Stompin’ at the Grand Terrace

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I used to love to hear the sound of that word when Preston or my dad would shout it in the middle of The Sermon by Jimmy Smith or Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s biblical version of All the Things You Are or Shirley Scott’s appropriately named Slow Blues in the Kitchen.

“Cook!” my dad would holler in the middle of her funky organ romp late at night, and I’d get a terrible hunger in the pit of my stomach. I thought I smelled my mother’s simmering collard greens and ham hocks on the stove, though she’d put away the food from dinner hours ago.

Stompin’ at The Grand Terrace

My father was playing something by Earl Hines—old—probably from the early ’30s, when he was still with Louis Armstrong. He mentioned the old Grand Terrace Café, where Hines and the great ones used to play. Preston was snapping his fingers and nodding along with the beat. “That reminds me of a dream I had the other night. It was beautiful, man, in the sense of lights and music. Fatha Hines and Satchmo was burnin’. Outside, a soft glow from the streetlights seemed like a Canadian sunset, while inside the crystals of the great chandelier were lit up like a thousand stars. Bean took a chorus. Then Prez. Then Bird. Then Diz. Art Tatum was there. Teddy Wilson, Bill Basie, Lady Day, Don Byas, Duke Ellington, and Baby Dodds. Big Sid Catlett and Little Jazz Roy Eldridge himself. Everybody was diggin’ it. People were dancin’, not to show off, but to put into movement what the musicians were playin’. Everyone was there. You were there, James, with all these egghead-lookin’ white cats. They weren’t lookin’ too hip, but could somehow dig it. The place got more crowded. You said, Look, Preston, it’s Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms returned from the dead to check out the scene! I turned and saw these cats in gray powdered wigs, all steadily diggin’ the show. Pops and Fatha kicked it into high gear. The place became so crowded I went onto the terrace to get some air. A cool breeze was blowin’ as music poured out the doors into the night. People were dancin’ on the terrace now, and it began to shake and vibrate. I thought, Oh, shit, this muthafucka’s about to crumble! And it was a long way down, too—certain death if you fell. Then there was this big crackin’ sound, and I thought, Well, that’s it. We began to list like the Lusitania or Titanic, and I shouted, We’re all goin’ down together! And then a miraculous thing happened—the music swung that much harder! Pops and Diz were approaching the stratosphere on the bandstand! We righted and were lifted up by the sound. We were saved! The music held us up, James! And that’s when I woke up.” My father reset the needle on the Fatha Earl Hines album. This time they listened and did not speak.

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