Kickback and Other Stories by Peter Sellers

Author:Peter Sellers [Sellers, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781771614269
Publisher: Mosaic Press
Published: 2021-03-01T22:00:00+00:00

Hard Bop

(Originally published in a different form in the Osprey Summer Mystery Series.)

WHEN I FIRST READ THAT SONNY CARVER WAS playing the Palm Tree, I figured it had to be a mistake. I had assumed he was dead. And the barn-like Palm Tree usually throbbed to reggae and Latin rhythms, the dance floor gridlocked with bodies. It seemed odd that the place would be turned over to an old bebop sax player who’d spent most of his career as a sideman and whose virtuosity always seemed to pass unnoticed.

I phoned the club to confirm. Sure enough, it was neither a typo nor a joke. Sonny Carver was going to be there along with a trio, although the man on the phone wouldn’t tell me who the other players would be. But he did tell me that there was a singer named Fern Gold on the bill. I’d never heard of her, but I supposed that didn’t matter as long as the great Sonny Carver was playing that big, mellow, soft-bellied horn all night.

In the late eighties, there weren’t a lot of options for fans of live jazz in Toronto. The Café des Copains had its regular line-up of piano players like Jay McShann or Ray Bryant or Junior Mance. There was still live music at George’s Spaghetti House. But, other than that, the pickings were pretty slim.

It wasn’t like in the seventies, the first time I heard Sonny Carver. He’d been in town playing a gig at Bourbon Street, the city’s best jazz club. Bourbon Street was long gone, of course. It had initially been converted into a joint that featured male strippers, and then it became a place that sold cheap luggage. But in 1979 it was glorious -- dark and smoky and trembling with genius. It was there that I saw so many of the greats: Milt Jackson, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn. And Sonny Carver.

I was on a blind date. We had a pleasant evening, talking over dinner and, as we walked back towards the subway, we came to Bourbon Street.

“Do you like jazz?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” She shrugged, “I like the Carpenters.” I looked at the “Live Tonight” sign and read Sonny Carver. I had no idea who he was, but the band featured a solid line-up of Toronto regulars: Don Thompson on piano, Archie Alleyne on drums, and Dave Young on bass. I knew it was worth a risk, so we went in.

I didn’t have much dough in those days, but at Bourbon Street you didn’t have to pay a cover if you stood near the bar. We got in just as the band was coming out for the second set. By the time they got three or four bars into the opening number -- I think it was Slow Freight -- I knew I was hearing something special, and I couldn’t believe the place wasn’t jammed.

I’d always had a soft spot for sax players. Soprano not so much, but I’m a sucker for a powerful alto or tenor player, and I love the muscular sound of the baritone.

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