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<p><span style="font-size:10.0pt;">I have a piece entitled 'You
Can't Get There From Here' in the current issue of 'The Note'.
Here are some stories from it that I hope you might find
diverting.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:10.0pt;">Steve Voce<br>
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:10.0pt;">When the exquisite coda to the
ballad ended, the tsunami of applause raged around the theatre
as the tenor player bent to speak to his pianist.</span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;"><span> </span><i>‘Now </i>who’s
your favourite tenor player?’ Stan Getz demanded.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;"><span> </span>‘Al Cohn,’ said Lou
Levy. ‘Isn’t he yours?’</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;"><span> </span><span> </span>Zoot Sims
famously described Stan Getz as being an interesting bunch of
guys. I was lucky to meet the affable one of the pack that day
in Nice during the 1980s.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;"><span> </span>With an interview in
mind I’d arranged during the evening before<span> </span>to
meet Stan at eleven the following morning outside his hotel.
Naturally it was one of the best hotels in town.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;"><span> </span>As I stood there
weighed down by a BBC portable tape recorder I thought it quite
likely that he wouldn’t turn up. But he did, five minutes late,
with his very attractive partner and a male friend who he
introduced as an acupuncturist ‘who does wonders for my back
pains.’</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;"><span> </span>Stan led the way to
the hotel’s private beach and paid for me, as a non-resident, to
enter. He chose a good spot, pointed to the towels and we all
lay down to sunbathe. After about 20 minutes Stan began to talk
about music and I started up the Uher.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;"><span> </span>He talked first about
his early days and of the band he and Shorty Rogers had when
they were eleven and how he left school when he was 16 to join
the Jack Teagarden band.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;"><span> </span>‘Teagarden was a
wonderful man,’ he said. ‘The war was on and sidemen were hard
to get. But my mother and father were anxious about me going, so
Jack had to become my guardian to convince them that I’d be OK.’</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;"><span> </span>Stan quoted some of
the things that Jack had said to him and suddednly I jumped. The
voice he used was Teagarden’s and I thought for a moment that
the Texan was lying on the beach with us.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;"><span> </span>It turned out that
Stan, who I knew had a perfect musical memory (he never forgot a
tune once he’d played it) was also a brilliant mimic.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;"><span> </span>The morning drifted on
and the reels turned. I was ecstatic. I left them to it at
lunchtime.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;"><span> </span>I took the recorder
back to my modest hotel and set up the tape. It was then I
discovered that the battery had failed making the tape record
slow and the playback like a bunch of white mice on a hot plate.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;"><span> </span>The back pains turned
out to be the lung cancer that eventually killed him.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;">Another tenor player, Bud Freeman, was
cited by Lester Young as one of his main influences. Bud liked
to think of himself as a cultured man and a connoisseur of many
arts besides his music making.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;"><span> </span>Very much an
anglophile, he had always affected an English accent, and was
delighted when it became time for his first visit to England in
1960. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;"><span> </span>When he stepped off
the plane he was met by a Rolls Royce sent for him by the Hon
Gerald Lascelles, a cousin of the Queen’s.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;"><span> </span>Bud was swept through
the beautiful English countryside to Fort Belvedere, ancestral
home of the Lascelles family and other royals. The Rolls passed
smoothly along the long winding drive with its beautiful poplar
trees and up to the magnificent portal of the house, where, as a
liveried footman held the car door open for him and others
scurried with his luggage, he stepped out onto a red carpet. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;"><span> </span>Bud stood and surveyed
the scene with satisfaction.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;"><span> </span>‘Aaah,’ he sighed. ‘I
always new England would be exactly like this.’</span></p>
<br>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;"><span> </span><span> </span>A
Canadian priest, Gerald Pocock, went to hear his friend Duke
Ellington at New York’s Rainbow Grill in the early ‘70s.</span><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;">. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span><span> </span>'I
sat at the bar to wait for Duke and the small band to arrive. <span> </span>Sonny
Greer’ (a childhood friend of Duke’s who had left the band in
1951) ‘joined me at the bar and we chatted. <span> </span>Ellington
eventually arrived and approached me saying things like "Father
Pocock! How wonderful to see you! You look wonderful! How have
you been? <span> </span>We must <span> </span>get together!" <span> </span>and
<span> </span>so forth. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span><span> </span>Ellington
didn't say a word to his old friend Sonny Greer who was sitting
next to me. Ellington eventually excused himself, saying that
the band needed to start its set.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span><span> </span>Sonny
Greer was understandably miffed; how could his old friend ignore
him like that? Ellington and the band started to play, and at
some point in the set Ellington made an announcement.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span>"Ladies and
gentlemen, we recently travelled to Ethiopia, where we were
presented to their king, the man who has more titles than the
Pope, <span style="background:white;">His Imperial Majesty </span>Haile
Selassie,<span> </span>Menelik, the Lion of Judah. <span
style="background:white;">We were ushered into his his large
royal chamber. We were on one side of the room and Selassie
was at the other side on his throne, with an assistant
standing at either side. Selassie turned and whispered
something to one of his assistants. It was very suspenseful.
The assistant walked all the way across the room, bowed and
said to us: 'The emperor would like to know . . . . . . what
the hell is Sonny Greer up to these days?'"</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span
style="background:white;"><span> </span>Sonny Greer broke up
laughing,'</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0cm;"><span
style="font-size:10.0pt;"> </span></p>
<p><br>
</p>
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