"Tell Me About Magnets"

Michael Ondaatje wrote a novel with an enigmatic title: “Coming Through Slaughter.”

Centered around the story of jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden, the text mentions many musicians. First there is the younger generation: Louis Armstrong, Bunk Johnson, Freddie Keppard (p.5). Then, the antithesis of the oral tradition: John Robichaux (pp.5 & 93). There are also the fellow band members that we observe in the photograph: Willy Warner, Willy Cornish, Jimmy Johnson, Brock Mumford and Frank Lewis (p.66). Next, a famous witness: Ferdinand Lementhe (p.43). Finally, there is the older generation, the “fathers”: Manuel Hall, Mutt Carey, Bud Scott, Happy Galloway (p.95).

The text also mentions many tunes. The following titles are all listed on page 23 : “Don’t Go ‘way Nobody”, “Careless Love”, “2.19 Took My Baby Away”, “Idaho”, “Joyce 76”, “Funky Butt”, “Take Your Big Leg Off Me”, “Snake Rag”, “Alligator Hop”, “Pepper Rag”, “If You Don’t Like My Potatoes Why Do You Dig So Deep?”, “All The Whores Like The Way I Ride”, “Make Me A Pallet On Your Floor”, “If You Don’t Shake, Don’t Get No Cake”. “Tiger Rag” and “Cakewalking Babies” each get a mention within the framework of a scene.

What goes into the music? How does the musician turn feelings or surroundings into sound?

On his second trip to New Orleans, Buddy Bolden's old friend, Webb, hears him play in front of a crowd. For the visiting detective, Bolden’s activity with The Cricket, a gossip rag, influences his playing. The cornetist plunges in the rumors and expands on them through notes and phrases. The uncertainty of the information carried by his sources seem to nourish the immediacy and improvised nature of the music (p. 43). 

Later, we marvel at a non-professional pianist as he transforms hurt and anger into sounds. The anatomical details in the text convey the sharpness of heartaches. The piano has “teeth”. Sounds seem to "touch" the lovers' naked bodies. Only a few words separate the piano’s teeth from the bare bodies. The ritual quality of the musical translation, as the amateur pianist does this day after day, only adds to the fascination (p.92).

Sound and silence may be invisible, yet they are very much alive. They are imaginary animals moving dangerously across a room. On page 14, we are invited to imagine the Bolden band sound. On page 84, we feel the vulnerability of the exiled musician as his past collides silently with his new life. 

The author's descriptions of invisible forces are the closest the text ever comes to music. The movement of magnets is a spectacle for young Buddy Bolden: worn-out after his long practice session, he requests a show from his roomate Webb, in what seems to be both scientific curiosity and a crave for entertainment. But the scene holds a symbolic value: the big magnet’s pull on the little ones is the power of Bolden’s sound over crowds. It is also a comment on the nature of the friendship between Webb and Bolden (p.35). 

Bellocq is another character who deals with invisible forces. At Webb's request, he makes a print of the Bolden band photograph. That scene is magical. Later, the description of the fire is strangely beautiful. In both scenes, bodies appear or disappear under the transformative power of acid or fire. Again, both these descriptions relate to music: instruments slowly materialize in the picture; the body follows a strange choreography in the inferno. 

Click here to listen to my improvisation over the changes of "Tiger Rag" and "Cake Walking Babies From Home."

Ondaatje, Michael. Coming Through Slaughter, Vintage Books, 1996