Jimmie Noone's Not Dead?

Neil Jones on a post-new year Cardiff night

Amazing what an unplanned night out can do... Myself and Pop Miwsig's Paul Griffiths had met up, not expecting much from a Sunday night while the city recovers from the new year celebrations. Taking the aphorism of "where there's a lull there's a way" and running with it, we took to the Wetherspoons opposite Buffalo Bar, chattering profoundly about notions of uncool, modern cityscapes and such as people downed their drinks in sorrow, and then set off into the night.

The big plan was to head off to Cafe Jazz on St Mary's Street, where we hoped to find a young jazz musician to play at our Bobby McGee's feast in a couple of weeks' time. Conversation skipped around the possibility of bringing different sections of people together in a passionate harmony, and whether that was actually possible in this day and age. People just don't seem to move about these days as much as they should, and it all points to the city being far too regimented.

We naively dreamed of days when untagged musicians played in dusty bars, days when the city maybe crafted and looked after its people by offering diversity. A meal of frozen chips in the Chicken Cottage brought us around a little, but walking back towards Buffalo Bar again where a plug in and play night was scheduled, some music called out from a rooftop like poems from party gods. We trickled into the place that I'd always thought was a glossy restaurant, drawn by the pulsing sax and trumpet licks and greeted by jazz imagery born of pure affection. Lights were dimmed and the drinks were reasonably priced, there was a long bar by which to sit and dream of rolling one's drink right down to the bottom. It was even free to get in. Old and young mixed with little pretension to politeness, a drunk man danced, the jazz players' suits were sharp and colourful, a bandanna'd man walked through chatting up girls, and the dream sort of woke before our eyes.

How good could it be, but can this really last in the modern age, an age where the big man is in control, and the little man pays? All I know is it'd be great if it could, and we can dream. As for the bar, I won't say what it's called, that'd be defeating the point, it's there to be found in a fit of experimentation. Cardiff has some fantastic musical nights already, Buffalo Bar is a colourful and attractive hive of activity, the gigs of Loose Club, Meltdown and Peppermintpatti and Cardiff's staple weekend indie night Twisted By Design, all are fantastic, but as ever, oh for more! Call me a romantic, but here might just be part one of the revolution in everyday spontaneity. Maybe Jimmie Noone's not quite dead.

© 2008 Neil Jones

© Miwsig