The Jazz Kid Read Online Free Page B

Maryland,” no different than it ever was.
    It was clear that I’d have to study that jazz somehow. But how? Who would teach me? Were there any phonograph records of it? We didn’t have a phonograph. They were expensive, and considering that Pa was partial to music you couldn’t hear, it wasn’t likely that we’d get one in the near future. But there was a phonograph at Hull House, which they used for dancing classes, and Rory Flynn’s ma had one. Rory said that when she got to drinking beer she’d put on her favorite songs, like “Danny Boy” and “That Old Irish Mother of Mine,” and cry, which cheered her up. So if I could get hold of a record with that kind of music on it, I had places where I could hear it.
    Did Mr. Sylvester know anything about it? He might, I figured. I went to the next band practice early and asked him. “Did you ever hear any jazz?”
    â€œJazz? Sure.”
    â€œ I wondered if I could learn to play it.” He frowned. “What do you want to mess with that stuff for? It’s just nigger music. You’ll ruin your lip.”
    â€œHow’d it ruin your lip?”
    â€œIt just does. I know a cornet player, fine player, who took up playing jazz and within six weeks he split his lip right on the bandstand, blood all over his dress shirt. You don’t want to mess with that stuff.”
    I wasn’t sure I believed it. “I heard some guy playing a couple of days ago. His lip seemed okay.”
    â€œHe won’t get away with it forever,” Mr. Sylvester said. “I’m telling you, Horvath, you’ll ruin yourself.”
    It was clear enough that I couldn’t learn jazz from Mr. Sylvester. I had a feeling he didn’t know much about it anyway. There had to be somebody around who could teach it to me, but who? The only ones I knew were those guys at the Society Cafe. Could I get that cornet player to give me lessons? I knew there was no point in asking Pa. He’d say it was nigger music, and I shouldn’t have anything to do with it. Same with Ma. She wouldn’t call it nigger music, because she wouldn’t use words like that. She always called them colored people. But she wouldn’t like the idea of me having a lot to do with them, whatever you called them. Nor would it do any good to say it wasn’t just nigger music, for white people played it, too. They’d say a white man ought to be ashamed for lowering himself that way.
    But I couldn’t see it their way. How could anything that made me feel that good lower me? I figured there had to be a whole lot of people who agreed with me about jazz. Didn’t that piano player say if I hadn’t heard of jazz I must have been hiding in a closet? Didn’t he say it was mighty hard to miss around Chicago? Ma and Pa were wrong about it, that’s all there was to it.
    The problem was, I’d finally found something I could take serious, and naturally it was something Ma and Pa wouldn’t like. I should have known it would be that way. What I liked about jazz was that, even though it had planning to it, it was a different kind of planning. John and Pa wouldn’t have seen the planning, but I did. And I could see that the time was going to come when I’d have to tell Pa I wasn’t going into the plumbing business, I was going to be a musician. But I didn’t have to worry about that yet.
    For the moment my problem was getting back to the Society Cafe. I didn’t see how I could sneak out of the house at midnight. That was too much of a risk.
    Then it dawned on me that I didn’t have to sneak out in the middle of the night. Didn’t that cornet player say that sometimes they played until the sun came up? Maybe if I went over there first thing in the morning they’d still be playing. I knew I’d better do it soon, in case they stopped working there.
    So the next morning I got up early, even before John