Dead to the Last Drop (22 page)

As she settled herself on the piano bench, I remembered the name of her signature piece, “Cool Reception,” and better understood what Abigail Parker believed about how the world saw her.

I felt for her in that moment, and I feared for her, too.

The public was quick to make judgments these days, and snarky comments were the norm. Internet trolls could do more than provoke a cool reception to an artist like Abby—they could make her want to quit completely.

Gard noticed Abby’s anxiety, too. Moving to her, he bent down and whispered in her ear. Abby nodded, her gaze immediately going to Stan at the drums.

As Gard left the stage, Stan picked up his brushes and began sweeping his snare with a slow, steady rhythm, his good eye fixed on Abby.

For quite a few bars, Abby nodded her head in time with Stan. It was longer than usual for an intro, and the audience began some uneasy murmuring. Finally, as if for luck, she rubbed the musical notes tattooed on her arm, lifted her hands, and began to play.

The quick, lively tune was recognizable, but not from anything she’d performed at our Open Mikes. This was the song Gard had promised us in his introduction—

“Let’s Fall in Love.”

The great American standard had been covered by countless jazz artists, but Abby chose Dave Brubeck’s punchy approach. The brightness of the piece uplifted the room. It brought palpable relief, as well.

We all wanted Abby to succeed, and thanks to Gard and Stan she was off to a solid start, segueing almost immediately into a jazzy version of “Tonight,” the classic from
West Side Story
.

Some brief cooperative improvisations in the middle of both pieces also gave Stan and Jackson a chance to shine. When they finished, warm applause followed.

At this point, headliners usually addressed the audience, as Gard had, striving to make a personal connection. They might talk about the next song, or introduce the band, or simply tell a joke.

Abby looked as though she were about to say something, but one glance at the packed house, and she froze, fixing her gaze on those black-and-white keys.

Once again, the audience mumbled uneasily.

And once again, Stan knew what to do.

“Abby,” he whispered from behind his drum kit. When she looked up, he locked his gaze with hers, shot her a smile, and began to nod his head in a steady rhythm.

One, two, three . . . One, two, three . . .

Abby mimicked his head movements, feeling the rhythm flow through her as she nodded, then her fingers found the rhythm. Using the lower piano keys, she began to play.

Budum, budum, budum . . .

When her right hand joined in the higher range, she’d successfully launched “A Little Jazz Exercise,” an unassuming name for one of the most challenging short pieces for a jazz pianist to master. No surprise, it was written by a master—Oscar Peterson, one of the most accomplished jazz artists of the twentieth century.

In lightning-fast stride, Abby’s fingers raced up and down the ivories. There were fluid arpeggios, black note slide-offs, and demands for
controlled changes of tempo and dynamics. Despite the complexity of the piece, Abby displayed no hesitation, not a moment’s struggling.

She may have been unable to address the crowd, but her pleasure at playing this marvelous composition connected her with the audience more powerfully than any words could.

I considered it a minor miracle.

Earlier today, some of the TV cable shows presented Abigail Parker as a painfully shy prelaw student with questionable talent whose Georgetown show was nothing more than a political stunt to help her father’s flagging poll numbers.

“Come on, how good can she be?”
the pundits cracked.

This piece blew those assumptions out of the water, and when it was over, absolute silence fell over the room. Much of the audience didn’t seem to trust what they’d witnessed.

But Gard’s musician friends did—and so did Abby’s loyal Open Mike fans, starting with Ponytail Man, who stood up and began to clap. Then everyone stood.

The applause went on for a solid minute.

Stan was grinning so widely, he had a hard time keeping his eye patch in place, and I could see Gard whistling and clapping in the front row.

Abby slowly stood, as if coming out of a trance. She bowed deeply, dark eyes glistening, and hurried out of the room. The band followed her up to the greenroom and the first set of the night was (thank goodness!) over.

“Looks like I was right,” I told Gard a few minutes later at the bar.

“Right about what?”

“Given the pressure, I was dreading Abby might end up running off the stage in tears.”

“Yeah . . .” He grunted. “Thank the Lord they were tears of joy. But the night’s far from over, Clare. And she’s got two more sets. Let’s hope the joy continues . . .”

F
ifty-eight

“T
O reach a level of mastery in jazz,” Gard told the audience at the start of the second set, “you must understand that music is about something other than chord changes. A true artist uses the art form to express something, to communicate what he or she can’t in any other way.

“Since most music is about a human condition, that’s how it should be felt and played. Sad songs should make us cry. Up songs should make us want to dance. Romantic songs should make us want to . . . well, y’all know . . .”

The crowd laughed, and Gard flashed a playful smile.

“When that music is
jazz
, it has something more, what we call
swing
. Here at the Jazz Space, to swing with you again, is Ms. Abigail Parker . . .”

Abby seemed more relaxed for this set, smiling at her bandmates as she settled onto her bench. Then she shocked the heck out of me with her next move. Leaning toward the mic by her piano, she finally addressed the crowd with five words—

“This one’s for Clare Cosi.”

The band immediately swung into Johnny Costa’s jazzy version of “Won’t You Be My Neighbor,” the classic theme song from the
Mister Rogers
children’s show.

Now, I have no idea what possesses jazz artists to turn simple children’s fare into nightclub tunes—“A-Tisket, A-Tasket,” “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” “Humpty Dumpty,” “Little Brown Jug”—but Abby’s musical joke went over big.

Behind the bar, Matt laughed himself silly, and so did my staff, who began singing along with the melody, prompting the entire audience to
join in—and, given that we were streaming live on our website, I suspected I’d be hearing it crooned to me over and over for weeks (or possibly years) to come.

Next came “Black Coffee.” The song, that is. Although at this point in the evening—having been up and down the stairs dozens of times to keep our food and beverage service on track—I was shooting double espressos.

By now, Theo and his sax had joined the trio, adding a throaty fourth to the group, and the cooperative improvs continued through “Someday My Prince Will Come,” going back and forth in a jam with true swinging.

One last song in the set prompted Abby to use her mic again.

“This one’s for my Secret Service detail,” she said sincerely. “
Especially
Special Agent in Charge, Sharon Cage . . .”

At the mention of her name, Cage’s stoic expression faltered.

While she remained unmoving at her post near the stage, when Abby began to play a gorgeous version of “Someone to Watch Over Me,” I could see the change come over her.

I doubted anyone else could. But after deciphering Mike Quinn’s cryptic emotions for so long, I knew Sharon Cage was touched by the First Daughter’s gesture.

For a fleeting moment there, the woman actually smiled.

*   *   *

B
Y the start of her third and final set, it was clear to anyone paying attention that Abby was an accomplished jazz pianist, but not yet a comfortable stage performer. In our safe Jazz Space it didn’t matter because Gardner was there, “watching over her”—just as protectively as Cage.

And he wasn’t the only one.

Stanley McGuire didn’t take his good eye off Abby all evening.

“Ever felt love at first sight?” Gard asked the audience at the standing mic. “You meet someone and you instantly connect—you can talk to them all night long. You feel that person knows you better than a girlfriend or boyfriend you might have had for years. Well, it’s the same thing in jam sessions. Two or more musicians can just click—even if they just met. It’s a language you both understand; and if the chemistry’s right, there’s nothing like it . . .”

Gard turned and smiled. “That’s how I met the three gentlemen you see behind me . . .”

He spoke briefly about Jackson on bass and Theo on sax. Finally, he came to Stan.

“The rhythm section has the most difficult job in a jazz band because you’re providing accompaniment for unknown riffs and improvs. Because you can’t plan for it, all you can do is react with a kind of prescient anticipation. Our drummer, Stan McGuire, spent time as an army medic. That might be why he understands improvisation on the most primal level of all—”

The crowd interrupted Gard to give the young military vet a round of applause. Stan looked embarrassed, but I was so pleased!

“As for Abigail,” Gard continued, “she once told me why playing is so important to her. ‘If I’m confused about what I’m feeling,’ she said, ‘I sit down at my piano and sort out my emotions that way. I couldn’t live without music, and I don’t think I’d want to . . .’”

Gard continued talking, but my mind couldn’t get past Abby’s words.

I could see Gard took her statement as figurative. But given those old scars on Abby’s wrist, I wasn’t so sure.

F
ifty-nine

F
OR her final set, Abby couldn’t wait to sit down at her piano bench. With a little smile for her attentive drummer, she moved to speak into her mic.

“This one is for Stan,” she said, louder and more boldly than any of the dedications she’d made all night.

When she looked up at him again, he was gawking, as if dumbfounded.

Now everyone in the room was leaning forward, waiting to see what Abby would play. When she began “Our Love Is Here to Stay,” I saw an uneasy reaction at the center of the room—the tables with White House staff.

When the number was over, Jackson and Theo quietly left the stage.

Stan was the only one who stayed, which made no sense, because the next few numbers were piano solos. There was nothing for him to do but sit quietly at his drum kit.

Abby obviously wanted him there because she continued looking to him for grounding before beginning.

The first was a moving version of a gorgeous song, “Love Ballade,” composed once again by jazz legend Oscar Peterson.

She paused before playing her next number, sweetly touching the musical notes on her arm. “For my father,” she said almost reverently and began to play “Over the Rainbow,” evoking Keith Jarrett’s moving performance of the song at La Scala.

Oddly, she dedicated the next one to her father, too, but this time she said it in a much more formal way: “To the President . . .”

When she began to play “America the Beautiful,” the audience stirred. Abby’s version, with lush, jazzy chord progressions and a soulful finish, left everyone glowing.

Finally, she played the most offbeat choice of the night: concert pianist Natalia Posnova’s arrangement of “Who Wants to Live Forever,” a moving ballad recorded by the rock group Queen, which Ms. Posnova had transformed into a virtuoso piece for piano.

With dramatically sustained chords and a flurry of flying fingers, Abby didn’t need a band. The piano did everything. The piece itself, a melancholy meditation on love and free will, on having everything decided for you, brought back Gardner’s words, about the music being more than notes—about it being a way for the artist to express herself, communicate what she couldn’t in any other way.

When Abby finished, the meaning of the lyrics seemed to resonate through her emotional performance. Our future was inevitable, out of our hands. The end is always there, waiting for us, but we can have now, we can have today.
Who wants to live forever, anyway?

I couldn’t see how she could top that. In fact, I thought it was the end of the show, but she had one more piece to perform. And it was no solo.

This very special finale was something she’d planned with Stanley McGuire.

S
ixty

T
O begin this number, Stan made his way over to Abby’s piano bench. With his weak leg, he was partially limping, and the audience whispered curiously, wondering why this injured vet was making such an awkward move.

Stan ignored the whispers and cheerfully sat next to Abby, but facing away from the piano.

Meanwhile, Jackson and Theo carried over two items for him: a single snare drum positioned in front of him and the hi-hat of two small cymbals beside it.

As the two band members found seats, Gardner gave up his and moved to stand next to me near the bar.

“What are they doing?” I whispered.

“You’ll see . . .”

Stan lifted his sticks, and Abby spoke low to him. She looked anxious, but when he whispered in her ear, her tension broke and she actually laughed.

Then she nodded. The stage lights above them dimmed, and a single spot shined down on the pair like a ray of heavenly light.

Abby began to play a simple piano phrase, one I’d heard on FM radio.

“I know that song,” I whispered in Gardner’s ear. “What is it?”

“‘Fix You,’” he said, and I understood.

Instead of a typical jazz standard, Abby and Stan had selected a newer piece of music to adapt for their duet. The famous Coldplay tune about loss, failure, pain, and redemption was clearly meaningful to both of them.

Stan, head down, listened for a dozen bars. Then he began playing his
snare. The duet became more intense before the two broke from the melody and began a musical conversation.

The playing was at a level I’d never heard before, not in this room—or any room. I noticed Gardner suddenly grin with a kind of cheeky anticipation.