try that." After she finished the song she said, "I thInk that works. All right, off we go! " T HREE is a long, narrow brick- walled place with a bar up front, a kitchen in the middle, and a small, square room in the back. The back room has an upright piano centered on one wall and facing a d07en tables. Joyce Ackers met us in the bar dnd said that she had spent the day trying to get the word around that Blossom Dearie would be singing that evening. She turned to me: "Anyway, Jean Bach, who produces Arlene Francis's radio show on ",TOR and is an old, old friend of Blossom's, is coming with a friend, and so is Harold Taylor. He used to behead of Sarah L.:l wrence, and he's an educational bigwig now. He's bringing Viveca Lindfors, who's dying to hear Blossom. And there may be a couple of other people." The friends arrived around six, and after Blossom Dearie had chatted with them she went into the back room and played by herself for ten minutes. Then she came out and said it was time. All nine or ten of us-several people had come in off the street-trooped into the back room. A heavy black curtain was drawn across the door, the lights went down, and she started in with "Ask Yourself "'Thy," by Michel Legrand. She has a busy, luminous, childlike look when she sings. Her brow furrows