TRUE LOVE AT BARBÈS

Lovers of Teruel

February, being a month of love, I begin with a story that happened at Barbès, a music and arts venue located near the corner of 9th Street and 6th Avenue in Park Slope. Barbès runs the full length of the ground floor of a converted brownstone house - so it's long and thin. There a bar running half the length of the front room as well as tables and chairs. An archway/door leads into the back part where the musicians perform and there are chairs in rows. There is live jazz/world music every night at Barbès. You can check their calendar here:

http://www.barbesbrooklyn.com/calendar.html ).

Early in the evening on some nights, before the musicians set up, there are (or were, I haven't been in a while) other types of artistic presentations which I think are arranged by the hosts of those events. The night I am writing about, I was there with a friend to listen to his friend, an author, reading from her newly-published book.

After the reading and Q&A, my friend Sergio and I went into the front section of Barbès and were lucky enough to get a table. We ordered something to drink and were talking and looking around at the people. That's when I spotted a couple across the room standing at the wall.

They were about the same height. She was in heels and he was about an inch taller than her - maybe 5'7". Both of them were blond - dusky blond and 28 years old, maybe. His hair was short and wavy. Hers was curled and shoulder length. I presumed, rightly or wrongly, from his tan work boots that he worked in construction. He certainly seemed to have strength. She wore a dress, a dark red wraparound dress. It wasn't seductive, not low cut or too tight, just very feminine. Her shoes were black, with thick heels, not spiky. He wore a t-shirt, jacket, and jeans. None of this matters.

He reminded me of a humble farmer, confused by women, and loving this one.  A man so in love that I couldn't stop watching him. How did I know? I'm not sure I can explain. It was his body language. His one arm holding a beer bottle, but not in front of his body to defend himself, but rather, straight out from his elbow. His other arm hung at his side - no hand in his pocket. His chest was open, his heart available to her. He didn't shuffle his feet nervously. And he never took his eyes away from her. She so obviously knew he was smitten and that may have given her confidence because she was animated and did most of the talking, none of which I could hear. But she wasn't playing with him. I could see by the way she looked away every once in a while for a millisecond, that she just didn't know what to do about this man who looked at her so intently.

Then something happened to break my heart.

She took his empty beer bottle and walked away to get them another drink. And then, he looked at the floor. Yes, in a room full of distraction, pretty women, conversations, the sound of the music that had begun playing, he looked at the floor. Waiting. Waiting for her to return. And when she did, he didn't smile, he just looked at her again. The sun had gone away behind a cloud and now it was back and he turned his face toward it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzZ_urpj4As

MUSIC IN THE SUBWAY

I moved to Brooklyn from Austin, Texas, where there are at least 150 live music venues not even including small coffee shops, cafe brunches, and live-music dancing at grocery stores on weekends. A lot of it is free with the meal (or the grocery shopping). I never saw anyone playing on the street. It just wasn't necessary.

New York isn't really a city with available music. There are famous clubs - Birdland, Cafe Wha?, Blue Note, Smoke - but they aren't cheap, not remotely. You have to buy your tickets in advance and

the shows are an hour long usually and then you are expected to leave to make room for the audience at the second show. There are a couple of accessible places in Brooklyn, but this blog is about subway music, which I consider the best New York City music venue.

I just finished reading Underground by Matthew Nichols about the five years he spent as a subway busker. Taken from diaries he kept, the book is a raw, passionate view of the life of an artist and an interior view of the mind of a musician. Anyone who's experienced the struggle of trying to make a living as a musician, painter, dancer, actor, writer, potter, can relate to Nichols' story. There's the passion for his art form which is what keeps him going amidst the frustrations of dealing with and competing with other musicians, the mood swings from elation to despair, the money shortage, and the hassles from the police (You aren't supposed to use an amp in the subway stations, but how else will anyone hear above the din of the trains and people?).

It's an amazing book because not only do you get a sense of Nichols' life, you get to see what the subway is like for the commuters, which is far different from the tourists who are only around for a week or so and miss a lot of the drama. Be prepared for strong emotion - particularly toward commuters who listen for a long time and don't put money in the hat - and strong language, which you're used to if you ride the trains, but might not be so common in other towns. And the book is not politically correct either.

The stations I most frequented in Manhattan were Canal Street and Union Square. There was an Asian man who used to play the ehru really well on the 4-5-6 platform (upstairs from the Q and N platform where I caught the train). Nichols lets you know he hates the sound of the ehru, but I like it for a couple of reasons. First, my acupuncturist used to play ehru music while I was zoning out, and second, a study of music and it's effects showed that ehru music is the most relaxing to the human body. Classical music is next - that's what Nichols plays on his guitar.

Union Square had a lot more variety. There's the main "stage" on the first level. Musicians have to be approved to play there and can use amps. I listened to Peruvian flutists there for an hour once. I also danced salsa in that station last Christmas to the music of some Spanish musicians. They clapped for us. I've heard country western, jazz and, somebody please explain why, a woman playing the saw. Perhaps if there was some accompaniment, some rhythm or even someone playing the kazoo. But a saw? It's like a weird smell.

Other musicians are on the lower (train) levels. They don't have to be approved, but they aren't allowed to amplify the music. There were people playing drums sometimes. They used overturned plastic tubs and if you tip them up a little they amplify quite a lot. These drummers were always great. There were folk guitarist/singers, steel drum player, and occasionally, doowop singers. I also found sax players at the Broadway-Lafayette Station on the B-train track in Manhattan and at the Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn.

Nichols writes about the musicians who played on the trains. This is against the law. You can't even play a radio on the trains. But it happens and as Nichols writes, some of the players knew one song and played that song badly. It was pathetic and annoying. Sometimes on the weekends, you'd get a 3-piece mariachi band on the train - usually good. And sometimes there were male pole dancers with  boomboxes. Crank up the music and they were tumbling down the aisles and swinging around the poles. Obviously, this was not at rush hour.

I was once invited to a private concert that would be performed by a very A-List musician. There was a sort of gathering before the concert and when I entered that, I recognized the room was filled with musicians. I can't say how I could tell, but it's something there in the body language, the appearance, something. These were the working studio musicians, the influencers in their field. The musicians who were invited to play, not begging to play. No more hat in hand for them. How they made it and not someone else is the book waiting to be written. Was that body language and appearance there before or after they became successful?

Matthew Nichols website here:  http://www.matthewnichols.com/

You can find Underground online, and Nichols has a YouTube video interview here:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=matthew+nichols%2C+underground&t=ffab&ia=videos&iai=gRZlec1ZNNo