All that jazz

Hours of noodling - I’d rather listen to a three-minute pop song

Evan Parker was on stage in the marquee at Chatham Riverside, playing two saxophones at once. The audience was tapping tables and nodding heads, eyes closed in appreciation. I stepped out and crossed the grass to look down into the river. I would rather have jumped into the muddy waters of the Medway than go back into that tent.

I'd been involved with a jazz enthusiast for several months and had tried to join his world, as he had with mine. I'd taken him along to the (now defunct) Folk Cellar in Chatham, and we'd seen Spiers and Boden. I'd gone along to the jazz gigs at The Good Intent (not only now defunct but demolished), and we'd got into the habit of Sunday lunchtime jazz sessions at The Eagle in Rochester. He'd burned me a CD of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, and he colonised my stereo with jazz CDs on nights in. As a balance, we'd watched the Cambridge Folk Festival on telly, and we'd agreed upon Genesis and Neil Young as acceptable joint listening experiences on long car journeys.

I'd met Ian via a newspaper dating ad I'd placed, in the days before internet dating. My older daughter gave me a lift to our first date, and I very nearly asked her to drive on when I saw the stocky, bald guy in a long leather coat waiting outside Chatham station, looking nervous. ‘He looks like a nightclub club bouncer,’ I said. But I knew he'd travelled a long way to meet me, and I didn't want to stand him up.

We had agreed to a drink before going to see an indie band at the Manor Club (you've guessed it; now defunct and demolished). The first part of the evening didn't go well. I thought he was so far off my type that it wouldn't go beyond that one date. He was weary of dating through adverts. The last woman he'd met told him she'd just had a fight with another woman in a supermarket car park. But we were soon sharing stories about dating disasters, and the discomfort turned to laughter.

The conversation turned to music, and I asked what was the best live act he'd ever seen. Mine was Led Zeppelin at Knebworth, his was Neil Young. We found common ground, and I could see that the tough outer image concealed a softie with a big heart. My neighbour described him as, ‘Like Grant Mitchell, only softer.’

I'd read Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus and found it rather too male-centred for my liking. John Gray, the author, said that when women get into relationships with men, the woman forms a Home Improvement Committee. I paraphrase, and have no intention of reading the book again to check the quote. The opposite was true with Ian. He declared the cheap wine I’d brought back from France, ‘Something I wouldn't cook with, darling,’ and brought good coffee and a cafetiere for when he stayed at my house. He also put stinky cheese in my fridge, and fried bacon for his breakfast in my hitherto vegetarian frying pan. When I placed a few grapes on the cheese plate to accompany the superior wine he'd brought over, he told me he preferred his grapes fermented.

Ian liked the good things in life. He treated us to a weekend in Wales for Valentine's Day, and bought me a cashmere jumper and Chanel No.5 for Christmas. He always arrived with a gift of some kind, and never allowed me to pay for anything on our dates. To be fair, I had very little money to even buy us both a drink, but being treated like a lady by this big-hearted gentleman didn't sit well with me. I asked if he would go on a date on my terms: a wander around the charity shops and a jacket potato for lunch. He declined.

And then there was the jazz. My God, the jazz. On one of the jazz nights at The Good Intent, when one of the numbers went on for what seemed like days, I turned to Ian and said, ‘What's wrong with a three-minute pop song?’

I have to say, the jazz audiences were lovely. On our first visit to the Sunday lunchtime jazz sessions at The Eagle, people were talking to us within minutes wanting to welcome us to their midst. I hadn't always found it so at rock gigs, people locked into their own worlds, only conversing with the people they've come with. The jazz crowd was warm and friendly, though I couldn't get into the finger-clicking and head-nodding. I longed for a bit of head-banging.

It seemed to me that jazz consists of everyone playing together, each band member noodling for a while solo, then everyone playing together again. I like to see my escape route when in a crowded place, facing the door, and sometimes I feel I suddenly have to leave. This is usually due to claustrophobia, general anxiety, but at the jazz gigs, I just wanted them to be over, and I would rather have left when I'd had enough. I saw each one through to the bitter end. After the indie band Ian and I saw on our first date, he didn’t want to join me at any similar gigs. To save my sanity, I went to rock gigs without Ian’s company.

Let's be fair, a lot of music I like is jazz influenced. I'm not averse to a bit of jazz funk. I love Stevie Wonder and anything with Nile Rodgers. And during my time as a jazz tourist, there were a couple of acts I enjoyed. I enjoyed Dylan Howe’s Five Corners so much, I happily saw them twice. Christine Tobin's version of ‘God Only Knows’ was on the playlist at my wedding to Bob, a couple of years after my dalliance with Ian and jazz ended.

Jazz wasn't my only difference with Ian. He liked climbing mountains, and going on long walking holidays. During our time together, he disappeared for several trips, which I could neither participate in, nor would have been interested in. On our trip away to Wales, he drove us into the Brecon Beacons and stopped the car. He looked longingly up the mountainside. ‘I could be up there in half an hour,’ he said. It was freezing outside. All I wanted was a pub lunch next to a roaring fire.

Ian was just more active than me, more of a gourmand and an oenophile than me. And he didn't read books. He just didn't. As a friend said to me after we split up, ‘You have to think, is this the face I want to see over the marmalade at the breakfast table in years to come?’ It wasn't. We were too different.

I do remember Ian with fondness. Some of my experiences of the high life were fun, though I did gain weight after all those three course meals with good wine. A lot of wine. But could I bear another jazz festival with those clever bastards playing two saxophones at once? I could not.

This story is littered with now defunct, closed-down or demolished music venues in the Medway Towns. The Sunday jazz sessions in Rochester have moved from The Eagle Tavern to the City Wall Wine Bar, a couple of doors along. Upcoming acts are still listed on sheets of wallpaper, handwritten with coloured markers, as they were twenty-one years ago, when I used to go with Ian.

I put out a request on Threads for pop songs of three minutes or less. My top choice is ‘Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't Have)?’ by The Buzzcocks. This was mistakenly played at my wedding reception, for my first dance with Bob. My current favourite is ‘Crayon Potato’ by Sassyhiya, who I saw live at a Careful Now Promotions gig at The Oast in Rainham (neither defunct nor demolished). It’s about a cat called Crayon who looks like a potato.

Here are some of the Threadies’ suggestions for great pop songs of three minutes or less:

‘Song 2’ - Blur

‘Laid’ - James

‘La Bamba’ - Los Lobos

‘She Smiled Sweetly’ - The Rolling Stones

‘Sunday Morning’ - The Velvet Underground, with Nico.

‘Virginia Plain’ - Roxy Music

‘Teenage Kicks’- The Undertones

‘I only want to be with you’ - Dusty Springfield

‘Velocity Girl’ - Primal Scream

‘Outdoor Miner’ - Wire.

‘Connection’ - Elastica

What would you add to that list?