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125 “Ghost of a Chance“ The way a man, bone-tired, enters a hot bath, Wynton Marsalis steps into the spotlight, center stage, and eases into Victor Young’s “Ghost of a Chance.“ Heartbreak billows from his horn: an ectoplasmic mist, its ghostwind blowing listeners to the Land of PauperLoses -Princess-and-Can-Never-Love-Again, of It’s-Over-and-There’s-Nothing-I-Can-Do. Shades float and glimmer in the gloom: A couple skids down rain-slicked sidewalks, hand in hand. Clothes slither; sheets rustle in a rented room. When did our lives lose their perfume? How did they turn dirty and mean? That’s why we’re here, dying to de-fang irony’s chain saws that whine and whisper, inches from our jugulars— to drop the marble bathtubs of sophistication we haul on our backs, and finally come clean. Now—miracle!—it’s happening. Inner lights click on around the room. Lips whisper, “I believe.“ Wynton’s horn gleams like a sun rising. “I don’t stand . . . a . . . ghost . . .” it keens, and calls the Spirit down. It’s coming—then some cell phone toots, 126 Doctor Pepper is the friendly Pepper upper. Wynton freezes: a statue in black ice. A woman giggles. A man clears his throat. Drinks slosh and clink. The moment spiderwebs : a smashed windshield about to fall. From Wynton’s trumpet comes a call: Doctor Pepper is the friendly Pepper upper . . . Again he plays the riff—with variations, modulating key to key. He plays it fast, then slow. He makes it swing, march, bebop, rap, and jive. He makes it waltz and cha-cha, boogaloo down Broadway, break dance, and funky chicken. He slows . . . slows . . . slows . . . it down to ballad tempo, sadder, sadder, as the cracks in the moment heal and heal and disappear. Time has reversed. The second chance we never had before is here. Marsalis breathes. His trumpet sighs: “Ghost, ghost, ghost, ghost . . . of a chance . . . with . . . you . . .“ ...

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