The Paradise Gig by Laurence Shames

Author:Laurence Shames
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9798627676265
Publisher: Southernmost Press
Published: 2020-03-26T04:00:00+00:00

15

S arge was intimidated but trying his damnedest not to let it show as he was introduced to the session musicians who’d been summoned down from Miami to record with him. The drummer was named Pinky because he was missing part of one. The bass guy was Robert and it was clear from his hipster solemnity that you wouldn’t call him Bob. The lead guitarist was known as Fly, whether for his finger-speed or because of the way his eyes looked behind thick and tiny granny glasses, it was impossible to know. What was clear to Sarge was that these guys were just so cool. They lolled around the studio with the practiced nonchalance of ballplayers on a baseball diamond during warm-ups. Somehow they’d overcome their awe of the setting, absorbed the mythic power of the place, made it part of who they were. They just looked like they belonged there. They set up their instruments and played little riffs and doo-dads without looking at each other. Sarge imitated them though his knuckles felt nervy and his throat was dry.

Marco Mondesi, dressed in black from head to toe and carrying an enormous mug of coffee, handed out the charts then took up his solitary post in the control room. Headset in place, he settled into the rolling chair at the window that offered a godlike perspective on the studio below. His disembodied voice came through the speakers. “Okay, let’s get started. Sarge here has written an amazing song.”

So the session opened with a lie. Welcome to the music business.

“Play it once through, Sarge,” Mondesi went on. “Solo. Slow and easy. Any way you feel it.”

The other musicians were looking at him and for a moment the young man froze. His hands felt like he had mittens on and it was as if a hunk of bread was glutting up his gullet. He’d played the song five hundred times and suddenly he couldn’t remember the first word or in what key he played it. He looked at the floor. He closed his eyes. He took a breath. He squeezed the neck of the guitar. And he started.

His eyes were still closed when he finished the song and somehow over the course of three verses and a break he’d forgotten that he was no longer in his motel room and that there were other people listening, so he was surprised when he heard Fly’s coolly laconic reaction. “Beautiful.”

“Nice,” said Pinky.

“Sweet,” said Robert.

The producer’s voice boomed through the studio. “I think it’s going to work.”

Sarge nodded modestly and allowed himself only a small smile that he hoped would not look uncool.

Three hours and fourteen takes later, Mondesi had what he needed from the session guys: A brooding and contemplative bass line from Robert, mostly retro-sounding brushes and muted tom-tom from Pinky, and from Fly a quietly virtuosic lead that seemed to wrap the melody in a kind of helix, sometimes soaring above the tune, sometimes purring below it, sometimes ahead of the beat

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