#jazz.

The blessed time of Cab Calloway of his orchestra and his extraordinary dancers.

Joe Negri Quartet - LIVE @ Foster's ft. Danny Conn

nvlandbutcher

Joe Negri a guitarist, perhaps best known beyond Pittsburgh for as a character on the Mister Roger's Neighborhood, passed away on Saturday. He was just days shy of 100.

He was a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University (Carnegie Tech). Joe Negri loved Jazz. He taught guitar at the University of Pittsburgh for more than 30 years and taught at Duquesne University for over 40.

Fosters was a music venue in the Holiday Inn in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh. I love that that the Youtube poster found a burned CD of The Joe Negri Quartet in his attic. I'm not sure of the name of the song and suspect the performance is from the late 1960s or early 1970s.

if she'd realized he was still here, perhaps she would have been more careful.

he can't go far, of course; jazz is cognizant of the fact that she is still captive, and he is very much captor. but she has not been so foolish as to make any plans of escape obvious, and he has not been the brute she expected. so sometimes he steps out. she's kept well enough in her space with some rope and promises to behave.

(promises she emphasizes with a roll of her eyes and a playful smirk. they both know the game, after all. it seems he enjoys to play it just as much as she does.)

this time, he'd had to step out to fix the damned air conditioning. it'd blown again, likely due to the heatwave, and they were both miserable. and in this situation, misery does not love company. so while he had stepped outside, she'd taken the chance to pull off her shirt, toss the damned pantsuit she'd been kidnapped in. she'd stolen a pair of his trunks and pulled those on.

the blast of cool air should have alerted her that he was returning, but jazz was so lost in her search for a shirt (surely this man owned a wife beater, at least!) that she didn't even register it. it isn't until the door opens that she realizes. it isn't until her skin tenses with goosepimples that she realizes, oh. it's finally cooling down. and, oh! i am very much in his trunks and my own bra!

the woman turns to look over her shoulder at him. her brown furrows, and she hopes irritation is the expression that comes across and not the flare of desire that pings at how good beau looks. hands slightly dirty from work, sweat dotting his features, causing his shirt to cling. she will not let this country boy get the better of her.