The Green Mill

Nic and I went to The Green Mill jazz club on Saturday night to see my co-worker and friend, Jim Trompeter, play with his quintet. The Green Mill is one of the premiere jazz clubs in Chicago and has some SERIOUS heavyweight jazz talent coming through on a weekly basis. The Green Mill is also famous for being formerly owned by the legendary mobster Al Capone -- there are still bullets lodged in the walls! And die-hard blog-readers from way back will remember that I've written about Jim Trompeter before (henceforth, I will refer to him as JT). I was impressed and intimidated by JT's work right from the get-go. But up to now, I had only CD recordings, I'd never seen him play live.

We arrived around 10 PM -- the club was filled to capacity, and there was a line to get in (JT's reputation clearly preceeds him!). Once we finally got in and shimmied our way back through the noisy, boisterous crowd, we spotted Eric Pryzby -- another friend, and JT's and my supervisor at work. Eric has played on literally all of my jazz charts. He had been invited to sit in, and later in the evening, when he got his chance, he played his *ss off.

The third set ended, and JT bounded off the stage and came straight over to us. He brought us all up to a table at the front of the stage -- Nicki could've easily reached over and plunked out a few tunes on the keyboard from where she was sitting. It was extremely gracious of him, and we were grateful not to have to watch the rest of the show from the SRO back of the bar!

The last set started up with Eric sitting in, and like I said before, he sounded really great. I think he's going to put together his own group and start playing out soon... The following tune was a duet between JT and the trumpet player (who'd flown in from NYC to make the date). It was a ballad called "You Don't Know What Love Is". By the end of the tune -- the ENTIRE BAR was dead silent -- no one was speaking, no one was moving, EVERYONE was listening. The patrons, the bartenders, the waitresses. The first dates that didn't want to be there in the first place. The poseurs who'd just stopped in for a few drinks at a hip club. Dead silent. I have never heard a jazz club so quiet in my life. It was truly amazing, and a testimony to the level of artistry onstage.

Good musicians can play good notes. Truly great musical artists can create MOMENTS -- astounding, inspiring, and truly magical.