Baseball Trip Replay - Day 63 - July 25, 1994

July 25 - I had wanted to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. However, it's not open on Mondays. Seems that a lot of things are not open on Mondays. So I took the ferry, and parked my car in Greenwich Village, since that is where I was going to end up that night. I took a cab to the Guggenheim Museum. Way cool building. It's built as a spiral, with the largest layer at the top. You theoretically start at the top and work your way down to the floor. The art, well, it's 20th century. There is some neat stuff, but there is a lot of circle-of-rocks and three-flourescent-tubes-on-an-otherwise-blank-white-wall type of stuff. I was disappointed, though. It only took two hours to go through.

So now it's 11:30, and the first set at the Village Vanguard is at 9:30. Hmm. So I took a cab to the Central Park Zoo. Should have gone to the Bronx Zoo instead. The Central Park Zoo is very, very small. Took 45 minutes to get through. They did have snow monkeys and red pandas, but what a tiny little place.

So now it is 12:30. Hmm. Only nine hours to go. Just about all of the other attractions either didn't really interest me or were closed on Monday. So I decided to go to Music Store Row on 48th Street.

The last time I had tried to go, summer of 1982, I was mugged. I guess this was the get-back-on-the-horse test. I was tired of shelling out money for cabs, and I had plenty of time anyway, so I walked. From 64th and 5th Avenue to 48th and 7th Avenue. Not too bad. There are six stores in this block that sell woodwinds, so I went into all of them. There were a couple of stores that consisted of walls of saxophones with a repairman in the middle who is the owner. One of these had a contrabass saxophone. It looked new. There are less than ten of these in existence. He wanted $40000 for it. That's about right. The best of the stores is Sam Ash. It is split into four stores, one for woodwinds, brass, and sheet music, one for guitars, one for drums, and one for keyboards and computers. The woodwind store had a few things to drool over, like a silver Selmer Mark VI bari sax for $5500. The salesclerk knew of all of the Bay Area stores, so we talked for a while. Priced a few things and left. I have been meaning to buy a keyboard to use with the MIDI setup and my Mac, so I went to the keyboard store. Got a couple of ideas, although it will be a while before I get one.

So now it is 4:00. Well, at this point, I am stymied. I walk back to the Village, 11th Street and Greenwich Avenue, and pick up a Village Voice. They have movie listings. So I go see Speed, a truly silly movie. It does have lots of action, but there is very, very little plot, even for an action movie. Sigh. I ate at an Italian Restaurant, and hung out at a Village coffee shop for a while. Cafe Barrone at home is much better; the prices are better, it is cleaner, the food is better, etc. But what can you do?

Finally, got in to the Village Vanguard. On Monday nights, the Village Vanguard has the Village Vanguard Band, which used to be the Mel Lewis Band, which used to be the Thad Jones and Mel Lewis Band. I call this the And Band, since Thad Jones and Mel Lewis are both gone. The band is tight as ever, and they have some good soloists. The piano player, John Hampton, stole the show. He was amazing. One chart started with just the piano, bass and drums, and he started with an extremely out, harmonically advanced chorus or two, and gradually worked his way over several choruses back to a very soulful blues. Quite effective. The lead trumpet and bass trombone players were great. The trumpet soloists were ok. There were two trombone soloists, one who played a bluesy, plunger-and-straight mute solo, and one which played a bebop solo. I think my friend Clint does a better job with the plunger stuff by far. The sax players were all very good, although the bari player did not take a solo. They couldn't double for spit, though. The lead alto player's flute was fine, but the second alto player's clarinet was awful, the second tenor player's flute was very, very bad, the bari player's bass clarinet was inaudible, and the first tenor just played everything on tenor. Was a joke, but they all solo rings around me, so what if they can't play flutes and clarinets? Had to leave after the first set, since Chuck's brother Mike had to lock up after I got home and was waiting up for me.