We Were Listening
12/11/08 06:03 AM | Up Chucks
Where the Music Still Matters. The Chatterbox Tavern. Chuck Pace ©2008
How do you honor a legend? By remembering and sharing and mostly by carrying on. There was a lot of all of that last night at the Chatterbox Tavern on Massachusetts Avenue in Indianapolis. An over Full-House of well wishers and rememberers were in attendance for the memorial event in honor of one of the city's finest sons, Richard A. 'Dick' Dickinson whose life influenced and inspired generations of Jazz musicians and aficionados alike.
It is only fitting and purely by design that David Andrichik should hold a tribute to Dick on a Wednesday, that was the night each week for well over 20 years that Dick Dickinson and his Jazz-tet of rotating and musicians took the tiny stage at the front of the Chatterbox and turned it into a house full of memories.
Last night there were testimonials and stories and e-mails and videos and hundreds of well wishers all missing and remembering a very serious, dedicated, and well-loved man to whom the music mattered. As a long standing member of the Wednesday Night Men's Club that has seen the loss of two of it's founding members: Bill O'Keefe and Ed Sanders in the past five or six years,I can tell you that Wednesday Nights on the Avenue will never be the same.
Even thought the crowds were there for fellowship, drinks, amusement and entertainment all those years, and often got a bit boisterous they were still there for the music. We were there for the music, we were there for release, we were there for friendship, we were there for live Jazz and we were enriched. I say today to Dick Dickinson, we were listening. You will be missed, and the stage hasn't been the same since your retirement this last spring, but it will be quieter now. The shuffle of drumsticks and brushes, cymbals and hi-hats has ceased and we are left with only the rhythm of our memories and the quite respect of the passing of a great man. The quiet is deafening. Yes, we were listening.
Chuck Pace ©2008
|