| SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON FACEBOOK |

When Eli Dimeff was playing a one-nighter with the Buddy Morrow band, a woman asked Buddy to play “In the Mood.”  Buddy politely explained that she had the wrong band, and that he didn’t play that tune.  The lady persisted in her request a number of times.  Finally, Buddy angrily grabbed his trombone and played the melody to “In the Mood” in a loud, vulgar, staccato manner.  The drummer joined in with a heavy backbeat, and the band responded with campy riffs.  Suddenly the dance floor, which had been sparsely occupied during the band’s previous numbers, was jammed with patrons happily doing the twist.  The band members were laughing so hard they could barely play.

***

Steve Brauner gave me a story his father Buzz once told him: On a big band gig, when the drummer set up his kit, he started to install a stage screw anchor to keep his kick drum from sliding. The stage custodian told him he couldn’t screw into a freshly varnished stage. So the drummer tied a cord from his kick drum to his throne. He then tied another cord from the throne to some heater pipes at the back of the stage. No one had told him that the stage was motorized. As the stage moved the horn section slowly forward towards the audience, the anchored drummer was pulled off the back of the stage amid sounds of crashing drums and cymbals and cursing.

***

Peter Landsdowne told me that in the late late 1950s and early 1960s, Maynard Ferguson’s band played at Birdland for at least 16 weeks a year. Alto saxophonist Jimmy Ford would pay Pee Wee Marquette, the master of ceremonies, to announce: “The Maynard Ferguson orchestra . . . featuring Jimmy Ford!” as Ford would stroll out from the men’s room as the last musician to take the stand.

***

Bill Wurtzel once played an orthodox Jewish gig where the host complained that their music was making some men and women dance together.  In the orthodox community, such dancing was forbidden.  Bill decided that, for that audience, it DOES mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.

***

On a gig where the leader was an amateur bass player, guitarist Joe Puma expressed his unhappiness with the bass lines.  The leader told Joe that he didn’t need the money, but was playing because his doctor had told him that music was good therapy for him.  Joe responded, “Your therapy is making the rest of us sick!” On another occasion, Joe was playing in a nightclub jam session when a guitarist in the audience went up and asked him, “Can I play?”  Joe answered, “Do you want my permission, or my opinion?”

***

Johnny Morris was the house pianist at Jimmy Ryan’s on West 54^th Street for seven years, playing with Roy Eldridge’s group.  One evening several of Roy’s friends came in to hear him.  They moved several small cocktail tables beside the bandstand so they could all sit together.  This annoyed one of the waiters. They had taken all the tables from his section.  He complained to Johnny, while Johnny was busy playing, saying he was going to tell them all off.  Johnny pleaded with him not to do so. “I’ll explain as soon as we finish playing this number.” The waiter was about to insult Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Tommy Flanagan, Bobby Durham, Keeter Betts, Connie Kay, Benny Carter and John Hammond.

***

David Hoffman told this story on Facebook:

On Ray Charles’s band, we were getting ready to play a gig, and one of the trumpet players was not there yet. Of course, the missing trumpet player had a solo on one tune. So I played his solo. Since we played together every night, I knew his playing quite well, and did a very credible job of sounding like him, at least in my opinion. At the end of the concert, as Ray left the stage, he walked by me and said, “Hoffy, I know that was you.”

***

Another Facebook post, from Keith O’Quinn: “I was touring with Chuck Mangione in the seventies. We had a big concert in Nashville.  French Horn player John Clark and I grabbed a taxi outside the hotel and told the driver we were going to the Opry House.  He was a real friendly southerner, and had his two little kids with him in the front seat.  He asked, ‘Who do y’all play with?’ I said, ‘We’re playing with Chuck Mangione.’  He got excited and said to his kids, ‘Did ya hear that, kids?  They’re playing with Chuckwagon Jones!'”

***

Dick Lieb passed along a story from Vinnie Riccitelli.  Vinnie had a job for a jazz quartet at a private party, and couldn’t get his regular piano player.  He was friendly with Toots Thielemans, who was living in New York at the time, and called him to come and play guitar on the job.  Toots, the composer of the jazz hit “Bluesette,” was getting a lot of work because of it, but he was open that day and accepted Vinnie’s offer. On the job, Vinnie decided to stroll the tables. He and Toots and the bass player began making the rounds.  When he asked one table for a request, one of the guests said, “I’ll bet you don’t know ‘Bluesette’.”

| SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON FACEBOOK |