Kasper And His Trumpet

While I was in Germany as an exchange student, I worked in the town of Duisburg on the Rhine, during one vacation.
On my way to work, I would pass a building site with a site office, a car park and a storage yard. Someone had placed a few corrugated iron sheets lying at an angle against the site office.
In the space between the sheets and the wall lived the unforgettable hero of this story. He was an enigma. A man not understood yet tolerated. Those that passed him would point at their heads and say things like "boy, is there a screw loose."
He was known as Kasper, which in the vernacular means clown or fun figure. He would emerge from his little space every afternoon, put on his World War II overcoat and then see what the ladies in the site office had set aside for him.

Then he would shuffle off to that part of the town where the cinemas were located. You see, he was a busker. A street musician and that's all he ever was or ever would be. Call him retarded, if you will, but when he twisted his hands together and lifted his contorted fingers to his mouth, he could put to shame Louis Armstrong if he had still been around.

Kasper would walk up and the length of the cinema queues for the matinees and the evening shows and bring to the German people there sounds from a New Orleans that they had probably never heard of. They had no idea that the words that went with this kind of music sounded something like this.

"If Beale street could talk
If Beale street could talk
Married men would get up
From their beds and walk"
Or
"Twaren't for powder
Or for store bought hair
This gal I love
Wouldn't get no where...no where."

Suddenly the whole scenario changed. Duisburg was about to be totally shaken up. A real live New Orleans Jazz band was coming to town. They had travelled all through Europe and Duisburg had some how appeared on the itinerary.
I bought my ticket early as I wasn't going to let anything stop me hearing the real thing.

The great night came. I was already in my seat three rows from the front, when I heard the first drum beats and the strumming of the bass. Then came the moanin' and sobbin' chords of the brass followed by the soaring, dipping, swinging and swaying yet pure sounds of the clarinet.
Then the curtains were drawn open and there they were. The leader was Randolph Jazz supremo. Clarinet and saxophone virtuoso par excellence.
When he played no one coughed or shuffled...well, not until Kasper came in.

To our total amazement and perhaps horror to some, we began to hear the sounds of a trumpet coming first from outside and then into the hall and then, incredibly as it may seem, down the aisle from behind us.
No one moved. How could they? What can one do when the situation is far beyond the bizarre. Protocol had flown out of the window when Kasper walked in the door.
A hush settled over the audience as the home grown trumpeter marched triumphantly towards the stage.

The band had, in the meantime, formed a half circle around Randolph and were repeatedly playing a low blues phrase that came straight from the swamps.
Randolph stood quietly, without any look of surprise on his face, and watched Kasper coming closer and closer. When he was near enough, Randolph bent down and grasped Kasper's hand and led him to the nearest steps. There he helped him climb onto the stage.

As soon as he was on the stage, the band leader gave him a warm embrace and patted him on his back. Acting on his signal, the band began to play Tiger Rag and everyone began marching around in a huge circle on the stage and then off the stage among the audience and then back on the stage,
Of course, the lead instrument was Kasper's trumpet.

The crowd erupted. Feet were stamped and encores were shouted.
For that day, Duisburg and perhaps the whole world, became a better place.

Every word of this story is true. I know. I was there.