Tell Your War Stories

[tbdana]

I would love to have seen that. Dick Nash is a national treasure, I don't care how old he is.

[Posaunus]

I would love to have seen that. Dick Nash is a national treasure, I don't care how old he is.

Indeed he is a treasure - and a wonderful human being. Dick was 90 years old then - now a ripe old 96.

He treated me like a colleague - not the fan-boy that I am. What a gentleman!

[tbdana]

I just have to tell you this story about Gerald from my gig tonight. Let me set the stage first...

This was a gig at a winery with a funk/rock/soul band that's a bunch of middle age guys. Sounds lame, right? It's not. This band is very good, super aggressive, and incredibly tight. The musicans come from bands named Tower of Power, Cold Blood, Chicago, Aretha Franklin, etc. Great band. And the energy is so powerful it just picks you up and carries you. And did I mention they're incredibly tight and aggressive? Yeah. High level playing. Definitely not a bar band.

And then there's Gerald.

Gerald owns a saxophone. He's a little old man, and I mean old like Noah. Dude is frail, bent over, and looks 920 years old. He needed help up onto the bandstand, which was a single step of 7". Someone had to bring his saxes to him. Everyone else stood, but Gerald sat in a chair to play. I'm thinking, "What the hell is this guy doing here?"

The gig starts and we play a couple tunes, and I don't even hear Gerald. All of us standing, except for frail old Gerald sitting in his chair. I forget all about him as I'm sight reading the charts. Then, on about the third tune, there's a sax solo.

OH. MY. EFFING. GAWD!!!!

Gerald belts out this incredible solo! HUGE sound! Great licks! Tons of soul!!! Just amazing, and super aggressive. My jaw was on the floor. I'm like, "No way. This can't be real. This is impossible. That sound cannot come from that man. I must be hallucinating." It was awesome!

He plays a couple more great solos on other tunes, and then all of a sudden in the middle of the last tune of the first set he leans over to me and says, "Dana, take my solo." Members of band look at each other and someone says, "Gerald NEVER gives away solos."

So I play his solo, the set ends, and Gerald says, "Help me. Help." I turn to look and he's ghost white, his lips are blue, his eyes are kind of rolled back, and he's incoherent. Can't answer questions.

Two band members help him off the bandstand and sit Gerald down, putting his feet up. I take his pulse. It's fast and thready. It's also 95 degrees out. So, we get him a bottle of emergency oxygen and I put a bag of ice on his neck and start rubbing his arms and legs to get the blood flowing. By the end of the break he has color back in his face and he's talking normally. "I feel better," Gerald says. "Let's go play the second set."
To which the bandleader wisely says, "No. You're done for tonight."

So the rest of us leave Gerald sitting behind the bandstand, his feet up, his bottle of oxygen and an ice cold water, and we start the second set. "Dana, you take Gerald's solos," I'm told.

Several tunes into the second set we play the old Blood, Sweat & Tears arrangement of "God Bless The Child." This starts as a slow soul groove, goes into a Latin double-time groove and then breaks out into a blazing fast double-time swing groove that has an alto sax solo.

In the middle of the tune, Gerald staggers onto the stage, taking hits off the oxygen bottle along the way like it's a bong, and gingerly makes his way to his chair, where he lowers himself and slowly picks up his sax. Gerald takes another couple hits off the oxy-bong, and then sits there, waiting. As the tune goes, Gerald slowly leans back in his chair, his head goes back, and his eyes close. He looks like he's either asleep or in distress.

And then the alto sax solo comes. And Gerald rises from the dead and plays the most AMAZING, MASTERFUL, ENERGETIC, HUGE solo I've ever heard. I mean, it was truly masterful bebop. Blew me away.
And then he needed help off the stage again, and sat out the rest of the gig.

Afterward, I'm like, "Who the hell is this old dude?"

Well, it turns out Gerald not only has chops, he has history. Dude played with Tower of Power, Santana, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Blood, Sweat and Tears, the Who and the list goes on. Dude's got a tremendous resumé. And he has just enough left in him to remind us all of who he is. He still has a HUGE sound, which sounds like it couldn't possibly come from his frail little body.

In talking with Gerald after the gig, he said to me, "You guys were having so much fun I couldn't stand not being up there. And I really like that solo," which now I'm guessing he must have played when he was with Blood, Sweat & Tears. So up on stage he came, to give the last bit of himself. And it was incredible. I have so much respect for him. I had been whining about the heat and telling myself I didn't want to take these kinds of gigs anymore, and here's Gerald, seeming like he's on death's door, dragging his oxygen bottle on stage to wow me with an unbelievable solo. That man loves what he does and gives his all, and I'm going to take a lesson from it.

More of a gig from hell for Gerald than me. LOL! For me, it was a moment that I will remember the rest of my life. I'm just glad I got to meet Gerald.

It turns out that this was his last gig.

[MultiTbone]

My niece asked me to play at her wedding. I prepared some appropriate material, but then she advised they hired a bluegrass band from Tennessee named Iron Horse, and I would be playing with the band. The bands YouTube vids were covers of rock ‘n roll tunes in bluegrass format. For a few weeks I practiced with bluegrass tunes, playing the fiddle parts by ear (legato melodic lines, upper register). The wedding was in a tent. The day of the wedding was a northeaster, a mini hurricane. I wore a suit - the band was in blue jeans. I took the stage, and played muted for a few tunes, to get the feel of it. When the band announced “Here’s uncle Fred,” there was dread in their faces. The next tune I gracefully played along, fitting in with smooth bone sound. When I looked up, the audience was alert and engaged. The next tune, I got bolder, and let it rip, and the audience was up and dancing. The loud bone, projecting to the edge of the tent, caused a frenzy. This went on for a few more tunes. I was amazed. Later, one of the band members said “Well, we really broke some new horizons today.” It’s the only time I have performed bluegrass. A week later I contacted the band, but never heard from them.

[tbdana]

Fantastic! Trying to play bluegrass on trombone...ugh, I don't envy you. Tough chore. Awesome that you practiced and showed 'em how it's done!

[MultiTbone]

tbdana -
Years ago I was involved with English folk/rock band Fairport Convention, and applied the legato bone style (Tommy Dorsey, or Billy Rausch who I learned from) to Fairport's electric fiddle solos. Later, started playing in thirds (like Coltrane in Giant Steps) which made a credible backup to country singers like Allison Krauss. Bluegrass was just a step from there. Have to say, I LOVED using my concoction of tricks for real audience.

[LeTromboniste]

There's a group in Germany I've played a lot with, and I'm one of the few people they trust to join halfway through a tour when someone else they want to hire is not free for the whole thing. Depending on how much is actually played at the Anspielprobe of my first show with them (since they've just played the same programme 2-3 times the previous days, they'll typically just do tops and tails), usually much or most of the music I'm essentially sight-reading on stage. The first time that happened, I arrive at the venue and see microphones everywhere. Surprise! Turns out that concert was to be recorded for a radio broadcast. Perfect for when you want just that extra little humph of stress while sight-reading...

Now, the last time I've jumped in with them, more recently, I'm packing my horn the night before, and holding the crook that turns my D bass into a small contra in C, and I just think, nah, there's absolutely no chance that this conductor will want me playing any contra, it's just going to be dead weight, and I leave it in my locker. I meet the group on the train in the morning, get my parts from my trombone colleagues, and am telling them about the bad surprise of having to sight-read on the radio with that group in the past, and they just look at me blankly until someone says "but they did tell you this time? It's also a radio recording tonight"...

Luckily there was the whole rest of the train ride to read through the music, mentally rehearse any tricky spot and ask questions about the forms and how certain transitions go. Less luckily, when we're about to arrive and I get to the last piece in the book, I see all these notes that I don't have on the horn...turns out I did need that crook that I had left in my locker! So I had to do the next best thing, pull out and tune my horn in C# for that piece (a tuning in which I had never played before and probably never will again), once again on the radio.



Another much less fun and way more overwhelmingly stressful that's now happened twice (including on the project I'm currently on): bedbugs.

[tbdana]

This came up in conversation today and I thought it might be amusing.

Long ago, I was playing on a film scoring session, one of the first I had done, and it was as a sub for Bill Watrous, who was originally called for it. It was the late 1980s, and I was disenchanted with music and had just decided to go to school and change careers.

On the movie was a wonderful trombonist (whom I'll just call Mr. Wonderful). He had been a staple of the studio scene for many years. During the gig I lamented to him that I was going to school because there were fewer and fewer movie scores for trombones, and that the only hope players of my generation had for getting into the scene was when his generation of players retired. It seemed like inconsequential chit-chat.

But after that gig, I started getting calls from other musicians, who told me that Mr. Wonderful was extremely upset with me. Why? Because I had "told him to retire" so that I could take his work.

WHAT!?!?!? I did no such thing! I was just lamenting that I was in school because the work was disappearing. And indeed, the recording musicians had recently had a disastrous strike, there were fewer movies being made overall, and the few there were trended toward electronic and genre/rock scores that had no trombones. I was explaining why I was applying to school, not telling him to retire! WTF?

But then the weirdest thing happened. I got a call out of the blue from a music contractor who hired for a lot of movies. This contractor heard I'd been on a picture with Mr. Wonderful and was looking to get into the studio scene, and they needed a trombone the following day, and could I do it? Yes! Yes! YES!!!

And this contractor continued to hire me after that, all the way until the day I graduated school and retired from playing music.

But that whole time I don't think Mr. Wonderful ever got over being pissed at me for supposedly telling him to retire. The sad thing is that I have nothing but great admiration for him. He was a role model of mine, and that relationship was ruined. But I had too much pride to explain it to him or apologize, and I didn't want the confrontation.

Plus, I thought it was kinda funny/cool that his ranting to everyone that I had told him to retire actually resulted in me getting more work!

[elainechat]

That Gerald story gave me chills! What a legend. It's amazing how true passion and talent can shine through no matter the circumstances. Stories like this remind me of the incredible experiences you can have when traveling and meeting people with rich histories—like the time I visited Vietnam https://gowithguide.com/vietnam and met musicians who shared their amazing stories. Thanks for sharing this—it’s super inspiring!

[tbdana]

That Gerald story gave me chills! What a legend. It's amazing how true passion and talent can shine through no matter the circumstances. ... Thanks for sharing this—it’s super inspiring!

I didn't make it clear, but that gig I described was Gerald's last, and the monster solo he gave us in the second set were the last notes he ever played. He died a few days later.

The thing about Gerald that amazed me so, and had me ruminating philosophically about the meaning of life, is that this old dude didn't sit it out to take care of himself and get better, but put his struggles aside just to get back on stage for a few moments, where he gave us the very last of himself and every note he had remaining in him, just for the sake of the performance. Just for the music. It was as if he was releasing his soul from his body through the music. He didn't drop dead on stage, but it would have been the perfect exclamation point to his life if he had.

It made me wonder how committed I really was to the music. I certainly didn't have his level of commitment, and that is a failure of mine. I need to be more like Gerald.

[mgladdish]

That reminds me of one of the last times I got to play with Peter King. He was guesting with our band and sounded and looked old and knackered. But every now and then he'd get a fresh wind and that massive sound would be back and blow us all away all over again. He could only summon enough to be the player of old in short bursts, but boy they were worth it.

[robcat2075]

That Gerald story gave me chills!

Somewhat music-adjacent, here is a tale about an older performer who saved every photon for when he needed to shine...

https://interviews.televisionacademy.co ... lip=126859

There are people who HAVE to be performing and will not pass up the chance to do so. It works until it doesn't!

[tbdana]

Not a war story. Just had a really nice jazz gig last night, with really good players. And this morning I'm still stoked. Stepped off stage for a moment to grab this photo.

IMG_4348.jpg

One hour gig. Fantastic players. The show was called "1959: The Year That Changed Jazz Forever," and naturally we played a collection of jazz releases from 1959, mostly Miles and Mingus, with a couple other tunes like Giant Steps and Take Five mixed in. The audience was full of wealthy, white, older people who came specifically to hear that music. They were smart and appreciative.

It was an easy gig, fun, and short. The only rehearsal was a 40-minute pre-show run-through of endings and transitions. They fed us a full "club fare" salmon dinner. The playing was high end. And it was great money.

Sometimes the "war" is cushy.