Draw a dividing line down the length of the island of Manhattan, and you have the West Side and the East Side.  The West Side has an unfair advantage: it’s long had a monopoly on music.  This part of town has been home to Carnegie Hall, Tin Pan Alley, the Cotton Club, the Copacobana, Birdland, Lincoln Center, Studio 54, and S.O.B.’s.  Mozart, Broadway musicals, and rock thrive here.  Bebop and disco just about got their start here.  So did meringue, salsa, and reggaeton.  Arturo Toscanini, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, John Lennon, Sid Vicious, Tina Turner, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, and Tupac have all lived or performed on Manhattan’s West Side.

          As for the flacon:  richly hued in red and blue, it of course displays the universal symbol of music—the curling treble clef.

         We’ve asked ourselves—What’s the sound of Bond No. 9’s West Side?  Are we talking The Platters’ version of Twilight Time, maybe? Lizst’s Piano Concerto No. 2.  Cole Porter’s Begin the Beguine?  Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue?  Philip Glass’s Koyaanisqatsi?  That’s just our nose at work.  Fragrance, like music, is open to interpretation.  Everyone who sniffs it will hear—and smell—a different melody of their own.