Ponders: 1943. A spring night, well after one, pushing towards two. A jazz club in Bronzeville, on the South Side of Chicago, in the imagination of Mr. Archibald Motley Jr.



[Footsteps walking closer to a club, with the gentle din of a crowd and a band playing Blues in the Night.]



Bouncer: Excuse me ma’am, you’ve got to leave that out here.



Patron: What? Leave what out here?



Bouncer: Is this your first time at Motley’s Nightlife?



Patron: Yeah, I’m in from New York for the weekend.



Bouncer: Oh! We got Jimmie Lunceford here from New York as well. But, this place is a little different. We don’t allow that stuff inside.



Patron: What are you going on about?



Bouncer: Jim don't crow here - ain't no paper bag party either. No stress, no worries, just a damn good time.



Patron: You don't know a thing about MY worries.



Bouncer: I can see it there, draped on your shoulders. Heavy burdens. You carry 'em with you everywhere you go. But here you got to put them down. Step inside. See what it's like.



Patron: Ohhhh... You mean I can just put 'em down here in this this pile with the rest?



Bouncer: Yes ma’am.



[The patron drops her burdens to the ground.]



Patron: Mmmmmmhm.



Ponders: She felt her shoulders raise, her back expand, her chin lift ever so slightly, as she walked without the burden on her shoulders, into Motley’s Nightlife.



Patron: Hm. That’s much better. Thank you!



Bouncer: Of course. Have a nice night ma’am.



[The sounds of people drinking, and dancing, under a particularly intricate jazz solo that takes us from the instrumental Blues in the Night to the sung version of the same tune.]



Ponders: Her eyes were immediately filled with people of all sorts. A couple sits near the door, taking a break from the dancing to get a draft of the cool spring air everytime a new patron enters. The man smiles and closes his eyes when the door opens, sighing in the momentary relief. They’ve found a nice spot to take a break from their lindy hop and continue their other dance over drinks.



Behind them, a couple... dance the jitterbug? Or at least he’s trying. His steps are way too wide and his shoes clunk against the floor with every beat. He seems to be enjoying it but she’s... well... But now a well dressed man with a flat cap reaches out a hand with a cigarette between his second and middle fingers, to offer her some relief. She’s too polite though. She’ll finish this dance and then take him up on his offer.



The crowd goes ten or twenty deep behind them, all drinking and smoking, mooching and grinding. One couple does the local strut in place, while another does a pastiche of a tango across the floor. The only thing you can say about them all is that they’re all smiling. Jimmie Lunceford is in from New York tonight, but even if he wasn’t here, the walls would be thumping with that raucous swing that coats the whole world in that unnatural, beautiful magenta glow.



Behind the bar, one man twists the bottles so the lights can make their names visible to the inebriated customers. Still another cuts off the woman in front of him and the head off the beer, both having foamed over the edge. And next to her sits a woman in bright emerald, with a red beret tipped up. She’s clearly grown bored with the drunk girl next to her, and maybe even the whole crowd, and is relieved to see some fresh company as our New Yorker enters the scene. She sees the girl in green smile, and decides to take a chance on the empty barstool next to her.



We’ll leave ‘em to it. Let’s step outside for a smoke, and talk about Mr. Motley.



[Footsteps and the door creaks, as the bar fades into the background. Ponders fumbles with a lighter.]



Bouncer: Ponders, you’ve got to take that with you.



Ponders: Oh come on James, I’m only out for a smoke. You know I wont leave without it.



James the Bouncer: Them’s the rules Ponders. I don’t make ‘em, I just keep ‘em



Ponders: Oh alright. Mine’s not as heavy it’s just awkward. The white male privilege takes a few pounds off but the white guilt is big and bulky.



[Ponders pulls their burdens out of the pile and puts them up on their shoulders.]



Ponders: Anyways, as I was saying, Mr. Archibald Motley Jr. is the proprietor of this establishment. It’s well loved. It’s got it’s regulars, and its passers bye who are all are caught in its gorgeous glow. Of course, at one point every regular was just a passerby caught, knowing they would never pass by again. But still others don’t let it work on them. They’re here for the more popular establishment that’s right around the corner.



Motley actually painted Nightlife in 1943, after visiting the Chicago Art Institute and seeing Hopper’s Nighthawks. You can see where he gets the unnatural lighting, maybe the pose of the bartender, and the voyeuristic perspective; but other than that, there is little held in common between the two.



James the Bouncer: I’d like to add that the other thing you’ll often hear about the Nightlife is about the colorism, or rather the lack thereof. For those who may not be aware, colorism is discrimination based on not just race, but the hue and shade of a person's skin, where a person with a darker shade of skin is treated different, and usually worse, than a person with a lighter shade of skin. Being of mixed race himself, French and Creole, and having a much lighter skin tone, colorism was a theme in many of his paintings. There are other pieces you can see where Motley dives into colorism in much more depth, but you can see those ideas here in Nightlife as well.