Best Anecdote Ever...

[Sergio Zamora]

A propos of nothing...

Originally Posted by DG from JC Archives 02-23-02

Aw shucks fellers and fellerettes! Yew've convainced me a spill the story!

I met bassist Arild Andersen (he's played with Garbarek and all that crowd) in Norway back in '91, and the guy who introduced me to him commented that Arild and I had a bandmate in common, Charles Brackeen...so we told the usual stories and compared notes, and this Brackeen story came out, which I confirmed later with Brackeen himself.

Apparently, street-musicianship was so ingrained into Charles' psyche, that he traveled (the Andersen tour was with Paul Motian as leader) with a bagful of battery-operated monkeys - you know the ones, stuffed toy monkeys that played little cymbals and drums - which were his street rhythm section. He'd keep a little bag of screwdrivers, screws, bolts and extra monkey parts in case they broke down... Anyway, apparently when he was on the street in New York, he would op[en up his bag on a street corner, insert the batteries and get them going one by one, and he claimed that eventually they would all get a groove going and he'd just jam along with them! He said that not one person in all those years ever passed him up without giving something. Some of the music he wrote during that time is documented on the Brackeen CD I did with him, "Bannar" on Silkheart.

Later, I mentioned to Brackeen the monkey story that Arild Andersen had told me, and he confirmed it. Apparently they were (in his mind) his children, and he told me he kept them in tiptop shape and clean. He told me once about the monkeys, "I was they Mama. I was they Daddy...they Aunt..." They was everything to me!"

I don't know what happened to the monkeys, but apparently people all over the world have seen the Brackeen/ monkey ensemble, because Arild told me he'd go do street gigs in Munich, Stockholm, Oslo, anywhere they went on the Motian Trio tour, and apparently he made shitloads of money everywhere they went.

-Fin-

DG

http://www.jazzcornertalk.com/speake...?forumid=12333

[Gerardo A]

Hahaha great story, Serge.

It made me remember my first day ever in SF (this was last year); I took the BART and on my stop I left the station and found this dude in the stairs playing Miles Davis' Four (which I believe isn't actually by Miles, IIRC). So I called the tune and we had a pretty decent conversation. This actually leads me to remember a scene in the recent Ray Charles movie, when Ray is walking in the street at night and he hears a trumpeter playing Dizzy's "Emanon" in a dark, smokey corner. Ray calls the tune, explains the meaning of the title (the words "no name" spelled backwards) and asks the trumpeter's name, to which the trumpeter responds: "Quincy Jones".

Actually, what *really* surprised me about SF was that pretty much all the people who polish shoes on the streets had a boombox in their carts and played music; many of them played jazz, one was actually playing Kind of Blue.

[edit:] Oh and the guy in the SF street played alto sax.

[Ron Thorne]

Gerardo, "Four" is a Miles Davis composition, which I believe first appeared on the album Workin'.

Great anecdote(s)!

[Gerardo A]

Originally Posted by Ron Thorne

Gerardo, "Four" is a Miles Davis composition, which I believe first appeared on the album Workin'.

Hi Ron! Yeah, I may be mistaken though, but I remember I read somewhere that Miles took credit for "Four" but that there was a previous composition of it written by someone else. Like what happened to "Solar". But like I said I may just be switching things in my mind, I don't mean any disrespect to Miles or anything...

[mke]

Paul Auster must have seen Brackeen too, as a saxophonist playing along to wind-up monkeys makes an appearance in the first book of Auster's "New York Trilogy."

[stereojack]

Originally Posted by Ron Thorne

Gerardo, "Four" is a Miles Davis composition, which I believe first appeared on the album Workin'.

Two points:

1. Although Miles has always been officially credited for "Four", Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson claimed that he had written the tune, which is widely believed by many jazz historians.

2. Miles' first recording of "Four" was made in 1954, and is commonly available on the LP "Blue Haze". The version on "Workin'" was recorded in 1956.

[Jimmy Cantiello]

And of course, we all now know that Bill Evans wrote "Blue In Green" although Miles insisted on taking credit for years. So it's not such a stretch to believe that Mr. Davis did not, in fact, pen "Four".............

[Sergio Zamora]

Originally Posted by mke

Paul Auster must have seen Brackeen too, as a saxophonist playing along to wind-up monkeys makes an appearance in the first book of Auster's "New York Trilogy."

Hm, I don't remember that. In which story was it?

[Gary Sisco]

Coppin' tunes was (and is) traditional. There's no reason to assume that because Miles sometimes did it, that he always did and therefore can be assumed to have not composed things he's credited with.

It's been ongoing for at least as long as recording itself. Many of the blues tunes of early days, for example, were already in the air and many of them are credited to the people who first recorded them, and they may or may not have been the "real" composers. I'd find it strange if Robert Johnson, for example, is actually the "real" author of "Hot Tamales And They're Red Hot," because it's so vastly different in style and thematic material than the rest of his material. But it's also forgotten that the bluesmen of his era were also entertainers who played for hard-working people who wanted to dance and be entertained, so they played a whole lot more material than the blues they're known for -- because it's the blues that got recorded.

[Jimmy Cantiello]

Gary, I didn't mean to insinuate that Miles always took credit for someone else's work, just that, in this case, it's reasonable to assume that he did it at least twice...............

[Gary Sisco]

True enough, likely more. I was just making a point that many leaders have done the same, which is why it's traditional. Miles gets called on it a lot more than others, when he was very far from alone. Being a Miles nut since age 15, it gets to bugging me after a while. Ditto the commentary about his ways with women, as if he were the only or even the worse, then or now, in the music business. Not.

[mke]

Originally Posted by Sergio Zamora

Hm, I don't remember that. In which story was it?

The first one, "City of Glass," iirc. I hope I'm remembering this right.

[mke]

Found!

Wind-up improv

"A clarinetist of no particular age, wearing a hat that obscured his face, and sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk, in the manner of a snake-charmer. Directly in front of him were two wind-up monkeys, one with a tambourine and the other with a drum. With the one shaking and the other banging, beating out a weird and precise syncopation, the man would improvise endless tiny variations on his instrument, his body swaying stiffly back and forth, energetically miming the monkeys' rhythm. He played jauntily and with flair, crisp and looping figures in the minor mode, as if glad to be there with is mechanical friends, enclosed in the universe he had created, never once looking up. It went on and on, always finally the same, and yet the longer I listened the harder I found it to leave.

"To be inside that music, to be drawn into the circle of its repetitions: perhaps that is a place where one could finally disappear."

Paul Auster, City of Glass from The New York Trilogy.

[Dennis Gonzalez]

Miles stole compositions and women.
Miles stole compositions and women.
Miles stole compositions and women...la la la la la la!




Now, let's hear some more anecdotes, people.

[MRS]

"I remember one gig we had in Brooklyn. The club was a typical club of the type. . .pimps and chicks. And they would talk real loud. So we're playing, and all of a sudden he says, "I'm going to play this alone." He played "It's Magic." You could hear a pin drop. They just stopped, and they didn't talk once through that song. I've never seen anything like that in my life. He played the first chorus, and during the second chorus still played the melody and played embellishments on it. I've never heard anybody do that. That was on alto. I'll never forget that experience."

Jaki on Dolphy

[Gerardo A]

Originally Posted by stereojack

1. Although Miles has always been officially credited for "Four", Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson claimed that he had written the tune, which is widely believed by many jazz historians.

Thanks for the clarification, stereojack!

Originally Posted by Jimmy Cantiello

And of course, we all now know that Bill Evans wrote "Blue In Green" although Miles insisted on taking credit for years.

And we also remember the claims regarding the "Birth of the Cool" sessions that Gerry Mulligan started to make after Miles died...

Originally Posted by Mi amigo Sisco

I'd find it strange if Robert Johnson, for example, is actually the "real" author of "Hot Tamales And They're Red Hot," because it's so vastly different in style and thematic material than the rest of his material.

What a great tune that is! So jazzy! It always reminds me of Slim Gaillard or something...

- - - - -

And now another anecdote, as suggested by mi hermano Dennis...Great story too, Michael.

(This happened when Mezz Mezzrow and several members of the Austin High School Gang visited Bix Beiderbecke and Pee Wee Russell at the Hudson Lake cottage and they ran out of alcohol):

"Down the path we followed Bix, across some fields, then over a railroad track and a high fence topped with barbed wire. Sure enough, Bix dug out a jug of corn alcohol, handed it to Pee Wee and started back. But as we were hopping the fence Pee Wee, frail as a nail and big as a minute, got stuck on the wire and just hung there, squealing for help and hugging the jug for dear life. If he let go of that crock he could have pulled himself loose, but not Pee Wee -what's a guy hide compared to a gallon of corn? By this time Bix, having staggered down to the railroad tracks, found he had a lot of sand between his toes, so he sat down on the rail and yanked his shoes off to empty them. Just then we saw a fast train coming round the bend. All of us began screaming at Bix to get the hell out of there, but he thought we were just kidding him and he threw some stones at us. The train wasn't more than a hundred feet away when he finally woke up to what was happening. Then he just rolled off the track and tumbled down the bank head first, traveling so fast he didn't have time to snatch his shoes off the rail. Those funky oxfords got clipped in half as neatly as if they'd been chopped with a meat-cleaver. "That just goes to show you", Bix told us, "it's dangerous for a man to take his shoes off. First time I took those things off in weeks and you see what the hell happens. It just ain't safe to undress."

- From Mezz Mezzrow's book "REally the blues".

[shrugs]

who remembers the story told at JCS(I think) about Nixon carrying Pops' trumpet case through customs?
I seem to remember that the case held some herbs.

[Sergio Zamora]

Originally Posted by shrugs

who remembers the story told at JCS(I think) about Nixon carrying Pops' trumpet case through customs?
I seem to remember that the case held some herbs.

That was told by an old dude named Early Anderson. A trombone player, I think

[me wag]

This is one of my favorites from Paul Bley's autobiography Stopping Time:

At the beginning of the first three-hour Saturday matinee,
we couldn't find Henry Grimes.We were all good friends with Henry.
I had first met him back when he was playing with Marian McPartland.
But he and Sonny were particularly close. Henry was
a small man, with a youngish face, and Sonny was like a father to
him. But Henry had been growing increasingly introverted. It was
getting to the point where he would not speak unless it was
absolutely necessary, and eventually he simply wouldn't speak,
period.

We searched the It Club. "Has anyone seen Henry?" Finally,
we looked behind the club. There was a tree in the backyard, and
Henry had gone out to the backyard and climbed the tree.

Sonny tried to coax him out of the tree but got nowhere. It
was time to play the matinee and Henry refused to budge. Sonny
turned to me and said, "Look, could you play a little bass for me?"

I said sure, that wasn't a problem.

So he kicked off "This Can't Be Love" at a very bright tempo
and played it for three hours.A long time to keep up a walking bass
line on the piano. Fortunately Henry Grimes made it down from
the tree for the evening session, where we played a single tune for
four hours.

[Pete C]

FWIW, I'm pretty sure John Lewis wrote the original Milestones on Savoy (which he plays on). It certainly sounds like an early Lewis line.

[Ron Thorne]

Originally Posted by Gerardo Alejos

Hi Ron! Yeah, I may be mistaken though, but I remember I read somewhere that Miles took credit for "Four" but that there was a previous composition of it written by someone else. Like what happened to "Solar". But like I said I may just be switching things in my mind, I don't mean any disrespect to Miles or anything...

No problem, Gerardo. I didn't feel that you were showing any disrespect to anyone.

And, I didn't mean to create a firestorm by suggesting that Miles Davis wrote Four, an attribution I've seen from virtually every major source for decades.

Originally Posted by stereojack

1. Although Miles has always been officially credited for "Four", Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson claimed that he had written the tune, which is widely believed by many jazz historians.

So, does the fact that Vinson "claimed" to have written the tune serve to indict Miles for "stealing" it? I'm confused by this logic. And, who are the "many jazz historians"? I don't doubt that this is a possibility, but I'm awaiting further documentation from the "many jazz historians".

Now, as Dennis Gonzalez wisely suggested . . . more anecdotes, please!

[Gary Sisco]

Well, my favorite anecdote is also a very popular one so everyone's likely already heard it. Once when Coltrane had played a particularly long solo during a gig, afterwards Miles asked him why he solos for so long. Coltrane told him the ideas just keep coming and that he didn't know how to stop. Miles said, "Try taking the horn out your mouth."

[stereojack]

Originally Posted by Ron Thorne

So, does the fact that Vinson "claimed" to have written the tune serve to indict Miles for "stealing" it? I'm confused by this logic. And, who are the "many jazz historians"? I don't doubt that this is a possibility, but I'm awaiting further documentation from the "many jazz historians".
[/SIZE]

I tried to word what I said in such a way as to not indict Miles. This is just anecdotal, of course. However, I do believe that where there is smoke, there is fire. I've been hearing about "Four" for decades, have seen Vinson in person play the tune, and if you read up on it (sorry I can't provide any source material) you will eventually come across this assertion yourself. Miles has been accused of taking credit on a number of tunes, including Milestones (John Lewis), Four, Tune Up (Eddie Vinson), Solar (Chuck Wayne), Blue In Green (Bill Evans) to name a few. Miles' name is officially on the copyrights of these tunes, so history will always give him the credit. Let's not be naive, however. Some of the greatest bandleaders in history (Basie, Ellington, Goodman) have taken credit for tunes written (completely or in part) by others. It is how the business has always functioned. I would hope that you would at least accept the possibility that not every tune credited to Miles was actually written by him.

[Uli]

This is a story that happened when Sun Ra was still Sonny Blount. I've heard it told by Harrisson Bankhead and confirmed by Von Freeman. Sun Ra told Vonski " I have a new name for you".When Vonski asked what the name was Sun Ra told him that he can't say and that Von will find it himself. Over a period of time Freeman bugged SunRa to tell him thr new name but always got the same answer until one day when Ra told Von to put the name that he thinks that Sun found on a piece of paper and that Sonny would put the name on paper too and let him know. When they compared what they had written down, the name matched.

[MRS]

that's awesome

[Gerardo A]

So what was the name, Uli?????

[Uli]

Originally Posted by Gerardo Alejos

So what was the name, Uli?????

that's what we all liked to know but Von is sworn to secrecy.

[bigtiny]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Coppin' tunes was (and is) traditional. There's no reason to assume that because Miles sometimes did it, that he always did and therefore can be assumed to have not composed things he's credited with.

It's been ongoing for at least as long as recording itself. Many of the blues tunes of early days, for example, were already in the air and many of them are credited to the people who first recorded them, and they may or may not have been the "real" composers. I'd find it strange if Robert Johnson, for example, is actually the "real" author of "Hot Tamales And They're Red Hot," because it's so vastly different in style and thematic material than the rest of his material. But it's also forgotten that the bluesmen of his era were also entertainers who played for hard-working people who wanted to dance and be entertained, so they played a whole lot more material than the blues they're known for -- because it's the blues that got recorded.

Actually, there's plenty of reason to assume in Miles' case:

- he learned the technique from a master - Bird
- the money was in the publishing rights - Miles liked money
- I saw an interview with Zawinul in which he said Miles asked him if he could list himself as 'co-author' of In a Silent Way - Joe told him "No!"

bigtiny

[claude]

Dennis' thread is full of great anecdotes. Here's one from a few years back.



I've avoided for years making this story public because I've never truly understood what happened at the session for The Desert Wind back in April of 1989. The project was one of the hardest to complete, and from the beginning there were strange problems that kept popping up. This is the story not told in the liner notes.

At first, it seemed like a dream project. I'd already worked in the studio with Charles Brackeen (having "found" him again and helped revive his failing career), Alvin Fielder, and Henry Franklin. I'd also toured in California with Horace Tapscott's protégé and alto player from L.A., Michael Session. Silkheart had signed on to fund the project and I wanted to play a few live dates with this particular quintet. The New Mexico Jazz Workshop had agreed to fly us into Albuquerque for a one-off concert at the Kimo Theater. Two days before the concert, and before anybody had flown into Dallas for the rehearsals, Administrative Director Roy Durfee had called me to tell me that the gig was off in Albuquerque. After thoroughly pissing him off, he agreed to reinstate us, but the Workshop hadn't even done any publicity for the gig. So I knew we were going into an "iffy" situation with a promoter who really didn't want to do the concert...bad vibes is generally not a good way to go with such a group of musicians, but we went anyway.

When we arrived in Albuquerque, we realized that we'd been added to the bill at the last minute, and the music we did clashed completely with the subtle music of the featured East-West Ensemble, a beautiful group of Palestinian and Jewish musicians from Tel Aviv.

We arrived back at Love Field in Dallas on April 3, and went directly into the studio which was located in the old Braniff terminal at Love. We set up, did sound check, and began the recording session. Never had I lost my temper at a session before...I'd read about Mingus and others throwing people off the stage and at recordings if they weren't playing up to snuff...but this particular session, I didn't feel that we were playing well, and after re-recording the first song twice, I lost it completely. To my ears we seemed to be running in place, going nowhere musically. We seemed tired and on cruise control, inattentive to the vibrancy of the music. I yelled at them. I threw a tantrum. And then I announced a "time out" cooling off period for myself, realizing that what I was doing was really tearing the session apart...I could see a look of fear(?), anger(?) in my colleagues' eyes.

"Let's take a short break and be back in 20 minutes...and I'm sorry," I said to them. Alvin didn't come back, and I thought I'd thoroughly pissed him off, and so I went looking for him so that I could apologize. I found him outside on the loading dock holding his right ankle - you know, the one that he plays his bass drum with? - and it was swollen and purple. "What happened?" I asked. "I fell up the mf'ing stairs!" he yelled back. I called the other guys to come help carry him in, and he snapped, "I'll take care of myself, just give me a g.d. second!" Very much chastised, I walked up the stairs into the studio in time to see Charles Brackeen, who was warming up on his tenor, with his eyes turned up in his head, falling flat out on his horn, knocking over a sound partition, which fell on Henry's upright bass, toppling the next sound partition, knocking down Alvin's drum set, cymbals roaring loudly as the stands hit the recording microphones, knocking them down as well.

Charles seemed to be having an old-fashioned seizure, which I'd never been aware he'd ever had before, and when he came out of it, the look in his eyes as he looked at me was nothing short of scary. He was humiliated and angry and started telling me all manner of things - which by this time I felt I deserved. His tenor sax was unplayable, and he refused to continue the session with only his soprano. The rest of the guys tried to go comfort him and get him to calm down and play his soprano, but he told everybody to leave him alone. He picked up his soprano and started playing wildly with a grief-stricken tone, at which point everybody realized he was playing the intro to "The Desert Wind", and everybody quickly picked up what they could and started playing with him...David, if you listen to the beginning of that piece on the CD, you can hear me telling the recording engineer to roll the tape.

Some of the material was unusable, and so a week later I brought in KIm Corbet on trombone and Michael Kruge on cello (both colleagues of mine from the daagnim theoretical ensemble) to fill in the spots where Brackeen's tenor was supposed to play.

Silkheart was a bit skeptical of the music we recorded and the subsequent overdubs - I guess they wanted a "pure" recording, without overdubs - and so after almost five years, they finally issued it.

[Uli]

This one i am not sure anymore if Lester Young or Bud Powell are acreditit.e

they came to a first world war memorial

To the unknown soldier
1914 - 1917

One of them sed "It's bad enough to be unknown, but to die so young!"