When is Returning a Gift its Own Gift? (Part I: The Black Dress)

I unzipped and removed the plastic sheath covering the dress. It still looked as beautiful as I imagine it had when its first owner saw it sometime back in the 1940s. I didn’t know whether it had been sewn by its owner, or purchased in a dress shop, but I did know that it held many stories.

How the dress made its way to me was a mystery, except for the last step in the journey. It was given to me by its current owner, my friend Marsha, around a decade ago. I hadn’t yet formed my original swing band, Jump Me Martha. I was just ready to make my first record, a solo project called Life Sentences, and had produced an EP of some of the songs, which Marsha loved. I came to a party she had shortly after and it was blaring from her stereo when I walked in the door.

Marsha, a nursery owner with her husband Brian, was a talented visual artist, and a great lover and supporter of music and musicians. She was on the scene at many music events and often attended performances of area musicians, contributing to their campaigns to raise funds for making albums, and then buying those albums—not just for her, but also to give as gifts. She was the kind of patron we all adored because she so gave so much of herself in return for what she described as the “ineffable joy of music.”

One day at her house, she said, “You know I have collect vintage dresses, right? You should have one

Mom’s brooches. My favorite was the rainbow rhinestones (2nd from top). Every time I wore one I felt like the ’50s version of her was with me.

to wear at your shows!” I loved wearing these dresses, and almost always wore one of my mother’s brooches from that era, even if I was wearing contemporary clothing.

We happily rambled through the closet and I tried on a few beautiful gowns. Marsha and I both had full figures, but she was a much taller and bigger-boned woman than me, so we laughed at how some of them were clearly not my size. And then she said, “Oh, I know!” and pulled out a dress from the back of the closet. “This one was always too small for me. It ought to be just right for you.” I put it on, pulling up the long back zipper, and as the zipper teeth closed, the dress seemed to mold itself to me.

We looked at each other in the mirror in delight. It was perfect. “Like it was made for you!” Marsha said clapping her hands.

The dress

My drawing from memory…I can’t believe I can’t find ANY pictures from any shows!

It was made of a fine black nubby silk, with burnished gold floral epaulets draping across the shoulders and over the padded short butterfly sleeves. It had the sweetheart neckline made famous in that era by the Hollywood Pattern Company, and was fitted through the bodice, flaring out into a paneled tulip skirt that ended just below the knees. It was classy, elegant, dressy, but it had a certain reserve to it as well. It wasn’t glam or glitz; this dress was more the kind of dress you’d imagine Billie Holiday to wear before she became famous and was still singing in smoky small nightclubs. It was perfect.

I felt like I couldn’t accept such a beautiful treasure, but Marsha insisted. “It’s not getting any use back in that closet. And you’ll rock that thing.”

There was no saying no to that woman; she just had a way of making you feel okay about anything. She zipped it up in a clear plastic garment bag, and I left later excited to wear it for an upcoming gig the band was doing for a company party.

The dress got worn many times over the next decade. It kind of became the dress for me. I didn’t wear it for every gig, but there were gigs it seemed to just fit. Every time I removed the dress I had it dry cleaned and replaced in the plastic bag.

Over the next decade, Marsha’s life and mine marched on. Our paths would cross occasionally. Though we didn’t see each other often, we were always close at heart. Sadly, she lost Brian, and made major changes in her life to simplify. I was doing the same. I’d had a great decade of performing, writing and recording with Jump Me Martha, but things came to a natural end after the release of our record Go Fat Daddy in 2009. Marsha had purchased 20 copies of it and said it never left her CD player. As always, she was a great supporter of my work, as I know she was of many other musicians.

(…Continued in Part II)

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