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Cold Night at a Warm Jazz Festival
It was a very cold night and I didn’t wear a coat because I didn’t want to wrinkle my jacket, so I was quite blue in the face and goose-pimply when I ran into Cafe Isla to set up. The 17th Annual Jazz By Night in Media, PA, was dedicated to Women in Jazz and I was honored to be among some of the best women musicians in the area.
Tom Glenn, my guitarist, brought in a speaker for me since I still haven’t bought a sound system. A bit of backstory, I’m just getting back into gigging after 15 years building the nonprofit Jazz Bridge, and I never replaced my beloved Gallien Krueger vocal amp when it gave up the ghost.
I didn’t expect to be singing in a doughnut shop, but what the hell, over the years, I’ve sang in strip clubs, mafia bars with red-flocked wallpaper and burly men with their backs glued to the wall, a Wildwood venue with a moose head stage left and hula dancers stage right, on balconies, in basements, and on boats.
Our audience showed up right on time, bundled in coats and winter hats, ready to hear some jazz. Except for two teenage girls giggling over a deck of Tarot cards, they were riveted. So Tom and I sailed into the first set — which included our rendition of Dave Frishberg’s Blizzard of Lies (with new lyrics by moi) aimed directly at Trump and our original — I Got My Smile On (Ode to Sycophants) aimed directly at his…
