"Howard Waldrop - Ike At The Mike" - читать интересную книгу автора (Waldrop Howard)

home and one to the Army. He was back outside in fifteen minutes, with
thirty-three dollars in his pocket.

"Let's go find me a clarinet," he said to the black man.

He knew he would not sleep well that night, and neither would anybody back on
the farm. He probably wouldn't sleep well for weeks. But he sure as heck knew
what he wanted.

Armstrong smiled, wiped his face, and blew the opening notes of "When It's
Sleepy Time Down South." Ike joined in.

They went into "Just a Closer ,Walk with Thee," quiet, restrained, the horn
and clarinet becoming one instrument for a while. Then Ike bent his notes
around Armstrong's, then Pops lifted Eisenhower up, . then the instruments
walked arm in arm toward Heaven.
Ike listened to the drummer as he played. He sure missed Wild George.

The first time they had met, Ike was the new kid in town, just another guy
with a clarinet. Some gangster had hired him to fill in with a band, sometime
in 1911.

Ike didn't say much. He was working his way south from K.C., toward Memphis,
toward New Orleans (which he would never see until after New Orleans didn't
mean the same anymore).

Ike could cook anyone with his clarinet horn player, banjo man, even drummers.
They might make more noise, but when they ran out of things to do, Ike was
just starting.

He'd begun at the saloon, filling in, but the bandleader soon had sense enough
to put him out front. They took breaks, leaving just him and the drummer up
there, and the crowds never noticed. Ike was hot before there was hot music.

Till one night a guy came in-a new drummer. He was a crazy man. "My name is
Wild George S. Patton," he said before the first set.

"What's the S. stand for?" asked Ike.

"Shitkicker!" said the drummer.

Ike didn't say anything.

That night they tried to cut each other, chop each other off the stage. Patton
was doing two hand cymbal shots, paradiddles, and flails. His bass foot never
stopped. Ike wasn't a show-off, but this guy drove him to it. He blew notes
that killed mice for three square blocks. Patton ended up by kicking a hole
through the bass drum and ramming his sticks through his snare like he was
opening a can of beans with them.