Belated | Notes On Hats
Carlo Mombelli & The Prisoners Of Strange | 12/12/25
Circling where the venue should be, a rising niggle. It's not even nine yet according to the listing it’s late, I pay no mind: Jazz is the sufi word for time travel.
Panic compounds with the opaqueness of the signage, can this be the place, or maybe basically just the age, my age, time. The doors open on the empty coffee shop, and a lone door person’s light scolding, apparently jazz is now prompt.
Passing the scrubbed kitchen, then the clean alley, down the stairs, three neat dreadlocked suits wafting beeswax ascend as I land on the bottom step, the room opens out to a polite aftermath. Feeling like an ending. Hands over hands clutching each other's both hands in greeting the musicians are individually clustered around that holding gesture as their eyes are peered into by the scattering crowd, gathering to greet and gratitude, a pulse has moved through here. The room in scattered chatter.
Loosely speaking there are fifty people here, gathered around the instruments arranged in the round. Tables and bar, sleek, minimal and precise, peopled in studied casual – three fedoras, only one worn correctly, pulled low over the brow.
Off centre a giant fucking piano a black whisper, a lone mic, the empty seat at its feet, a sax case, an upended trumpet, punctuated between with cables, amps, music stands, the drums, more amps, the technical shit of the base station of electronics, Carlo Mombelli is a bass player. The Prisoners Of Strange start gathering back into the circle. The second set begins.
Out here on the bar there is a perimeter formed by the resting arms almost touching of a first date. They trade relationships horror stories while The Prisoners play “Athens”. She gasps at him in mock horror, touches lightly on her minor-fascinator. He mirrors the move, knocks his beer, glass on concrete. Over the sounds of the stereotypical claps in the jazz gaps they sit with their arms folded, chairs apart as a mop keeps time.
The room a landscape of shoulders, of hunched forward, forests of earnest brows, imperceptibly shaken out in the rise of Baking Macaroons. There is only one person on his phone, wearing camo. Something so fussy slips away.
In a back booth the obvious drummer, nodding his head purposefully to the insistent snare, tapping his fingers trying to time the hi-hat, refusing to give up as the time signature twists, pacing increasing, insane he bobbles madly grim faced.
Down front in spitting upon distance, starting at the coronet, a purposefully prim, torn jean, loose shouldered woman feels her body being taken by the piano circling her.
A barman pausing mid pour as the drums crash.
The first date talk urgently as the song ends.
The performance scatters into a lecture, Mombelli describes The Spirit Of Zambezi as a contrapuntal boat ride. A table of jazz students lean forward, studiously with contempt and awe. Everyone here under thirty is a jazz student. Everyone here over thirty is a student of jazz. This here is the water, a sound, this musician leans forward and plays zebras.
Crickets.
Birds.
Concentrating, leaning back in misty glasses the chin-stroker, fingers clasping, unclasping, nodding in studied appreciation until the river swirls unpredictable in eddy, he leans forward on his hand, a lull.
An animal feeds at the water.
Crocodiles.
Nature goes mad.
An involuntary exaltation, unforgivable, dark looks from the woman next to him.
As boat strikes shore the man with tweetie-bird hair stands suddenly, softly aghast in some eternal joy.
All The Children, this is last piece, we are told and it registers as the booth people sway. Maria Mombelli is the fulcrum of it all, hardly there and throughout the room. To travel a continent for just a whisper.
The torn jeans lady sways, the jazz students they sway, the white guy with dreadlocks sways as best he can, each in their own way sway, totally punk rock.
And then it shimmers away. The booth people sway in the what to do next of the evening. The first date start talking about what they don’t know what they think they know that they like.
The those out for an evening out stand to clap, wanting more, bereft, cheated, slowly leaving their seats to climb the stairs.
Some young dude in seventies flares and facial hair, Donovan cap, pied piper lost hangs around inanely as the instruments are folded away.
And there out of the corner, grey scarf and red beret, comes the shadow of jazz, ever present, bestowing his presence, drifting off back into time.
On the pavement camo clad has finally put away his phone, now talking to a friend about business class flights in the morning.
But the friend is not listening, still bobbing intently.
As a woman walks by, he says, “That hat is great.”
She turns to him, “this music you know, if I was a musician…”
He completes her, “this is the album I’d make.”
“This last song,” she gestures back down into the Untitled Basement, “I’ve always loved it, I just can’t remember its name.”