JAZZ AND MADONNA

‘LPG’ Trio, Jazz festival, Limerick, 

‘LPG’ is Eddie Lee on the double bass, Fintan Gilligan on guitars/vocals (and being a smart ass), and me on the violin. We are playing for dedicated Limerick Jazz aficionados. The place is full, everyone is attentive, supportive and quiet, which is usually a good thing. Not in this case though. Some genius from the festival decided it might be a good idea to put a Jazz trio into the venue next to a pub. Especially at the time of football tournament, which means the place was packed up with natives. Jazz and football do not make a healthy combination. After three or four tunes, one of the footie fans decided to investigate. Suddenly this unsteady character was right in a front of the stage, pint of lager in hand and another five in his belly. He looked very suspicious. He enquired, ‘What the Hell is tha…?’. 

‘This is Jazz’, politely answered Eddie. They had a little discussion, which went like this.

‘What’s Jazz??’

‘It’s a style of music’

‘Wha? Why do you play it?’

‘Well, this is a Jazz festival, so naturally, we play Jazz’

‘Why?’ 

‘Well, we ARE the Jazz band’

‘Wha…? Why?’

Now, if you have children, you know this question eventually can lead to a triple bypass. Even when it’s coming from someone small and cute. When it’s coming from someone who weights over a hundred kg and smells like a brewery, it might lead to something more drastic. Fintan started to get red in the face. The character decided to change his line of enquiry. He asked, ‘Do you play Madonna?’. 

‘No, we do not’, said Eddie, as polite as ever.

‘Why not?’

‘Because we are a Jazz band, this is a Jazz festival and those are people who came to listen to Jazz….’. 

‘I came here, didn’t I? And I don’t want yer Jazz, I want Madonna!!! I’m yer customer, I’m paying you money so you play what I want, get it ???’.

I was ready to grab Fintan who looked like he was about to deck our newfound groupie, but Eddie had it under control.

‘And now ladies and gentlemen, we are going to play an old Jazz classic I’m sure you all are very familiar with. ‘Autumn Leaves’….  by Madonna!!!’.

Our friend was ecstatic. He was so happy that his stylistic requirements were met, he tried to sing along and even did a little dance routine. Very soon he got sleepy and wandered off to the ‘footie’ part of the venue. A disaster was averted by diplomatic means.

‘You see’, I said to Fintan. ‘Learn from Eddie. Clever, was it?’.

‘What was so  clever?’, Fino replied, ‘I always thought it was Madonna who wrote ‘Autumn Leaves’.

But that’s Fintan being…. difficult.

Or maybe not? He thinks ‘Merci’ is Italian, after all.

A complicated character, my friend Fintan.