Over this
past weekend, I had the chance to present Invisible
Country at the wonderful, independent bookstore, Canio's in Sag
Harbor. While there, I noticed, on the
wall of my friends' house, a picture of my host Paul with Joe Williams. We talked about how Paul knew Joe, and Paul said Joe was "the best." Paul used to arrange weekend jazz concerts in New York, so he really knew
Joe. I agreed with his assessment, but my
connection with the great jazz singer from afar, just another face in the crowd.
I have no
recollection of how my first love in jazz came about. We were working class teenagers going to
Catholic high school next to the Paterson, NJ jail, in a school building
condemned by the fire department in a moribund city that is still in its death
throes more than fifty years later. Somehow,
some way, we decided it would be cool to go to New York City, less than twenty
miles away, to a club called Birdland on Broadway to hear the Count Basie band
with Joe Williams. I was sixteen the first
time we went. Whatever took us there, we
returned every time Joe and the Count came back, for three years running. Perhaps the whole thing began because the
boys a year ahead of me in school got drivers’
licenses and wanted someplace to drive.
Maybe the New Jersey eighteen year olds among us wanted to get over the
New York State line where they could legally drink alcohol. Whatever took me there, I fell in love with
the music and especially with Joe’s voice..JPG)
The Kid
from Red Bank, Count Basie, played splendidly to be sure. (On one visit, I sat where I could see his
fingers, chubby they were, dancing on the keys. That was decades ago, but I still
see them now.) Great Stuff, but it was
Joe's singing that knocked me out. It
still does. In all those years, not a fortnight has gone by that I haven’t listened to my favorite, “I’m Beginning to See the Light.”
YouTubes
of Joe are sparse and to my way of thinking do not capture him at his best, but
I share a couple here.
Many, many
of Joe’s recordings are widely
available. Check out a few. I think I have most of them and know they
will be keeping me company for the rest of my life.
Annamaria Alfieri
