Last week I went to New York City to attend a wedding. In two full days we did midtown and uptown Manhattan, the Village, and Brooklyn – where the reception was. Along the way I managed to get to Birdland.
First, a couple of observations: Every time I go to New York City it never ceases to amaze me how walkable the city is despite its mammoth size. “It’s the grid system” people always tell me. Another thing that caught my eye was how relatively clean the city is now. New York City is no longer the center of cultural debauchery — Ancient Rome circa the 1st century in the middle of the New World — it once was in the 1970s. The city has become professionalized, almost corporate-like now. Only the Village maintains a certain independent/alternative vibe.
Between 1988 and 1998 I went to New York City on numerous occasions. Each time it came with a set of “dont’s” from stunned family members. “You want to go to Time Square for New Year’s?” Once they got past the initial phase of shock and quickly realized that visiting New York City is not as crazy as they thought, they moved into advice mode. I remember most of them. “Don’t stare anyone in the eye,” “Keep looking around,” “Stay away from 8th avenue” and “Stay where the cops are – on 5th, Broadway and other tourist areas.”
This was post-Bernard Goetz and pre-Rudolph Giuliani, so New York City was just about to experience its remarkable metamorphous. The streets were dirty, the people rude and suspect, and the crime rate still high. Yet, we loved it. New York City impacts almost anyone who visits for obvious reasons. So rich in cultural texture, the city literally is unique among world cities.
Then came 9/11. Even for a Canadian, that day will remain with me. What stunning images. I still remember them quite vividly. A great metropolis wounded. I had to go back. It took me six years, but I finally went back. We explored as much as we could in 48 hours and vowed to come back. My cousin has dangled New York Rangers and Knicks tickets in my face to make good on this vow.
My, quite an introduction just to get to my impressions of a New York City landmark: Birdland. As a jazz enthusiast, I’ve wanted to go to Birdland for years and I finally did.
Despite several reincarnations (the original opened in Midtown Manhattan in 1949, closed in 1965, remerged in 1986 in the Upper West Side and moved back to Midtown ten years after that), “The Jazz corner of the world” pretty much remains that from what I am told. It’s a sad fact of our musical landscape that the great jazz clubs are all but closed now. Jazz, while vibrant as a musical form, is now permanently a niche market.
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