The music was blasting in here, loud loud jazz, ear-splitting bop sounds

epub or mobi, with thanks to the original sharer

The third place he went in had a band. The cats in this place were just as weird, but when the music started up he knew he had hit on a swinging joint. The bar was packed. As soon as the musicians came on the stage, everyone in the place seemed to go crazy.

Absolutely wild.

They jumped up on chairs and tables and began clapping and stamping their feet and yelling themselves hoarse before the first note was sounded by the Negro alto saxophonist leading the group. A low, raspy guttural moaning sound came out of his glittering golden horn, louder even than the shouting going on beneath him, and then an amplified fender bass, drums and piano started up the rhythm behind him.

Jimmy didn’t know much about jazz, but he knew that this stuff was pretty far out. They didn’t seem to be playing notes at all most of the time, just bleats, wild prairie-sounding howls as a tenor man got up from a front table and joined in with the altoist. The two of them faced each other, bending backward and blowing crazy sounds through their instruments as though they had a mind to blast each other right off the stage, while behind them the rhythm section went crazy with a thundering, riffling beat of complex rhythms established by bass, piano, drums and cymbals.

The whole place seemed to rock with sound. “Yeah man, go!” someone yelled. Hands began to clap in unison. “Solid, man!” The music wailed louder and even wilder, somewhere between a twist and a dirty boogie.

A doll-faced blonde in a short flare skirt was sitting next to him, a young fierce-looking Negro boy beside her with his arm around her waist and his hand over her amazingly big breast, both of them rocking back and forth to the beat like they were drugged or something.

Suddenly the blonde leapt up onto the bar and began to dance. The other customers gathered around in a circle and began clapping their hands, and the blonde went crazy, kicking over drinks and doing a wild kicking and shuffling step that sent her little skirt flying out and up around her waist.

Standing directly underneath her, Jimmy could see very well.

Very well indeed.