I’d like you to start by listening to the first track on the A side, “Corcovado.” Bird doesn’t play the opening theme. In fact, he doesn’t take up the theme until one phrase at the end. The piece starts with Carlos Jobim quietly playing that familiar theme alone on the piano. The rhythm section is simply mute. The melody calls to mind a young girl seated at a window, gazing out at the beautiful night sky. Most of it is done with single notes, with the occasional no-frills chords added. As if gently tucking a soft cushion under the girl’s shoulders.
And once that performance of the piano theme is over, Bird’s alto sax quietly enters, a faint twilight shadow slipping through a gap in the curtain. He’s there, before you even realize it. These graceful, seamless phrases are like lovely memories, their names hidden, slipping into your dreams. Like fine wind patterns you never want to disappear, leaving gentle traces on the sand dunes of your heart…
I’ll omit the rest of the article, which is simply a further description with all the suitable embellishments. The above gives you an idea of the kind of music I’m talking about. Of course it’s music that doesn’t actually exist. Or, at least, music that couldn’t possibly exist.
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I’ll wrap up that story here, and talk about something that took place years later.
For a long time I totally forgot that I’d written that article back in college. My life after school turned out to be more harried and busy than I’d ever imagined, and that review of a make-believe album was nothing more than a lighthearted, irresponsible joke I’d played when I was young. But now, close to fifteen years later, this article unexpectedly reemerged into my life, like a boomerang you threw that whirls back to you when you least expect it.
I was in New York on business and, with time on my hands, took a walk near my hotel and ducked inside a small used-record store I came across on East Fourteenth Street. And in the section of Charlie Parker records I found, of all things, a record titled Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova. It looked like a bootleg, a privately pressed recording. On the front was a white jacket with no drawing or photo, just the title in sullen black letters. On the back was a list of the tracks and the musicians. Surprisingly, the list of songs and musicians was exactly as I’d made them up back in college. Likewise, Hank Jones sat in for Carlos Jobim on two tracks.
I stood there—still, speechless—record in hand. It felt like some small internal part of me had gone numb. I looked around again. Was this really New York? This was downtown New York—no doubt about it. And I was actually here, in a small used-record store. I hadn’t wandered into some fantasy world. Nor was I having some super-realistic dream.
I slipped the record out of its jacket. It had a white label, with the title and names of the songs. No sign of a record company logo. I examined the vinyl itself and found four distinct tracks on each side. I went over and asked the long-haired young guy at the register if I could take a listen to the album. No, he replied. The store turntable’s broken. Sorry about that.
The price on the record was $35. I wavered for a long time about whether to buy it. In the end, I left the shop empty-handed. I figured, it’s got to be somebody’s idea of a silly joke. Somebody, on a whim, had faked a record based on my long-ago description of an imaginary recording. Took a different record that had four tracks on each side, soaked it in water, peeled off the label, and glued on a homemade one. Any way you look at it, it was ridiculous to pay $35 for a bogus record like that.
I went to a Spanish restaurant near the hotel and had some beer and a simple dinner by myself. Afterward, as I was strolling around aimlessly, a wave of regret suddenly welled up in me. I should have bought that record. Even if it was a fake, and even if it was way overpriced, I should have bought it, at the very least as a souvenir of all the twists and turns my life had taken. I went straight back to Fourteenth Street. I hurried, but the record store was closed by the time I got there. On the shutter was a sign that said the store opened at 11:30 a.m. and closed at 7:30 p.m. on weekdays.
The next morning, just before noon, I went over to the store again. A middle-aged guy—thinning hair, in a disheveled, round-necked sweater—was sipping coffee and reading the sports section of the paper. The coffee seemed freshly brewed, for a pleasant smell wafted faintly through the store. The store had just opened, and I was the only customer. An old tune by Pharoah Sanders filtered through the small speaker on the ceiling. I assumed the man was the store’s owner. I thumbed through the Charlie Parker section, but that record was nowhere to be found. I was sure I’d returned the record to that section yesterday. Thinking it might have gotten mixed in elsewhere, I rifled through every bin in
