The Fugitivities, стр. 22

“Salut, Joe,” said André.

He called Jonah Joe, like so many other French people did—happily and over Jonah’s objections. His passport read Jonah Raymond Winters. His parents sometimes called him Ray, and sometimes J.R. Joe was the diminutive of Joseph, not Jonah. André didn’t seem to care.

André snapped some technical questions at him as he patted his rail-thin body down in search of tobacco. He wanted to know if Jonah knew anything about le grand jazzman. Without hesitating, Jonah lied. It was a reflex—he always lied if asked about something he didn’t know about black culture. He knew they would never dare to call him on it. André invited him to come down to the lobby for a drink once the picture was up and running. Jonah quickly explained that he wanted to keep a close eye on the feed, which, truthfully, had been somewhat finicky that week. André appeared pinched, or simply baffled, and abruptly left.

Jonah trained his eyes back on the screen, where Phineas was now playing piano. From time to time, the camera cut to focus on his hands. Massive black fingers filled the screen, rising and falling on the ivories. A heavily accented voiceover described a tumultuous life in decline, a squandered talent. A montage sequence revealed the musician’s unraveling, falling prey to inebriation, predisposed to mental breakdown. Still photographs drifted in hesitant suspension. Down and out in New York, Memphis, Philadelphia. In this sequence, there was no music, and the only sound in the theater was the flutter of the projector itself.

The movie ended with an interview, a coda of sorts. An interviewer with a thick Italian accent asked, “Mr. Newborn, you have many fans here in Europe. Tell us about your first solo European tour. What did you think of it?” Now Phineas spoke, and his granular Southern voice reached out and seized hold of Jonah in his booth.

Well, I always did dream of arriving one day in a city. Some place far away from America. Some place where nobody would know my name and I wouldn’t know nobody else and I could just be who I am, the finest pianist that ever came out of Tennessee. When I recollect those days, what I think of is how fast everything happened at that time in my life. Like I was no more than a little flea caught up in some mighty circus. That’s how I think on it now. But you can’t imagine the feeling, at the time, what it was to make that trip. Where I was coming from. I remember arriving in Europe. I can see it clear as yesterday. Boy, I knew I had arrived, too. I’d made it, and with a recording contract to my name. And over there, the women and the men all dressed so nice, but best of all nobody asked me my business like I had none. And no “colored” water fountains. I could walk down the swankiest boulevard just as tall as the next man. I really felt so blessed to be alive. But you know, I think maybe it’s always like that when you arrive for the first time in a city, the shock of things could be different. Like hearing Bud Powell for the first time. See, I never think of a city without thinking of music. For me there’s no Paris without hearing Bud. So every new city is an opportunity to change your ear. You might catch the light in the trees more. The rhythms of life arrive with a strange off-kilter sensation, and the artist has to try and make something of this new arrangement, to catch the changing signs of the new world in their flight.

Could you tell us, Mr. Newborn, what year was this?

That was nineteen hundred fifty-eight. I had released Phineas’ Rainbow, and the people at RCA wanted me to do a European tour to promote the album abroad.

What about your early life? You had a difficult relationship with your father, yes? Could you tell us some things about that?

My father was a musician. But my father used to say, “You got to walk the valley by yourself.” I truly believe he hated the idea of me getting into music like he did, but I never had it in me to give something up if I liked it, and I loved playing music from the day I was born. I’d say I got my stubbornness from him. Sure, between us, it wasn’t always easy, you know? But it wasn’t in him to back down, to give up, to settle. He was the one who told me, “You just remember, boy, none of your forefathers never jumped off no slave ship.” He was a tough man. Had to be. Born down in Georgia in the Reconstruction. A terrible time, and we see how it still is. The whites were stringing black folk up in trees and they might set you on fire for any damn thing. When I was a boy, I remember folks talking about Elbert Williams. He had started working to help the blacks vote in our area and before long they found his body face down in the Hatchie. Well, I never thought about it as something that could change. Other than music it was all I knew. Father was a music man, a drummer known all round Memphis. Made a name for himself good enough that he figured mine should be the same as his. I remember how him and Tuff Green would come stomping through the house after a night at the juke and my mother would cuss the both of them out till they were forced onto the porch. They would keep on hollerin’ back and forth for hours it seemed and I lay awake listening through the walls. They might be playing off the banister or a chair with a wooden spoon or just clapping their hands and that was better than transistor radio. Sometimes they would get to singing an