snow were beginning to swarm in my headlamp beams. I scrubbed frost off the inside of the windshield with the heel of my hand.
The little gravel parking lot was full. I found a spot on the street and went inside, brushing snow off my shoulders, and let a young man I’d never seen before in a gold Eisenhower jacket escort me to a corner table cut off from the rest of the room by a thick oaken post. It was one of a very few tables not already occupied that early on a weeknight. The place at night was noisy with voices and the ceiling was becoming mythical with a blue cigarette haze forming between the rafters. Somebody I couldn’t see fumbled with the microphone on the bandstand; an ear-splitting howl of feedback deadened the voices momentarily. I was about to ask the host to fetch Mr. Zelinka when music from Little Georgie Favor’s trombone introduced itself into the room like a cold cloud drifting.
7
I DIDN’T KNOCK DOWN the kid in the gold jacket or even push him out of the way. I went around him and stood in front of the bandstand, where a narrow white party in his late twenties was playing a silver trombone away from the microphone, circling his way around “Twelfth Street Rag” about two measures behind the usual tempo. He had lots of wavy brown hair to his shoulders that looked as if he combed it with his fingers and a beard that started just below his eyes and grew down his neck into his collar. The collar belonged to a blue knit pullover shirt under a rumpled white cotton jacket with the sleeves pushed up past his forearms. The rest was black chinos and prairie boots scuffed at the toes.
Behind him on the platform sat a soft fat young black man with white-framed glasses and a modest Afro, not playing a bass viol between his knees, and, behind a set of drums, another white man about the trombonist’s age who I thought at first was an albino. At a second glance he had bleached his straight short hair the color of water. He had his sticks in one hand but he wasn’t playing either, smoking a cigarette and reaching up from time to time to flick ash off the end without removing it from his lips. He had on a tight black vest over a ruffled pink shirt. The bass had breasts like a woman’s under a white T-shirt and rings of fat around his middle.
When the trombonist finished his lick he lowered the instrument and another man joined him on the bandstand, bounding up and seizing the microphone. He was short and solid in a tailored midnight-blue suit and a cinnamon necktie laid beautifully on a white shirt with a soft collar. His beard was gunmetal under his smooth dark face and his black hair shone like bent painted steel in the overhead spot. He looked like a Drago Zelinka.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the Kitchen is proud to present the ice-cool jazz of L. C. Candy and Domino.”
That bought a round of applause, and the smooth number stepped off as the trio slid into “Lullaby of Birdland,” the drummer barely brushing the cymbals while the bass grunted and the trombone carried the melody. It sounded even more like Favor’s when you were standing in front of it.
“Mr. Zelinka?”
The smooth number paused on his way past and turned slate-colored eyes on me. He was older than he looked under the platform spot, about fifty; there were lines around his eyes and the flesh under his chin was starting to sag. I had eight inches on him, but he had spent a lifetime looking at men who were taller than he was and could do it without seeming to raise his chin. A muscle moved in his face when I introduced myself. “My office is in back.”
If he did any work there it didn’t show. The desk was polished white maple with an ivory leather top, a pearl telephone and nothing else on it. The walls were paneled in darker maple and soundproof quilting covered the door. It thumped shut on the music, cutting it off like the lid of a music box. I pinched out my cigarette and dropped it into a square woodgrain wastebasket mounted on
The little gravel parking lot was full. I found a spot on the street and went inside, brushing snow off my shoulders, and let a young man I’d never seen before in a gold Eisenhower jacket escort me to a corner table cut off from the rest of the room by a thick oaken post. It was one of a very few tables not already occupied that early on a weeknight. The place at night was noisy with voices and the ceiling was becoming mythical with a blue cigarette haze forming between the rafters. Somebody I couldn’t see fumbled with the microphone on the bandstand; an ear-splitting howl of feedback deadened the voices momentarily. I was about to ask the host to fetch Mr. Zelinka when music from Little Georgie Favor’s trombone introduced itself into the room like a cold cloud drifting.
7
I DIDN’T KNOCK DOWN the kid in the gold jacket or even push him out of the way. I went around him and stood in front of the bandstand, where a narrow white party in his late twenties was playing a silver trombone away from the microphone, circling his way around “Twelfth Street Rag” about two measures behind the usual tempo. He had lots of wavy brown hair to his shoulders that looked as if he combed it with his fingers and a beard that started just below his eyes and grew down his neck into his collar. The collar belonged to a blue knit pullover shirt under a rumpled white cotton jacket with the sleeves pushed up past his forearms. The rest was black chinos and prairie boots scuffed at the toes.
Behind him on the platform sat a soft fat young black man with white-framed glasses and a modest Afro, not playing a bass viol between his knees, and, behind a set of drums, another white man about the trombonist’s age who I thought at first was an albino. At a second glance he had bleached his straight short hair the color of water. He had his sticks in one hand but he wasn’t playing either, smoking a cigarette and reaching up from time to time to flick ash off the end without removing it from his lips. He had on a tight black vest over a ruffled pink shirt. The bass had breasts like a woman’s under a white T-shirt and rings of fat around his middle.
When the trombonist finished his lick he lowered the instrument and another man joined him on the bandstand, bounding up and seizing the microphone. He was short and solid in a tailored midnight-blue suit and a cinnamon necktie laid beautifully on a white shirt with a soft collar. His beard was gunmetal under his smooth dark face and his black hair shone like bent painted steel in the overhead spot. He looked like a Drago Zelinka.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the Kitchen is proud to present the ice-cool jazz of L. C. Candy and Domino.”
That bought a round of applause, and the smooth number stepped off as the trio slid into “Lullaby of Birdland,” the drummer barely brushing the cymbals while the bass grunted and the trombone carried the melody. It sounded even more like Favor’s when you were standing in front of it.
“Mr. Zelinka?”
The smooth number paused on his way past and turned slate-colored eyes on me. He was older than he looked under the platform spot, about fifty; there were lines around his eyes and the flesh under his chin was starting to sag. I had eight inches on him, but he had spent a lifetime looking at men who were taller than he was and could do it without seeming to raise his chin. A muscle moved in his face when I introduced myself. “My office is in back.”
If he did any work there it didn’t show. The desk was polished white maple with an ivory leather top, a pearl telephone and nothing else on it. The walls were paneled in darker maple and soundproof quilting covered the door. It thumped shut on the music, cutting it off like the lid of a music box. I pinched out my cigarette and dropped it into a square woodgrain wastebasket mounted on
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