The Hunt

John Hammond was one of Keegan’s oldest friends. He was the scion of the Hammond Organ family, a jazz aficionado who wrote a column for the jazz music magazine Metronome and prided himself on discovering new talent. Hammond would go anywhere, to the smallest town and the dingiest club, to hear any jazz musician with promise. Among others, the young entrepreneur had discovered Billie Holiday and Benny Goodman, the clarinetist engaged to Hammond’s sister, who was gaining fame in the States with his swing orchestra. He had set up Holiday’s first recording date with Goodman, lured Count Basie from Chicago to New York, discovered the frenetic drummer Gene Krupa, had been the first to write about drummer Chick Webb and his big band, and he had discovered the great piano player Teddy Wilson, putting him together with Goodman. Hammond had produced a couple of records for Columbia Records and his reputation as an impresario of new talent had become indisputable. If Hammond was impressed by Jenny’s unique long-distance phone audition, he could open many doors for her—nightclubs, bands, recordings, radio shots.

Keegan had hired Charlie Kraus, an American jazz arranger and pianist living in Paris, to work with Jenny and accompany her during the audition. That had impressed Hammond who knew Kraus to be a tough and discriminating musician, a man who would not waste his time with second-rate talent. A dapper little man who dressed in the fashion of the day with his beret cocked jauntily over one eye, Kraus, whose mother was Negro, had been an arranger for Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway and other rising stars before he had abandoned the States two years earlier, disillusioned by racism in the music business.

Kraus made a good living as a teacher and arranger and had a small combo which played in one of the Paris clubs on weekends. It was there one night that Keegan had convinced him to let Jenny try a song or two. Kraus had been amazed, talking her into singing with the band for an entire set, then offering her a permanent job. But Keegan had more ambitious plans. He had tracked down Hammond in Kansas City and put Kraus on the phone.

“She’s special, Johnny,” Kraus told Hammond. “Great breath control. Phrasing’s a miracle. Tone’s unique, not quite alto but almost. And the lady has great respect for lyrics, doesn’t throw away a single syllable. I mean, this lady knows exactly what she wants a song to sound like. Man, she reaches for notes some of us don’t even hear in our head. Tell yuh, John, she could give me a lesson or two.”

Based on that endorsement, Hammond had agreed to the unprecedented phone audition. Keegan’s dream was that Hammond would be impressed enough to lure Jenny to New York.

They had gone to Kraus’s studio in Montmartre and spent an afternoon there, exchanging ideas, trying new things, working with songs she didn’t know. Then Keegan had moved the piano into their suite; she and Kraus had been working together for two weeks to prepare for the event.

Keegan placed the call three times before the overseas connection satisfied him. Finally they were ready. He uncradled the phone in the bedroom and placed it in front of the loudspeaker, then went back in the living room and picked up the extension.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Fire away,” said Hammond.

Jenny’s first choice was a strange one. The song had become a kind of anthem to the Depression and had been made famous by Rudy Vallee, the nasally Ivy Leaguer turned crooner, who had recorded it almost as a dirge.

Keegan and Rudman sat nervously on the edge of one of the stuffed sofas, sipping champagne. At first Keegan was shocked by her choice. But as she sang, he realized it didn’t matter. She closed her eyes and held a finger against one ear, leaned her head back slightly and started singing. She sang with such ardor, reaching for and hitting each note so perfectly, that her choice of material quickly became moot. Keegan sat back and marveled at her incredible control, at her passion when she sang.

“Once I built a railroad, made it run

Made it race against time.

Once I built a railroad, now it s done.

Brother, can you spare a dime?”

She turned the bitter tune into a torch song, almost a love song with an upbeat lilt, as she finished:

“Hey, don’t you remember, they called me Al,

It was Al all the time,

Hey, don‘t you remember, I’m your pal,

Buddy, can you spare a dime?”

Then segueing easily into the next selection, looking across the room at Keegan, she sang:

“I got a crush on you,

Sweetie Pie,

All the day and night time,

Hear my cry,

The world will pardon my mush,

But I have got a crush,

My baby on you.”

And from the Gershwin love song she easily turned to a Billie Holiday heartbreaker, shifting the words slightly to suit her, stretching a syllable out for two or three notes, rolling from one note to another, shaving the songs down to the bare essentials, then as she segued into her last number, she looked over at Keegan and wiggled her hips and winked, then in a very upbeat tempo, fingers snapping and staring bright-eyed at her lover across the room, she sang:

“Everything

Is fine and dandy

Sugar candy

When I’m with you

She ended the set on a high note with Kraus and bass player Chuck Graves jamming behind her. When she finished, Kraus, Graves, Keegan and Rudman all were speechless for seconds before they simultaneously burst into applause.

“Immaculate, lady, immaculate,” Kraus said, flashing a million-dollar smile.

Dead silence for a moment when she finished, then Keegan snatched up the extension phone. “Well?” he asked.

“How soon can you get her to New York?”

“Are you kidding!”

“Not this time.”

He cupped the receiver. “He wants to know how soon we can come to New York,” he said to Jenny.

Jenny bit her lower lip. Her heart was pounding. This was a chance she had dreamed about since she was a child. But

she had other responsibilities. Her eyes began to well up with tears. Keegan was so happy, so happy for her. Perhaps they could go to New York for a few weeks and test the waters. Perhaps if she was a success she could do something significant for her friends and family in Germany. Perhaps .

“Go . . . go . . . pick up the phone,” Keegan said.

“Oh no, no she said shaking her head with embarrassment. He grabbed her hand and put the extension phone in it.

“Here, say hello to John Hammond,” he said, and went to the other phone.

“Hello she said hesitantly.

“Miss Gould, you have a voice that would put the heavenly chorus to shame. Quite simply, you have a great voice and you know exactly how to use it.”

“Oh, thank you,” she whispered.

Keegan picked up the other phone. “So.. . Where do we go from here?” he asked Hammond.

“You get her this far and I’ll take it from there. We’ll introduce her around, maybe get her a guest shot at Kelley’s or the Onyx, one of the downtown clubs. I’ll get Benny and Bill Basie, maybe even Lady Day herself down there to hear her. With a voice like that she can sing her way through any door in town.”

“All right, all right!” Keegan cried.

“Do me a favor,” Hammond said. “I’ll call Louis Valdon at the Gramophone Recording Studio there in Paris and set up a session. Cut all four songs and send them ahead to me. I want to hear what she sounds like on wax. Put Charlie on a minute.”

“Go in the other bedroom and get on the phone,” Keegan yelled to Kraus. A moment later the dapper arranger picked up.

“Charlie, we’ll do a session with her. All four songs. Maybe you can add drums behind her, what do you think?”

“Sounds right.”

“Can you produce it for me? Francis will pick up the tab, won’t you, Francis?”

“You skinflint.”

“Hey, I told you, get her to New York and I’ll take over. Listen, if she sounds as good on wax as she does over the phone, I’ll have the city hopping up and down by the time she gets here.”

“You’re on.”

“I’ll call Louis right now and tell him to expect your call. Let me know when you’ll be in New York.”

“Thanks, John.”

“Hey,” Hammond laughed, “after ten years I finally got something out of you.”

That night they ate alone in a small unknown restaurant on the Left Bank. She would go to Berlin in the morning to say her goodbyes. He would stay on in Paris and make arrangements for the trip, then fly over to Berlin in five days to pick her up. He booked her on the ten A.M. plane to Berlin the next morning.

“We’ll fly to London and take the Queen Mary over,” he told her.

After dinner they walked down the banks of the river. The bateau-mouche slipped by and they sat down for a moment, watched and listened to the laughter of the people on the pleasure boat. They walked on, started across the wooden foot bridge that crossed one of the small tributaries at the Quai de Bethune. From the middle they could see the gargoyles on Notre Dame, squatting ominously in spotlights, and beyond it, the Eiffel Tower, a brilliant, luminous triangle.

“It’s like a diamond glittering in the dark,” Keegan said.

“Why did you decide to live in Berlin when you came from the States?” Jenny asked. “You seem to adore Paris so much.”

“I was doing business in Germany. And I truly liked the people. That’s why I really don’t understand what’s happened to them.”

“The devil spoke and they listened,” she said.

“You really believe that, don’t you? That Hitler’s the devil incarnate?”

“Yes,” she answered with a bitterness he had not heard in her voice before. “And Himmler, Goring, Goebbels. All of them.”

He took her in his arms and kissed her lightly on the lips, but she pressed harder as he started to draw away, clinging to him almost in desperation.

“Hey, what is it?” he asked softly.

“I love you, Francis. I love everything about you. You’re funny and tough and a little mysterious and you make me feel safe. And I know in my heart nobody has ever felt toward me the way you do. And I do love you so for that, too.”

“And I love you,” he answered. “For all time and beyond. I promise you, I’ll make your life the most dazzling adventure you can imagine. I’ll devote my whole life to making you happy.”

She brushed his lips with the fingertips of one hand.

“You already have,” she said.