St. Anthony’s Church strikes ten, and in the back room of Coco 66 in Greenpoint, heavy formica bar tables and flimsy matchbook chairs are the only audience members for three jazz musicians, a standup bassist, a trumpeter, and a sturdy white-haired flugelhorn player. These guys are playing it cool, but there’s something strange going on tonight, something unexpectedly cathartic—the bass player is rubbing his forehead against his fretboard while playing barely audible eighth notes. The flugelhorn has a mute in it and is incessantly repeating ascending notes, like wind blowing over musical grass.
By 11pm, there are a couple of cross-legged chaps nodding with affirmation, their foreheads still holding beads of sweat from the swampy weather outside. A drunk from the sidewalk has just wandered in, into the middle of the musicians and announces, “These guys have so much talent!” He disrupts the spell, and they stop playing, but they smile when they realize he’s just an admirer.
