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The Boys in the Bands |
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run much better—you understand?—helping people and little kids that goes wrong. Weil, I went and saw Captain Pierce and explained I wanted them to put Sidney away in a home or something.
"I told Sidney one morning I was going to take him to work, had a job for him. I had mother fix him a nice big sandwich and we started out. When we got close to the Juvenile Court building, he began to walk kind of unwilling-like. 1 walked close to him to see he didn't ran away and he went up before the captain.
"The Captain said, £Oh, that's the boy you have the complaint against.'
"I said, *Yes/
" 'Sonny, why don't you stay home?'
"Sidney start to tell him about his music and the Captain say, 1 would not advise you to let him stay out all night, especially in the District.'
"Sidney told him about how he always goes with some man. Captain Pierce say, Well, I want you to do this. Listen to your brother. Go to school. You can go ahead and play music. But try and stay in school . . . Leonard, it's no use to discourage this boy. He's got some talent. But try to keep him in school/
"I try to explain this to Sidney, naturally, but not long after, some people come and ask him and my brother, Joseph, to go in a band to Texas. So they went and, Sidney being a better musician, they picked him out and kept him and he went away with them. From that on, he continued going, going. I reckon I never seen my brother for something like twenty-seven years...."
The boy, Sidney, left New Orleans behind him when he was fourteen, carrying with him all the richness and fire of the pure jazz tradition, unstained by the mire of Storyville and untouched by the conflicts that disturbed other jazzmen. Following his own sweet-singing reed, he wandered across America, astonished New York, charmed Paris, toured Bussia, en- |
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