As Petulant mentioned in the Morning Readings, Isaac Hayes died over the weekend for reasons yet undetermined. The linked article ends:In an April 2001 appearance at Chicago's Symphony Hall, Hayes went back to his early musical roots of jazz, crooning ballads by Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Billy Eckstine and others.I'm sure he would have made a fine doctor, but I'm glad he changed course.
"This is where I started out," Hayes told the crowd at the time. "My heart is jazz, and I'm a hopeless romantic. I was in a talent contest in high school singing 'Looking Back' by Nat King Cole. I was just a raggedy kid, and I won the contest, and all the girls said, 'I want your autograph.'
"I was going to be a doctor, but that's when I said to myself, 'Hey, there's gonna be a change of course here.'"
I was at that show in 2001, in an eclectic Chicago audience of his early soul fans, recent "South Park" fans, and a smattering of people who simply couldn't resist the description of the guy who sang the theme from Shaft hanging out at the Chicago Symphony singing jazz standards. I was in the latter group—and I wasn't sure what to expect: a train wreck, a snoozefest, something wonderful…?
When he walked out clad in what looked for all the world like jailhouse pajamas (that's a picture from the show, at top left), I braced myself. But despite the ensemble, and its raucous incongruity with the venue and the occasion, the show very nearly verged on magical. Weird, but magical.
What struck me most was that I was watching a guy doing exactly what he wanted, exactly the way he wanted to do it. And I thought that was pretty damn cool.
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