Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas by Maya Angelou Page B
Authors: Maya Angelou
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going to sing. I'm going to have a new career.”
“You're going to sing Cuban songs? Like Carmen Miranda? With bananas on your head going ‘Chi chi boom boom’?” Sarcasm syruped in her voice.
“Listen, Vonne, I'm going to sing calypsos. And I'm going to be very good.” I didn't relish having to defend myself. She was my friend. We shared secrets and woes and each other's money. We had keys to each other's houses and together watched our children grow.
“Just listen to this.” I got up and took a place in front of the coffee table.
“He's stone cold dead in de market
Stone cold dead in de market
Stone cold dead in de market
I kill nobody but me husband.”
My voice faltered and fell. I lifted it into a shout. When it sharpened into a screech I softened it. I fled between and over the notes like a long-distance runner on a downhill patch. When it was all over, I had sung in about three keys and Ivonne leaned back on the nearly paid-for sofa. A small resigned smile played hide-and-seek on her face.
She said, “I'll say this for you, Marguerite Johnson”—no one had called me by that name in years—“You've got a lot of nerve.”
And she was right.
CHAPTER 10
North Beach bubbled as noisily and colorfully as the main street in a boom town. Heavy drumbeats thudded out of the doors of burlesque houses. Italian restaurants perfumed the air for blocks while old white-shirted men loudly discussed their bocce games in Washington Square. Pagoda signs jutted from tenements in Chinatown and threatened the upturned faces of milling tourists. One block away on Columbus Avenue, Vesuvio's bar was an international center for intellectuals, artists and young beats who were busily inventing themselves. Next door, Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti read their new poetry at the City Lights Bookstore. Two hundred yards down Columbus, the Black Cat bar was a meeting place for very elegant homosexuals who draped themselves dramatically beside the bar and spoke loudly and familiarly of “culture.”
The Purple Onion was a basement cabaret which Jorie called
la Boîte
(Don translated that into “the sardine can”). Its walls were painted a murky purple, and although it was supposed to accommodate two hundred people, well over that number crowded into the room the first night I went to catch the show, and the air was claustrophobically close. Jorie in a simply cut, expensive black dress leaned her back against the curve of the piano. She partly sang and partlytalked a torch song, waving a cigarette holder in one hand and languorously moving a long chiffon scarf in the other. Her voice scratched lightly over the notes.
“He's just my Bill
An ordinary guy
you'd see him on the street
[pause]
And never notice him.”
She looked at the audience directly shrugging her thin shoulders. Her look said that Bill really was quite awful and she had little understanding of why she herself had noticed Bill. Before our eyes she changed from the worldly-wise woman, disillusioned by a burnt-out love affair, into a “regular” girl who was just one of the folks. The audience howled at the transformation, delighted by having been taken in.
I sat in the rear enthralled. It was hard to believe I was being asked to move into this brilliant woman's place, although my audition had gone well enough. The Rockwell family, led by the elder son, Keith, owned the club, and without much enthusiasm had signed a six-month contract with a three-month option for my services.
Jorie drooped over the piano dripping chiffon, and delivering accented witticisms. Or she would stand still, her shoulders down and her hands at ease and speak/sing a song that so moved her listeners that for a few seconds after she finished, people neither applauded nor looked at one another.
When I went to my first rehearsal, Jorie brought herdrama coach to meet me. He was a tall, thin, black-haired man named Lloyd Clark, who spoke
“You're going to sing Cuban songs? Like Carmen Miranda? With bananas on your head going ‘Chi chi boom boom’?” Sarcasm syruped in her voice.
“Listen, Vonne, I'm going to sing calypsos. And I'm going to be very good.” I didn't relish having to defend myself. She was my friend. We shared secrets and woes and each other's money. We had keys to each other's houses and together watched our children grow.
“Just listen to this.” I got up and took a place in front of the coffee table.
“He's stone cold dead in de market
Stone cold dead in de market
Stone cold dead in de market
I kill nobody but me husband.”
My voice faltered and fell. I lifted it into a shout. When it sharpened into a screech I softened it. I fled between and over the notes like a long-distance runner on a downhill patch. When it was all over, I had sung in about three keys and Ivonne leaned back on the nearly paid-for sofa. A small resigned smile played hide-and-seek on her face.
She said, “I'll say this for you, Marguerite Johnson”—no one had called me by that name in years—“You've got a lot of nerve.”
And she was right.
CHAPTER 10
North Beach bubbled as noisily and colorfully as the main street in a boom town. Heavy drumbeats thudded out of the doors of burlesque houses. Italian restaurants perfumed the air for blocks while old white-shirted men loudly discussed their bocce games in Washington Square. Pagoda signs jutted from tenements in Chinatown and threatened the upturned faces of milling tourists. One block away on Columbus Avenue, Vesuvio's bar was an international center for intellectuals, artists and young beats who were busily inventing themselves. Next door, Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti read their new poetry at the City Lights Bookstore. Two hundred yards down Columbus, the Black Cat bar was a meeting place for very elegant homosexuals who draped themselves dramatically beside the bar and spoke loudly and familiarly of “culture.”
The Purple Onion was a basement cabaret which Jorie called
la Boîte
(Don translated that into “the sardine can”). Its walls were painted a murky purple, and although it was supposed to accommodate two hundred people, well over that number crowded into the room the first night I went to catch the show, and the air was claustrophobically close. Jorie in a simply cut, expensive black dress leaned her back against the curve of the piano. She partly sang and partlytalked a torch song, waving a cigarette holder in one hand and languorously moving a long chiffon scarf in the other. Her voice scratched lightly over the notes.
“He's just my Bill
An ordinary guy
you'd see him on the street
[pause]
And never notice him.”
She looked at the audience directly shrugging her thin shoulders. Her look said that Bill really was quite awful and she had little understanding of why she herself had noticed Bill. Before our eyes she changed from the worldly-wise woman, disillusioned by a burnt-out love affair, into a “regular” girl who was just one of the folks. The audience howled at the transformation, delighted by having been taken in.
I sat in the rear enthralled. It was hard to believe I was being asked to move into this brilliant woman's place, although my audition had gone well enough. The Rockwell family, led by the elder son, Keith, owned the club, and without much enthusiasm had signed a six-month contract with a three-month option for my services.
Jorie drooped over the piano dripping chiffon, and delivering accented witticisms. Or she would stand still, her shoulders down and her hands at ease and speak/sing a song that so moved her listeners that for a few seconds after she finished, people neither applauded nor looked at one another.
When I went to my first rehearsal, Jorie brought herdrama coach to meet me. He was a tall, thin, black-haired man named Lloyd Clark, who spoke
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