[Dixielandjazz] A piano story

[Steve Barbone]

This is a true story.  Tells a bit of a jazz musician's life that the
audience doesn't often think about.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

Back in my road days in the 60s, I was playing drums with the Si  Zentner
band. It was the common practice of that waning big band  period to fill in
the week nights any way one could to hopefully cover  the payroll. Hence,
during the week, we played some really weird  joints (as did all the other
remaining bands). One such weeknight gig  was at a real rathole of a bar in
rural S. Virginia made out of a surplus Quonset hut (!) ... So, we roll up
in our "iron lung" (bus) in  a snowstorm about 4:00 PM to set up.

We get inside and discover a long bar on the right... and a long  narrow
bandstand on the left (like the old Metropole in NY) with a  dull green
upright piano dead center, with a narrow dance floor and  tables strung out
down the middle. The good ol' boy who owned the  joint was telling Si how
"we git all Y'alls big bands here at least  twice a month... Woody Herman,
Russ Morgan, Willie Nelson... hey!...  ol' Woody was here just a week back!"

You get the picture (I won't even mention the acoustics of the huge metal
Quonset hut...)

So, we commence to setting up all strung up in a row, and our piano  player
goes up and sits down and proceeds to run a few arpeggios up  the keys. (He
used to carry a tuning hammer to tweak  less than awful  pianos when he had
time.) The lower and upper registers are as far out  of tune as you've ever
heard... but:

The middle two octaves... nothing... nada... zilch... dead parrot.

So, he pries the thing open. Inside, he  finds all the strings and  hammers
chopped out... and the ax that was used buried right over middle C with a
note attached... which read as follows:

"As a service to all the unfortunate guys that will occupy this bench  on
future gigs,  I have performed the following service to the touring musical
brotherhood.

"NO f***in body will EVER have to deal with this motherf***in' piece  of
s*** ever again"

signed:

Nat Pierce
Woody Herman Orchestra