BUFFY 2029 A.D.: Buffy Swings the Blues
by Miles
Buffy dines by herself tonight. There are some two hundred dinner guests in the hotel’s dining room, but Buffy is sitting alone at a small table. It feels familiar. The Scoobie Gang is back—but they are also back to their old disassociated pattern, each one going his or her own way. Even so, experience tells Buffy that when any one of them needs the others to come together, they will.
As she enjoys a bowl of vichyssoise, she catches the evening’s floor show. Not that it is actually on the floor—or tethered in any way to the earth; it is a hologenfab or HGF concert. Buffy recalls the career of the technology from its birth in computer generated fantasy sports, to its becoming mixed up with holographic video, and finally marrying into the music recording business.
Buffy has seen her share of HGF rock concerts, hootenannies, and symphony orchestras. The special appeal of the technology is that you can put together any musicians in a holographic-cum-surround-sound fantasy even though they never played together in reality. Buddy Holly strums and sings with Paul McCartney—that sort of thing.
Most HGF leaves Buffy wanting less, but HGF has caught on big, and tonight’s presentation is actually above average. She has been a jazz fan ever since she was exposed to an old boyfriend’s vast private collection; the relationship, long since over, lasted long enough for the jazz bug to bite her.
In a large clear space at one end of the dining room, is a holographic bandstand, and both seated and standing upon it is an equally holographic assortment of jazz musicians from every era if only one knows how to recognize them. Buffy can recognize a few from their pictures on the covers of CDs and old vinyl albums, but more often she picks them out with her ears. For example, among the pianists who take turns at the keyboard, there are old-timers like Teddy Wilson, whom she recognizes only by his sound. Following him at the ivories are the likes of Count Basie, Oscar Peterson, George Shearing, Herbie Hancock, and Brad Mehldau. Trumpeters include Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Chet Baker. Among the saxophonists—her favorite jazz instrument—Buffy recognizes Paul Desmond, Charlie "Bird" Parker, Gerry Mulligan, Grover Washington, Jr., “Fathead” Newman, and Joel Frahm. There’s even Benny Goodman on clarinet, with Gene Krupa, Art Taylor, Kenny Washington, and Buddy Rich taking turns on the drums.
But the singers are the most remarkable feature of the show, doing duets that would never be possible without this technology. There is an inspired pairing of Billie Holiday and Chet Baker on “Easy Living.” Lady Day, wearing a strapless, shimmering blue gown and a white gardenia in her hair, starts off; they alternate on the vocals, then Baker blows a horn solo; finally they stand shoulder to shoulder, swaying as they harmonize on the last verse. This is the twin trick that everyone loves HGF for: seeing as well as hearing.
Next up is Satchmo and Nat King Cole doing “Walking My Baby Back Home”; that’s followed by Ella Fitzgerald singing “Sophisticated Lady” with Jane Monheit. Now that, Buffy thinks, is a no-brainer; there is enough of Ella in Jane so that they sound great together.
If anything depresses Buffy about the show, however, it is that the holographic versions of each of these greats is frozen at about age thirty. For example, the cut of Ella’s black dress with white lace trim places her circa the late forties while Jane’s green outfit screams 2008. (Buffy remembers the year well.) Respectively, these are roughly the dates when each of these singers was about thirty years old. Now, Buffy is sure that both Ella and Jane recorded “Sophisticated Lady” when each was about forty. It is thus a tad disconcerting for these images of thirty-year-old bodies to open their mouths and produce forty-year-old singing voices. With few exceptions (Satchmo does look to be over fifty), it is the same with rest of the orchestra, never mind that most of them were at their peaks closer to age forty or older.
On the other hand, Buffy admits to herself that the thirty-year-old Chet Baker is so irresistibly yummy that when he was performing, Buffy was tempted to ask the waiter for a dessert spoon. But she knows that the forty or fifty year-old Baker would have been quite resistible, the trumpeter having lost his teeth by then.
That reminds Buffy that she happens to know the true, vampire-related story of why Baker had all his teeth pulled. Most people think that his teeth were smashed out by a drug-dealer, but the real deal is a bit more complicated than that: Baker foolishly believed that he was becoming a vampire, and that he could be rendered safe by being defanged. But although he had fallen in with some junky vampires, who were gradually feeding off him, they never made him suck their blood; so he wasn’t actually in any danger of becoming one of them. It was kind of a Riley-type thing except that Riley got off on the danger while Chet was being given drugs, which the junky vampires would then get back when they sucked on him. Yeah, her jazz aficionado ex-boyfriend enjoyed grossing Buffy out with that story a little too much. Being with someone that knew who Buffy was had its advantages, but he unintentionally crossed the line in telling her a story that reminded her of Riley. Buffy puts it out of her mind now.
Buffy is aware of a commotion near the entrance to the dining area. She looks up to see Willow, wearing the same outfit she wore this morning. Unfortunately, the restaurant has a steep dress code for the evening, and Willow does not make it. Buffy sees her friend frantically trying to persuade the maitre d’ to let her in, but he is implacable. Buffy does not hesitate but gets up and heads toward the reception desk. Passing her waiter, she tells him to put the vichyssoise on her hotel tab; he nods. Buffy knows that it was automatically put on her tab as soon as she sat at her table, but she likes old-fashioned human contact.
“Willow, what’s the matter,” asks Buffy. Then she sees Dawn, standing in the lobby, looking worried but for once a lot less hysterical than Willow.
“Buffy!” cries Willow. She can hardly get the words out. “Xander is missing! He got carried away when the excavation flooded. He’s lost!”
Willow begins to cry and Buffy and Dawn lead her around the corner to a less trafficked area of the lobby. The three women sit together on a couch with Willow in the middle.
"How did it happen?” Buffy asks as calmly as she can manage.
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