles Davis, who would be 100 years old today. The group played with big ears. Everyone stood out at times. Hutchinson is a very democratic band leader, who explained that he is a “Peyton Manning kind of guy” and given to “calling audibles.” i.e., changing things up on the spot, depending on the vibe in the room and on the bandstand (Peyton Manning, a quarterback, is in the Pro Football Hall OF Fame). Besides not having heard of the leader, it was also eye and ear opening hearing tenor saxophone colossus Nicole Glover and pianist Christian Sands. Hearing them play with unique voices that are also steeped in jazz’s history, leads me to believe that the the young lions are alright. They have the history of music on YouTube and old and new masters in the schools to teach them, especially here in New York. Me? Jealous much? Somewhat, sometimes.

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The last piece they played showed that this kind of now-jazz musicians are unconcerned with the past controversy that surrounded Miles’s early electric period, when Hutchinson called him audible. This is time he got the audience to sing, in unison with bassist Larry Grenadier and Ms. Glover on bass clarinet, the bass line to Bitches Brew. This shows that to today’s players, the arguments by critics, fans and musicians in the past are just that - past.

I went out into the night fully satisfied with the space, the vibe, the beer selection and, best of all, the music. But wait, I realized, there’s more! The club is located near some of the most awesome Asian restaurants around. A good time was had by all.

I first heard Marta Sanchez at the 55 Bar on one of the Sundays that I booked to feature bands led by women instrumentalists. The band leader was Rachel Therrien, a trumpet player from Montreal, QC, with a wide, brassy range, and the power and humor reminiscent of Dizzy Gillespie. The bassist was Iris Ornig, a great listener and communicator, whose lines are strident, at once driving the song, and bringing the enzyme that makes the music gel. These are two of my favorite players, but that night I had the pleasure of being bowled over by the unexpected piano playing of Ms. Sanchez.

Last month she played at another of Spike’s joints, Smalls. This venerable club has been holding it down for decades. They have a reputation of programming music that cleaves close to traditional jazz. What does that mean? In a sentence, Smalls doesn’t have music that gets too out there. That was not the case with this show.

Throughout the set she mixed jazz bluesy licks with the angular harmonics of the avant Monk-era by way of Don Pullen. Sadly, there were many talkers and gawkers around me gabbing and I didn’t have the energy to tell them to shut the f**k up, so I intensely focused on the music. The first piece - a cover of Thelonious Monk’s “We See” - set the tone for the evening. The off kilter, yet hummable, melody was a launching pad for free jazz playing in the best sense of the term. The old school Monk acolytes would stick to the song’s swinging groove with flights of fancy into a shower of dissonant fragments, before safely landing on the tune’s runway. Marta and her band mates - Alex LoRe on alto sax, bassist Rashaan Carter and Tim Angulo on drums – blurred the line between solo and group improvisation. They took the music skidding and swerving, like a car on an icy road, almost crashing, but snapping back under control, in a nod to Ornette Colman’s style. Angulo played drums with fiery intensity and propulsion throughout, especially on the opening pieces, without drowning out the other musicians. On the contrary, he was the engine, fire truck siren and the glue of the band as they rode river rapids of rolling sound.

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As great performers in jazz often do, Sanchez reeled the audience into a kinder, gentler musical realm with an airy rendition of “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes.” The sax played sweet alto that favored the long-tones and the lower register They ended the set with a bouncing swinging number written by Jacky Byard, called “Mrs. Parker of K.C.” This song featured a highlight reel solo by Caleb Wheeler Curtis on the Stritch, a rare saxophone used by the great Rahsaan Roland Kirk and not seen by this writer until this show. The horn resembles a soprano sax that had been stretched by a couple of feet. The sound is between that of a tenor sax and soprano sax. This song showcased Carter playing an incendiary bass solo. He played with the frenzied intensity of Ms. Sanchez, or one of the horn players.

It had been a while since I had been to Smalls. It’s small but the staff does a great job of packing people in without the room feeling cramped. A truly remarkable feat.

And that’s it for this edition of the Waaaaay Too Early Year in Music.

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Morning also meant sitting around the dining room table in our pajamas, reading magazines like LIFE and LOOK, while Chris savored his Highlights for Children. Mom would read from the Washington Post and comment. The Tet Offensive had just quieted down, leaving hundreds of dead and thousands wounded on our side and many more Viet Cong and North Vietnamese regular army troops. She explained that this meant the war would drag on and get worse. “There’s going to be more and more of our boys coming home in boxes. Johnson doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.”

This roiled the campuses, of course. The evening news and daily newspapers constantly showed pictures of students protesting and taking over college administration buildings to demand ROTC “get the fuck off our campus, you running dog jackals!” Or something like that.

The hard core militant and highly organized Mississippi Improvement Association of Students was formed at Jackson State College, an HBCU (Historically Black College and University). Besides the usual nationwide anti-war activities, these students took on local issues like police and vigilante violence, creating Black cultural centers, and changing curriculum to make courses more relevant to what was happening in the world.

Two Black garbage men were killed in Memphis by a malfunctioning garbage truck when the compactor was triggered by accident and the men were crushed. This was a racial issue because when there was a fierce rain storm, Black workers were barred by law from seeking shelter indoors. So, the men hid in the mouth of the machine. Larry and Ronnie’s father, Mr. Coleman, a garbage man himself, was upset when that happened. He talked at length to Dad about it. Everyone knew Dad was shrink and would talk to anyone, especially neighbors.

He talked about the incident in the barbershop. “They called the army out on those men ‘cause they went on strike. White boys did, too. Ain’t that something? Black and white together. I hear them boys is dug in, for a long ass fight. They got it way worse than we got it up here, that’s for damn sure.”

He turned to me. “What do you think, Mark?” I was surprised when this happened. I was still a kid and a grown man wanted to know what I thought.

“I think it’s not right, Mr. Coleman. Hard working brothers shouldn’t have to sit on top of garbage to get out the damn rain.” Dad smiled. He enjoyed seeing me act all smarty-pants. I liked showing off, too, as long as it’s not in front of older boys ready to snap and diss. I had enough hassle from neighborhood knuckleheads saying that I “talked white.” No need to add “Brainiac” to the list of reasons to get on me.

Like any self- respecting Black family, we had subscriptions to the landmark, Black-owned magazines Ebony and Jet. Ebony was big in size like Life magazine. Jet was small like a playbill and could easily fit in a purse or handbag. They were by and for Black people, especially people like the Kirbys, upwardly mobile strivers. Both mags covered important political and cultural issues, not to mention style and fashion. My life changed when I spied the cover of the new issue of Jet. It was a picture of a man and a woman sporting hair like mine. But bigger, prouder. I feverishly turned pages to the article. The headline read, “Black Americans are Celebrating Their Heritage.” It stated that the civil rights movement and strident calls for Black power found an expression in a rejection of Eurocentric standards of beauty and an embrace of natural hair styles.

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The picture along with the article was of a proud brother in a dashiki with thick natural hair. Like mine! It was a revelation. I read the article twice. I knew then that I didn’t have to have good hair. Hell, I didn’t want good hair. The article went on to say that conking hair - putting lye and other chemicals to straighten it out - is to succumb to a white beauty aesthetic. This was music to my hair. I ran to Mom, Dad and Chris with this article.

Saturday couldn’t come fast enough for me. The whole week I smiled, dismissing the usual snaps and teasing with a cold sneer that made Burdell shut up. I realized that fear, anger and shame fueled Burdell’s reign.

When the Three Kirbs went to Ashby’s and I got in the chair, I said, “Not the usual, Eric. We are getting our hair cut natural style. We want Afros.”

Eric leaned over and gazed at me, comically wide-eyed.

“What that, Mark? The Kirby men are gettin’ ride of their slave cuts? It’s a special day.” As he shaped my hair I looked at Dad sitting in Old Man Ashby’s chair, and Chris in the chair next to him. Dad beamed with pride, Chris was excited. I felt relieved. No more goo gobs of Ultra Sheen and spending an hour brushing, combing and praying. My hair was made natural. I wasn’t born with a ‘Fro like Chris. His first infant pictures showed a cute little head, with a good inch and a half of newborn Afro. When he finished, Eric raised the mirror. I gazed at the trim hair line across the upper neck, the sharp line running from below the ears, around the front, and along the forehead, I saw a new man.

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The school year ground on. We spent more without teachers that with. The principal still berated us, slowly turning some into the bad kids that we had been called all year. The boredom and the lack of any stimulus and direction created a self-fulfilling prophecy that paled compared to what was happening in other schools in the “bad areas” of town at the time.

On days when she just did roll call and left to “run the school,” we were left to our own devices. Karl found a game called table football. You take a couple of notebook pages and fold them into a thick triangle shape, and scotch tape it. The object is to flick the ball with your forefinger so that part of the ball is over the edge of the desk without falling off. Touchdown. You could also kick it between your opponent’s fingers, which are held in the shape of goal posts. This we played for hours in the morning until lunch time.

What us Black folks these days refer to “dissing”or “snaps” we called “Jonesin’.” After snapped on, the victim had a few seconds to respond. The one dishing out the insult would go “One, two, three I Jonesed you out!” You might go “Your mama is so fat she lost a sandwich between her butt cheeks.” Or “Where’s you get them shoes? You robbed them off Ronald McDonald? You could be in the circus with them shits.” And on and on until somebody got mad and left or got mad and started to fight.

I got good at this. But only with my friends. When it came time to defend myself it didn’t go so well. Burdell was the queen of dissing and I, and others in the class, prayed that she wouldn’t see them and turn her wrath of mean girl cruelty onto them like breathing fire.

She caught my eye for a second, then looked away. No doubt looking for more suitable prey.

Instead, she said “Let’s have a dance contest! We gonna go boy girl boy girl like that. Larry Coleman you go first.”

One of the girls plugged in a Sears Close and Play portable record player.

He moved to the front of the class. That’s the pressure: you had everybody in the class looking at you. But Larry had good hair. I tried to copy him. Thanks to having my moment last summer, I began to concern myself with what others thought. I wanted to be cool, and it slowly dawned on me over these weeks and months into sixth grade, that I wanted girls to like me. By good, I mean the kind of hair that if you brushed it, it would roll out like looking at the shore and seeing crests rise and fall smoothly and with elegance. Unlike Larry’s, my hair would not cooperate.

The Three Kirbs always got a certain kind of haircut; a little off the top, close on the sides. All three of us. We had the same kind of hair, the kind you couldn’t make “good” like Larry and others with the requisite amount of Caucasian genes to smooth it out. That was our biweekly ritual, our trip to Ashby’s Barbershop.

Ashby’s was, like all the Black barbershops I’d ever had been to (then, now and forever), an urban general store and a cultural center. A sit-down recreation center. The big black and white television in the corner above the last station always had on sports. Since we went for haircuts on Saturday, it was on ABC’s WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS. Usually, boxing, or in the winter, Nordic sports like skiing and ice skating was on the tube, with or without sound. It was comforting being among the Black boys and men here. This is where talked about the Washington Redskins, the Washington Senators, and Mohammed Ali. For years we watched his fights sometimes at home, other times right here. His refusal to fight in “the white man’s war” and his being stripped of his title and suspended for that stance caused arguments throughout Black America, so of course it happened here. The older heads, like Mr. Ashby, the elder and founder, fought or knew a relative who did in one of the wars, thought he should have answered the call. His son, Eric junior, and guys his age (an age where you could get drafted and called up to war in less than two months from the initial shock) thought he had a right.

“It’s the brother’s religion,” one man piped in. “I support his stance.”

“Because it’s his duty,” another said.

“Look at how they did our people last summer in Detroit and Newark, Sheeet, that acted they was in Viet Nam, them white motherfuckas.”

And on it went, when it wasn’t about the prospects of the Redskins in the upcoming football season, or whether someone would get Senator slugger Frank Howard some help. We always left there with smiles and fresh cuts.

This hair cut hangout started out like the others. Sports talk, jokes, WOL-AM on the radio, basketball on TV.

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The talk continued about politics. The war, the fact that some older men at the barbershop had sons that had been drafted, and what was the best way forward for Black folks was the conversation. Joe Frazier was the top heavyweight fighter and was on television right then. Smokin’ Joe. Would he take the place of the people’s champion, Muhammed Ali.

No one cared about that. Today everyone was serious.

The second the clock read 4:30 Mr. Ashby had changed the radio station from WOL-AM soul radio to the WGTB-FM jazz program “Emphasis on Jazz,” the only source for this music during the day. Nobody protested. The divide came about when some younger cats talked about the Black Panther Party, who trailed police carrying legal firearms.

One young brother wore his black beret cocked to the side like the Panthers favored. “Them brothers out in Oakland know. Marchin’ and beggin’ the man to do right ain’t happnin’, brothers. Housing is fucked up, ain’t no jobs for a young brother.”

“You want a job, I can get you a job right now.” Mr. Ashby stared and smiled, and everybody laughed. Even I could tell that the old man knew it was time to let the air out of the tension in the room.

But the young militant leaned back and put his shades on, styling like a hard rock, and continued in a smooth but loud voice. “The cops out there. The pigs. They killing us. Or they beat you down if you get out of line. Even King got his ass whipped. Turn the other cheek? Sheeeeit, we done run outta cheeks.”

Ashby Jr. said, “I think he’s right. It’s about time to fight. Like Malcolm said, it’s about the ballot or the bullet, and the ballot hasn’t really done it.”

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You may have noticed that the last episode on the year in music, posted in Facebook, and soon republished in The KirbZONE substack, had a picture of a woman playing the flute inside a ginormous red wood tree. A little girl looks on. The woman is composer, flautist, educator, and band leader, Elsa Nilsson. She has a multimedia project involving music, indigenous art, and a booklet with poems and photos that are concerned with issues related to nature, specifically Northern California Redwoods. This work is called Atlas of Sound. Pick it up.

She also suggested that we see a show with an amazing band at the Village Vanguard. More or that later.

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One of the things that I’m finding at this stage of life is that I can conjure in great detailed vision events, emotions, songs and people’s faces. What happened a month or six months ago can fall through the cracks of memory. Could I be entering the thrilling conclusion to the last season of this long running epic story know as my life? Time will tell. Literally.

That’s a long-form way of saying that I missed in the last episode of Too Early Year in Music the show at the Bitter End with Wayne Krantz. He was a mainstay at the 55 Bar for almost two decades. He has a unique, angular style of instrumental jazz rock that takes the guitar and mutates it with guitar pedals, especially the ring modulator. It is a type of distortion that sounds like spectral entities from the beyond suddenly barging into his guitar licks with messages that we don’t understand. His riffs are bluesy-rock one minute, then dancing along pathways tread by outlier jazz sax players like David Binney, where melodies are untethered to mainstream musical regularities, in the spirit of Ornette Coleman. In other words, he gets out there.

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here have been times in past shows I’ve seen where the music is so loud and dense, utterly face-twisting and face melting, to the point of cacophony. This is because the compositions and arrangements are often fast and bulbous. It is also because Krantz, as a leader, is democratic, letting the players be themselves and play what they want. For years I saw him play with drummer Keith Carlock, who favored a dense, rumbling, clattering approach, that was relentless in intensity. Krantz would follow suit. This made it hard to hear the compositions.

When I heard from my companion and the evening’s sponsor, Scott Alert (former boss at the late, great 55 Bar) that the group had Brad Miller on bass and Josh Dion on drums, I knew it would be special. These players are solid and groove oriented, particularly Mr. Dion, who leans on a heavy back beat with appropriately sparse, heavy accents and fills. Think John Bonham.

Young Mr. Miller is fat bass guitar heavy one minute, flowing and melodic the next, but always tasteful. I knew this would be a special show, and I was right. It was lower volume compared to past shows I’ve seen, everything they played was crystal clear. The audience, mostly rabid followers of his music, responded with delight: cheers, applause, shouts and laughter, the kind that says “I can’t believe what I just heard, so amazing.”

Besides the music, it was a reunion of the old 55 Bar crowd. These are people that I saw regularly, hung out with, and served drinks to for more than a decade. I don’t miss the job part of the five five, but I sure miss seeing great music four or five nights a week. Whatta job! I especially miss the friendships, the people loving the music, and hanging with the musicians.

And speaking of hanging with musicians, the aforementioned Elsa, the queen of the fuzzed, otherworldly, bass flute, informed me that Kevin Hays, pianist supreme, Thomas Morgan, the longtime ECM records house bassist, and the subtle, yet explosive, drummer Brian Blade were playing at the Village Vanguard. Oh joy! Two of my favorite players of all time. I like you, too, Kevin.

This was a band I had never seen. Thomas I’ve had the fun and satisfaction of seeing perform many times over the last fifteen years, give or take (mostly give, I suspect). His playing has always been a blend of tasty, almost delicate runs that give solid support, and lines that are both on and off kilter. It is akin to someone explaining something to you. Their first words have you nodding in agreement, knowingly anticipating where the talk is going, hanging on every word. But then

the talk jumps a lane, very smoothly, and arrives, not at a destination expected, but right next door. The best jazz, the best music, really, has the element of surprise. It’s taking the road less traveled, or one not traveled in a long time, but you get where you’re going, nonetheless. That’s the blueprint of Thomas Morgan, solid, sensitive, low-key strongman of the bass. I have yet to get his solo record as of this writing, but I look forward to it.

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Brian Blade has popped up in my life like a recurring figure in a dream. Way back in the day (I enjoy being coy about time limes) when such a thing was possible, I was seeing a woman who had a big space in a Williamsburg, Brooklyn loft. The “walls” were a series of sliding doors, folding walls and Indian print tapestries. We listened to records and drank red wine until our teeth turned purple. One night she pulled out a Bob Dylan record, Time Out of Mind. The songs sounded pretty good and interesting. But something about the drumming - it wasn’t quite normal for a Dylan record, or any roots-rock record. Who is this guy? It’s Brian Blade.

I heard him again with Dave Binney and Friends, a super group of which he was a part. He has a unique, joyous energy that literally lifts him out of his drum stool. And he’s always smiling. As a drummer, I always look for licks and tricks to steal. Brian plays off the players and various aspects of the compositions with jump scare accents, fractured yet melodic swing, and rolls across the drum set that defy the typical jazz and rock drumming orthodoxy. These typically start the rumble from small to large tom tom drums. Brian does many, if not most, of his rolls and flourishes from the large floor tom to smaller rack tom to a crack or two on the snare drum, the flurry ending in a cymbal crash on or off the “one,” the expected marker of the song’s structure. Jump scare accents.

Thomas and Brian fit their individual voices into the music at hand. A trademark of much of Hays’ music is lower volume, at a time when so music is all about bombast. His voicings, sometime mixed with his own voice in wordless singing, have a river like flow. The motions may be similar, but the terrain is always different. The way he develops and expands the musical motifs in his compositions reminds one of Bill Evans, though he less romantic than the late jazz master.

The effect of the music was mesmerizing. It took me to that middle ground between dozing off and focusing intently, a place that I call the Zone. It’s like being in a waking dream.

The set was over, the dream was over, and like after a great meal, I felt totally fulfilled and satisfied. This was another reminder for me to not lazily rest on the laurels of my past years as a music maven, which includes approximately 3,500 shows, many of which were part of my jobs as well as days off. Nowadays, I have to put in more effort and planning. As those who love this music would say, as the song goes, So, what?”

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SUMMER’S END, A NEW SCHOOL YEAR, A NEW SCHOOL

After an action-packed Summer of Love, our lives, like those the rest of the country, changed. Mom was distressed and sad a lot of the time. We came to find out years later though she always kept up her spirits and sense of humor. She barely had the energy to cook and doing her favorite things like going to museums and movies were out of the question.

We would come home from excursions with Dad, enthused and full of fast talking joy. This gave her a spark but was also a reminder that the life she had planned and worked for was gone with the illness .She would not be going back to school and studying creative writing. For her and for us it was making do as best we could in dealing with this new normal.

The school year started but things were different. An influx of new families to the area created more students. This caused the local school to open an annex, a separate school that was still part of Patterson Elementary School. Mom said that those sent there were all black kids from the immediate neighborhood. I was assigned to the annex, and my parents were not happy. The Waterman’s were a white family who had lived on the street on the hill behind ours long before Brandywine Street had been built. And yet their daughter, Nancy, got to go to the main school. The fact that the annex was in our church took some of the sting out of this change, but not much.

Mom and Dad talked about raising a stink like some white and military parents in the community did. They decided that they didn’t want to cut and run from the rest of the black community. Years later, Dad told me they regretted that decision because of what ended up happening.

A few days before the start of classes, they sat me down and explained that I was going to a different school. I was shocked.

“It will still be Patterson,” Mom said to me. “But because of overcrowding, you’re going to the annex.”

“Where’s Chris going?”

“Regular Patterson is where the second graders go.”

“Well, what about Mike and Karl?”

“They’re going to the annex, which is at Covenant Baptist Church. So, you can still walk there.” Oh, okay, I thought. My two best friends will be there in the same class. Solid, Jackson!

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That first week was kind of different from what I had known teachers to be. This one was a woman who just yelled at us. She read from books loudly, too. If you got an answer wrong, she yelled at you. If you laughed at her yelling at a kid, she yelled at you. We had been taught by good teachers. And this was not that.

At least me and my boys laughed at what was going on. We didn’t have to stretch our minds at all. The arithmetic that she was teaching we had already learned last year. Boredom hit us quick. But she was so loud and so mean, we didn’t dare goof around. Not that it mattered. She would storm to the principal’s office almost every day complaining about us kids. “You little black so in so’s better straighten up, you hear me? ” When she left, we would start cutting up, cracking jokes, waiting for actual school to continue. After a while, she took days off, which left us with the school’s principal hanging around and reading quietly, killing time until recess.

I complained to Mom. “Mom, can I go back to Patterson? Chris likes his teacher. Right?”

“Mrs. Parks? She is really nice,” he said. “I like it there. Cousin Eric is in the class, too. Second grade is great.”

This made me even more mad.

We got another teacher, Mr. Ross. He was an older black man with short grey hair and thick glasses. He dressed sharply with very nice suits. The principal introduced him. He started off with a stern lecture about how us black kids had to toe the line. We had a reputation of being “bad kids.” We were good kids last year and at the start of this one, too. But now we were bad? Before we had integrated classrooms but now it was all black kids. The way everybody, from the bogus teachers to the principal, treated us was different, weird.

Is this the start of the school to prison pipeline? Take normal black kids, treat them like they’re trouble makers, put them in a dreary, sad situation, add bad leadership to a badly run place with a dash of racism, and there’s your recipe.

Mr. Ross had a big problem: every time he talked a foul odor came from his mouth. To call it bad breath was an insult to bad breath. His was dead breath. Mike was reading a comic and showing me the cover when he was called up to Mr. Ross’ desk.

“You see? This is what I’m talking about. Messing around in class.”

He took the comic. Mike turned to us and started making faces like he was about to throw up. He walked past me and whispered, “His breath stinks like shit!”

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Mr. Ross stared, scowling in silence until Mike sat down. Soon whispers and giggles flared up. He snapped his head around and glared.

“Something funny? Huh?”

His voice rose with each word and of course it made us snicker even more. This happened every day at some point. Cut ups. Punishments. Whispers, giggles and scowls. One of my classmates was Stephan. He was a tough kid, tall, lanky and very dark skinned. He wasn’t a bully and he had an air about him that made you want to tread lightly, like he was coiled and ready to snap. When we played pickup games of tackle football on the huge field behind the church, Stephan would get really mad and try to smash you. But he was cool.

He put his head down on his desk and said loudly, “Yeah, you!” We burst out in laughter.

“Oh yeah, keep on playing.” That was his everyday line, uttered before lacing into you. “You will flunk out, drop out, and be running around them streets, then you won’t be laughing.” \We looked around at each other, rolling our eyes and making funny faces. Stephan was our hero.

Mr. Ross said, “Take out paper and pencil. It’s time for the math lesson.”

He started writing numbers for addition and subtraction, 11+12;,100+200 - 40+60, really the simplest arithmetic that we had learned several grades ago. We looked on and looked around, surprised and perplexed. Someone shouted “We learned that already!”

Mr. Ross turned and yelled, “You are here to learn! Do the assignment!” We finished in minutes. He made us walk up in single file and hand over our work. One by one, we got a whiff of the vilest breath ever smelled. As Karl walked by me, he whispered, “Look in his mouth, it’s green, man.” When I walked up, I gazed into his mouth. It had a grey-greenish tint and smelled like rotten meat.

The lessons were mostly him ranting on how bad we black kids were and other complaints.

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Today, I suddenly looked up and saw that it’s been weeks since I posted about music, shared a crazy story, or put the next installment of memoir excerpts up here for your enjoyment.

It’s been said before, I know, but this winter was a rough one. Right when it started to warm up here in NYC, I went to Montreal, Canada for the St. Paddy’s Day Parade and Party (hosted by one of my best and oldest friends, Niki). It’s been nice and sunny and even warm the last two times I came up here to start my spring. This time was a tad different.

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Unlike in NYC, however, the scene is always chill. No drunken buffoons fighting and hitting their girlfriends. Very polite. You could get right down to the edge of the street and cheer. The spot we chose had a big overhang so we were out of the hard-falling snow. Clean bathrooms and hot coffee were right near where we were staying.

It was fun being there. But coming back to yet more cold, falling slush, and grey skies truly bummed me out.

I got distracted from the KirbZONE by doing deep dives into aspects of the publishing game like social media presence and marketing, looking for agents and writing queries. All important to be sure.

But I’m back, baby! I’ll be posting the next installment of memoir excerpts this week. Cabin Fever was so well loved, I’ll continue with more of my musical adventures in the real world of clubs, bars, art spaces and live music.

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And speaking of the the real world, I’m happy to hip you KirbZONERS to two of my favorite radio shows. Yes, radio shows. They’re streaming of course since both stations are hundreds of miles away.

Tonight it’s my favorite show on streaming/radio is Beats Per Mom (BPM). broadcasting from station KHHA 94.7 FM, Arcata, CA. You can join me and others around the world checking out their stream here. They have a great community there, and a great community station. BPM is tonight’s mom DDubs, and her partners LTree and nevaregreta. DDubs always plays music I never heard or knew about. Like her show on hip hop from Greenland and modern sounds from Venezuela. Catch her at 5:00 PST live or the station archive, which goes back two weeks from today. BPM also has many shows archived on the Mixcloud website here.

Art Carlson is a long-time friend and former collaborator in several bands. He was there at many of my life’s peak musical moments as has be documented here at this site in the Tales of Old New York section. He lives and broadcasts from Tivoli, NY on the freshly launched and christened WXTI 97.3 LPFM. Check the website here for scheduling here.

This station, broadcasting to the town a few surrounding areas, put the community in community radio. he dee jays play whatever they want and there’s a great variety of music played. Art’s show is on Tuesday 6-8pm and is called (Tivoli) Against the World.

Check out these shows and remember how it was before streaming and downloads and Youtube, when you tuned into a station and discovered a new world that you didn’t know you were looking for.

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“Mom’s coming home soon, right pop?”

Chris looked at him with big eyes full of fear. I felt limp and scarcely breathed. He was six and I was ten. We were both old enough to know what was going on, and to be scared. The doctors took extra care to diagnose her. She was famous at Freedman’s Hospital, known as the first Black geriatric specialist and Chief Physician of the ward in D.C. and possibly everywhere. They determined what is causing Mom’s illness: dermatomyositis, a rare disease, where the immune system attacks connective tissue and causes muscles to stiffen painfully. Dad told us in no uncertain terms what was ailing her. That was how things were done in our family. No lies or sugar coating.

“She’ll be home as soon as she can. She’s sick of the hospital.” We were relieved. As he talked, I felt my breath going in and out of my lungs for first time in long while.

It was the summer of 1967. The summer of love for some, me included. It was the summer of fun, a great time to be a boy. Not a little boy, not the biggest boy, but just right. But with Mom being sick, though, some of the luster of this magic “school’s out” time was kind of dulled.

The three of us carried on, something we had gotten used to over the last year of hospital visits and her bedridden stretches at home. Dad found refuge in his work, seeing patients at the Howard University Medical Center and his office. Chris and I did the usual summer things: playing games and running around with our friends. Maggie, our housekeeper and more, called us inside to air-conditioned splendor and a tasty lunch when the heat reached its peak at high noon. Summers in Washington, D.C. were notoriously brutal. It was a city in the South after all. Right now, this was the meaning of life: kick ball, dodge ball, playing in nearby woods, and cook outs. I was free to leave home and not come back until near dark. The “Three Kirbs,” as Dad called us, went bowling and to the movies.

All these activities were welcome noise that covered up the hum of our anxiety and the hole in our lives.

Our grandmother, Granny we called her, came down from New Jersey. She announced she was here to take care of Mom and do it better than the hospital. Dad objected to this for more than one reason. Granny let it be known from jump street that she didn’t approve of him marrying Mom.

Dad told us “She said to me, ‘You don’t really fit into my plans.’ I told her ‘Did you run these plans by Helen?’ That woman is something else.”

Back then colorism was alive and rampant in the Black community. Mom was extremely light skinned. Dad was extremely dark, another reason she didn’t like him.

Granny immediately took over: ordering Maggie around and cooking our meals. She visited Mom every day. Granny wanted her home right away. Her doctors wanted her to stay a little longer.

One afternoon, Granny herded me and Chris into the bathroom. We stood there perplexed. She ran a bath and told us that we’d have to this strip down and get in. I was almost eleven and wasn’t gonna let her bathe me. She mumbled some prayers and poured some purple liquid into the bath water. She took some in her hands and rubbed my face and arms. Chris got in, standing up in the water. She mumbled some more, poured the liquid into her hand and rubbed it on his back and chest. Chris looked at me, suddenly scared.

“Granny, what’s that for?” I asked.

She stopped the incantation. “It’s to bless you and protect you from the evil spirits.” Chris gave me a look that said “you got to be kidding.”

“It’s to help protect you boys and your mother. She’s sick because your father is full of evil spirits. And he’s running around with other women.” Chris rolled his eyes and we both stifled laughs. Even at his young age he knew this was some old time crazy.

She criticized him for not taking care of Mom. He told her, “Well Mrs. Benson, I have to go out and work, I have to keep things going. Maggie is here and we’re doing everything that the doctors say.”

While the grownups had these discussions (or arguments, depending on one’s age and perspective), I joined in the summer fun on the street and our front yard. The only thing that got me to come inside early on Wednesday night was my ‘moment’ and my crush. A young boy’s moment is when the first flush of puberty hits; when girls stop being icky, weird and a pain in the ass, and become intriguing, exciting, and make you “feel funny down there.”

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My moment came when Mom’s love of British comedy and my love of spy shows guided us to The Avengers. No, not the movie franchise, but the campy secret agent show. The main spy, John Stead, sported a derby and was ultra cool. His sidekick was Mrs. Emma Peel. She wore leather jackets and form-fitting pants, could handle a gun but mostly used karate to beat up bad guys. There was an episode called “A Touch of Brimstone” where she had to infiltrate an S&M group called the Hellfire Club. She wore a tight, black one-piece and a spiked collar. Seeing this sent a rush of heat through me. When the show would come on I’d announce with a fanfare, “Sorry boys, I have a date with Mrs. Peel,” and, with the summer sun still shining, I sat rapt in front of the television.

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We got a big surprise when our Uncle Phil came by with my young cousin, Phil, Jr, and the new baby, cousin Bruce, along with several suit cases. He talked to Dad and Granny, then quickly drove off. There was some kind of illness or episode involving my favorite aunt, Barbara, and Uncle Phil couldn’t handle her situation and the kids. So, welcome cousins. This brought its own special challenges. Phil, Jr. spoke in way that was very proper, especially for a six-year old. Ronnie Coleman, the bully next door, immediately decided he’d beat him up.

“Your cousin’s a punk. I’m gonna kick his ass.”

“Ronnie, please,” Chris begged. “If you beat him up, I’m going to get into trouble. Look, let’s make a deal.” He bribed Ronnie to leave our cousin alone. It’s called protection money. Chris called it his allowance.

It was the perfect summer day. All my friends were outside. It was hot, but not too hot. We played dodge ball across ours and our neighbor’s front yards. We had a mini hill, about twelve steps high, held back from our driveway by a retaining wall. This allowed for running up the hill and jumping off the wall onto the driveway and ducking behind it. That was to us a daredevil feat and looked really cool when doing it. Anything to not get blown up by the ball and have to sit out the rest of the game.

Granny opened the front door and called me by the name she and the parents used when they meant business.

“Mark Edward? Mark Edward,” I dodged one last time and called time. “Mark, I want you come inside and keep an eye on your cousin Bruce.”

I was aghast. I could hear the teasing giggles from behind me.

“What about Chris and Phil? Why I gotta be the one?”

“Because you’re the oldest.” I started to say something and whine a little, like how could she do this to me in middle of a game. She cut me off with a stare and the stern sound of her voice. “And because I said so. I’m headed to the hospital. There’s sandwiches in the refrigerator.”

I did as I was told. There was Bruce in a baby bed cooing and wiggling. I picked him up. I had no problems with babies. Ever since Chris was born, I had held babies and knew how to cradle them and support their weak and floppy necks.

I could see the sun poised in the sky, way past the high point and heading downward. It was saying to me, “Yeah, Mark, I’ll be gone soon and before you know it, it’ll be back to school.”

The sun would never lie. I looked outside the living room window and saw Chris, cousins Eric and Phil, Jr., my best friends, Karl and Mike, and the Fontenelle Brothers, Terrence and Tarone. Their mother let us wrestle in their living room and watch Hullabaloo, I loved seeing the crazy rock bands like The Young Rascals playing their hit song “Good Loving.” I thought at the time, as wild as it could get with the drummer creating a frenzy of crashes and rock and roll rhythm; on the break in the song, the drummer tossed his sticks in the air and caught them right on the downbeat, playing the wild clattering, rumbling rampage of pure rock. The dancers in cages and surrounding the band add to the feeling of wild and crazy freedom. Mrs. Fontanelle was always a great host. No matter what we did, wrestling or getting on a chair and doing imitation go go dancing, she nodded and smiled, while giving us homemade lemonade or purple Kool-Aid and snacks.

Everyone was playing outside on the street, and me stuck inside with baby Bruce. Oh, what to do, what to do?

Suddenly, I got it! The point was to keep the baby safe, right? What better place to keep a baby when the call of wild beckoned outside than the dirty clothes hamper! The lid closes so nothing can fall on him. And there are air holes running along the sides. Perfect. I put Bruce gently on the bed of laundry and closed the lid. With this perfect solution, I skipped out the front door and joined the fun.

Much later Granny came home and just as the kick ball was pitched she said, “Mark,what are you doing? Where’s Bruce?”

I blasted the ball up the sloping street past the Anderson’s house next door and ran around the bases which were trash can lids and a crushed cardboard box. It was a triple.

She yelled, “Where is your baby cousin?”

“He’s fine, Granny. I put him in the dirty clothes hamper.”

She sputtered, her milk chocolate skin turning maroon, which, in a white person, would be red. “Mark Edward, get in this house right now!”

Head down, I trudged off the base. Karl tossed the ball, hitting me softly.

He said, “You’re out!”

I didn’t care. I could not understand why she was mad. The baby was safe, secure and comfortable. I came in and saw her gently lift Bruce out of the hamper.

“See? I told you he was safe.” She turned to me and started with yelling then dialed down the volume to a stern, growling monotone. She told me I was grounded and had to stay in the rest of the day. I pretended to be upset. I learned in school and from experiments at home that grownups wanted you to be upset. That way they knew their punishments had an effect, which might get you a reduced sentence.

When Dad came home, she filled him in. Now he was mad. “Dammit, Mark, you can’t put no baby on top of filthy clothes. You’re to stay in doors for the rest of the day.”

What they both didn’t know was that it was time for my date with Mrs. Peel and then The Green Hornet, so staying in was what I planned to do anyway. But I acted like it was punishment. I heard Dad say to make sure that Maggie was home to take care of Bruce before Granny left to visit Mom. I left my room and went into the den where the television was. The opening of The Avengers came on. To the sound of bongos, Emma Peel strutted across the screen and held up a champagne bottle. Her partner, John Steed, shot the cork off and poured two glasses. I poured a glass of root beer and joined them

Mom finally came home, bedridden, but happy to be in her own room and bed. Us kids continued with our summer of fun. Phil Jr. was now part of the group. Ronnie left him alone and Chris stopped paying him off. Everything was fine until it wasn’t.

It was a summer night. We all disappeared into our own worlds. Dad took the television from the den and put it downstairs to keep things quieter for Mom in the bedroom. I was watching some show or another, alone in the darkened room. Chris was in our bedroom listening to the radio.

I suddenly had a bone-chilling flash of fear and sense of panic. Lights flashed, like those of a police car or ambulance, piercing the darkness, There was the sound of doors slamming, shouts, strange gruff voices and Chris’s long, sad wails. I ran upstairs to the scene of heavy-footed men in uniforms, rushing toward the bedroom.

I blurted out, “What’s the matter?” Just then, Mom was wheeled out on gurney with a long rod with tubes running down. It was frozen is stark panic. Chris cried out in anguish, “Mommy, no, no no, Mommy.!”

Mom shouted “Don’t let the boys watch me die, please!” And with that they wheeled her out in a lightning flash. They wheeled her out the door. Dad went with the ambulance. I ran down to the basement, lit by the television glow and flashing lights of the emergency vehicles. They say there are no atheists in fox holes during war time. Our family was in a fox hole in a war between life and death. I prayed hard. I said, “God, please don’t let mom die! We’re too young and we just can’t take it! Please!”

Everything in my vision was bright grey, like the time we played touch football on the street, and I made a diving catch attempt, not seeing that a car was parked where our playing field boundary was. I crashed into it and saw the bright gray for the first time. Is that what it’s like to get a concussion? Time froze. Memory fails. I couldn’t tell where anyone else was. How long ago was it? What time was it? I didn’t know and was beyond caring. All I had was the fear, and the sound of my labored breathing and heart pounding. Minutes, most likely hours, later the phone rang, then stopped. I heard the voice of my grandmother. I dreaded the weeping wail. No weeping, no wailing.

“Mark, pick up the phone, it’s Eddie, your father.” I scooted up the stairs to the phone in the kitchen. It was Dad.

“Hi Mark, your Mom is in stable condition. She was having a heart failure. The doctor’s are looking into what caused it. But she’s fine now, resting. They’re giving her intravenous fluids. She’ll have to stay here for a while.”

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“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom . . . You never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough.”

― William Blake, Proverbs of Hell

It was sometime in April 1977. I was heading down 10^th Street toward the Bowery, my head full of very strong, very clean acid, thanks to my man Burt…

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Every superhero has an origin story. So does everybody else. That includes a kid, sitting at his mom’s dining room with his buddy Karl Meekins, listening to a song on the radio coming from the kitchen.

Lately I’ve been wondering how did people decide to do what they did? What was that spark? Was it waking up one day, like out of a vivid dream, with a clear vision of your life? Or did you look at possibilities and, one by one, like playing a lotto scratch off, narrow them down to the jackpot?

Just like there are billions of people, there are billions of stories. My story is neither Earth shattering, nor world changing in importance…except to me.

Summer, 1969.

The song that inspired me was one I heard often. When DJs on soul station WOL - AM would do microphone checks - name the songs, do an ad for a local business - they would talk over an instrumental song. They used James Brown cuts like “Soul Pride Part 1 & 2”. With its funk-soaked bass and drums, set off nicely by strident horn hits and twangy jazzy guitars, the track provided the perfect background for his soulful spiel.

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The DJ Petey Green, a major cultural figure in Washington, D.C., and a hero for many reasons to Black America, would rhyme and “jive talk” on his mic checks, which was unique to radio at the time. He’d go off on Black power-laden diatribes, and critical takes on race, drugs, and community. He spoke to what most Black folks in our town were concerned about and we loved him.

The song he used in this, the summer of ‘67, was by a heretofore unknown band from New Orleans, The Meters. The song was “Cissy Strut” which became a black radio hit by sheer DJ strength. The drum beat is derived from the rhythms of New Orleans’ Mardi Gras Indians, a deep culture with Afrocentric roots, played by the innovative master Ziggy Modeliste. His dense cross rhythms were based on NOLA’s “second line”. These parade marchers played on cow bells, hand drums, and tambourines. He boiled this sound down into a swinging, funky gumbo that slips and slides, but always winds up on point.

I went to the local record store, Waxie Maxie’s, and bought The Meters’ seven inch single and played it. A lot.

As you may have guessed, the kid sitting with his buddy Karl at his Mom’s dining room table was me. “Cissy Strut” played and Karl said, “I love this drum beat.” Using his fingers and he heels of his hands, he tapped out Ziggy’s groove right there on the wooden table.

Suddenly I was seized by some force, and, in this fugue state, I did the unthinkable: I went to knock on the door of the den, where Dad was taking his scared Saturday afternoon nap. You would never wake him up unless the house was on fire. And only then if you couldn’t put it out yourself with the garden hose. I knocked on the door, not gently, but firm, a wake-up knock.

“What do you want?” he grumbled. I opened the door.

“Dad, I want a drum set. I want to play drums.” Normally, he would have been annoyed, even mad, starting his response with ‘goddamnit, Mark’, but he sat up. He must have heard something in my voice.

“What was that?”

“I want to play drums.”

I looked at him. He looked at me. Silence.

“Well, okay, let’s talk about it later. You have a birthday coming up.” He lay back down and I closed the door.

This was a major turning point. I got the drums and never left them for very long ever since.

November 2012.

Hurricane Sandy hit New York City, and there was no power below 39th Street on the East Side, but on the West Side there was no power below 43^rd Street,. This was a super bummer for me. My man Kid Charlemagne* had gotten us tickets to see The Meters at the Times Square area club B.B. King’s. Zigaboo himself was making a rare appearance with the band.

After Hurricane Katrina smashed New Orleans, many people’s fate was cast to the winds and they landed wherever they could. Ziggy wound up in Austin, Texas and later San Francisco. I heard he decided not to come back to the Big Easy. Most of The Meters shows after that had another drummer and they called themselves The Funky Meters.

But this was perhaps a once in a century chance to see three original members - Zigaboo, Leo Nocenteli on guitar, George Porter, Jr on bass - with Page McConnell, of the hippie jam band Phish, on keyboards. I got religion at this moment, praying to all the gods, because the show would be cancelled if power was not restored, and my chance to see the man who inspired me to pick up the sticks would pass. Damn you, Mother Nature!

My prayers were answered. Praise Jah. The West Side above 40^th Street now had power! The show would go on!

The Kid and I usually had dinner at a kosher Chinese restaurant before big shows, but the hurricane claimed our dinner as a victim. That didn’t matter. I was hungry to see Ziggy!

We had seats in the balcony, with a perfect view of the drums. He sat straight backed and regal, like he was born to that throne. He wore wrap around shades. I got to see how he played the beats. On the song “Africa” he played a mutated, tom tom heavy, Nawlin’s marching beat. Not only that, he sang, too. The whole band stretched out, extending the song into a jam journey of solos and storytelling interplay. Throughout, Ziggy pushed and pulled the music along. Like other master drummers I’d seen, what he did seemed simple and sparse, and had awesome power.

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The weed attracted Ed. I called him Ed Gonzo. He was a client and, in short order, a friend. He studied visual arts at Parsons School of Design and loved the music coming out of my room: progressive rock, spacey Scandinavian jazz, funky Black Fire freedom sounds. We had a greeting ritual for the first time we saw each other no matter where it was. “Hey Ed, how is it?”

“Definitely excellent, man,” was his ritualistic response and general catch phrase, spoken in a comically spastic voice, words mixed with snorts.

Gordon, a/k/a G-man, was one of three Black friends I had at Oberlin College. Like me, he was a Black nonconformist, stepping away from the styles and social rules of the Black community at large. He was also a Dead head and big fan of The Jefferson Airplane. He left because, like me, he couldn’t take the oppressive atmosphere, He came to NY to be with his girlfriend, but she kicked him out of her place, so he stayed with me.

Besides, Juan was never here. If he came it was when we were out and only for a few minutes, I guess. His room was as sparse as it can be. No books anywhere and only a few clothes.

When I wasn’t in class, which was often, Gordon and I would sit in front of the window, cold coming off the glass and the radiator clanking and hissing with heat.

We lit up bowls and/or drank a couple of beers and pretended we were in the warm, California hills, listening to warm California music.

We’d eat in the dorm dining hall. The old ladies checking IDs didn’t bother and, smiling, waved us in. I think this was because we looked the part of hungry students with our deep purple NYU tee shirts.

We were one of the few people who said ‘hello’ to them and showed some human interest. Sometimes, I gotta say, the food was so bad that, free or not, I’d grab some fruit, juice and bounce. We’d head to sixth street and get some good, cheap, Indian food.

Laird was not like us, or anyone I’d ever known. He was of the very white bread, old money Bramstons. General Bramston, Laird’s grandfather, was a confidant of Eisenhower (they were partners in cornering the Coca Cola market in Asia and Europe after WW2 which added to his already huge pile of old money) and subsequently one of the biggest of wigs bridging the military and industry.

Laird wanted, or was told from birth he wanted, to carry on the family tradition. But the way he spoke, the way he moved, were not affectations that screamed ruthless politician or hard-bitten military man.

“After I get my degree here, I’m going straight away to law school and then start my career in politics, or civil law, I haven’t decided.”

I nodded and handed him the bong. Which he almost always declined.

And where was Juan? A lot could happen in New York to a young, Steve Urkel-looking country boy raised on a Puerto Rican cattle ranch.

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One night he showed up. Gordon, Ed Gonzo and I were smoking and listening to the Airplane’ Volunteers album when he walked in.

“Hey, Juan,” I said, “where you been?”

He shrugged and mumbled something as he walked into his room. We did a triple take on the woman who walked in right after him. She looked like the twin sister of Jane Fonda’s prostitute character in the movie Klute: thigh high boots with spikey heels, an extreme mini skirt, and breezily tossed hair that was the female version of the mullet: short front, long back, business in the front, party in the back. One thing for sure, she had no business being with Juan. I had never seen such movie star looks on a woman in real time, in real life. She sat down at my desk and leaned back like she owned the place. And she did. Juan called her into his room.

The record we were playing ended and we strained in the silence listening for clues. We heard laughter and the sinus sounds of snorting and sneezing. Hmmmm. They came out the room.

She said, “Nice to meet you guys,” even though we just stared in stoned shock and awe.

I looked at Juan and his high-water pants walk out with her and shook my head, turning to the fellas, “I want a woman like that when I grow up.” We fell out laughing. I yelled out “I love NY.”

THE PARTY ~ JUAN’S WILD RIDE ~ BYE JUAN

Another moment of shock and awe came from gazing upon the exquisite, upturned nose, pert breasts, upper-class, blonde-haired beauty of Laird’s sister, Virginia. She looked even better than Juan’s lady. She was traveling and came to look in on l’il brother.

She was really cool, interested in the prog rock I was playing: German wild men Can, art rockers Henry Cow and King Crimson. The jazz I played was “interesting.” When Laird went to class, she candidly told me about her family after several bongs and glasses of expensive champagne she bought. I hadn’t tasted that since Dad and Dorothy’s wedding, where I got drunk and a scandal ensued. But that’s another story.

She talked about all the clubbing she was doing, here, London, Paris and Spain. I almost fell out of my chair when she told us, “I live off my family trust, around

$50,000 a year.”

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As we quickly walked to the entrance of Shady Grove amphitheater, you could hear the sound of music. Growing louder and more excited, we almost ran; even Mom, who had a hard time moving very much or fast at all thanks to her illness. We reached the gate and passed through into another world. The backing band was playing an exciting, wordless “Dancing In the Streets,” with horns instead of voices.

The crack of the drums, the blaring, heralding horns jumped out, announcing the event. Chris and me skipped to the beat. As people filed in and found their seats the band played instrumental versions of Motown hits like “Reach Out I’ll Be There,” a number one for the Four Tops and Stevie Wonder’s “Uptight,” with saxophone wailing and sailing inside and over the music.

When they broke into the first licks of “Heat Wave,” I jumped out of my seat. At the end of “Where the Action Is” as the kids danced and waved goodbye Martha and the Vandellas sang the song sitting in a roller coaster. The horns, guitar and organ filled in where the singing would be, making the words echo in my mind.

All week Dad kept telling us we had seats above the orchestra pit with total excitement. I suddenly got it. We overlooked from the balcony the band, right below us. We were high up enough to see everything but low enough to where we could feel the music. The spectacle was awe inspiring: the big, beautiful space, the cool breeze, everyone dressed in their Sunday best or silky dresses I had only seen in movies. People smiled and nodded like we were in on a secret, something special..

“I told you boys we had great seats! We can watch the musicians!”

I thought, wow, these people make the music that is on the records.

The musicians stopped. The lights came down. A booming voice came from out of the darkness. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Shady Grove Music Fair as we present to you the Motown Review. And now I’d like to present the hit makers and proud cornerstones of the Motown family, The Four Tops!”

The singers come out in matching tuxedos to wild applause. They sounded better than the record, and on the chorus the audience sang along but their voices soared over all with the band pushing and flying with the singing, the groups tight dancing.

The music was so uplifting. Some stood and danced, some danced in the aisle.

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The lead singer belted out: “Now if you feel that you can’t go on / Because all of your hope is gone / And your life is filled with much confusion /

Until happiness is just an illusion / And your world around is crumblin’ down/

Darling, reach out, come on girl, reach on out for me / reach out for me.”

All the grownups were laughing, singing along, or eyes closed, moving to the music. It felt like we were all together.

When the band kicked into their radio hit of the day, “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch),” the crowd screamed and roared. I always loved the sax riffs and the drum beat.

“Sugar Pie Honey Bunch you know that I love you / I can’t help myself / I love you and nobody else . . . when you snap you finger and wink your eye I come running to you.” The hits kept coming, like our records at home but more alive. Their dancing, the sweat, how they hit notes in unison, with dynamic, synchronized actions, in lock step with the band, took me to another world, a world of magic unlike any other.

The announcer spoke like a testifying preacher as the group, sweaty and smiling, took a bow. “Let’s hear it for the Four Tops, everybody, the Four Tops!” They bowed again and left the stage to an instrumental fanfare of their chart topping song “Bernadette.”

Mom tapped me on the arm and handed me a cup of juice and one for Chris. We needed it. They were all smiles. So were we.

The lights faded down. A light shined on a man holding a microphone, dressed in a white tuxedo. He sported a big swath of freshly conked hair that stood frozen like dark, soft ice cream. For a minute I really wanted ice cream. Since I had severe allergies to milk products, I didn’t usually think about ice cream.

“Ladies and gentlemen” the announcer said, his deep, resonant voice filling the dark all around us. “Are you ready for some more music.?” Applause and cheers. “The show must go on and we’ll keep the show a go going.”

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“Are we going to act the fool on Saturday? Are we?”

Dad started his daily speech to me and Chris about how to act in public. We knew the drill, but this week, we got the lecture daily, because Saturday we were going to see the Motown Review.

In our home, music was both fun and serious business. Just as serious was how to behave when you are out in the world

Home life was mostly like any other in our neighborhood: work, school, meals, play time, watch our favorite shows, and listen to music. The place for crazy play and games was the basement recreation room.

The rec room was aptly named because we wrecked the place quite often. We’d play ping pong, build forts, play hockey with Chris’s home nets and plastic puck.

Mostly we’d play games involving imaginary battles, teaming up with our friends. First, with imaginary guns, then toy guns that shot plastic cup-tipped darts. Laughs would be broken up by angry yells and taunting “ooohs.”

Suddenly Mom would appear on the stairs, an apparition in a housecoat, always at the moment when the most dangerous things happened:

a croquet mallet used as a sword;
the Hammer of Thor almost bashes me in the head;
Chris or cousin Eric climbing and falling off something they shouldn’t have been on in the first place;
a plastic toy hockey puck thrown like a rock, whizzing past a face.

She’d shout, “Stop it boys, right now, before somebody loses an eye! And remember I want everything - and I mean everything - put back in its place! Got me?” She would wag her finger angrily and head back upstairs.

After a pause we’d continue. Soon the ‘grenades’ thrown would go from soft foam rubber to plastic wiffle balls and bats, to the nuclear option:

From our home bowling game came rock hard balls and bowling pins.

These were the ultimate because you grab them by the tapered neck and hurl them at the opponent with power, accuracy, and a tumbling end-over-end motion that caused a momentary pause in the target, leading to a strike!

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“What the hell is going on down there, goddamnit?” Dad’s voice thundered.

This level of crazy play always happened on Saturdays, right around the same time of Dad’s afternoon nap.

He came down and looked at the carnage. Everything we owned except for the ping pong table - thoughtfully and quickly broken down and used for cover or a part of our forts - was strewn about. It was a playtime war zone.

“That’s it, no more. Go outside and find something to do…after all this is cleaned up and put away.” He withered us with a last fiery stare and stomped up the stairs.

He meant business. Once we cleaned up the war zone, we moved onto our back yard, or to one of our friends’ yard, or bike up to the park, a few blocks away.

After a few hours, we’d come home to Mom’s lilting voice, “Hey, boys. It’s almost dinner time.”

After a break, everybody was back to the our relaxed, happy norm.

We could destroy the basement, as long as we didn’t break any glass or windows, and as long as we put all our toys, everything, back in its proper place.

But in public, especially in a restaurant, church, or some special place, god help you if you acted the fool.Between Dad’s threats and Mom’s look of disappointment, you learned actin’ the fool was a bad choice.

There was one time, I must have been around six years old, and I was actin’ the fool at our favorite restaurant, Gusti’s.

This home-style Italian place featured my favorite foods: ravioli and spaghetti and meatballs. For some reason I don’t remember, I threw myself on the floor and started crying and flopping around. It was the ultimate tantrum.

“You better get up off that floor and straighten up. Now.” Dad gave me a death stare. Mom morphed her lips into a dead, straight line, and shot me a look that said “We mean business.” I ignored all this and kept on. Dad grumbled and mumbled curse words and yanked my arm, dragging me out of the restaurant.

My tantrum faded into shock.

As we approached the car he asked, “Are we ready to act like an adult?”

I squirmed and cried with renewed vigor. Dad opened the door and shoved me in and slammed it shut. He yelled through the glass.

“What did I tell you? We’re going to have spaghetti and meatballs and all that good food. On the way home we’ll get you a couple of flat, old burgers from Little Tavern, how about that?”

He turned and walked away slowly. I pounded on the window.

“Dad, I’m ready to behave like an adult now.”

He kept walking. I screamed out. “I’m not actin’ the fool, Dad, not acting the fool. Please, Gusti’s.”

He stopped and looked back at me. “You sure? Cause if you act up and I have to drag you back out here, boy.”

I was stuck to the glass like a Spongebob window clinger. “Yes dad, I’m ready to behave now.” He let me out of the car and not a peep was heard from me until it was time to order.

There were consequences for actin’ the fool.

“Are we going to act the fool the Saturday? Are we?”

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It was six days away, and we could not wait. Even though Chris was seven years old and I was eleven, way past the “act the fool” stage, he kept asking the question because we were going to see a concert - the Motown review was coming to Shady Grove Music Fair. This was an open top amphitheater which had musicals, opera, orchestras, and jazz, usually.

Here came Motown, the biggest and newest thing.

Besides radio and albums, there were shows that featured go go dancers. and rock, pop, and soul bands.

In the morning before school, there was Where the Action Is. I had to practically run to school to arrive on time thanks to this show. The bands performed, mostly lip synced, to their hits on sets like California beaches and amusements parks.

I wasn’t big on bands like Herman’s Hermits and the Young Rascals, but there’d be soul artists like Otis Redding and Little Stevie Wonder. I always watched until the very end when the credits rolled and we got to see my favorite girl group (then and now) Martha and the Vandellas. The setting was an amusement park, where the group sang and danced among the rides while singing hits like “Quicksand” and “Heat Wave.”

Those songs running through my mind gave the walk to school a little bounce.

All the parents, us kids, even the grannies, everybody was up on soul music and the Motown sound. The music was fresh, the artists were classy and presented themselves in a way that was uplifting to the Black community and showed us in the best light.

So when Dad bounded through the front door like he was a kid running to a Christmas tree, practically giggling, we knew something special was going on.

“Hey Helen! Helen?” He rushed into the bedroom, and they spoke loudly and happily.

“Sorry boys, but I had to tell my best girl the news first. I got tickets! We’re all going to Shady Grove to see the Motown Review. Live!” .

I said, “What do you mean we’re going to see the Motown review?” l was confused. I’d seen bands on TV and heard on the radio, but I didn’t get what they were talking about.

“I mean live! In performance. Right there on stage.” Mom looked at me funny. I had a hard time picturing it. “You know, right there on stage.”

“You mean the groups that are on our records?”

“Yes, those groups, right in front of us. On stage doing a full concert. It’s Motown, boys! ” It came into focus. Like the shows Shindig and Hullabaloo, but real and with us there.

Mom said, “It going to be the Temptations, the Four Tops and a surprise guest. I wonder who it is. Maybe Diana Ross?”

As the day of the show drew nearer, the question came.

“Are we going to act the fool the Saturday? Are we?” Dad said grimly.

It was three days away.

“Are we going to act the fool?”

“No Dad, no.” Chris and I recited in unison with the sweetest little kid voices, just like the boys and girls on Bozo the Clown Show.

I already had my clothes picked out. I know we had to wear suits, our Sunday best gear, but I was going to fight to wear my green, orange and red striped turtleneck shirt. I wanted to stand out.

Two days later, “Are we gonna -“

”No, no we gonna act right.”

And at last it was finally the day.

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Here we are forty years later. I never thought that a fun and liberating job in a restaurant / bar would turn out to be a touch stone, a roving tribe, and that I would always have the extended Great Jones Café family of friends, ex-lovers and play cousins.*

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But the second week of the patrol boys was not so much fun. The weather changed. Mornings were chillier, days cloudier. My routine was a quick bowl of Maypo oatmeal and out the door. I used to be the last kid to arrive. Now I was the first.

No more cartoons or listening to WOL-AM soul radio under the covers, in a cozy state, half asleep, half awake. I started to miss what was missing, before Officer Friendly’s call to service. The after-school routine of waiting until the last kids left and being dismissed by grown up guards or the kid captain, became annoying. It cut into the hallowed afternoon snack time, and playing with my friends, before dinner and my favorite shows: The Monkees, I Dream of Jeannie, Batman and The Green Hornet.

Come Friday, the gray, blustery weather gave way to bright skies with wisps of clouds racing past. It was a magic fall day. The oak trees had burst into golds, reds and bright greens. The hill that sloped from the sidewalk at the street corner to school’s playground, was covered in fallen leaves and the spike-covered shells of newly fallen acorns.

After dismissal, I was approached by three fellow patrol boys, all white, with matching white jackets and bright orange sashes. One boy was pudgy and fat, very pale with red, rosy cheeks. He walked up to me, puffed up and tried to act like a hard rock.

“Now listen here,” he said. “The Captain told us to tell you that he don’t want no niggers on the Patrol Boys.”

The other two stood behind him like folded wings on a large bird. “You gonna quit or do you want us to beat you up?”

I laughed. What they didn’t realize was that thanks to television and movies, I knew how to fight. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was my favorite spy show. They used karate kicks and chops. Then there was the Green Hornet’s Kato and his never-before seen kung fu stylings of Kato, played by the great Bruce Lee. Me, my brother Chris, and best friends, Karl and Mike, would watch these shows, then meet up and jump around hitting, kicking and wrestling each other. So when they threatened to beat me up, in my mind I a cool secret agent and Kato.

I struck a pose, gave a loud “Hiyahh!” and gave the lead kid a hard kick right into his leg.

He yelped, I turned and ran to the hill laughing, while pointing to my butt and doing a little dance. He got mad and charged. I jumped at him with a side kick, flying like Bruce Lee.

Except that I didn’t jump too high so the kick on his thigh near the balls. I stepped in with the heel of my hand smashing his nose.

Blood came down on his white jacket. He started crying. The others froze. I pushed him with all my might into his slack-jawed pals.

They all fell to the ground. I grabbed spikey acorn shells and bombarded them, making war sounds with my mouth: the whine of artillery shells and rumbling explosions as the spiky shells hit them in the face and head. They hobbled away, crying and limping from my kick and hit to the face.

I lobbed one last big shell just as the untouched patrol boy turned and gave me the finger. The spikey shell sailed over his hand and hit him squarely above his eye. He cried out and grabbed his face, knocking his limping friend over.

I laughed and bellowed in total victory.

When I came home, I told my mom I decided to quit, that I didn’t want to get up early or spend the time. She was fine with that.

“It’s going to be winter soon and you don’t need to be outside in the cold with your asthma.” That was that. No, to getting up early and going into the cold. Yes, to warm oatmeal, breakfast sausage and cartoon show time.

Several years later I casually revealed to Mom what they called me, how they started it, how I beat ‘em up, and sent them away crying. To my surprise, she got mad.

“If you had told me, I would have raised Cain! I would call the mayor’s office, the Washington Post, the school, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Mom, I handled it. I was gonna quit anyway. I didn’t care. Remember what you said, ‘sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me?’”

She told Dad and he was even more pissed off. I couldn’t understand their outrage. I laughed at those bumbling, racist buffoons, unaffected by their words. I hit them with kicks, a blow to the nose, and bombed them with spikey shells.

My sense of self and safety that my family and the neighborhood provided were the reasons I laughed off this so-called incident.

When I hear of people, especially young Blacks, getting triggered and hurt by the N-word hurled by fools, I have to shake my head. Unless it’s used in a sentence like, “There’s a n****r, GET HIM,” and I’m in danger of experiencing real harm, as opposed to offense to my delicate sensibilities, I’m not trippin’ or getting upset.

I mean, sticks and stones, right?

I hope you enjoyed The KirbZONE’s “User’s Guide” over Christmas and the arrival of the New Year.

First and foremost, I want to thank you for being a part of The KirbZONE. Also, thanks for showing me love and demonstrating your interest in my world of music, memories and hijinks, hereto known as Tales of Olde New York.

These stories will cover the years from the late seventies through the eighties, leap through the nineties, and tap dance in the two thousands. These are the times I lived in and out of New York City, a place that was always a magnet and a touchstone in my life, and continues to be home.

You have received the “User’s Guide”. Now I present to you the first of several upcoming pieces:

Stay tuned for Part 2.

Thanks again for your support. Here’s to 2026!

Kirby

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