[Dixielandjazz] Storyville musical

[Charlie Hooks]

on 6/4/02 10:58 PM, Dan Augustine at ds.augustine@mail.utexas.edu wrote:

> Instead i think i'll build myself a time
> machine and go back to the late 1940's and the 1950's and experience
> Turk, the Assuntos, the De Paris brothers, and all the great bands i
> missed the first time around (wasn't payin' attention....).


    I gotta admit, man: it was one helluva beautiful time!
    
    In 1944 I was sixteen, a junior in High School, dreading the Draft,
losing my virginity to various ladies, playing with a garage band all the
popular tunes of the day--Miller's "In the Mood," "Chatinooga Choo Choo;"
Artie Shaws's "Stardust," and "Moonglow." and learning from a OKOM band of
guys too old for the draft tunes too old for the kids of the times.  Like:

    '"I Cover The Waterfront."  "You're next, Charlie."'

    "Uh, man, I don't know that."

`   "You wanna git paid, kid?"

    "Un huh."

    "So play da nex fuggin chorus, o.k.?"

    Well, o.k., I played.  Not well, not "good," as demanded, but well
enough to keep the gig.  You learn fast there; or you die.

    But believe me, some of those "old" guys, who now would be in their
nineties or hundreds, and whom neither you nor anyone else ever heard of,
could play their (then young) asses off and scare you to fuggin DEATH! You
put them down at your peril!   OOhh!

    Sorry.  Gone way overboard.  Shutting down now.  But, man, some of those
old guys could play!  No recordings.  No nothing.  Just play.

I should be so good,
Charlie