More Les!
A Tribute to The Press Room and Those Who Love It, by Jeff Volk For Les Harris, Jr., Gray Sargent, Marshall Wood and Jeff Stout, with a nod to Ryan Parker It’s a Seacoast Sunday evening and it’s finally stopped raining. The Old North Church is intoning its own welcoming reprise of Lenny Breau’s Five O’clock Bells. And even though it’s dark already, Market Square still glistens through the lingering mist. I make my way down Daniel Street headlong into the last gasp of a nearly departed Nor’easter, its salty breath swirling the fog of familiar memories —r ecalling a thousand Sunday nights like this, while stirring up anticipation of what is yet to fill the air. Even though it’s awfully early for this kind of music, we’ve all been waiting quite some time for this event. It’s a bit like… a resurrection -- Jazzarus has risen, and the Phantom of the Keyboard has finally got his old roost back. Well, not exactly his old roost -- this hall has been transfigured! Though you might hardly recognize the place, history drapes the newly exposed, century-old beams as cobwebs used to, for all those dusty decades. Even with shiny new acoustic panels layering their velvet touch over this old brick-walled pub, this place remains a world apart from the highbrow Top of the Hub! Feels more like Dave McKenna’s Copley Plaza, or Scullers’ mellow mahogany chamber, echoing that classic cigar-burnished timbre -- of a well-loved, bygone era. From my post up in the balcony (The Top of the Pub?), a good-natured heckler hollers “More Les!” “The more Les the better!” quips Sargent from the stand, scarcely missing a beat, while fearlessly leading his band onward, into the fray. Suddenly doubling the cadence, Les is more. So much more than just a metronome. Firing on all eights he drives the band forward -- right off the bandstand and into the grandstand, where I, that happy heckler, happen to be seated, invisible, anonymous, though sitting right in plain sight, up there in my front row seat hidden behind the glare of stage light. Les is always more than you’d expect and subtlety’s his greatest strength, earning him our deep respect. Trading his sticks for a pair of brushes he paints a symphony of understatement, showing us just how much Les is more! Next time ‘round, it’s the bass who takes the upper hand, Marshalling the forces, he slaps out the commands. Meanwhile, Les is trading all his fours for sixes, while Rudy van Parker’s running ‘bout the house pursuing his most consummate mixes, and that Stout guy, standing front & center never hesitates to entertain a phrase from some forgotten standard, so obscure, but we all recognize it anyways, and grin from ear to ear at the medley he plays. But grinning even wider, is that rhythm-driven man, sittin’ back there rockin’ in the corner of the stand. He’ll pound out complex counterpoint to what his mates just played, then flip it on its head and play the melody, arrayed as though his skins were 88 keys, all laid out upon the stage. There’s surely no contesting; Les is more! But so is everybody else who’s offered up a number on this stand, or bounced their head (or tail) from side to side and cheered appreciation for the band. And like a fine Swiss Time machine each one plays his part in this device, to place another brick in this iconic artifact of tradition tempered with timeless innovation. So come on all you die-hard fans, you’d best heed my advice, and climb up to The Press Room on a steamy Sunday night. There, you can rest yourself assured, you‘ll never hear that same old tune played the same way, twice! ©2019 Jeff Volk. Written November 25 - 29, 2018. Final edits 1/14/19. Jeff Volk is a longtime jazz fan and denizen of The Press Room — and, as we’ve now learned, a poet. He lives in Eliot, Maine. |