Grapefruit moon and unknown jazz at midnight..

It was late.. around or after midnight. Fingersnap was on stage. The jazz festival was ending. Woman next to me was a bit tired, and hungry. She had been cleaning all day. She said "Why dey doan play ting what people know.. ow it late.."


I tried to say, sleepy as I was.. something always good to hear new things but I shut up.. earlier in the night the MC was happy that Charmaine Blackman sang Etta James' At Last - he said At Last Georgetown is clean again.

The man was singing a song, I caught the words Grapefruit Moon. The closing song more or less , a kind of finale which was.. well sad , and that was perhaps the sadness that the festival was done, the music done, and we had to go home even though the breeze was cool and nice. And well I guess that the woman would have liked some rousing sing along kind of jazz, but not this haunting rendition.. which sounds to me better than the original by Tom Waits.

(Here is Fingersnap in 2011 )





Something though, about the song. The two words stuck in my head and the idea that .. well.. we supposed to know things.  So even though the song might not be on my favourite, I  came home to search for it and found out that it was a big song by a big singer who I never heard about before.

Not that it would be life changing.. except that in thinking about this blog, and the festival and this idea that 'Guyanese doan like nuttin new'  I listened to the song about six times already.. I am probably not going to listen again...

Listening to the song brings back the weekend and the new experiences..the music under the eucalyptus trees , the steel bands having to come in because the boom box at the Police Ground was too loud.  Ruth Osman's Rain  being used for dance and flowetry,  the young brilliant man  talking about mental health, the woman dancing on the red carpet on the embankment  to the final fusion item after Grapefruit Moon - tabla and drums  - like if no one was watching her.. , the young musician who wants to use the space for his own show.. the man who walk out Friday night cussing that he not coming back to f..ing Guyana after he tried to hijack the mike.. and getting his chance Sunday night to sing..

 Two words in a song that don't really make much sense.. but generating the memories..