THE NIGHT AIR is thick with summer humidity, and the front yard is slowly blanketed in darkness. I pull my knees to my chest as I sit on the front porch and rest my chin against them. It’s been a really long day, and my body and mind are heavy with emotion. The street is quiet except for the distant sprinklers clicking on in a neighbor’s yards.
I’ve spent most of the day in the basement, rummaging through my father’s boxes. There are so many pictures I’d never seen before, other famous jazz artists I didn’t know he was associated with. He’s played on a lot more albums than I knew about. I also found old newspaper clippings, one in particular featuring him as an artist at the Chicago Jazz Festival in 1999, which was only a few years before he passed away.
I plan to take a lot of these art
