by Bill Moody
“Just listen to the tape, Pappy.”
Twenty minutes later we’re in Red Rock Canyon. So close to the city, but another world from the Strip hotels and casinos. I stop and park at one of the view sites. It’s several degrees colder up here, enough so I put on the Camaro’s heater.
We listen to both sides of the tape, then get out of the car and walk over to a stone bench that faces the Spring Mountains. As the sun moves, I point out the caps of snow on the highest peaks and the movement of the sun, almost making the mountains change color before our eyes.
Pappy is not impressed. “I ain’t into this nature shit,” he says. “Critters out here.” He points at a rabbit scurrying through the brush.
“So what do you think?”
“I don’t know who the rest of the band is,” he says, lighting up a long brown cigarette. “Bass player is sorry, but I’d swear that’s Brownie. Caught him once with the Jazz Messengers, before he teamed up with Max Roach.” He leans against the car, smiling, shaking his head. “Cat always played like it was his last gig.” Pappy looks at me. “If this is Brownie, could be some long bread in it for somebody.”
“That’s what it’s all about.”
Pappy squints at the mountains. “Only thing you could do is check the solos.”
“What do you mean?”
“Some of those tunes Brownie recorded with Max. See how close the solos come to your tape.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Brownie was an improviser of the first order. He wouldn’t likely play the same solo, the same combination of notes. No jazz musician would, at least not one as good as Clifford Brown.
“Can you think of anybody who could do that, play that much like Brownie?”
“I don’t know, man. Cat would have to have a lot of chops, almost as good as Brownie. Take a lot of time in the woodshed to sound that much like him.”
Pappy has just described what every jazz musician goes through. I remember the hours I spent listening to Bill Evans’s records, trying to sound like him, before I found my own voice.
“Brownie gave a whole lot of trumpet players something to think about.” He turns to gaze at me, a smile on his face. “You got yourself a big job, piano man.”
We get back in the car and head for Las Vegas, the tape playing again. The song is “Gertrude’s Bounce.” Pappy stares at the tape deck. “Damn, somebody put a gun to my head, I’d have to say it is Brownie.”
“Nobody is going to do that, Pappy.”
“Shit, hangin’ around with you they might.”
I spend the rest of the afternoon making more calls and listening to the cassette and other CDs and tapes I know are Clifford Brown. I waver so many times, and after repeated listening the tunes run together in my head. I can’t tell the difference, especially on the few tunes that are the same. If this wasn’t Clifford Brown, who was it?
Between listening and thinking, I also try to track down Billy Root, the saxophonist who had once recorded with Brown but disputed the story that the recording was done the night before Brown’s death. No luck; he’s touring in Europe and, according to his wife, won’t be back for several weeks. She promises to relay my message if he checks in, but he’s on the move.
I get luckier with Jack Montrose, another saxophonist who had written an entire album for Brownie when he was in California and knew the trumpeter’s sound well. I explain what I want, and he agrees to see me.
“Sounds fascinating,” Montrose says. “I’m leaving for California in the morning. Just finishing up some arrangements for a mini-festival. If you can make it about seven, we’ll have a little time.”
I copy down his address. “Seven is fine.”
I know Montrose only by reputation, primarily as a composer-arranger, but when he greets me at the door, he reminds me that he was in the saxophone section for one of the hotel dates I’d played and conducted for the singer Lonnie Cole. Small world. Montrose was mentioned in the faxes Tim Shaw had sent me, so I knew that besides Brown, he’d written for and recorded with Art Pepper and Chet Baker and was a major force in the so-called West Coast jazz movement.
We settle in the den of his comfortable home. Montrose is soft-spoken and quick to smile, especially when talking about Clifford Brown. “He was a wonderful man, and a joy to write for. At a time when heroin habits were your credentials, Brownie was very refreshing.
We talk some more about the California scene in the ’50s, and finally I pull out the cassette. “This is the tape I mentioned. I hope you can tell me if it’s Clifford Brown.”
Montrose puts the tape in his machine and settles in a nearby chair, listening quietly. I try to read the expression on his face as the first few notes of the trumpet fill the room. Three tunes go by before he signals me he’s heard enough.
“Are they all like that?” he asks.
“Yes.”
He looks away, thinks for a moment. “That’s really remarkable. You say these are from a master tape?”
“I’m not sure. That’s what I’m trying to determine.”
“Well,” Montrose says, “I’d be hard pressed to say that’s not Clifford Brown. I really would.”
Now what? I’d hoped Montrose could tell me something more definite. “Do you think it’s possible someone could imitate him so well nobody could tell the difference?”
“Well, that would depend. Sonny Stitt sounded so much like Bird at times people couldn’t tell the difference. Charles MacPherson too. I think Clint Eastwood used him for that movie about Bird. As a musician yourself, I don’t have to tell you that if somebody did, they would do it deliberately, not by accident. Even if you’re influenced by another player, you don’t want to sound just like him, right?”
Montrose laughs, thinking of something else. “Do you know the story of the invented pianist? As a pianist yourself, you’ll appreciate this. Sometime in the ’50s when there were so many records being made, a comedian who also played piano—I don’t think I have to tell you his name—made a record. He invented a birthplace, a complete history, a name, that this was a great jazz talent who lived somewhere in the South but wouldn’t go to New York. When the album came out it got rave reviews from all the hip critics. A new star in jazz, they called him.”
“What happened?”
“He let it go on for a while, then confessed that he’d made up the entire story. The point is, he played just well enough to fool a lot of people. Maybe this trumpet player was doing the same thing.”
Maybe he was, but that still didn’t explain the time frame. This scam, if that’s what it is, wasn’t planned forty years ago. Based on the recording quality and the sound of the instruments, Montrose agrees with me that it was done in the ’50s.
“On the other hand,” Montrose says with a mischievous smile, “that might be Clifford Brown.”
I let my head drop to my chest, wondering if ever figure this one out.
“Don’t forget,” Montrose says, leaning forward to make his point, “record companies are coming up with forgotten tapes all the time.” He looks away for a moment, recalling something else. “Do you read much?”
“Yeah, quite a bit. Why?”
“Just curious. I do too. You ever read Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison? Lots of jazz in that book. Well, I just read that six new stories were discovered that he wrote in the ’30s. Sitting in a box under his desk. There was no doubt they were Ellison’s stories, they were written in his hand. See what I mean? It can happen.” He holds his palms up and smiles broadly.
I nod, take the cassette out of the machine. “Well, thanks for your time.”
“A pleasure,” Montrose says as he sees me out. “I hope I’ve been a help.”
I go back to Ace’s house and play and replay the cassette until I’m sure that if I were pressed, I couldn’t tell Clifford Brown from Herb Alpert. But there was something else Montrose said. It eludes me now, but I know it’s important.
The service for Ken Perkins is more like a stockholders’ meeting after th
e chairman of the board has died than a funeral. Ace spent the day before making arrangements with the help of Perkins’s sister and fielding calls from collectors who knew Perkins or his collection. They’d been arriving like delegates to a convention.
“These are not mourners,” Ace says, “they’re vultures, come to pick over the bones.”
According to Ace, the pickings are very good indeed. I don’t recognize a lot of the records Ace is talking about, but he assures me that even a cursory inspection of the Perkins collection is enough to make any collector envious.
I hadn’t seen Ace since the day before. He’d been holed up with Perkins’s lawyer, going over the inventory of the collection, determining which collectors would get what records. Perkins apparently had it all on his computer.
“I don’t think Ken’s sister will have to hold an auction,” Ace says. “She’s had offers on virtually everything Ken has already.”
“How did they know what he’s got?” We stand outside the funeral home, watching the late arrivals. From the looks they give Ace, most of them know he’s in charge of the collection. Some stop, shake hands with Ace, and mutter something like, “Terrible about Ken. Do you know if the copy of ‘Earth Angel’ is still available?” One or two are almost genuine with their condolences.
“See what I mean? They know mostly from Ken. Collectors like to brag. That’s part of the enjoyment,” Ace says. “Either that or they’ve lost out to Ken on previous auctions.”
Ace gets a signal from the funeral director that the service is about to begin. “I better go in,” Ace says. “You coming?”
“In a minute.” I arrived early after running out of people to call and tried to remain low profile while getting -a good look at everyone in attendance. Not that I expected to, but I haven’t seen anyone remotely resembling Cross. I watch the last few file past me. I’m about to go in when I see John Trask pull up in an unmarked car. He gets out and walks over.
“Quite a gathering,” Trask says. “I take it Perkins had a lot of friends.”
“They’re not exactly friends.” I explain what Ace has told me about the collectors.
“You mean they’re all here for records? What kind of music did he collect?”
“I guess it doesn’t matter. The point is, the records are rare and collectible.”
“And I thought I’d seen it all.” Trask looks around the full parking lot. “Let’s take a walk, unless you’re in a hurry to go inside.”
I’m not anxious. I’ve been to two funerals in the past three years, both for people I hardly knew, even though I played a minor role in their deaths. “I can wait.” I light a cigarette and follow Trask across an expanse of lawn.
“Interesting call logged in the other night. Anonymous, of course, from someone reporting an abandoned rental car at McCarran.”
“Really?”
“Really,” Trask says. He stops and looks at me for a moment, trying to read my expression, then continues. We walk down an asphalt path to a small wooden footbridge built over a motionless stream. Trask stops and leans on the railing. “Turns out the rental car wasn’t due back for another day. Guess the caller got confused.”
“Must have,” I say, not looking at Trask.
“The car was rented to a Bernard Dalton. Name mean anything to you?”
“Nothing. Should it?”
“Could have been the driver you told me about, the one who took you to Perkins’s house.”
“Or it could have been the guy who called himself Cross, to throw you off the trail.”
“No, I think it was the driver, that’s my gut feeling. I think this guy that calls himself Cross is too smart to have his name on anything.”
Trask doesn’t pursue it any further, and I’m grateful for that. “Thanks for the cassette tape,” I say, more to keep him off the subject than anything else.
Trask nods. “Yeah, Ochoa told me you picked it up yesterday. Does it tell you anything?”
“Not yet. I played it for a couple of people, but so far nobody is convinced one way or the other. When do you think the master tape analysis will be back?”
“Hard to tell. We get in line with the FBI lab like anybody else. I’ll let you know.” He straightens up, hitches up his trousers, and tucks his tie inside his jacket. “We also found a trumpet in a case, outside the house in the hedge.”
“A trumpet?” I get real busy fumbling for a cigarette, turning away from Trask to light it.
“That’s what you used to break out the screen, right?”
I nod, exhale a cloud of smoke the wind carries away quickly. “Yeah, it was handy. Guess I forgot. What did you do with it?”
Trask shrugs. “Took a couple of photos. There were a few smudged prints, so we put it back in the house. You going back to L.A.?”
I try to make my sigh of relief inaudible. “Yeah, probably tonight.” We walk back toward the mortuary. Near the entrance, Trask veers off to his car.
“You’re not going in?” I ask.
“No, we don’t know who we’re looking for. If you pick up on anything, I want to know.” Trask stops. “I don’t like it, Horne, but you’re all we’ve got. You and what might be the recordings of a dead trumpet player.”
I go inside. There’s a guest register, open on a podium. I run my finger down the list of names. No Cross, of course, nor Bernard Dalton, and no names that sound remotely familiar.
I stand near the back and look around the room. It’s a closed-casket service with a very strange atmosphere. Everyone but Ace and Perkins’s sister, who both sit up front, seems edgy, restless, more impatient than somber. There are a few obligatory remarks by the pastor, and it’s all over in a few minutes. With the formalities concluded, several men converge on Ace.
He fends them off as quickly as he can, hands those that approach him a piece of paper, and checks their names off a list. These are the lottery winners, and they’re smiling as they exit the chapel.
“Time to hand out the goodies,” Ace says as he stops beside me. Perkins’s sister is close behind. “Evan, this is Felicia Young, Ken’s sister.”
“How do you do,” I say, taking her outstretched hand. “I’m sorry for your loss.” She’s dressed in a dark suit. Her face is a mask. No sign of grief that I can see.
“Thank you,” she says. “Are you a collector too?”
“No,” Ace says quickly. “Evan’s a pianist, sometimes a detective.”
“Really?” she says, looking at me with new interest. “How fascinating.” I can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic or just courteous.
“Evan, could you drop Mrs. Young at her hotel? I’ve got to take care of some business.” He sweeps a hand toward the people filing out.
“Sure, be glad to. See you back at the house.”
Felicia Young and I walk out to my car. When I open the door for her, she looks surprised. “Ken had at least two good friends,” she says as we drive off.
“I really didn’t know your brother, Mrs. Young. I only met him the night he was—”
“Killed? It’s all right, you can say it. Ken and I weren’t close at all, not for years. And it’s Felicia.” She rolls down the window a bit. “Do you mind if I smoke?”
“Not at all.” I press in the lighter. She takes out cigarettes from her purse, lights one, and leans back in the seat. “Where are you staying?”
“Bally’s,” she says. “It’s the only hotel I know here. My husband and I were out a few years ago.”
We ride for a while in silence as I head up Eastern to Flamingo and turn left toward the Strip. “Charles tells me you were with my brother when it happened?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Did he say anything?” She shifts in the seat to look at me.
“No, I’m sorry, he didn’t.”
“No reason he should, I guess.” She stubs out her cigarette. “Do you know why he was killed?”
“I think it was something to do with some tapes he came into. They could be quite va
luable.”
She shakes her head. “Jesus, killed over some music. It was always a thing with Ken. When he was a teenager he used to make lists of records he wanted, even called me once years later to see if I still had any of the old records I had when I was a teenager. Got mad when I told him I’d thrown them out.”
I pull into the Bally’s entrance and stop the car. “Do you want me to go inside with you?”
“No thanks, that won’t be necessary. You’ve been very kind.” She opens the door and starts to get out of the car, then turns back and touches my arm. “There is one thing you could do.”
“Sure.”
“I probably won’t see you again, but Charles said you’re sometimes a detective. I don’t know what that means, but if you find out who killed my brother, I’d like to know.”
“You’ll be the first.”
She manages a slight smile. “Thank you.”
I watch her disappear into the hotel, head down. Her grieving will be done alone.
A sometime detective. I don’t know what that means either.
INTERLUDE
June 25, 1956
Brownie drove, his eyes on the road, his mind drifting off, imagining how it might go at the Conn factory. There wouldn’t actually be a ceremony, but he knew they would all be happy to meet him. They’d have records for him to autograph and warm handshakes while Richie and Nancy stood by beaming as the trumpets, laid out on a table covered with red velvet, were handed over. There would be new cases for each of them as well.
He would smile shyly, but inside he’d be overcome with joy. Maybe he would play these new horns too, carefully taking each out of its case, maybe blowing a few bars of “Joy Spring.” Yeah, that would be perfect.
The car hurtled through the Pennsylvania countryside. Nancy was stretched out in the backseat, lost to the world in a deep sleep. Richie slumped beside him up front, dozing, smoking, occasionally making some conversation Brownie barely heard. He kept his eyes on the road, glancing every now and then at the dashboard, the radio on softly, the miles drifting by almost in a dream.