[Dixielandjazz] Red Rodney

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

I probably didn't include reference to Red'a amusement at having been trained in 
jail for what turned out to be a career in crime. Of course by more recent 
banking standards he simply didn't embezzle enough to have the facility 
extended. 

There was an extended interview with Red in Jazz Monthly long ago, part of a 
series with disappeared musicians of the 1940s, which is how I know about the 
financial career. 

I suspect I heard Red at his latterday very best, his appearance was connected 
with an invitation to the film festival premiere of Bird and he said he'd been 
hoping for the best when he arrived to play with local rhythm -- and he really 
did mean it when he said he hadn't expected he'd find support so much better 
than he'd dared hope for -- mostly Alex Shaw on piano. He looked a happy man, 
and was himself more than I'd dared hope for.




________________________________
From: Harry Callaghan <meetmrcallaghan at gmail.com>
To: ROBERT R. CALDER <serapion at btinternet.com>
Sent: Tuesday, 15 February, 2011 6:33:47
Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Red Rodney


Robert:

What I reported on Rodney's drug addiction was but a brief condensation of the 
information as reported on the Wikipedia website..

Glad to hear that you agree with me as to his musicianship.

Tides
HC


On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 8:26 PM, ROBERT R. CALDER <serapion at btinternet.com> 
wrote:

Red Rodney struck me on brief acquaintance as a very nice guy and a magnificent
>musician. When he worked with Peter King their horns were so much in tune with
>each other it was a wonderful sound which didn't seem like normal unison but a
>unity in which it was hard to know what was coming from where.
>
>
>The story about drug problems requires correction. When he was younger and
>locked away for reasons connected with drugs, he studied accounting. When he 
was
>free again and could not get musical works he decided to apply the training he
>had received behind bars and took up the sort of creative accounting which put
>him back behind bars. He said that when he was arrested he thought that at 
least
>he might have the chance to get his chops back, but some cop kicked his teeth
>in.
>
>The drugs were I believe a thing of the past by then, and he only re-emerged
>after a spell of sitting in using false teeth after release from jail, when he
>became the main attraction. I first heard him shortly after hearing Dizzy
>Gillespie, John Faddis and some other trumpeters of considerable capacity, and 
I
>was still mightily impressed. He was always spoken of as a kind of culmination
>of 1930s swing trumpet playing who played the later stuff with all the beauty
>and lyricism of pre-bop, and that's right. I have a broadcast tape of a gig of
>his I had attended and he engaged in some singing related to his involvement
>with the C. Parker bio-pic, and a ballad expressing his regret that Buddy Tate
>was missing the festival due to open heart surgery, which would make a few
>listmates happy, as indeed would his early solos as a swing prodigy.
>
>
>
>
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Didja evah wonder why there are more horses' asses than there are horses?     
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