RIFF MARKET

Wonderful Night

Ten seconds ago, walking out of Falafel Star on 7th St (best falafel in East Village), I realized Van Morrison's "Moondance" is indisputably the worst song ever written. Yes I've heard "St. James Infirmary" or St. Johns or Zekes or whatever it's called and that's pretty bad too. But it doesn't make people go out of their way to look like complete tools like Van's "'Dance."

I'm eating. "Moondance" comes on the radio and this guy walks in and he instantly recognizes it because among other things it's fucking Van Morrison's "Moondance." He starts snapping his fingers on the ones and threes, kinda-sorta bopping, and between ordering his sandwich he belts out the first half of a verse and then mumbles the rest because he clearly doesn't know all the lyrics. My guess is he probably said to himself he should google the lyrics when he gets back to his apartment, just in case this ever happens again. During the flute solo the guy starts full-on flitting about the place; I think I saw him miming the flute positions on his thighs too, which admittedly looked pretty awesome but still. He paid, left, and went back to not losing his shit to the worst song ever.

Beyond that I hate the song's needless identity crisis. It swings, so people think it's jazz, but it has a singer, so people think it's pop, but it also has a flute, so people think it's Jethro Tull. You might not think that's hate-worthy, or even annoying, but hear me out. In my Matt Turowski Jazz Explosion days, we played a lot of gigs at Glenside's Keswick Cafe, right next to the Keswick Theatre. We'd be jamming it out, waiting for the Chick Corea show next door to get out so we could make some tips. A typical conversation with one of these sophisticated Chick Corea showgoers would go something like this (it happens while we are playing jazz):

-You guys play the jazz music?
-Yes.
-Oh that's so awesome do you know any Van Morrison??!
-No.
-But "Moondance" is the best jazz song ever written!
-OK we'll play "Moondance."
-After that can you play "Low Rider"?

And then we'd have to play fucking "Moondance," and whoever asked us to play it would come up to us afterwards and say thanks but she likes the original better--"you guys were just too jazzy." Everybody always loved my solo during "Low Rider."

In my quest to turn things I hate ("Moondance") into things I love (snakes; spiders), I've decided that "Moondance" is my new "Who Let the Dogs Out." It's the song I can't stand more than anything else, but I like it as a form of outright masochism. Friends of Riff Market will remember the second annual Jews and Gents holiday roast, when I zinged a friend of mine for dating a girl "two years and thirty pounds after I did." Cue "Who Let the Dogs Out." Cue me doing windmills on my air guitar while everybody looks horrified. Cue more windmills.

And so with "Moondance." This Sunday I plan on waiting some tables at this restaurant I know. The restaurant has these two local jazz guys come in to play a "jazz brunch," woo the tourists into the restaurant all "authentic West Village experience" and all. It's 3pm. The jazz guys runs out of jazz songs to play, so they decide to tell the manager they're done for the day, see you later, etc. But the manager gets really angry at the jazz guys and tells them they need to take requests. "Get back to your axes, cats!" he says to the cats. He's picked up their slang, so in my eyes he deserves their respect.

Then, at that very moment, I'm going to speak up. "Hey motherfucking jazz guys," I'll say. "Why don't you play some real jazz music." They're thinking I mean "Freedom Jazz Dance" but I actually mean something else. "No, not 'Freedom Jazz Dance'--real jazz music." They start playing "Moondance." All the sudden I've got the whole restaurant snapping on the ones and threes and doing the moondance dance (it's a hybrid electric slide/macarena). My manager's fake scat singing, just making the shit up. The jazz guys get the joke but are still pretty angry. Nobody is doing jazz hands.