The Martian Death Flu
So, I have been fighting some kind of nasty illness that I am calling (with all due respect to writer Dave Barry, from whom I am stealing) “The Martian Death Flu.” Of course, what does this have to do with jazz and blues? Very little really, but I will make a stab at it.
It all started exactly one week ago when the weather changed and I began coughing. It was a cough as loud and annoying as any wrong note Charlie Parker may have ever played when he first picked up his saxophone. I could only wish the coughing would sound remotely like the dulcet tones of one of Bird’s solos.
The coughing went on and on all week. I also had a post-nasal drip and even I cannot figure out a way to tie that in with jazz. It kept on until Sunday morning when, suddenly, I was stuffed up and my head was pounding.
It was pounding very much as if Louis Armstrong had taken up residence inside my brain and was trying to see just how loudly he could blow his horn.
At the same time the sound of me blowing my nose was probably very close to the sound Dizzy’s trumpet made when it fell over and bent in that way he insists it was bent initially. Of course, some dispute that his trumpet was bent that way accidentally, if you did that to a trumpet, I am betting it would make a honking much like my nose was.
I spent two days in bed, much like Miles, Bird and many others probably did after their weekend long and maybe week-long heroine binges. In fact, had I actually taken any sort of
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