[Dixielandjazz] Tangled Up In Blues

[Stephen Barbone]

Excerpted & Adapted from a NY Times Magazine Section piece by Stephen J.
Dubner, from his new book, Confessions of a Hero Worshiper. . . William
Morrow & Co. Note to musos on the list. No doubt this has happened to
you and you have also made someone's day.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

For my 13th birthday, the first one after my father's death, my mother
took me to the Van Dyck Supper Club in Schenectady to see Earl (Fatha)
Hines play piano. She knew I loved Hines's records. We arrived just past
dusk, and people were smoking.

We'd eaten supper at home to save money, so we only ordered ginger ales.
I was still shocked that my mother suggested we come here. A nightclub
sheltered all the vices she opposed: drinking, smoking, low lighting,
the suggestion of sex and music that was distinctly unhymnal. Yet here
she sat with a placid smile and no trace of judgment. Full of surprises,
my mother.

I saw that the piano was positioned at an angle on the bandstand, which
further elevated my mother's stock. For the school talent show, I played
a hepped up blues in C, part Earl Hines and part Otis Spann and my
mother had counseled me to angle the piano just like that. "You're a
soloist, let them see your hands and face. And don't forget, smile."

All of a sudden, Earl Hines stood before me. He was ancient. He gave a
little half bow, counted off with the drummer and tucked into "St. Louis
Blues". I felt myself slip right inside his fingertips. The song sounded
as if it were being released from Hines rather than manufactured by him.
It resembled the music I played in the way a cloud resembles a cotton
ball.

The quartet ran through "Honeysuckle Rose" and "Chicken Shack Boogie"
and "I Just Want To Make Love To You". I sat in awe of his every note.
He finished the set and was shambling away when he caught Mother's eye,
and raised his old eyebrows.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," he said returning to the stage. "A Young man is
celebrating his birthday, and I am told he plays some piano." I felt my
sphincter tighten. "I wonder if I might ask him to join me on-stage for
your listening pleasure?" Hines looked down at me and held out his hand.

The audience began clapping in awkward rhythm. I felt myself climbing
stiffly onto the bandstand. He sat down on the right side of the bench
leaving me the bottom half of the keyboard. "What shall we play", he
asked me. I didn't say anything. I knew the songs he played but didn't
have them in my repertory. What was my mother thinking?  All I could
come up with was the Hines-Spann thing I'd been calling "Talent Show
Blues." It was mid tempo, and in C, the only key I could really play in.
Hines was staring at me and the crowd was now fiercely quiet.

"Lets just do a blues", I said, "mid tempo. Key of C." Hines replied
softly, "A man after my own heart".

Even though Hines was on top, he started things off. It sounded great,
his two big hands working the treble keys. But when I joined in, I
couldn't get in sync. Hines quickly loosened up what he was doing, then
slowed down so I could jump, aboard, like a merry go round. That's when
we got into a sweet little groove, me and Fatha Hines, and once I had
the bottom nailed down, he started doing nifty things on top. He
bracketed my changes with staccato hammerings. He started rolling his
shoulders back and forth, bumping into me with a sloppy smile. Hines
smelled of cigarettes and something I now know to be dry cleaning fluid.
He also smelled of liquor - - - and lilac, a lady's perfume. Fatha Hines
was a hoot, but he wasn't very fatherly.

We finished just as I was starting to enjoy myself. As Hines shook my
small, stiff hand with his huge supple ones, I heard a wall of applause.
Back at out table, my mother patted my hand and a parade of men whacked
my back. Someone sent over a drink which my mother sniffed and pushed
aside. Then she asked if I wanted to stay for the second set. It was a
question tinted with advice: leave them wanting more. So I did.