[Dixielandjazz] Re: Ernie Carson

[Charlie Hooks]

on 7/4/02 1:08 PM, Bill Horton at horton4jaz@earthlink.net wrote:

> b r writes:   I am curious.  I am familiar with Ernie Carson, the musician.
> But I don't know enough about him to understand the above comment.  Also
> there have been posts about him in the past referring to his posts on this
> list.  I wasn't around then.  What is that all about?
> Is he still alive and playing?
> 
> To which, G. Wm. Oakley replied:
> 
> As I recall, Ernie began his career playing in the pit in burlesque houses
> in portland, OR. It must have been a profound influence on his later life.
> In all the years that I produced the St. Louis Jazz Festival I don't recall
> a year (and he was there every year) in which there wasn' t some brouhaha
> around Ernie.  He was a delight, he was maddening and a terrific player. In
> a beige world we need the color of the Ernies.
> G. William Oakley
> -------------------------
> My only exposure to Ernie Carson, before or since, was his infection of this
> list a year or so ago.  I'm far from a prude, but from his posts (written
> while he was drunk, I hope), he was a garbage-mouth clod, given to insults.
> Not fun-insults, just crude insult-insults. If he "adds color to a beige
> world", as suggested, it is with red crayon scribbles.
> 
> Bill Horton
> 
> 
> 
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    I'm pretty sure it was '79; I'm playing downtown Chicago, Flaming
Sally's in the Blackstone Hotel with Jim Beebe's "Chicago Jazz (with Barrett
Deems)" and Jim calls me in Rosemont, Ill., a suburb adjoining O'Hare where
roads all meet and aircraft thunder and screetch through the day and night.
The flight path for normal wind direction is about 20 feet over my
apartment.  I mean, it's screamin', every three minutes another plane.

    Jim says: Charlie--will you pick up Ernie Carson on flight whatchamay
callit and bring him down to Flaming Sallies' tonight.  I've hired him for
the next couple of nights.

    Hey, well, sure....

    So I pick up Ernie, nice looking 38 to 40ish looking dude with a trumpet
case and little else at O'Hare and bring him over to my apartment, about 15
minutes away.    

    We talk.   

    No.  Wait.  Ernie talks.  I listen.  Ernie is high and getting higher.

    Then I talk. Ernie doesn't listen, but I sort of like him, anyway.  I
take him downtown to the Blackstone where we're playing that night and where
he's got a room.  O.K. so far.

    Time for the job to start.  No Ernie.  Hey, he "lives" right here in the
hotel.  Call his room.  No Ernie.

    So we kick off the gig and still no Ernie.  We cover.  Lead on Trombone.
Lead on clarinet.  Tune after tune.  No Ernie.  End of first set.  Beebe not
much surprised, not really purturbed.  "Well, he'll be around....Ernie's a
little...well, you gotta make allowances...

    Second intermission I go out for a jug, pass plate glass front window of
Mexican joint: Ernie's in the window, scarfing down a house special.  He
looks over at me; I walk on by, flipping him a salute.  Figure he'll show
later, since Blackstone is just around corner.  Never does.  Never shows at
all.  Months later at a festival, Beebe pays him his money!  I'm standing
right there watching, and can't believe what I'm seeing: Beebe is paying off
this critter for NOT showing up, for NOT calling us, for...God knows what!

    Go figure.  I figure, well: it's Ernie Carson; that's all.  Never got to
play with him.  Didn't even get high with him.  Watched him get high and
higher and evaporate.

charliehooks@earthlink