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Wednesday, March 28, 2007

He's My Cousin...


Matt and I went to see “Goldie,” a cool local black jazz singer, last weekend. We’d seen her at the Chatterbox before and, after requesting something by Nina Simone, were surprised when she nervously said, “Someone else asked me to sing something by her…I’m not at all familiar.” Zak! That’s like an English major never having heard of onomatopoeia.

This time, Goldie seemed a little more comfortable in her skin (although she still didn’t manage one single Nina song), but she had this audible schizophrenic thing going on where she dipped her solos low into a crazy baritone, then lofted them high into a childlike soprano cartoon character. The act needed another dress rehearsal.

Sitting next to Matt, with his raised eyebrows and I’m-gonna-lose-it face, gave me the kind of uncontrollable laughter attack I used to get in church. When she broke into a soulful original about her love for her husband, and I thought she was singing about her cousin (it sounded like a drawn out “c-o-u-s-i-n,” I swear), Matt said, “Jill, I’m gonna lose it – let’s get out of here.” And so we did.

Learn some Nina. I’m just sayin'.

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