Italian Time
Last Friday evening was just beauiful here in Chianti. As the sun sank into the horizon, a refreshing breeze brushed away the afternoon heat. At 8:45 Dorn and I settled onto the concrete blocks which serve as seats around Greve’s Piazza Terre Madre in front of the library, ready for a perfect evening of live jazz under the stars. The stage was set for the 9 PM concert. We spotted guitars, drums, a trumpet and keyboard under the lights. (Where but in Italy would musicians leave their instruments lying on an open, semi-attended stage?) A young sound guy sat at what looked like a school desk, his improvised control station, a few yards in front of the stage. We watched him munch on a panino in between sips of red wine as the clock approached 9.
We waited expectantly for the musicians to hop on stage. Meanwhile people filtered into the square. We chatted with a few friends who settled next to us and others who wandered by. Families and couples found a favorite spot, on chairs or blankets, or just hanging around the edge of the piazza. Many held a coneful of gelato from the gelateria up the street. Kids with ice pops in one hand whizzed by on skates and scooters. Others on bikes weaved through the adults. Younger siblings tagged along. Toddlers toddled. It was a nostolgic scene that plays out on many a summer night across every town and city.
A little after 9, with no musicians in sight, the sound guy lit up a cigarette and ambled over to his car across the piazza. Dorn and I looked at each other and shook our heads. We both appreciated the ease with which Italians lived life and figured the concert would start soon enough.
As 9:30 approached, I turned to Dorn and said, “Maybe the concert starts at 9:30?” I only had heard about it by word of mouth so it was possible the time got shifted as word spread. The sound guy headed back to his “booth”. We were hopeful.
Ten minutes later I spotted two guys I recognized as musicians chatting in front of a restaurant across the square. “Hey, Dorn, look! There’s Carlo, the drummer and his son Francsco who plays guitar.”
“Yeah, but they sure don’t look like they’re in any hurry to head this way.”
“Mmm- you’re right.”
So we waited some more. By now we’d been sitting on those hard “benches’ for an hour and it was approaching our bedtime. But we’d come to hear music and we’d stick it out a little longer.
Finally, a few minutes before 10, the five member band ambled over to the stage.
“It’s not even like they jumped onto the stage, they’re still just taking their time” Dorn observed.
But when the opening notes of the Beatles’s classic “And I Love Her”, sounded through the crowd, everyone hushed. The 9 PM concert began, just on time in Italian Time!
