have been in high school.”
“I got every issue that ever mentioned him, also Louis and Bird and Roy Eldridge. His records too, all fifteen of ’em.” He sipped his Pepsi and crunched some ice. He had bright eyes that got brighter when he talked about Favor.
“You must’ve started early.”
“Two years ago March. That’s when I heard one of his records for the first time on the University of Michigan station. Dark ages for me, man. I was playing backup for the Pelicans in Ann Arbor.”
“Never heard of them, sorry.”
“You didn’t miss anything. At the end of each concert we set fire to our instruments.”
“You put out your trombone in time.”
“I was playing guitar then. I went back to the ’bone after I heard Little Georgie. Rock’s all gone to shit, but jazz—well, it’s forever, man, you know what I’m saying?”
“You’re not on the bandstand now,” I said.
“Yeah. Shit. They expect us to talk like that. I’ve got an M.A. in Performing Arts and they want me to sound like I flunked gym.” He picked up the straw he had taken out of his glass and bent it. “So you’re working for Little Georgie’s daughter? What’s she like?”
“She’s the best. You didn’t know Favor used to play here before you auditioned?”
“It’s not really such a coincidence. There aren’t that many jazz places left in Detroit. The town’s like that, always following the trend that’s just past. When R-and-B was big it went Motown, and now that jazz is back it wants punk. Disco, don’t even talk to me about disco. I got another set to do without throwing up.”
“I didn’t know jazz was back.”
“Maybe it isn’t. Maybe I’m just hoping. Too many limeys screwed up rock, took it away from us and took the roll out of it and after that we had to get high to enjoy it. Jazz is.”
I hooked a beer from a waitress and asked if he wanted a refill. He shook his head. “Know anything about a girl singer named Glen Dexter?” I asked.
He perked. “Hell, yes. She could’ve been as big as Dinah Washington or Sarah. She retired early.”
“She recorded with Favor once.”
“Once, hell. She never cut with anyone else. They almost married.”
“What happened?”
He shrugged. “It was a bad time for a white woman to hook up with a black man. Maybe that was it. They broke up is all I know. She sang at the Paradise Lounge afterward. Died sometime late in the sixties. I met her niece last year at the Montreux festival.”
“Know where I can find her?”
“Ypsilanti, I think. She introduced herself because she said I sounded like Georgie. You can bet I pumped her about him. Edwina Dexter, that’s her name.” He pronounced it with a long i .
I wrote it down. “Either of your boys here when he used to sit in?”
“I was here first. Hey, you find him, call me, okay? I got a ton of questions to ask.” He gave me a card.
It was printed on tangerine stock with his name and address and telephone number in raised characters and a musical clef in one corner. I ran a thumb over the embossing. “What do the initials stand for?”
“Laverne Carroll.”
“Thanks, L. C.” I shook his hand. It was thickly calloused where the slide rested against his thumb and forefinger.
He returned to the platform for the next set and I ate something that sounded Italian and washed it down with beer and drove down to 1300 Beaubien, Detroit Police Headquarters. The snow was cuff-deep now and gave off its own light under the street lamps.
The squad room was quiet after the shift change, papered over with FBI circulars and typewritten memos and giving off an institutional smell of disinfectant and instant coffee and galoshes and the cat litter they threw on the floor where suspects lost their lunches. I asked for Lieutenant Thaler and a sad-faced plainclothesman in an underarm holster with egg salad on his tie jerked his thumb at an office door standing open. I went to it and rapped on the frame.
It was a square
“I got every issue that ever mentioned him, also Louis and Bird and Roy Eldridge. His records too, all fifteen of ’em.” He sipped his Pepsi and crunched some ice. He had bright eyes that got brighter when he talked about Favor.
“You must’ve started early.”
“Two years ago March. That’s when I heard one of his records for the first time on the University of Michigan station. Dark ages for me, man. I was playing backup for the Pelicans in Ann Arbor.”
“Never heard of them, sorry.”
“You didn’t miss anything. At the end of each concert we set fire to our instruments.”
“You put out your trombone in time.”
“I was playing guitar then. I went back to the ’bone after I heard Little Georgie. Rock’s all gone to shit, but jazz—well, it’s forever, man, you know what I’m saying?”
“You’re not on the bandstand now,” I said.
“Yeah. Shit. They expect us to talk like that. I’ve got an M.A. in Performing Arts and they want me to sound like I flunked gym.” He picked up the straw he had taken out of his glass and bent it. “So you’re working for Little Georgie’s daughter? What’s she like?”
“She’s the best. You didn’t know Favor used to play here before you auditioned?”
“It’s not really such a coincidence. There aren’t that many jazz places left in Detroit. The town’s like that, always following the trend that’s just past. When R-and-B was big it went Motown, and now that jazz is back it wants punk. Disco, don’t even talk to me about disco. I got another set to do without throwing up.”
“I didn’t know jazz was back.”
“Maybe it isn’t. Maybe I’m just hoping. Too many limeys screwed up rock, took it away from us and took the roll out of it and after that we had to get high to enjoy it. Jazz is.”
I hooked a beer from a waitress and asked if he wanted a refill. He shook his head. “Know anything about a girl singer named Glen Dexter?” I asked.
He perked. “Hell, yes. She could’ve been as big as Dinah Washington or Sarah. She retired early.”
“She recorded with Favor once.”
“Once, hell. She never cut with anyone else. They almost married.”
“What happened?”
He shrugged. “It was a bad time for a white woman to hook up with a black man. Maybe that was it. They broke up is all I know. She sang at the Paradise Lounge afterward. Died sometime late in the sixties. I met her niece last year at the Montreux festival.”
“Know where I can find her?”
“Ypsilanti, I think. She introduced herself because she said I sounded like Georgie. You can bet I pumped her about him. Edwina Dexter, that’s her name.” He pronounced it with a long i .
I wrote it down. “Either of your boys here when he used to sit in?”
“I was here first. Hey, you find him, call me, okay? I got a ton of questions to ask.” He gave me a card.
It was printed on tangerine stock with his name and address and telephone number in raised characters and a musical clef in one corner. I ran a thumb over the embossing. “What do the initials stand for?”
“Laverne Carroll.”
“Thanks, L. C.” I shook his hand. It was thickly calloused where the slide rested against his thumb and forefinger.
He returned to the platform for the next set and I ate something that sounded Italian and washed it down with beer and drove down to 1300 Beaubien, Detroit Police Headquarters. The snow was cuff-deep now and gave off its own light under the street lamps.
The squad room was quiet after the shift change, papered over with FBI circulars and typewritten memos and giving off an institutional smell of disinfectant and instant coffee and galoshes and the cat litter they threw on the floor where suspects lost their lunches. I asked for Lieutenant Thaler and a sad-faced plainclothesman in an underarm holster with egg salad on his tie jerked his thumb at an office door standing open. I went to it and rapped on the frame.
It was a square
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