Word: bunking
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Slow Drag Pavageau had been the regular bassist with the George Lewis band and with Bunk Johnson before that. He had worked with George for almost 30 years, and had toured all over Europe with him. He had been the grand dad of the group, and now--at 80--he was hospitalized with stomach cancer. Drag was a delightful little man, a creole who spoke little English that was intelligible, and a lot of creole French that no one understood but him. He had grown up--like many New Orleans jazzmen--in a French speaking family, and seemed to personify...
...Drag. Now, Drag say he can take all that stuff. Say he never been sick from it. That's true until we was up in Cincinnati, and he fell sick for two weeks. That was all that liquor in him," George nodded solemnly. "Man, he could put it down. Bunk, too. Bunk used to drink almost as much as Drag. That's what killed Bunk...
...George, did you ever hear Bunk play much before...
George looked up suddenly. "Hear him? I was playin' with Bunk the night Evan Thomas got killed. That was the last job Bunk ever played until we made those records," George paused and gazed at the ceiling for a minute or so. The years were peeling back in his memory as he went back to a scene that took place more than 30 years ago. It was as vivid to him then as the night it happened. "It was during the depression. Let me see, it was nineteen and thirty . . . two. I was workin' with Evan Thomas in Crowley, Louisiana...
...Yeah. We took Bunk on as a second trumpet. He and Evan started soundin' real nice together--man, we had us a band then. Well, about two nights before Thanksgivin', we was up on the bandstand, and this fella name of John Gilbey come runnin' into the dance hall with a butcher knife. Said Evan been messin' around with his wife. Evan didn't have no time to run, so he grabbed me by the shoulders and ducked down behind me." George raised his eyebrows and smiled his ironic smile, "Man I thought I was finished then. That man reached...