There are 16 different, unique chapters in "Crossing the Musical Color line"; covering everything from Rock, Jazz, Country and the real life "School of Rock" - here's a part of chapter one:
“Breaking the Color Barrier”
The crowded train chugged out of Pennsylvania Station on a freezing morning in the winter of 1942. The 'Silver Meteor' roared on, snorting out hot steam that swallowed the dirty snow on either side of the tracks; spitting it out as rusty water.
Originating in icy New York city, the Sea Board Air Line Railroad’s flagship combination would travel 1382 miles, make more than two dozen stops, and still hit ninety degree Miami in its scheduled 25 hours.
“Don’t get your hopes up boy,” said the tall, spare black man with silvery hair on his chin, but none on his head. “The twelve of us in this band won’t be in Miami in no 25 hours. We be lucky to get there in 25 days!”
“What do you mean Mr. Sloane? I thought we were going to be playing in Miami,” questioned the green youngster who sat across from him, his hands grasping a Boston made, Stromberg guitar.”
“Call me 'Lucky' kid, like everybody else. They call me that cause I lucky to be alive. I been nearly lynched in a dozen towns and arrested in prolly a hundred. Ya see, I’ve always been uppity. It’s why I never made it big in the music bizness. I can play the trumpet way better than Cootie Williams, Hot Lips Paige or Satchel-mouth Armstrong….but I never give in easy. I make it hard for myself.”
“You are the greatest player for sure,” said the young man. “That’s what I told Mr. Henderson when I joined the band. I want to play with the best.”
“Well boy, you got your wish. And I wish you ain’t gonna be sorry you got it.”
“So, how come we’re not going to Miami for a long time?”
“Kid. We colored. We a colored band. We don’t got a schedule like Benny Goodman or Paul Whiteman.
Whiteman….that’s a funny name. You think Paul Whiteman would be making so much money if he wasn’t?”
“Wasn’t what?”
“Wasn’t white, boy! He is a white man named Whiteman. That’s pretty funny.
But us. Like I said we a colored band.
What that mean? That means we sometimes play in the white clubs and sometimes we play in the black joints. But after the show in the white part of a city, we gots to go back to the other side of town. We gotta stay in cheap hotels, eat cheap food, go to colored only places. Hell, we can’t even use their telephone?”
“What do you mean?”, asked the young guitar player.
“I mean that once you get in the South boy, there’s separate everythings. …..hotels, bathrooms, restaurants, schools, and yes even telephone booths. We can’t use a white telephone booth. We gotta find one for usselves or we can’t make no call. If we gotta take a leak we gotta find a colored bathroom or don’t go at all.
One time I hadda go so bad I couldn’t hold it no more. I peed against the side of a building and some citizen put the police on me and they slammed my head on the side of that brick building till I passed out. Then they jus leff me there lyin' in my own blood and a puddle of piddle.”
“They can’t do that,” said the guitarist who for the first time, was having doubts about his choice of jobs.
“Shit kid. They can do whatever they want. You a northern boy. I guess that’s why you don’t get it. In the North they do things like that but it’s a little more hid. They still do it but not quite so much as you’d notice it.”
The train ground to a reluctant halt a few miles out of Washington to take on water and mail. The musicians stopped talking and opened the windows. They stuck their heads through. Hoping for maybe a smell of cherry blossoms - instead,they got their nostrils burned by smoke and steam. Their car was near the front of the train and got the smokestack soot, while the passengers in the 'white-only' cars further back had the luxury of the clear, crisp air.
When its tanks were full of water and its postal car stuffed with fresh mail, the Great Locomotive called “97” resumed its clanky run to Florida.
“Well anyways, getting back to when we going to be in Miami.” Lucky closed his window with a thud and began speaking again when their speed was back to forty.
“Fletch has a few bookings lined on up certain dates but mostly we try to pick up work along the route of the train. Usually we play a night or two in Wilmington. Then just like the trackage of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, we go on to Baltimore and work a few days, then we get back on the train and head on down to Virginia and try to pick up a couple gigs in Alexandria and then Richmond.
After Richmond it gets really tough as we go thru Rocky Mount and Fayetteville in North Carolina and then Charleston in South Carolina and so It goes until when we get to Savanna, Georgia where we will work for a couple of weeks. Then on to Jacksonville and maybe a week or two after that, after that we will be in Miami.”
“It sounds great to me,” said the young guitar player. “Ever since I first heard the Fletcher Henderson orchestra, I’ve wanted to be in it.
When I was in high school, I went to try out for band and the leader said ’what do you play?’ When I told him guitar he just laughed".
“There’s no guitar in bands!,” he scorned.
“There’s going to be,” I told him. “I’m going to play for one of the great Big Bands,” I vowed. “He just laughed some more.”
“Well boy", Lucky responded, "you are here now and you are really good. You drive that shiny Stromberg 300 just like the steam engine pulls this ol’ train. You are about the first guitar man to have such a big chair in a Swing Band.
I gotta ask you again if you know what you are getting into.”
“I know Lucky. I know and I am ready. I know I’m going to be eating in all those ‘colored only’ places you told me about and sleeping in segregated hotels…..and......”
“.......And don’t forget about peeing in colored toilets,” Lucky chuckled.
“That too,” agreed the guitarist, “peeing in colored toilets.”
The end.
There's much more to this story. Read it for 99 cents in the Kindle Store.
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