[Dixielandjazz] A slow start to the Million Dollar Question

[Charlie Hooks]

on 7/17/02 11:59 PM, GWW174@aol.com at GWW174@aol.com wrote:

> That's the ability to work the audience - usually by "building" the tune AND
> the set during the performance.


    Well, yes. 


    And let me try to describe a band that did this, a band on tour for 5
years, over 9 hundred thousand miles, some air but mostly tires to the road:
called "The Celebration Road Show," begun in Saginaw, Michigan--a most
unlikely spot--by a young trumpet player, formerly outside linebacker with
the New England Patriots, now ordained youth-minister affiliated with The
United Church of Christ, a super-liberal denomination that would put up with
our "alternative worship"  Hey! They'd put up with anything!  Except
conservatives. Tons of good people there, but almost all with two left feet
and not a clue (from my conservative viewpoint).

    This "youth minister" was Gary Miller, a very competent trumpeter who
played no jazz nor pretended to, but who played very respectable memorized
trumpet lines (Mike Vax was impressed with his "trumpetism"--is that a
word?).  But what Gary Miller could do better than anyone else I've ever
worked with (even Beebe, who is very good) was "front" a band.  This was
because of his personality, but also because of his experience at preaching
before an audience: of knowing how to raise them up, then let them settle
down, then raise them higher still, etc.  Just what Gordon spoke of.  Gary
would have the entire program in his mind, never any physical list, and he
could think very fast on his feet, changing it if necessary.

    He talked almost as much as we played--much too much, some felt; but I
believe his talk was easily as important to the show as our playing.  We all
played well enough, but as Barbone says, we couldn't have created the effect
we almost always had by music alone.  There was no rigid order for the
tunes, and Gary's talk provided a flexible cement that held the show
together in whatever order he felt would work best for that audience.  He
was very good at this and only rarely made a mistake.  [We all loved it when
he, quite inadvertantly, got stone drunk one night on the way to a concert
and ended siting on the stage apron, feet dangling over in the pit, and
asking for requests.  Even Miller's dynamic physique couldn't handle 6
ounces of Scotch in ten minutes on an empty stomach!]

    Since most of our dates were singles, we had a moveable feast and could
repeat routines until they were tight.  Rule was: never make jokes to each
other that the audience can't hear: make them over the mike, include the
audience, and if the bit works, retain it.  For example, once back during
the Nixon era when our vocalist sang, "I looked over Jordan, and what did I
see...?" I leaned forward into the mike and inquired, "Henry Kissinger?" and
the house went down.  We left it in.

    We began to think of ourselves as entertainers.  Musicians first, of
course, but that came naturally.  Entertainment had to be learned, since
none of us had a theatre background; but learn it we did, and it paid off. I
preceeded Beebe on the band and can tell you that it was not until he got
there that we really became conscious of what we had going: he told us.  He
sat us down and said, "I don't think you guys realize just what you have
here!"  He was right.  We became more conscious of our purpose as
entertainers--as were the Asunto brothers, as was Fats Waller, the Louises
Armstrong and Prima, not to speak of the great entertainment bands like
Spike Jones.

    And the way we looked: mind that this was in the mid 70s when the high
style was pure grunge--torn jeans, tie-dye T-shirts, sandals and
you-smell-it!  We always looked like a million bucks, and I don't mean all
green and wrinkled!  Sky blue tuxedos with ruffled shirt fronts for evening
concerts, black trousers with black turtlenecks under expensive jackets for
afternoon or morning school shows.  Always patent leather shoes, gleaming in
a time of bare feet.  Take off the jackets if the weather was too hot?
Never!  Sweat it out, baby--and smile while you're doing it!  Later we added
brown suits (w vests) and tan suits that could be mixed with the brown; two
different ties and different shirts to be mixed.  Later we added an open
collar floral patterned shirt, but always under a jacket.  Often people
would send up notes thanking us for looking good when other bands
specialized in freak shows.

    And much as I loathe admitting this, our female vocalists were
important. The original vocalist was Sandy Stone, about whom Mike Vax knows
more than anyone else, a former Miss Iowa who sang mostly folk music and
played folk-piano; she was for the contemporary stuff, of which, as Barbone
keeps yelling at us to do, we did a lot.  I bought an alto flute to use
behind her and found I enjoyed some of those contemporary things very
much--just a total shift about from OKOM and quite startling for the
audience, who enjoyed it.  The main male vocalist, Nick Opperman, doubled
banjo and guitar and also sang popular folk things--"He Ain't Heavy, He's My
Brother"--and would double with Sandy as a duet on "Leavin' On a Jet Plane"
or solo on "Country Roads."  Later I began singing several OKOM songs--if
possible with a "bit" like dedicating "Hard Hearted Hannah" to the NOW
organization and hoping they have a sense of humor (sotto voce: "of which
they have given little evidence thus far...").  When Nick left, I inherited
"Big Bad Leroy Brown' and loved doing it.  Point is: Barbone is dead right
about mixing it up.  Laurie Seaman (later Laurie Beebe) replaced Sandy and
added many things like "Send in the Clowns."  I really enjoyed these.

    The band changed a bit over the years, beginning with a good tuba player
who doubled fender bass barely; and with the banjo we had a trad sound and
feel.  Over the years, dropping the banjo and the tuba, adding piano, we
veered strongly toward Armstrong's style of four on the floor Chicago jazz.
I believe that nothing outswings a great two-beat rhythm section, but the
emphais here is on the GREAT, for instance, the tuba side of Hackett's
"Coast Concert."  With less than very good players, trad just doesn't swing
(it doesn't have to, after all, to be enjoyable!)  We wanted to swing when
we could, and found we sounded best with Bobby Hirsch on piano, drums and an
upright bass.  Unfortunately Hirsch was with us only on the final album,
"That's A-Plenty."  It's our last and our best.

    We all contributed our bit, but the Celebration Road Show was
essentially Gary Miller's baby, his creation; and he deserves all the credit
for such success as we had.  He insisted on the sparkling uniforms.  He
insisted on having a girl vocalist and went through the usual hell trying to
keep one happy.  He insisted on the contemporary tunes, the "Rock Around the
Clock" Bill Haley bit.  He created Dr. Billy Sol Hargis and the infamous
Radio Ministry of the Air.  We played mostly OKOM, but whenever a new tune
showed up that could possibly be used in a church oriented program--like
"Stop and Smell the Roses"--he was immediately on top of it.  He was always
thinking about the show, how to improve it, and he had something very few
musicians have--almost boundless energy and absolute persistence from his
football days.  He ran the band a bit like a football team, and while we
complained at the time, I think he was right.  We worked.

    We were all on a regular weekly salery, no matter how much or how little
we played, and to meet the payroll we played a schedule that often
approached insanity: once we played a morning show in Chadron, Nebraska, got
into cars and van, drove to Ithaca, New York, set up and played another show
before sleeping.  We played one night on Islamarada in the Florida Keys,
then the next night in Tacoma, Washington; next night a train ride across
the Cascades to play the World's Fair in Seattle.  This lasted five years
until Miller's wife told him no more highway, now her way.  She was right.

    But if there ever was a guy who earned the right to sing "My Way," it
was Gary Miller.  It embarrased him to sing it, but it shouldn't have.

charliehooks@earthlink.net