As an entr’acte between all the WAM stories (sallying forth, perhaps, from here), here’s a jazz joke.

A marriage guidance counsellor is having a tough time at a session with a couple reluctant to make any effort—sullenly refusing to speak to each other, only addressing their bitter comments through the counsellor.

So he whips out his double bass and starts playing a convoluted jazz solo. At once the couple strike up an animated conversation.

Intrepid early-and later-music bass player Pete McCarthy told me this one on a long coach ride on a US tour, c2001.