Today marks the 99th birthday of Little Jimmy Scott. While I was living in Toronto, Canada, a friend of mine got wind that he coming to perform. We both eagerly decided to go see the concert, maybe a little worried that there may not be many chances left to see Scott live. I had never seen him live, only heard him in recordings. Relfecting on the chronology of this memory now, it may have been eleven years ago, or maybe even a few months before he died 10 years ago. But whatever the time, it felt awfully close to his passing. Regardless, I'm just thankful I got a chance - what turned out to be the only one I'd have - of hearing that voice in person.
As expected, he transfixed all of us sitting there. Perhaps the precipice of time being pregnant with the awareness his time may be fleeting, I remember being even more affected by his presence and to the overall sound and feeling he created that evening.
We all sat there as he painted portraits in tones, interpreting each composer's musical tale, whether the lyrics were sage words or the song was one of those ballads intended for adolescent listeners, back when drugstores had dining counters. He knew what to do with lyrics that felt like a lovelorn sigh on an overcast day.
But he elevated the woes of those lyrics beyond that of self pity. And though many of us aren't old enough to even remember diners in drugstores, he had the power to give us all the collective sense memory of whenever the birth of a song was. We could feel the context of that time. And because the song and he were timeless - are timeless, those notes he suspended above us, floated, and seemed to refract all our individual memories, like a diamond splitting light into the spectrum as it passed though. He reflected our time and our feelings,, showing us music and what it does, is not really about then and now, but instead, is a great big here and now.
Yes sir, diamonds. Indeed. Happy birthday, Jimmy. Suddenly, I have an urge to hear"Evening in Paradise" again.
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