A boy and his horn Part 2

In the jazz vernacular, a musician's instrument is called his or her axe, like the tool with the wooden shaft and flared blade.

I made a not-so-thorough search for the derivation of the term and came up empty. So, I have no idea where it came from.

But my best guess is that it has something to do with the personal, improvisational aspects of jazz performance. While almost always played in a group format, jazz focuses on the individual in relation to the group - and especially on the soloist. (Think Jenkins Orphanage's Jabbo Smith, Cheraw's Dizzy Gillespie or New Orleans' Louis Armstrong).

A big sport, a competition among jazz soloists is the cutting contest, very popular in the early history of the music.

Players would set out to "cut" one another as they alternated solos during a jam session. Although it was friendly competition, players were very serious about outdoing the next person.

Winning's biggest reward was the feeling of accomplishment and the appreciation of colleagues.

There's an apocryphal story of Jabbo once publicly cutting Louis, a seemingly invincible soloist over the entire course of his seven-decade career.

So, I would bet Jabbo's euphonium that hangs on the wall in the legendary Village Vanguard jazz club that the evolution of the word axe as one's instrument grew out of those old cutting contests.

Some of you know that I played trumpet once upon a time. I was pretty good, too.

But the closest I came to cutting anyone was during a practice session of the Burke High School band back in 1961.

It certainly wasn't like a jazz bandstand but opportunities were there to outdo your peers. I'll never forget it. Our band director, Melvin "Fess" Hodges had just distributed a new piece to put on our music stands for a sight-reading run through. As was his practice, he used this device to challenge our technical proficiency abilities, an age-old aspect of musical instruction in the Lowcountry.

Check this out. The title of the tune was "Riffin' the Blues." We were excited.

We rarely played anything with such a hip monicker. Figuratively speaking, Fess, who was out of the Burke High School, Jenkins Orphanage, S.C. State. College music tradition, dangled it in front of us like an out-of-reach prize, an unreachable ripe fig on a tree.

We were really excited. You could feel the energy in the band room from our anticipation.We loved to swing.

Fess sweetened the deal and heightened the vibe by promising that if we could master this piece. It would be the finale in our upcoming concert, an annual musical rite of spring at the old Charleston County Hall, the largest venue in town in 1961.

We all looked at each other, licking our chops at the prospect of playing concert jazz dressed in semi- formal attire - boys in white dinner jackets, tux pants, bow ties and cummerbunds and girls in white gowns, pearls and pumps.

That's how we rolled for the spring concert. Sartorial splendor was an old Charleston trait, too, even for young musicians.

So, Fess gave the downbeat and off we went.

The challenge, as it always was with the first run through, was to see how long you could last against the other musicians. To see how many you could cut before losing your way and falling by the wayside yourself. That day, I was feelin' it.I was in the zone.

Time slowed down. The notes looked like big, black blobs, bursting onto my eyes off the page. I executed them all as they were written. And I was playing them with my soul pouring out into the mouthpiece into my horn's tubing and through my fingers onto the valves.

I honestly think I levitated, my psyche was so in tune with the universe via my playing.

Through this molasses-like, mellow mist, I could hear the other players dropping out. Measure after measure, I was gaining more momentum.

Then, it was just me. I looked up at Fess and he was smiling and still conducting, even though nobody else was now playing.

I heard him say, "Play it son! Play it son!

I had won his approval, something we all always sought.

My bandmates were smiling at me, too.

Even though I had just cut their musical hearts out.

Jack McCray, author of "Charleston Jazz," can be reached at jackjmccray@aol.com.