Music: As Long As They Want Me

The boys in Doc Evans' jazz band blew a final chord and then drifted from the stand for an intermission smoke. As the jump fans settled down to their beers, a stooped and droopy-eyed old Negro clambered up to the piano behind the chromium bar. He began a rolling boogie bass —not fast and tinny like most boogie, but low and underneath the deep, dark blues his right hand played. He played softly, staring out into the blue smoke as if he didn't care whether anyone listened. Not everyone did. But the oldtimers around Chicago's South Side knew that Jimmy Yancey...

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