This is a real, on the run, blog.
So I am getting off the flight from Dulles in DC to CDG in Paris on March 26, 2009, and I am talking to a brother from Chicago about the blues and jazz. I started by telling him I am working on a fiction project, "The Bluesmen."
He says, "Yeah, well I'm from Chicago, home of the blues."
"Yeah," I said, "after the blues greats moved up from the Mississippi Delta -- John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, all those great guys. I was in Clarksdale, Mississippi a year ago this month. The heart of the Delta Blues country. And when you see how big those cotton fields are, you get an idea of how the blues was born there."
Then I thought very quickly of the alto sax great Charlie Parker, The Bird. I got very emotional.
"You know," I said, "Charlie Parker flies into Paris and he's getting off the plane. All these people are applauding and cheering. The Bird looks around, and then realizes: They're cheering for me, man. They're cheering for me."
