Relaxin' After Camarillo

Eubie checked his watch. ‘I need to introduce the band,’ he said to Ida ...

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‘Sure,’ said Ida.

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Eubie gestured to a kid who was loitering about at the end of the stage. The kid nodded back then disappeared through a door, and a few seconds later, five young Negro men came out of the door and walked onto the stage. They were all dressed in suits, but there was something about them, the way they hung their heads, their solemn expressions, the way they didn’t even look at the audience, that marked them out as different to any jazz musicians Ida had ever seen.....

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‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Eubie said, ‘thank you for coming here tonight on this cold wintry evening. Hopefully we can warm you up a bit. I’d like to present to you the Charlie Parker Quintet. On trumpet Miles Davis, on piano Duke Jordan, on bass Tommy Potter, on drums Max Roach and on alto saxophone, the one and only “yardbird” himself, Charlie Parker.’ .....

Ida looked at the band’s leader with the saxophone in his hand. He was in his mid-twenties, she guessed, and looked a mess, his suit rumpled, his posture slumped, his eyes glazed over, staring at the boards of the stage below him ......

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It was unlike anything Ida had ever heard. Jazz, but played at breakneck speed. Fury and ferocity. The tune fragmented. The drummer hit the drums so fast the sticks became a blur ..... a saxophone solo that twisted so much the melodic line kept sounding like it was going to tie itself into a knot, but always, at the last second, the saxophonist escaped in a feat of virtuosity, flipping the melody inside out, looping it round into something new ....

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When the applause had died down, the saxophonist looked around the room again, announced the next song.

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‘This is a newer composition,’ he mumbled. ‘It’s called “Relaxin’ at Camarillo”.’ .... a few members of the audience laughed .... Ida looked at Shelton and Eubie. ‘What’s the joke?’ she asked them....

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‘Last year Parker and the rest of the band went on tour to California. Parker couldn’t score dope so easy out there so he drank. Went crazy. Set fire to his room and ran through the hotel naked. He was arrested, sent to jail, then on to Camarillo. It’s the State Mental Hospital in California ....’ Ida nodded ...... Drew a parallel with Billie Holiday in prison on a dope charge, strung out and locked up and maybe crazy, as well ..... ‘Ain’t a surprise,’ Eubie chimed in. ‘All you got to do is look around you. Something’s gotten out of control and its dangerous. World wars and people living in misery. If being rational’s brought us to that, maybe we should try something crazy. Even madness makes more sense than that.’

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From The Mobster's Lament by Ray Celestin