Sam Stephenson radio interview by Jim Sintetos in advance of the Monterey Jazz Festival.  KRML radio in Carmel, CA.  September 6, 2010.

JLP segment by Richard Steele on WBEZ Chicago Public Radio’s Eight Forty-Eight program.  September 2, 2010.

JLP Wins Award for Innovative Use of Archives from The Archivists Roundtable of Metropolitan New York, Inc.  August 31, 2010.

Nicole Rudick on JLP in Aperture magazine.  Summer 2010.

JLP in Chicago.  (Chicago Reader. July 15, 2010).

JLP at the New Mexico Jazz Festival – Santa Fe New Mexican July 16, 2010 and the Weekly Alibi July 8-14, 2010.

Bondo Wyszpolski on JLP in Easy Reader, the alt-weekly of Hermosa, Manhattan, and Redondo beaches, California.  July 14, 2010.

Gene Santoro on JLP in American History magazine.  June 2010 issue.

This pleases us.  Archivists are a difficult lot to impress.  They naturally think in terms of decades or centuries.  Contemporary time means almost nothing to them.  JLP continues to receive a pulse of current publicity (click on the “news” section of our site) and we appreciate that, but this recognition by pros in the archival world is significant to us.

Without recapitulating my long JLP book acknowledgments, I want to stress that any innovative use of the JLP archives required long, complex collaborations and I should outline some of it here.  First and foremost, the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University was a perfect home for this project. During the course of JLP, while dealing with the mind-boggling variety of material emanating from our oral history interviews, Smith’s photos, and especially Smith’s tapes, I could be heard saying, “We are one degree away from anything.”  So is CDS. Director Tom Rankin and associate directors Greg Britz and Lynn McKnight are to be lauded.  I don’t think JLP could have happened like it did anywhere else.  I can’t mention everybody who helped at CDS; so many played a role.

JLP Research Associate Dan Partridge is a centerpiece of it all.  Since 2003 he reported to work, donned headphones, and listened to Smith’s tapes daily.  He’s still doing it, he’s got about 7-800 hours he hasn’t heard, yet.  I’m confident that when human history ends Dan will be the only one to have heard everything.  Even Smith didn’t hear it all.  Sometimes Smith left the room, or the building, with the recorder running.  Unless somebody comes along with the time and resources and impetus to hear 5089 compact discs of sound, nobody will ever again hear what Dan has heard and cataloged.  He ought to get an honorary MA or doctorate from Duke as far as I’m concerned.

Kudos also to Lauren Hart, JLP Coordinator.  She joined the project two years ago just out of Hampshire College at a time of increasing chaos as we were organizing outcomes (the “innovative uses” we’re honored for here) and she shepherded everything, made sure it all happened, with the JLP website being her particular handiwork from conception to what you see now.

CDS Exhibitions director Courtney Reid-Eaton executed the JLP exhibition perfectly.  We had nearly 1000 people attend the opening at NYPL for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center and CRE oversaw that installation for two weeks, as well as the installation in Chicago.  The staff at NYPLPA – Jackie Davis, Barbara Cohen-Stratyner, and Sara Velez in particular and David Ferriero at the mid-town library, too – was essential, too.  NYPLPA’s public program during the exhibition, Hall Overton: Out of the Shadows was a highlight of the whole JLP for me (I can’t forget Sarah Ziebell and Cheryl Raymond for their roles at the library).  Many thanks also to Kim Rorschach and her staff at Duke’s Nasher Museum of Art for their support and contributions.  We are excited about the JLP show being at their great venue next spring, a “home stand” for JLP, so to speak, after living on the road.

Aaron Greenwald at Duke Performances initiated a collaboration with JLP in 2006, plotting 18-shows in the fall 2007, Following Monk, commemorating the 90^th anniversary of Thelonious Monk’s birth in nearby Rocky Mount.  Cornerstones of that series were Jason Moran’s seminal In My Mind, an adventurous homage to Monk’s original Town Hall show using Smith’s documentation of Monk’s Town Hall rehearsals in 821 Sixth Avenue, and Charles Tolliver’s re-performance of Monk’s original show.  Then, in February 2009, with support from Duke’s President Dick Brodhead and Provost Peter Lange, Duke Performances and CDS presented these two shows in Town Hall on the fiftieth anniversary.

CDS filmmakers Gary Hawkins and Emily Ladue worked with seven CDS students to document Moran’s Town Hall concert and make an inspired film of In My Mind. A few months ago I wrote a long blog entry about that terrific piece of work.

Our colleagues at WNYC: New York Public Radio became valued friends and they made a monumental impact on all of JLP.  The producer of the JLP series, Sara Fishko, did beautiful work, and Exec. VP and director of programming, Dean Cappello, was supportive on countless levels.  In addition to their wonderful radio series and sundry associated publicity and programming on behalf of JLP, WNYC also broadcasted Charles Tolliver’s February 2009 Town Hall show live and they publicized and recorded Jason Moran’s In My Mind.   Hawkins and Ladue made use of WNYC’s sound for their In My Mind film.  Countless other staff members at WNYC contributed to all this.  Four parts of their series were broadcasted on National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition over consecutive weeks last winter.  We are deeply thankful for WNYC’s role in the whole project.  For the past five years Sara also was a full-time brainstormer, a sounding board, for me and Dan Partridge, as we trudged through the material and content together, and her husband Bob Gill added a few poignant and timely pieces of advice, too.

Critically and centrally, there was my editor Victoria Wilson at Alfred A. Knopf, and book designer Peter Anderson, and editorial assistant Carmen Johnson, and publicists Kathy Zuckerman, Lena Khidritskaya, and Nora Brennan, and many more.  In the New York Times Dwight Garner called the book “chaotic,” “soulful,” and “elegiac,” and “a singularly weird, vital, and thrumming American document.”  I was fortunate to work with a publisher that appreciated the strangeness of this story and allowed it to be at the fore, while still producing something classy and beautiful.  Andrew Wylie, Sarah Chalfant, and Edward Orloff of the Wylie Agency were integral from the start as well.

The website was designed and built by the Splinter Group of Carrboro, N.C.  Steve Balcom and Lane Wurster went beyond the call of duty.  Their work was honored by Communication Arts magazine as a “Web Pick” last December.  New viewers continue to find our site every day.  Steve and Lane also helped us throw a great launch party in Durham last December.

There are countless other key roles, many lauded on this site before, such as the Reva and David Logan Foundation, who tracked me down and called me at home after my 1999 DoubleTake magazine piece was published, the first JLP salvo.  The Logans became the primary benefactors of the project, as I described in more detail in a previous blog entry.  There was also Ben Ratliff’s March 2005 New York Times piece that in many ways “broke” the story of Smith’s tapes and provided great momentum.  John G. Morris, founding executive of Magnum Photos and Smith’s original estate executor, had visited us in October 2004 and tipped the Times on the story.

So, to say the least, a sketch of the “innovative use of archives” for JLP would look like roots, a trunk, and branches of a tree, plus leaves and fruit (and some dead leaves and dead fruit, some broken limbs perhaps, some bark chewed off by a goat).

This brings me to the home ground of Smith’s materials, the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, our partner on JLP from Day 1.  We are grateful to them.  More than three decades ago they received two 18-wheel trucks of Smith’s materials shipped from New York City.  The shipment filled a high school gymnasium.  Among the debris were 1740 reels of tape.  CCP undertook the tedious task of making sense of that gymnasium, sorting and cataloging the materials and maintaining them in climate controlled conditions.  If they had not done what they did, the materials wouldn’t be available to us or anybody else.  Leslie Calmes and Amy Rule have done stellar work in that archive for many years.  Denise Gose and Dianne Nilsen in Rights and Reproductions have always been there for us, too.  I made my first visit to CCP in April 1997.  At the time I was naive, innocent, and had no idea what the next fourteen years would entail.

I’m leaving out many people.  The point is, it took a web of good people to pull off the “innovative use of archives” in this project.

Finally, Gene Smith was the one who created the materials.  Lo and behold we shouldn’t forget him.  Our “innovative use” was with his things.  He’s the real innovator here.  His family and estate, The Heirs of W. Eugene Smith, were essential to everything.

To be honest, there were times JLP felt impossible.  There were times when a less ambitious approach seemed smarter.  But we made it.  A group of archivists in New York think so, anyway.

-Sam Stephenson

After my meeting it was pouring rain and the Red Sox-Mariners game was postponed until Wednesday when I had to be on a plane to Chicago for a JLP event.  Disappointed, I retreated to my hotel room and decided to go through every Celebrity Playlist on iTunes and count the number of jazz tunes among the recommended tracks.  It was the second time I’ve done this, the first being several years ago.   Maybe it’s the kind of dreary thing you do when your baseball game is rained out.

There were 87 Celebrity Playlists on iTunes this week.  Among the roughly 800 tracks recommended by the celebrities, I counted just 27 jazz tunes.  17 of those 27 selections were accounted for by Bill Cosby, Woody Allen, and William Shatner.  It figures.  Nothing against those three guys, but this is not an encouraging picture for jazz.

The rest of the celebrities were the kinds of names you’d find in any current airport Hudson News magazine stand:  LeBron James, Judd Apatow, Gucci Mane, the casts for TV shows True Blood, Breaking Bad, and Greek. Also, Zach Galifianakis, Demetri Martin, Holly Hunter, Chris Rock, Kate Hudson, Jack Black, and Garrison Keilor.

There were even some serious music names like Johnny Marr, Thom Yorke, Elvis Costello, Dave Mustaine, Rob Halford, Sarah McLachlan, Alicia Keys, and Rufus Wainwright.

From all this comes almost no jazz.  Of the 27 jazz tracks, the only one that was recorded after 1960 was a Michael Brecker tune picked by actor Kevin Kline.  There wasn’t a living jazz musician represented.

This information seems almost worse to me than the jazz sales figures.  But maybe not.  Maybe it was always this way.  There wasn’t any classical music on the list, either, except a few tracks picked by film composer Hans Zimmer (whose recent work on Inception probably motivated the iTunes staff to include him now).

But it bothers me that jazz is relegated to moth balls (even though I happen to like moth balls a pretty good bit).  Can it be made hip again?  What if Marcus Strickland and John Ellis played opposite each other at the Jazz Standard and they staged a brawl in the green room in between sets?  The brawl spills into the audience where a patron has his head smashed by one of those break-away chairs they use in pro wrestling.  A gun goes off somewhere.  Police evacuate and rope off the scene.  Residue of white powder is found in several locations in the Standard.  Ray Lewis and Jeremy Shockey are reported seen at the bar with posses and scantily clad women.  The man whose head was smashed turns out to be Harvey Weinstein and he files a lawsuit that drags on and on.  In the court proceedings it is revealed that A-Rod and Anne Hathaway were sitting together at Weinsten’s table.

A Hollywood publicist could make this work.  Strickland and Ellis would sell more records than they ever have, make a few iTunes playlists.

Ultimately, though, this discussion is sort of like the one I had with the medical experts at Harvard earlier on Tuesday:  The problem of primary care in America was decades in the making.  So it won’t be fixed overnight.  Maybe it’s unfixable.  Surely jazz has more hope than health care.

- Sam Stephenson

More information can be found HERE.

In addition to the photographic and written work, Smith also made a lot of recordings during this trip. Recently, I have been listening to this group of tapes and trying to gain some insight into Smith’s experience in Japan during this stretch. We still have about 30 reels of unheard W. Eugene Smith tape recordings from Japan to catalog. A couple of tapes I’ve listened to over the last couple of weeks offer some specific insight into Smith’s motives for making this set of recordings. In a lecture at Hitachi, Smith had a Q&A  session wherein he described his photo work there in terms of continuing “to weave in a rhapsodic symphony this impression of balance that I wish to try to give to the rest of the world.”  It’s clear that Smith more concerned with making a great photo essay than fulfilling his contract and getting paid. There’s an earlier tape where Smith speaks to this same goal of representing  with “truth” and “respect” not just the company, but Japan’s people and land. Also, a great line about how Smith insisted on a clause in his contract that specified that no images he made for this assignment could be utilized for the support or exaltation of war.

There are also recordings that capture the ambient sounds of the Roppongi neighborhood where Smith lived and had a darkroom during this time.  A conversation with one of his assistants starts off about “honey buckets” or fertilizer buckets and ends up with an inquiry into the different sources of early morning and late afternoon street songs from sellers of noodles, tofu,  and seashells (for miso soup). Smith expresses a wish to bring in all kinds of street singers to record their different sounds and we hope to hear  these on his tapes. We hope to write more about this once we’ve heard these tapes and maybe post or transcript some of the more interesting meetings or outings, like the one that produced a fragment of 1962 Roppongi nightclub jazz.

It was an interesting juncture in history and Japan’s history. As Carole Thomas told Sam in a 2003 interview:

“Tokyo at that time was in transition, so you’d have a skyscraper next to a shack, where the guy would come out in the morning in his pajamas and sweep his front sidewalk, in his pajamas, next to a building that looks like a skyscraper in New York City.  So visually that’s fascinating.”

Hopefully, we will find some more fascinating audio to augment this history.

-Dan Partridge

Now there is another connection, still fleeting.  According to Dr. J. Todd Moye on the Baby Got Books site, the DeLillo archives at the University of Texas contain notebooks of notes jotted by DeLillo after leafing through issues of LIFE magazine from 1951, which was one of Smith’s prime years at LIFE.  It may have been his pinnacle, publishing four major essays including “Spanish Village” and “Nurse Midwife.”  I’d like to see any notes DeLillo made about those essays.

-Sam Stephenson

Herminie No. 2, Ms. Allebrand's First Grade class, 1937-38

Above is the 1937-38 first grade class of Washington Elementary School in Herminie No. 2, Pennsylvania.  In the front row, center, is the future piano wunderkind Conrad Yeatis “Sonny” Clark.  Not long after this photo was made young Sonny won a talent show playing piano in nearby Greensburg.  He stood at the piano, not tall enough to use the bench.  His family was jubilant.  Older brother Emory carried Sonny on his shoulders from the theater to the car.

I have a large accordion folder full of Sonny Clark material and I just started another one.  He’s been an obsession for several years.  Part of it is my feeling that his right hand touching piano keys made some of the most beautiful sounds in all of jazz.  Part of it is because Herminie No. 2 is a coal “patch” only seven miles from where my wife Laurie grew up and where her family still lives, about fifteen miles down the river from downtown Pittsburgh, a region that compels me.  Part of it is that Sonny is recorded on one of Gene Smith’s most harrowing tapes from 821 Sixth Avenue in late September 1961, a night Sonny overdosed in the loft, a tape I wrote about extensively in the JLP book.  Another factor is that I’ve befriended Sonny’s two surviving sisters and I want to put a human face on the stereotypical jazz heroin junkie story.  Sonny died of an overdose at age thirty-one in 1963.  Mystery surrounds his death and burial, some of which I’m not at liberty to reveal, yet.  One day I’ll write something extended on him, maybe a novel.  It’s high on my list once my Gene Smith biography for Farrar, Straus and Giroux is done.

Each time Laurie and I visit her family I do a little more Sonny Clark research.  In 2006 I was rummaging through the public library in Jeannette when the librarian asked, “What are you researching?”  I said, “a jazz piano player named Sonny Clark from Herminie No. 2.”  The librarian, Mary Dopkowski, said, “Hmmm, that rings a bell.  I think my mother-in-law went to school with him.”  Mary picked up the phone and called Betty Smith Dopkowski.  Twenty minutes later the photograph above was in my hands.  Betty is the girl standing to Sonny’s right.  Later I met another woman from the picture, Theresa “Terry” O’Neil Ubinger, who is the little girl in front of teacher Ms. Hillebrand’s right knee, and she helped identify her classmates, many of whom I’m hoping to track down.  I’m also studying Sonny’s high school yearbooks in an effort to find more.  You can see a previous blog entry I wrote about Herminie No 2.

The 1930 census shows the Clark family living next door to families from Italy, Austria, Poland, Russia, and the American south.  They were all drawn to this rural area by work in the Ocean Coal Mine No. 2.  Sonny’s father Emory Clark was a miner.  He and his wife Ruth Shepherd Clark grew up across the road from each other in a rural area outside Atlanta, Georgia.  He gained experience digging in the rock quarries of Stone Mountain.  He and Ruth moved to western Pennsylvania during WWI because there were opportunities in the mines and steel mills.  His first job was in the Jones & Laughlin mill in Aliquippa, which was fairly urban but notorious for KKK activity back then.

Sometime between 1920 and 1930 the family moved to Herminie No. 2 and Emory worked in the mine.  Emory died three weeks after Sonny was born.  His death certificate indicates “acute pulmonary disease,” either black lung or tuberculosis.  Experts on black lung disease have told me it would be unusual to contract the disease in a decade or less, so I’m leaning toward believing Emory had tuberculosis.  Sonny was named for his father’s brother who lived with the family for several years.  Sonny’s mother died of cancer in 1953 and the family dispersed.  Sonny followed an aunt and his older brother Alvin to Pasadena, CA.  Alvin was a garbage collector for the city and on his route was the home of Sirhan Sirhan, who confided to Alvin that he planned to kill Robert F. Kennedy.  Alvin was a witness in the eventual trial.

Why did Sonny become such a quintessential heroin addict?  I don’t know.  On Smith’s tape that night in 1961 Sonny can be heard muttering, “Bird, that nigger was crazy.  He invented fucking music.”  Thus, Sonny might be another case of Charlie Parker making drug addiction fashionable and tragic.  But the story is nuanced and complicated.  The unusually good Canadian magazine, Coda, covered the drug angle more directly than most of the other jazz magazines of the time.  In August 1962 Coda published a revealing paragraph about an unnamed junkie pianist that is, I learned recently, Sonny Clark:

One of the saddest sights these days is the terrible condition of one of the nation’s foremost, and certainly original pianists.  Having been around for many years, he came into his own in 1959 and no one deserved it more than he.  I feel that something should be done about drug addiction before we lose many more artists.  I saw him several times in the past three months and was shocked to see one of our jazz greats in such pitiful shape.  Unfortunately, the album dates that he keeps getting only help his addiction get worse instead of better.  Whether or not he licks this problem at this stage of the game remains to be seen.  In some cases people refuse help and the loss of a close friend was no help either.  If anything he took at turn for the worse and disappeared for 3 weeks.  However right now should he die it will at least be better than living a slow death with no relief in sight.

Sonny died five months later.  Today his Blue Note records outsell those of Herbie Hancock and Horace Silver in Japan and part of my journey there in March will be to figure out why that is the case.  In America Sonny registers nothing near the sales of Hancock or Silver.

To me, Sonny’s most beautiful piano sounds were made as a sideman.  Here are some records I recommend:

Grant Green:  The Complete Quartets with Sonny Clark

Dexter Gordon:  Go

Serge Chaloff:  Blue Serge

Buddy DeFranco: Autumn Leaves and The Complete Verve Recordings of Buddy DeFranco with Sonny Clark

Sonny Clark:  Leapin’ and Lopin’

Below is a photograph I made of the former Washington school in Herminie No. 2 last month.

Herminie No. 2, former Washington school, July 2010

-Sam Stephenson

]]> http://www.jazzloftproject.org/blog/general/conrad-yeatis-clark-first-grade/feed 2 http://www.jazzloftproject.org/blog/guest-bloggers/running-with-the-big-dogs-part-3 http://www.jazzloftproject.org/blog/guest-bloggers/running-with-the-big-dogs-part-3#comments Thu, 19 Aug 2010 12:51:05 +0000 admin http://www.jazzloftproject.org/blog/?p=849 By Jane Getz

This is part three of a three part series featuring excerpts from pianist Jane Getz’s in-progress memoir. For an introduction and to read RUNNING WITH THE BIG DOGS, PART 1, click here. To read RUNNING WITH THE BIG DOGS, PART 2 click here.

Pony Poindexter was in New Orleans attending someone’s funeral. He said he’d probably be back in a couple of weeks, but you never knew with Pony.  A couple of weeks could turn into a couple of months with all his skirt chasing and imbibing of that weird green aromatic plant he liked to smoke.

Though Pony had been my main source of gigs for a while now, I couldn’t depend on his largesse in the near future. It was time to call some other cats in town, check out some different prospects. I needed some bread—and bad—because I had spent most of my savings (less than a hundred bucks) on a used dresser and couch. Though the dresser was fairly cheap, the Salvation Army couch was a little pricey because, as the saleslady explained, it was almost new. It was also kind of space age or, more accurately, what someone in the 1930’s would have considered “modern.” Added on to that, it was huge, measuring nearly seven feet in length with gull wing armrests and a back that curved outward like a turned up collar. I couldn’t pinpoint what style it was, but it didn’t matter. My new acquisition would serve the purpose of furthering my musical agenda. Now I could invite some of the cats over, like Carmel Jones, George Braith, or Joe Chambers, a young drummer who I had a secret crush on. These were some of the new happening cats in town that were starting a buzz. I wanted to connect. After those guys saw my new furniture, they would stop thinking of me as just some unsophisticated naive kid. I was making all my own money and supporting myself, wasn’t I? And now I not only had a new chest of drawers in the bedroom, I had a couch to boot. How much more adult could you get than that?

I gazed fondly at my new purchase, then went and plopped down on it. I also brought a pad of paper and a pencil with me so I could compile a list of piano players who might throw a few gigs my way. I’d just written down Horace Parlan’s name when I had a flash. I ran over to my phone book and looked up Chick Corea’s number. Now that cat had gigs coming out of his ears. He also had called me a few times when I’d been busy, so I knew he considered me good “sub” material. I dialed Chick’s number. Ring, ring ring. Shit, c’mon. I was ready to hang up when someone picked up the line.

“Hello?” Chick was out of breath.

“Hi, Chick? Hey man, this is Jane Getz. So ah, what’s happening?”

“Jane! Oh man, I just walked in the door. Can I call you back in five? I’ve got some macrobiotic takeout I gotta put in the fridge.”

“Sure.” I hung up the phone and plunked down on my new couch to wait. Uh, oh. Did I feel a lump? I started to run my hands over the tightly woven, scratchy upholstery when the phone rang.

“Hey baby, Chick here. Listen, are you still working with Pony?”

“Man, the cat’s out of town. He kinda checked out on me for a minute. What’s shakin’?” I was trying to sound confident while at the same time conveying a feeling that I was musically up for anything.

“I’m thinkin’ of going on the road with Joe Henderson, but I have to get a sub for this gig with Herbie Mann. Fact, I’m working with Herbie today over at the Apollo. It would be cool if you could come by, play a few numbers with the cat and let him hear you. The bread’s not bad either.”

“Thanks man, just give me the address and time. I’m already there.”

A few hours later I arrived at the Apollo Theater. A big old, boxy building comprised of huge slabs of sandy colored stone. Following Chick’s directive, I went around back and walked up some clangy steel steps. The guard, a strapping young dude with that Malcolm X bowtie getup, stood by the backstage entrance. The brother asked me my name, looked me up and down a few times, then checked my name off a rather short list.

I walked in and adjusted my eyes to the dim half light. Wow! The place was jam-packed. The audience was having a grand old time screaming and laughing at some rotund funny-man who was strutting around the stage, talking about all the edible parts of a pig. I stood there digging the scene for a, minute, then went to search for Chick.

I nosed around backstage until I finally spotted him sitting in the wings near the food table, reading a book on Macrobiotics. He was checking out the Number 7 diet—a very strict regimen. Damn. Chick was wafer-thin now. After a few bars of conversation, I followed him to a small dressing room to see Herbie Mann. Herbie was sorting out some music as we entered the room. He didn’t even bother to look up. I knew the game. I’d seen other Big Dogs do this. I stood there trying to be unobtrusive while at the same time checking the dude out. I could see by the way Herbie handled the music, that every move he made was deliberate. He was a planner. A guy with a road map who had memorized the route. Even the space around him was organized. The dressing room chairs were all perfectly lined up, the bottled water had cups neatly stacked next to it, and his toiletry kit was open and ready—every clipper, tweezer, and nail file in its proper slot.

Oh yeah, this cat was all business. Much too neat for my taste with his closely cropped, thinning brown hair, neatly trimmed goatee, and manicured nails. Nothing happenstance or spontaneous about him. He looked like some Upper East Side decorator had turned him out. His freshly ironed navy blue shirt was perfectly coordinated with his beige slacks. Casual tan suede shoes matched the soft leather belt he had on. Mr. Mann was one stiff dude. After Herbie finished what he was doing, he finally looked up and greeted us.

“Jane Getz,” Herbie said nonchalantly. “I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about you. I hope you’ll play a few tunes with us.”

“Thanks man, I’d like to,” I said, trying to get that team player sound in my voice. “I hear the band is smokin’. Yeah, you got some bad cats.”  I was talking about Dave Pike, the young vibes player, Bruno Carr, the drummer, and Potato Valdez, the little badass from Cuba who played congas. The three of us stood there rapping for a few minutes until Herbie excused himself, scurrying out of the room to round up the rest of the band.  After we exited, Chick and I walked around to the stage entrance and waited while the Master of Ceremonies made some lame jokes about fat chicks. About ten minutes later he finally got around to announcing the band.

“Ladies, and Gentlemen…put your hands together and give a grand Apollo welcome to the inimitable Herbie Mann and his….”

Herbie sprinted on stage with the band in tow and immediately gave the downbeat. Dave Pike played a little vibe cadenza, and then Herbie motioned to Potato. The little cat hit the conga a few times. The rhythm started to engulf us. You could see the streets of Cuba, alive with chattering, animated Cubanos: gentlemen in white suits and panama hats regally strolling down the lane puffing on cigars, and high spirited senoritas parading around in their pastel finery, strutting their stuff. The sounds were chili pepper hot. By the time Herbie came in with his flute, the mood was established. Oh yeah, and I also noticed that Chick had a hip way of playing the claves. I made a mental note to have Chick show me some of that real legit Latin stuff.

Impressed though I was with Herbie’s onstage entourage I was apprehensive as I stood in the wings. I not only wanted Herbie to think I was bad, I also wanted to impress Chick. By the time the maestro introduced me; my anxiety had given me a slight edge. I was on top of it now. I sat down at the piano. The audience, already fired up by the first couple of tunes, was about as enthusiastic as any audience could get. At the mere mention of my name (someone they had never even heard of), they started stamping their feet, clapping, and whistling. Cool. This was a win-win situation. Predictably, after I took my first solo on a tune called “Walkin’,” they went bonkers. Herbie started nodding his head when he saw the audience’s reaction. All right! I had just become another added attraction in the cat’s musical sideshow.

“Yeah baby, that was some nice work,” Herbie said as we walked back to the dressing room. “If you wanna do the gig at the Gate tomorrow, you got it! In fact, if you’re up for it, just meet me in front of my building at seven o’clock tomorrow. I can show you the book while we’re riding downtown.”

“Cool man,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Ah, where do you live?”

As I walked out of the theater I looked at the slip of paper with Herbie’s address on it. I knew approximately where it was. I decided to catch a cab back from the Apollo so I would pinpoint the exact street and building. As I suspected, Herbie lived a scant block from me, but that block—given this was New York City—was an entire universe away. The cat lived in the lap of luxury. I knew his building. It was a swank impenetrable fortress with a twenty-four hour a day doorman, a message service at the front desk, and a huge, sweeping, ambient green roof garden. Herbie lived on Central Park West and Ninety-First Street, where the rich and getting richer were domiciled. I simply lived on Ninety-First Street between Central Park West and Amsterdam, where the working stiffs, scrapers, and starving artists hung. Motoring by, I wondered if I’d ever live in such sumptuous surroundings or have anything to show for my mystical moments of creativity. What did it really take to get there? But it was just a fleeting thought. Fuck it. Who needed a jungle on their roof anyway? I had more important things to do. I was going to study my Slonimsky book later and see if I could lift a few hot licks from it. This was a book with strange repetitive intervals and offbeat sound patterns. A book Shoenberg might have glanced at. I’d even heard that Coltrane found a lot of shit in that book. Tonight I was going to pour over the pages and see if I could uncover some of the musical secrets some of the Big Dogs seemed to have accessed.

The next day I prepared for the gig by practicing a little, and lounging on my couch. The damn thing seemed to have petrified. It was as hard as a rock, with a few little marble sized bumps to make you even more uncomfortable.  As the sun went down, I got dressed, and then visited the bodega around the corner where I got a quick sandwich. After scarfing down a few dry slices of turkey on stale wheat bread, I sprinted down the block to Herbie’s crib. As I got there I saw the doorman was holding the door. Herbie waved to me, then proceeded to introduce me to a woman—presumably his wife—who had exited the building with him.

“Jane, this is my wife Ruth. Ruth—meet Jane Getz, my new pi-a-nist.”

Ruth smiled listlessly, making a feeble attempt to nod. She was fashionably turned out, the same ultra-straight way a secretary might be. Her knee-length royal blue mohair suit was expensive, but boring. Her auburn hair was smartly cut. But she was wearing so much Spray Net that her hair looked like a helmet. And why was she wearing those button earrings? The chick had no fashion sense. Nada. Zip. I glanced at Ruth’s shoes. I was just about to critique her footwear when some cat who looked like an officer in Napoleon’s Army ran into the street and hailed a cab. Why did doormen need military uniforms?

I hastily climbed in, and then watched as Herbie and Ruth maneuvered their way in. They positioned themselves so as not to touch or brush up against one another. The signs were clear. They didn’t like each other. I instantly came to the conclusion that there was some kind of weird “arrangement” between them. I didn’t know the specifics, but I knew it was there. Traveling downtown with Herbie and Ruth was creepy. It was more than just uncomfortable with all the bad vibes they were generating. And where were all the charts Herbie was going to show me? I sat there rigidly, looking straight ahead until the vehicle came to a halt. I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw the sign that said Village Gate.

Then I saw the marquee.

Wow! Miles Davis was headlining. One of my heroes. A Big Dog Supreme. For a moment I couldn’t catch my breath. To think! I was in a band playing opposite the great Miles! Now I was pumped up. I floated out onto the curb in front of this huge stone edifice while Herbie and Ruth wordlessly separated. I walked a little behind Herbie into the lobby. We were silently milling about until two girls, who looked to be in their mid-teens, walked up to the maestro and linked arms with him. Herbie smiled. He was expecting them. At that point I became extraneous. Just so much baggage until he needed me.

I strolled to the other side of the room and found a big, double door on the far end of the lobby that opened into the main room, a big barnlike drafty space with hundreds of little tables all scrunched together. A few customers who had arrived early were sitting around drinking and regaling their fellow jazz lovers with little-known anecdotes about some of the jazz greats.

“Hey didja hear what Miles said to Cannonball when he…”

I scurried past the enclave of noisy tables, smiled at a waiter who happened to be walking by, then found another door and wandered down a long dimly lit hallway. Suddenly, I heard what sounded like loud laughter and horn players warming up. I entered the band room and stood there for a second. Potato Valdez walked over and greeted me, graciously extending his hand. He had calloused green little fingers with swollen knuckles. The tiny Cuban (he was about 5′2″) gripped my hand, ceremoniously pumping my arm like a game show host. After giving me what he considered a sufficient welcome, Potato turned to Dave Pike and grinning broadly, said, “She an eenius.” Naturally, being called an “eenius” by the esteemed Potato gave me a jolt of self-confidence, not to mention credibility with the band. I was on a roll, chatting and joking around with the cats. I felt a certain amount of camaraderie with the band as we all exited the dressing room and walked down the dark corridor toward the stage. The vibe was cool.

The first set was pretty smooth. So far, the only thing that was bugging me was that everyone in the band except Herbie was relegated to taking two- or three-chorus solos. You couldn’t stretch out, get a fire going, or come to any kind of musical climax when you were allotted that amount of solo time. Hell no! Personally, I liked to take at least fifteen choruses. So what if I bored everyone silly? I was an artist and entitled to take liberties. Still, this was my first night on the gig, too soon to make waves or even do a little body surfing.

During the first break I grabbed a seat in the audience so I could listen to the headliner. Oh yeah, I wasn’t going to miss a note of Miles’s band. Listening to Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Tony Williams, and Miles sent me into the stratosphere. Herbie was playing unique little counter rhythms to Tony’s innovations. The rhythm section sounded like a Fourth of July fireworks show with little, constantly exploding surprises. Miles weaved in and out of the mix, like a Martian tap-dancer strutting on some lunar bayou. You had no idea where he was coming from, but still, it was familiar, like an old folk melody that was just out of earshot. The band was burnin’. I noticed that when someone in that aggregation took a solo, they could play as long as they damn pleased. I was both euphoric and jealous.

The next set with Herbie was even more frustrating. How could anyone who could improvise well take just two or three choruses? There were so many great players in the band but nobody was getting to play. I needed some space. During the next break I decided to go outside the club to get some air. The West Village had some cute little shops that were open far into the night, so I thought I’d stroll down the street and do some window-shopping. Walking down the steps of the Gate, a low, raspy unmistakable voice said, “Hi Jane.”

Was it? No way. It couldn’t be. But as he stepped out of the shadows of the old stone building, I saw his face. Miles Davis, the Musical Maestro Supreme, had acknowledged me. I felt a knot in the pit of my stomach. A million thoughts flipped through my mind. I wondered if he’d been listening to me during the last set? How did he know my name? And should I say “Hi Miles?” Or, “Hello Mr. Davis?” Or should I simply turn around and try to strike up a conversation? Not knowing what to do I stiffly nodded my head, and looking straight ahead, kept right on walking.

As I continued down the block I started to feel weak, like I was going to throw up. I could have kicked myself. What kind of idiot keeps right on walking when Miles Davis says hello? Oh man, I had blown it. I walked back on the bandstand half an hour later depressed as hell. To make matters worse, Herbie repeated some dopey show tune from the The Smell of the Grease Paint, Roar Of The crowd. A tune where he furiously gyrated his hips while spurting out an endless barrage of high notes. I abstractedly took my requisite two choruses. I really wasn’t into it. All I could think of was that Miles had said hello to me. Being on this gig was like being a musical civil servant. Punch the clock. Collect your bread. This was the low end of the Jazz food chain.

Next tune was a minor blues by Oliver Nelson. I yawned, looked at my watch, then glanced around the room in a one-eighty. Oh, God! I couldn’t believe it. Yep, there he was. Miles was sitting right behind me. No doubt about it. He was checking me out. Knowing I’d spotted him, he looked up and almost imperceptibly nodded. It felt like there was some kind of radiant heat coming from his direction. My back actually started to feel hot. Miles was emanating! Now it was a whole new ballgame.

When Herbie counted off the next tune I was already in high gear, hyper alert and conscious of every lick, chord, and rhythmic pattern I was playing. Now Herbie was out of the picture. I was only concerned about what the guy who was burning a hole in my back was thinking. The tune was slow getting under way, but by the time Dave Pike took his solo, there was a nice groove happening. After Dave’s mandatory two choruses, Herbie pointed to the trombone player, Mark Weinstein. Mark stood up and sailed along on the groove until his time was up. Then Herbie looked at me and nodded. Okay pal, my turn.

By the time I had gotten midway through the second chorus, I was on fire. My fingers were literally flying over the keys. But unfortunately, it was time for the band to come in. Herbie raised his arms in a big flourish, giving the signal for the band to enter. No, wait…I wasn’t finished yet. I vehemently shook my head, signaling the aggregation not to come in. They followed my lead. I could see Herbie out of the corner of my eye getting uptight. His loyal subjects had defied him. He was looking like, “What the fuck?”

When my next chorus was over Herbie again tried to bring the band in. Sorry. I had more to say. Now I was doing a very difficult run in the upper register, something I hadn’t been able to execute before. The great Trumpet god was giving me power. The heat penetrating my back started to percolate through my whole body like a hot oil massage. Was this osmosis?

For the second time I gave a “no go” sign to the band. Herbie’s face had become scarlet red. The poor guy looked like he had gotten too much sun on his roof garden. For a minute I felt completely weightless. My fingers were faster than the speed of light. I took two more choruses, then stood up and ceremoniously waved the band in. I looked over at Herbie. His face was frozen. The only thing moving was his jaw, which was traveling up and down in a kind of mandibular Hokey Pokey.

On the brighter side, the rest of the cats were beaming. Potato surreptitiously stuck his little green thumb up. I had a cheering section. Unfortunately, Herbie was not in that crowd. When the set was over, he asked me to meet him in the lobby. My stomach started to knot up. I had a slew of emotions. Sure, I had just bucked the system, challenged the status quo and all that crap. But now what? I glanced around to check out the table In back of me. Shit! It was empty. Miles had split.

I thought about what had transpired. I did something every cat in the band had wanted to do but didn’t have the guts to. On the other hand I had also screwed myself. Yeah, after Herbie fired my ass, who did I think was going to pay my rent, phone bill, gas, electric, etc? This month I was perilously close to being out on the street. Now I might be forced to do the one thing that I dreaded most—call my mother. What if she tried to coerce me or even worse, force me to come home? She’d have been well within her rights. I wasn’t even eighteen yet. If that happened what would become of my apartment, my friends, my gigs, my whole fucking life? Come to think of it, what about my new couch and dresser? As I was contemplating the sheer and utter stupidity of my actions, Herbie entered the lobby. He stood for a minute in silence, narrowing his eyes and squinting at me—then out it came.

“You’re fired!”

He turned on his heels, then inexplicably spun around. “Didn’t you see me trying to wave the band in?” Herbie was hissing in a kind of controlled whisper. “Couldn’t you see I was frantically trying to get your attention?”

He wasn’t done yet.

“You, my-friend, who’s only played with this band a few short hours, are a finagler. You’re the kind of person that tries to make every situation work to your advantage. Well, that’s not going to happen, baby! I don’t know what you did with Mingus, but with me you toe the line!”

As he was engaged in his little object lesson, a few tears started to fall down my cheeks. Was I sorry? Not really. Was I stupid? Yes. Maybe those were tears of contrition for my own stupidity. Who knows? In any event, when Herbie saw those little rivulets of water trickling down, he softened up.

“Okay, look, I want you to make me a promise,” Herbie said dampening his tone a bit. In the corner of my eye I could see one of the young honeys Herbie had previously hooked up with in the corner waiting for him. The cat was in a hurry. “l want you to promise never ever to do that again.”

I dramatically raised my hand, palm up like I was swearing on a stack of bibles or becoming a boy scout. “I promise.”

“Okay my friend. I’ll see you tomorrow night, seven sharp in front of my building.” With that Herbie disappeared into a dark corner of the lobby and whisked away the little blond chick. I guess Mrs. Mann had split earlier that evening. In any event, I knew if I hung with the band for a while I’d get the scoop. I’d already heard a few rumors of shady little escapades that purportedly went on inside the Mann’s marriage. Rumors usually traveled faster than the speed of light. Soon I would know all.

Later that night as I was trying to find a comfortable position on my couch, I started thinking about how lucky I was. Oh yeah, I did an uncool thing as far as Herbie was concerned, but I really didn’t have to pay very much penance. Well, maybe a few seconds of feeling uncomfortable. As a matter of fact, having Miles Davis notice me was worth all the bullshit I put myself through. I was inspired, not only by him and his band but by the possibility that someday, somehow, I could play some real music. Some live floating-through-space, muse whispering in your inner ear kind of stuff.

On the other hand, perhaps I should have been thinking about my long-term welfare. What if Herbie had lowered the boom. My rent was due next week. And there was a waiting list a mile long of people who wanted to move into my building. I could be out in the streets in two seconds flat. Feeling destitute and penniless was not something I relished. Maybe I should open a savings account. Then I could pick and choose my gigs as long as I had enough money in the bank. Of course that meant that I would have to stop my impulse buying, which I dug. What about that fringe jacket I had my eye on? I quickly discarded that option. What if I had a boyfriend, like my mom had who paid all the bills and was always forking over cash? Damn! Where did I come up with that one? How disgusting. Anyway who’d want a chick that was always studying Stravinsky scores, notating Bird solos, and was too preoccupied to shave under her arms? That one went into the trash.

What about a roommate? I thought about that one for a long time. I couldn’t see any immediate disadvantages. If both of us kept to our separate rooms and shared in the expenses, it could be cool. You could almost go out on Amsterdam Avenue with a begging bowl and come up with the amount of money it took to live in New York, at least in my neighborhood, if you had a roommate. That was it! Now I had a plan. My new roomie could watch the apartment while I was on the road, pick up my mail and keep things in order until I got back. Maybe she’d even like housework! I had made a decision. Suddenly my depression lifted. Wow, this was so cool. Time to lay back, relax, think of other things, do some of that ol’ California mind surfing.

After spacing out for a while, I found myself thinking about the upcoming gig Herbie had at some university. What was it called? Bernard? Barnyard? Whatever…

Last week a theme emerged in two blog entries featuring loft veterans:

In an excerpt from her memoir, pianist Jane Getz reflected on the mid-1960s and Charles Mingus, whose wife was a nurse:  ”In those days there were quite a few musicians married to nurses.  I wondered what significance this had; did all these Big Dogs need around the clock care?”

In an interview with me, saxophonist Wendell Harrison compared Thelonious Monk to drummer Edgar Bateman:  ”…sometimes the people who are the most creative need the most help.  Monk had the Baroness and his wife…I don’t think Edgar ever had that kind of support.”

Gene Smith’s first wife Carmen Martinez Smith was trained as a pediatric nurse.  His mother Nettie Caplinger Smith lived with him and his family well into his thirties.  She paid his bills and assisted in many other ways. Thelonious Monk lived with his mother, Barbara Batts Monk, into his mid-thirties and she cared for him to no end.  Smith also had a devoted live-in housekeeper whose daughter grew up to be a social worker.  There are many others who wandered into his life and took care of him in various ways.

Kay Redfield Jamison’s work at Johns Hopkins relating bipolar disorder and mental illness to creativity is convincing to me.  Smith’s characteristics and habits make him a textbook case.  Robin D.G. Kelley’s recent biography of Monk describes him similarly.

Wendell added another layer to the difficulty:  The greatest creators don’t just need domestic or medical help; they often need bureaucratic leaders who understand, encourage, and enable their gifts, and sometimes they never get that.  The most creative people are, by definition, constantly challenging standards and expectations and that’s often discomforting for others.  Here’s what Wendell said in reference to Edgar Bateman: “You see, in order to make it big you have to have the right politics and your politics have to jibe with your music.  Somebody has got to like what you are doing (my emphasis).  It’s just the way it is.  Edgar never had that.  He was as good as Elvin Jones, but he never had Coltrane like Elvin did.  He was as good as Tony Williams, but he never had Miles like Tony did.”

This seems universal to me, applicable to just about any field or profession or industry or way of life.  Some people such as Hall Overton seem to care not one iota for promotion and affirmation; for others it’s their motivation, their “Rosebud” (Overton died at age 52 of cirrhosis, so maybe alcohol was his self-care).

Like a nineteenth century Romantic, the theme of care giving shows up all over Smith’s work throughout his career:  a soldier holding an infant on the front lines of WWII, “Country Doctor,” “Nurse Midwife,” Schweitzer, a mental hospital in Haiti, a diseased community in Minamata.  There are also loft tapes with late night talk radio shows about health care, and much more.

There is another sort of connection between creativity and care giving that intrigues me:  Both come from impulses that, in their natural senses, you don’t turn off.  A natural caregiver doesn’t leave the hospital or clinic at the end of the day and stop being a caregiver.  It may explain why in mid-century studies of drug addictions, physicians were up there with artists in terms of frequency of addictions.  Many caregivers must improvise daily, be ready for anything, any patient, any flare-up, any mysterious malady.

My next institutional project, after my Smith biography, might be a national oral history project on primary caregivers – doctors, nurses, midwives – over the age of seventy-five.  They’ll be from all walks of life, from all corners of the map.  They’ll share a half-century of primary care giving.  Their point of view seems missing from the current health care debate.  In today’s brutal, paradoxical health care industry, a natural caregiver seems likely to either shun the profession and provide care on a private, volunteer basis (like Monk’s mother) or to be so stifled and demoralized by the industry they can’t do what their impulses tell them.

-Sam Stephenson

This is part two of a three part series featuring excerpts from pianist Jane Getz’s in-progress memoir. For an introduction and to read RUNNING WITH THE BIG DOGS, (PART 1, click here, PART 3, here)

When I got to Mingus’s crib, his door was partially open. He was barking orders to his wife, a sweet looking young woman who Charlie told me was a nurse. In those days there were quite a few musicians married to nurses. I wondered what significance this had; did all these Big Dogs need around the clock care? Or more practically did their wives, as working professionals, guarantee a steady cash flow?

A few minutes later the rest of the band straggled in. I met Clifford Jordan (all business) and Danny Richmond who seemed warm and friendly. Danny was looking quite dapper for a guy who had a heavy rep as a junkie. Yeah, this cat was wearing the hippest threads I’d ever seen. Damn, maybe he was a conscientious junkie. In fact, Danny was the first one to see the limo pull up. Before I could grab my suitcase—which was over packed, bulky and unwieldy—Danny grabbed it. In a show of courtliness he put it in the trunk of the limo.

The rest of the guys loaded up and we zoomed out to La Guardia, checked our bags and boarded the big, wide TWA bird. Not having flown such a long distance before, I was pretty nervous. Mingus, noticing my anxiety, motioned me over to sit by him. The dude could be quite intuitive. I sat on the aisle, Mingus sat in the middle and another friend/employee of his (who was there to take care of all Charlie’s needs) sat next to the window. When Charlie barked, this dude rolled over. After take-off, Mingus, who did not like to be restrained in any manner, quickly unbuckled his seat belt. The Big Dog seemed to be in an affable mood.

About two hours into the trip, Mingus showed me something amazing. After asking his dude-in-waiting to hand him his briefcase—kind of a brown leather dossier—he casually opened it. The case contained hundreds of small bottles, each one filled with a different prescription drug. These vials weren’t rattling around randomly. No sir, each bottle was held in place by a taut elastic band stretched horizontally across the length of the briefcase and attached at the sides. Charlie’s Little Helpers were all labeled and completely accessible. I’d never seen anyone with such an organized addiction. Mingus requested a glass of water from the stewardess and in one gulp downed about fifteen little yellow pills. Then he ordered a rare filet mignon. After the bloody repast came, he proceeded, between mouthfuls, to espouse the merits of being a vegetarian. I was trying to look hip and take it all in stride when, for no reason at all, he stopped talking, leaned back in his seat and fell asleep. In five minutes, Mingus was snoring, one satisfied customer.

The plane landed about an hour into Charlie’s nap. After collecting his precious briefcase and saying a few words to Danny, he deplaned. Apparently, he was in a big rush to connect with some lady in Mill Valley. Along with the rest of the band, I went to a second-rate hotel in North Beach. I checked into my room then called my mother in L.A. She had promised me she would fly up to Frisco if circumstances permitted. Of course, what that really meant was if her boyfriend permitted. He was this rich dude who called all the shots and kept her on a short leash. She must have negotiated some kind of deal with the guy, because fifteen minutes later she called back to tell me she’d be up in a couple of hours. I was happy. Having mom here would be a trip.

I glanced around the room. The joint was nothing to crow about. Dirty white walls, narrow twin beds, schlock art, yellowing lace curtains. The dresser and night table were made of cheap particleboard. Of course mom would probably say it was quaint in order to spare my feelings. I lay down to catch a few winks. A few minutes into Dreamland the phone rang.

“Hey, this is Danny. You all right?” I got it.  Danny had assumed the role of my protector and caretaker. “Me and Clifford are going to Carmines for pizza later. I’ll knock on your door, baby. O.K.?”

“Yeah man. Oh…My mom will probably be in town by then. Can I bring her?”

“Sure baby. If she’s your mom, I know she’s cool.”

A few hours later Mom called up from the front desk. She walked in the room looking very nouveau. She was suited up in all black with hoop earrings and a little black lid on her head. She must have been reading the Bohemian handbook again. She almost looked hip, but of course she was still my mom.

“Hey man, what’s shakin’?” I said to her as I opened the door.  At first she looked confused. She eyed me suspiciously.

“Are you on drugs?” Mom demanded.

“I’m high on life.” I said trying to remember what some loopy flute player had once said to me.

She set her suitcase down on one of the beds and opened it.

“Here, I got you something.”

It was a crocheted maroon top with tiny holes in strategic places. I kinda liked it, but I wasn’t into looking femme. Hell, I wanted the cats to forget I was a chick.

“Thanks, man.” I said as I hurriedly put it on the night table.

At dinner Danny won my mom over. Polite and intelligent, he actually seemed concerned about her well-being. Danny might have been a bad boy at times, but he was quite functional in polite society. He had an amazing talent for smoothing things out. When mom complained about her soup being too cold, Danny silently motioned to the waiter and took care of the problem without a lot of hoopla. Voila! Steaming clam chowder—so hot you had to blow on it.

By eight thirty, we had all socialized and eaten. After some quibbling over who would pay the tab, Danny gallantly picked up the check. It was almost gig time.

The Jazz Workshop was a big barnlike place with rows of chairs in the front and middle of the room and tables in back. At the time, it was considered an important jazz venue. I made sure mom got a good seat, then I went over to the piano to try it out. A Steinway B. Far out. After running a few scales, I walked over to talk to Danny who was setting up his drums. We were rapping when Mingus exploded through the door in a dramatic flurry. He walked over to the piano, plunked his charts down and started tuning his bass, all in one grandiose motion. I started to say “hey,” then I decided perhaps it would be better to speak only when spoken to. The cat seemed preoccupied.

Finally, he acknowledged me. “Do you remember that seven/four tune, Meditations?”

I nodded.

He grunted. You never really knew where you stood with this dude.

Mingus futzed with the mikes and tinkered with the knobs on the mixing board. Finally, we were ready to hit.

The first tune was easy. I thought I was handily holding my part down until I looked up and saw Mingus scowling, then setting his bass down. Clifford Jordan was burnin’ and Danny Richmond was taking care of business, but Mingus had something on his mind. He was heading toward the piano yelling something at me. He leaned in close.

“Man those aren’t the right voicings. Think Duke Ellington. Ellington baby.” He stood in back of me shouting orders, then reached over my shoulders to demonstrate. I could feel the Big Dog’s hot, alcohol-laced breath on my neck as he pounded out what he thought were the definitive chord voicings. I glanced up at Danny. He averted my gaze. A few bars later, Mingus walked back, picked up his bass and started playing again. I was all bent out of shape. The next few tunes he looked at me and yelled again. Mercifully he didn’t bother to put down his bass. Shit, my mom was in the audience.

Then we came to Meditations. It was one of those esoteric jazz suites with different movements, weird time signatures, and numerous key and tempo changes—a show dog’s centerpiece. When we came to the piano/bass solo, Mingus put his bass down again. This time, instead of just reaching over my shoulders, he forcibly nudged me off the piano bench with his hip.  I felt really stupid as he demonstrated what I should have been playing. I just passively stood there, feeling dumb, arms dangling at my sides, wishing I were invisible.

On the break, I went over to talk to mom, pretending nothing had happened.

We played one more set, Mingus gesticulating and yelling at me. Then, mercifully, the evening was over. I was too depressed to even say goodnight to the guys. I collected mom and we headed back to the hotel.

“You know dolly,” mom said on the ride back, “why don’t we go and listen to some Duke Ellington records tomorrow. Don’t be so damn stubborn. You might get some ideas.”

I held my tongue. Why couldn’t I play the stuff like I wanted to play it? I had kind of a Bill Evans, McCoy Tyner spin on it. What was wrong with that? I was in a complete state of angst as I turned off the light. The hard-assed bed wasn’t helping either. I was longing for my old Salvation Army mattress.

Next morning mom was buzzing around the room full of good cheer. She had that stupid chirping sound in her voice that set my teeth on edge.

“I think we’ll go out and find a cute little breakfast place…” She artfully paused, “Then we’ll stop by–I wonder if they have anything like Wallach’s Music City up here?”

Mom had made up her mind that I was going to listen to the Duke today. Soon we were in some big record store sampling a bunch of Duke Ellington LPs. After digging the sounds for a few hours, I got the idea. Lots of flat fives and nines. Groovy.

Mom and I spent the rest of the afternoon shopping. Her financier, the dude on the other end of the leash, had given her some extra bread for the trip, so she bought me a far out pair of high lace-up boots. Over coffee I tried to paint a picture of the hip new life I was leading in the Big Apple. I described my apartment, explaining that the lack of furniture was simply due to my non-attachment to material things. As far as my friends, they all were hipper (and sometimes higher) than God. As for the job opportunities—well check it out; wasn’t I playing with one of the greats? I was hoping I’d gotten through to her. We sat there a few minutes in the silence until mom finally spoke. “You sure you’re not on drugs?”

I played a lot of Ellington voicings that night. Mingus looked up and nodded a few times. I was also more familiar with the tunes, so I decided to take a few more liberties. It was the middle of the second set. Mingus seemed like he was digging my playing more, when all of a sudden he put the bass down and stormed into the dressing room. It was directly in back of the bandstand, so even though the rest of the band was still playing I could hear the him crashing around in there. Danny looked up and rolled his eyes. Clifford Jordan finished his solo as if nothing unusual had happened. I guess in Mingus’s band the unusual was ordinary. When it came to my solo, which was sans bass, I faintly heard what I thought were tearing sounds coming from the dressing room. What the hell was going on?

I tried to ignore the distraction coming from the dressing room but it was hard to tune out all the thumping and ripping. What was the guy doing? Despite the distraction, I wrapped up my solo. Then Danny launched into a long drum cadenza due to the fact that there was no bass, and therefore no bass solo. Toward the end of the drum solo, Mingus emerged from the dressing room carrying what looked like long strips of terrycloth. Mingus had torn up a towel. For what? He stepped up on the bandstand heading for me, long terrycloth strips draped over his arm. Wordlessly, he made his move.

“What the…?” Shit, Once again, Mingus pushed me off the piano bench, but this time it was for the purpose of getting under the piano. He wanted access to the pedals. Good God! The Big Dog was fucking tying up my pedals! He was draping the terrycloth strips around all three pedals, tying them together so tightly that I wouldn’t be able to depress them. Finishing the job, he tested them a few times with his hands. Satisfied that the pedals were completely unusable, he strode back to his bass. Before picking it up he leveled his eyes at me.

“You use the pedal too much.” Mingus seethed, mopping his brow with a spare piece of scavenged terrycloth. “It doesn’t make you blow any better, man. Chicks use too damn much pedal anyway. I don’t want to hear my stuff with all that fucking pedal!”

Now I was really humiliated. Bummer. I tried to sit down on the piano bench, but my body wouldn’t obey me. I turned toward the Big Dog. The next thing that came out of my mouth surprised even me, “Fuck you man,” I whispered, animatedly mouthing the words, “You can’t treat me that way.”

Then I did something really weird. I got off the bandstand and went and sat in the audience, staring at him. Wow, I’d done some outside things before, but I had never tried to roll a Big Dog. In my heart, I knew I was just a pup. But I guess I was so pumped up full of adrenalin that I was ready to scrap, even if my opponent was ten times bigger than me. Mingus gave me an icy stare, and went back to playing his axe. Since the incident happened on the second to last tune of the night, I continued to sit in the audience until the gig ended. Mingus ignored me as he packed up, but Danny motioned me over as he covered his drums.

“Man, that cat’s out.” Danny said. “Listen, get your mom and we’ll go out for some coffee. I got something I want you to check out.”

Mom was all bent out of shape over my scrap with Mingus, so she decided to cab it back to the hotel. Danny and I wandered around until we found an all-night coffee shop in North Beach. “Listen, baby,” Danny said as we put down our menus. “I don’t know if you’re gonna dig this or not, but I know how you can change the vibe. I know this lady, a spiritualist. She’s real good people, and she can do some work on this situation. I mean I’ve seen her completely turn things around. She’s heavy man. I’d be happy to call her. I’m sure she’d love to see you…” Danny paused. “Wanna check it out?”

The guy was offering me hope. Hell, what could I lose? I mean, I most definitely believed that there was some great cosmic force motivating things.

“I won’t leave my room ’til you call.”

For the next few hours, I drank about five cups of coffee as Danny proceeded to regale me with tales about Mingus. Listening to the Mingus Chronicles gave me an entirely different perspective. Yeah, it wasn’t me, the cat was just wigged out of his fucking skull. Danny called and gave me his friends phone number. Her name was Rose. She lived in Sausalito. I called and made an appointment with her. I was all frazzled when I got there. Besides arguing with Mom about the advisability of seeing this lady, Rose’s place was hell to find. She lived on the very top of a hill in a small cottage, hidden in back of a big house. As I knocked on her door, I could hear wind chimes faintly in the background. In fact, everything seemed to be tinkling, like there were a hundred invisible, barely audible bells quietly chiming in my inner ear. This was a magical place.

When she opened the door I knew that the vibe was right. This was no ordinary place and Rose was no ordinary woman. Though she was physically tiny, her essence seemed to fill the entire space. And when she looked at you, you felt she was looking deep inside. From the lines in her face I figured she was probably in her mid-sixties, but there was something about her that was neither young nor old. Danny was right, this lady was authentic; the real thing, baby.

Rose sat me down on her couch (an off-white overstuffed job) and went to fetch some herb tea. I looked around the room. It was filled with religious artifacts. I recognized a statue of the Goddess Kali, the six-armed destroyer, and a painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe. I liked that stuff. I was trying to read some of the titles from her bookcase across the room when she came back with my tea.

“I hope you like clover honey,” Rose said setting the steaming hot beverage down, “’cause that’s all I’ve got today. I hear from Danny that you’re a very talented young lady.” She smiled, the lines in her face deepening. “He told me a little bit about your situation, but I need to ask you a few things.”

I began at the beginning and ended at the point where I told Mingus to fuck himself. “I wonder,” I asked, “If you tell someone to fuck themselves does that mean you’re automatically fired, or does it mean you’re just pissed off?”

Rose smiled. “Jane, I think you’re jumping to conclusions. You’re not fired ’til you’re fired. Know what I mean?”

I thought for a second. I did have a habit of picturing outcomes and filling in the blanks for other people.

“The first thing I’m going to have you do,” Rose said, “is close your eyes. Then, I want you to visualize the person you’re having problems with. When you have a good image of him in your mind, I want you to put a white light around him and see him as well, happy, peaceful, and calm. When you’ve accomplished that, then visualize him as doing the right thing as far as your particular situation is concerned. Don’t tell him what to do, just know he’s going to do the right thing.”

As she was speaking, I could see her going into a trance-like state herself. Her eyes half-mast. My first thought was, “How could this possibly work?” But I ignored it, closed my eyes and proceeded to follow her instructions. As I started to picture Mingus getting calm, I found myself cooling out as well. A wave of peace started to roll over me. The wind chimes seemed to be getting louder. I wasn’t sure if the sounds were external or internal.

I don’t know how long Rose and I sat there, but when I opened my eyes, I felt clarity about things. Rose smiled at me like she knew. The vibe was so cool I wanted to hang out all afternoon. But it was time to get back to the hotel so I thanked her, gave her twenty-five beans and split.

Back in my room, the message light on my phone was blinking.

“A Mr. Mingus called three times,” the desk clerk informed me, “But he didn’t leave a number. He just said to meet him at the gig.”

Ordinarily, I would have been freaked out, needing to know what he wanted, and if I was still on the gig. But today I put down the phone. Whatever happens is going to happen when it happens. I looked out the window and watched a few fluffy white clouds roll by and read. That afternoon, mom checked out. The fat cat was tugging on her chain.  I decided to lay down for about an hour then get dressed for the gig. I was in such a peaceful state I can’t really say whether I fell asleep or not. All I know is I was feeling confident that whatever happened musically or otherwise would be in my best interest.

I floated through dinner, which was at another pizza joint, then cabbed it to the gig. I arrived about fifteen minutes before we hit and spotted Mingus on the bandstand. As I walked toward the bandstand, Mingus looked up, smiled, then motioned me over. Yes sir, the Big Dog was beckoning me. By the time I had reached the bandstand his smile had turned into a huge grin. He reached inside a shopping bag and handed me a smaller brown paper bag.

“These are for you,” he said.

Inside the bag were two boxes of strawberries, a bright red lipstick and one pair of panty hose, size small.

Huh? Far out.

“Well thank you,” I said.

“We’re recording tonight,” Mingus boomed, “and I want you on the record.”

I went to the dressing room to hang up my coat and stash the Big Dog’s peace offering. The vibe had indeed changed; Danny was right. But the most amazing thing about the whole episode was I wasn’t trying to control anything anymore. Whatever the outcome was would have been all right with me. The rest of the night just rolled along. John Handy came in from Oakland to fill in some of the horn parts. He was burning. Danny and Clifford were kickin’ ass as usual and I was playing like I always played. But Mingus seemed to dig it. He still put his bass down and ran to the piano to play certain passages, but it didn’t bother me.  Mingus was being Mingus.

That night, I went back to my room, put on the red lipstick and ate the strawberries. As for the pantyhose, well that was another matter. Wearing pantyhose has always been a scary concept to me so I pretty much left them alone. It’s the thought that counts.

Mingus and I were on good terms when we returned to New York. I knew I’d probably work with him again in the future when his regular piano player Jaki Byard couldn’t make it. But in the meantime, I still had rent to pay.  I could see, just from the short time I was in the Big Apple, that the name of the game was hustling; calling people, making yourself known. All the cats had short memories, so you’d better show your face or give them a holler once in a while. Time to get on the stick. Ring up Booker, Carmel, Pony…Oh yeah, that cat had a lot of shit happening.

*****

Read another excerpt from Jane Getz’s memoir here next week.