It was the second Saturday since the move, and we were still wading through boxes like archaeologists of our own past. One box, labelled “Basement – fragile – do NOT stack” had naturally been crushed under a coffee table. But inside—miracle of miracles—survived the entirety of my old Blue Note collection, dust jackets and all, still faintly musty from decades in damp Midlands air.
Patricia stood behind me with a mug of something herbal, watching me cradle Mingus Ah Um like it was a newborn.
“You going to play that,” she asked, “or just stare at it till the tea goes cold?”
The turntable setup had been another story. Our new home—whitewashed, with archways like something out of a Graham Greene novel—was charming but woefully underpowered. The old amp crackled like a bacon pan. I’d half a mind to chuck the lot out and go digital, but then where’s the ceremony in tapping a screen?
We’d ordered solar panels the week before. Seemed sensible. Not that I knew the first thing about panels—I’m more bebop than BMS—but our neighbour Joaquín pointed us toward a solar panel installer in Marbella who didn’t treat you like an idiot for not knowing your kilowatt from your elbow. Honestly, if you’d told 1970s me that one day I’d be living off the sun while listening to Coltrane in southern Spain, I’d have assumed I’d joined a cult.
Anyway, once the electrician left, and the amp finally hummed a clean note without frying the wall socket, I slipped the record out of its sleeve and set the needle down.
Pop. Crackle. Then that sweet rolling bassline. Boom-ba-ba-boom. The room changed.
Patricia was leaning against the kitchen doorway, arms folded. I swear I saw a tear in her eye, though she blamed it on the herbs. Something about that first note—it always undoes her. Takes her back to that club in Soho where we first heard live jazz together. Ronnie Scott’s. Summer of ’77. She wore a green dress, and I thought she looked like she belonged on the stage more than the singer did. She thought I was ridiculous, of course. She still does.
There’s something holy about the ritual. Lifting the arm. Lowering it with reverence. Listening to music that demands your full attention—not because it’s loud or flashy, but because it breathes.
Later that evening, we walked into town and stumbled upon a café tucked between a bakery and a hardware shop—Los Clásicos, I think it was called. Faded posters of Davis and Brubeck in the window, mismatched chairs, a small upright piano in the corner.
“Live music Fridays,” said the handwritten sign. “Mostly jazz. Sometimes not.”
We stayed for two hours. Nobody was brilliant, but it didn’t matter. It was loose, a bit messy, but full of love.
Like our life now, really.
And as we walked home under that ridiculous Andalucían moon, Patricia nudged me and said, “You know what? I think we’ve still got it.”
I nodded, hand in hers, thinking—not bad for two people who used to argue about Miles Davis’ electric period like it was a moral failing.
