Booze Blues

"Ask him about it." The gesture led to the sole customer at the bar-a short man, with a shabby coat and a weary stance.

The little man turned with my approach, and at the question smiled.

"So you wants the scoop on jazz, and how it all begun, and what it meant to them that helped it get born. Well, you just wait a bit and Pete'll be in. He played it back before it had a name-back when they was discovering it. That is, they had something all the time, only didn't know, which is a thing a lot o' people don't understand; and they begin to believe this feller or that invented it-and it ain't so, cause I know better."

His eyes caught fire and the tempo increased.

"In New Orleans, it was. And nobody made much money at first, especially the band men; the only musicians that made real money was the piano players; the other fellers lot o' times they'd work for a dollar a night-maybe a funeral procession would be two dollars-two dollars and a half-'cause New Orleans stick close to the scripture: that means 'rejoice unto death' and 'cry unto birth.' But you can't go counting on folks dying off too quick."

The bartender appeared and filled the speaker's glass.

"Pete played back when jazz was dirt, and money like I said come from funerals, and maybe a honky-tonk or some dance hall over Storyville. They played beat-up horns and cigar-box banjos and basses made from barrels; and Pete had an old piano goods for noise but no tone-so they let the rhythm carry the tune, and they had more than enough of that. And pretty soon the people got to like the noise, and things moved fast and loud, like anybody'll tell who's heard an old-time band battle."

He finished his refill and motioned for another. I wondered whether he would outlast his own tale, but said nothing.

"Today they puts jazz into college and they writes books about what Pete used to play; and they 'civilize' the stuff, but they change it too- 'cause you can't feel the blues from reading no book. And you can't spell Bach with a small 'b' and make Basin St. from it. Not that it ain't music or ain't good-but it's different, and some don't know it. And they tell you what jazz is and what it ought to be and I start to thinking that maybe I gone crazy or had too much to drink. But you wait for Pete, and hear what he say."

With this comment he departed, leaving an empty glass as a sign that he had been real. I remained transfixed until the bartender asked, "Hey, buddy! you paying for Pete's drinks?"