Actually it’s kinda funny, a jazz critic living next to the world’s worst trumpeter. I woke up from a deep, dreamless sleep by an Almost Like Being in Love so dreadful it verged on profound.  Several takes rolled by till he nailed it, well, splattered it. The melody laid there limp, battered, lifeless. The guy’s got a tongue like a steel toed boot, an embouchure you won’t find in the cheapest whorehouse. Chet Baker dispensed with, he turned to Have You Met Miss Jones, and there was just enough Miles in it that I was going to ask Vince Wilburn Jr. for the name of his attorney. There was an ugly squeak and he stopped to yank his tongue free of the mouthpiece. Then came Clifford Brown’s turn in Whisper Not. You could hear him aiming for Brownian perfection and having a facsimile of it for a second there, the line hanging in the air, glinting in the sunlight, then it came tumbling down in the dust up of a solo, a wreck, alas, that our trumpeter walks away from. Once more from the top. The lines hang in the air, almost flawless for a second or two, and I marvel at where that came from, and the sun shines down and even the birds are hushed. Then here comes that bridge again, oh god.