Backstage Pass.

I grew up in smoky NYC jazz clubs.

The Jazz Standard, The Bluenote. Birdland.

These clubs were dark, mysterious and reeked of sexiness.

Something I would assume most little girls don't experience.

They were filled with the sounds of a deep bass coupled with a sax and a trumpet.

Pianos.

Looking back and seeing, I was taking it all for granted.

That little girl of six, wearing a fur cut and muff, dressed to the nines.

Sitting at intimate tables of four, in the mostly dark, ordering a shirley temple and thinking, that was the highlight.

Yet, I was hearing and hanging out with musical legends.

So much talent.

So much diversity.

After the show, going backstage, where my Dad and his colleagues would shoot the shit.

Talk shop.

Recant how the gig went.

Even at that tender age, listening and being in awe.

Not truly understanding what was happening, but understanding, somehow knowing, this was not the norm.

This was special.

When I went to see my very first Broadway play at 4, Annie, he had made arrangements for me to go backstage, and not only meet the orchestra, but the cast.

I see now how I took these experiences for granted.

Yet the very ones I look back on now, so proudly.

Ones I was gifted to have.

Memories which warm my heart on some very empty days.

Especially now.

Meeting some of the best.

With the best.

God was I lucky.

So even though I feel terribly about missing him.

I have been given more to me by him in the 30 years we had together, than some in a lifetime.

I love that I can at least have that.

Even when I can longer have him.

Xoxo,

C.