About the Blues
You have to squire between the tables, crouch at the beginning of the basement stairs, follow the curved staircase until halfway down you hear the first moaning guitar loops floating freely over the rumbling of the bass and the drums.
St. Clara’s bluesjam in the Old Town in Stockholm has become a regular stop for me in recent years. There among the basement vaults there is a small bar, seats along the walls and at the far end a surface without tables for the band. With the drums in the corner and an acoustic piano facing the wall. It usually gets full so people crowd the aisles to be able to see. Just over half are audiences, the rest are musicians who are there to play. I nod to those I recognize and grab myself a beer, waiting for the piano to become vacant.
Blues is like sitting by a rapids. Like being in a meditative landscape that just goes on. An undulating noise in which small displacements, splashes and swirls breaks the pattern, creating a new turn. With each change of jammer, the character changes.
Sometimes magic occurs.
