P.S. Read Free

orchestra played. In fact, they supplied the musical background. “Run around the whole studio?” I mumbled, thinking of Jesse Owens and Paavo Nurmi. They never sang while they ran. “Don’t you understand?” Einstein was testy again. “You’re calling out from a distance. A mist. This is a ghost ship.” Oh, I got it.
    I ran around the studio, singing out “Ma-a-arr-te-e-e-ennn of de Me-e-e-est.” Five times. By the time I reached the mike, I was Phidippides at the end of the marathon. I carried no torch, but I didn’t collapse. I was breathing rather laboriously, I must admit. The musicians honored me with a tusch . Even now, my heart leaps as I hear the violin bows tapping the music stands.
    But Einstein had another leap of the imagination. “Take your shoes off.” I looked dumbly toward the control room. “Don’t you understand?” He was testy again. “You’re Polynesian. They don’t wear shoes.” Oh, I got it. “May I keep my socks on?” There was a touch of desperation to my voice. I wasn’t sure I had showered that morning; I was worried about athlete’s foot; and I was certainly athletic at that moment. I waited. So did the whole symphony orchestra. Came the order: “Bare feet. Polynesians don’t wear socks. We want to hear the slap-slap-slap of your feet on the deck.” To this day, I am confused. How could the slap-slap-slap of my feet be heard a hundred yards away from the microphone? Slowly, I took off my socks. It was okay; I had taken a shower that morning.
    It’s better with your shoes off. I was saying that to myself, thinking of the Stanislavsky technique. A touch of realism couldn’t hurt. It’s better with your shoes off. I thought of Beatrice Lillie, too, as she sang “I’m a geisha girl.” Her refrain was: “It’s better with your shoes off.” Thus reflecting, it
helped. Once more, I sang out as I ran, a child of nature. When again I reached the mike, I was expecting a standing ovation from the orchestra. Nothing. A fine thing. They stand up for Solti, for Gilels, for Horowitz, for Piatigorsky. Was my performance any less virtuoso? Oh, well.
    Polynesians. Levantines. Mediterraneans. Smugglers, assassins, children of nature. Glory moments. But none of these experiences matches the perverse delight of playing the American gangster. Even now, as in a mist, I hear my voice, “Get in dere, you guys.” I am Bogey, Cagney, Little Caesar. But it’s small consolation. I am not Clark Gable. Though that silk dressing gown has long since been taken away by the sanitation man, I think of Norma Shearer. And how I missed her something terrible. Oh, well. I did scare the daylights out of Ma Perkins.

DREAMLAND, 1977
    IT IS NIGHTTIME. I am standing outside Dreamland. I am waiting for my brother. It is a ballroom on the West Side of Chicago. Here, black jazz bands play: Lottie Hightower and her men, one night; Charlie Cooke and his friends, another. I am impatiently shuffling my feet, though I do like the sounds I hear wafting through the open windows.
    It is not to be confused with the Dreamland Cafe. That’s on the city’s South Side. Joe Oliver, up from New Orleans, played there a few years ago. He has since moved to Lincoln Gardens, where Johnny Dodds, his brother Baby, and a feisty little woman of a piano player, Lil Hardin, have joined him. His young disciple, Louis Armstrong, has been outblowing Joe and has just been called out East by Fletcher Henderson. A girl who picked up my brother took him to this place a few months ago. He said it was really something.
    Here at the ballroom young white men and young women come to dance rather than to listen. Preferably on a dime. To sock. In short, to rub bellies together and, thus, excite one another. Always, toward the end of the night, comes the slow blues for which everybody is waiting.

     
    My daddy looks at the clock
    And the clock strikes out
    Oh daddy, takes it out
    Before it gets too late.
     
    It is a place where young people