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Appendix Two |
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about as it should be—harmony parts with an indication of whose solo should come at what time—a good feeling for placing the solos and for their content and their sequence. In other words, Jelly Roll provided a sketch of what the boys were to do and the rest was up to them.
Nobody ever drinks at Jelly Roll's dates. Although this may spoil a lot of smooth-paper, feature-article theories about hot music coming from men who are liquored up, Jelly's discipline certainly helped to keep the "jive in this session from becoming over-ripe."
After the practice number, the men were warmed up, confident and ready to begin. Sidney had the feel of the date, of the other men, and of the strong, guiding force of Jelly Roll. Thereupon he began to play some real solos. He was what the men called a "playing fool" on this date. And it was very amusing to watch him stare quizzically at the written notes, pretending to study them, look away, stalling for a moment just as Keppard is said to have done with the Creole band, and then play something that had them all looking at him.
They made a test to begin with. The signals: buzz, then a wait, followed by buzz-buzz, then count two and begin. Jelly Roll seemed to be amused that anyone would have to explain the signals to him, he'd been in the business so long. The tension between buzzes was tremendous, while everyone in the studio, including myself, counted two. I was waiting to catch the strains of the tune we had all heard so much about and never heard really played before —1 Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say. When it came along it was a wonderful surprise. The melody is slow and very catchy. We were all surprised when Jelly started to sing the words and a little worried because we didn't want a session spoiled because of censorship of words. He explained at the end of the test, Tm identifying the number in a conspicuous way."
For each master he sang a different set of words, each one neatly taking care of the censorship problem—"I thought I heard somebody shout, "We gonna open up the window and let that bad air come out," etc., ... at any |
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