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Appendix Two |
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his chorus and Nicholas answered him. It was wonderful hearing those two great reed men from New Orleans trying to cut each other on the greatest of all clarinet choruses.
The rest of the band rode right on through to the finish, with plenty of trombone and a piano backing from Jelly that forced them along at a terrific marching pace. As he said, "Anybody can make a bad record—but anybody can t make a good one."
Didn't He Ramble described a New Orleans funeral. „ . . The band led off with a few mournful strains of a funeral march, then Claude Jones walked to the mike and intoned in a sepulchral voice,
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust,
If the women dont get you, the whiskey must!
Then he turned away from the mike and let out a yowl of anguish that would have seemed weird if all the others hadn't joined in, moaning and carrying on in the best funeral manner, and Jelly, in the most mournful voice of all wailing, "such a good man!" (As he told us later, "We doing just like those hypocrites down home who used to say nice things at a man's funeral and done all kinds of slandering when he was alive.")
The mourning died down. Zutty rolled his drums. Sidney ae Paris let out a short staccato toot on his horn, while the tempo quickened and the men smacked their chops for the march back home. Then they were right in it, with Bechet playing around and away from the beat and de Paris going fast with a whacky horn. Before we knew it, they were finished, the music had stopped and Zutty was beating a slow, fading beat as the funeral band disappeared down the street. Claude Jones came to the mike and said, "He rambled till the butchers cut him down."
"That Claude Jones," Jelly yelled, "He's a natural preacher from Springfield, Illinois. He has such a soulful voice."
"1895," said Braud, without thinking what he was saying . . . |
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