And that is when I said what I said about being like the man in the frame shop. And he said, The literary man matting and framing for the exhibition. That’s it, man, that’s it. You already got it. The man in the frame shop is the one who is most immediately involved with how I want this stuff seen. The man in the frame shop. Hey, that’s pretty good. That’s damn good. Context, man. But I said, Not just in the literary sense of mythological or historical context. I said, That, too, but we’re also talking about a frame that functions like the stage proscenium when the curtain opens. It makes the make-believe believable and at the same time it reminds you that it is all also a matter of artifice.
You got it, man, he said, you got it. Then he said, Man, that goddamn Paris. Man, this goddamn New York. This goddamn United States. We got to get with it, man. What does it all mean? What are we going to do? He said, Get with it, man. Me, I’m all about the figure in the fabric, and I think of you as being about the angle of vision, the relativity and ambiguity of it all. My man with the four dimensions of space which include Proust’s dimension of time. Plus metaphor and syncopation!
XI
Two nights before the band came back into town that next time, Joe States called from Richmond to give me the name and address of the rehearsal studio they were going to be using until they moved into the recording studio I remembered from the last time. He sounded as fine as usual, and when I said so he said what he always said, and I could see his eyes and his lips and the tilt of his head and the angle of his neck, and the sound of his voice made me feel the way it always made me feel.
Me and you, Schoolboy, me and you. Get to me fast. And this time I’m also speaking for the Bossman, too. I just told him I was on my way to make this call when I waved to him over that crowd around him in his dressing room, and he said for me to tell you that he hoped the two of you could work out a little one-on-one checkup this time around. Like I keep telling you, Schoolboy, you got yourself another alma mater, of which he’s the papa.
So there you go, statemate, he said, as if using the cymbals to bring you to the solo microphone. And then as if adding a light roll as segue, he said, And speaking of the Bam, give all of our best to them fine people you went and got yourself all married up with. And tell her we also hope that she can also make it by to give us another little peek. Tell her I know how busy she is with both of you all taking classes, but tell I say all she got to do is just pop by the recording studio for a couple of takes and I guarantee that our permanent acknowledgment will be right there on everything else we do for the rest of the session. But now you, he said then, you get to me fast and I know I don’t have to tell you that the Bossman ain’t shucking about something like this.
The first rehearsal session was from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. that Tuesday. When I came into the studio he was all set up, adjusted and tuned, and so was everybody else. But there was time to make the rounds to each section and greet everybody one by one because the Bossman and Old Pro were still at the copy table deciding on the sequence of what they were going to run through.
Then shortly after I made it back to Joe States, I saw Old Pro begin to gather up the scores, and I moved on over to the copy table and said what I said to the Bossman first, and he waited while Old Pro and I said what we said to each other and I promised to call and find out about his free time.
Then I followed the Bossman on over to the piano, and as Scratchy McFatrick and I were slap-snatching palms again, the Bossman had already started playing around with a series of runs even before he sat down and adjusted his seat to the keyboard. Then as I came on over to him he moved over so that I could sit on the seat beside him and went on vamping what he was vamping at the same time that he was saying what he was saying about letting me know when he would be free so that I could meet him somewhere for an update while the band was in town this time.
Not that we need to lose any sleep over the likes of you, he said, still running variations on the notion he had either made up or picked up. Sometimes it might begin as any old sound at all, just something he heard and decided to turn into music, or sometimes it would be a phrase he heard somebody using as a part of a warm-up exercise and when he decided which way he wanted it to go, he would say, Hey, Bloop, or Hey, Jomo, or Hey, Mobe, how about this, and perhaps more often than not whoever he had picked it up from would not recognize it. But from time to time somebody might also say, Yeah, that’s a little run I picked up from old so-and-so back
