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Title: Old Enough for Jazz by James Lee Higgins ISBN: 0-9728249-0-1 Publisher: Clickature Digital Entertainment Pub. Date: 15 May, 2003 Format: CD-ROM List Price(USD): $14.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (2 reviews)

Rating: 4
Summary: HIGGINS IS EXPERT FICTION PROGRAMMER
Comment: It's an entire novel that reads almost like you are surfing the web. I say "almost" because I think the hard part about writing for the browser (programming a novel?) would be not to overdo it -- there would be the temptation to add all kinds of animations/sounds/clips or other plug ins that would take away from the actual reading. Higgins uses popup footnotes that add to the story, but he saves them for the end of each chapter. The jokes hidden in the footnotes are much funnier referencing what was a serious passage five minutes ago, than they would be as direct links. Old Enough For Jazz claims to be a mystery, and I guess it is, but the narrator (an aging computer tech with no name) is all over the place. He has a cadence like a Kurt Vonnegut, and a similar eye for the ridiculous: like a former Senator advertising erection pills on television (he doesn't mention Bob Dole by name), or the character with a name like Julianne Frye (I think she is fictional, but it's hard to tell with this writer). With the web browser becoming the most read media, it's about time we had a "Mark Twain of Cyberspace." I'll nominate Higgins if he can turn out more stories like this. By the way, the MUSIC on this disk is pretty good too. -cj

Rating: 4
Summary: Some really fine company
Comment: An album and a book combined? Jazz? Well. On a leisurely Sunday afternoon I poured a glass of wine, slipped the CD Old Enough for Jazz into my computer, and listened to the music. Wow, smile! I could learn to love this, yes. Exactly as the author promised, it's a good, good band and also accessible to someone who has never before given time to jazz. It accompanies the book as a soundtrack or incidental music, partly illustrating the way the book unfolds and partly inviting readers to share a new experience in music with the writer. I'm no music critic, though, so let me put down the glass, turn the music down just a bit, and tell you about the book part of the album.
It's as immediately engaging as the music. After a short introduction, the author begins:
"Pedal. Pedal. Pedal. I'm in my office right now -- at least that's what I call the spare bedroom, where I get and send email. I am listening to the local college radio station's jazz program as I ride a bicycle with no wheels on a trip to personal fitness. The young man hosting the radio program just played Miles Davis's Funny Valentine. He unfairly introduced the song as an "over-played chestnut." I called the station to request a Charlie Parker tune that he probably wouldn't like either, but the line was busy. It is always busy"....
This is the beginning of four months in the life of the narrator, in which a mystery is solved. He starts here with ruminations on life, jazz, and growing older, with a dash of Americana reminiscent of Don DeLillo or John Irving. Whether commenting on radio or television, his warmhearted wit and observant, post-modern eye make him a good companion, the kind you want to sit with and have a beer, the kind you don't mind in the den making comments during a t.v. show. Here's what he says to himself as he contemplates breaking into an apartment through the window:
"How did TV detectives do this? Columbo would get a warrant. A team of experts would show up and search the scene. The experts would miss an obscure clue which Columbo would find and use to entrap the killer later. Barnaby Jones had a couple of younger assistants. I think one of them used to be Catwoman...Rockford was a loner, but he had a police officer friend when it was convenient...I don't remember what Mannix would do, but it would probably involve getting his windshield shot out...I thought about getting the spare tire out of my car and using it as a step to get farther in the window, but then I had a better idea...."
"Catwoman" is footnoted at the end of the chapter. It's one of several funny and interesting glosses that dryly explain points of 70s-generation ephemera to readers -- viewers? ? who are too young to know about them. Readers from the 70s generation may enjoy the notes (I did) even more than those for whom the notes are intended. Meanwhile the plot rides gently forward on the narrator's day-by-day journal entries and sessions on his exercise bike. Before long we're out of the den and onto a murder-mystery trail of private detective work. The narrator does actually break into that apartment, and we gradually find out about the old friend who fell off a bridge not long ago and how his death occurred. Something about Danny's suicide/accident never felt right to the narrator, and so he meets Danny's family, sleuths through his old apartment, discovers a few clues -- one while watching television -- and eventually pieces together a montage that reveals the truth.
This is not a contrived thriller; the mystery and its solution, like jazz, are more lifelike than artificial. The humor isn't forced, either, but more the unassuming laughter and dry wit that a clear mind produces when it meets Life. I liked the book and the music. I had a wonderful Sunday afternoon. Buy the album. Enjoy the soundtrack. Kick back with both and enjoy some really fine company.