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88 |
INTERLUDE TWO |
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working one or two nights a week for two dollars and a half a night. The 25*s here in Storyville pay you a dollar and a quarter and tips, but you working seven nights. Naturally, wouldn't I quit the Olympia and go to this tonk? Wouldn't I?"
"Anybody would," I assured him.
"Well/5" Paul went on, "that's how they made a fiddler out of a violinist—me, I'm talking about. A fiddler is not a violinist, but a violinist can be a fiddler. If I wanted to make a living, I had to be rowdy like the other group. I had to jazz it or rag it or any other damn thing."
Playing hot jazz in Storyville meant for Paul not merely losing status, but jeopardizing the professional musical skill that his cigannaker father had skimped to pay for. He had to check his Creole cultivation outside when he stepped up on the stand in 25s.
Downtown joined forces with Uptown
Written Music was compromized by Head Music
Pure Tone sounded beside Dirty Tone
Urbanity encountered Sorrow
Nice Songs were colored by the Lowdown Blues
"Bolden cause all that," Paul said bitterly. "He cause these younger Creoles, men like Bechet and Keppard, to have a different style altogether from the old heads like Tio and Perez. I don't know how they do it." Paul's anger was mixed with admiration. "But goddam, they'll do it. Can't tell you what's there on the paper, but just play the hell out of It. . . ."
Paul and I stood in the rain and looked at the housing project that now stands where Gypsy Schaeffer's and the Frenchman's once rolled all night till morning. It was beginning to grow dark.
"Take me home, Alan," Paul said. "I don't like to be out on these streets after dark. I guess my nerves is shot. . . ."
Little Paul Dominguez had run away from his black brothers and from the strong and sorrowful sound that blew out of their horns. He had turned his back on jazz. But what of the |
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