Notes on the Blues in a Five-Star Venue
Soul-felt music. Songs of need. The pains of broken relationships and broken homes in broken down-and-out neighborhoods and towns. Beluga caviar under Swarovski crystal.
One of these things is not like the other.
Two nights ago I was working late in the office when I got a call from a friend who was sitting in fancy restaurant by herself and dying for some company. Since I didn’t want to leave her by herself, and since I had been planning to go there sometime anyway (I know the chef), I shut down my computer and made my way to the restaurant.
But while I was sitting there I realized something was seriously out of place.
The food on my plate was perfectly arranged - a minimalist sculpture - a little ball of foie gras, a small border of mashed pumpkin, a bite sized slice of chicken on a tiny of bed of miniature yellow (lentils?) and red (hell-if-I-know) discs. Artful décor graced the walls - glass and mirrors, words etched on metal. And the clientele, not to be outdone by the décor, had obviously spent some time on their appearance. Late middle-aged aristocratic Thai women donned hideous, to be repeated, hideous silk dresses and gigantic Dallas-the-soap-opera hairdos. (The bigger your hair, the more important you are, or the more important you think you are. One woman on the Thai hi-so scene lost her eye to hairspray several years back.)
And amidst all the opulence and pretension and admittedly stunning cuisine was a blues singer on stage. An American black man sang songs that obviously had nothing to do with the people in the room. I love the music. But why, why, why do five star hotels and restaurants insist on blues singers?
I felt like I was viewing the scene through a telescope. Like I was there but not there. Watching life with headphones on. The soundtrack didn’t match the pictures and the motion.
Every five-star hotel advertises a Billie Holiday look-a-like. The blues belong in a dark smoky bar populated by people who understand what the songs mean. Not socialites and globetrotters toting Louis Vuitton bags atop Manolo Blahnik shoes. The blues are for people who come to hear the music, not for people who come to be seen.
When the denizens of places like The Ritz Carltons and The Orientals begin subsisting on a life of grits and heroin, I’ll stop hating the hypocrisy. Until then, no blues with my foie gras.
One of these things is not like the other.
Two nights ago I was working late in the office when I got a call from a friend who was sitting in fancy restaurant by herself and dying for some company. Since I didn’t want to leave her by herself, and since I had been planning to go there sometime anyway (I know the chef), I shut down my computer and made my way to the restaurant.
But while I was sitting there I realized something was seriously out of place.
The food on my plate was perfectly arranged - a minimalist sculpture - a little ball of foie gras, a small border of mashed pumpkin, a bite sized slice of chicken on a tiny of bed of miniature yellow (lentils?) and red (hell-if-I-know) discs. Artful décor graced the walls - glass and mirrors, words etched on metal. And the clientele, not to be outdone by the décor, had obviously spent some time on their appearance. Late middle-aged aristocratic Thai women donned hideous, to be repeated, hideous silk dresses and gigantic Dallas-the-soap-opera hairdos. (The bigger your hair, the more important you are, or the more important you think you are. One woman on the Thai hi-so scene lost her eye to hairspray several years back.)
And amidst all the opulence and pretension and admittedly stunning cuisine was a blues singer on stage. An American black man sang songs that obviously had nothing to do with the people in the room. I love the music. But why, why, why do five star hotels and restaurants insist on blues singers?
I felt like I was viewing the scene through a telescope. Like I was there but not there. Watching life with headphones on. The soundtrack didn’t match the pictures and the motion.
Every five-star hotel advertises a Billie Holiday look-a-like. The blues belong in a dark smoky bar populated by people who understand what the songs mean. Not socialites and globetrotters toting Louis Vuitton bags atop Manolo Blahnik shoes. The blues are for people who come to hear the music, not for people who come to be seen.
When the denizens of places like The Ritz Carltons and The Orientals begin subsisting on a life of grits and heroin, I’ll stop hating the hypocrisy. Until then, no blues with my foie gras.