{Straight From the Heart}   *Charlie*  8/30/00

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CHARLIE

By Joe Edwards

     She was in her mid-seventies, and knockout beautiful.  Her skirts
swirled and her sequined shoes flashed as Charlie masterfully led her about
the ballroom floor.
     Charlie.  Oh, yes, Charlie, with his tuxedo and his pencil thin white
mustache and his shoes shined to a mirror finish.  Charlie, who had written
the arrangements for my band, and whom I watched with one eye, my other on
my fine musicians as I waved the baton.  The tears flowed down my cheeks,
for I knew Charlie...
     It had been the prior Spring, and I had jumped when the voice came out
of the shadows.  "Say, Mr. Edwards," someone said.
     I was walking from my car in the parking lot to the club where I was
playing piano, and I had never been accosted before, although this didn't
happen to be a very desirable area of Kansas City.
     "Yes?", I said, and turned to see a smallish old man in a long, badly
torn overcoat and a ball cap emerge from the darkness.  "Could you let me
have a couple of dollars for something to eat?" he asked.  His hands were
shaking, and I knew it was wine he wanted and not food.
     "How did you know my name," I asked as I gave him two dollars.
     "You're the piano player here," he said, "and a fine one, too.
Sometimes I stand outside the door and listen when people come in and out
and leave the door open a moment."
     "How nice," I said. I was flattered.
     "Say," he said, clutching the two dollar bills, "You ought to play
'Misty' in Eb instead of C.  It lays better that way."
     I watched him start toward the little diner on the corner, then duck
down the alley where he could get some wine.
     That night I played "Misty", and, remembering what the old man said,
moved it to Eb.  He was absolutely right! It did "lay better" that way.
     When I took a break, I went out the back door and around the building.
He was standing by the front door, listening, I suppose, while I was
playing.
     "You were right about 'Misty'", I said, "Why don't you come on inside?"
     "I haven't got the money," he said, "and besides, I couldn't come in
looking like this."  He indicated his torn overcoat.
     "Sure, you can," I said.  "It's the last set, and the place is
clearing out anyway."
     I led him in, sat him at the end of the piano bar, and bought him a
glass of wine from my tip jar.  After a while, when I had just finished
playing "Tenderly", he said, "Pardon me, Mr. Edwards, "but in the third
measure, why not play a C minor 6th chord instead of the D minor 7th you've
been using?"
     There were few people left in the club, so I played "Tenderly" again,
this time with the C minor 6th he had suggested, and lo and behold!  He was
right again!  Where did this old wino get so much knowledge?
     The wine was doing its job, and his hands had stopped shaking.  He
told me name was Charlie Spangler, that he had once been an arranger for
big bands, and that most people didn't believe him when he told them what
he used to do.  I believed him, however, and asked him to come back in
every night and impart some of his chord knowledge to me.  He seemed
thankful to be asked, and came in almost every night.
     On Monday night of my last week at that club, I told Charlie that I
had a fourteen piece band that played the Golden Eagle Ballroom on Grand
Lake in Oklahoma during the summer season, and asked him if he would care
to write an arrangement for it.
     "I'd love to, Mr. Edwards," he replied.  Funny, he still called me Mr.
Edwards even though he was much older than I, and obviously a vastly
superior musician.  It should have been the other way around.  During the
last set on Saturday night, he brought in a large manila folder.
     "This is a medley," he said, "for you to start out each evening with."
I took the folder and looked through the dozens of pages of handwritten
music.  "I'm not a good sight reader, Charlie," I said, "so I really can't
tell by looking at the score how good it is.  But all the boys in my band
sight read very well, and we'll take a chance and open our first night with
this.  How much do I owe you?
     "Could you go a hundred dollars?" asked Charlie, nervously.
     "Sure," I said, and I gave him the hundred, took the folder and we
left; Charlie back to his flophouse on the river, and I to Grand Lake to
pull my band together for the season.
     The following Monday, when we were set up and ready to play, I passed
Charlie's arrangement out to the band.  Briefly, I told them the story, and
said to my third trombonist, "Tommy, I want you to conduct this, because
you read better than I do, and I'll go out front and listen.
     Tommy rapped the baton on the stand and raised his arms.  When the
band started, we were suddenly in the magnificent presence of Glen Miller,
Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Les Elgart, Stan Kenton -- all the great ones,
all somehow wrapped up in my band!
     Did I say MY band?  No!  Now it was Charlie's band -- Charlie
Spangler, who at that very moment was probably in the river area of Kansas
City trying to hustle up something to eat.
     The audience was entranced, as was I, as were the musicians, and we
knew at that moment we had to have Charlie for our Arranger.
     During the week we all agreed to take a small cut in pay if we could
hire Charlie and bring him to the resort.  On Sunday, Tommy went with me,
and we drove to Kansas City to try to find him.  He had no address, but I
knew he lived somewhere in the river district, and we finally found him
living in a dollar a night flophouse.
     Charlie was glad to see me.  "How was the arrangement, Mr. Edwards?"
he asked.
     "You already know the answer to that, Charlie.  We want you to come
back with us and be our arranger for the season."
     Charlie sat on the side of his cot and stared off into space for a
long time.  Then he tried to say "Thank you", but choked up and couldn't.
It was several minutes before we could collect ourselves and get started
back to Grand Lake.  Charlie didn't have any belongings at all.
     Mr. Haskell, the resort owner, gave Charlie a room and all his meals,
and the band advanced him a few hundred dollars.  Tommy took him into Tulsa
to buy clothes, and suddenly Charlie became the 75 year old version of the
gentleman he must have been in the 1940's.
     Each night, as the band finished playing and left the ballroom, we
could see the light burning in Charlie's room as he sat up late writing the
arrangements for the next night's performance.
     Sometime during the summer, Charlie met the beautiful
seventy-something Margaret, who owned a condominium there, and was the
daughter of a past Tulsa mayor.  And now it was she whom he was so
elegantly leading around the floor as they danced to his beautiful
arrangement of "Dream".  It was the last performance of the season, and
when it was over, the audience rose and applauded the band, and the band
rose and applauded Charlie - and Margaret.
     I got the word about five the next morning.
     My second trumpeter, who lived in Miami, Oklahoma, a little town just
north of the lake and which was known as the "marriage capital", was on his
way home when he came upon the carnage on the highway.  An oncoming driver
had gone to sleep, crossed the center line and slammed into Margaret's car.
Charlie was with her, and a ladies wedding ring was found in his tuxedo
pocket.
     Someday, I believe we'll all hear Charlie's wonderful arrangements
again, because there's no doubt in my mind that as I write these words,
Charlie is writing arrangements for a Heavenly choir of Angels.
     Surely God would not produce such a talent, and let it die forever.

Joe Edwards
frogwilly@webtv.net

Send Joe an email and let him know what you thought of his story!

A little bit about Joe:

Joe Edwards from Missouri is a semiretired Jazz pianist now living in Springfield. Although he has played all over the country, his primary base was Kansas City, known as the home of good jazz. He says that he really didn't leave the profession as much as the profession left him, since the clubs have gone to country and rock music. He still plays a few wedding receptions and has recently been joined by a top jazz guitarist. Joe writes about his little hometown of Miller, Missouri, and plans a book of such stories.

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Joe came across a tape of his big band playing Charlie's arrangements!! They are
fabulous. He's having copies made, and $7.00 will get you one. Catch some of these titles - "Willow Weep for Me", "Mack the Knife", "Seems like Old Times."
 It also includes the medley referred to in the story. You will also receive the story "Charlie" printed on parchment paper. I love you all, and appreciate the enormous amount of responses I get.
If you want a tape, send a check for $7.00 to:
Joe Edwards, 1521 E. Whiteside, Springfield, MO 65804.

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Thought For The Day:

"The most untutored person with passion is more persuasive than the most eloquent without."
(Francious de le Rochefoucauld)

Verse for the Day:

"For I know your eagerness to help...your enthusiasm has stirred most of them to action."
2 Corinthians 9:2

Kid's Thought For The Day:

"It's possible to feel full when it comes to more vegetables, but not full when it comes to a piece of cake."

Parent's Thought For The Day

"There are two great injustices that can befall a child.  One is to punish him for something he didn't do.  The other is to let him get away with something he knows is wrong."
(Robert Gardner)

Coach's Thought For The Day

"Whining isn't everything."

Deep Thought For The Day:

"A woman's place is in the House... or the Senate."

  _
/_/\/\    MICHAEL T. POWERS
\_\  /    THUNDER27@aol.com  
/_/  \    "For I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but
\_\/\ \   Christ lives in me.  The life I live in the body I live for the Son
   \_\/   of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."  Galatians 2:20

Video Imagery (Michael's Video Production Business.)

"I thought of you first after my family sat down to watch the video we gave them. They loved it, to say the least!  Within thirty seconds my mom was crying and my dad did too.  They said it was the best Christmas gift we could have given them!!  You did such a beautiful job!  They were so surprised and so touched---they really, really, really loved it.  Thanks for helping to make it so special to us all.  My mom mentioned how the songs were perfect for the video too!  Thanks again!"
        
Kelli  (RKaGe@aol.com)    College Station, TX

Let me make you a video from your pictures or home movies!
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Do you feel as if life has no meaning for you?
 The Four Spiritual Laws
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