Ornette Coleman on Nov. 14 Sunday, not Nov. 19

[Pepi Plowman]

Wow, Ger, quite a tale!
pep
--- Gerry Storm <mesmo@gilanet.com> wrote:

> <<But gee, Gerry, you really knew a hell of a lot of
> musicians!<<
> 
> My father was a swing fan. It played all the time in
> the house I grew up in.
> Sometimes my parents hosted parties or attended same
> and took the kids
> along...always swing music. Sometimes on Sundays,
> after picnics at the lake,
> we would wind up in a honky-tonk called the Brass
> Rail which had a juke box
> which we kids were allowed to feed dimes into. And
> then there was radio, it
> always played in our house and when the others were
> asleep I secretly
> listened with my ear up close to the speaker.
> 
> Started collecting records when I was 12, big band
> swing. I knew all the
> parts of all swing chestnuts, Glenn Miller, Artie
> Shaw, Benny Goodman, Harry
> James, etc. Joined the junior high band the same
> year, playing trumpet. My
> favorites were Louie Armstrong and Harry James. Had
> a paper route through
> "nigger town" (ages 12 and 13) where I heard the
> church music including
> witnesssing a holy roller ceremony, and R&B from
> joints. Started reading
> Downbeat and Metronome around age 14 and all the
> books on jazz in the local
> library.
> 
> The trumpet broke and I picked up baritone horn,
> family too poor to buy
> another trumpet. Became first chair baritone horn
> player in high school, won
> lots of medals, I could soar above the band, no
> jive. Loved playing marches.
> Had job at record store and memorized the catalogue,
> private collection
> swelled. Met real live jazz musicians who adopted me
> 'cause I knew more
> about jazz history and gossip than they did.
> 
> Good buddy's parents bought him a drum set and we
> learned together under the
> guidance of excellent teacher. Started sitting in
> with Black group at honky
> tonks, The Dizzy Lee Trio, almost a reguolar in the
> group. Joined swing
> orchestra playing valve trombone.
> 
> Sold joints from childhood buddy who had become a
> criminial (hood) to jazz
> musician friends and was admitted into fraternity of
> tokers/swingers (the
> best players). Put down the trombone and started
> playing drums with swing
> orchestra 'cause I was the only one who could cut a
> groove. Also learnd the
> tuba at school and thought about switching to string
> bass but high school
> ran out and there wasn't time. Did learn the bari
> sax well enough to play
> marches.
> 
> Saw every band that came through Waco including
> Kenton, Herman, Bill
> Monroe,Lester Young, R&B groups like Coasters,
> Midnighters, etc. At one time
> knew all the words to the songs on the straight hit
> parade, the swing hit
> parade, and the hillbilly hit parade.
> 
> Graduated from HS (now 17 and 6-6) and immediately
> hitched to LA to see the
> cool jazz players like Shorty Rogers, Shelly Manne,
> Lord Buckley, Chet
> Baker, Gerry Mulligan (changed the way I spelled my
> name after Geru), the
> Kenton alumni who hung out at Zardi's, et al.
> Returned to Texas after a
> wondrous summer and continued to study drums,
> playing a few gigs and meeting
> more musicians including western swing cats who were
> also "vipers".
> 
> Joined Air Force and was stationed in New Haven
> which made weekend trips to
> Birdland, Cafe Bohemia, Basin St. East, Hickory
> House, etc. part of routine.
> Met lots of cats at Charlie's Tavern (where all the
> jazz players hung out)
> and often accompanied them to gigs where I was put
> on the guest list. Must
> have seen Count Basie a hundred times (had
> befriended Marshall Royal, lead
> alto player in the band). Greatest band I ever heard
> (the late '50's
> version).
> 
> During a year in Tokyo met all the best Japanese
> players and got seriously
> into Hard Bop which remains my favorite music and in
> my eyes the best
> America has produced. Had a girlfriend who called
> herself Stella (a very
> classy whore) who loved jazz as much as me and we
> made the rounds together.
> Stella was the love of my life and I have never met
> another woman who was
> her equal.
> 
> Returned to states and was stationed in Washington
> DC ('59). Soon was making
> all the rounds of the DC clubs. Met Charlie Byrd, a
> local musician who was
> playing Brazilian music which entranced me. With a
> Black girl friend named
> Mamie whom I met at a Jimmy Smith gig, saw every
> group who came to town and
> met lots of them including Max, Monk, Philly Joe,
> Jimmy Smith, Stanley
> Turrentine, Shirley Scott, Sonny Stitt, Johnny
> Griffin, et al. This was the
> late '50's when Ray Charles was starting to come on
> strong and his music was
> played at all the parties. During this period I was,
> except for skin color
> and genes, Black.
> 
> Discharged and returned to Waco where I put together
> a group which included
> Luiz, a Mulato Brazilian, and Ike, a Mexican buddy
> from childhood who was
> one hell of a jazz trumpet player. We played in the
> Black joints and the
> country clubs but mostly in officers clubs at Ft.
> Hood and James Conally
> AFB.
> 
> When you guys were doing the folk sings I was
> enrolled at North Texas State
> and playing dixieland on weekends and wishing I
> could play like the cats at
> Luann's where all the heavies jammed on Sundays
> (Fathead Newman, James Clay,
> Leroy Coper, Dude Cahn, Billy Harper, etc).
> 
> So when I finally arrived in Austin in '65 and put
> together The Blue Crew
> with Luiz, James Polk and Fred Smith, I was rather
> well rehearsed. You know
> most of the rest of the story which had me playing
> with the Conqueroo and
> Freddy King in the late '60's and starting a career
> with the union when I
> returned from SF in '76. Of course the union gig put
> me into many more
> situations to meet and hear musicians including many
> a classical concert. I
> can tell you that all the good players share a
> common thread, a Neptunian
> connection. Without it you can scream your head off,
> dance, jive, posture,
> act out many a role, and still fall short of
> musician hood.
> 
> I loved musicians, Pepe, from the first time I heard
> a swinging band...and
> still do. A good musician is the finest creation of
> the great maker. I still
> listen, via the internet mostly, and still play and
> am better than ever and
> enjoying having become what I always wanted to be, a
> jazz sage.
> 
> In my old age, however, I tend to listen more to the
> great romantic
> composers whose material is the good book of jazz,
> Cole Porter, Gershwin,
> Arlen, Rogers, and especially Jobim of whom I do not
> seem to be able to get
> enough.
> 
> Love,
> G
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Pepi Plowman" <pepstoil@yahoo.com>
> To: <austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net>
> Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 10:59 PM
> Subject: Re: Ornette Coleman on Nov. 14 Sunday, not
> Nov. 19
> 
> 
> > I saw Ornette Coleman AND Thelonius Monk at the
> Jazz
> 
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