A couple of weeks ago my family spent a few days in Washington, DC, and as is always the case when I travel I love to search the local record stores for unusual finds. This time, I found a conversation.
Y
ou have to be careful back here… this music will make you weep.”
I looked up from the rack of CD’s I’d been flipping through in the jazz section at The Melody Record Shop, a classic little independent store on Washington’s Connecticut Avenue, to be met by the eyes of a thin, graying African-American man.

“Yeh, I know,” I replied, though given the casual, almost distracted nature of my search through the discs, my reply was maybe just a little too automatic. He was on to something, this guy.
“Like this,” he said, holding up a copy of Bill Evans’ The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961. “This man can play.”
“I love Bill Evans,” I responded, “particularly from that era. I don’t have the complete sessions, but I’ve got the single disc edition, which I’ve listened to a lot.” And so we talked a bit about the music we each owned, and what moved us. He seemed to like the fact that my tastes were mostly rooted in the 1950s and 60s. And then the conversation shifted.













