RE: Live Jazz w/ Johann & the Avant-Guard @ Vodou Bill’s

Hey, Johann,

Headlining’s a big step, and I’m proud of you. You’ve planned to go solo for ages—since quitting your first band. It’s a shame that moody egoists also ran the next three. But now you’re in front, and you’re finally free—unlike Brooklyn rent. To stay in jazz’s capital, you’ll need an investor or a dead parent. And your mom jogs.

So what I’m saying is, I’ll pay you twenty thousand dollars to let me stay home.

Though I appreciate the invite! As the only Black person you know, I admire your dedication to my great-grandfather’s culture. I’m personally more about our work in the ensuing hundred years, but I respect keeping the flame alive. Supporting your solo début is an honor, from afar.

How’s cash sound?

I assume cash is easiest—what with taxes and such. If online’s better, I’ll gladly fund microtonal improv through Venmo, Zelle, Solana, or any new digital middleman I’ve missed. This is your moment, and you should feel loved. Because you are. Your craft is worth my annual bonus and more. Let’s make it your bonus.

You deserve it, just like you deserve to buy four WaveRunners. That’s enough for you and the whole band! It could be your promo-photo gimmick, instead of staring into the distance. You take a lot of photos gaping at the horizon. I see the creative intent, but it’s a bit empty, basic, and flat. And you’re not flat.

Please take the money. I haven’t had eight hours to myself in weeks.

Full disclosure: I’m a big concert guy. It’s practically my hobby. But I’m after a specific experience. One that evokes words like “yippie!” rather than “no escape” or “there are six people here, I can’t leave without ending up on a blog.” I hope that tracks.

Besides, NecroBeast’s in town. I love NecroBeast. Sure, they’re playing two nights later, but I want to go in fresh. Really dive into the pit, you know? Sleepwalking through Monk covers drains me. It’s like having a Pip-Boy that I can’t turn off.

This might seem strange, since I’ve seen you play before. But there’s been one big change: I’ve seen you play before. At the Casa Gentry show, the experience was intense. Specifically, the experience of biting my cheek to stay awake. At first, avant-garde jazz seems sterile and divorced from human experience. Then you taste blood. Now I respect the raw sensation your work inspires, and wish to avoid more of it.

Don’t sweat the number. Friendship means more than money. I’d rather fund your entire summer tour than lose our bond. Or spend two hours nodding to songs named after Du Bois misquotes. Jazz is a long, unbroken chain of ideas, connecting Flatbush grad students to their teachers next door.

You’re still the best artist I know, untamed by relevance or solvency. While others chase the cheap highs of audience connection, you prove that innovation’s alive and well. You’ll conduct any experiment, no matter how often it’s been done. Your music is consistently, proudly, and unrelentingly for you. Think of this as a twenty-thousand-dollar award for all of that.

And you’re playing Vodou Bill’s! Even I know Vodou Bill’s. For half a century, V.B.’s gave Black music’s most daring acts a stage. Then it became an avant-garde jazz club, teaching us all a valuable lesson: gentrification isn’t just physical. Now you’re a part of that history. Only you’ll get paid, unlike the old groundbreaking acts at Vodou Bill’s.

Of course, a friendly face in the crowd means everything. Consider taking this money and using it to pay other friends to attend. Or strangers, to become friends. Twenty grand can get twenty people killed. Or ten people to attend bass-and-flute improv over desert wind. This is your night, and I’m so excited not to see it.

I love you like a brother. I’d skip my brother’s avant-garde jazz concert, too. But you didn’t get here by listening to haters. You fought. Keep fighting. Prove everyone who never sent cold, hard cash wrong.

And check Zelle. I left a tip. ♦