1/26/07, 5:52 pm EST

Assignment Three Finalist: Justin Baker on Deep Blue (Chicago)

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Note: This is not an official Rolling Stone article. What follows is a submission to the “I’m From Rolling Stone” writing competition.

by Justin Baker
Age: 27

It’s midnight on a Tuesday, and Deep Blue guitarist Bobby Broom is spinning ghost stories. His face contorts as he bends another note, then another, each one mingling with whiskey-colored light, bouncing off of hand-carved wooden wall frames, sifting through smoke-filled memories. Six more aching notes, like an old man’s howl, stroll to the back of the bar, order a Beefeater gimlet and come to rest in the hands of a stoic, understanding bartender. As Bobby brings us home, ageless voices holler from timeless, dark corners. It’s January in Chicago, circa 1930.

Outside of Chicago’s famous Green Mill Jazz Lounge, it’s bitter cold. Inside, however, time is frozen. Tonight, it’s the Deep Blue Organ Trio, melding seamlessly with the speakeasy décor, warping time and space with each jam and each drink that passes my lips. “Good to see you folks back at the Green Mill,” says Drummer Greg Rockingham, even though it’s my first time here. “You keep comin’, we’ll keep playin’.”

Under a red-orange plume of smoke, bearded hipsters clink martini glasses in Al Capone’s old booth, oblivious to their perfect view of both exits. Regulars, elbows on the bar, brandy-dipped cigars in mouth, have conversations with themselves, conversations that have been had for decades. Bobby grimaces, wondering what key the next song is in.

“One. Two. Three.”

I stare into my glass of scotch, sniff, and close my eyes. The layered rhythms of music and man are persistent. The Hammond B-3 organ, the murmur of old friends, the impenetrable haze of leisure—they puncture my weary thoughts, obliterate the present.

Somewhere outside, it’s 2007, and I have a job. It’s awfully hard to tell, though.