Summary

Pages 1-36 includes seven chapters. The book starts with the chapter titled “When, Cool Papa, When?” (1). The chapter opens as Clayton Byrd watches Cool Papa Byrd playing his electric guitar, Wah-Wah Nita, in Washington Square Park. The rest of the band starts to play, and Clayton plays his “harmonica, a.k.a. the Mississippi saxophone, or what Cool Papa Byrd called the ‘blues harp’” (2). Cool Papa starts singing and the crowd whoops. Clayton, through his harmonica, plays a pleading melody to ask his grandfather “When, Cool Papa, when” meaning when can he come in with a solo, and Cool Papa keeps responding “not yet” (3). Clayton thinks about how he wants his 12 bars to “be a true bluesman among bluesmen” (4). The song finishes and the crowd tips some money. As the band packs up their instruments, Clayton...