5pm_weds | one-hundred-nine. (Reply)

Drinking Coffee
Renée Yoxon & Mark Ferguson
Here We Go Again
2012

♥: While my friends and family are, as a rule, a fairly artistic lot -- I don't know many musicians. A few, but none who have really made it their career. So my excitement at this song must be tempered by the experience: I was sitting at the band table.

Oh yeah.
It was last Friday, at Upstairs -- the jazz bar downtown. My cousin and one-of-very-few-people-for-whom-I'd-take-a-bullet, Chelsea, was in town for the weekend, and she, V, and I were out for dinner. "Oh by the way -- " she mentioned over a fishbowl of some alcoholic concoction named after Kool-Aid, "my uncle's Montreal CD launch is tonight, if you guys want to go." If we want to go?

We walked in, and sitting at the prime table was Chelsea's uncle -- Mark Ferguson, the pianist/trombonist/brilliant co-composer on this album -- with his wife, both of whom I've met a few times. They were excited; Upstairs was full and their niece had made it. Renée Yoxon joined us, as painfully chic in real life as she looks in any press photo -- though, as with any 20-something, clicking her phone around to promote herself on various social media outlets; and slightly hesitant, voicing her nervousness, despite her beautiful voice and presence. I had never experienced that before -- the pre-show jitters, from the perspective of the performer; what a strange, intimate feeling. And watching her and Mark interact pre-show was a profoundly inimitable experience. Their age difference is pretty sizeable, but the chemistry and understanding of each other's material and musical passion exceeds it -- they get each other. When they excused themselves to start setting up the stage, I asked Monica (Mark's wife) how they met; she looked genuinely confused and replied, "Well, the Ottawa jazz scene is pretty small, everyone knows each other...but you know, I don't remember? I'll have to ask him!" Though I wonder if he'd remember, or if Renée would -- it's almost incidental, like trying to describe when you first tasted chocolate.

They were excellent, and the whole album (which I received gratis -- another perk of knowing the band, clearly) is lovely. But it was this song that took my breath away. My heart was literally racing; I made Chelsea feel my pulse when they finished and her eyes widened. It is beautiful. It is a gorgeous testament to a sad moment, almost a mid-life crisis -- written and sung, so honestly despite clearly not having quite the life experience, by a young, young woman. It is a song to be heard live, but it works on the Sennheisers, too -- and it's a lyrical gem. And it's amazing to see this young talent in the beginning stages, coupled with the oft-proved talent of a man who's been on the periphery of my life for as long as I can remember. I felt privileged to be there. I feel privileged. And I hope this song can give you a spark, a flicker -- not necessarily of the privilege of being there, of knowing the artist -- but of the power music, art, has regardless of whether you know who's onstage -- a spark of something intimate. Because "Drinking Coffee" is music done right: a sliver of life, a sliver of honesty, created by people who love what they do and want nothing more than to share that love.