The Whistler of First Street

It was early last summer, maybe the first day where you opened all the windows, that I heard it. The whistling. Not the short blasts of construction workers signaling to their coworkers. And not the mindless and tuneless expressions of minor happiness that you hear from random people walking down the street, but more like the far upper register of a violin. Pure and loud. Definitely no ordinary whistle. This was music, perfectly in tune. As I went about my business I listened: Girl From Ipanema, Begin the Beguine, Aura Lee, Where Or When. All rendered with style and passion.

Being a musician myself, I recognized the treasured instrument of a fellow player. And this one could really play. The tunes continued. Misty, Skylark, the melodies expertly embellished with a natural improvisational flair.

Then after an hour the music stopped…

…Wow, that was strange. Never heard that before. Some cat just whistling like a madman out in the street, then just stops and goes away. I let it pass from my mind as the day continued its usual grace and grind.

The next morning, I awoke from a dream about the tune Desafinado, the beautiful Brazilian bossa nova (translated: “Out Of Tune”). Hey, I thought, that’s a nice little fill that perfectly completes the first phrase, why didn’t I think of that when I played that tune last week? But this was no dream. It was him, or her. The Whistler of First Street, a noontime alarm clock (I’m a musician so it’s the crack of noon for me).

As I made breakfast or whatever you want to call it, I realized that I had to meet this Whistler. So as soon as I was human again, I went outside, rounded the corner onto First Street to look for the music. I stopped and listened. Nothing. I waited. More nothing. Maybe it was a dream.

A couple of days passed, and I’d occasionally think about the Whistler, but I heard no more of this wonderful music. Then early one, um, afternoon, I heard it again. Like a girl’s smile through a subway car window came Horace Silver’s “Song For My Father”. Only a musician’s musician would choose this one. I quickly put on my shoes and shirt, no socks. No time. I raced out the door and down First Street. There he was. Tall, bony and bald, late-sixties, dressed in painter’s whites, he sat on the top step of a stoop of one of the brownstones, doing his thing. I slowed and approached him with the usual New York attitude. He immediately stopped his tune, smiled at me and said hello. I told him that I was digging his music which he took in stride, like this was just the way things were.

He introduced himself as “Bob Barrett, the Park Slope Wood Stripper”. Well that would explain the clothes and the flecks of white, blue and grey covering his arms. He was working in the house, stripping years of paint off some doorframe or original detail. He was on his break.

We talked for a while about ourselves and music. Turns out he was a professional musician as a young man, a singer of doo-wop. One of the few white ones invited to sing with the black ones. I could see why.

There must be a lot of work for wood strippers in Park Slope because it’s a year later, and he’s still here. Like an old friend I’m used to him now, but I know that someday he’ll be gone. I need to thank him for giving me that lick on Desafinado, but for now I’m just listening.

John