52nd City

Thursday Whim: Stone-Covelli @ Cookie's Jazz

Speaking of music classics and the bright nostalgia they can summon: my parents always flooded the house with a mix of psychedelia, blues and free jazz. None of it seemed comforting to me as a kid, especially the jazz. It felt too lonely, bottomless and chaotic. Beatles songs, no matter how cosmic, were poppy and colorful and felt like a completed picture puzzle by the time the song faded out. Jazz was unsymetrical, a big sonic question mark. The vast blank space inside of a free jazz song always scared me more than my mom's "Crazy World of Arthur Brown" album - even more than the Hellfire song. Of course, most of the jazz clubs in Salt Lake played what my dad refers to as "roast beef music," and that sort of jazz was about as scary as Doc Severnson, which is to say not at all.

But we evolve. Hearing Dave Stone play at Mangia on Fridays is one of the high points of living near South Grand. His trio has the expansive/contractive free jazz thing going, including the blank spaces, but it's soulful, not spooky. I guess staring into the abyss of adulthood, with all its uncertainty, is what helps the ear make sense of free jazz. Once you are okay with living your life without metaphorical insurance policies, it's one of the most exhilirating forms of music out there.

So on that note: if you are looking for something to do with yourself tonight, the Stone-Covelli Jazz Quintet is playing at Cookie's Jazz and More in Webster at 8:30 pm. I've never been down to this club, but it looks like there's a nice selection of drinks and snacks, and it's smoke-free. (I'm sure the brass and woodwind players are genuflecting to the proprietor for that). Cover is only $5, and the first twenty folks who ask John Covelli for a CD single will get one for free.