Life Shift

We had two strikes against us right off the bat.

Listen to me, I watch the Superbowl once and now I'm spouting sports metaphors.

The last two days of 72 degree weather had been enough to motivate Quirk Hotel to open their rooftop bar for sipping and sunset-watching, so that was the first thing on tonight's to-do list. At least it was, right up until it starting raining on our parade plans.

So instead, Mr. Wright and I walked over to Saison Market, passing the art scene-devoted Parker who was headed to Gallery 5, but not without mentioning that G5 is finally getting the new roof it's needed for years.

In Jackson Ward, that's big news.

Things were quiet at Saison Market, making it easy to score glasses of house Rose and order a couple of plates. Feeling far more wintery than the weather called for, grilled and fermented turnips in black garlic sauce delivered varying textures in a hearty dish meant to stick to your ribs. Arriving on a white plate with elaborate magenta squiggles, cured Arctic char gussied up with radishes, pickled onion, croutons and herbs were arranged atop the dramatic beet yogurt design.

You can be sure that design was a sloppy mess by the time we got through dredging our char in it and scoring more Rose.

Honestly, we could have sat there all evening talking about the upcoming Architecture and Design Film Festival in D.C. or the appeal of Tuscon or Austin in January, but we had places to be.

And that's where our second strike came in.

Weeks ago, I'd gotten an email blast alerting me that trumpeter Rex Richardson was playing at the ICA and put it on my calendar. I'm a long-time Rex fan, having discovered him back in the mid aughts when I saw his Rhythm and Brass group do a performance of his original work, plus stuff by the Beatles and Radiohead.

Hooked, that was the beginning of my Rex fandom.

Can't say I knew the trumpet could be so versatile until that night, but the many performances I've gone to since have only solidified my opinion. So of course I'd wanted to go the moment I saw the announcement.

My faux pas was in not going to the event page, where I would have learned that the event required tickets. Free tickets, but reserved tickets nonetheless, a fact I only learned this afternoon when I finally went to the event page and saw a big banner screaming "SOLD OUT."

And while that might have deterred a less savvy ICA-goer, I had experience in this arena. The first time Mac and I tried to go see a film there, I'd been the idiot who'd been unaware that tickets were required (yikes, I'm starting to see a pattern).

In my defense, most Afrikana Film events I'd been to before that hadn't required tickets. Still, I'm an idiot.

But Mac and I had gone anyway and learned that because the tickets are free, some people inevitably claim them and then don't show up. I told Mr. Wright and the woman at the front desk of the ICA that our plan was to occupy the seats held by unused ticket holders.

Worked like a charm and boom, we had second row seats, just a few down from Style's jazz critic and his posse.

Introducing Rex and the band was RVA music supporter extraordinaire Tim Timberlake (hey, D!)who correctly pointed out what an all-star line-up it was. Backing Rex were Brian Jones on drums, Randall Pharr on bass, Trey Pollard on guitar and J.C. Kuhl on saxophone, musicians I've seen dozens of times and will never tire of hearing.

Rex seemed impressed by the auditorium space, mentioning multiple times how great the space was and how gratified he was to see a sold-out crowd. Pshaw, as much as the man plays out all around the world, he was probably being modest since I'm guessing sold out venues are a frequent thing for him.

The performance was only an hour, but when the talent is that good, you take what they offer. Meanwhile, a cadre of students photographed and/or videotaped every moment for posterity, moving 360 degrees around the musicians for the best possible shots.

When Rex was introducing "The Tao of Heavy D," he mentioned that there was a good story behind it, but he wasn't telling it tonight. "One of these days, you're going to tell that story," sax player J.C. admonished him.

The band played several songs off Rex's "Blue Shift" album, including songs by Brian and Randall, and of course himself.

When the set finished up and Rex thanked us, Carlos of In Your Ear Studios - the studio sponsors the series - got up and asked the crowd if they wanted another one. When the room erupted, he responded, "I knew that!"

Speaking of his admiration for Wayne Shorter, Rex said they were going to do his "See No Evil," though he couldn't do it like Wayne, so they'd do it in a different time signature. "Here's 'See No Evil' in 7/4!" he said, clearly pleased with himself. "We'll see how this goes."

You want to know how it went? Magnificently, beautifully. Between the acoustics and the talent performing, you'd have been hard-pressed to find anyone looking at their cell phone (okay, except a couple of students I spotted). Everyone there knew they were in the presence of musical magic and focused their attention on the here and now.

Walking out of the auditorium, I ran into a favorite couple, long married and very happy, I hadn't seen in months. Explaining my absence, I admitted that since meeting Mr. Wright, I've had little time for some of my former pastimes.

"Yea, relationships take a lot of time," she confirmed with a big smile. "But you deserve it. And you look radiant!"

Not bad for a woman who came to bat with a lifetime of strikes behind her.

Variations on a Girls' Night Out

When Typhoid Mary sets out for help alone, it's trumpet time.

Because it had been two months since I'd last seen Lady G, I had no idea she'd been battling the Galloping Consumption for a while now. When she showed up to fetch me, she was coughing like a consumptive and looking a tad peaked, not exactly ideal conditions to share anecdotes from her recent trip to Ireland.

Much less throw back wine and laugh at everything.

But like the trooper she is, she insisted we were good to go and that she wasn't nearly as sick as she looked or sounded. As someone who suffered with pneumonia for weeks under the delusion that I'd snap out of it, her false bravado was uncomfortably familiar. Still, no one wants to nag a sick friend.

Well, except for someone who mishandled her own illness and isn't afraid to be pushy about the risks of not getting treatment. So I put on my big sister hat and told her not to be stupid.

So my bedside manner could use some tweaking.

At her insistence, we carried on with our plans, landing at Bar Solita a few blocks away to try to cover three countries, hundreds of photographs, dozens of personal anecdotes and make plans for a road trip. Drawing on the only medicine that seems to be working currently, G ordered what she called "tea," a hot mixture of rye, honey and lemon that she thinks helps her cough but really helps her not care about her cough.

Over a basil pesto pizza and pastry, she shared photos, all of which proved how green Ireland is, and tall tales gleaned from wizened guides on her trip to the Motherland, while the pink-haired bartender worried about the seriousness of her cough. Every time G got into a good story, she'd begin a coughing fit from too much talking and we were back in the tubercular ward.

Make no mistake, I tried to convince her that we should go directly from Bar Solita to MCV, but she remained unconvinced. The bartender put in her two cents' worth, suggesting Patient First instead. "You should have that cough looked at!" the woman said with all the solemnity someone with pink hair can manage.

It was some time during dessert that Lady G caved and agreed to go directly to Patient First, albeit the one in her far-flung neighborhood. The time elapsed since we'd started our evening together was 90 minutes, so I felt pretty good about my nagging.

But at least she'd agreed to go and report back on her diagnosis.

All of a sudden, my evening was over. But rather than going home, I asked G to drop me at the Singleton Center (sign in stall of Singelton bathroom: "Swipe left on the flu!") on the way to having her cough examined. She was surprised that I just happened to know there was a musical program there tonight and I was surprised that she'd think I don't know of at least one, if not several, things going on on any given night.

After all, we have known each other for 20 years at this point.

Rex Richardson's Trumpet Spectacular had begun moments before I took my seat in the auditorium, so the VCU Trumpet ensemble was already playing. I'm one of those people who actually enjoys seeing a student group play because sometimes it's a first glance at an up and comer in the local jazz scene.

Not to make generalizations (because somebody will call me on it if I do) but trumpet fans appear to skew heavily male, or at least, that was my conclusion when I looked around the room and saw ten guys for every girl. Or perhaps, like me, all those guys were just out to hear top notch trumpet and piano playing on a Monday night after finishing a plate of profiteroles.

More likely, they were just big trumpet nerds like Rex, a man who tosses around phrases like, "If you know trumpet music," which I don't, but I also enjoy being in a room where there are people who do. People like trumpeter Taylor Barnett whom I've seen play in No BS Brass band and any number of big bands, and who joined Rex and pianist Magda Adamek for "Variations on a Theme" by Haydn.

Lady G might have benefited from some Haydn almost as much as from the "tea."

Finding Taylor was a bit of a problem, so Rex called out to the crowd, saying, "Taylor Barnett, are you here?" only to have Taylor walk onstage behind him. "Oh, there he is!" Rex exclaimed, acknowledging, "That's what you get when you don't entirely print out everything on your program and that's all my fault."

Everyone's - okay my - favorite pianist Russell Wilson of the Richmond Symphony, joined Rex for the next piece. I may have been going to Rex's performances for years, but I took my first jazz appreciation course from Russell, so I always feel fortunate to hear him play. I swear, he always looks like he's having a good time.

Trumpeter Mike Davison was Rex's next partner for "Tournament," a piece in three movements - Jousting, Hawaiian Song and Revelry - that had originally been written for Davison in 1999. "But when I asked him if he had the music, he didn't," Rex said, laughing.

Eager to have the last word, Mike cracked, "Must not have liked that one!" Regardless, they made it sound like they'd been playing it together since 1999.

Rex dedicated the tragically beautiful "Elegy" to the recently-deceased musician Roy Hargrove (whom he referred to as "a direct contemporary of mine") and trumpeter Thomas Steven.

The meatiest piece was Andy Scott's "Freedom of Movement," performed as recently as September by the VCU Wind Ensemble, but tonight performed using a piano-reduction version instead of the full ensemble for something completely different. Of the piece's three sections, the middle one with its jazz-like piano parts was the most intriguing to me, never more so than when pianist Magda began bopping her head, throwing her arms around and grooving like crazy.

Isn't there a saying about leading a classical pianist to jazz, but not being able to make her...something?

With G long gone (hopefully off being examined for whooping cough), it was a fine night for taking my time walking home given the relatively mild temperature and my post-trumpet buzz. Not the evening I expected, but sometimes a friend needs to be coerced to take care of herself.

And if you know stubborn friends better than you know trumpets, you know plying them with rye is the way to do it.

Blow by Blow

I knew I'd made the right choice of what to do tonight when I saw how many musicians were in the room.

A lot of really good ones.

The Broadberry was hosting trumpeter Rex Richardson's dual CD release party tonight and just about every table and chair in the place was already taken when I got there. Plenty of people were standing in front of the stage, too, and more continued to arrive.

No surprise there because Rex is kind of a big deal, a phenomenal musician whether he's blowing on a trumpet, coronet, flugelhorn or whatever.

My interest in tonight's program had its seeds in a show I'd gone to at the Singleton Center back in 2006 when Rex had been playing in a group called Rhythm and Brass. Memorably, that night's program had ranged from the Beatles to Radiohead with bits of everything in between.

That was the night I'd fallen for his trumpet playing (I might have even been that person who went up to him afterwards and gushed a bit).

Since that show eight years ago, I've seen him many times at VCU's Singleon Center and more recently, when he fronted an evening with the Richmond Symphony. Always on a limited budget, I'd splurged $10 on a next-to-the-last-row ticket for that show and now tonight I was dropping another ten-spot to hear Rex play his newest stuff.

His quintet began without any introduction beyond him blowing his horn to begin "Tell, Tell Me Again" and get the entire room's attention.

After that, he reminded us that CDs were for sale at a table in the back staffed by his beautiful wife Star. "Don't look at her," he warned, "look at the CDs."

After "Red Shift," which he characterized as an angry song, he said, "Now for something less manic," and played a song by the quintet's drummer, Brian Jones. It was the kind of beautiful song you could get lost in and at one point, I noticed a couple of musicians near the bar with their heads bent, not even looking at the stage, just deep in the music.

The man about town stopped by, a drink in each hand, complimented my sweater and asked if he was blocking my view (nope).

Of course Rex dedicated "Seeing Star (Blue Shift)" to "that lady at the back table selling CDs." I was bowled over when they did bassist Randall Pharr's soulful "Blues for David Henry," which they'd apparently also played on a morning TV show "when jazz musicians aren't really awake."

Just as stellar was "Big Sur" ("There's probably a story there but I never asked him") written by Jones that didn't last nearly as long as I would have liked.

Rex thanked the audience repeatedly, clearly thrilled with the size of the crowd that had shown up tonight. And just like that, the quintet portion of the show was over.

A lot of the people who'd been sitting at tables got up and left, but most of them didn't look like the kind of people who spend much time in stand up venues, so it wasn't surprising. Fact is, for a jazz show, it had started unbelievably early (not long after 8) and it was only 9:45 when the second part got rolling.

During the break, I listened to the two guys next to me on the banquette as they raved about the Star Hill Black Sabbath Stout. They were each on their fourth, so they knew of what they spoke.

All of a sudden, there was a plop next to me and a familiar smiling face sat down. It was a woman I'd met at Amuse and since run into all over town.

She was lamenting her recent resolution to only drink on weekends, although she'd had a glass of wine at dinner earlier and another at the bar at the Broadberry, so there was already some resolution bending going on. I empathized, nonetheless.

The second portion of the program was dedicated to "Dukal Bugles," written by Doug Richardson, who led a big band with some of Richmond's best jazz musicians onstage and Rex out front playing a variety of horns.

The piece is a tribute to Duke Ellington and the series of amazing trumpeters he worked with. We got a demonstration of each of the horns and sounds that would be featured before it began, but it was the seamless way Rex segued throughout that demonstrated his virtuosity.

If you weren't looking at the stage, you'd have thought there was a gaggle of horn players taking turns based on the stylistic differences we were hearing.

When it ended, everyone was on their feet and screaming for one more. The big band obliged with Mingus' "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" while  the clutch of young VCU music students behind me talked non-stop about the magic going on onstage. I was sorely tempted to tell them to button it.

Boys, boys, boys. Maybe when you're real musicians, you'll take a cue from the guys I saw tonight and just lose yourselves in the music silently.

If not, I'll just have to tell, tell you again. Music this good deserves to be heard. You opinions, not so much.

The Speed of a Lush Life

This I learned on my walk today: everywhere has a center.

In Virginia, the center is under the Harry Byrd memorial, a monument I noticed for the first time today strolling through Capital Square toward the Arts Commission.

It's apparently ground zero and the point from which all distances in the commonwealth are measured. Now who the hell knew that?

After adding to my mile marker knowledge and making a deadline this afternoon, it was time for some NASCAR.

VCU's Southern Film Fest kind of lost me this year with a sports theme, but the double allure of Richard Pryor and Pam Grier was enough to get me to the Grace Street theater to see 1977's "Greased Lightening."

I asked the woman next to me why she was there and she said her husband was chairman of the history department, the ones presenting the film fest, so she thought my reason for coming far superior.

The true story of Wendell Scott, a Virginian and the first black stock car racing champion, was being introduced by Scott's son and grandson who told us the film had premiered in Danville, Wendell's hometown.

He also advised us to take note of the way racial issues were portrayed, unnecessary because it would have been hard to miss ("Don't let him knock you up, young lady. You know how you people are").

Although this was not a comedy role for Pryor, he's so innately funny that a hapless look on his face and a side step became hilarious.

Wendell developed his speedy driving habits while running moonshine on the back roads of Franklin county, which he knew like the back of his hand. When he finally gets caught and jailed, a racetrack owner works a deal to get him out if he'll come race at his track.

He knows Wendell will draw blacks to the track (in the "colored only" section, of course), meaning more business for him, and that the white drivers will try to annihilate him, making for an exciting race. A sign outside the track that day read, "See the one and only negro race car driver."

Beau Bridges' character, a former driver who quits and befriends Wendell to become one of his mechanics, about stole the movie in a scene where he defends the two steak dinners he and Wendell are trying to eat in a whites-only restaurant by holding the rowdy customers at bay with a nearby Confederate flag.

Wendell's life made a great story, overcoming odds to become a champion, a near-fatal crash, a comeback and victory and all set in southern racetracks with the stands filled with people in mostly '70s clothes, a glaring mistake since no one, and I repeat, no one was wearing mini-dresses in 1947.

But at least I now know what the checkered flag means.

I left the '70s and images of Pam Grier's bodacious body for Joe's Inn and a travelogue about Nicaragua over drinks, BLTs and mozzarella sticks.

The returning traveler had scads of photographs of rain forests, low-hanging clouds, living rooves, strangler trees and adorable big-eyed children in colorful clothes.

Joe's was an early evening mob scene with strollers, tables of guys talking about "the" game and a line waiting for a table.

I wasn't sorry to get out of there.

By the time I got to CenterStage, the symphony was already warming up.

Tonight's program, "An Evening of Jazz with Rex Richardson" had its seeds in a show I'd gone to at the Singleton Center back in 2006.

Richardson had been playing in a group called Rhythm and Brass and that night's program had ranged from the Beatles to Radiohead with bits of everything in between.

That was the night I'd fallen for Rex's trumpet playing. I might have even gone up to him afterwards and gushed a bit.

Fast forward and now he's fronting an evening with the Richmond Symphony and you can be certain I'd gotten my $10, next-to-the-last-row ticket two weeks ago.

Waiting for the music to begin, I listened to the discussion behind me of the altitude of the seats, the fact that people were sneaking drinks in ("This is my first time, so I followed the rules. I did throw back a martini across the street first, but next time I'll know better," one woman said), and what was on the program, with one woman singing a snippet of "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing). Badly.

I saw a higher than usual percentage of faces from VCU in addition to the usual mothball-scented crowd like the gent next to me who exuded eau de camphor every time he applauded.

With guest drummer Nate Smith and symphony pianist Russel Wilson front and center, they launched into the first piece called "Ellington Portrait," swinging the room through everything from "Sophisticated Lady" to "Prelude to a Kiss."

Then Rex came out to take us through "Rextreme," a piece composed especially for him by James Stephenson to highlight Rex's ability to jump around between wildly separate notes and blow incredibly long note sequences.

Watching and listening to him, it was hard to conceive of how he could hold enough air to make possible the sounds he was producing.

When the three-movement piece ended, the guy behind me wailed, "Yea!" not what you tend to hear at the symphony.

As intermission began, the center front of the stage began to slowly drop below main stage level, taking away the drums and piano for the start of the second half.

That began with Gershwin's overture to "Of Thee I Sing," which the conductor told us was the only musical to win the Pulitzer prize. What the what?

The things I was learning today!

Then the stage rose back up and Rex (his suit history and now wearing an untucked blue shirt), his three horns and friends - musicians playing drums, sax, upright bass and piano- played through more Gershwin and Ellington, including a very different version of "Caravan" than the one the symphony had done in the first half.

For me, one of the best parts of "Caravan" was watching pianist Russell Wilson's masterfully improvised solos because a few years back, I took a jazz appreciation class from Russell and that man has forgotten more about jazz than most of us will ever know, so hearing him play is always a treat.

VCU's Doug Richards, whom Rex called "one of the best arrangers in the world...and he lives right here," had done a beautifully inventive take on Billy Strayhorn's classic "Lush Life," which came next.

Before the last piece, Rex warned us not to be afraid even though it had been arranged by James Stephenson, he who'd done "Rextreme."

From the start of "A Tribute to Louis Armstrong," the crowd's pleasure in the joyous melodies everyone knows was palpable.

"Hello Dolly" about caused apoplexy and "What a Wonderful Life" got everyone sentimental.

But they couldn't leave us like that, so they finished with "When the Saints Come Marching In," a surefire way to get everyone in the cheap seats clapping along.

And while those of us up there hadn't paid $76 to hear a night of jazz, I'm willing to bet we enjoyed it just as much as those who did.

Mile markers and mozzarella, racers and Rex, what a wonderful life indeed.

Besides, you know how we people are.

Big Booty Judy, My One and Only Love

If pressed to confess, I could.

But my confessions wouldn't be revolutionary and that was tonight's theme at Secretly Y'All, Tell Me a Story at Balliceaux.

So my night began with revolutionary confessions.

I found a seat, had a Cazadores brought to me and then a friend found the seat next to me, providing unexpected company.

He'd just come from Hopscotch, a music festival I've never been to, so I wanted to hear all his stories.

Thurston Moore hanging out like a regular person, Kurt Vile not impressing, a show in a WPA-built amphitheater, it was all interesting to me.

Then it was show time.

Host Colin kicked off the storytelling with the saga of a gay classmate in high school.

The story made a huge arc, from sitting at the cool kids' cafeteria table to years later trying to wash the friend's poop out of sheets and clothing.

"Hopefully, my story won't be as shitty as that one was," joked Paul, the second storyteller.

His humor continued as he told us, "I lettered in filming football games."

After several examples of how hard it was to be gay in southern Virginia, he shared how he'd come out to his Mom in the dark after watching Saturday Night Live with her.

Actually, it would have made a great SNL skit.

Sylvia took the stage saying, "I'm out of my comfort zone" and talking about how she never fit into any of the traditional "boxes" life offered.

She went on to share how after she kept beating a boy playing softball, he'd called her queer.

When she asked her Dad what "queer" meant, he'd told her, "That's a man who squats to pee," thus reassuring her she wasn't queer.

It wasn't until years later that she met a woman and realized, "I'm just gay. It was the first box I ever fit in."

Hermalinda's story began with her falling in love with her best friend and imagining dry-humping her in the back of her convertible.

She also made a hilarious reference to the only gay person she knew at that point, her P.E. teacher, Big Booty Judy, whom she did not aspire to look like.

The audience cracked up when she talked about her first sex with a boy.

"Afterwards, I couldn't figure out why, on god's green earth, anyone would want to do that."

The story that knocked the socks off the crowded room, "How I Got My Name," came from Ed, a paramedic.

He told of the thrill of bringing people back to life and also of how understaffed and overworked they were.

Responding to a call, he found a man in what he diagnosed as cardiac arrest, giving him the appropriate drugs for the heart, but to no avail.

Sadly, when they got him to the hospital, the doctor told him the man had bleeding from his brain, not cardiac trouble.

His mistake.

"Anyone here ever kill someone?" Ed asked of us. "Yea, I thought I'd be alone on that one."

He spoke of his fatigue and over-confidence in treating the man and the room was absolutely silent listening.

He now has several non-profits and donates 80% of what he makes to them, his way of making reparations.

Once again, Secretly Y'All had delivered a story that hit the audience right in the solar plexus.

It was difficult to hear and riveting at the same time.

Intermission followed, a good thing because people needed to get a drink and talk to each other after that.

I had a fascinating talk with a woman about the issues raised by Ed's story and how sometimes things are just destined to happen and nobody really causes them, it was just time.

That's a concept I understand and I shared with her a devastating story from my own life, confirming her theory.

After the break, we heard from the attendees who'd put their name in the hat to share a story based on the theme.

One was about keeping information from your family (in this case, Mom and dad were both P.E. teachers. "So they can't control the volume of their voices") and how that works both ways.

Another began, "I love women so much" and devolved ("To quote a painting...") into a guilt trip during a blue moon.

The final revolutionary confession of the night involved a straight (but not narrow) woman trying to work for LGBT causes without really having any sense of the bigger picture.

All in all, it was another superb night of stories we never should have been privy to, as only Secretly Y'All can deliver.

Waiting for the RVA Big band to set up, I chatted with the kind of friends who wanted to discuss why it is that when you finally head to the loo at a party, inevitably a boring person starts talking to you, delaying your relief.

Somehow that segued into David Crosby and Steve McQueen and their unworthiness due to hitting women.

There are only so many places you can go from there and one of us left and the rest of us sat down for some music.

Trumpet player extraordinaire Rex Richardson was playing with the big band tonight and as a long-time fan of his, I wanted to see that.

I've been to many of his performances at VCU and wanted to hear him play in a larger group than I'd had a chance to before.

There were a couple of times when he was soloing that the trumpet player next to him just stood there smiling and shaking his head, clearly impressed.

But the entire band was sounding good tonight, and I was especially enjoying "My One and Only Love," a long-time favorite of mine.

The John Coltrane/Johnny Hartmann version is my favorite, but I'm just happy to hear it live, even as an instrumental.

After the song ended, the trombone player with the curly red hair went on to sing a few lines of the song, showing off to the musician next to him.

You fill my eager heart with such desire
Every kiss you give sets my soul on fire
I give myself in sweet surrender
My one and only love

He was no Johnny Hartmann, but it was still pretty wonderful to hear.

To quote a painting, an evening of poignant stories and big band music puts me squarely in my comfort zone.