McKee Fitzbugh’s jazz club was a sho nuff dive of a place on the south side of Chicago. It was located near the corner of 63rd and Cottage Grove on the east side of the street. A sloppily renovated storefront, on any weekend night you could walk down the street and see the most legendary of the jazz legends performing in the club’s window like holy-roller preachers. It was summertime in the city but the folks at McKee’s didn’t care. Creature comforts consisted of big rusty looking floor fans with propeller blades and wobbly heads which they kept off almost all the time so that the screeching sounds didn’t compete with the music. They were stuffing 8, mostly, unrelated individuals in raggedy red vinyl booths that were built for 4. The tears in the old vinyl were the only places where you weren’t sticking to your seat and if you weren’t sitting on the end you couldn’t raise your glass to your lips.

Added to this, the entire Coltrane scene was a little frightening when you saw him for the first time. This was especially true if you were someone who liked the buttoned-up/ cooled-down look and feeling of a MJQ (Modern Jazz Quartet) or Cannonball Adderly show. Coltrane was mismatched and sweaty and totally unaware of you after he got started. Not in a disdainful enjoy-my-back now Miles kind of way, more like a gone-someplace- else kind of way. He was listening more intently than anyone else. To be truthful with you, if you weren’t careful, you got caught up in his intensity and lost the music. At the time I found it disturbing and I was glad to get out of there once the man woke from his trance. But now, miles and years away from the heat, sweat, torn vinyl and vacant stares, I often look back and wish I had taken away more.

Sunni Knight is a DC metro based writer and soldier in the fight against family violence.
This article was originally published in http://www.natcreole.com/, an online global urban culture magazine. Visit the site weekly for updated news, reviews, profiles, playlists, essays, travel journals, and upcoming events.