Parlor Jazz

(click photo to enlarge)

You hear the music when the elevator door opens on the third floor of 555 Edgecomeb Avenue in Washington Heights. You follow the tunes down the hallway and enter an apartment and, even though you are on time, most of the folding chairs lining the living room, hallway, foyer and even the kitchen are already filled. Many of the seats don't even afford a view of the session. But the dozens of jazz lovers aren't here to see; they are indulging their secondary senses.

The saxman, Sedric Choukroun, blows West Coast cool. The pianist, Marjorie Eliot, comps with classical composure. It's her pad we're crashing for weekly Parlor Jazz, eleven-years-old and counting. No smoky lounge jam session, Eliot invites professional musicians to play structured concerts.

While they play, his Dexter Gordon swing matching her Bud Powell chords, the buzzer sounds, signaling the arrival of another guest. Late Sunday afternoon sunlight baths the scene in a rapidly dimming glow. The naked hinges on a doorway show where the door to the living room, the parlor, has been removed.

A rustling at the front door, a heavy canvas thuds to the floor, and a man wrestles an upright bass down the narrow hallway crowded with guests. He joins the duo mid-song, plucking notes from "What' Next" and earning respectful chuckles. The bassist, Bob Cunningham, soon takes a solo using a bow to conjure violin-like passages.

As he plays there's another "Bzzzzz" that he seems to mimic, coaxing a flurry of guttural lines from his instrument. Choukroun takes a moment to wipe the sweat from his hands on a red handkerchief then joins Cunningham, both playing with eyes closed. The heads of the audience, once tilted in observed curiosity, now bob in time, seduced by the moment, ignorant of a persistent buzzer.

Another man carrying a case picks his way down the hallway then warms up the valves of his trumpet. Cecil Bridgewater makes a muted, soulful entrance, eliciting "yeahs" of approval from the enraptured crowd. He contributes a quiet rendition of the ballad "In A Sentimental Mood" accompanied by delicately played bass and piano, the musicians leaving generous space for Bridgewater's haunting solo.

They wrap up the first set with a coda that surprises the already applauding audience. Eliot, in a long flowing dress, climbs back through the crowd to the outside hallway saying, "I was told there are people standing in the hall. That's very exciting." Sure enough, there is a group of Japanese tourists who have sought out Eliot after seeing her featured in a documentary on New Yorkers shown in Tokyo. "That's what it's all about, Eliot says later, "getting audiences and artists together."

For more information on Marjorie Eliot’s jazz Sundays, go to www.parlorentertainment.com.

mike fitelson
august 2004

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