riotheclown

Title: Angel of Funk
Prompt: Fusion
Author: Urb-banal
Word Count: 700
Genre: Fiction
Warnings: language, jazz and black idiom, "pardon my white ass"

Round About Midnight

"I'm gonna school you. "  He was sitting close to her, running a black hand up her thigh and under that tight skirt she poured herself into.

"Yeah, like you my momma!" , she was smiling as big as the sun.  Time had come.

"Don't put on that nigger talk like you own it."

"Hey, it's a free country."

She had been doing her dance nice and slow for weeks now.  She didn't have to hurry.  There was nothing to worry about.  Sooner or later she knew he was going to notice her. This was the time.  She let him see she wasn't no easy time, but she could bide it in all the important ways.

"So you think you're Amy Winehouse or something?"  he said, looking away from her now.  He picked up his whiskey sour and swirled the ice around in the glass before downing it all in one gulp.

The bar was shutting down.  The bartender  clicked on the overhead lights and started  to wipe down the tables. 

"Hey, Amy's cool."

"Yeah, bit of a train wreck though. Don't expect her to last too long.  'The brightest lights' and all that shit."

"She covered 'Round About Midnight'. You hear her?" She sat up pert now.  This was her opening.

"Who hasn't done a cover of it?  I like Ella's version best. " He turned towards her again and narrowed his gaze,  "So if you aren't shimmying on the dance floor hoping for my loving attention, what is it you were hoping for?"

"I want to sing.  I want to sing for you." she said. 

"Okay. Get up there and show me what you got.  If I like it, you can get up with me tomorrow night."  he pointed.  By his posture she could tell he was shutting down his interest  by degrees with every step she took towards the stage.

She was ready for this.  She shifted the long arm of the microphone stand, ran her hands down her tight skirt, fluffed the mop of hair tied high on top of her head, and from somewhere, out in space maybe, called down the angels of stereophonic funk to testify. 

She smiled at the mike like it was the juiciest thing. Starting slow, out of her ruby red lips spilled the buttery truth of "Round Midnight" unaccompanied, except, as mentioned, by the angels of funk:

It begins to tell,
'round midnight, midnight.
I do pretty well, till after sundown,
Suppertime I'm feelin' sad;
But it really gets bad,
'round midnight.

Memories always start 'round midnight
Haven't got the heart to stand those memories,
When my heart is still with you,
And ol' midnight knows it, too.
When a quarrel we had needs mending,
Does it mean that our love is ending.
Darlin' I need you, lately I find
You're out of my heart,
And I'm out of my mind.

Let our hearts take wings'
'round midnight, midnight
Let the angels sing,
for your returning.
Till our love is safe and sound.
And old midnight comes around.
Feelin' sad,
really gets bad
Round, Round, Round Midnight

"I think I have a new favourite." The old man was impressed. She could see it. His eyes had softened the way they did when he played piano, not like they had been when he was trying her on. 

This is the man she wanted to sing for.  This was the man who had played with the greatest of the great.

 "I'm surprised, truly surprised.  You dress like some sort of crack whore."

She was electrified.  She couldn't sit down.  She was having a hard time to keep from jumping up and down.  She didn't even mind the insult about her clothes.  "Does this mean I can have a set with you, tomorrow night?"

"Hold on, hold on, I said one song.  Don't drink any alcohol before and clean yourself up a bit.  That look might go over okay with the white trash but this is a decent jazz club.  People are looking for substance.  You got substance, so drop the act. Shit, for such a tiny thing you have it in abundance!  How do you get that vibration out of such a tiny instrument?"  He was looking a bit like a wolf again, his eyes moving up and down her thin frame like it was rack of lamb.

"I channel the souls of dead jazz singers!" she said, smiling again, like she was the sky.

"I do believe you do. I do believe it."

She was humming.  Tomorrow night was going to be the beginning of her life!

*********
Sometimes I get so sad because of all the great musicians we have lost in the last few years.  Amy Winehouse was a great musician and her voice was an amazing instrument.  What she did was no less than all the great singers did, she poured her soul out into her songs. 

 What a legacy jazz artists have given the world and we live in a time when we can hear the best recordings of the best music with a touch of a button. 

This is written in honor of the memories of Thelonious Monk,  composer/writer of "Round About Midnight", Ella Fitzgerald the greatest jazz singer of them all, and Amy Winehouse who really did channel the angels of jazz until she became one of them.