The Sound of the Trumpet

by Bill Moody

“Not yet.”

  “Well, he might. If he comes back to Las Vegas, we can at least bring him in for questioning. Anything more on the tape?”

  “I’m pretty sure they’re not genuine, at least I don’t think it’s Clifford Brown, so they have no value to a collector. This was all a deal to scam a record company. I’ve found one of the musicians, and I’m still looking for another, the trumpet player. That’ll cinch it.”

  “Okay,” Trask says. “That’s no more than we could have done. Let me know when you’re sure. Put Cooper back on.”

  I hand the phone back to Coop. He listens, nods his head. “Right, we’ve got his license, address. We’ll check it out here. Okay.” He glances at me and says good-bye.

  “You got a name for this other musician? I have a request from the Las Vegas police to run him for an address and phone. And that makes it official police business, so I can help.”

  “Conrad Beale.”

  “Hang on,” Coop says as he gets up and walks out of the office. While he’s gone, I get a look at his pad and try to read upside down. Coop comes back in a few minutes and hands me a slip of paper.

  “DMV says this is current.”

  It’s an address in the Valley, not too far from Blackbyrd’s house.

  “Thanks, Coop. This helps a lot.”

  Once in my car, I jot down the other name and address I saw on Coop’s desk.

  Now I know where Raymond Cross lives.

  INTERLUDE

  June 25, 1956

  Brownie had been awake for a while, when they pulled into Philadelphia, long before Richie called to him. His body became aware of the change in the rhythm of the big car’s movement from the steady hum of the highway to the stop-and-start jerkiness as they eased into city traffic. Eyes still closed, he lay there listening to the comforting city noises—horns honking, the piercing whistle of traffic cops, snatches of conversation, bus engines. The highway was a memory.

  He’d dreamed again about the accident, the hospital, Dizzy and Miles and Fats Navarro standing over his bed with their trumpets, the three of them playing dirge like blues. Then Brownie, sitting up in bed, waving them away.

  “Hey, man, I’m not through yet. Get out of here with that sad blues.” Then all of them smiling, Dizzy handing him a trumpet.

  “Brownie, wake up. We’re here,” Richie Powell said, pulling the car into the parking lot at Music City. As soon as Richie turned the engine off, Brownie began to relax, think about what he was going to play.

  They all got out of the car, Nancy yawning, still with sleep-laden eyes, Richie stretching, Brownie timing in to the sounds of Philadelphia. It wasn’t the first Music City gig for Brownie. It was like a homecoming. He had been born in Delaware, but Philly was his musical hometown, and these Monday jams at the music store were getting famous now.

  Drummer-owner Ellis Tollin and his friend Bill Welch brought in some, big names—Brownie realized suddenly he was one of them—put them with local cats, and somebody always had a tape recorder handy. While Nancy and Richie took off, Brownie walked in the store’s back door, took Ellis by surprise.

  “Brownie!” Ellis said, hugging him. “You made it, man. And lookin’ good.”

  “Of course I made it,” Brownie said. “Everything cool?”

  “Oh yeah,” Ellis said. “I got Billy Root and Ziggy Vines on tenors, Sam Dockery on piano, Ace Tisone on bass, and you know I’ll be playing some drums for you.”

  “Guess we’ll have to play all ballads then,” Brownie said, laughing. This was going to be fun, he thought, and it was.

  The crowd spilled out to the doorway as he played so sharp and clear, but he let everyone else stretch out too. No pressure, just a blowing session. By the time he finished his solo on “Blues Walk,” he had them. He glanced at the crowd and nodded at Art Blakey, Sonny Stitt, Bud Powell, even Buddy Rich, over the bell of his horn. They were all there, smiling back at him. That young kid, Lee Morgan, a big fan of Brownie’s, was there too, just a teenager.

  Brownie made a short speech after the gig, shook hands with everyone, laughed and joked with his friends and fans. He signed a photo for Ellis, who was touched and promised it would go in a new frame in front of the store and stay there forever. Brownie liked that.

  He ducked away for a few minutes then and called LaRue. “I miss you, baby. Happy birthday.”

  “You stay down there at your mom’s and get some rest,” LaRue said, “and don’t you let Nancy Powell drive my car.”

  Brownie hung up the phone. Time to go. He was too tired to hang out more, just grateful to see Richie and Nancy arrive with the car. He glanced at the dark sheet of sky. Looked like rain. Once again, he climbed into the Buick’s glorious backseat, where he would stay until they arrived at the Conn factory in Elkhart. He had a lot to tell Max, who would be waiting for him in Chicago.

  He had a lot of music to play.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  When I try Connie Beale’s number, a young girl’s voice answers. “Connie isn’t here,” she says. “He’s working tonight.” She sounds like a teenager.

  “Do you know where? It’s very important that I talk to him.”

  “Just a minute.”

  I hear a clunk as she puts down the phone. For a couple of minutes, I watch traffic drift by on Sunset near the Tower Records store. Cruising teens checking out the strip clubs, residents dropping down for dinner out of the Hollywood hills. Near a traffic light, a man in a suit holds up a hand-lettered cardboard sign that reads, Will Work for 40K.

  “Mom says he’s playing at a restaurant off LaBrea called the Peacock I don’t know the address.”

  “That’s okay, I’ll find it. Thank you very much.” I hang up and flip through the yellow pages for the Peacock’s address. It’s not far from where I’m standing. Fifteen minutes later I pull into the parking lot and drive around back.

  The Peacock has seen better days. It’s one of those small restaurant bars that occasionally gives jazz a try. I hear the music as soon as I open the door, a Miles-like muted trumpet working its way through “All of You.”

  A bar and dining area take up most of the room. The tiny bandstand is wedged in a corner between the bar and a few tables that cover what was once a good-sized dance floor and look like they were added and arranged as an afterthought.

  Two couples—the guys both ruining the effect of their dark suits with white shoes and belts—sway in place with two women trying to look ten years younger in too-tight, too-short dresses, just in front of Connie Beale’s trumpet. They’re seemingly oblivious to the beat or tempo.

  At first glance, the piano and bass look young enough to be teenagers; the drummer looks to be about Connie’s age, which would put him somewhere near mid-sixties. Connie is stout and wears a suit that no longer fits him quite right. There’s a bald patch on top of his head, and what’s left of his hair has gone to gray. I take a seat at the bar, order a beer, wait for them to take a break to meet the man who played like Clifford Brown.

  Somebody once said playing in a small jazz group is like a panel discussion. Playing solo is giving a speech; a duet is a debate; a big band, a rally. Connie is the moderator of this panel discussion, but nobody is making any points.

  He looks over the bell of his horn, his eyebrows moving up and down as he stretches for a note here and there. He finishes his solo with an obvious nod to Miles, steps away from the mike, and watches the pianist. He holds the trumpet in his left hand and beats out the time on his leg with his right, some inner tempo that contradicts the piano player. He gives the drummer a look of concern.

  The pianist, an eager-looking kid, takes three choruses. Nice touch, technique, but he flubs a couple of the changes before giving way to the bassist, who gets his say, even though he has to compete with the whir of the blender at the bar.

  There’s a brief exchange of fours with the drummer, who gets even with the blender. Connie, looking weary and resigned, brings them all home. It’s for the most part uninspired, but the t
wo couples on the dance floor stop and applaud before returning to their table, which is cluttered with the kind of drinks that have small umbrellas hanging over the edge of the glasses.

  Connie looks at his watch, glances around the room, says something to the piano player, and they go into “Take the A Train,” with the piano getting eight bars up front. Connie plays the melody chorus, this time without a mute. The tone is big, and he makes some high notes that make me think he was once a lead player. I wonder if he always thinks about those three nights with Duke. His two choruses are adequate, but none of them have their hearts in it. It’s just a gig, a night to finish up, get paid, and file away as a cloudy memory.

  They play two more tunes, then Connie speaks softly into the microphone. “Thank you for your kind attention, ladies and gentlemen. We’re going to take a short break, but stick around. We’ll be back.”

  No one takes any notice as they leave the stand. The two young guys head for the restaurant area. Connie and the drummer talk quietly for a moment, then walk outside the back door I came in.

  I put a couple of dollars on the bar and follow them out. They start to step aside when I say, “Are you Connie Beale?” Connie’s eyes narrow as he tries to place me, figure what I want. “Your daughter told me I could find you here. I got your number from a guy at the union. Tommy James.”

  “My daughter? My granddaughter, you mean. Yeah, I’m Connie.” He offers his hand while the drummer looks on.

  “Evan Horne. I play piano.” Both men visibly relax.

  Connie says, “You know the changes to ‘All the Things’? These young cats think it’s all McCoy Tyner and that modal shit.”

  “Thanks, not tonight. I need to talk to you for a few minutes though, or we could meet later.”

  Connie looks at the other drummer. “How much time we got, Jimmy?”

  “Plenty,” the one called Jimmy says. “Shit, we could quit now and no one would care. I’ll let you know.”

  Connie nods, and then says to me, “Come on. Let’s go to your car.”

  We get in the car, and Connie takes out a small silver flask. “You mind?” he asks, then takes a drink and passes it to me.

  “No thanks.”

  Connie shrugs and licks his lips. He unbuttons his suit coat and straightens his tie. “So, what’s this about? You’re not from the union, are you?”

  I laugh. “No, not hardly.”

  “I didn’t think so. Union guys wear suits.”

  “I’m doing some research on some old recordings. Ran across a tape we think was made in the ’50s. Maybe you can help me out. I just saw an old friend of yours yesterday. Nolan Thomas, a piano player.”

  Connie tilts his head back and smiles, says the name slowly. “Nolan Thomas. Nobody called that name for twenty years. He still teaching? I ran into him a while back. What’s he doing?”

  “Still teaching, at a studio in his house. Were you pretty good friends?”

  Connie shrugs. “Not really, we played together a lot for a while back there, then just kind of drifted apart.”

  I shift in the seat, light a cigarette. “Well, look, I’ve got this tape I’d like you to listen to. We don’t know who all the players are. Maybe you could help.”

  “Yeah, okay, sure.”

  I hesitate a moment. “I think one of them, the trumpet player, is you,” I say.

  I watch Connie for some reaction. He turns and looks at me, his eyes questioning. “Me?”

  “Yeah.”

  I turn on the key and push the tape into the player. I watch Connie as the music begins, his eyes on the lighted arrow of the tape player. After the first few bars, he gives me a look I can’t read, then leans back, rests his head on the seat. His eyes close. He listens for a few minutes, not saying anything.

  After the trumpet solo he says, “I sound pretty good, huh?” He listens a few moments more, sighs, and seems to sink deeper into the seat, pushed down by the weight of his confession. “Yeah, that’s me. I always knew someday, somebody would find that tape.”

  Well, there it is, the final note of truth torn from the past and brought up to the present. I’ve found the man who would be Clifford Brown.

  I turn down the volume and wait for Connie to continue. He seems to gather strength from the music. “Where was this tape?”

  “For nearly forty years, sealed up in a box in a recording studio in Hollywood. Cosmos Recorders? Got stolen a while back.”

  “Yeah, Cosmos Recorders,” Connie says. “‘Just like Brownie,’ that’s what that guy at the studio said, thought it would be cool to do a whole bunch of Brownie’s tunes.”

  Connie listens to himself again at low volume. I reach for the knob to turn it up, but he shakes his head. “I idolized him, man. I was twenty-two, studied the records, learned all his solos, figured it was fate, since we had the same initials.” He sighs again and looks out the window. “Then the motherfucker went and got himself killed.”

  “What happened, did you stop playing?”

  He looks at me as if I’d asked him if he stopped breathing. “What happened? Shit, man, Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw, even this young dude Wynton Marsalis, that’s what happened. They learned from Brownie like he learned from Fats Navarro. But they made their own sound, their own identity. I was too much like Brownie.” He looks at me with sad eyes. “You want imitation when the real thing is around? And anyway, after he died, I just couldn’t do it anymore. I put down my horn for a year. People thought I was crazy, ’specially my old lady. She said, ‘You ain’t gonna play this horn, I’m going to sell it.’”

  “Eventually I started playing again, tried to forget about Brownie, but it was like I couldn’t play any other way. He kept creeping into my solos, like he was looking over my shoulder. I did okay, some road work, big bands, a few shows in Las Vegas with singers, a little recording, made a living, then finally got on with the post office.”

  I push the stop button, and there’s silence in the car except for the ticking sound of the engine cooling down. “I never heard this tape after the night we did it. Where did you get it?”

  “Through a friend. He thought this was Clifford Brown.”

  Connie looks at me, frowning. “You some kind of music detective or something, trying to find guys so they can get their lost royalties?”

  I laugh. “No, nothing like that.”

  “Well, if you were, I could save you time. We got paid, but that was never released far as I know. Cat paid us seventy-five bucks, did it right here in Hollywood while Brownie was playing down at the Lighthouse.”

  Connie takes another drink from his flask and looks at his watch. “Well, I got to get back inside, finish this gig.” He gets out of the car, starts to walk away, then turns around, leans back in, his dark face filling the window.

  “You find the trumpet too?”

  “The trumpet?”

  “My old trumpet, raggedy case and all. Got C.B. engraved inside the bell. Got stolen a few months ago along with a lot of other worthless shit. I figured these was some dumb robbers to break into my house.” He shakes his head, puzzled still. “Don’t know why anyone would want it. Ain’t worth nothing.”

  He turns away then, and I watch Connie Beale amble to the back door. He turns once to look at the car, then disappears inside.

  “Oh, you’re wrong, Connie, it’s worth a lot.”

  “Pappy Dean, it’s Evan. I need you to do me a favor.”

  “Long as it don’t have nothin’ to do with murder, police, any of that shit.”

  “No, nothing like, that. This is easy. I left something in Las Vegas, and I’m too tied up here to come back for it.”

  “You still chasin’ that trumpet player, sounds like Brownie?”

  “I found him.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Guy’s name is Connie Beale. Ever heard of him?”

  “Naw, I don’t think so. He’s in L.A., huh?”

  “Yeah, just saw him on a gig.”

  “He need a
bass player? Ain’t nothin’ happening around here. Trouble needs some work.”

  “I’ll ask him. Look, I’m going to mail you a pawn ticket. I need to have you pick it up and bring it to me here. I’ll pay for your flight.”

  “The trumpet? Oh Lord. This better not be Clifford Brown’s trumpet.”

  “No, I thought it was for a while, but I still need it. Can you do that?”

  “Well.” Pappy hesitates and I don’t understand why. “Look, man, I’d like to do this, but—”

  “What?”

  “Oh shit, man, I might as well just tell you. I don’t fly. I don’t get on no planes. I’m sorry, man.”

  I hadn’t even thought of that. “Hey, it’s okay. I’ve got another idea. You get the trumpet out of hock and meet Natalie at the airport. I’ll have her fly up, okay?”

  “Cool,” Pappy says. “I like that a whole lot better.”

  “All right, I’ll call you with her flight number, and I’ll send the pawn ticket. Thanks, Pappy.”

  I press down on the receiver button with my finger and speed-dial Natalie, explain what I want her to do.

  “Can’t you go with me?” she asks.

  “I wouldn’t need you to pick it up if I could. I have some more things I want to run down here.”

  “Okay but leave enough time before the return flight so I can get in a little time on the poker machines. When do you want me to do this?”

  “Tomorrow, if I can get a flight for you. I’ll drive you to LAX. Want me to come over?”

  “That would be nice. I’ve had enough down time, I think.”

  “Okay, see you in about an hour.”

  I grab my keys and go back out of the carport. I reach under the seat, feel around for the envelope with the pawn ticket I’d taped there earlier. I come away empty. I try again, running my hand under the entire seat. I get the flashlight out of the glove box and shine it all over the floor, under both seats, but I know it’s not there.

  I get out of the car and stand in the carport a few minutes, smoking, trying to remember where I’ve left the car, if I ever left it unlocked. With valet parking at a couple of restaurants, but I can’t come up with anything else. I can’t believe this.