One by one our customers made their way up to the counter to leave little comments, tributes if you will, stories and instantaneous on the spot love notes to her presence in their lives. I say presence because not one person talked about her as if she were gone. The music made them feel as if she was standing there alive in the air next to them, in their hearts, and certainly in all our minds. This is the power of music everywhere. When we talk about universals there are a few that instantly come to mind, that seem to cross all boundaries with the ease of a tightrope walking cat—laughter, art, music, dance. But back to Billie, the first man stood there and wrote a whole paragraph on the importance of Billie H. to jazz in general and then to the whole continuous notion of music right out of thin air—like a barker at a circus or a visiting professor with a sudden rapt audience. Hers was the voice, he said, that spoke that generation's feelings the loudest, the deepest and the sweetest. She still speaks that kind of tenderness for me I said. That’s why I like to play her. I hear something right. I recognize something true in the way she delivers a song’s melody. What more can I say? The next customer, a woman, first made sure we had made direct eye contact before she said,  Ah Lady Day, nobody beats her, she just makes you feel everything so deeply, perfectly. It’s an ache, but it means so much to me still. I love her. Thank you for playing her in here today. And on and on it went. I was amazed at the reception Billie Holiday was receiving—although I shouldn’t have been. I mean she’s Billie Holiday. There’s only one.

This is something I was talking about with my own daughter a while ago, the timelessness of great art. You’ve heard that old saying, the thrill is gone? Well, with great art it isn’t. It’s always there. I was telling her that’s how you know a Beatle song is great. You still get a new thrill out of hearing it again, even though you’ve heard it a thousand times before, all because it is that good to begin with. I’ve yet to get tired of looking at Picasso’s pen and ink drawings of bulls and bullfighters because the brushstrokes bring me endless fascination and delight. That’s another word we might as well insert into this whole conversation right now. Music, besides keeping us company, delights our senses. It opens up the imagination. It clears the old thought processes out—if it’s that kind of song I mean. That’s some powerful stuff. Be careful how much of that you sprinkle on yourself. You might go flying off to Mars. Think how long ago Billie Holiday was belting this stuff out and how recently she was connecting with her audience. Man, that’s past time and space. What a knockout. That’s why I used the term presence. She’s still around in her art. Her art still has meaning, meaning that is palpable and real for those of us who still can listen and hear notes of ourselves in it. Why? Well, that debate will probably carry on for decades if not centuries. Let me just say, my vote is for the humanity found in the art, left there by the artist, for fellow travelers on their way to the stars.