Jack of Diamonds by Bryce Courtenay Page A

Frostbite would take me into her office, like Mrs Hodgson at the library, in which case it wouldn’t be anything to look forward to.
    I finally summoned enough courage to go back inside. The foyer was empty and when I pushed open the door to the main room, I saw that the band was just about ready to begin the jam, with everyone seated between the two pianos.
    ‘Oh, there you are, Jack. Over here,’ Joe shouted, summoning me forward with his big bony hand. He was standing at the centre of the stage, right next to a microphone, and his voice, caught by the mike, boomed out in the big room. I cringed at the unexpected sound and the musicians all laughed. There was no sign of Miss Frostbite. ‘Jack, come up here on the stage – I want you to come close and see what a real jam session is all about. Come and join us.’
    Then the session started with a number I had heard under the stairs a hundred times. I knew the chord progressions off by heart and could join in easily. Three more followed and I was able to play along, but then Joe Hockey pulled up a chair and placed it beside me and said, ‘Jazzboy, what you now gonna hear be where you gonna go sometime later when you have learned yourself a lot more jazz and growed up a whole lot. You just sit now and listen, then after, if you want explainin’, you come to me, okay?’
    It had been easy enough to listen to these guys and then play a few little riffs in the same key, but I now realised, when I was finally among them and not under the stairs, just what they were doing. One guy would get up and start honking on his trumpet and then suddenly tone the whole thing down. He’d do that for a few minutes then begin climbing up the scale. Just when he’d taken it about as high as a note could get, he’d come back down again and give the whole thing a slower and easier blues feel. As soon as it felt comfortable and familiar he’d change everything, as if to say, don’t think it’s gonna be that easy. And all the while he did this in time with the bass player and the percussionist.
    Then another trumpet player picked up from where he’d left off, moving in all directions, going from top to bottom at lightning speed, sometimes making a woofing sound, sometimes honking, sometimes screaming. Then the first guy would come back in. They were duelling! It seemed to be getting faster and faster and yet the beat never changed. The second guy seemed to be coming off the first, as if he was finishing off what the first guy had begun. And then the first would come back again. It was like a conversation where each of them finished off the other’s remarks. I had the feeling it was like a kind of boastful argument – one guy says, ‘I can do this,’ and the next says, ‘So what? If that’s your best, get a load of this, man!’
    Somehow they seemed to know when it was their cue to come back in; there was some unspoken rule I couldn’t for the life of me work out. It was pretty friendly, but there was no doubt about it – they were in a contest. I realised jamming was not just about knowing music. They were feeding off each other’s music; they needed each other, but they were also trying to surpass each other. Wow!
    More solos followed: the piano, drums and clarinet. But nothing compared to those feuding trumpets. I knew it would take me years to be anywhere near as good as these guys, and I guessed they were nowhere near the top players in America. But I knew, I just knew, I would get there some day.
    After the jam session was over, I got lots of pats on the back and my hair ruffled, and guys saying I could come back anytime to jam with them and that it was a pity I wasn’t eighteen so I could play nights in the band.
    Then Joe Hockey took me aside while the musicians went off to have their dinner and handed me a dollar. ‘Yeah, I know, Jack, the streetcar fare to Cabbagetown, it only ten cents. You don’t have to show no pride tonight, Jazzboy. You played real prideful. I