Review: A lingering melody
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 13, 2013
This short story is still echoing in me, notwithstanding that I'm tone deaf and don't know anything about jazz.Joe Bunting so succesfully allowed us into the aging musician Chris's psyche that I could live the main character's loves and loss.There are many wonderful images in this story - how age makes Chris's hands quiver... only in the bones at the beginning of the story but later also on the outside; how riding in his car with his middle aged son, he feels it's a coffin and talks about how he wouldn't like to be buried; how he remembers attending a concert with his wife.  We are allowed to mourn Chris' aging, his lost wife, his lost ability to differentiate between jazz musicians he likes and those he doesn't.Why not 5 stars then?The story evokes the music wonderfully, but is sketchy about place. We know it's on the Southland Coast, but it takes a while to feel the ethos.MOre troubling, Chris' meeting with his old student Rob, the crux of the story, turns out to be a stutter. Chris' memory of how he taught Rob to channel music through his hands is wonderful. Unfortunately, the meeting with Rob falls short. There is a long conversation about Chris, black music, and Obama that doesn't ring true. The voice there sounds more like the young author explaining his own backstory rather than the wistful wandering voice of the main character. The ending - that the choice of a president should be about politics not race - strikes me as a conclusion to a debate the author's having with his wife and not something Chris would say. For Chris, it would simply have been about the music.Still, despite the flaws in what I assumed must have been the transitioning riff in a long jazz piece, this story still echoes. The story leaves a lingering melody, as all good stories should.