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June 22nd was the opening night of the 2018 Ottawa Jazz Festival. Or at least it was for me. I decided to bail on the first night due to a distinct lack of interest in easy-listening trumpeter Chris Botti.
Boz Scaggs, on the other hand, just made the cut to pull me out. As far as I am concerned, Scaggs is a one-hit wonder from my impressionable AM radio childhood (okay, two: Lowdown and Lido Shuffle), and he has that catchy first name, which was good enough for me.
The jazzfest site had been turned upside down that season – quite literally, as Confederation Park was being completely dug up in order to replace underground sewage and water mains – so the jazz festival had been set up across the street in Marion Dewar Plaza, on the front lawn of City Hall. The temporary site was much smaller and less pliable (ie: it was paved), which I suppose mimicked the years lineup quite well.
And really, none of this mattered to me. At the time I was perilously close to closing the deal on my first-ever house purchase, a perfect gem of a place literally overhanging the Atlantic Ocean in one of the more remote corners of the already-remote island of Newfoundland. As I stood on the pavement with a plastic cup of flat, overpriced lager in my hand waiting for the aforementioned hits to come around my mind was three thousand kilometres away. Here I was standing in front of a seasoned performer with over twenty albums to his credit and I doubt I heard a note. All I could think of was casting my line lazily into the sea from my very own, seventy-foot wide back deck.
And I don’t even fish. Luckily I had also seen Boz at the Ottawa jazzfest five years earlier when I was significantly less distracted.
Oh, that I were writing this story from just inside that wide deck, sitting in front of the crackling two-sided fireplace in the open-concept living room while m’lady poured me a hot cup of Jumping Bean coffee (my favourite Newfoundland blend)! Then throwing away my first night of jazzfest on a daydream might not have been quite as dumb. But the house deal fell through and here I sit in my same old living room, underlooking the side of highway 417 as it cuts through the middle of cold, concrete Ottawa*.
Funny, I used to love it here. Maybe I will again. Either way, I’m an idiot who should keep his head in the game and save his daydreaming for when the line is already in the water.
*Not anymore! We bought a whole different house and moved to Harbour Grace, Newfoundland on Hallowe’en, 2019.
Todd Man Out 