sounds. It wasn’t the music of the blues clubs. The honkytonks. Their secret Washington Square Park concerts. Or their midnight jams. It was the music Ms. Byrd instructed the organist to play. “A heavenly tune,” she’d told the organist, although Ms. Byrd didn’t believe her father would go straight to heaven. He had made too many people cry—especially her mother—to go straight to heaven. Her father’s soul had a long road to travel. The Bluesmen had come ready to play. A send-off wouldn’t be a party without the blues to ferry Cool Papa Byrd on his journey. They offered to play a tribute, but Ms. Byrd thanked them kindly and firmly and said, “No blues music of any kind.” The Bluesmen were not pleased, but kept their cool. So the organist played hymns. The preacher preached. The lovely ladies boo-hooed. And Clayton fiddled with the folded paper that told the story of Cool Papa Byrd’s life, read by one of Cool Papa Byrd’s brothers. Clayton hoped to hear funny stories about his grandfather as a kid, or as a young musician during his “Mr. Louisiana Hot Lick” days, or of his days at sea in the navy. He hoped to hear about the Cool Papa he knew, and how he got to be so cool. Instead, Uncle Clifton Byrd read the date that Clayton’s grandfather had been born. He read that he had brothers
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