Malmö, Sweden
1958
It was a common myth amongst the more casual listeners that jazz always had to be fast, if not outright frenetic, but the Musikers had a number of pieces ready to prove such listeners (Emil couldn’t really think of them as “fans” since that was short for “fanatic” and a casual fanatic was a contradiction in terms) wrong “in the most best way”, as Sigrun put it. They’d played one of these pieces so often that some of their real fans (few though they were, they existed) were calling the piece “the Musikers’ theme song”.
Age and fatherhood had made Emil much more aware of the exact meanings of words and the necessity for strict adherence to them when trying to communicate to “the younger generation”; this attitude had kept his kids out of trouble far more often than it had gotten Emil into trouble, so Emil stuck to it like glue, especially when his kids were around. So to Emil, a song was something you sang; that is, it had lyrics, which most of the Musikers’ pieces lacked entirely (though some of the old standbys like “Minnie the Moocher” and “Hold That Tiger” were exceptions, of course).
At any rate, it was during one of their slow numbers that Emil noticed how Sigrun was glancing back and forth between Mikkel and someone in the audience, but even though it was a slow number, Emil couldn’t spare the time or concentration to go through his usual fear-driven over-analysis of this strange happening. After the set, however…
*
Lalli and Marta together had managed to calm Emil down from his latest “I’m going to be replaced” freak-out after only about fifteen minutes, which Lalli considered a triumph of the highest order, as most of these “episodes” (as Mikkel liked to call them) took over an hour to work through. Afterwards, they had picked up Kerttu and gone out for a quick bite before their next session, leaving Emil’s kids under the iron fist of their Aunt Tuuri (Reynir, Sigrun and Mikkel all having managed to get themselves permanently barred from babysitting ever again).
Hmmm. Maybe Lalli hadn’t given the kids enough credit for how Emil’s freak-outs were getting easier to handle of late. In marked contrast to how their cousins, the dreaded Västerström Changelings, had been at their age, Lalli actually maybe… kind of… liked being around them—in strictly limited doses, mind. It was something to consider.
Another thing to consider was what that weird (and probably stupid) back-and-forth ballet of glances between Sigrun, Mikkel and the person in the audience had actually meant. Now, Lalli was absolutely sure that everyone’s place in the band was secure, but Sigrun was always and openly looking to add any talent she could grab to their roster, so it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that Lalli would have to deal with yet another stupid, weird foreigner whose stupid, weird foreign ways would wind up rubbing Lalli all the wrong ways until some combination of Emil, Kerttu, Tuuri and Sigrun (in that order of likelihood) knocked some faint strain of intelligence into them. Lalli sighed almost inaudibly at the thought…
*
Sigrun was grinning in a way that meant she’d had one of her infamous “inspirations”; standing beside her was a tall girl in her thirties bearing a decided resemblance to Mikkel. “Hey guys! Guess who wants to join her older brother’s band for a while!”
Emil sighed under his breath. Yep; Sigrun was speaking in exclamation points, which meant they’d all have to charge along with her down whatever path she’d chosen until the disaster at the end overtook them, since nothing short of that disaster would divert Sigrun from her current course. He glanced over at Lalli, who subtly shrugged back at him. They’d have to follow the usual plan: find out exactly what Sigrun’s new enthusiasm meant for the Musikers, get together later to try to come up with ways to keep the fallout from the coming disaster to a minimum, and then just grit their teeth and hold on until the end.
Despite her age, Mette Madsen reminded Emil not so much of Mikkel, but of how Reynir had been (and sometimes still was) when he’d first joined the Musikers… all of twenty-two years ago.
It was odd how the passing of time never struck you so hard as when you looked back and realized just how much time had passed.
Anyway, Mette was another brassist, but she preferred the trombone to any of its valved cousins. “I like the way I can slide from one note to the next if I want,” she explained to the group, Reynir nodding his agreement.
Emil noticed Tuuri bristling slightly at the immediate sympathy between Reynir and the newbie. Uh oh. He and Lalli would need to call Marta and Kerttu in on this disaster avoidance session…
