Page 53 - The Jazzsipper Novel

52

THE JAZZ SIPPER

Chapter Six-----Bumpin On Sunset

It was around 11am when Vance and Uncle Frank made it to the New Orleans
Fairgrounds Racetrack. Also known as The Fairgrounds; they had an hour to
wait before the first race. Vance remembered when he came to live with Uncle
Frank and Aunt Jessie that this was a regular Saturday outing for him and
Uncle Frank to bond. Vance remembered Uncle Frank always used to look at
the tip sheets and the sports page section in the newspaper that featured the
horseracing, then he would ask him what he liked. Vance would look only at
the names on the tip sheets and pick the horses that had the most appealing
names to him. Uncle Frank taught Vance all about horseracing during their
Saturday outings from how to bet, how to read tip sheets and how to
understand the odds.

But this Saturday was a little different; this was the first time that he could
remember a horse with the same name as a favorite Jazz cut of his. Vance
knew it was going to be his day and it was a sign from up above, it may have
not been from God, but it definitely was from a deceased family member, he
thought.

Bumpin on Sunset was the title of a Jazz cut by Wes Montgomery that
epitomized Jazz cool. Vance watched a documentary that Friday night entitled
“The Marketability of Cool”, A French fashion designer, named Christian
Lacroix worked at Hermès, a French high fashion house. Lacroix said, "The
history of cool in America is the history of African American culture which
embodied essential elements of cool". The same documentary had author
Robert Farris Thompson, professor of art history at Yale University,