THE BAND MASTER’S SOLO
The leader of the Big Show’s band wasn’t much on technique, but if there were any notes coming to an E-flat cornet that he had overlooked something was wrong with the whole theory of music.
The way he could blow melody out of that piece of polished brass was something that the rest of the outfit never understood. He was a little fellow with a very small moustache that ran largely to waxed ends. He always wore a blue uniform and a cap, and he looked like a messenger boy. The twenty-eight “star soloists” that he directed possessed more wind than a Western cyclone and an Eastern typhoon blown into one, for twice a day they played from one-thirty until the last race in the hippodrome was off, and this was no five finger exercise.
The gang was rather talkative when the leader came across from the band stand, so he sat down on the corner of the elevated stage and hummed to himself. Presently the chorus cut out and he soloed thusly:
“I ain’t no Sousa, boys, an’ there ain’t no brass hangin’ to my pea jacket, but say, if there’s any leader that can get more noise out of them 28 than I can, I’ll eat every bit of sawdust under the tent an’ say thankee when I’m done.”
Nobody disputed this distinction and the leader continued to cadenza:
“It ain’t no snap tossin’ off melody for a show like this. When I’m out with the minstrels in the winter the game’s easy, but the snap is nothin’ but blow, an’ you’ve got a lot of crazy ones in the ring here to take cues from. An’ talkin’ about them 28 of mine, there ain’t no show band in the country that can beat ’em switchin’.”
“Say, you know the night we opened in the Garden? Well, we was playin’ ‘The Holy City’ for the guy in spangles what rolls hissef up the spiral. The music plot was ‘Holy City’ to the top, a little of the shiver while he was makin’ the last turn, an’ then a lot of brass an’ bing-bing when he makes the rush to the ring. Well, the boys were playin’ the ‘Holy City’ fine and daisy when the equestrian director comes across the track an’ whispers:
“‘Here’s Dewey comin’ up by the reserved section.’
“So I knows he wants somethin’ appropriate, an’ I gives the signal for ‘Here Comes a Sailor.’ Well, them twenty-eight switches like a limited on a clear track an’ the crowd on the boards goes wild. But the guy in the tin ball, he’s been kneelin’ it up to ‘The Holy City,’ an’ when the music changes to swift he can’t work his knees fas’ enough an’ he lets go an’ nearly breaks his back. He calls me a Dutch somethin’, I didn’t jes’ catch, an’ it costs him 25 fine off the pay sheet.
“An’ speakin’ about noise, fifteen year ago I leaves home, where I was workin’ in a harness factory and leadin’ the Silver Cornet Band in the evenin’, an’ goes on the road with a medicine show. We has one of them long-haired boys doin’ the fake dentist an’ pullin’ teeth without pain while his wife does the female doctor an’ sells pills. We six brass has to play when Doc an’ his wife is workin’, an’ in the mornin’ go back of the stage an’ roll pills an’ put ’em in fancy boxes what Doc sells with the packages of Australian gold pens, the little joker transparent cards an’ the South American Cyroola Corn Cure what he gives away to each an’ every purchaser of Dr. Sorino’s Death Delayin’ Pellets.
“Well, the game was to git some coon in the crowd to come up on the stage an’ have his tooth pulled for nothin’ an’ without pain. Doc gets the moke in the chair an’ makes his spiel ’bout the great pain killer he has an’ says it won’t hurt the boy on the velvet. The band was all brass except Cooney Watson, who was playin’ a kettle drum an’ workin’ the bass and cymbals with a pedal. While Doc was gittin’ the forceps on the tooth we played soft an’ quiet like an’ as soon as he gives the jerk we lets loose with a march an’ you can’t hear nigger man holler to save your life. It was great, an’ it worked the countries all the times. Cooney would make you think there was a thunder storm comin’ up the way he beat them drums.
“But poor Cooney. Doc picks up six Indians to make the show stronger an’ introduce his famous Indian bitters. The red boys had a new moon an’ asks Cooney to loan ’em the drum to do the Tom Tom. Cooney says no an’ the Big Chief gets good an’ sore, but says nothin’. The next day we has a parade an’ we brass is on top of a wagon with Doc’s ads, painted on the side. The Indians is ridin’ along behind us. Well, say, we had hardly hit the main street when the Indian what was sore on the drummer throws his lariat and lassos poor Cooney off the wagon, drums an’ all, into the middle of a bunch of cows what was gettin’ weighed. He was pretty bad, so we shipped him home.”
“That ain’t Cooney beatin’ the drum with us, is it?” asks the Boss Canvasman as he tied a long running knot in the guy rope to the net under the swings for the brother act.
“No indeed,” says the Leader, “Cooney never joins out again. The las’ I seen of him he was workin’ at his trade out in Indianny—he was paintin’ the roof of the courthouse when we had the parade.”