The Legend Of Bubellé Reinholdt
By Jackson Lee Taylor
PROLOGUE
The candy-apple red Caddy drifted into the lot like a whaler on a high tide. The road surrendered to the weight of Detroit steel, gripping the vibrating rubber like a frightened child. The prettiest man Cloverville, Tennessee, had ever seen at the wheel, his eyes glistening in the dashboard lights, making the dreamboat in the land yacht all the more unreal. The door opened slow and heavy. And all the grandmothers in Cloverville still swear the temperature rose twenty degrees when the heel of Bubellé Reinholdt’s mauve-and-cream spats stabbed into the melting tar of a lost highway.
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Gypsy Jack knew he was fucking everything up again, but watching his mistress admire her own perfectly sculpted abdomen in the mirror pushed everything else out of his mind. Maybe his whole life was nothing more than giving into the wrong impulse at the wrong time, and here he was again.
Could he really leave Susan? His faithful, beautiful, old wife? How were they the same age, he wondered. Surely he wasn’t that old. In truth, Gypsy Jack was two years older than the woman who had carried him through twenty years of rocky marriage and an even rockier career.
Jack pushed thoughts of his beautiful old wife out of his mind, took another bump, and sank another shot. As he sealed out the last light of Logos, he was again lost in the pheromones of his daughter’s best friend — a girl he had known since she was eight. She had never stood out until the swimming party for his daughter’s fifteenth birthday. Since then, her presence had given him a strange blend of anxiety, hope, shame, and excitement all at the same time.
So one inappropriate thought gave way to another, and that, in turn, led to an inappropriate action. To specify would be altogether inappropriate.
The sharp blast of a van horn outside snapped his mind off Cindy’s perfect body and back onto what was really inappropriate—the pitiful state of his once brilliant career.
Cindy slipped the little book into his inside jacket pocket when the roadie van pulled up to collect him like so much luggage. He hadn’t even noticed her do it — she hugged him goodbye, told him to “be safe,” and before he could answer, the roadies were honking and waving him in. By the time he climbed into the back next to the coils of filthy cables and relentless road cases that abused him with every turn and touch of the brakes and press of the gas, the book was already pressing against his ribs like a secret he didn’t want to hear.
What was far more inappropriate than his harmless relationship with his daughter’s best friend was his current assignment. Gypsy Jack felt he truly understood the saying “to add insult to injury.” And if that saying ever meant anything, it meant something now, as he sat in the back of the roadie van following Sonny Ray Redding’s tour bus.
He had been assured he’d be on the road with The Eagles this year.
Assured — because that’s where he belonged.
That’s what he had earned.
That’s what people expected of him—even with the piling missed deadlines and stints in rehab.
Surely, The Eagles would be just as offended as he was by the gaudy prose spewing writing hack Sinhouse sent to review the last leg of their enormously successful world tour.
Nothing made sense to Gypsy Jack anymore.
The music business didn’t make sense.
Editors didn’t make sense.
The public didn’t make sense.
The guilt he couldn’t seem to choke down didn’t make sense.
And Susan — his wife — had been little more than a glorified roommate for the last decade. There was no romance or passion left—just duty and keeping up appearances.
His daughter’s best friend was an adult. She was every bit of eighteen years old.
Why should he feel so guilty?
Why was he the bad guy? Who was he hurting?
It didn’t make sense.
Just like him riding in the back of this van
with a bunch of reeking roadies
following a has-been, once-great soul singer turned buffoon on what was surely his final tour.
No one believed Red could keep it together for another year, let alone for the rest of the tour.
And even if he could —
No one whose livelihood didn’t depend on Sonny Ray Redding would care enough to watch.
Jack reached into his inside jacket pocket — the brown corduroy one with the patched elbows, the one Cindy got him for his fifty-fifth birthday with his money. They’d had an ongoing joke that he was her handsome college professor and she his star pupil.
Jack would usually laugh at that — at least chuckle —, but instead he felt a bolt of cringe crawl down his spine as he fumbled with the little book he pulled from his pocket.
The cover said: Boys’ Names 1979–1980.
He opened it. His eyes scanned the list.
And he heard himself say — out loud, to no one:
“It just doesn’t make sense.
Nothing makes sense anymore.”
Gypsy Jack slipped the book back into his pocket and scanned the van to see if any of the roadies were watching him. They weren’t. They were busy applying their trade to the various cords — stripping them, replacing metal jacks, testing connections.
Jack looked back down at his lap and unfolded the piece of paper. It was an offer to research and write the foreword for a new remaster of Bubellé Reinholdt's last session, and update a definitive bio on the lost and forgotten Gypsy Jazz great, Bubellé Reinholdt. The job was even more beneath him than his current assignment, but Harry had sent it a week after Jack accepted the Sonny Ray tour knowing Jack could always use the extra cash.
This would have been no big deal if Jack were a freelancer. But he wasn’t a freelancer. He was under contract — a generous contract — with Sinhouse Records and Publishing. Using the time they were paying him to follow around the buffoon with the roadies, only to write a story for a competitor’s release… might be just as inappropriate as his current situation. But he needed the money. He always needed the money.
Susan had paid all their bills since his trip to rehab. Jack wouldn’t even know his own bank account number. He didn’t know which bank they used. He couldn’t ask Susan for money to use for an…
Gypsy Jack’s attention snapped back to his surroundings, scanning the van. Nothing but luggage and coils of cable. And besides… he wasn’t even in the bus with Sonny Ray. He had hardly said two words to the man. What was he supposed to do?
There were several stops ahead where old bandmates of Bubellé Reinholdt happened to be playing hotel lounges — some of them the same hotels the tour was staying in. What harm would it do to go down, have a few drinks, and talk to some legendary jazz musicians? That was what he did. That was his job. That was his career. That was what he was the best at in the world. It was what was expected of him.
Jack folded the paper and tucked it back into his pocket. He watched one of the roadies wrap black tape around a black cord, thick fingers working methodically, breathing through his mouth, and wiping his runny nose on his sleeve. The sight made Jack feel so indignant that he genuinely considered calling his wife, Susan, at the next stop and asking her to wire money so he could fly home from Portland.
But she would tell him no. She would make him stay and finish his story — because that was the right thing to do.
And Susan always did the right thing.
Gypsy Jack made his way to the Red Lion Lounge. He walked in, scanning the room for Sonny Ray and the roadies, and thankfully, there was no trace of them. Just a few blue-haired ladies draped in costume jewelry as out of season as their shoes. This entire tour was going to be an insult to good taste and basic human comfort.
Jack sat at a small table directly in front of an elegant older man whose slight frame would mislead anyone unfamiliar with the physical byproducts of hard physical labor into mistaking muscled tendon for frailty.
Jack scanned the room again for the roadies. Seeing none, he pulled the book out of his jacket pocket — a finely tailored blazer gifted to him by the late, great soul singer Otis Redding. Jack wore it whenever he wanted to be seen and appreciated for his position.
When the set ended, the elegant older man approached the table, and Jack — without standing — extended his hand to the once-celebrated and innovative violinist. Jack flinched when the supposedly frail man took his hand in a shockingly firm grip. The violinist noticed the wince, released his hand, and apologized in broken English.
“Sorry,” he said, pointing at the hand he’d just withdrawn. “Fifty years of gripping wood for hours a day, every day and night.”
After an hour of drinks and the same stories everyone had heard countless times about Reinholdt’s genius and bad behavior, Jack felt he had let the violinist get his best material out. He interrupted.
“What’s there off the books? I’ve heard all these stories before, Monsieur Rambah — and so have my readers. What can you tell me about Bubellé? You haven’t told anyone else. What do you think happened to him? You never bought into the mob theory like everyone else. Did he piss off the wrong man? Wrong woman? Did he have to run in fear? Or is he dead?
“No!” the elegant man belted, slamming his hand on the table hard enough that the glasses jumped and shattered on the floor.
Gypsy Jack was so taken aback that he couldn’t think of a single word. He didn’t move.
“Look at me, Mister Taylor,” the violinist said. “Bubellé~~ was an evil man, yes. He could be a wicked man. A violent man. A man who pursued the Devil. He believed he could dominate Satan himself — and I think he was correct. Whatever happened to that evil son of a bitch, it had nothing to do with fear.” He feared nothing. Not even God.
He scanned the room again before lowering his voice. “Stick with the… how do you say? Ah yes. Stick to the tropes. They have been good enough for three decades. They are good enough now. You do not want to know what really happened to Bubellé. Whatever his real fucking name was.”
He paused, then added, “He came to France in ’32. He was no more French than you, Mister Taylor. He talked in his sleep sometimes. The first time was when we were hitchhiking from Paris to Rome. He spoke in a perfect American accent. I leaned closer — curiosity, you understand — and before I could cough, I was on my back with a knife to my throat.”
He scanned the room again. “His eyes were wild. I never slept near him again. I saw him do things no man could do. Fight through seven or eight men. Talk any woman into anything. Here is my advice: see the old faces still breathing, enjoy the music, and reprint the tried-and-true tales. They are all true. And they will not get you — or me — killed. Or worse.”
With that, the elegant old violinist stood, bowed, and walked out the stage door.
Gypsy Jack jumped at the cracking sound that followed — Sonny Ray Redding sitting at the bar, slow-clapping.
“Hell, brother, that went well,” Sonny said. “You really got that old timer to open up.” He laughed. Then his face fell into a perfected proper hippie grin. No matter what was happening, how much you were humiliating yourself~~ Red always made you feel he was laughing with you when he was obviously laughing at you.
Jack walked over and bellied up at the bar next to Sonny.
“Sorry Jack,” Sonny said. His happy eyes changed to the perfect mixture of concern and regret for just a moment. “Levi shouldn’t have put you in the van with the crew. He’s new. Still has a lot to learn. I’m giving you the bottom left bunk on the bus. Statistically the safest place.”
Sonny held up a long, thick joint. “How ‘bout we smoke this and try our damnedest not to talk about anything too real — and get you your story so you can move on to the next one.
Gypsy Jack smiled, made a dramatic show, and stretched out the stiffness of the van ride, and Sonny Ray grinned at him.
“You like scotch?” Sonny asked.
“As a matter of fact,” Jack said, “I happen to adore scotch.”
“Well,” Sonny said, “it’s only thirty-six years old… but that’s almost twice as old as my new fiancée.”
Both men laughed.
They walked across the hotel parking lot. Sonny lit the joint and offered the greens to Gypsy Jack — his guest of honor. Sonny knew how to get journalists on his side. Hell, he knew how to get everyone on his side. He cultivated his voice, his charm, his persona — the mythical-old-soul routine.
Jack studied him — the salt and pepper hair and matching beard, the kind, wise eyes. Sonny’s slow, easy smile could pull the cold out of a corpse. Everything about Red was rehearsed to perfection; he came off as the most authentic man alive. You have to respect that level of commitment and artistry.
And it reminded Jack of something Reinholdt’s old drummer had said:
“The only person who ever matched Reinholdt’s presence was a kid in Memphis in ’51. A white boy in a sea of Black faces. A face as beautiful as Bubellé’s — maybe more. For the first time, someone else commanded the room. And Reinholdt felt it.”
It was Elvis Presley.
Elvis walked out of that night changed, and Bubellé walked into legend.
Gypsy Jack drank his scotch down and puffed off the girthy joint, reflecting, doing his best Jack Kerouac.
“You know,” he said, “I didn’t believe anything when I wrote that piece on Elvis… Until I saw him walk across that truck-bed stage. Seeing him — younger than me — did something to me. When he opened his mouth… words flooded my mind that had never been there before.”
He paused.
“Whatever he did to musicians… he did the same to me. But it came out as words. That was the first thing I ever wrote — maybe the best thing I ever wrote. I didn’t know what he meant. But I knew the world had changed.”
Jack’s voice cracked. The weight of Elvis — for both men — hung between them.
Sonny wasn’t just kissing his ass. Jack could feel that.
And God… it had been a long time since anyone tried.
Just as Sonny Ray was putting the bookends on the right words, something slipped. He began speaking freely — maybe for the first time in his life.
Everything he’d said to Jack that night was meant to soften him… but it was also true. Jack had changed his life with that Elvis story.
“It’s a son of a bitch, isn’t it, Jack?” Sonny said quietly. “To live your life in the open for the entertainment of people who judge things they can’t possibly understand. They don’t know what it’s like to be me… or to be you. I’m so goddamn sick of it all.”
Gone was Sonny’s aw-shucks Southern drawl.
In its place: a crisp Northeastern blue-blood accent.
Then — as quickly as it came — it vanished. Sonny’s easy Southern charm returned when the bartender and waitress giggled their way over.
“We’ll catch up tomorrow, brother,” Sonny said, walking away with them.
Gypsy Jack checked the front desk for messages. He received three items:
An envelope from SinHouse with the Reinholdt tape
a letter from Cindy
a slip of paper that read “Liz — up late.”
He would rather do anything than open any of them.
So he did.
He stood on the balcony, smoking, listening, watching Red board the bus with the women.
He couldn’t believe any of this.
Gypsy Jack drank, thought, and began calling the number on the note.
He and Liza spoke.
Danger.
Secrets.
A chance to change his life — and the world’s understanding of Bubellé Reinholdt.
When the call ended, he wrote for hours.
Levi finally called: Sonny was ready.
Gypsy boarded the bus and found Sonny Ray behind the wheel — drunk and stoned.
“Hey, Red — let’s crack another bottle and talk exposé.”
Sonny leaned on the horn like a teenager on prom night.
“Sure as hell will — once I get this big bastard on the highway.”
Gypsy retreated to his bunk.
Listened to more of Liza’s tape.
The story of the night Bubellé disappeared…
A young Memphis kid.
A knife.
A moment of humility.
A pair of conjured golden cufflinks.
And the simple words:
“I thought it was me.”
Gypsy typed:
THE LEGEND OF BUBELLÉ REINHOLDT
by Gypsy Jack Taylor
Is Bubellé Reinholdt still alive?
The tape whined to a stop.
Gypsy settled into the rocking of the bus.
Levi was asleep in the passenger seat.
So exhausted, he didn’t notice Sonny wandering away from the wheel.
Levi looked up — saw the empty driver’s chair — just as the bottom of a low bridge ripped the top half of the bus clean off.
Enabling Sonny had cost him his life.
He was right.
Gypsy Jack lay numb in the bunk on an empty desert freeway. The world was spinning, and the pressure pushing against his skull made the motion sickness worse, which made him chuckle and wince at the same time.
Death, taxes, and things always getting worse — maybe that was proof of God.
And if so… the 1980s were going to be proof of hell.
His vision cleared. His big toe came into focus, then the others. It was his foot. He’d know it anywhere.
Then he understood what had happened.
Sonny Ray had finally done it.
The top of the bus has been cleaved off like the lid of a tuna fish can.
He found his Winstons. There is a God, he thought.
He lit one. Scanned the wreckage.
Pain built behind his eyes.
He searched his pockets…
There.
The book.
Boys’ Names 1979–1980.
He had no pen, so he dipped his finger in the blood leaking from his ear and circled a name. Then he kissed the book and placed it back in his jacket — where it would be found and returned to his wife.
She would do the right thing.
She always had.
Relief — the first in decades — washed over him.
Then, as if an invisible hand guided him, he slumped sideways until his cheek rested in the melting tar of a lost highway.