Tiger Rag (20 page)

At quarter to six, Bella Cornish got off the Number 5 trolley on LaSalle Street and walked the short distance to Leonard’s office. She carried a blue umbrella and walked with a cane. Her hair was white and her shoulders stooped, but some of her youthful beauty still shone through the wrinkles and shadows of her face. You could see she had been a spry, spirited woman. But by the late forties, unable to get by on her own, she had moved out to Gentilly to live with her daughter Charlene. The doctor said she was doing all right, and Charlene was encouraging, but Bella knew her heart was growing weaker. She could feel it when she climbed stairs or woke short of
breath in the night. Sometimes when that really scared her, she called out to Willie, and it was taking her longer now to remember he was gone
.

As her condition worsened, Bella wanted to make sure she honored her pledge to Willie and passed the Bolden cylinder on to someone they both trusted. Willie had told her he intended to approach Leonard Bechet again when the circumstances were right. Willie wanted the cylinder to stay in the hands of musicians or their kin—the only people he trusted. Bella sent Leonard a letter to that effect, and he responded immediately, inviting her to meet with him. He had been searching for her in vain in New Orleans for over a year. Jazz had become wildly popular, and Bolden’s name was frequently invoked by critics and musicians alike. Leonard had come to regret his rebuff of Willie Cornish in Chicago twenty-five years earlier. He wished he had shown more faith in Willie’s judgment. Now Leonard felt an increased urgency because, like Bella, he too was gravely ill, recently diagnosed with stomach cancer. The cylinder might not be in his hands for long, but he knew he was in a better position than Bella to find a young, trustworthy caretaker. Someone who would cherish the cylinder the way Willie Cornish had, and if the opportunity arose, put it before the public in the proper way
.

When Bella walked into Leonard’s office, he had just finished up with his last patient of the day. He was still wearing his white medical jacket over a white shirt and black tie. The jacket looked large on him; he was naturally a big man, but he had lost a lot of weight in the last two months. Rain was tapping at the windowpanes. Bella remembered Willie telling her that Leonard had been a fair trombonist on the slide but never did master the valve. She was impressed by the size of his offices
,
the bright cleanliness, the furniture in the waiting room. Leonard seated her beside his desk. Poured her a glass of water. Saw how hard she was breathing. And the twitch in her right eyelid
.

Thank you for answering my letter,
she said
.

Of course. How are you, Bella?

How does it look.

Getting headaches?

Not like Willie.

But you’re getting them.

I am. Doctor gave me these.
She took a pill bottle from her handbag
. For blood pressure.

Leonard examined the label
. Dr. Franks. Don’t know him. This is a strong dose. Would you like to see my doctor, too?

What for?

Another opinion.

I don’t need no other opinions. I know what’s happening. That’s why I wrote you. That’s why I’m here.
She reached into her handbag again and took out the leather pouch Willie had stowed in her Indian chest all those years ago
. On account of this,
she said, placing it on his desk
.

He opened the pouch and carefully removed the cylinder. He read the white lettering inked on the rim in Oscar Zahn’s hand:
CHARLES BOLDEN
—“
TIGER RAG
”—
5 JULY 04
.

That cylinder meant the world to Willie,
Bella said
.

I know it did. I’m sure you listened to it.

Many times. I never heard them play better. Now it’s all that’s left of them. I still don’t know that anyone’s gonna want to buy it.

There’s a good chance that will happen.

Well, if it does, I know you’ll see it happens right. If not,
you pass it along to someone else who will do the same.
She shrugged
. It’s gotta end somewhere.

Yes it does. Willie told me there were three takes.

Yes, and this was the best of them.

Leonard slipped the cylinder back into the pouch
. I’ll take good care of it. I promise.

Bella died two months later
.

And in July 1949, as he opened the pouch for Sammy LeMond, Leonard knew he himself had only a few months to live. He was fast losing his battle with cancer, just as Bunk Johnson had lost his three weeks earlier
.

After listening to Leonard recount what he knew of the cylinder’s history, LeMond was astonished when Leonard handed it to him
.

But why do you want me to have it?
LeMond said
.

Same reason the Cornishes gave it to me: because I can trust you. And I know what the music means to you.

But what about your brother?

What about him? Sidney is living in France year-round now. He has a new wife. A big house in Marseilles. He’s a celebrity. He can barely keep up with all the gigs and recordings they want from him. The government’s pinned medals on him. They write about what he eats and wears and the cars he drives. He wouldn’t be watching after this. He never paid notice to the memorabilia I collected, including his own. I’m giving most of it to my daughter Ruth. She can sell it, donate it, whatever. Sidney can be careless, and he doesn’t much care about things, old or new, outside of his instruments. I love him, but I know him well. Anyway, this is something special. Bill Russell and these music critics are writing about Bolden now. People are learning who he was.
He shook his head
. These fellas are putting
together books about jazz. To me, it’s a swirl of memories: dance halls, saloons, juke joints, and all the musicians that came and went. To other people, it’s serious history now, and I suppose this is a piece of it.
He opened a drawer
. This, too. Willie Cornish gave it to me a long time ago, when he tried to give me the cylinder.

He held up the photograph of the Bolden Band and ran his finger from figure to figure:
Frank Lewis, Willie Warner, Cornish, Brock Mumford, Bolden, Jimmy Johnson. Looks like somebody nailed a sheet up behind them. I knew them all, one way or another.

When he was riding high, Bolden was a customer of my father’s,
LeMond said
.

I didn’t know, but I’m not surprised. He always dressed sharp.

LeMond’s father had told Sammy he made Bolden two suits—one white, one black-and-blue striped—and a yellow silk vest, specially cut so Bolden could get down low when he performed. LeMond would never know that this was in fact the vest Bolden had been wearing when he recorded “Tiger Rag.” It was enough for him that his father had been up close to Bolden, fitting him before a full-length mirror
.

LeMond looked back at the photograph
. What happened to the rest of the band?

Mumford put down his guitar and took up barbering. He had a photo collection of everyone he played with—Bolden, Keppard, Perez—but after he passed away, it disappeared. Frank Lewis moved across the lake to Mandeville and died of TB. Jimmy Johnson played in Fate Marabale’s band on a riverboat. Willie Warner joined Sidney in the Eagle Orchestra, then took off for California. He was the youngest and he died
young. For the few years they were together, these fellas blew down some big doors. They were jamming onstage before anybody called it that. Bolden invented improvisation on the cornet. The band would be playing fast and hot and he’d just take off, like he had a stick of dynamite in his gut. Some people thought that was why he went crazy, blowing so hard, but it wasn’t. His music was what kept him going. After Sidney’s old teacher, George Baquet, sat in with Bolden, he said he never played the same again. And George was a serious man, he didn’t speak off the cuff. Bolden liked to get down and dirty in the dives on Cherokee Street. The clientele was rough and they liked their music loud. But he made his money in the big dance halls, playing the slow blues, deep and low, for the ladies. He was the first jazzman to play the blues for dancing. Those were his specialties,
Leonard chuckled
, ladies and blues.
He passed LeMond the photograph
. Take this, too, Sammy. And keep that cylinder safe.

Sammy LeMond invited Valentine Owen to sit in with his Eclipse Sextet on the Fourth of July, 1959, at Club Tunis on Forty-sixth Street. At that time, LeMond was thirty-five, six years younger than Owen, though LeMond seemed like the older man. Owen was less accomplished, less sophisticated, and until that evening operating on a far lower professional level. He had been doing session work, recording instrumental tracks for radio jingles, and at night performing with pickup bands in New Jersey clubs. While Clifford Brown and Miles Davis were taking the jazz trumpet into new terrain, Owen was one of the hundreds of technically capable but uninspired professional musicians who could play popular standards
.

Sammy LeMond wasn’t a prodigy like Brown, but he was a gifted player with a devoted following. RCA had just signed him to a recording contract. He had a large, lush sound. He had grown up listening to his father’s soca and calypso records, and his earliest musical roots were as much Caribbean as New Orleans. His later models were Roy Eldridge and Mario Bauza, the virtuoso from Havana. After playing swing and bebop for a dozen years, LeMond was steering his band toward a cooler, more adventurous sound. He worked in the middle registers, playing brisk, exuberant solos, improvising smartly in and around the melodic line. In the mid-fifties, during the calypso craze, he enjoyed a celebrated run, forging the sound critics dubbed “Tropical Cool,” which was so widely imitated over the years that LeMond realized this was the label that would stick to him no matter what else he did
.

The Eclipse Sextet boasted a Coleman Hawkins protégé on saxophone, Stan Getz’s former bassist, and a samba guitarist from Rio who alternated on flute. A journeyman like Valentine Owen found himself in this company for one reason only: his ability to ingratiate himself with people who, out of vanity or generosity, put aside their better judgment. In the case of Sammy LeMond, it was his generosity
.

He met LeMond at a jam session at Lou Hayes’s basement studio on Fifty-sixth Street. Hayes was Dizzy Gillespie’s pianist. Owen used to go to the racetrack with him and his brother, and he got Hayes to introduce him to LeMond. After a couple of drinks, Owen complimented LeMond on his playing—not too fulsomely—and asked where his sextet would be appearing next. Two nights later, Owen was sitting at a front-row table at the Blue Note. He went backstage. He returned four nights in a row. By week’s end, he joined LeMond, his girlfriend Monique
,
and a party of friends for dinner at the Mermaid Room. Then Owen was invited to a party at LeMond’s apartment in Harlem, six spacious rooms on 111th Street, overlooking Central Park. Owen was mightily impressed by the teak furniture, African sculptures, and white Steinway grand in LeMond’s living room. And the view clear across the park to the tall buildings on Central Park West. Within a month of meeting LeMond, Owen made his move. He and LeMond were having lunch at a coffee shop on Columbus Avenue. LeMond ordered ham and eggs, Owen a bowl of bean soup he barely touched. It was 96 degrees and humid. The air was heavy. The city seemed to be operating in slow motion. Stores were closing early. Bus fumes lingered long after the buses were gone. The customers lining the counter were hunched over, quiet. On the radio the announcer at Yankee Stadium was calling the play-by-play in a languorous monotone
.

I have a chance with a band out of Miami,
Owen said
. Ever hear of Tex Mayeux?

LeMond shook his head
.

His band, the Hurricanes, plays Dixieland.

You going to audition?

Tex wants more than that.

LeMond was buttering his toast
. Like what?

Like hearing me live with a band. He’s in New York next week for some Cajun music festival.

So you’re playing with those boys in Jersey City, right?

Owen sighed
. I am. But they’re a pickup band. And it’s a lousy club. Bad acoustics, a noisy bar. I can’t bring him there.

LeMond signaled the waitress for more coffee
. Can you get some other gig?

I don’t know.
He fidgeted as if he was nervous, but he wasn’t really nervous
. I thought maybe you could help.

How’s that?

See, it’s got to be a special gig.
Owen hesitated
. Oh hell. I can’t ask you this, man. Forget it.

What?

Owen stubbed out his cigarette
. Look, if I’m out of line, stop me. I wondered if I could sit in with the sextet for a couple of numbers, with Tex in the house.

LeMond sat back, and misreading his gaze, Owen was afraid he had offended him. In fact, LeMond’s mind had wandered far from that place and time, and it had nothing to do with Valentine Owen, but with a stranger who had entered the coffee shop, lingered for several seconds, then changed her mind and walked out. LeMond was back in his father’s shop, age twelve, practicing Fats Waller’s “All My Life,” the number one hit in the spring of 1936
—All my life, I’ve been waiting for you—
when the bell affixed to the door tinkled and a young girl in a green coat walked in out of the rain. The wind was blowing her hair over her face, which he never did see. Whether she had chosen the wrong address, or thought to duck out of the storm and changed her mind, she immediately stepped back outside. LeMond laid down his trumpet and rushed out after her, with no idea of what he would say or do, looking up and down the street, but she was gone. Several times in the ensuing years he thought he glimpsed her again—on a steamboat, in the Mardi Gras crowd, riding a streetcar on Canal Street—always in a green coat or dress and just out of reach, so that he knew it would be futile to chase after her. He didn’t believe in magic, or fate, or God, and he thought coincidence was just
another word for luck, good or bad. He didn’t believe in spirits, either, but he didn’t have to in this case: though her appearances were fleeting, whatever else she was, this girl was flesh and blood, and very much of this world
.