Stella by Starlight
[Bellavista- Santiago, Chile]
vamo a club de jazz muy weno was the only invitation i needed to overlook school work for the evening and further postpone preparations for my trip to the US. Pancho, a friend and santiago native led me through the sleepy outskirts of Bellavista to Thelonious lugar de jazz--tucked into a row of neglected storefronts and unmarked. after the opening set, the musicians rotated through without missing a beat. the scores seemed to blend together, one nearly indistinguishable from the other.
though concerts are intended for the ears, my favorite element of live performance is watching the music melt across a performer’s face, witnessing the soul timidly emerge from its typically intangible place underneath the skin. less timid souls may inhabit the entire body. the young pianist pictured was one such case. the staccato, rampant notes of the score became evident in every limb. his cigarette bobbed and rattled between his teeth. without missing a beat he reached behind to sip something on ice, to ash. the tenor sax waled through its masters neck and filled the vein which parted his forehead vertically as a mole burrowing shallowly through the lawn. the drummer tick tick tick ed his wire sticks which fluttered like sporadic hummingbird wings in front of his tuxedo. sights, sounds, sights, sights, sights. do you hear that? they’re playing Stella by Starlight