Uphill night for jazz dudes

She's not in this picture, but believe me she's there. And she's the loudest woman I have ever heard.

I stopped by Jardine's Tuesday night to catch the Dan Thomas Quintet. Dan brings a quality assemblage to Jardine's about once a month and this time around sounded especially promising: Harold O'Neal was back from touring and sitting in at the piano. Bram Wijnands was sitting in his other other instrument, not the piano and not the bass but the accordion. As a jazz dilettante and musical curiosity seeker how could I pass up the chance to hear an accordion in a jazz combo?

The place was more than half full when I arrived and the quintet was blowing full force. I ordered a Guinness and perched on a barstool to enjoy the breeze. During the next number (Blues for BLT) I noticed this strange sound rising up through the music. It was a though someone testing a dental drill on a piece of sheet metal.

Turns out it was coming from a blonde woman in a pair of white pants and a bucket of white wine (quantities approximate). I might have guessed. I had passed her on my way into the club from the back entrance. She was oscillating outside the women's restroom, wine glass in hand.

Although she was blocking the way, she acted like I'd stopped by to chat. I politely said excuse me and slipped through the gap between her and the wall. "Well, OK bye then," she slurred after me. No such luck.

She was with a large group of people, at least 20, who were having some kind of group dinner and from the way they were carrying on, it was clear that someone else was picking up the tab. (As the group was starting to break up later on, I saw the lone gray head in the group shaking his head at a bill as long as his leg.)

On a technical level, it was amazing. Five guys with instruments, amplified and blowing away, and yet one birdy white woman with no chest capacity to speak of and a bag on rises above it somehow. Really amazing.

On an aesthetic level, it was an exquisite kind of irritation. Because the band was good and the band played on. They played louder, they played at her. For the most part she ignored the music, apart from occasionally shaking her modest can as she moved shrieking from table to table.

Other people in the club went over to talk to her friends. Her friends apologized to the band. Someone, purposely or not, spilled a drink on her. And yet there was no stopping her. It made me long for the days when Buddy Rich would stop the show if patrons got loud and/or lit, offer to pay their tab and tell them to leave. According to Buddy, they usually piped down.

And it's not just a Midwest dipshit thing either. About ten years ago, I went to see Bobby Short at the Carlyle Hotel in NYC and mid-show some jackass in a tailored suit and his lady companions had apparently plunked down a couple hundred dollars to yuck it up amongst themselves while the rest of us did our best to enjoy one of the greatest cabaret entertainers to walk the planet. The staff at the Carlyle eventually quelled the ruckus. No such luck at Jardine's.

At the break between the second and third sets, I complimented Bram for his restraint. "I'm just trying to survive," he said.

I suppose that's all anyone who plays music for a living does. Too bad it's such a struggle sometimes.