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The Days of Baja

You could say it all started with a pair of blue suede boots . . .  

The day of my college graduation, I packed my bags and flew to Chicago.  That was the summer of 1992, and I left everything that was comfortable to go where I had one friend, no money, and no job.  

I was very lonely, and very poor.  During my college days, it was easy to meet people, and I was not prepared for the unfriendliness that encountered in the big city.  By August, I had begun a steady day job, but I still knew only 3 or 4 people that I would consider friends.  The people who worked with me were largely married and from the suburbs.  The ones who were not lived so far away in the city that it was seldom practical to hang out with them.

To add insult to injury, the amazing salary that I was earning (about $20,000 per year) was somehow only barely enough to support my downtown lifestyle.  By the time I paid for rent, groceries, and utilities, there was hardly anything left over.  I didn't own a car, and I really wanted to buy a computer, but despite my diligent financial management I just wasn't able to save any money. 

 So anyway, back to the boots.

I was shopping in Water Tower Place for a pair of shoes to go with a certain pair of jeans.   After lots of walking and looking, I finally came across a little pair of blue suede boots that were exactly the color I needed.  They were completely adorable, fit just right, and looked so cool.   They were perfect . . . but they were completely outside of my budget.  In a strange way, I wanted those boots like I nothing I can ever remember wanting.  It was the culminating point of my frustrations.  I had to have them, even if it meant charging them, and worrying about it later.  I didn't want the salesgirl to think I couldn't afford them, and I just really wanted to own them!

So I bought them.  

The next day, I started looking for a second job.

If you need money, and you want to meet people, what better place to spend all of your free time than in a bar?  

Why didn't I think of it sooner?  I was living about 2 blocks from the (now defunct) Baja Beach Club Chicago.  I had been there with my friends, and it was like nothing I had ever seen in Kansas.  Always packed, and always rocking, it was a tremendous pick up spot.  The people-watching opportunities in the place were incredible.  As a major tourist haunt, and because it was very popular with the suburban crowd, the clientele at the Baja were always an eclectic mix.  

I particularly liked to spend hours in the piano bar.  I could not believe the talent that was available to me for no cover charge.  Keith Kelly, Dave Roberts, Troy Neihard, Sidney James Wingfield and the rest (who came and went) were amazing to me.  They could sing and they could play those keys.  It seemed that they knew every song ever written.  I was in awe of them, and I never got tired of listening to them.

So why not try to get a job there?  

I applied for a cocktail waitress position and was hired right away.  When it became obvious that I did not have the "killer" instinct necessary to succeed in the "club side" of the Baja, the manager moved me into the piano bar where people were a little more civilized.  I absolutely loved it, and I was able to listen to live music during every shift.

I thoroughly enjoyed working in the piano bar, and I made some amazing friends, not to mention roughly $100 a night in tips.  Everything about my life was turning around.  I suddenly had more money than I needed and I even opened a savings account.  I had friends who I loved, and I wasn't spending hours at home alone anymore.  I ran from one job to another and barely had enough time to sleep.  It was great.

But now I was trying to "scratch" a new "itch".  I really wanted to perform in the piano bar.  

Let's face it.  I gotta get on that stage. 

Keith Kelly was the lead piano player when I began working at the Baja, and he fascinated me.  He had spent time working as a DJ, and he had developed a way of merging one song into another as he played the piano.  I had never realized, for instance, that La Bamba, and Twist & Shout were exactly the same song, or how well you could transition from R-O-C-K in the USA to On the Dark Side (from Eddie & the Cruisers) seemlessly.  He just had an ear for these things, and he was smart about what kinds of things the crowd liked. 

After lots of sucking-up and shameless flirting, I somehow managed to get Keith to let me audition for him.  He told me to learn Tequila, by the Champs, and I memorized it note for note.

The first night I brought my sax to work, the security staff and other waitresses were a little curious, and I think pretty skeptical.  Keith and I did a run through before the bar opened, and we were ready to go.  I just couldn't wait to get in front of that crowd.  Everything sounded great.

When Keith called me to the stage, I was so excited.  I ran up there to perform my one and only approved number.  The intro began, and I started to play.

And the crowd went  . . . .

"We can't hear you!"

When we did our sound check, the room was empty and I sounded great.  Now that the room was packed -- I could have been whistling up there for all the better you could hear it.  I was crushed.  I looked stupid, I felt stupid, I wanted to be sucked into the carpet.

But then Keith hopped up with his microphone and held it in front of the bell of my sax.  The sound filled the room and the people CHEERED!  My customers were on their feet, because they were so excited to see their waitress on stage. 

It was the beginning of something great. 

It soon became clear that the sax-playing-waitress was a big hit in the piano bar.  If I could, I would have played all night long.  Unfortunately, it wasn't an option.  The piano players had a love/hate thing going on with me.  Customers would give them big tips so they would bring me on stage, but occasionally some of them weren't exactly comfortable with the attention that I received.  They were, after all, professional musicians playing hundreds of songs for 3 or 4 hours a night, and I was a waitress who popped up for one song and then went back to the floor.  It wasn't fair that I should get so much attention and so much adoration from the crowd.  

But it happened every single night.

How many times can you play Tequila? 

After a while, people would ask for me to come up again and again, and it was ridiculous to keep playing Tequila over and over again.   The only other song that I had memorized completely was Night Train (from the Back to the Future Soundtrack), so Keith and I worked that one up and added it to the repertoire.  I still wanted to play more, but the piano players weren't interested in bringing me up MORE.  So, I was content with my two songs.

And then there was Georgia. 

Sidney James Wingfield was a little bit different from the rest of the piano players.  Sidney was a blues man, and just the nicest guy ever.  Sid taught me an amazing amount about blues songs, phrasing, and style.  Sidney didn't bring as much "pop" to the table -- his song choices were a little different than those of the other guys.  However, looking back at it, Sidney added depth to the mix and brought variety to the same-old piano bar songs that we would hear night after night after night.  Sid played a lot of Ray Charles tunes, and I learned to really appreciate Mr. Charles during that time.  I can't hear Hallelujah I Love Her So without thinking of Sidney.

At the peak of one Saturday Night, Dave Roberts and Sidney had invited me up to play.  It was customary for them to give me a notice of two or three songs so that I could drop off drinks, go get my sax, and make my way to the stage.  I would sit on the steps leading to the stage and wait until they introduced me.

On this particular night, Sidney was singing Georgia On My Mind, as I waited with my sax.  It just so happened that I was sitting near young customers who had been very nice to me all night.  I had played  Georgia in college marching band, so I knew the song very well.  I was quietly playing fills and harmony as a warm-up while I waited for the song to finish.  One of the customers heard me playing, and gave me a little encouragement.   I moved to the front of the stage, nearly face to face with the customer but still out of sight of most of the crowd, and started playing to him and his friends, along with the song.

Sidney heard me playing, and said, "Get up here!"  So, I stepped up and began to play fills and harmony lines along with Sid's vocals.  Sidney gave me a solo, and for the first time, I improvised in front of a crowd.  I knew the song inside out, but I had never had to make up a solo on the spot.  Up to that point, I had carefully memorized every last note that I would play.

The crowd LOVED our little duet, and from then on I was always called to the stage for Georgia.  It became my favorite song to play in the piano bar, and it became a signature song for me outside of the Baja.

Those three songs, Tequila, Night Train, Georgia, and an isolated New Year's Eve Auld Lange Syne were pretty much the only songs I ever played in the piano bar.  Troy would sometimes let me jam on "whatever" at the end of the night, but by and large, I played the same three songs for 4 years in the Baja Beach Club piano bar.  Those three songs brought me lots of bar roses, some really great tips, and the attention of the young medical student that I would eventually marry.  Not too shabby, eh?

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