The Jazz Kid (21 page)

Ma and John were sitting in the kitchen at the old wooden table, just sitting there, waiting. When I came through the door, they stood up. I didn't know if they hated me or were glad to see me, or what. But I was sure glad to see them.

For a minute nobody said anything: they looked at me and I looked at them. But I knew what I had to do. “I'm sorry, Ma. I'm sorry I caused everybody so much trouble.”

“
I should think you would be,” Ma said. But she put her hands over her eyes and rubbed at them, like they were tired. “When on earth was the last time you washed that shirt?”

I took out my handkerchief and blew my nose.

“Where the hell have you been?” John said. He sounded sore, but I knew he was plenty curious— maybe jealous, too, that I'd had some adventure he was left out of.

“John,” Ma said, “It isn't up to you to chastise Paulie. That's Pa's business. Paulie, sit down. There's some leftover stew. I'll heat it up for you.”

I sat down. “How did Pa find me? How did he know where I was?”

“Your friend Tommy came over about an hour ago. He said you'd been at his place, but was gone, and he was worried that you'd gone over to that dive. He and Pa went over. Pa was going to wait outside while your friend found out if you were there.”

I could see what had happened. When Tommy came in Herbie had still been out in the club. He'd told Tommy to start playing. I figured that during the piano solo Tommy had walked off the bandstand and asked one of the waiters if I was there. Then he'd signaled to Pa somehow, as soon as he got a chance. Something like that, anyway.

But I didn't know for sure, and I wasn't going to find out that night, for as soon as I finished a bowl of stew Ma said we'd all lost enough sleep over me as it was, and we were going to bed.

We didn't get to talk about it until supper the next night, for Pa wasn't about to miss a day's work, no matter what, and I wasn't in the habit of waking up until noon. But Pa came home early. We all sat down in the living room, and Pa made me tell them the whole story—where I'd been, what I'd done, how I managed to feed myself. I told it all.

When I got done they all sat back and looked at me. Then Pa said, “What made you do a damn fool thing like going back to that club last night?”

I shrugged. “I figured I'd try to explain to Herbie that you didn't have anything to do with it.”

He shook his head. “That took guts, Paulie. I got to admit it. I just wished you had some brains to go along with it.”

“
How did it come out with Herb?” That was still the worrisome thing.

“It might have been worse if he had one of his pals around—that guy Socks, or somebody. But he wasn't expecting me, and he had figured he could handle you himself. I cut a deal with him. I told him I'd see you kept your mouth shut.” He stared at me. “You understand that, Paulie? You don't tell nobody anything—not Rory Flynn, not anybody.”

“Yes. I understand.”

“That's not all, Paulie. Herbie owed me two hundred seventy-five bucks. I told him I'd call it quits between him and me, even-steven.”

“Two hundred and seventy-five dollars?”

Pa nodded. “That's a lot of money, Paulie. Think about what this family could do with that much money. I could buy your ma a nice used car for that. We could get a new living room suite. There's a lot of things we could have done with that money. Think about it, Paulie.”

It was just what had happened to Tommy—got his heart set on that pawnshop cornet, and in the end it cost his sis a hundred bucks. All three of them were staring at me, to see if the message was taking hold. I felt pretty rotten. I looked at them, and then looked down at the carpet. “I'm sorry. It's all my fault.” I looked up again, hoping somebody would say it wasn't.

Pa shook his head. “No, Paulie, it isn't
all
your fault. I'm to blame some, too. Where I made my mistake was to get involved with Herb Aronowitz in the first place. It was easy money. Good enough for everybody else, and why shouldn't I take some of it? But the chickens always come home to roost. If we hadn't been in that there club two years ago, none of this would have happened, would it?”

“Pa, I'd have found out about jazz sooner or later.”

“Yeah, but it would have been later and it wouldn't have been in no gangster club. In the meanwhile, maybe you wouldn't have flunked school. I got to take part of the blame. You get mixed up with a guy like Herb, it rubs off on you sooner or later.”

He looked at me, and I looked at him. “But not all of it, Paulie. You went off
like
you was a grown-up and got yourself in a mess. You can't have it both ways. If you're a grown-up, you stay out of messes. So long as I have to get you out of them, you gotta do what I tell you.”

I didn't like that idea, but I could see the justice of it. “Yes, Pa.”

He leaned back in his chair, with his arms over his head. “Now, this friend of yours, this fella Tommy.”

“Tommy Hurd.”

“We had a long talk with him. He came up hard, like me. He isn't as dumb as I took him for at first.”

“He's real smart,” I said. “But his ma died when he was young, and he didn't get much schooling.”

“One thing he said stuck with me. He said, if you wasn't any good at anything but music, it didn't make much sense to keep you from it. He said there's good money in it, and you were coming along fine.”

Ma bit her lip. “Paulie's going back to school.”

Pa went on looking at me. “Now it cost me two-seventy-five to get you out of this. You owe me one. You're going back to school and pass a few things for your ma's sake. We'll see how it goes. And then if you're still all fired up to go into music, I won't stand in your way. No point in trying to make a plumber out of you if you're going to burn somebody's house down with a blowtorch because you was dreaming about music and set the drapes on fire.”

“Pa, I promise. I'll try to pass.” It seemed like I'd been saying that all my life.

“You have to try as hard as you can, Paulie,” Ma said.

Well, I'd try. Probably I could manage to get out of eighth grade, at least, for I was going to be older than the others, and maybe I'd be a little smarter, too. Besides, I'd have the time for it; it'd be a while before I dared to bring up music around there. How long?

Three, four months. Maybe six months. In the meantime I could practice over at Rory's, or Tommy's— enough to keep my lip up, anyway. Tommy'd get my Selmer back
for
me, and I could keep it at Rory's. Then, if it looked like I was going to pass a few subjects, I'd lean on Ma to let me start practicing at home. She had a soft spot for me.

~ T
HE
E
ND
~

How Much of This Book Is True?

P
AULIE
H
ORVATH AND
his family are, of course, made up. So is Tommy Hurd, and the various gangsters who appear in the story. So, too, are the clubs in which Tommy is shown as playing, like the Society Cafe.

However, the picture I have tried to draw of Chicago in the 1920s is based on fact. Jazz clubs like the Society were common in Chicago of the day. Gangsters did indeed have considerable control of the city, and were beating and murdering, not only each other, but innocent people. The Black Belt, as it was called, in Chicago's South Side, was as I have described it. Furthermore, the jazz clubs and dance halls there were real. In particular, Lincoln Gardens, where King Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band played, with Louis Armstrong on second cornet, was real and was as I have given it in the book. Besides Oliver—who was a heavy eater—other musicians mentioned, such as Benny Goodman, Frank Teschemacher, Jimmy McPartland, Sidney Bechet, Bud Freeman, Lawrence Duhé, and Bix Beiderbecke, were all playing around Chicago at the time in the places discussed. Most of them went on to become important figures in jazz history, although at the time of the story they were just beginning to be known. In particular, the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, which recorded first in 1922, had developed a following of jazz fans and young musicians like McPartland and Freeman. Just like Paulie, they were learning how to play jazz by copying the Rhythm Kings' records.

Perhaps more important than the factual details are the intangibles, the attitudes and feelings of the people of the day towards jazz and the world in general. The United States was, as it is today, home to millions of recent immigrants and their children, who were struggling one way or another to come to terms with the new world in which they found themselves. Most of the newcomers worked at the hardest kind of jobs, and many of them lived in poor neighborhoods. They reacted to their circumstances in various ways. A good many returned to the countries they had come from. Others simply struggled to get by from day to day. Yet others were determined to succeed in their new
homeland,
and like Frank Horvath, worked long hours at trades and businesses to advance themselves. Like Frank, these people wanted to see their children climb a step up the ladder, and were not always happy when their children chose paths that did not seem to lead to social and financial success.

Attitudes towards jazz, then, were mixed. Many young people saw this exciting new music as representative of what they felt was a new spirit coming into American life—a spirit of freer emotions and personal expression. Others saw the music as part of the breakdown in morals they felt was occurring at the time. What particularly bothered these people were the new dances being done to jazz, which seemed to them too sexy. But many felt that jazz music itself had the ability to corrupt the morals of the young.

Regretfully, the United States was then still racially segregated in a way young people today may not understand. Blacks could not eat in restaurants meant for whites, work at many jobs alongside whites, play in big league sports teams (blacks had their own leagues), sit in theaters beside whites. Many whites, like Paulie's parents, felt that blacks were beneath them, and thus disliked jazz because it was, as they saw it, “nigger music.”

What of Paulie's future? Through the 1920s jazz continued to rise in popularity, until by the end of the 1920s top jazz musicians were making very good salaries—in some cases far more than Paulie's father could make in the plumbing business. In 1929 the stock market collapsed, and the Depression that followed hurt jazz along with everything else. But in 1935 there came a boom for swing bands, some of which played a lot of excellent jazz. Again it was possible for jazz musicians to make good livings. In fact, some leaders of popular swing bands, like Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington, became quite wealthy.

Thus, if Paulie continued to work hard at his music, there is every chance that he could have made a successful career in jazz, although it is undoubtedly true that at times he might have had to play more commercial kinds of music to keep going. Would his parents have been happy about this? It would be interesting to guess.

Readers who want to hear some of this early jazz should be able to find it with
a
little searching. The records of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, the King Oliver Creole Jazz Band, Bix Beiderbecke and the Wolverines, and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings have been reissued in various formats. Many libraries have jazz record collections, and they may include some of the above. However, I must warn readers that this very early jazz will be disappointing at first hearing. The music will be unfamiliar; and worse, the records were cut before the advent of electrical recording and lack the clarity we take for granted today.

My suggestion, therefore, is to start with somewhat later recordings of these jazz greats, which are more easily available in libraries and on CD and tape. They are also better recorded. I would particularly recommend Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five and other groups from 1925 to 1928; King Oliver and his Dixie Syncopators from 1926 on; and various Bix Beiderbecke groups under his own name made in 1927 and 1928. It might also be interesting to hear Frank Teschemacher, whom Paulie sat in with, although you will probably need some help from somebody familiar with this older music in ferreting out the records he appears on. This later music is a little different from the music of the earlier bands that Paulie was hearing, but it is close enough. In any case, it is the sort of music he would have been playing by the time he became a professional a few years later. That is, of course, if he did not decide to go into the plumbing business after all.

—
James Lincoln Collier