Chops Harper is a Paroseme.
Overview[]
If you're a changeling and you're hip to the American jazz scene, then you've probably seen Chops Harper at one time or another - he's the cat with the connections, the insider who knows all the best musicians personally. Need to get backstage passes? Talk to Chops. Want a table near the front? Chops can arrange it. And he's been doing just that for the last 70 years or so. He may disappear every now and then, but he's always back in time for the latest craze, and he's always somewhere in the entourage of the hottest players around. The spotlight's not his thing, but he does his best to make sure it's on whatever jazzman he's backing at the time.
For most Inanimae, a rep like that is a serious liability. For Chops, it's the only gig in town: His name is mud among his fellow parosemes. He's persona non grata, Public Enemy Number One. Worst of all, as far as the silfars are concerned, he's a serious square. His crime: He went and turned himself into every paroseme's worst nightmare, a heavy.
Back in the day, Chops was just another lazy bayou breeze, wafting his way through New Orleans on a hot summer night. Story goes that he happened to breeze by Preservation Hall at showtime and got himself hooked on the positive music. Dixieland want north, Chops went with it, only this time he'd given up the the winds for a woodwind: He'd gone and anchored himself to a clarinet. - a solid object! Well, the silfars weren't about to stand for that, and Chops hasn't been welcome at their gatherings since.
Not that he cares: The music is everything to him. He hasn't missed a beat in years, switching Anchors from clarinet to saxophone to trumpet and back, going on tour all over the world. Those changelings who muse jazz musicians and singers say that Chops has a habit of enchanting whoever's playing his current Anchor and offering them a deal: The ultimate in breath control lessons in exchange for Glamour. Blow, man, blow!
References[]
- CTD: Inanimae: The Secret Way, p. 98-99