Black Chicago Page 6

  English wandered around inside the mouths of people whose native languages were so differently pronounced that they, in effect were creating a different language each time they spoke English.

  Like me, she whispered to herself, and smiled …

  The train moved briskly from station to station, the conductor monotoning instructions—“No radio playing, excessive noise or drinking of alcohol. Next stop …”

  She was back in her “neck of the woods,” someone had called it. There were enough signs in Lithuanian to let everybody know that this was a predominantly Lithuanian neighborhood.

  She walked the three blocks to her grandparents home, her mind on the new technique Professor Bronte had demonstrated.

  Yusef Malik glared at the yuppie couple at table number three as he performed his solo.

  Fuckin’ yuppie ass motherfuckers. Why do they come here to pretend to listen to the New African classical music? They’d be better off at home goofin’ around with their VCRs.

  The intensity Brother Yusef’s playing frequently forced “the yappers” (his name for the compulsive conversationalists) into an intimidated silence.

  The couple at table number three, tried to pretend that the large boned, fiercely bearded, coal dark-skinned man playing the upright bass was not glaring at them, and playing his solo at them.

  They couldn’t pretend for long. He used the vacant spaces in their chit chat, filling in with rapidly swelling thumps and plunks, mimicking their conversation and weaving serious elements around it. It was an display of musical satire, rivaling Chocktos Animal suite.

  The viciousness of his attack and the lengthening shadow of his hatred caused Mel Terry, piano man, leader of the quartet, to stage—whisper, “Lighten up, brother Yusef, lighten up, baby.”

  He finally returned to the theme after he had ground the couple into his musical palette. Some members of the audience, hip to and approving of what had happened, applauded enthusiastically. The majority, yuppies themselves, identified with the couple and responded to his vigorous solo with tepid hand claps.

  Yusef Malik didn’t acknowledge the approving applause or the lack of approval, it was all one to him. Fuck ’em.

  The end of the last set, Saturday night, the Blue Onion.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for making the set, we’ll be here ’til July 30th, so tell all your friends and neighbors … hah!”

  Yusef Malik frowned in Mel Terry’s direction. Cut the Tom shit, man …

  “And now, the members of our quartet—first, on flute, tenor sax and alto, we have Mr. Hubert Frame.”

  The applause rang out for the congenial Mr. Frame.

  “On congas, bongoes, chekere, pandiero, agogo and a hundred other percussion instruments, Mr. Babalade Ofayemi.”

  Once again the applause meter was pushed upward.

  “And next to last, the formidable, Mr. Yusef Malik.”

  The lightweight applause covered up Yusef Malik’s growl from the corner of his mouth.

  “Mel, I told you before, don’t introduce me as Mr., I’m brother Yusef. Brother Yusef …”

  Mel Terry ignored Yusef Malik’s complaint with a smile.

  “And last but not least, yours truly, Mel Terry, see ya next time, folks.”

  Yusef Malik toweled his bass strings off, propped the instrument in place and left the bandstand, trailed by the other members of the group, who paused to exchange pleasantries with the customers leaving the Blue Onion.

  He sprawled out on one of the deck chairs in their dressing room, feeling drained from the pressures of doing three sets in front of largely unhip audiences, the people who used to come for the music and knew what they were receiving when the goods were delivered.

  He stared up at the ceiling, wool gathering back to his days with Lord Ra, Sonny Be’, Coltrane II, Cherry, Mondo, Miles (for a minute), Kirby Lester, the Chicago Quintet, the Avant Garde Group in Amsterdam.

  “Yusef, how ya doin, man?”

  He turned his attention from his memories to the pleasant Italian face of the Blue Onion owner, Max Pregasetti.

  O.K., lets hear the latest bullshit.

  “You got it, Max, you got it …”

  “You meditatin’ or something?”

  “Naw, c’mon in, lets kick it.”

  Max Pregasetti bounced in, a real meatball of a man who attempted to look as though he cared about being dressed in the latest fashions, but always failed.

  Meat sauce splattered his shirt front, his trousers caught under the heels of his expensive Australian loafers and the gold chains around his neck were obscured by the rolls of sweaty fat.

  Despite his unlikely appearance, Yusef dug him for two great traits; he was a jazz lover from the old school and he paid the band members promptly.

  He folded his hands in front of his belly like a choir boy and stood beaming in front of Yusef Malik.

  “Brother Malik, you was hot tonight, baby, I mean hot.”

  Yusef nodded slightly, almost a seated bow. Compliment from a jazz lover, an authentic devotee, was to be acknowledged.

  Pregasetti bounced slightly from one foot to the other, a nervous habit that usually preceded something he felt ill at ease about saying.

  The other members trickled in, feeling jovial. Mel Terry fingered a match book with the palomino haired woman’s phone number on it in his front pocket.

  You could get a lot of pussy in the Blue Onion, if you were willing to be just the least bit “nice.”

  Hubert Frame popped another dexie and flushed it down with half a bottle of Guiness Stout. Babalade Ofayemi drummed nervously on the edge of his dressing table.

  It was frustrating to play for limited periods of time.

  He never felt that he was really getting off until he had latched onto a six—eight rhythm for an hour or more.

  Max greeted each individual, an expertly executed soul shake here, a soft slap on the back, a look of awe and respect.

  “Max!” Yusef called to the club owner above the developing party atmosphere. A trio of groupies, two female and one male, had infiltrated the dressing room. It wouldn’t be long before a few more made their way backstage.

  Pregasetti cocked his head in Yusef’s direction, “Yeah, Yusef?”

  “What is it you were goin’ to say before the brothers came in?”

  The owner shuffled across the room and stood bouncing from foot to foot. He jammed his hammy fists into his sports coat pocket.

  “Oh, nuttin’ really, you know …”

  Yusef cocked a malevolent—question mark eyebrow at him.

  “C ’mon, man spit it out. You know it ain’t like you to clam up.”

  Pregasetti stared at his shoes and then at a distant point before speaking.

  “Uhh, well, actually, what I wanted to say—no big thing you know—but what I wanted to suggest, you know, is that maybe, you know, maybe you could go just a little easier on the clientele, you know what I mean? Now didn’t get me wrong, Yusef. I’m on your side, you know that, but the customers …”

  Babalade Ofayemi stopped playing nervous figures on the edge of the dressing room table. Yusef Malik’s rages were really awesome to witness. The drummer settled back and watched Yusef gather himself up from his seat like a storm cloud.

  He stood, a large boned 5′10″, but when he raged he seemed twice as large. He towered over everyone in the room.

  His voice was the lowest bass note he had ever played, and loud.

  “Are you tryin’ to tell me how to play my music?!”

  Pregasetti’s face turned purple and he shifted his head from side to side, a subconscious imitation of Stevie Wonder.

  Bouncing lightly from left foot to right foot, his head wobbling, he almost seemed to be dancing in place.

  “Ahh, uhh, no Yusef, nuttin like that, I was just, you know … hah … going to suggest that, well, maybe, you could … uhh … you know, be a little more pleasant?!

  Pregasetti’s voice squeaked on the last three words. Yu
sef Malik stuffed his bristling beard into the owner’s face and began to rumble out his words.

  “Now you listen to me good, Max, ’cause I ain’t gonna never say this again. For all I care your fuckin’ customers can eat my shit, if you can find any of them worthy of the honor.

  “Do you know who I am?!”

  Bold streaks of sweat slid down the side of the owner’s face as he nodded yes, yes, yes.

  “I am Yusef Malik. I play the most imaginative bass since Mingus. I have played with Lord Ra, I have played with Sonny Be, with Kirby Lester, the Chicago Quintet, the Avant Garde Group and a collection of geniuses that most of your tin eared baboon customers have never heard of.”

  Max Pregasetti made a hopeless gesture with both hands at his side, to acknowledge Yusef Malik’s greatness.

  Malik wasn’t shouting but his words boomed thru the stricken room.

  “Don’t you ever dare to tell me to be nice to these musical idiots who wander into this fuckin club. Do you hear me, Max Pregasetti!?”

  “I hear you, Yusef, I hear you.”

  “Where in the fuck are you comin’ from anyway?! I thought you had better sense than to talk to a man of my stature like that.”

  “Sorry, Yusef, sorry I pissed you off.”

  Malik turned suddenly from ragging Pregasetti’s ass to push his beard into Mel Terry’s face. The beard seemed to be ripple like snakes.

  “And you my brother, cut this Minstrel show shit out.”

  Mel Terry drew his chin in and flicked his eyes from side to side, obviously afraid of the egomaniac confronting him.

  “And one more thing, if you introduce me one more time as Mister, instead of Brother, I’m going to break your motherfuckin’ fingers, one by one. O.K.?!”

  Mel Terry jammed his hands into his pockets defensively. Brother Yusef Malik was known to have a terrible temper. He was like a grizzly bear when he got mad.

  One evening Hubert Frame, wired up on a couple lines of pharmaceutical quality cocaine, found himself dodging Yusef’s bass bow because he had broken in on his solo a chorus too soon.

  The rage sputtered like a volcano as Malik pulled a fresh white linen three-quarter length shirt over his head, and adjusted a white cap over his semi-dreaded locks.

  “What time is rehearsal tomorrow, Mel?”

  The sudden change of rhythm and timbre caught them by surprise.

  “Ohh, we figured, I figured we could chill out tomorrow, it’s Sunday, you know?”

  Mel Terry clenched the match book in his fist, Yusef Malik looked him up and down a few beats, his eyes reddening with pent-up fury.

  “You mean to tell me, as raggedy as we been playin’, we gon’ take a fuckin’ day off?! What the fuck are you talkin’ about?! When we got into “Chano’s Chant” this evening I thought all of us was droppin’ our drawers ’n you talkin ’bout takin’ a day off?!”

  Mel Terry took a deep breath and sighed. The man, the brother was impossible to relate to socially, but he was the greatest bassist he’d ever played with.

  People spoke of Oscar Pettirord, Jimmy Blanton, Mingus Reggie Workman, Jimmy Garrison, Paul Chambers and Yusef Malik as though they were gods of the bass.

  Yusef Malik knew he was a god, and never allowed them to forget it.

  “Awright everybody, rehearsal tomorrow at two p.m., Yusef is right we got to get it tighter.”

  Malik stood in the open door and smiled viciously at each person in the room before going out and closing the door softly,

  Max Pregasetti pulled a soiled white cotton handkerchief from his back pocked and swabbed his brow with it.

  He hated to be clubbed in the head like that, in front of other people, but he felt it was worth it. After all, wasn’t Yusef Malik the greatest bass player in the world.

  Sometimes it paid to take a little crap, if you were lookin out for the future, The future for Max Pregasetti was producing and writing music for the Mel Terry Quartet, featuring Yusef Malik.

  He swabbed his neck. The records we’ll sell will go down in history and make us piles of dough.

  “O.K., guys, gather round, I got bread to pass out. Where did Yusef go? I didn’t pay him yet.”

  “It don’t matter where he went, just be sure you got his money when he see you again,”

  Babalade announced in his sing song Nigerian accent.

  Max Pregasetti nodded in agreement and pulled a fat wallet from his breast pocket.

  Riga gritted her teeth together, Professor Bronte folded his arms across his chest and lowered his chin to his collar bone, a rare gesture of exasperation for him.

  He signalled for her to stop in mid-passage. She was attempting to play the opining movement of a modern piece of music by Lade Sat, called “Sun Food.”

  Riga lowered her violin, waiting for Professor Bronte’s critique.

  She loved the modern works for violin, they were so challenging and complicated to play. And frustrating.

  “Riga, how can I say this?”

  She waited patiently for the Professor to speak. He was such a dear, patient man, willing to spend all the time necessary for her to grasp a point.

  He unfolded and refolded his arms twice, a study in frustration. Finally he stood in front of her, a chubby caricature of Toscanini.

  “Your technique is wonderful for this piece, absolutely wonderful, you understand?”

  She nodded numbly. “What is the problem if my technique is right?”

  “The problem is that you’re not bringing the kind of soulfulness to this work that it needs. You understand? The problem is soul.”

  Once again she nodded. Wasn’t the soul of the work built into the technique? Professor Bronte seemed to read her mind.

  “Riga, please believe me, the soul of a work is not automatically revealed because you are playing well, you must bring another dimension to the work. Now, let’s try again …”

  She adjusted the handkerchief, placed the violin properly between chin and shoulder and began to play the syncopated melodies of Lade Sat’s “Sun Food.”

  Professor Bronte paced up and down half way across the studio as she played. Suddenly he stopped pacing and moved quickly in her direction.

  “Riga, this needs to be played like American Negro music, like jazz! You understand?”

  She stared at him blankly. American Negro music? Jazz?

  In all of the fifteen years she had been a student of the violin she had never attempted to play jazz. In Lithuania jazz meant Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith perhaps, or maybe a little Dizzy Gillespie.

  Some of the wild ones had preciously guarded tapes of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Wynton Marsalis, Oscar Peterson and others, but for the conservatory trained musicians, music was European classical period.

  Professor Bronte’s eyes lit up.

  “Of course you do not understand, you are not familiar with this music. You must see it, hear it, absorb it to understand it.”

  She propped her violin on her left thigh and nodded again. Professor Bronte plunged his thumbs into his vest pockets and puffed his chest out.

  “I myself, will expose you to this music and then you will understand how ‘Sun Food’ should be played.”

  Yusef Malik kept a steady pace for his six mile run, twice around the big field in Washington Park, not too fast, not too slow.

  The run accomplished, he walked quickly to his compact Japanese car, focusing on the next steps of his daily routine.

  Home (an uncluttered apartment on Kimbark Avenue, in Hyde Park), shower, answer phone calls, juice and fruit brunch, listen to the new tape of Bismillah Khan, make the two p.m. rehearsal at the Blue Onion.

  He drove expertly thru the streets of his hometown, cataloging new scenes, buildings, faces.

  Yusef was proud of his sense of discipline, the dedication he brought to his art.

  “None of that dope—junky—shit for me, if music ain’t enough to get me high then I’ll never be high.”

  Music was his life and the music he called �
�The New African Classical Music” was his blood bank.

  “Someday these fools will look up and discover what we really have up in here.”

  He played a tape of Ravel’s Quartet in F Major as he showered, humming along with the sections he liked. Music, music, music, all is music.

  Drying himself after the shower, he studied his body in the full length mirror. Hmmmmmm … not bad for a forty-two-year-old-brother who used to suck on the night and never put a cork in the liquor bottle.

  Have to do a few more push ups …

  Phone calls: “Yusef, this is Doris, call me when you get a chance.”

  Wonder what she wants?

  Yusef couldn’t figure it out, the more assertive he was, the more arrogant, the more opinionated he was, the more he was liked by a certain kind of woman. Doris Rawls was a good example; an entrepreneur, well read, been everywhere, full of herself.

  “You know something, Doris there’s just one thing wrong with you, you think you know every fuckin’ thing.”

  He had, by design, a completely different kind of relationship with four African-American women.

  Doris Rawls could stand toe to toe with him in any argument that concerned geopolitics, art, history, finance, public relations, psychology, racial relations and a number of other subjects that might spring up.

  He had discovered after a few stabs at it, they were better off being friends than lovers. Doris Rawls wasn’t completely convinced of his conclusion.

  “I think we’d really have a nice thing going, brother Malik, if you let your guard down a little.”

  Sandra Waters, a show business attorney, was always available to offer advice or to go jogging with. He wasn’t quite certain whether it would be to their advantage to become lovers.

  Why spoil a good business relationship for the sake of an orgasm?

  He jokingly referred to Linda Price and Francine Du Valier as his “harem.” The ladies knew each other in a peripheral, hip way, and that they were both lovers of Yusef Malik.

  He/they were honest with each other and during the course of their two-year involvement had only experienced one miscue.

  Yusef apologized to both of them for having made the faux pas and stood in a distant corner for a month, to determine which way the wind would blow or the fur would fly.