“Boozin’, boozin’ up,” said the Spieler, “boozin’ up.”
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’.”