A boy and his horn, Part I

My involvement in the local jazz scene causes all kinds of things to happen to me.

Regular readers of this column know that I share those from time to time: interesting people I meet, behind-the-scenes looks at events, jazz history and my opinions being among them.

I've been doing this long enough now to even have had some transformational personal experiences.

That's the kind of thing I want to tell you about today.

Charleston Magazine asked to do a feature story on me a couple of years ago. I had a lot of stuff going on then that the editors thought was newsworthy.

The Charleston Jazz Initiative was going strong. I had worked on a film, "Song of Pumpkin Brown." I was writing more and more about jazz in The Post and Courier. I was hosting "Southern Roots and New Offshoots," an independent radio program produced and directed by Stanfield Gray.

In fact, it was Stan who pitched the story idea to the magazine.

After a couple of photo shoots for the project didn't go that well, I suggested we do something at Buist Elementary School where I first studied trumpet some 50 years ago.

The idea came to me, in part, because I had been thinking for years about why my trumpet had mysteriously found its way back to me after a 30-year absence. I gave it up in 1963 to focus on my books in high school and I loaned it to my cousin. Nothing laid around in disuse in my extended family: clothes, toys, books, instruments, nothing.

When I asked about the horn several years later, it couldn't be found. I was greatly disappointed, but as time passed I got over it.

Out of the blue, in 1998, my aunt Lucille found it and sent it to me.

Glory be! Miracles do happen.

Believe me. It was like having a severed arm reconnected. It's true. Musicians' instruments are an extension of themselves.

Then, the horn's mystique started to reveal itself again.

I pushed the buttons on the latches of the case and they worked, a complete surprise after more than 30 years.

As I gently lifted the horn out of its blue, velveteen cradle, there were no signs of rust, another surprise. Its silver finish still gleamed like I always remembered. You have to understand, this inanimate object had meant as much to me as if it were another human being.

This was turning into magic, rivaling the preternatural pleasure the horn gave me when I used to play it.

Real wonderment kicked in with my next step.

I touched the valves, the three pearl-covered pistons that sit atop the tubing.

They rode down their cylinders like they had just been lubricated. They should have been immovable after all that time in my aunt's attic, or wherever it was asleep.

That's when I knew my horn had a life, or at least a spirit, of its own.

I shed some tears of joy.

And then I dared to try the true test.

I inserted the mouthpiece, gathered my courage, inhaled deeply, pursed my lips and blew into my baby.

I got a sound.

The resulting glee had me feeling like Gabriel playing in glory.

The whole process took about five minutes, but it felt like an eternity. I believe to this day that I tapped into something timeless, a free float in a universe that knew no bounds, just me and my horn, just like it used to be when I practiced endlessly or played a solo with the band.

It was similar to the zone I was in while playing a tune called "Riffin' the Blues" in the Burke High School band in 1962.

So, this is the same horn I had in my hands on the way to the magazine shoot.

During that short walk in the fall of 2007, I became transformed again.

I parked on Henrietta Street, around the corner from the Calhoun Street school. As soon as I got out of the car and began walking and holding that handle, it was like walking to band practice just like I had done in 1957.

All of a sudden, when I turned the corner from Henrietta onto Elizabeth Street, I saw Miss Annie's old corner store. I was 10 years old again, leaving Miss Anderson's house at 9 Henrietta St. after my piano lesson and on the way to band rehearsal at Buist.

Strolling down to Calhoun, I could see Rose Polassis' store on that corner. I could smell the deviled crabs cooking at Eddie's Grill on Calhoun. I felt the energy from the sidewalks teeming with people going in and out of the dry cleaner's or the fish market or the pool hall or the barbershop.

I awoke from my fantasy and began to think about the exact spot in the school's cafeteria where I used to sit for band practice so we could shoot something from there.

I could see it in my mind's eye. I'll never forget.

As I crossed Calhoun Street to enter the building under the Philip Simmons arch, it was me and my horn.

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