Changes

Key:  Additions   Deletions

The train to Maastricht is crowded with kids. They hammer out tattoos on the ashtrays, reassemble Coke cans and shout at each other. Coops and I try to doze in our corner seats but it is impossible. "Where are we going, dear boy?" says Coops. He's in his absent-minded academic persona today.
"Three days in Maastricht," I reply. "It's a medieval town stuck in a pimple of Holland between Belgium and Germany.
"Hmmmmmmm," he says, then straightens his military tie, dusts the jacket of his ancient and threadbare grey suit and puts his fisherman's hat on the rack above his collection of instruments - Bb clarinet, Eb clarinet and bass clarinet, to be precise. All this is routine for him. He flits about to the Gulf and Hong Kong all the time. But this is my first tour for 22 years, since 1963 when I was a young piano player with the Scottish jazz band, the Clyde Valley Stompers.
"And now," says Coops, grinning skeletally, "a tune which our pianist, Jamie Evans, and I used to play in an east London public house called The Rumboe. That is, on the odd occasion we remember being there. Coops MaastrichtLadies and gentlemen, Somewhere Over the Rumboe." Blank looks from the predominantly Dutch, Belgian and German audience. But they warmly applaud our version of
Somewhere Over the Rainbow. A French girl buttonholes me and calls me "a genius of the piano". I snicker modestly at such a ludicrous assertion.

We have a new young drummer tonight. He's smoking a giant joint and drinking far too much. "Can't we play some avant-garde music," he says. Coops aquiesces, lizard eyes narrowed and beard twitching. "No piano, please," says the drummer, pointing me barwards. "Alan will please play the big bass clarinet and make elephant noises." Coops and I collapse helplessly and a tour joke is born, to be repeated and enjoyed night after night.

Picture: Coops consults with the bass player and drummer in Maastricht.

Continued on Low Country Life 3