I live in a different cultural world to Jason and his girlfriend Leonie. We’d both arrive home at 2 AM, but I would have come home from the opera or dining in European restaurants and he would have come back from a club or a cruise up the mountain in his sports car. I think to some extent, he feels culturally insecure. He shouldn’t – I know he’s smart (you don’t need to go to the opera to be smart!). He has different interests, which are probably more mainstream and “normal” to mine.

So today was something special. Tonight, he and Leonie came with us to a jazz gig at Bennetts Lane. I was quite excited and happy to have them there but I don’t think it was a good introduction to the world of jazz. The music was fairly modern jazz, unmelodic and discordant. It wasn’t aurally pleasing to the untrained ear. Even I couldn’t connect with it. Jason and Leonie were bored. I doubt they’d come back.

I wish their first gig was a big band or a jazz group playing swing and blues standards or a jazz vocalist like Yvette Johansson. Maybe I can convince them next time. Or maybe it really isn’t worth their time.