[Dixielandjazz] Trombone Focal Dystonia

[Dave Gravatt]

-------Original Message-------
> From: Charlie Hooks <charliehooks2 at earthlink.net>
> Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Trombone Focal Dystonia
> Sent: Aug 08 '05 10:29
>  
>  On Sunday, August 7, 2005, at 07:34 PM, Steve barbone wrote:
>  
>  >  He was not familiar with the term focal dystonia and can play all
>  > day long with a high energy sound.
>  
>  Most players are not familiar with it--until suddenly they get it, or
>  some friend gets it and is instantly a former musician.   Having iron
>  chops is apparently no protection: the freezing up can happen in mid
>  chorus; and once it does, you are usually toast.  Close friend of
>  mine from Mississippi, on verge of making it in New York, got hit
>  with focal dystonia [while Stan Getz was playing in his (Clyde's)
>  non-air-conditioned hotel room, stripped to the skin for sweating
>  purposes only] and never played another headline gig.  He ended in
>  the Ph.D. program at Michigan where I met him, and later became
>  Academic Dean of the University of Alabama.  Could play roughly 4 to
>  8 bars of the damndest trombone you ever heard before blowing air
>  only.
>  My friend, Dan Havens, one of the truly fine trumpet players of OKOM,
>  also became an academic, Professor of English at Southern Illinois
>  University, now retired and able to play all he wants--except that he
>  got hit with focal dystonia about the same time.
>  "Poo-tee-weet..." as Kurt Vonnegut wrote.
>  
>  The first oboist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra had to retire in
>  his forties after developing focal dystonia in his left little
>  finger.  It ain't no fun and there ain't no cure, and you'll shout
>  when it hits you, yes, indeed...!
>  
>  Charlie Hooks
-------Original Message-------

It is truly a mysterious condition. Mine happened gradually, over eight months. I saw five doctors before finally seeing a specialist in Chicago who deals with only musicians' medical concerns. She had me bring my horn to the appointment and when I started to play she recognized it instantly as embouchure focal dystonia. Her description is one of the best I've heard: "It's like a curse; in that it affects only the single thing you need to earn a living."

Dan Havens and I played together for a few years in the early '80s in Eric Sager's City Lights Jazz Band in St. Louis. Dan got hit with it a few years after I did and we compared notes for quite a while. The symptoms are always the same and there is still no cure.

Interestly, the doctor in Chicago called me about five years after I first saw her. She was touching base with all the brass players she had seen to see what was happening in our lives. During the conversation I asked about progress in research. She said there was good news, that certain brain imaging was showing visible differences (of some kind) in the brains of those who have it and those who don't. She said a cure will be found. <pause> But not in our lifetime.

I had been playing for a living earning $900 a week in Branson, Missouri (which, for those of you on the coasts, is extremely good in the midwest) when I contracted this condition. You lose something more important than the income, though, when you can't play anymore.

Dave

=============
Dave Gravatt
"It's a treat to beat your feet."
The Creole Dixieland Jazz Band
Springfield, Missouri
417-877-8811 (home)
417-894-8557 (cell)
http://www.CreoleJazz.com