AFTER THE FIRE: Listening to "Dixieland" jazz, and thinking about drinking a beer.

AFTER THE FIRE: Listening to "Dixieland" jazz, and thinking about drinking a beer.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

The book is Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contribution to Jazz, 1915-1945, by the late Richard M. Sudhalter. It is a massive and scholarly tome, and allowing time for numerous visits to YouTube in search of cited songs, my progress has been painstakingly slow.

Insofar as there was anyone left alive to care all that much upon the publication of Lost Chords in 1999, the book apparently provoked mild controversy, in that Sudhalter was seen as challenging the orthodoxy that jazz must be viewed almost exclusively as an African-American domain.

However, I don’t believe this criticism of Sudhalter is justified in the main, because he doesn’t seriously question the African-American bona fides. Rather, he offers testimony on behalf of white jazzmen of the pre-WWII period, some of whom were neglected even before seven or more decades elapsed.

Naturally, this assumes a coherent definition of jazz itself. Louis Armstrong may or may not have said, “If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know,” but this sentiment bears a large measure of truth. It’s a very big, nebulous tent.

Speaking personally, I’m not overly concerned that Sudhalter’s book will send me spiraling into bigotry. Growing up in the 1960s, my parents exposed me to both types of their favorite music, swing and jazz, and if there were prejudices about music in the Baylor household, it wasn’t racial in the least.

Instead, it was directed against filthy long-haired hippies of any skin color playing that horrendous rock and roll. In due time, I managed to overcome this homefront institutional bias and revel in the electric guitar. In the interim, I was fortunate to be imbued with jazz from both black and white sources: Duke Ellington and Jelly Roll Morton; Bix Beiderbecke and Benny Goodman; and Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck.

Yes, the roots of jazz overwhelmingly lie in the African-American experience, and yes, white musicians are known to have played it, too – and still do. The music long since has become a universal language, capable of being embraced by almost anyone, and may it survive another hundred years in ever widening spirals of diversity.

As this purports to be a column about beer, not books or music, please know that I’m currently in route to the general point, although it must be revealed that books and music are as important to me as beer and baseball. They’re items of long-term personal interest, and as cultural markers in my internal world, they’re seemingly woven together, completely inseparable and mutually reinforcing.

It’s hard to imagine life without them.

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In the chapter entitled “Dixieland,” Sudhalter examines a musical genre seemingly defined as much by audience perception as actual notes and sounds. At this late date, the differences may seem academic, but I was deeply affected by the discussion.

It goes something like this: Youthful (read: rebellious) white musicians in 1920s-era Chicago brashly copied what they heard being played by others, both black and white, many of whom came from New Orleans. In the process of creating a “new” amalgam of older forms, they soon experienced a predictable arc: First rejection, then acceptance and a measure of success, before yielding all too soon to typecasting.

Sudhalter holds that black musicians playing music of a similar style were better able to escape a “Dixieland” genre stereotype at least in part because the word originated as dog-whistling marketing code delineating white players from black – and once locked safely into place, predominantly white audiences refused to allow their heroes to evolve.

Why? Sudhalter believes the answer has more to do with rosy audience nostalgia than overt racism.

By the time these jazz players were in their late thirties, white listeners already regarded the music of their youth as akin to “classic jazz,” not unlike today’s “classic rock.” They weren’t interested in hearing new songs or the progressive aural shadings of bebop.

The musicians quickly learned that they could adapt to these expectations and continue to pull gigs, or reject them and be greeted by shrinking pay packets.

They chose to eat.

Specifically, Sudhalter’s description of this phenomenon is as eloquent as any I’ve ever read. He speaks of the 1940s, only 15 years after the Dixieland repertoire (as it were) came into existence.

The listening audience, moreover, was aging; in that generational way peculiar to American fans, it embraced the music more tenaciously, and less for strictly musical reasons than personal and psychological. It symbolized their youth, the well (if selectively remembered) time in their lives when the future seemed limitless, immortality theirs for the asking. Reminded them of a Zeitgeist, vivid and enjoyable, before time and change edged it into memory.

Many years later, Bob Seger stated it more succinctly (and wistfully) in the rock and roll vernacular:

I awoke last night to the sound of thunder
How far off I sat and wondered
Started humming a song from 1962
Ain't it funny how the night moves
When you just don't seem to have as much to lose
Strange how the night moves
With autumn closing in

Play it again, author: “When the future seemed limitless.” That Richard Sudhalter sure knows how to hurt an old fart.

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Annoyingly, there is nothing at all inaccurate about the way this ancient Dixieland musical history lesson mirrors existential sub-currents in my own soul, as they pertain to the past and future of better beer and my own place in it … or out of it.

It grates even more because whatever the nature of the topic at hand, I’ve always struggled mightily to avoid nostalgia and live in the present tense, and to remain psychologically (as well as physically) a functional component of the contemporary world as it is.

Unfortunately, those ghosts of mine just won’t let me be.

Thus, comes the time of day when I’m thinking about drinking a beer, and with so many local, regional, national and international choices close at hand – with the abundant fruit of the revolution’s success ripe for plucking right down the street at breweries, restaurants and package stores, even within walking distance in otherwise forgettable places like New Albany – all I can think about are enriching vignettes and tasty beers from my past.

As with last week’s remembrance of 10-degree golden Czech lager from the brewery at Benesov, poured straight from an earthenware pitcher, and consumed in the yard of a Bohemian weekend house in the company of a personable Communist party member and his family.

Like the time in Brighton, listening to the Manic Street Preachers in a pub with the cask-conditioned Brown Porter, then hitting the late night curry house for a bite before stumbling back to the hotel.

Or during most of those glorious times bicycling in Belgium, working up a powerful thirst and slaking it with ales of all strengths and hues in cafés like The Dazzling, ‘t Brugs Beertje or any number of local dives with a Jupiler sign painted on the facade.

Naturally, what these experiences have in common isn’t so much the beers consumed at the time, although they were wonderful, but the timeliness of the situations, yielding to timeless snapshots of suspended moments, when the future seemed limitless and immortality mine for the asking.

Of course, they’re gone; completed, finished and cashed. I might leave tomorrow on a journey to revisit each of these specific locales, and while I’m sure it would be fun, devoting the money and effort to reliving memories would be this fool’s ultimate wasted errand. It cannot be done.

Although agitated in the best of time, I’m no idiot, and I understand that all these previous lives were extinguished milliseconds after they occurred, but in spite of this rational clarity – perhaps because of it – the ghosts flit teasingly about, tempting me, and often I yearn to recapture the feeling of exhilaration and discovery, of being utterly lost in the moment, of refusing to be the omniscient guide, of eschewing the ephemeral cutting edge, and in placing no more significance in the act of drinking a beer than the chain of muscle processes necessary to swallow it.

But it’s so very hard to forget what you’ve learned. A consistent theme of Sudhalter’s is to ignore much (though not all) of the so-called expert musical testimony and judge by the results, because listening to records should be absolutely colorblind. However, complete objectivity is a myth and an over-simplification ... and maybe those olden times weren't quite as carefree as they seemed.

When it comes to beer, I’m happy to have come so far, and wouldn’t trade this accumulated knowledge for anything, even an hour of previously squandered innocence during Reagan’s first term – when there wasn’t as much to lose.

At least I don’t think I’d turn down the trade. Instead, as usual, I'll try to treat the symptoms by throwing the ghosts a few scraps – listening to Keith Moon play drums, reading a chapter of Ball Four, and writing about a beer I drank somewhere in Hungary back in '87.

The ghosts will disappear for a while, but they’re persistent, and after all, we’ve known each other for a very long time. After every such dispersal, I ponder the same basic question: How does one hold onto his own traditions and values in a changing world, without lapsing into nostalgic self-parody?

Beats me. Whatever it is, I'm doing a poor job of it right about now.

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August 8: AFTER THE FIRE: A pre-digital Bohemian vignette, 1989.

August 1: AFTER THE FIRE: The devil made me drink it.

July 28 (at NA Confidential): ON THE AVENUES: An imaginary exercise tentatively called The Curmudgeon Free House.

July 25: AFTER THE FIRE: Before the deluge, or knowing how this whole beer business started.

July 18: AFTER THE FIRE: Moss the Boss, his dazzling beer café, and what they taught me about “craft.”

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Diary: Those slender green bottles.

It was a cool May morning. I'd gone for walk, felt a breeze, and suddenly had an overwhelming sense of deja vu ... in my taste buds.

It's funny how memories work.

Suddenly it felt like another day and time, albeit it autumn, not spring. The first chill in autumn is different; it's heralding coldness, not warmth. It's about impending icy death, not a springtime sense of renewal, but nonetheless, it felt like autumn during my May walk just the other day.

In my fleeting daydream, I recalled walking to a field party, or maybe a bonfire behind someone's house. There would have been burned hot dogs or burgers, youthful college-aged lust, accompanying futility in pursuit, and naturally, beer.

As the futility mounted, so did the beer, and that's the beauty of libation therapy.

What did I taste, the flavor still familiar after all these decades, amid a throwback soundtrack of The Who, Cars and Pretenders?

Little Kings Cream Ale, of course.

Then, like a whiff of smoke from a Hav-A-Tampa ... it was gone.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 1 … where it all began.

The PC: Euro ’85, Part 1 … where it all began.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

“The Greek word for "return" is nostos. Algos means "suffering." So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return.”
― Milan Kundera, Ignorance

One May morning in 1985, a middle-class American youth from bucolic Floyd County, Indiana, stumbled greasy and sleepless into the arrivals hall of a foreign airport. Following the requisite passport, customs formalities and currency exchange, he endured a thoroughly confusing and memorable first day in Europe.

Thirty years have passed since that bewildering and exhilarating Luxembourg inaugural, and the nostalgia is palpable. My inaugural European sojourn was conceived and executed with a single-minded determination unknown to me at the time. It taught me to believe in myself, and it led to many, many more pilgrimages. There have been no regrets whatever.

During my first European summer, I commenced an overdue transition from populist local yokel to genuine “citizen of the world,” as the athlete Edwin Moses so eloquently phrased it during the otherwise jingoistic and embarrassing David Wolper Memorial Olympiad in Los Angeles in 1984.

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Europe in 1985 was a life-altering epiphany, but in truth, even the most minor of ephemeral insights would have seemed huge given my indecisiveness and youthful lack of focus.

A university degree in philosophy made for witty repartee, but little else, and it seemed to me that career choices were for fools who never saw the sun rise after an evening spent closing every bar in town. Ten placid green acres with a split-level dream home, a riding lawnmower, little leaguers and a fridge filled with Old Milwaukee Light? That was philistinism, right?

At the age of 24, two part-time jobs were sufficient to pay my bills. They also provided a semblance of scheduling flexibility in the event of hangovers – as there always was enough beer money. Why else would a person work at a package store in the first place? But in truth, I wasn’t going anywhere.

Even worse, I knew it.

In 1983, I was asked by an area high school teacher to accompany him as a second chaperone on a student trip to Europe the following year. The price seemed reasonable at $1,600 for nine days, with airfare, hotels, bus and most meals included. I responded affirmatively.

A few months later, I was strolling past the travel section in the library when a title caught my eye: “Europe on $25 a Day,” by Arthur Frommer. As ever mathematically challenged, I shook my head with disbelief. Was it a misprint? Could it really be true? Skeptical, I checked out the book, took it home, poured a beer, and started reading. Eventually a pocket calculator was produced.

The earth fairly shook.

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My fellow twenty-something males would have required the woman (or women) of their dreams running bikini-clad across a Florida beach during a sultry rainstorm to elicit anywhere near my response to Frommer’s book, in which clear and reasonable tips plainly illustrated how to do Europe right, and for far longer duration than a mere week.

My new writing hero insisted that travel could be educational, and offer a rare glimpse into different worlds. His advice on the nuts and bolts of budget travel technique was relentlessly informative, effortlessly evocative and consistently pragmatic.

Always think like a European traveler, not an American, and like a local, not a visitor.

Don’t expect things in a foreign country to be the same as home, and expect to pay more when they are.

Think, plan, and accept the available bargains.

Don’t eat every meal in a restaurant. Pack a salami, buy a loaf of cheap crusty bread, and picnic.

Walk, ride the bus, rent a bike.

My brain was hard-wired for the humanities and history, and yet the comparative sums quickly became persuasive. At $25 per day, my $1,600 properly budgeted the Frommer way came out to 36 days, not nine. If I were to postpone the epic voyage for another year, leaving even more time to save money, the trip might last three months, not nine days.

For the next year and a half, my European travel obsession escalated, fed by a steady diet of travel books, magazine articles and PBS documentaries. Thomas Cook rail schedules were studied, and European history devoured with renewed zeal. Plans were jotted, expanded, revised, discarded, and brought back from the waste paper basket. I acquired a Pentax K-1000 camera and learned to use it, just barely.

By the spring of 1985, with departure nearing, a rough outline had settled into place.

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There would be a round-trip flight on the then-cheapest Icelandair from Chicago to Luxembourg, returning 88 days after departure. Ground transport would be a three-month Eurailpass. Convinced that it would be my sole and only trip to Europe, a kamikaze itinerary was planned, incorporating nights on trains sleeping in seats, and crashed on the decks of boats. I studied every available trick to skim cash and expand the duration of my experience.

Then suddenly, the curtain finally rose.

There was a sleepless night on an eastbound flight, and before I knew it, a strange Luxembourg airport. Subsequently, theory yielded to practice. My well-ordered plan did not take into account greenness, timidity and stubbornness. The real work was just beginning.

The profusion of languages, local customs and currencies overwhelmed the senses. ATM barely existed, and the failure to note esoteric regional holidays and erratic hours kept by mom and pop shops led to foodless nights. There were missed connections, panicked fumbling and myriad disappointments.

There were times of panic, but I managed to keep moving. Despite the red-faced embarrassments, cheap hostels already booked, standing-room-only overnight train trips, pain in my arms from lugging a silly gym bag, fear of squat-only “toilets” in Turkey, forgetting a towel and using my only long-sleeved shirt to dry off, all of it managed to work out in the end. 88 days later, back again in Luxembourg for the westbound flight home, I could think of only one thing.

When’s next?

In the coming weeks during this 30th anniversary year, I’ll be describing the summer of 1985. At selected intervals, beer will factor into the narrative, although in retrospect, it must be conceded that I knew next to nothing about beer and brewing.

In all probability, that’s what made learning so much fun.

Wednesday Weekly: Pornadoes at 15.

It would be my educated guess that visual cues are generally assumed to be the preferred tripwire for the re-establishment of errant memory. One looks at old photos, frayed synapses wriggle to renewed life, and it all comes back.

As I sit in my office trying to work amid storm windows rattling and wind gusts carrying small critters past my second-story field of view, it occurs to me that as surely as barometric changes prompt my aging knee to ache, weather conditions also prompt their fair share of memories -- along with smell, of course, although noses aren’t the point of today’s reflection.

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I no longer remember that long-anticipated April weekend “just like it was yesterday.” I cannot tell you who all attended the party, or which day it was held, Friday or Saturday. What I can tell you with certainty is that it felt very much like today feels.

Given the outcome, had any of us even bothered to take the weather into consideration?

After all, only three years earlier, the Louisville area had been wrecked by tornadoes. None actually touched down in Floyd County, and maybe that’s why we were so youthfully oblivious. Three years might as well have been thirty.

We were freshmen in high school, and the day in question was slated to be a memorable, historic occasion: The gang’s first (of what proved to be many) swill-soaked camping forays, out in the fields of the Floyds Knobs farm where one of one of my closest friends lived.

Caution was the watchword, and I directed my mother to drop me off at the foot of the gravel driveway that crossed the creek, and then snaked up the bluff. I walked to the staging area between the house and barn. For April, it seemed warm at first, but showed definite signs of cooling as the clouds slowly rolled in.

The campsite was being established, far enough away behind a copse of trees to shield our activities from prying eyes. It seemed like miles at the time, and probably totaled about a hundred yards. After arranging coolers of weenies and stacking wood for the fire, we hiked into the woods and back down the bluff, away from the driveway, where three cases of Falls City longnecks had been artfully hidden in the chilly waters of the creek by a friendly senior football player eager to spare a rising generation the miseries of sobriety.

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The perimeter secured amid darkening skies, I was rewarded with my first genuine bout of inebriation. This rite of passage was facilitated by two beers, maybe three, and was made tolerable by the icy flavorlessness of the liquid. It numbed my teeth, bolstered my confidence, and provided an escape from my persistent terrors of shyness, even if there were no girls present.

As we drank, we remained oblivious to the elements, paying little heed to the rising winds and droplets of cold rain heralding the storm’s arrival. However, a short distance away, my pal’s folks were paying very close attention, and with dusk and bad weather closing in, we saw the headlights from their pickup truck coming down the dirt path.

Drunken paranoia flared until we realized that they didn’t care one jot about our drinking. Rather, tornadoes had been spotted, and we needed to move the party, beer, burnt weenies and all to the barn I case it got any worse.

Relieved, everyone piled into the pickup and collapsed onto the metal bed, on their backs, staring up at the weird and swirling eternity. I swore aloud through stinging raindrops that I could see tornadoes fornicating – except it wasn’t the exact word I used, but you get the picture. Maybe you had to be there.

In the end, frantically coupling tornadoes didn’t disturb our consumption of the few remaining drops of beer, although the cold temperatures brought by the incoming front made the sharing of too few blankets interesting. It was the era of Top Forty radio hits, and someone turned on the tunes, which repeated dismally, again and again, the same songs over and over, with it being too cold for anyone to get up and turn the damn thing off.

The next morning I was cold, dirty, hung way over for the first time ever, and I had “Chevy Van” as an ear worm. I was offered fried eggs for breakfast and came close to vomiting. Careful to keep heretical thoughts to myself, I questioned whether the campout had been sufficiently fun to justify a return engagement.

The day after that, I was hooked for life.

Now it is 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 23, 2011. The sun is gone, there’s a tornado watch, and I need a drink. The Falls City we have today is better than what we lugged up that hill 35 years ago, but there’s none in the house, just some leftover Smoked Abzug in a growler.

Might as well drink it before the power goes down, which reminds me ...

Readers: Who'd like a bar?

Have a look at these photos, and then I'll explain.

My father hand-built this bar circa 1970 from bits and pieces of wood left over from the construction of our house in Georgetown. It formed the centerpiece of his basement lounge, which these days would be called a man cave. After he died, most of his barroom furnishings were brought to my current home in New Albany. At first, the bar was brought to the back room of Prost, at the Pizzeria & Pub. As remodeling progressed there, it became redundant, was reloaded onto the pickup, and pointed toward Spring Street.

The bar was very barely squeezed through the back door on the ground floor, and while we have plenty of square footage in the house as a whole, there really isn't a place to permanently put it. It's a tough decision to make, but we need the space where the bar now stands, and about the only alternative a see is putting it up for adoption.

No charge; just haul it away (stools included) and promise me it will be put to good use, and I'm fine with it. I'll even clean out the junk currently stuffed into it. My e-mail's in the profile. Thanks.