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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>An unforgettable word portrait of that tragedy.
Friends of mine that have left us in such a way were all of superior wit and
intelligence but thankfully none have taken anyone with them.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=JimDBB@aol.com href="mailto:JimDBB@aol.com">JimDBB@aol.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=dixielandjazz@ml.islandnet.com
href="mailto:dixielandjazz@ml.islandnet.com">dixielandjazz@ml.islandnet.com</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Saturday, January 18, 2003 11:11
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [Dixielandjazz] What happened on
November 26, 1978?</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><FONT face=arial,helvetica><FONT size=2><BR>Thought y'all might
find this interesting (and a little disturbing, and<BR>touching).<BR>Wayne
Wright sent it to me; he did not write this.<BR><BR>-Jon Kellso<BR><BR>Thought
you might find this article interesting. Although I met him when I<BR>was a
kid in Detroit, I got to know and hang with Frank Rosolino some
when<BR>he came to NYC for a gig. --Wayne<BR><BR>Original Message is
from Freudfrend@aol.com. I do not however, know who<BR>this person is.
<BR><BR><B>What happened in November 26, 1978?</B><BR><BR>THERE ARE THOSE, the
fine saxophonist Don Menza among them, who long<BR>afterwards found it all but
impossible to talk about what happened in those<BR>early hours of November 26,
1978. By one of those bits of mental<BR>prestidigitation with which we
protects our sanity, we all succeeded in not<BR>even thinking about it. We
pushed the event into some closet in a back room<BR>of the mind, and then we
all shut the door. I cannot to this day explain,<BR>and neither can the
homicide detectives, why it happened. I'll tell you, as<BR>I told them, what I
know. Frank Rosolino was among the best-loved men in<BR>jazz. One of the
finest trombone players in the history of the instrument,<BR>he had a superb
tone, astonishing facility, a deep Italianate lyricism, and<BR>rich invention.
Frank was, very simply, a sensational player. In addition<BR>he had a
wonderful spirit that always communicated itself to his associates on<BR>the
bandstand or the record date. He was one of the funniest of men, with a<BR>wit
that literally would not quit. He bubbled. Quincy Jones remembered<BR>touring
Japan with a group that included Frank and drummer Grady Tate.<BR>"With those
two," Quincy said, "you can imagine what it was like. The band was<BR>always
in an uproar."<BR><BR>Frank was one of a number--Donald Byrd was another--of
fine jazz musicians<BR>to come out of Cass Tech in Detroit, a superior high
school which drew its<BR>students from all over the city. Only the exceptional
could even get into<BR>it. Frank always had the air of a mischievous kid
looking for some hell to<BR>raise or trouble to get into, and this trait had
emerged by the time he<BR>went to Cass Tech. Giggling in that way of his, he
would in later years recall<BR>swiping cars for joyrides. It was always a
serious mistake to get into a<BR>poker game with Frank. He was one of those
men who, but for a soaring and<BR>compelling musical talent, might well have
ended up in jail. Like everyone<BR>who knew him, I remember vividly the last
times I saw Frank. We were at<BR>Dick Gibson's party in Colorado, one of those
events that sprung up in recent<BR>years in which aging rich jazz fans invite
brilliant musicians to come and<BR>play for them. At one point he played with
Carl Fontana and Bill Watrous,<BR>and the three-trombone music was gorgeous.
In another unforgettable set,<BR>Clark Terry and Frank did several
scat-singing duets. They kept making each<BR>other laugh, and afterwards I
urged them to record together, not playing so<BR>much as scatting. Frank was
one of the few people who could scat on the<BR>same bandstand with Clark
Terry. The main events of the long weekend were held<BR>in the Broadmoor Hotel
in Colorado Springs, noted for exciting scenery, dull<BR>food, and sullen
service. <BR><BR>After the last performance at the Broadmoor, we all traveled
by bus back to <BR>Dick Gibson's house in Denver, Frank and the girl he was
living with, Diane,<BR>were in the seat behind my wife and me. We did not know
it at the time, <BR>but Frank's third wife, the mother of his two<BR>sons, had
gone into their garage, shut the door, turned on the car's<BR>engine, and sat
there in the fumes until she died. I do not know her motive. Frank,<BR>in the
seat behind us, was talking about following her, killing himself and<BR>taking
the two boys with him, since he could not bear the thought of<BR>leaving them
behind in this world. Were we hearing him correctly? Diane said,<BR>"Don't
talk that way, Frank. Let's pray together." <BR><BR>That evening in Denver
there was a final informal party at Gibson's house. <BR>Frank seemed cheerful,
making mywife and I doubt the accuracy of our hearing in the noise of the bus.
She and I leave early to get back to Los Angeles. So did Frank, who had a gig
the next morning. We took a cab to the airport together. Frank was as funny as
always. The conversation overheard on the bus seemed like the
morning<BR>memory of a nightmare. We were told at the airport that the flight
would be<BR>boarding late. My wife and Frank and I wandered around with little
to do.<BR>Frank shattered the impersonal tedium that hangs in the atmosphere
of all<BR>airports: he had us laughing so hard that a salesgirl in the
bookshop,<BR>watching us with suspicion, pointed us out to a security guard,
who kept an<BR>eye on us. <BR><BR>Part of it was Frank's delivery. It has been
said that a comic says funny<BR>things and a comedian says things funny. Frank
was both. He had a lazy<BR>low-key way of talking, the epitome of cool, that
was either the archetype<BR>or the mockery of the classic bebop musician. You
never knew who Frank was<BR>putting on, the world or himself. Or both. And he
had a loose-jointed<BR>rag-doll ah-the-hell-with-it way of walking. Frank
could even more<BR>humorously. He seemed to relish the idea of the bebopper,
even as he made<BR>fun of it. Having exhausted the airport's opportunities for
amusement, we<BR>went into its coffee shop. It had a U-shaped counter and a
terrazzo floor<BR>that someone had just mopped with a hideous disinfectant.
The air was full<BR>of flies, drifting back and forth in lazy curves. We slid
onto stools. A<BR>waitress about thirty years old approached us. Frank said in
that<BR>nruffled-by-anything drawl of his, "I'll have a bowl of those
flies,<BR>please." With unexpected sang-froid, the waitress tossed the ball
right<BR>back<BR>at him. "We only serve them on Thursdays," she said. "Then
I'll come back<BR>Thursday," Frank said, and we all laughed, including the
waitress. Finally,<BR>late, we were told that we could board the plane, a TWA
flight on stopover<BR>between Chicago and Los Angeles. On the plane, returning
from an engagement<BR>was, to our delighted surprise, Sarah Vaughan. Red
Callender, the bassist,<BR>and his wife were also with us. We all sat together
and talked, waiting for<BR>the take-off. The pilot's disembodied voice told us
that there was fog in<BR>Los Angeles and the flight would be further delayed.
Frank got funnier,<BR>Sass got helpless with laughter. Frank asked a pretty
stewardess if we could<BR>have drinks. She said it was against regulations for
her to serve them before<BR>takeoff. But Frank soon had her laughing too, and
she left to get us the<BR>drinks. Frank said, "I have to be careful. I
wouldn't want her to lose her<BR>gig over it, 'cause then I might have to
marry her." At last the plane took<BR>off. Sass wanted to sleep but Frank kept
up his jokes, and she said,<BR>"Frank, stop it!" Finally, shaking her head,
she moved further back in the plane to<BR>escape him. At last weariness
overcame him, and Frank too fell asleep,<BR>sprawled across two or three seats
of the nearly empty aircraft. I awoke in<BR>daylight to the sound of the
pilot's voice telling us to fasten seat belts<BR>for the descent into Los
Angeles. I peered around the back of the seat<BR>ahead of me and saw that
Frank was still asleep. By this time in his life, his<BR>thick dark curly hair
had become almost white and he had a full iron-gray<BR>mustache. And yet,
asleep, he looked like that boy at Cass Tech, trying to<BR>find a little
action. I shook his shoulder and said, "Frank, Wake up, we're<BR>home."
<BR><BR>I turned on the television that morning to watch the news, then
drifted<BR>back into that soft state between sleeping and waking. Then there
was a voice<BR>saying, "The internationally celebrated jazz trombonist Frank
Rosolino took<BR>his own life last night." Police in the Van Nuys division say
that Frank<BR>Rosolino shot his two small sons and then turned the gun on
himself. One of<BR>the children is dead; the other is in critical condition,
undergoing<BR>surgery. Frank Rosolino, who became nationally known with the
bands of Gene<BR>Krupa and Stan Kenton, was... ""No!" I shouted, waking my
wife. She asked<BR>what had happened. I told her. She burst into tears. We
remembered his<BR>words on the bus. I got up and, after staring at the floor
for a while,<BR>telephoned the Van Nuys police and asked first for homicide,
then for whoever was<BR>handling the Frank Rosolino "case." After a while a
man took up the<BR>telephone and gave me his name. I gave him mine and asked
if he could tell<BR>me any more than I had heard on the news. "Did you know
him, sir?" he<BR>asked. "Yes, I did." "Then perhaps, you can help us." he
said. "We're just<BR>puzzled." "So am I," I said. "But not totally surprised."
I told him about<BR>the bus trip to Colorado. "Is it possible that drugs were
involved?" the<BR>detective asked carefully. "I don't know," I said. "Although
nowadays, you<BR>always wonder that." I told him what kind of person Frank
was, how loved he<BR>was. But even as I said it I questioned how well any of
us had really known<BR>him. I had realized there was a dark side of Frank but
had never dreamed<BR>that it was this dark. And, as Roger Kellaway said later.
When somebody<BR>cracks four jokes a minute, we all should have known there
was something<BR>wrong." The conversation with the detective at last ended, as
unsatisfying<BR>to him as it was to me. In the course of that day and the next
I learned a<BR>little more. Diane (the girl Frank was living with) had wanted
to go to<BR>Donte's to hear Bill Watrous. Donte's is a nightclub in North
Hollywood, a<BR>hangout for musicians and one of the few places in Los Angeles
where the<BR>best studio players can go to play jazz and remind themselves why
they took<BR>up instruments in the first place. Frank said he wanted to stay
home with<BR>his two boys: Jason, who was then seven, and Justin, nine. I met
those boys<BR>once, at a party at the home of Sergio Mendes. They were full of
laughter<BR>and energy and mischief, like Frank. They were wonderfully
handsome and<BR>happy little fellows, scampering like puppies amid the hors
d'oeuvres and<BR>among the legs of people, having a high old time. Diane went
to Donte's<BR>with a visiting girlfriend. They came home toward four o'clock
in the morning<BR>and were sitting in the car in the driveway when they saw a
flash of light in<BR>the boy's bedroom. Thinking the boys were awake, they got
out and went into<BR>the house. As they entered they heard the last shot, the
one Frank put into<BR>his brain. He was still alive. I do not know and do not
want to know the<BR>further details. In any case, he soon died. Frank had gone
to the bedroom<BR>where Jason and Justin were sleeping and shot each of them
in the head.<BR>Justin was dead. Jason was not. That night and long into the
next day he<BR>underwent surgery--fourteen hours of it. The autopsy deepened
the mystery.<BR>The coroner's report said that there were no significant
amounts of alcohol<BR>or drugs in Frank's system.<BR><BR>A service was
organized or Frank's friends. His two brothers, Russell and<BR>Gasper
Rosolino, had flown out from Detroit to take Frank and Justin back<BR>with
them for burial. I do not remember the name of the funeral home, but I<BR>can
see its polite and muted decor. A lot of us, including Don Menza,<BR>Shelly
Manne, and Conte and Pete Candoli, were standing around in little groups
in<BR>the lobby, watching our friends arrive. It seemed everyone in town
was<BR>there. I don't think any man ever had fewer enemies and more friends
than<BR>Frank Rosolino. J.J. Johnson and Herb Ellis came in together; I can
still<BR>see their bleak faces. Med Flory said, "Well, Frank sure took care
of<BR>Christmas for all of us." Finally, because it seemed the thing to do,
I<BR>wandered into the chapel. The two coffins were in the expected place at
the<BR>front of it. Roger Kellaway and I walked apprehensively toward them.
The<BR>cosmeticians had done well. Beautiful little Justin truly did look as
if<BR>were merely sleeping on the velvet cushion. Frank too looked asleep, as
I<BR>had seen him on the plane over Los Angeles.<BR><BR>Roger Kellaway said
something softly as he looked at Justin. Later he told<BR>me it was a prayer.
Then he looked down at Frank and said, "You asshole,"<BR>expressing the
strange compound of love and grief and anger we were all<BR>feeling toward
Frank. I couldn't face sitting through a service. What was<BR>there to say?
Roger and I headed for a nearby tavern and had a couple so<BR>Scotches. For,
as Roger put it, "I've had friends who killed themselves<BR>before, but I've
never had one who killed his kid." He stared into his<BR>drink. The bar was
lit softly. The upholstery was red. He said, "You can<BR>make that decision
for yourself, but you have no right to make it for<BR>anyone else." After a
time we went back to the chapel. The service, which had been<BR>short, was
over, and our friends were standing quietly in the lobby. Later<BR>there as a
wake at Don Menza's house in North Hollywood. Menza and I talked<BR>for a
while about Verdi. And about Frank. Frank had fought his share of the<BR>jazz
wars. He had been through financial hard times and lived to see<BR>himself and
other musicians of brilliance and in some cases genius struggling to<BR>pay
their telephone bills, while grungy illiterate singers rode around
in<BR>limousines, with expensive whores, and demolished hotel rooms and
recording<BR>studios and told their underlings to put it on the bill. He had
even lived<BR>to see their likes earnestly analyzed as artists in the New York
Times and<BR>the Los Angeles Times and Rolling Stone and Newsweek. But things
had been<BR>improving for him, Menza told me, including Frank's financial
situation.<BR>Frank had wanted to play more jazz, and he was doing it. Don
said that he<BR>and Frank had been scheduled to make an album, and there was
more work of<BR>that kind on Frank's calendar. He and Frank had been very
close. Med Flory<BR>was right. Christmas was dreary that year.<BR><BR>At first
we heard that Jason would be both deaf and blind. For a long time<BR>he was in
coma. We heard that he would come out of it and scream and then<BR>lapse back
into unconsciousness. You found yourself thinking some strange<BR>thoughts.
What would happen to him if he should indeed be both blind and<BR>deaf? What
communication would he have with the world? Would he be a<BR>vegetable? Or,
worse, would he be a sentient conscious being trapped in a<BR>black silence
with memories of sight and sounds and never knowing why and<BR>how they had
suddenly ceased? Had he been the second one shot? Had he seen<BR>his brother
killed?<BR><BR>After a while we heard that Jason could hear. He was living by
now with<BR>relatives of his mother. Gradually I stopped thinking about him.
And about<BR>Frank. Every once in a while, though, something would happen to
remind me.<BR>Roger Kellaway and I were on our way to an appointment in
Tarzana, an area<BR>of Los Angeles at the west end of the San Fernando Valley.
We saw a little<BR>boy, about three, crying in the street. We stopped the car.
The boy was<BR>lost. Roger and I decided that he would go on to our
appointment while I<BR>tried to learn where the boy belonged. I asked passing
people if they knew<BR>the child. Gradually a crowd gathered. A tall handsome
man in his late<BR>fifties introduced himself. He was a cop, a lieutenant. He
lived in a<BR>nearby building. We went up to his apartment, where he gave the
boy something to<BR>eat. The child stopped crying. The man picked up the
phone, dialed, and<BR>identified himself. He was head of the Van Nuys homicide
division. While we<BR>waited for a police car--which in due course did find
the boy's home--I<BR>asked the lieutenant if he had handled the "Rosolino
case." He said that<BR>two of his men had. <BR><BR>I found myself going over
it all again. So did the lieutenant. He told me<BR>that in his line of work
one inevitably becomes inured, but the two<BR>detectives who had gone to Frank
Rosolino's house that night had come back<BR>to the office in tears. "Yeah," I
said. "They were beautiful little boys."<BR>After that I banished Frank from
my thoughts. I never listened to his<BR>records. But Jason Rosolino didn't
cease to be. He was adopted by a cousin<BR>of his mother, Claudia Eien, and
her husband, Gary. Caring for him<BR>exhausted the family's resources,
emotional, physical, and financial. Jason was sent<BR>to Braille school, but
he was suffering from psychological problems.<BR>Surprised? "But he's
beautiful," Don Menza's wife, Rose, said. "He's smart<BR>as a whip. He has all
Frank's fire and energy." He was also, she said, very<BR>musical. He had tried
trumpet and trombone and piano, but he had no<BR>patience. <BR><BR>Five year
passed. The strain on Claudia and Gary of caring for him had<BR>proved
enormous. Don and Rose Menza and other musicians and their wives<BR>planned a
concert to help Jason and some other people in need. It ran from<BR>5:00 p.m.
to midnight on the evening of October 30, 1983, at the Hollywood<BR>Palladium,
a grand old ballroom from the 1930s filled with the ghosts of<BR>vanished
bands. It seemed everyone was there: the big bands of Bill Berry<BR>and Don
Menza, Supersax, Steve Allen, Jack Lemmon, Shelly Manne, Ernie<BR>Andrews, the
Tonight Show band... And Jason. He was there with his adoptive<BR>parents and
a young psychologist who had been working with him. At first I<BR>stayed away
from them. A lot of people did. Finally my wife said, "We can't<BR>all ignore
him." I thought, what is it? Am I afraid of a twelve-year-old<BR>boy? Or am I
afraid of seeming to manifest a morbid curiosity? Or are you,<BR>I<BR>said to
myself, afraid that you can't handle what he has been through? "Go<BR>and talk
to him," my wife said. "You go and talk to him!" I answered. But<BR>in the end
I did it. Very timidly, I introduced myself to the Eien family, and<BR>soon
found myself caught up in conversation. My wife then joined us. "I<BR>used to
know you a long time ago, Jason," I said. "Before I was seven?" "Yes,"
I<BR>said. "Before you were seven." He was a handsome boy, tall, dark,
and<BR>strongly muscled. There was a scar on his temple but it was not all
that<BR>conspicuous. The eyes were in deep shadows, unseeing. The bullet
destroyed<BR>the optic nerve but it did not touch the centers of intelligence.
The<BR>psychologist told me Jason had a genius I.Q. And you could see, as
you<BR>watched him listen to the music, that he had elephant ears. An
uncanny<BR>thing happened then--two uncanny things. He touched my wife's hair.
Not her face,<BR>just her hair. He said, "I know what you look like." "And
what do I look<BR>like?" He gave a wolf whistle, then said, "You have blonde
hair and a full<BR>mouth." All of it accurate. I was not too severely unnerved
by that. Dave<BR>MacKay, the pianist, is also blind. I have known Dave, at a
social affair,<BR>to describe the color of a sweater worn by someone just
entering the room.<BR>And Dave has a remarkable ability to fathom character
merely from the sound<BR>of a voice. "How do you know that?" I asked Jason.
"From her voice," Jason<BR>said. But the next one was even stranger. My wife
mentioned a friend in<BR>Santa Barbara who grew flowers. Jason said he knew
what the man looked<BR>like. He said the man was tall and fair-headed. This
was accurate. But how many<BR>tall sandy-haired Japanese have you met? Don
Menza's band was performing.<BR>"Who's playing the trumpet solo?" Jason asked
me. "Chuck Findley," I said,<BR>and then thought, why misinform him?
"Actually, it is not a trumpet, it is<BR>a flugelhorn." "What's the
difference?" "It's a somewhat bigger instrument,<BR>it plays in a slightly
lower register, and it has a darker sound." "What do<BR>you mean by darker?"
That stopped me. One of those moments when you realize<BR>that music cannot be
described. And in the attempt we usually resort to visual<BR>analogies, which
did not seem appropriate in the present instance. "It's<BR>fatter, it's
thicker somehow," I said. Then Bill Berry played a solo.<BR>"That's a trumpet
in a Harmon mute," I told Jason, and explained the use of<BR>mutes. "It sounds
a little like a saxophone," Jason said. And not many<BR>orchestrators have
noticed that resemblance. Shelly Manne was playing with<BR>Don Menza's band.
Two weeks earlier Shelly had been hurt in an encounter<BR>with a horse on his
ranch and one leg was immobilized by a cast. This meant<BR>he was working
without a high hat. I explained this to Jason. "What's a<BR>high hat?" he
said. Give me your hands," I said, and put them palm to palm<BR>horizontally.
I slapped them together on the second and fourth beats of the<BR>music. "Two
cymbals facing each other, like that. You work them with a foot<BR>pedal."
"Oh, yes, I know," Jason said. "I used to play drums." We listened<BR>to the
music for a time. "I think a lot of people are trying to help you,<BR>Jason,"
I said "A lot of people in this room love you." "Why?" "Just<BR>because. Take
my word for it," I said. "Do you know who really loves me?"<BR>"Who?" "God
loves me," he said. <BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR></FONT>
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<P></P>_______________________________________________<BR>Dixielandjazz
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