The Slow-Cooked Sentence

Why I left home late Thursday night

Rachael Conlin Levy

The jazz club was swathed in shadow and dust and smelled of candlelight and garlic. The band was suitably subdued, a foil for the feisty swingy-ness of her voice, which lifted me off my toes, then dropped low and rattled my ribcage. But I’d come for her words, the stories married to the cello, the poems shimmying to the drum. There was a heckler in the back. The best dancers were two women, swaying gracefully in each others’ arms. The waitress set a Poinsettia before me. I watched the red, bitter bubbles orbit inside the glass.

Madeleine Peyroux, 9:45 p.m., March 31, Jazz Alley, Seattle.

Poinsettia (champagne+cranberry juice+lime twist).



5 responses to “Why I left home late Thursday night”

  1. molly says:

    Sounds like a nice Thursday night… and I love the new blog design!

  2. anno says:

    Can’t imagine a better reason for leaving home … sounds lovely.

  3. Catherine says:

    How was Madeleine????

  4. I just listened. Lovely. Now I will go off on my walk with her voice and thoughts of champagne bubbles in my head. Nice.

  5. Rachael says:

    Catherine, the show was awesome. Madeleine sang a bunch of new songs and there’s one in particular that I love, love, loved about not picking a fight with a poet. That song was worth the whole show.

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