The Chicago Cellar Boys played my kind of music at the Cultural Center – Fats Waller, Count Basie, and Jelly Roll Morton, among others. (I may have to check them out on a Sunday night at the Honky Tonk BBQ in Pilsen.) When I saw Andy Schumm take one hand off his clarinet and pat his head, looking like he was trying to keep a toupee on, I was mildly amused, until I realized he actually was signaling the other musicians about something, I knew not what. So I looked it up. I found “8 Jam Session Hand Signals That Every Musician Should Know”, which explained to me that a head pat “denotes a return to the beginning.”

This is one of the many reasons that I could never be a jazz musician. Isn’t it enough just to be able to improvise on your instrument, which I can’t? You also have to memorize signals as if you were a third base coach waving off the bunt and implementing the hit and run. It’s one thing to be able to pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time, after years of practice, but pat your head and play an instrument, way out of my league. I don’t chew gum either, unless I’m seated.

I slid over from the Cultural Center to Millennium Park for the Second-line Procession led by Mystick Krewe of Laff, featuring the Big Shoulders Brass Band. it wasn’t quite like the Krewe du Vieux I once witnessed in New Orleans (here there was no float with a keg on it serving the crowd and nobody in the group was borderline naked), but it was fun to join with them as they marched around the park, playing traditional Dixieland jazz, leading an entourage of people like me making videos with their phones. Next year (or maybe tomorrow) I’ll bring some beads.