[Dixielandjazz] Bill Crow column for February-- jazz anecdotes

[Norman Vickers]

To: DJML
From:  Norman Vickers, Jazz Society of Pensacola

Bob Ringwald wrote:
Great stories.

You should post them on DJML.

I remember that when John Lennon was killed, Jake Hanna said "One down, 
three to go"

Norman Vickers wrote to his musicians list:

Most  of you know that  longtime jazz bassist Bill Crow writes a musical
humor column for the NY Musicians Union #802.  He also has two books in
print-Jazz Anecdotes and From Birdland to Broadway.



We have a friend, member of 802 who kindly shared this with me.  His/her
name shall be anonymous should there be copyright issues here ( smile, I
think)  New Jersey Jazz Society occasionally prints some excerpts, stated
"printed with permission", but this is the WHOLE THING!



Enjoy!  ( Thanks to  anonymous friend)
______________________________________________

Now that you've gotten through the preliminaries-- here's Bill Crow's column
for February..;..

Len Dobbin, up in Montreal, told me about one of the last record dates
Pepper Adams did before he passed away. The date was with the Denny
Christianson big band, at Montreal's old Victor studios. Pepper, already
suffering from terminal cancer, laboriously climbed the three flights to the
studio and looked into the studio control room. Pointing to the huge control
board with all its lights, dials and knobs, Pepper said, "Len, you gotta see
the train set that goes with that!"

Bobby Knight was on the date that recorded the theme for the Batman TV show,
one of Neal Hefti's biggest moneymakers. At the top of each part was
written: "Word and music by Neal Hefti."

Bill Wurtzel was playing solo guitar at a local restaurant, and in the
middle of a classical piece he was reading, a man and woman got up to leave.
They came over to Bill while he was still performing and began to tell him
how much they liked his playing, and that they had come especially to hear
him. As the final indignity, the man reached out, as Bill continued to play,
and tried to shake his hand.



When Turk Mauro was on the Buddy Rich band in 1976, they were doing about
nine weeks of one-nighters. During an intermission, some members of the
audience came over to chat. One of them asked, "Where did you play last
night?" No one in the band could remember. Then they were asked, "Where will
you be playing tomorrow?" A chorus arose from the band members, "We don't
even know where we are now!"

Bill Turner has a friend, Monica, with blond hair and a cherubic face, who
is an accomplished harpist. She plays for weddings, receptions, parties,
etc. On her way to an engagement at a hotel, she carried her large, golden
harp into the elevator. A distinguished looking man with grey hair stepped
into the car with her. As the doors closed, he eyed her thoughtfully and
asked, "Just how far up are you going?"

During an intermission at a performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra,
Clarinetist Ron Rubin said to the chief stage hand, "You've been here a long
time... do you have any favorite composers?" The chief said he liked Mozart
and Haydn best. When Ron asked the reason, the chief said, "We don't have to
move the tymps."

When Rubin was sixteen, he won a contest that was looking for "the schoolboy
king of the clarinet." Benny Goodman was the judge, and when Ron was
declared the winner, a photo was taken of him with Goodman, which Ron
carried in his wallet. Years later, Ron was at Disneyland and saw that
Goodman was there. He waited for an opportunity to speak to him, but when he
approached Goodman as he walked by, Goodman just walked faster. Ron trotted
beside Goodman, pulled out his treasured photo and held it in front of him.
"Mr. Goodman," he said, "remember this?" Goodman muttered, "Get the f___ out
of here!" and hurried away.

Randy Sandke tells me that when Jake Hanna walked into a recording studio
and saw that the sound engineer had gone crazy with microphones pointed at
every drum and cymbal, he growled, "They've got more mikes than an Irish
bar!"

Steve Cohen got this message from Marilyn Harris: I had just finished
officiating a wedding ceremony. After congratulating the couple, I went into
the dining room to return the D.J.'s microphone which I had borrowed for the
ceremony. I was impressed with the D.J. He was probably half my age, and
handled himself and his equipment in a very professional manner. As I was
standing there, the bride's father walked over and asked, "Do you have any
Cole Porter?" The young man politely replied, "I'm the D.J., sir. The bar is
over there."

Joel Shelton lives in a building that is part apartments and part tourist
hotel. One evening he got on the elevator dressed in black, head freshly
shaved, with his trombone in its gig bag, slung over his shoulder. Riding
down to the lobby with him were a middle aged couple who kept staring at the
back of his neck. Joel thought they were looking at his case, and said,
"It's a trombone." The woman pointed and said, in a German accent, "You haff
shaving cream on your neck." Joel discovered that the errant foam had been
spread by his trombone case to his jaw, collar and gig bag. As he mopped it
up, the frau's parting words were, "You need a vife!"

Dan Levinson told Herb Gardner about a newspaper review he saw with this
rather ambiguous headline: IT JUST DOESN'T GET ANY BETTER!
						--End--