The record that only sounds right after midnight

There is a trio record on my shelf, piano, bass, brushes, that I have played at dinner perhaps forty times. At dinner it is pleasant. It does its job. Nobody asks what it is.

After midnight it becomes a different record.

I have tried to work out why, and the best I can do is this: at dinner the room is louder than the bass. You hear the piano carry the tunes and the drummer keep time, and that is all the record seems to be. After midnight the room drops below the bass, and you finally hear what the bassist is doing, which is arguing, very politely, with every chord the pianist chooses.

What changes

The second track, which I had always skipped, turns out to be the whole point. The bassist plays the melody a half-beat late for three choruses, and the pianist pretends not to notice until the last one, when he plays it late too. It is a joke, and it takes eleven minutes, and you can only hear it when the house is asleep.

Liner notes

The back of the sleeve says the session ran until four in the morning. I believe it. Some records are just made for the hour they were made in.

I am not going to tell you which record it is. Find your own. Play it at dinner first, so you know what it sounds like when it is pretending.

— w.