In New York City, tradition holds that the price of a slice of pizza and subway fare are in alignment. During the boiling July just after I turned sixteen, a dollar would get me to and from a life drawing class at The Art Students League on 57th Street—and there was enough left over for coffee and a donut at Chock Full o’Nuts during the short break in the middle of class. The coffee was pretty awful, but the donuts, I can still taste them. Small, crispy on the outside, and just the right amount of oily. A satisfying snack. Then a ciggie before returning inside. (Don’t smoke, kids. Seriously. It took me years to quit.)
This was my first time drawing live models. My first time seeing naked vulvas and penises that did not belong to members of my immediate family. We drew all sorts of bodies: fat and thin, old and young, in all colors from pallid to dark. It took a week or so to adjust to the surprise of all these variations of nakedness. So much skin! Some days I would find myself staring at a fold of flesh or a mole or a scar, feel a twinge of shame, and then remember that in this unusual space staring was not only permitted, it was encouraged. I knew it would take me much longer to wield a stick of charcoal with anything like confidence.
At first glance most of the students looked older than me. Clad in my teenage uniform—ragged Levi’s, striped T-shirt, flat leather thong sandals—I felt younger. Despite doing my very best to conform to the standards of cool at school, I was not at all cool. But despite a general unease in my own body and my inexperience in life drawing, I soon felt at ease in the studio, enough that when the models took a rest between poses I started wondering about the other students.
There was one girl who looked about my age. Her long face was framed by two sheets of brown hair; her gaze was dark and fierce, her curved lips pursed in concentration. When I walked around the room during a break to peek at the work of my fellow students, her skillful pencil lines impressed me. Already, I was a bit in love with whoever she was.
And then one day, while sitting outside drinking coffee and eating a donut, this girl came up to me, introduced herself—Lisa—and then asked me about me, which hardly ever happened anywhere. Why was I taking this class, where did I live, where did I go to school, and— apparently satisfied with my answers—did I want to go over to her place after class and hang out. It was just like that. She’d sized me up and decided that I was all right. This was amazing, and I was thrilled to accompany her home, which turned out to be not so far away or different from my family home, a book-filled Upper West Side apartment in need of a paint job. There were no parents at home. We got stoned, drank soda, raided the fridge.
Lisa was two years older than me and would be applying to art school that fall. She talked about her plans to become an artist, like it was a practical project with steps to follow. I wanted that too. Her room was full of wonders: drawings on the walls, shelves stuffed with books and curios. I saw records that I owned but there were many more I’d never seen before.
“Do you like jazz?” she asked me. “Miles Davis, John Coltrane?”
My first urge—well-honed during my life as an evasive teenager—was to lie and pretend I had some idea of what she was talking about. I was crazy about Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones. I could sing most of Tommy and Joni Mitchell and Carol King and Joan Baez. Since my parents listened almost exclusively to Baroque and Romantic classical music, I could also sing along to Handel arias and hum Beethoven and Mozart melodies. My mother was especially fond of Schubert song cycles, and she would sing in German, one of the few times I heard the language of her Viennese childhood.
Lisa was looking at me hard, in the piercing way she had, like she could visualize the cavernous void in my musical knowledge. It was clear that I would just have to admit my complete ignorance and hope for the best.
My education began right away. She dropped Kind of Blue onto her record player and let’s just say that my mind was blown. Void now filled with new sounds of trumpet and sax, and percussive piano and drums and bass.
There was a record shop near my house and I bought a copy right away. A week later My Funny Valentine, Live at Philharmonic Hall. After that first day, I went home with Lisa every afternoon after class. Sometimes another friend came, a boy with a shaggy mess of blondish hair and fair rashy skin. He was a serious jazz nerd. I listened and nodded a lot as the two of them discussed solos, whose drumming style they liked best.
I read the liner notes on my two Miles records and bought records by the band members.
The salesperson at the record shop took an interest in my changing musical tastes. Have you heard this one? he’d ask. I hadn’t, but soon I’d be home listening to whatever he’d recommended: Thelonius Monk, Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Sun Ra, and then a dip back in time to Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. I started listening to Phil Schaap’s “Birdflight” broadcast on WKCR. The salesperson suggested female vocalists: Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Sarah Vaughn. Soon my small collection was expanding weekly, supported by money saved from babysitting.
The summer friendship with Lisa tapered off as the school year began. Soon enough she was off to the Rhode Island School of Design and I never saw her again. Until I met other jazz lovers, I would think of her every time I played a record and say a private thank you. Even now, so many years later, I think of her every time I listen to Kind of Blue, my entry point to a new musical world.
Some years later, a friend invited me to join her at a sherry tasting at the 21 Club in Manhattan. The host of the event was a close friend of hers named Louis. We were still scruffy post-college kids, but he dressed like a grown-up in a trim European suit. He was a tall, elegant gay man, who now worked for a sherry importer. What did I know about sherry? Nothing at all. Sweet stuff, something stuffy old ladies and pipe-smoking Englishmen drank. He took me around the room, offering me samples of Amontillado, a word he pronounced in soft musical Spanish. Tangy, nutty, a shade of bitter, hint of fruit. My mind was again blown. Not so many years later, Louis died of AIDS, because this was in the ‘80’s, and you could not yet live with this disease. I never knew him well, but I felt his absence. A person of generosity and beauty was gone and the world was poorer. I bought a good bottle of Amontillado, as a kind of memorial. Every so often I would pour out a taste and the evening with Louis would all come back, how he had taken time to educate me about something he loved that had been made with love.
Recently, Clark and I ate dinner at the bar of a restaurant where the tender knows us well.
Feeling indecisive, I told him, “You choose, make me something delicious.”
“Do you like bitter or sweet?” he asked.
“Bittersweet, thanks.”
“Do you like a bit of fruit? Something acidic?”
I like all those things, I told him.
He made me an Artist’s Special. Bourbon, lemon juice, a homemade currant/pomegranate syrup, and Amontillado sherry. When he presented it to me, I took a first sip and got teary as I told him about Louis, long gone, but still alive in a cocktail glass. Bittersweet, indeed.
Years after Louis’s sherry tasting, I was a mother of an 18-month-old toddler. I didn’t get out a lot during that time but when I saw an advertisement for an upcoming concert, I knew I had to go. Max Roach and the Abyssinian Baptist Church choir. I knew this combination would be electric. I am not a believer, but I love gospel music. My husband didn’t want to go. He wasn’t a jazz lover, which looking back should have been yet another red flag. I wanted my young child to experience this music and I invited our babysitter to join us. She was an observant Christian and was excited about the choir.
I cannot find a recording of this concert, so you’ll have to imagine this for yourself.* Many days of my daughter’s early life are lost to me: not enough sleep, too much work, the anxiety of first-time parenthood. But that night is crystal clear. We were a joyful audience—some came for the choir, some for Max Roach, some for the combination—and by the end we were all holding hands with our neighbors, singing together and reveling in a moment of synthesis and connection that only music can achieve. Perched on my shoulders, my young daughter watched it all, bouncing up and down in time, clapping her hands. She doesn’t remember this evening, but I like to think that this too-rare moment of collective optimism nourished her being.
*This link and this link are as close as I can find to what we experienced. And here is a review. In my opinion, Ben Ratliff missed the magic.
Thank you for reading and as with all posts here, I’d love to hear from you! More to follow each Friday. I hope you’ll subscribe and share with other readers. You can find out more about my memoirs Perfection and Eva and Eve here and purchase here. I work privately with writers on creative non-fiction projects. If you are interested, you can contact me through my website: juliemetz.com. A first consultation is free of charge.
Beautiful, Julie. Such an evocative, sweet-hearted piece. Thank you.