I’m backstage at the Jazz Standard in New York City, about to hit the stage with the Captain Black Big Band. Josh, the lead trumpet player, informs me that my dress looks like Michael Jackson’s leather coat from the hit song and video, Thriller.
“Wait. WAIT. WHAAAAAAT?”
I’m staring at Josh, my eyes ablaze, mouth sneering, and my hands suddenly ball into fists. Josh, sensing an unleashing of the Angry Black Woman (ABW), takes a small step back, regards me with curiosity, and then grins.
“I had a jacket like that when I was younger,” he says.“It’s cool.”
But nothing was cool in that moment. In fact, I wanted to grab Josh by his awesome beard and scream, “NOTHING IS COOL RIGHT NOW, JOSH- NOTHING!!!”
————-
I’m putting on my makeup and getting my hair together and cutting it close on time, as I’m wont to do. Frank taps his Fitbit, stands and stares at me, as he is wont to do when I’m cutting it close.
“M, we gotta go, hon. NOW.”
I run to the closet and slip on this spicy little dress I found online, a colorblocked wonder of red and black accentuated with gold threading. Frank gives a whistle as he zips up the prominent zipper running up the back, and while I am grateful to have brought that extra black dress, she is staying in the hotel closet because Goldie Redblock is handling it.
I float on Frank’s arm as we make our way out of the hotel, down Lexington Avenue and down the steps of the club. You can’t tell me nothing right now, especially when my boo thang tells me I’m fine, and the soundtrack in my head is looping “Sugar, how you get so fly?”. I peck Frank on the cheek and scoot on back to the tiny green room and now I’m surrounded by other good-smelling, sharply-dressed men- my brothers in music. The room is abuzz and our collective excitement comes out in the shining of brass, multiple sips from an unlabeled jar, and all around good natured ribbing. We are all motion and nerves, constant and electric.
I find a place to stash my coat and sit to change my shoes. The room has emptied and I’m checking my lippy when the aforementioned Josh returns to retrieve something.
”Hey! Great dress!” And then, as if taking even himself by surprise, Josh adds,
“It’s like Michael Jackson in Thriller.”
A laugh comes up from my throat, but is interrupted by “Wait. WHAAAAAA?”
Josh mutters something about having that coat as a kid and he throws an apology over his shoulder as he chuckles and backs out of the green room. I’m not listening. I’m looking in the mirror, clearly on the brink of a Florida Evans punchbowl moment. How did I miss this? I loved this dress on sight, even though it’s not my usual fare. But there was something about it that made me want to try it on. And then when I put it on for the first time, I loved it. And when I showed it to Frank, he loved it.
Yes- I watched the premiere of the Thriller video on MTV as child. Yes- I’ve seen it a thousand times. Yes- I know the zombie dance. And yes- I wanted to be Ola Ray.
Oh my God.
My hands are now framing my face, like a Munch recreation.
Was this some sort of inner child exercise I missed? Was I like subconsciously channeling Ola RAY?! And worse: should I send Frank back for the shunned black dress?
Just then Todd, lead saxophonist, walks in, unknowingly preventing my complete meltdown. I wheel around, and ask in a steady-not-steady voice,
“Todd. Does this dress remind you of Michael Jackson in Thriller?”
“Hmmm, I can see that, sure.”
At this point, I just look down at my feet and do the only next right thing. I ask every band member I run into about it. Each one laughs, and the truth cannot be denied. I bought this dress because it reminded me of something really good. I just didn’t know it until right then.
——-
As a singer, I stand on strong shoulders of mastery: from Big Mama and Bessie to Billie and Ella, from Sister Rosetta and Sassy Sarah to Roberta and Etta. Some days, I marvel at my nerve in singing some of the standards that the Greats made their own years ago. What in the world can I add to that? Gurrrrrl- have multiple seats.
I find jazz in particular to be a constant balance of inspiration and innovation, of example and expansion. There’s no denying the influences and lineages in jazz, and it’s the reason why so many of us do tribute concerts and albums (not to mention they sell like hotcakes:) And yet there’s the ever-present striving to explore the canon and the genre further, to make the music my own. It’s that mix of the familiar with the new that makes jazz so appealing- the boundaries are boundless. Jazz is a genre that can contain both the desire and the disappointment, and still helps you off the floor with a “Nice try, kid. See you tomorrow.”
The notion of adding my true voice to that continuum, while daunting and challenging, is what keeps me in the ring, grasping for the brass ring, actually. I may not sing better than my heroes, but I will get better at being a musician, at being a writer, at being ME.
Josh saw that quicker than me- that Goldie Redblock is indeed an homage to Michael Jackson. I don’t know if that was the inspiration for the designer, or what moved me to purchase it. Who knows- maybe Frank saw me in this dress and subconsciously thought, “Gurl, I’ll rescue you from them dancing zombies any old day!” Whatever the case, I know I wore the mess out that dress that night. I like to think that I took an example and I expanded on it.
———
At the end of the second set, this older man, with disheveled hair and equally disheveled demeanor, comes up to me, shoving one arm into his coat and crows,
“You went from Leontyne Price to Aretha Franklin!”
I laugh hard, truly satisfied with the evening and his words because I know what he means. He heard history in me. He heard my inspirations and I like to think he also heard my innovations. I thank him and shake his hand.
He doesn’t mention my Thriller dress. But that’s okay. I’m just glad Josh did.