The Jazz Kid (12 page)

What made the difference? I wasn't even sure I knew—something to do with not hammering down on the beat all the time to make it go, like Tommy said, but letting the beat take care of itself so I could prance around on top of it. Some idea like that. It was hard to explain, but I could see now why they were always saying that you couldn't learn how to play jazz— couldn't just take lessons in it, the way you could learn how to play a march just by following the rules. With jazz, you had to have a certain attitude. You couldn't wrestle it to the ground, you had to let it happen to you. Something like that, anyway.

I put the needle back on the record and played along with it again, trying to figure out exactly what I was doing. I couldn't, and I started to play it a third time, but Rory put a stop to it. He was all for jazz, he said, but there could be too much of a good thing.

I could hardly wait to get down to Tommy's and show him what I could do.
Maybe
Rory wouldn't know the difference, but Tommy would. The problem was that just then Pa ran into a job he could use me on every day. I think he had a hunch that I wasn't long for school, anyway, and he wanted to start training me for the plumbing business. It wasn't anything you could even argue with him about. He had it all planned out.

On top of it, Ma was leaning on me hard to get a head start on my schoolwork for the next year. Of course, she didn't know that Miss Hassler squeezed me through, but she could see by my grades that it had been mighty close. She went down to the library, got out a speller and a math book, and drilled me whenever she could catch hold of me. Poor Ma, she was going to hate it when I turned out to be a jazz musician living in a room with a bare lightbulb and records scattered on the floor. But maybe after a while I'd do real good at music, have a fancy apartment and ride around in a swell new car. That would be more cheerful for her.

Anyway, Ma didn't catch up to me with the speller too often, for Grampa wasn't doing any better, and she was over there a lot, tending to him.

Between one thing and another it was a week before I got down to Tommy. In the end I was disappointed. I played for him in my new way, but he wasn't as impressed as I figured he would be. All he said was, “Yeah, sounds good, kid. You been making a lot of progress this summer.”

“It was the first time it sounded like jazz to me,” I said.

“Oh, I wouldn't of said that.” He took a sip of coffee. “Listen, can you get away tomorrow afternoon? I'm subbing for a fella at a tea dance over on Halsted up near you somewhere. If you brought your horn around maybe you could sit in.”

He said it so casual, like he could have done it anytime, but it was a shock to me. I'd never actually heard a jazz band live, except that time at the Society Cafe, and here he was asking me to play with one. My mouth fell open. “Do you think they'd let me?”

He shrugged. “You know how it is. Some fellas don't mind about sitting in, some do. There's no harm in asking. I don't know about these here fellas—they got a pretty good opinion of themselves. They call themselves the Austin High Gang, and they
like
to think jazz is their private secret.”

“Who's in it?”

“I don't reckon you know their names. They're mostly around my age—a little bit younger, maybe. Saxophone player named Freeman. Dave Tough on drums. The star's the clarinet—Teschemacher. I don't know any of ‘em except to say hello to.”

“How come you're subbing?”

He shrugged. “Search me. Freeman got hold of me and said their cornet, McPartland, couldn't make it. It's only a tea dance, but what the hell, it's five bucks.”

Well, I was so nervous I could hardly eat supper, hardly go to sleep that night. There were about sixteen things that could go wrong, and one of them was bound to. Pa could decide he wanted me on a job, Ma could decide to drill me on spelling. What about my clothes? I'd have to dress up as good as I could, and if Ma saw me combing my hair, much less cleaning my fingernails without being told, she'd know something was up.

What I did was get up bright and early and take the garbage down. Then I sat under the stoop as long as I dared, hoping Pa would go to work. Finally he did. I went back upstairs. “Where've you been all this time?” Ma said. “Pa was looking for you.”

“I took the garbage down. You're always complaining if I don't do it, and now you're complaining when I did it.”

“It doesn't take a half an hour to take the garbage down. I suppose you were sitting on the stoop, daydreaming.”

I decided she might as well think that. “It wasn't a half an hour,” I said.

I spent the morning staying out of sight in our room, pretending I was studying my speller. Around noon Ma sent me out to fetch some stuff from the store. She fixed fried-egg sandwiches for lunch. I was too excited to eat, but I forced myself, so she wouldn't get suspicious. After lunch I hid out in our room for another hour. Then I took a clean shirt and a necktie out of the bureau and stuffed them into my cornet case. I told Ma I was going over to Hull House to practice, and lit out for Rory's. I told Rory what was up. He was all excited, and wanted to go along, too. I said I didn't know if he could get in or not, and he said it didn't matter, he'd walk me over anyway. So I put on the clean shirt,
and
then I picked up the tie. The only time I ever wore a tie was to church on Christmas and Easter, and once when Ma took me and John to the photographer to get a picture to send to the relatives. I didn't have much of an idea how to tie one, and Rory had even less of an idea, for Mrs. Flynn wasn't a big one for dressing up, and Rory didn't have a tie.

But he was bound to give advice. “That isn't right, Paulie,” he said. “You got to wrap it around the other way.”

“If I wrap it around the other way it'll come apart.”

“No it won't,” he said. “Try it.”

I tried it. “See, Rory. I told you it'd come apart.”

“You didn't do it right. You got to push it up through there and then around here.”

“I could do that easy enough if I had three hands,” I said.

“Like this,” he said, grabbing on to one end.

“Leggo, you're strangling me.” But in the end we got a knot that I figured would pass—about the size and shape of a crabapple, I had to admit, and the thin part of the tie stuck out below the fat part a couple of inches, but at least I had on a necktie. Then we flew out of there and over to Halsted Street.

The tea dance was being held in a Jewish temple and was supposed to run from four o'clock to six. Not being Jewish, I didn't know what the dance was for, but it didn't matter. We marched up to the front door. A fat guy in a yarmulke was standing there. “I'm with the band,” I said.

He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. “Around back,” he said. “Musicians around back.”

We went down the alley, up a short flight of iron stairs and in. There was a low stage at one end of the room, flowers in vases on tables against the wall, a couple of potted plants. Already a bunch of kids dressed up in suits and dresses were milling around. Tommy and the others were on the stage—saxophone, another saxophone doubling on the clarinet, drums, piano, banjo. Tommy looked at me, but didn't say anything, just went on warming up. Me and Rory went down to the bandstand where
there
was a row of chairs against the wall, and sat down. I felt pretty nervous. We couldn't get away with claiming we were with the band when we weren't up there playing. I tried to think up a good story, like how a couple of the musicians weren't feeling too good, and we were there just in case. It didn't seem like a very good story; luckily, nobody bothered us.

Then the band started to play and I was in my glory. I sat there tapping my foot, swallowed up in the music. The world around me was gone—Rory was gone, the dancers were gone, the temple was gone—the only thing in the world for me was the music. On and on it went. Time stopped moving.

Finally they took a break. Tommy laid his horn on the piano and came over to me. The other musicians drifted outside into the alley. Tommy put his hand on my shoulder. “You got your horn?”

I gestured down under my feet. “It's there.”

“I talked to the fellas. This clarinet player, Teschemacher, he's the leader. The one with glasses. He said to come up at the end of the next set for a number.” He stuck his thumb at Rory. “Who's this? He want to sit in?”

“That's Rory I told you about. He doesn't play anything.”

“My ma has a phonograph,” Rory said. “Otherwise Paulie wouldn't pay me no attention at all.”

“Shut up, Rory,” I said.

“I'm going to catch some air,” Tommy said and went outside.

I didn't know how I was going to stand waiting through a whole set. I was nervous and excited as could be. What if I made a mess of it? What if I hit a couple of clams and couldn't get straightened around? Tommy always said you got to allow for clams: the trick was to forget them the minute you hit them. Some musicians, he said, you'd go on hearing a clam for eight bars afterwards. If you hit a clam, forget it and go on.

But suppose I didn't forget it. Suppose I hit a clam and froze up—just stood there with my cornet up to my lips and nothing coming out? Finally I said to myself,
damn
it, I'm not going to freeze. I'm going to play it just like I was sitting on Rory's back porch. Still, I wished somehow I had a chance to warm up.

The musicians came back, joking quietly about something. Again I fell down inside the music, but this time I listened more careful, so as to get some idea of what I might run up against: the kind of backup figures they were using, the order of solos, if they gave the bridges on the ensemble to the banjo the way bands sometimes did. Playing a tea dance for a bunch of kids wasn't a big job—two or three hours, five bucks a man, and then they'd go off to their regular jobs, if they had any. With a sub in there on cornet they wouldn't be able to play any little head arrangements they'd memorized. They were just jamming, sticking mostly to pop tunes the kids knew, like “The Japanese Sandman,” “Wabash Blues,” “My Buddy.” Generally Tommy played the lead, but sometimes he'd lay out, the clarinet player would switch to sax, and then two saxes would harmonize on the melody. It was a nice effect. I wondered if they worked that stuff out in advance, or were faking it. Tommy said a good musician was supposed to be able to cook up a harmony part on the spot.

So on they went, and after they banged their way through “My Honey's Lovin' Arms.” I saw Tommy looking over at me. He gave a little wave. My heart jumped. I grabbed my cornet case and trotted up onto the bandstand. “My God, Tommy, the kid's still in knee pants,” Teschemacher said.

“It's all right, Tesch. These kids ain't gonna notice.”

“Okay, kid. What do you want to play?”

“Farewell Blues,” I said. I'd played that thing almost every day for six months. I wouldn't have thought of playing anything else.

“Stand here by me,” Tommy said. “Back me up until you get loose. When I point, take your solo.”

“Solo?”

“Sure,” he said. “What the hell's the point of sitting in if you don't get a solo?”

That sure took me by surprise: I didn't have any idea they would let me play a solo, and it scared me some. But I didn't have time to be scared, for Teschemacher was
counting
off, and then we were into it. I played along behind Tommy, so quiet at first I could hardly hear myself. Just being up there on the stand with real jazz musicians excited me so much it didn't matter whether anyone could hear me or not.

What surprised me most was the difference it made to play with a real rhythm section. I could feel it going through me in a way I couldn't playing with a record. That was the most exciting part of it— having that rhythm there to float on.

After about sixteen bars I remembered I wasn't up there just to feel good; I was supposed to make music. I began to blow out a little, trying to find something to put in behind Tommy—sometimes just a couple of harmony notes, sometimes a little idea to fill in a gap. We came to the end of the second chorus. Tommy swung around, pointed his cornet at me, and blew a little run-up figure to send me off.

It took me by surprise, but luckily I was already into a little idea I was going to use to bridge across from one chorus to the next. It came out stark naked, and scary: ready or not I was playing a solo. To get a grip on myself I dropped back onto the melody, which I'd played hundreds of times, and stuck with it through the first eight bars. But it wouldn't prove anything to me or anybody else if all I played was melody. I had to take a chance and turn myself loose. So I ran up a scale to a G, and hit a clam—missed the G and got a note that was part E but mostly broken glass. Forget it, I told myself. Forget it. I ran back down again nice and firm to a middle C and I was all right. I sailed on to the end, feeling better and better. By the time I hit the turnaround I was game to take another chorus. But Tommy came back in with the lead, I fell in behind him, and we jammed on out to the end. I stood there, holding the cornet by my side, my hands shaking. I was a jazz musician.

Tommy put his arm over my shoulders. “You did good, kid.”

Teschemacher put the cap over his mouthpiece. “Yeah, you were all right, kid. Tommy must have taught you something. You know all the tunes?”

I thought about lying, but Tommy was standing there. “A few,” I said.

“Stick with it,” Tesch said. Then they all went off the stand and out into the alley

Rory
and I followed them. They stood around talking. I figured that me and Rory would stand around and listen to them talk, just so we could feel like we were jazz musicians, too, but Tommy gave my shoulder another squeeze, and said, “See you around, kid.” I guess there was a limit to how much they wanted kids our age around.