Labor Day Weekend

New York over Labor Day weekend is a lot like Rome during Ferragosto — relatively empty of natives, most of whom are having their last fling at the beach before real life starts up again; there are some tourists, wandering around, wondering where the New Yorkers are. It’s a limbo time, a quiet time, and more often than not Friday night, when the poor suckers who were still in town – the lawyers, the brokers, their secretaries– were streaming for the exits in droves, we looked in the paper and saw that Tuck and Patti were doing their thing at The Blue Note down in the Village.

The Blue Note

We go way back with Tuck and Patti – they don’t know it, but we go all the way back to 1988 with them. If you don’t know them, check them out. He plays guitar; she sings. I think you would call it jazz. They’re superb musicians – ottimo, as they say in Italian – the best.
We went a little early and each had a shrimp cocktail, which was a genuine retro experience — overcooked and tasteless shrimp with bottled sauce just like back in the seventies when we went to the Village to hear music. In the old days, the plonk was Chablis; now it’s Pinot Grigio – so some things change. We shared a table with two other couples – one from New Zealand and the other from Kansas City. We had a nice time with them –they all go way back with Tuck and Patti, too.
The set started we were instantly transported. Patti Cathcart’s voice is a oner – you would never mistake her for someone else. It’s like there are three of her, all singing together, there’s so much character in her voice, so many undertones and overtones.

Tuck and Patti

And she scats and invents and dallies around with mind-blowing intervals. She’s simply great.
Tuck Andress makes love to her with his guitar. And we get to watch. He’s a virtuoso guitarist – world renowned for his tone, his dazzling right hand and his jazz voicings. But when he accompanies Patti, something else comes into play. I think we call it love. He lifts her and she lifts him, and that’s what love is all about.
Afterward, we strolled through the Village over to Perry and Bleeker streets — around where we had our first New York apartment back in 1971. The streets were mostly empty; the night air had a sniff of autumn and we felt happy to be right where we were.

Matisse

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Late the next afternoon, we caught the Matisse show at MoMA and then met friends downtown at Great NY Noodletown for shrimp soup-dumplings, pea sprouts, salt-baked shrimp and barbecued duck – all washed down with Tsingtao beer.

Great NY Noodletown

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On Tuesday, all the New Yorkers came back and our little, private village was gone again until next year.

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