Lady Sings the Blues - Billie Holiday [79]
We crossed at least one border every other day, and the money was always changing. Louis bought him a book first thing. And he was the only one in the group who didn’t get short-changed. He always knew what he had and what it was worth. Between Brussels and Cologne we didn’t go with the group but had to make the last lap alone in a taxi that was the coldest thing I ever got into in my life.
I had a fur coat on that usually feels as if it weighs about six pounds; it didn’t weigh half a pound that night, it was so cold. When the cabdriver finally got us to the concert hall all I wanted to do was get out. But the driver kept gabbing at us in German. Finally Louis said, “What’s the matter, man?”
“Goddamn Americans,” he answered.
“I gave you ten per cent, that’s seventy-five cents in American money, what do you want?”
“Goddamn crazy Americans,” he said, repeating it five times.
I nearly died laughing.
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Then there was Berlin. When we got there a young cat was on deck to meet us and wanted to drive us to our hotel. He took us the long way, and all the way he’s giving us a sales talk.
“I have the only swing band in Berlin,” he says, just like that, in between showing us ruined churches, bombed-out homes, and the new modern buildings built over the ruins.
He kept inviting us to come to his club.
“We swing just like Charlie Parker,” he insisted.
I put him down for a real square, but he didn’t give up. He kept right on our tail. Every time I took a bath I’d look around and he’d be there saying, “Only swing band in Berlin—like Charlie Parker.” The second night we were there I couldn’t stand it any more. I had to go.
I was never so happy in my life. They were the swingingest cats I ever heard. All they have is American records. The latest American sides they had were from ’49 to ’50, but those cats can blow. And they had to work to get that way. They’re lucky enough to have no American radio or TV where some promoter can push a button and within a week every damn body is brainwashed and listening to the same stuff like “Doggie in the Window.”
American Negro musicians have to take their hats off to them. Charlie Parker and people like him, and people like me, we just had it in us. It’s got to come out someway. These cats didn’t have it in them. They had to work and study and listen and work some more and get it the hard way.
And you got to give their parents credit too. They’ve got respect for music over there. It’s culture to them, and art, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s Beethoven or Charlie Parker, they got respect. If a kid of theirs comes into the world and says he wants to play, they don’t act like he was a freak because he wants to be a jazz musician. They stick a horn in his mouth and they see that he gets some lessons. And those parents might be hungry, but the kids will still take lessons.
In this country, look what goes on. John Hammond came from a family rich enough to give him anything he wanted. But he was interested in jazz, so his folks thought he was nuts for hanging around Negroes. When he went around looking for talented musicians, trying to help them, he got by in the North. But in the South he had to take a sun lamp with him and try to get himself tanned enough so he wouldn’t get hell beat out of him or start a riot by wandering into the Negro ghettos.
We’re supposed to have made so much progress, but most of the people who have any respect for jazz in this country are those who can make a buck out of it.
I’ll always remember that night in Berlin listening to those kids in their little club. I stayed until six o’clock in the morning, and the bus left at eight.
Another night in Cologne turned into a comedy when Louis didn’t feel like going out and I went with Beryl Booker and her