I’m nervous about the Sea Slugs’ gig tonight, opening for the Fabulous Family Fruit Stand Band at the DeLuxe Tavern, but my paper for book group is due on Monday and I’ve barely started.
Since the Zuber concert, I’ve been looking for more examples of modern jazz, finding Alice Coltrane, Albert Ayler, and Pharaoh Sanders LPs among the collection Mr. Coleman keeps in his office, which he sometimes allows me to peruse, and a copy of Miles Davis’s Live at the Fillmore East in a Westside used record store. Miles’s 1970 recording is a chaotic, jubilant blast of free jazz that predates by a couple of years the static, spiky funk of On the Corner, which, after exposure to all these new records, now sounds more coherent to me, like some space-age, aleatoric, African square-dance music. I also like that On the Corner’s solos function more as part of the ensemble than as virtuosic displays, the extreme electronic processing often making it difficult to tell which instrument you’re hearing, and this reminded me, one damp, lonely night, of the polyphonic nature of early jazz.
Remembering that the Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines recordings I love were, historically, some of the first to aim the spotlight at a soloist, highlighting the startling virtuosity of the trumpeter and pianist rather than the group interplay of most 1920s jazz, I decided to try to compare Armstrong and Hines’s move away from group improvisation with Miles’s apparent return to it, using On the Corner and the Armstrong/Hines album Volume 3 as examples, which should win points for originality if nothing else.
I’ve also been intrigued by John Cage’s dismissal of the romantic artist’s “accumulation of masterpieces” and his idea that music should be a “perpetual process of artistic discovery in everyday life.” Playing in a square dance band every weekend has made me aware of music’s various functions—as dance music, as social music, as pure sound, as a reflection of how the individuals in groups interact. Is this because I can’t imagine myself as a virtuosic artist? That if I ever expect to find a place in any musical world, it will have to be as part of a group? Possibly, but I also like the idea of trying to combine an avant-garde approach to art with an earthy, utilitarian, folky one.
I’ve been writing down my observations as I listen to the two recordings, hoping that some sort of thesis develops, but the term paper is still just a jumble of abstract thoughts and disconnected musical analysis. Angelica is coming over in a couple of hours. The plan is to show each other how far along we are (she’s writing about Bessie Smith, something about the singer as the “first feminist recording artist”) and give each other feedback, but I have little to show her.
“That was Tracy,” Walt says. “He says his van won’t start and we’re going to have to find some other way to get to the DeLuxe.”
“But it’s seven now, and we’re supposed to go on in an hour!”
“Tracy suggests we hitchhike.”
“In the rain?”
“I think it’s stopped, and I don’t see that we have much choice. If we’re going to hitch, we should get started.”
“Then here’s where I leave you,” says Angelica, who had been promised a ride, along with Maura, in the only car any of us owned, Tracy’s ten-year-old VW bus.
“You’re welcome to join us,” Walt says.
“Yeah, I don’t think so. For one thing, you’re more likely to get a ride if you don’t have a conspicuous black girl with you, and second . . . Yeah, no way I’m jumping in some strange white dude’s pickup truck. I know how that movie ends.”
“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Walt says. “We’ll be with you.”
I look at Angelica, trying to silently convey that I understand why she doesn’t want to hitchhike and that she shouldn’t feel compelled to come to the gig.
“We could take the shuttle,” Sally says.
“It leaves from Red Square on the hour,” Angelica says. “We won’t make the seven o’clock, but maybe I’ll walk up and catch the next one at eight. That should get me there in time to hear some of your set at least.”
“But you’re underage,” I say. “You won’t be able to get in unless you’re with us, you know, ‘with the band.’”
“You underestimate my powers of persuasion,” she says with a smile. “But maybe someone could look out for me around 8:15?”
“Sure, no problem,” Maura says.
“Have you hitched into town before?” Maura asks me as we walk out into the night, a half moon barely visible above the trees that line Driftwood Road.
“No. Do you think we’ll have trouble getting a ride?”
“It shouldn’t be too hard at this hour. It’s Friday night and it’s still early. We may have to walk a bit, though.”
“Good luck with the shuttle,” I say to Angelica as we reach the road. “And don’t feel like you need to come if it’s a drag.”
“Thanks, but I want to hear the Fab Fruits, too. I’ll see you soon.”
We decide to walk down Driftwood toward the Parkway, where we will have a better chance of flagging down a ride. I’m surprised that Sally wasn’t with Tracy at the farm, but I assume she has spent the day in her ASH apartment studying or practicing. We walk in pairs down the road, Walt and me in front, Sally and Maura behind us, chatting about mutual friends I don’t know.
“They’ll start fifteen or twenty minutes late, anyway.” Walt says to me, likely sensing my anxiety. “We could probably walk the whole way and still make it in time.”
“How long is our set?” I ask.
“Half an hour, I think. It’s pretty loose. Bands usually start at nine, and even then, they might not go on till 9:15. They don’t usually have openers, which is why we’re scheduled for eight.”
On the walk down Driftwood, a few cars go by, but none of them slow in response to our beseeching thumbs. We reach the Parkway around 7:20, cross the road, and, within minutes, a beat-up white pickup pulls over.
“Where you headed?”
“Just the Westside,” Walt says. “The DeLuxe.”
“Far out. Instruments in the back, and the girls can sit up here with me,” the long-haired, overall-clad driver says.
“I’m fine in the back,” Maura, says, hopping into the cargo bed and seating herself on a large bag of sand before the driver can protest. We hand the instruments to her, and Walt opens the cab door. Sally slips past him, sliding onto the long bench seat and leaving room for Walt next to her. I climb into the back with Maura and the instruments.
“You two settled back there?” the driver calls out. “Hang on.”
He pulls out from the verge a little too fast, annoyed perhaps that Maura vetoed his seating arrangement. Gravel sprays in a wide fan behind the truck as we move up onto the wide road. I grab the side of the truck with one hand and the lid of a heavy toolbox with the other. It’s too noisy to talk, so Maura and I remain silent until the truck pulls into the DeLuxe’s parking lot at 7:35.
The Deluxe is nearly empty—it’s too early for those coming primarily to hear the music—but the stage is filled with the Fruit Stand Band’s equipment, including a full drum kit, three Fender amps, and an electric piano. Ezra is testing one of the vocal mics, while Sid fiddles with a mixing board at the side of the stage.
“Hey guys,” Ezra calls to us from the stage. “I think we’re ready for you.”
A waitress approaches us and asks for IDs. Walt produces his driver’s license, and says, “We’re the opening band. Sally and Lucas here are underage.” She looks peeved, but says to the two of us, “OK, the deal is when you’re not onstage, you sit at that table back there by the bathroom. And if I see either of you taking a swig off of anyone’s beer, I’ll have to kick you out, I don’t care what band you’re in, opening, closing, or otherwise.”
“That’s fine,” I say. “I don’t drink anyway.”
She looks at me as if this is the stupidest thing she’s ever heard and then glances at Maura’s ID. Sally and I take our instruments back to the “dry” table, while Walt heads for the stage. I stash my guitar case, tune up, and join him. We adjust the mic stands and Sid makes sure they’re working, but without the full band, he’s reluctant to spend time checking levels. “Better to do soundcheck when you’re all here,” he says. So we leave the stage and wait for Tracy.
The room slowly fills with people, some of whom seem to be here for the music and some primarily for the beer. A three-dollar cover charge is posted by the front door, but nobody has been enlisted to collect it, so most people ignore the money jar, which began its tavern life as a giant container of spicy beef jerky. At 8:10, Tracy still has not arrived and my anxiety level is growing, though for what reason I couldn’t say, as no one is concerned that the music hasn’t started, and the small crowd, which has yet to assume the shape of an audience, seems happy to listen to the Allman Brothers album blaring from the house speakers.
At 8:20, Ezra asks if we want to start without Tracy, so we decide to play a fiddle tune and hope that Tracy arrives before we finish. As Sally kicks off “Leather Britches,” Tracy saunters through the front door, trailed by Alma, Jenny, and Angelica. I wonder if they’ve all taken the Evergreen shuttle. We play “Leather Britches” until Tracy joins us. He tosses off an insincere “sorry, I’m late” and quickly checks his tuning with Sally, before Walt launches into “Darling Nelly Gray.” It’s considerably faster than we’ve rehearsed, and Tracy delivers the song this time as a rollicking hoedown with throw-away lyrics. I blame his casual rendition on the chaos of the situation, but I wonder if Angelica will be so forgiving. I’m more concerned with my inability to hear my guitar. Sid has abandoned the mixing board and is chatting with Alma, so I get as close to the mic as I can, but this only results in searing tendrils of feedback. I back away and realize that, once again, I’ll have to rely on my eyes more than my ears to lock in with the band.
The crowd is noisy and barely paying attention to us, but they applaud dutifully after each tune, which I take as congratulations that we’ve managed to reach the end of the song without falling apart. Neither Tracy nor Walt say much to the audience between tunes, but after “Pig in a Pen” and the Uncle Dave Macon song “Way Down the Old Plank Road,” sung by Walt, Tracy takes the mic and says, “Thank y’all for listening, and thanks to the Fabulous Family Fruit Stand Band for letting us play a few tunes. If you liked us, we’re the Sea Slug String Band, if you didn’t, we’re Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. We’re going to finish up with a good ol’ square dance tune that goes by a few different names: ‘Wild Horse,’ ‘Stony Point,’ ‘Nigger in the Woodpile.’ Take your pick. Have a good night, and don’t forget to tip your waitress.”
I look at Tracy, stunned, and when I look out into the crowd, Angelica’s is the first face I see, lit with rage and pain, glaring at Tracy. She turns and walks through the crowd toward the door. Everyone else in the audience seems to have taken the casual “N-word” in stride, if they’ve even noticed.
“Maybe I’m not familiar enough with either kind of music, but I don’t hear the connections you’re claiming,” Angelica had said that afternoon about the main thesis of my term paper, after I played some examples of the music. “No offense, but do you really have enough of a historical sense of this music to make such a broad statement? If I don’t get the connection, who else is going to? Maybe Mr. Coleman, or Gabe, or Andrew, I don’t know. I’m not trying to be overly critical. It’s just that the mood and sound of the music seem totally different to me. That old stuff sounds cartoonish to me, and Miles is way too intense to be cartoon music.”
“Louis and Earl are not cartoon music.”
“To your ears, maybe, and I’m sure that wasn’t their original intent. But, what was their intention? We don’t know. There’s an obvious joy in that music, and we know they were playing in real time, right? On the Corner sounds manufactured, almost cut-and-paste, like a studio collage. You don’t even know who’s playing on it, and maybe they weren’t even in the same room when they were recording. Miles may have intended to create this dense, polytonal funk that takes the spotlight off the soloists, like you say, but the groove isn’t that funky. Sly and JB and P-Funk are joyous, and I’m pretty sure those records are made with the whole band in the studio grooving together. It’s street music, not art music. On the Corner sounds like an intellectual version of Funkadelic or Sly, like Miles knows he’s a better musician than them but is pissed off that they’re more popular.”
“So, you like the Louis and Earl record better?”
“Maybe. Those weird rhythmic breaks are cool, but, you know, songs speak to me more than instrumental music.”
Her criticism was a little too on the nose, and my reaction to her thesis was soured by it. I knew I shouldn’t take it personally, but it made me defensive: “intellectual funk” sounded too much like “black music for nerdy white boys.”
“Yeah, maybe I don’t know jazz well enough to be making broad historical connections, but do you really know music history well enough to say that Bessie Smith was the first feminist performer? Most of her songs were written by other people—men mostly, I would assume, right? And what about her mentors, like Ma Rainey? Or Sippie Wallace, who wrote that song Bonnie Raitt recorded, ‘Women Be Wise’?”
“I’m going by what Gunther Schuller and LeRoi Jones wrote. Schuller says Bessie was the first great professional blues singer and therefore the first important jazz singer. I’m citing his work, not just making a guess about some connections I heard in two random recordings. Look, what I’m trying to do is . . . So, the thing that gets me in these books is that Schuller doesn’t talk about Bessie Smith’s lyrics at all, and Jones only in relation to her being black. He says something about middle-class blacks being able to sit in a theater and listen to Bessie Smith sing about their experiences, and then he quotes that song ‘Put It Right Here’—‘He’s got to get it, bring it, and put it right here, or else he’s going to keep it out there.’ That’s a woman speaking. That singer has a gender, she’s not just black or ‘Negro.’ That’s all I’m saying, that she was also speaking from a woman’s point of view, and those songs had as much to do with male/female relations as with black/white relations, which is maybe why she was so popular: white women could relate to them, too. But Jones never mentions that.”
“OK, I get that.”
She was right, of course. How much did I really know about jazz history? She was citing respected authors, and I was theorizing about a couple of recordings I happened to stumble upon. Were there musicians who had done what I was claiming Miles had done with On the Corner? Possibly. I know nothing about Ornette Coleman’s music, for example, or any of Coltrane’s post-Miles stuff, or, even P-Funk and James Brown.
After blundering through our final tune, wondering what the hell I’m doing in the Sea Slugs, and whether I’ve permanently alienated the person who may be my best friend at Evergreen, I leave the stage, scanning the crowd for Angelica. Alma appears and says, “You’d better find Angelica. I don’t know what’s up, but she seems really bent. I think she’s outside.”
I should talk to Tracy, but Jenny has cornered him, and the waitress is eyeing me with a scowl that says, “To your table, now!” I glance back at Tracy and Jenny to see what looks like . . . flirting!? She stands directly in front of him, her wide, smiling eyes gazing up into his, the face beneath her curls glowing like soft fire. Her chest leans against the arm clutching his mandolin to his chest, and Tracy, grinning, looks like he is about to lean over and kiss her.
“What’d I say, bozo? When you’re not onstage you gotta be at the kiddie’s table. Snap to it,” my jail keeper says.
“Can I just go outside for a minute?” I ask politely, which puts my tormenter off guard.
“Uh, yeah, OK. Fine. But when you get back . . .”
“I know. Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood. Got it.”
It’s not until I try to squeeze between the fans making their way through the narrow front door of the DeLuxe that I remember I still have a guitar around my neck, but I see Angelica across the parking lot talking to someone, and I’m afraid she might be gone by the time I stash my guitar and return.
“You! What the fuck do you want?” she says quietly, but with a malign edge to her voice, as I approach. The tall, scruffy guy she was talking to retreats as if shoved.
“You know, I think I’ve had about enough of your wide-eyed, honky, naiveté. You’re just another controlling chauvinist pig, trying to tell me how to write about feminism and real women, trying to make me think you understand me. You don’t know the first fucking thing about me, you milquetoast motherfucker. That little racist bullshit back in there? And nobody even blinks an eye? You think I don’t know what the fuck is going on?”
“Look, I had no idea he was going to say anything like that. I couldn’t believe it myself.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. Play dumb, the first chapter in the defensive liberal handbook. But that’s OK. Ripped the scales right off my eyes, you did. I oughta thank Tracy for showing me what’s really what, so I don’t waste any more time with a pathetic little homunculus like you. First that racist skank, Dawn, and now . . . I tell ya, the sensitive honkies are worse than the outright racist crackers. At least I know what I’m getting with someone like Tracy.”
“Is this pipsqueak bothering you, hon?” Sandy appears from behind me. I’m guessing this is who Angelica is waiting for.
“Me? Nah, this little grease spot can’t do nothing to me. Anyway, I’m heading inside. Care to join me?”
Angelica is underage, and I’m supposed to be her ticket inside, but she had no trouble getting in earlier and I don’t imagine anyone will hassle her or Sandy now. They enter the DeLuxe and I wonder what to do next. The guitar strings are cold beneath my fingers. I must look like an idiot standing out here with my guitar, but I don’t feel like going back into the bar, so I remain in the dark, the cold, damp air spreading through my bones, wishing that someone would miraculously appear with my guitar case and a ride back to campus, until Tracy struts through the front door of the DeLuxe with Jenny by his side. It’s almost as if Angelica sent them out to punish me. Jenny takes his arm as they walk around the side of the bar, through a jumble of cars parked all kittywampus, as if by a blind valet. I know I shouldn’t, but I follow them.
“Hey!” I shout at Tracy before they can disappear around the back of the building.
“Hey man, what’s up?” Tracy says, casually, turning to wait for me.
“Hi Lucas,” Jenny says, looking sheepish, her eyes lowered, lips pursed.
“What the fuck was that about?”
”What do you mean?”
“That little racist remark back there.”
“‘Racist remark’? What the hell are you talking about?” His chest puffs up, his arms tense, his eyes narrowing.
“I think he means what you said about that tune, the uh . . . other names,” Jenny says, acknowledging that she had heard the ugly epithet, and revealing that it hadn’t bothered her enough to keep her from flirting with Tracy.
“Oh, you mean, ‘Stony Point’? The . . .”
“Yeah, you don’t need to repeat it. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one listening,” I say, glancing at Jenny, who looks like she suddenly regrets her choice of companion. She’s supposed to be onstage soon, and this is clearly not the way she intended this little pre-gig dalliance to go.
“So what? That’s what some people used to call it,” Tracy says.
“And you decided that tonight would be a good night to educate the patrons of the DeLuxe Tavern about the racist history of the music we’re playing?”
“What the hell are you talking about? The music isn’t racist. It’s just a tune, it’s like a hundred years old or something. What do you expect?”
“Well, now I know what to expect from you.”
I don’t know how to argue the point any further, and I’m getting angrier seeing Jenny at Tracy’s side as he makes excuses, so I walk away before he can think of a reply that would pull me back in, or lead to a more intense confrontation.
Once inside, I go to the underage table, put my guitar in its case, and look around for Sally, who should be here at the table, but isn’t. I want to get out of here, but I don’t know how to manage that. Sally and Walt and Maura will want to stay and see the Fruit Stand Band, and I’m not ready to hitchhike back to campus alone. There’s probably a shuttle I could take, but I have no idea where the nearest stop is. As the bar fills up, the crowd gets denser and noisier. People are starting to crowd my table, so I pull the guitar case beneath it and sit down.
I didn’t notice it when the bar was empty, but the underage table is in a weird place in the room—off by itself, between the doors to the men’s and women’s bathrooms. The odor from each is evident, and I’m afraid that the reek will only worsen as the evening progresses. I can’t see much of anything other than the backs of the people standing in front of me. Three leather-clad bikers with greasy, black beards, bulging bellies, and jackets smeared blood-red with the florid initials of a motorcycle club I can’t decrypt and two female consorts have positioned themselves in front of me, and their jostling periodically bumps my table. A glance from one says, “What the hell is this table doing here, and why the hell are you sitting at it?”
I sink further into my chair and myself.
A few letters and numbers have been carved into the edge of the table closest to the wall: a misshapen “E” and “M” and the number “71.” Above my head, on the wall, a bulletin board displays mimeographed posters for upcoming shows and what looks like a schedule for the bar’s employees: an unadorned calendar page with initials and hours scrawled beneath each day of the week except Sunday and Monday. But there’s no month indicated and the calendar doesn’t seem to be current. Today is Saturday, December 1, but the first day of the month displayed is a Monday.
A burst of loud, gruff cackling from the bikers is followed by a spray of something sweet and sticky to the back of my head. I turn to complain, but I don’t have the energy or courage to face these peripatetic inebriates. I wonder where Sally has gone, and how she escaped the kiddie table. Her fiddle and purse are nowhere to be seen, so I assume she’s found a backroom to hang out in or someone’s car to stow them in. I should get up and look for her, but I would need to take my guitar and somehow force my way through the crowd. If I have to return to the table, the bikers are not going to be happy about it. So I stay put.
The music starts without warning or introduction, resembling the countrified Grateful Dead the band played in the Willowberry barn at Thanksgiving, though I don’t recognize the song. Male voices take the lead at first, Alma and Jenny employed solely as backup singers. Alma sings the third song, a playful, hyperactive version of “Different Drum.” But the mood changes with the next song: the Velvet Underground’s “Heroin,” sung by Sid, I think (I can only see half of the stage). Initially, the band is faithful to the droning swirl of the original, though sung more in tune, until the tempo increases with the refrain “and I guess that I just don’t know,” which Sid repeats over and over, the band getting louder and more abrasive with each repetition. Sustaining the faster, frenetic tempo as Sid screeches the next few verses and choruses, the band slows for the “heroin, be the death of me” section, multiple voices parroting the mantra in two or three octaves over a throbbing bass drone and splenetic, out-of-time drums.
I lay my head down, facing the wall. The table vibrates from the throbbing bass, and I sink into the sonic jumble filtered through the wooden slab. Other sounds merge with the music: the rattle of loose screws in the table legs; guttural laughter from the bikers; a toilet flushing through a concrete wall; my heart beating too quickly; an indeterminable low rushing sound, like mammoth wings beating in darkness; an angry murmur; a trio of blistered throats barking, doglike; a zipper descending; something like breaking glass or crunching potato chips; a stifled cry. I slide my head closer to the wall, and something seems to fly past my face, a bird, a bat or . . . but I realize that my eyes are closed.
The band picks up the tempo again for the last verse of “Heroin,” and the song erupts with sheets of uncontrolled, unmonitored feedback. I stand up to see if something has gone wrong with the PA, and I see that Ezra is playing his guitar with Alma’s violin bow, facing his amp. Alma and Jenny have left the stage. I try to sit down, and as I do, my chair tips and a stray foot from one of the bikers, who have been jumping up and down maniacally throughout “Heroin,” hooks one of its legs. I slump to the floor, my head striking the metal latch on the side of the guitar case.