The Planet on the Table (26 page)

We got out on stage and it was hot as a smelting chamber. The audience was just a blue-black blur outside the lights, which were glaring down exactly like the arc lamps set around a tunnel end. I could tell seats went way up above us (
they going to be looking down on you
) and then we were all standing there set to go and a big amplified voice said, “
From Jupiter Metals, Pallas, the Hot Six,
” and suddenly we all had our horns to our mouths. I put mine down and said, “ ‘In the Alley Blues,’ ” which, amplified, sounded like a single word, then put the horn up and commenced playing.

We sounded horrible. They had indirect mikes on all of us, and just playing normal mezzo forte we were
booming
out into the huge caven of the auditorium, so we could hear very clearly how bad we sounded. Hook was solid, and so was the kid, which was a relief; but my tone was quivering with just the slightest vibrato, and sometimes I couldn’t hear Sidney at all. And his fear was spreading to the rest of us. We knew he had to be petrified to even miss a note.

We brought “In the Alley” to a quick finish, and the applause was
loud
. That made me realize how big the audience was (twenty thousand, Tone-bar said) and I was more scared than ever, I could feel their eyes pressing on me, just like I can sometimes feel the vacuum when I look out a view window. I figured we’d better play one of the best songs next, so we’d get as much help from the material as possible. “ ‘Weary Blues,’ ” I said, meaning to say it to the band, since we had planned to play “Ganymede.” But the mikes picked me up anyway and I heard “Weary Blues” bounce back out of the cavern, so I just raised my horn to my lips and started; and it was probably two bars before everyone caught on and joined in. That didn’t help any.

And I myself was having trouble. The more I could hear the vibrato wavering down the middle of my tone, the worse it got, and the more I could hear it… it began to sound like an oscilloscopic saw, and I hoped it wouldn’t get out of control and break the tone completely. We got to the refrain, where “Weary” usually starts rolling, I could tell that everyone was so scared they couldn’t think about what they were playing, so the notes were coming out right by instinct, but there was no feel in them, it was like they were being played by a music box, every note made by a piece of metal springing loose.

“Weary Blues” ended and again the applause was triple forte. I stepped over to Hook and shouted, under my breath, “Let’s do ‘I Guess I’ll Have to Change My Plans.’ ” He couldn’t hear me, so I said it louder and the mikes caught me, “ ‘I Guess I’ll Have to Change My Plans.’” I announced. There was a long flurry of laughter from the audience. Hook started the intro to “Plans,” as calm as though he were playing to a crowded bar. We slid into the song and I realized how much easier it is to play fast when you’re nervous. Hook was doing fine, but his backup was trembling, barely hitting the chords. With the leisure of playing accompaniment I could look up and see the silver line of boxes that held our judges, hanging high above us; and that didn’t help either.

We moved quickly into “That’s a Plenty,” and I could tell we’d calmed down enough to think about the music; after your body pumps full of adrenaline, soaks you in sweat, and shakes you like the ague, there’s not much more it can do, you’ve
got
to calm down some; but that maybe wasn’t helping us, since now we had to make the music ourselves, rather than leave it to instinct. I was still shaky enough that when I got to the triple-tonguing in the trumpet break, it actually seemed slow to me, and next time around I fitted in another note, hammering them with two double-tongues. This seemed to perk up the band (“Put chills down my spine,” the kid said later), but we still sounded ragged; I knew if we continued like this we were in trouble. And Sidney was still
missing phrases
. I don’t think I’d ever heard him miss more than a note or two in my whole life, and here he was squeaking through bars at a time, playing like he had a crimp on his throat.

When we finished the kid waved me over to him. He raised a hand in the air and lowered it, which was apparently the signal needed to get the mike men off us. The kid was completely relaxed. He looked like he was having a good time.

“Your clarinet player is dying,” he said. “Does he know ‘Burgundy Street Blues’?”

“Sure,” I said,

“Maybe you should have him play that. If he had to play a song by himself he’d be sure to calm down some.”

I turned around. “Sidney, you ready to play ‘Burgundy Street’?”

He shook his head vehemently.

“Come on, Sidney,” Hook said from beside him. “That’s your song.” He turned to the audience, and the kid quickly lifted a hand, “ ‘The Burgundy Street Blues,’ ” Hook announced.

Now “Burgundy Street,” like “Just a Closer Walk With Thee” or “Bucket’s Got a Hole in It,” is a single-strain tune, just an eight-bar melody; and it’s the variations that a clarinet player works in as he repeats it, again and again, that make the song something special. The first couple of times Sidney went through it, I could barely hear him. He was playing the melody, as simple as possible, and the sound he was making was more breath than tone. I didn’t think he’d finish. He shifted toward us as if he wanted to turn his back on the audience, but Hook threw in a couple bars of harmony to bolster him, and when he started the strain a third time he took hold of himself and bore down; and that time, though the notes quivered and never got over pianissimo, he could be heard.

The kid was hopping up and down beside me as if he couldn’t wait to start playing again. “Damn that man plays fine clarinet,” he whispered to me. Suddenly I realized that if you didn’t know Sidney you might think he was playing warbly on purpose, in which case it sounded all right. Apparently this occurred to Sidney too. Each time around he played a little louder, tried a few more variations, gathered a little more confidence. The fifth time around he usually played a variation filled with chromatic runs; he went ahead and tried them, and they came out sharp and well articulated. Amplified like he was, he could hear as clearly as anyone how good he sounded—he was learning what I’d already discovered, that even though you’re scared, the notes come out. He began to take advantage of the new acoustics, building up till he filled the auditorium with sound, then dropping back so fast the mike men were lost, and he was as silent as piano keys pushed down.

And as he went on, I could see him begin to forget his surroundings and become what he was, a musician working on the song, putting together phrases, playing with the sounds he could make. His forehead wrinkled and smoothed as he carved an especially difficult passage; he closed his eyes, and the notes took on a life that hadn’t been there before. He was lost in it now, completely lost in it, and the last time around he bent the notes like only a fine clarinet player can bend them, soaring them out into the cavern; a sound human and inhuman, music.

When he was done everyone was clapping, even me, and I realized that I had only thought the earlier applause was loud because I’d never heard that many people clap at once before. Now it was louder than when a ship takes off over a tunnel you’re in…

We played “Panama” next, and the difference was hard to believe. Sidney was back in form, winding about the upper registers with quick-fingered ingenuity, and as he pulled together so did the band. And the kid, as if he’d only been waiting for Sidney, began to let loose. He’d abandoned his steady
oomph-oomph-oomph-oomph
and was sliding up and down the bass clef, playing like a fourth member of the front line, and
leading
the tempo. Normally I set the tempo, and Crazy and Washboard listen to me and pick it up. But the kid wasn’t paying any attention to me; his notes were hitting just a touch ahead of mine, and if there’s anyone who can take the tempo away from the trumpet it’s the tuba. I tried to play as fast as him but he kept ahead; by the time he let Washboard and me catch up with him we were playing “Panama” faster than we’d
ever
played it, and excited as we were, we were equal to it. When we finished, the applause seemed to push us to the back of the stage.

We played the “St. Louis Blues,” and then the “Milenburg Joys,” and then “Sweet Georgia Brown,” and each time the kid took over, pumping wildly away at the tuba, and pushed us to our limit. Sidney responded like that was the way he’d always wanted to play, arching high wails between phrases and helping the kid to drive us on. And the audience was with us! Maybe the earlier groups had been too modern, maybe too many of them had been playing to the judges; whatever the reason, the audience was with us now. An hour ago none of them had even heard of Dixieland jazz, and now they were cheering after the solos and clapping in the choruses; and we had to start “Sweet Georgia Brown” by playing through the applause.

Then we were set for the finale. “
For all of you music lovers in the house,
” I said, knowing they wouldn’t get the reference to Satchmo but saying it anyway, “
we going to beat out
‘The Muskrat Ramble.’ ”

“The Muskrat Ramble.” Our best song, maybe
the
best song. We started up the “Ramble” and the band fell together and meshed like parts of a beautiful machine. All those years of playing in those bars: all the years of getting off work and going down and playing tired, playing with nobody listening but us, playing with nothing to keep us going but the music; all that came from inside us now, in a magic combination of fear, and anger, and the wild exhilaration of knowing we were the best there was at what we were doing. Hook was looping his part below me, Sidney leaping about above, the kid pushing us every note; and to keep up with the weave we were making I had to play hard and fast right down the middle of the song, lifting and growling and breaking my notes off, showing them all that there was a man
working
behind that horn, blowing as clear and sharp and excited as old Dipper-mouth Satchel-mouth Satchmo Louie Louis Daniel Armstrong himself. When we played the final round of the refrain everyone played their solo at once, only Fingers and Washboard held us down at all, and the old “Muskrat Ramble” lifted up and played itself, carrying us along as if it made us and not the other way around. Hook played the trombone coda and we tagged it; then the kid surprised us and repeated the coda, and we barely got our horns back up to tag it again, then we all played the coda and popped it solid, the end.

I motioned the band off, We were done; there was no way we could top that. We started for the wings and the roar of the audience soared up to a gooseflesh howl. We hurried off, waving our arms and shouting as loud as anyone there, jumping up and down and slapping each other on the back, chased by a wall of sound that shook the building.

We waited; tired, happy, tense, we waited:

And God damn me if we didn’t win one of those grants, a four-year tour of the Solar System; oh, we leaped about that waiting room and shouted and hit each other; Fingers and Washboard marched about singing and smashing out rhythms on the walls and furniture; Hook stood on a table and sprayed champagne on us; the kid rolled on the floor and laughed and laughed, “Now you’re in for it.” he choked out, “you’re in for it now!” but we didn’t know what he meant then, we just poured champagne on his head and laughed at him, even old Sidney was jumping up and down, wisps of hair flying over his ears, singing (I’d never heard him sing) a scat solo he was making up as he went along, shouting it out while tears and champagne ran down his face:

“
bo bo de zed,

we leaving the tunnels!

woppity bip,

we going to see Earth!

yes we (la da de dip)

going (ze be de be dop)

home!
”

—1975

om Finn got on the Greyhound bus intending never to get off. He had purchased a month pass in Chicago and gotten on bus 782. He planned to take the southern route to California, go up the Pacific coast, back to the Great Lakes, and on to New England. Or wherever. When he bought the next pass he would think about it.