Tiger Rag (21 page)

Realizing that LeMond had been distracted, Owen glanced over his shoulder
. Someone you know?

What?

At the door.

LeMond focused on him again
. What were you saying?

That I could sit in and play off of you. Second trumpet. Just one night, Sammy.

That’s what you want? We can do that.

You’re sure?

If it gets you the job, why not.

What Owen didn’t reveal was that he had already told Tex Mayeux he was playing with the sextet, implying that it was not for the first or last time. The only reason Mayeux was interested in Owen was his supposed connection to LeMond’s band. Owen had gambled that, good-natured as he was, LeMond would say yes
.

And so it was that Valentine Owen found himself standing under the blue spotlights at Club Tunis as the sextet launched into “XYZ” before a full house that included Tex Mayeux, impressed as hell with himself for auditioning a musician who played alongside the great Sammy LeMond
.

That’s how Valentine Owen got invited to join the Hurricanes, whose repertoire of “Sweet Georgia Brown,” “When the Saints Go Marching In,” and the like were more his speed. After the performance, Tex Mayeux, wearing a seersucker suit and alligator boots, walked into the dressing room, doffed his
hat, and shook LeMond’s hand. Unbidden, LeMond offered up a sterling recommendation of Owen
.

Eddie Dawson, the sextet’s drummer, witnessed all of this. When he was alone with LeMond, he said
, Sammy, who was that other guy tonight?

I told you.

I mean, who
was
he?

A friend.

Eddie shook his head and uncapped a bottle of beer
.

You had a problem with his playing?
LeMond said
.

What do you think.

I think you oughtn’t to trouble yourself—or me.
LeMond’s voice softened
. It was just this once. Don’t you remember when you were hungry, Eddie?

I’m still hungry. But hunger ain’t the same as talent.
He squeezed LeMond’s shoulder
. You’re a soft touch, Sammy.

Valentine Owen didn’t actually join up with Tex Mayeux and the Hurricanes for another three months, when they started touring again in the Deep South. Living in a dingy hotel on Howard Street in Chinatown, he used the time to practice the Hurricanes’ repertoire until he could have played it in his sleep. He also tried, with less success, to cut down on his drinking. LeMond lent him fifty dollars to buy a white tuxedo jacket and black pants with a satin stripe down the sides, the Hurricanes’ uniform
.

Owen expressed his gratitude, but felt only contempt for LeMond. He believed that, by definition, anyone you could game was unworthy of your respect. Previously he had coveted LeMond’s good fortune; now he hated him for it. The more helpful LeMond was, the more Owen resented him. He was
motivated as much by envy as ambition; and even as he accepted the fact that his ambition exceeded his talent, he began to realize his envy was boundless
.

In the 1960s Sammy LeMond continued to prosper. At forty, he was still youthful, dapper, with a full head of hair. His health was good, though like his father he had been born with a heart murmur and a faulty valve in his right ventricle, which he knew could only worsen as he grew older. But while his father had helped his condition along with cigarettes and bourbon, dying after a heart attack at fifty-five, LeMond was a nonsmoker and light drinker. He never touched drugs at a time when many of his peers were doing whatever came their way
.

The Eclipse Sextet cut three LPs. One of them hit number 7 on the
Billboard
jazz chart. They all got a lot of radio play. The band toured the States, Scandinavia, and England and played some major festivals in France and Italy. They made very good money for their day. But LeMond didn’t like to travel. The grueling schedules exhausted him. And he didn’t like living out of hotels. By 1970 he was only playing gigs in New York. He bought a run-down nightclub on 124th Street, near Mount Morris Park, and converted it into a fine supper club, beautifully appointed. He hired an experienced manager, a prizewinning chef, and a booking agent. Musicians coming into town coveted a gig there. Local notables like Coleman Hawkins and Art Blakey stopped by to jam. At the same time, LeMond expanded his home, purchasing the adjacent apartment, gutting it, and constructing a soundproof studio where he and the band could rehearse and record. He got a reputation as a recluse; not only didn’t he tour, but he began bypassing the RCA
recording studios. He built up an extensive jazz library, thousands of 78s, 45s, 16s, LPs, and reel-to-reels and several dozen wax cylinders. He even owned a large selection of rare 76 rpm vinyl recordings that Victor produced in the twenties before they cut a deal with Columbia—whose recordings were 80 rpm—to split the difference and set 78 rpm as the industry standard. And of course there was the secret prize of his collection, the rarest recording of all
.

He kept it locked in a hidden cabinet, with controlled temperature and humidity, within the armoire that housed his oldest recordings. He had acquired an Edison cylinder phonograph in mint condition. The oak casing was highly polished, without a scratch. In the first years after Leonard Bechet entrusted him with it, LeMond listened to the Bolden cylinder many times. Except for Louis Armstrong’s Hot 5 recordings, produced two decades after Bolden recorded, LeMond had never heard anything comparable. He was astounded by Bolden’s technique—the impeccable phrasing, incendiary improvisation, and plaintive, passionate solos in which the cornet’s complexities rivaled the human voice. He had heard all the top-flight trumpeters play “Tiger Rag,” live and on records, but never like this. From this singular sample, LeMond understood Bolden’s enormous influence, fusing so many kinds of American music that preceded him into something new. Fifty years later, it remained unique
.

Determined to preserve the cylinder, LeMond eventually restricted himself to playing it once a year, on Bolden’s birthday, September 6. He would sit alone in his study, sipping cognac, attach the fourteen-inch brass horn to the phonograph, and turn the brass crank. By then, Monique was long gone, and there was no woman to speak of in his life. He only shared the
cylinder with two men who understood its significance and whom he trusted implicitly: his longtime engineer, Felix Girard, and his bass player, Isaiah Wells. Felix helped LeMond preserve the cylinder by brushing it lightly with a solution of tannic acid and aluminum oxide that prevented mold and ensured the integrity of the grooves. He also made two tape recordings off the cylinder, using the most sophisticated acoustical devices available in the mid-fifties. LeMond stored the tapes in a safe deposit box at the Chemical Bank on Eighty-sixth Street. He kept the key to the armoire cabinet in a small drawer at the base of his humidor, behind the matchboxes and cigar clippers
.

LeMond was one of the least selfish men imaginable, yet for all those years he had chosen not to share the contents of that cylinder with the rest of the world. He was aware that at a time when jazz musicology and history were being studied in universities, and the early musicians’ lives chronicled, Buddy Bolden was no longer a forgotten figure. In fact, Bolden had been so mythologized that the cylinder would be hailed as a major discovery that put to rest a great musical mystery. But still LeMond could not part with it. When he had qualms—and he did—he rationalized that, having always been generous, sharing his good fortune, he wanted this one thing for himself. At least for a while—or maybe even until after his death. It was not a rationalization he found altogether convincing, or took pride in, but he was willing to live with it, telling himself that for all the critical interest the cylinder would arouse, there were people whose sole interest would be to exploit it. With Bolden’s legend growing, the same record company executives who had ignored or insulted Willie Cornish would see dollar signs and start jockeying. LeMond wanted no part of that. He respected how loyal Cornish had been to Bolden’s memory, and
he was still amazed that Leonard Bechet had entrusted the cylinder to him rather than to his own brother. LeMond would see to it that the cylinder took its place in the world, shining a light on Bolden as the inventor of jazz, but it would be done properly, respectfully, and to maximum effect
.

But not just yet, LeMond thought on September 6, 1978, as he sat in his study and was thrilled once again listening to King Bolden play his fierce opening solo before Willie Cornish’s trombone joined in on the ninth measure. His joy was such that he felt sure he was about to get lucky in a way he never had before. He just didn’t know what that was
.

The following night, the city sky velvety blue, the trees in the park fresh with rain, he met Joan Neptune for the first time
.

She walked into Sammy LeMond’s club at nine o’clock wearing a dark green dress. He was sitting at his customary table, with a clear view of both the stage and the front entrance. She scanned the room—for a moment he thought she might leave—and then asked the maître d’ for a table for one
.

Though she had yet to look at him, LeMond was certain this woman hadn’t just walked into his club, but his life. He stared at her profile, five tables away. She was around forty years old. Tall and elegant. Her face unlined, unblemished, planed like one of his mahogany busts from West Africa, with a high forehead and full lips. A pleasingly symmetrical face. Her straight black hair was drawn back with an ebony barrette
.

She ordered a Manhattan. As her waiter headed for the bar, LeMond beckoned him over. A few minutes later, the waiter brought her a 1964 Dom Pérignon. When she protested, he
told her the owner had sent it and pointed out LeMond, who nodded, smiling. She thought about this, and then asked him to invite Mr. LeMond over, and to bring a glass for him
.

The waiters and bartenders had known LeMond to order up drinks on the house for Sonny Rollins and Max Roach, and to send Duke Ellington’s table a bottle of the maestro’s favorite Scotch, twenty-year-old Talisker, but they had never seen him do this for an unattached woman
.

Mr. LeMond,
she said, extending her hand
. I’m Joan Neptune. Thank you, and please join me. I know your music. I’m honored.

It was her voice that finished him, not her words. Soft but resonant
. The honor is all mine,
he smiled
.

The waiter uncorked and poured the champagne, then took the pianist a request from LeMond
.

He asked if you’d play “All My Life,”
the waiter said
. In D.

Joan Neptune was a psychic. By her definition that meant someone with exceptional powers of perception, sometimes extending beyond the five senses. If you wanted to call that “paranormal,” it was fine with her. But she thought of it as perfectly normal, a highly developed sense of intuition, perhaps, coupled with a belief that the world is composed of more than three dimensions and time is measurable in units other than hours, days, and years when it is measurable at all. She operated in a realm far removed from the fortune-tellers and palm readers in seedy storefronts and the charlatans who spoke in tongues on late-night television. She had made a niche for herself, working on commission on her own terms. Some of her clients were well-heeled people for whom she was more therapist
than soothsayer, exploring their pasts in order to anticipate their futures. They were easy to deal with, and she only worked with people she liked. Other clients were executives, often young, the type who had made
The Art of War
their business manual. She offered them a simple concept:
Learn how to think in the future.
Not to imagine, but to inhabit, it, so you can arrive there before your competitors and make the terrain your own. Last, there was the New York City Police Department, who outsourced her for more esoteric—and grisly—work
.