JAZZ ON A SUMMER'S EVENING

Last Monday evening I attended a concert at Manchester's Bridgewater Hall.

Me...? At a jazz concert...? In Manchester...? On a school night...? With MY reputation…?

It was a jazz concert which we'd booked tickets for shortly after attending "Psycho Live" a few months ago, and it had been on our agenda ever since, even though we had other things clogging up June and did wonder whether we might just forget to show up, given that it was on a Monday night and we really aren't prone towards "late nights" during the working week…

But Wynton Marsalis is a legendary class act, and the Beloved is a big fan, and the "Jazz At Lincoln Center" Orchestra's tribute to the output of Blue Note records was just far too irresistible, and so, on a hot, sweaty evening, following a day at work, I drove into town as wickets were (unfortunately) tumbling at Headingley, parked the car and went off to meet my Beloved for a night out in the Big City.

After a (probably very unwise) artery-clogging bacon cheeseburger in the rather cool conservatory area of a reasonably trendy bar slash restaurant overlooking the canal, and watching a few geese drift by with their goslings, we strolled on up the road towards the Bridgewater Hall, went inside, ordered our interval drinks, bought a programme and waited.

As to my fellow concert-goers, well, as I watched them accumulate in the lobby and bar areas, I was rather pleased to see a diverse age range in attendance, but was also rather alarmed by the elderly gentleman in shorts who suddenly started chatting to be about the weather and what a shame it was to be indoors on such a glorious evening, as I washed my hands during a visit to the gents.

I made some comment about the fact that when we booked the tickets, it might have turned out to be hammering down, and then left him to it, but then I'm always bewildered by any moment of unexpected and unprompted friendliness from complete strangers and friends alike.

After we'd worked out where our seats were and settled in, I overheard a parent behind me using the expression "off by heart" as we sat in our seats and this made me wonder whether this is still a common expression because I couldn't remember hearing it or using it for many a long year, but then I decided that it's probably still common enough amongst those parenting types, much as other overheard and out-of-context and age-innappropriate expressions like "Mega talented" regarding people not present must also be when you're communicating with children on a regular basis.

But that, and the strange world of mobile phone obsessiveness during people's nights out, and life being lived via screens, is the sort of thing that I think about whilst I am watching the rest of the audience take their seats and I'm waiting for the house lights to dim.

After that the music did the talking and, apart from one loud and sudden departure during the intermission ("I'm obviously not enjoying this and I would like the entire world to know that I'm not enjoying this as I leave…") the sounds were sweet, the music was cool, the atmosphere was mellow, and the encore - in which the band became the kind of jazz quartet that is really what jazz feels like to me - was breath-taking, and we drifted into the still light evening, where pink clouds behind the skyscrapers were sculpting a spectacular sunset, perfectly happy with our experience of listening to some jazz on a summer's evening.