Whatever Happened to Gus

Não sei se meu primeiro contato com essa música foi acordado ou não.

Sei que não parece ter sentido até você ouvir entendendo a letra. And then...

Sonhei outro dia que conversava com um gato, coisa que motivou uma decisão e uma mudança na minha vida. Acordei com essa música na cabeça.

Ainda não sei se lembro dessas músicas do sonho ou se a manhã seguinte é que faz parte deles.

"It had something to do with Max. 

With Max and Bird, Billy Eckstein and Lester Young, back in the day. Them cats, coming out of Pittsburgh by way of Kansas City. Way back when, we were laid on up to win in a souze in that crowd. 

You see, it was like this. Yeah, there I was in the basement of this office building, down there around Brooklyn Bridge. Rehearsals, see, and, like, there was Bird, Bird with his arm around Wynton Marsalis' shoulder. Bent me all out of shape, I couldn't figure what the hell Bird was doing with his arm around Wynton Marsalis' shoulder, it didn't seem to change. And than there was all these musicians, all these fantastic jazz musicians hustling and running across Brooklyn Bridge, descending into the city, the Big Apple, down there around City Hall. Bright and early one morning, just running. And there was this one cat that looked just like Lester Young. 

Than his image kept changing, than he started looking like Billy Eckstein, than back to Lester, than Billy, than Lester, than Billy. And ran up to him and I said "Say Man." 

And I said to him, I said "Say man, who's got the key?", he looked at me and he said "Key, what key?". He said "Gus got the key." I said "Gus, Gus who?" He said, "Don't you know, Gus Johnson got the key." 

And that's when I did my research, searched around the jazz scene through the history of the music. Inside out, outside in. Talked to one old timer way back when, and he said, "Yeah, don't you known Gus Johnson, he was a drummer, back out of Kansas City."