Give some to the drummer?

Fate Marable (1890 – 1947) spent most of his life as pianist and bandleader on Mississippi River steamboats. In 1910, with a thousand passengers dancing to his orchestra’s music,

a fire broke out in the hold. Despite their orders to keep playing lest the passengers panic, each of the musicians in turn laconically allowed as how he figured he’d just ease on over and ‘see what was happening to the boat,’ in order, of course, to report back. Each one in turn slipped out and disappeared, including Marable, who left his drummer to carry on alone.

Sigh. I imagine the drummer thinking, “Ah, at last they’ve given me a solo!”

The steamboat

. . . burned to the waterline that evening. As a local paper reported: ‘Wild panic broke loose among the passengers, and . . . a general stampede ensued. Screaming, cursing, praying men, women, and children fought, jammed, and trampled over one another in mad chaos and confusion.’ Two passengers lost their lives, and crew members, who jumped into the water to help floundering passengers, later reported that babies rained down on them from the deck railings. After reuniting with his musicians on Bad Axe Island, Marable found that without the [steamboat] he and his band . . . no longer enjoyed gainful employment. Happily, John Streckfus [the owner] soon went out and bought a whole fleet of boats . . . .

—William Howland Kenney, Jazz on the River, p. 43

So, the drummer—who was he?—seems to have survived, but no word on whether he was able to save his drums.