canadian generic viagra

I barely knew Tommy Chase. I saw him a handful of times when he was playing intermission at Blues Alley in Washington, D.C. The reason I know it was just a few times is because in those days I was very poor, and though Blues Alley wasn’t expensive, it was if your typical evening meal cost a dollar. But I can prove I saw him, because in 1966 I took a single photograph of Tommy that somehow survived all these years. The one print I have has faded and looks terrible; the original Ektachrome transparency is little better. But the wonders of Photoshop restored the image to its original, pristine color. I have no idea how I managed to hang onto the transparency but I’m glad I did. There aren’t a lot of pictures of Tommy Chase floating around these days.

Tommy was born in northern Virginia around the turn of the century, but grew up in Washington, D.C. He was active musically in that city, as a pianist, occasionally doubling on trumpet and tuba, but in the early 1930s, he left the United States and didn’t return until war broke out in Europe. He performed in New York City during the 1940s before he was drafted. After his military service he returned to Washington, D.C. and was something of a fixture on that city’s music scene, such as it was. He was probably a good deal better earlier in his career than when I heard him 1966. His career had, after all, stretched all over Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East, where he only played the best clubs, in the most interesting cities. He even went as far south as Casablanca for extended engagements, and rumor has it he was the model for Sam, as in “play in again, Sam,” as in canadian generic viagra. 

He left behind one recording, which I helped my friend, Johnson McRee, issue in 1969. I’m sure it is not reflective of Tommy’s real abilities, and the dreadfully out of tune piano is not helpful. Frank Driggs recorded a few extra selections in New York City, but most of those released were recorded at Blues Alley, before an uninterested audience. I don’t recall the piano ever sounding so bad, but maybe I was just so thrilled to be inside in those days, I didn’t pay attention to the problem. The only time I ever made a live recording at Blues Alley I kept a piano tuner with me at all times. Maybe I remembered Tommy’s record when I recorded Willie The Lion Smith in 1971. Willie’s turned out a little better.

In any event, the record of Fat Cat’s Jazz is all there is. Tommy plays one blues, a couple of stride numbers, where there are flashes of what he might have once been, one semi-modern piece, canadian generic viagra, plus a few songs that he probably played regularly for non-jazz, café society-type audiences, songs, like canadian generic viagra and canadian generic viagra. The brief biography that piano specialist, Johnny Simmen wrote in Coda magazine in 1970, the notes Frank Driggs crafted for the LP and an essay by Frank and George Kay in the April 1970 issue of Coda are all that is known about Tommy Chase. I have never seen his name in any book or, other than Coda, any other publication, not do I know anyone alive, other than Frank, who has even heard of him.

This story may seem sad, but my guess is Tommy Chase probably had a pretty good time for three or four decades, first as an itinerant pianist, and then a local Washington musician. I don’t remember anything about meeting him, but the one photo doesn’t show an unhappy guy. And I’d like to think he had a good career and fine life. All to often, good musicians, particularly those with just a local reputation and following, can fall between the cracks and be forgotten. This may be the last time anyone writes anything about Tommy Chase, who was pretty good the few times I heard him.

Tommy Chase, Blues Alley, Washington, D.C., 1968

In November 1994, we produced an event called canadian generic viagra aboard the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2. It was a ten-day celebration of the best of the music of New Orleans. Blues singers, marching bands, concert pianists, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band and many others were onboard. I didn’t think the musical mix could be complete without Dr. John, but he was otherwise engaged and it didn’t look as thought it would be possible for him to be on board. Then there was a break in the action. 

It turned out that if the fee was right, and we made sure it was, Dr. John and his band could fly into Baltimore after their Saturday night performance, pick up the ship, present a concert on Sunday evening and leave the ship when it reached New York City the next morning and head off to their next performance. It sounded like a plan. I was thrilled. Dr. John was not only a legendary musician, but a pianist unlike any other. His musical roots went in every direction and the way they came together was remarkable.

Everything worked to perfection. The band arrived on time, reached the ship on time, and was on stage, ready to play, on time. The only thing that was wrong was no one had told us that ninety percent of the passengers on board would be leaving in Baltimore. So instead of a concert for 1600 people, we had a concert for about two hundred, but it was quite a concert. In a way the small crowd worked to the advantage of those onboard. They were able to crowd around the bandstand and almost become part of the show. 

It was Sunday, November 13, 1994. The first time I worked with Dr. John. My guess is he doesn’t remember it, a day and a photograph among many thousands. The second time was nine years later, under very different circumstances and he probably remembers it very clearly. It was July 1, 2003, on the Eastwood Scoring Stage at Warner Bros. Clint Eastwood was finishing up the live recording segments of a film he was directing, Piano Blues. Dr. John was on hand along with Pete Jolly and Henry Gray.

It was a wonderful afternoon, and his performance can be seen on the DVD that was issued to go along with the PBS special. It was much easier to take photographs on the soundstage and Mac was just as charming and accommodating as he’d been on QE2. He performed as a soloist, and in a spontaneous quartet with Pete, Henry and Clint. He was perfectly dressed, ready for a star turn, a black suit and mustard-colored hat and tie. His socks were adorned with little sculls that looked ferocious, but no one was afraid. He looked very good, knew it and willingly posed for pictures with cast and crew after the filming.

Fast forward to December 18, 2008. Another film project and a bunch more pictures, but that’s another story for another day.

Dr. John, Aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2, November 13, 1994

Preservation Hall is located at 726 Saint Peter Street in New Orleans. It opened its doors in 1961 but I wasn’t lucky enough to walk through them until February or March 1968. It was during my first trip to New Orleans and I thought I was the luckiest guy on the planet. My girlfriend was a New Orleans native who knew the ropes, it was Mardi Gras season and the legendary Dr. Edmund Souchon had promised to offer his support in any way, even extending an invitation to the Rex Ball. But my main interest was Preservation Hall.

I think I went at least two and possibly three times during the trip. I took photographs on at least two nights because the people vary from frame to frame. I distinctly remember Sweet Emma Barrett and her jangling bells as she stomped her feet underneath the upright piano, but what I really remember is the first night I was at the hall. 

What made it so remarkable was not who was on stage, but who was standing in the back of the room. At the time I was an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency, on holiday in New Orleans. We had an office in New Orleans in those days, there were two men in the office and one liked jazz. It turned out he had two high level visitors when I was in town, the Director of Domestic Operations and the third ranking official in the Agency, the Deputy Director for Intelligence. It also turned out that while I was sitting in the front row, snapping pictures of Albert Burbank and Louis Nelson, the three guys from the CIA were standing in the back, enjoying the music.  Jim Garrison was still the New Orleans District Attorney, still looking for anything to prove his peculiar theories about the assignation of President Kennedy. If he’d know there were four people from the CIA at Preservation Hall that night he would indicted everyone in the room, including the band and charged us all with some kind of conspiracy.

The Preservation Hall Jazz Band wasn’t very well known in those years; they didn’t even release a recording until the late 1970s, but they were just as wonderful in 1968 as they were when they became better known. Maybe even better, because night after night, they didn’t just play, they entertained. They didn’t just play jazz standards; they played songs, mostly old songs. When they released their first record it included New Orleans standards like canadian generic viagra and canadian generic viagra, but it also had songs like canadian generic viagra and canadian generic viagra.

In 1994, Cunard Line asked us to present a special event on the Queen Elizabeth 2 and we suggested a theme cruise we called Mardi Gras at Sea.  Cunard bought the idea and the first band hired was the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, because not only are they the real deal, they can also entertain. Jelly Roll Morton used to talk about “hot and sweet” and this is a perfect description for the band today. I snapped a picture of them one day, just as 85-year-old Narvin Kimball had burst into song. He may have been singing canadian generic viagra, one of his specialties, just like he had on the first record. 

The band and the Hall still soldiers on despite the travails wrought by Hurricane Katrina. Three men in the 1994 picture, Frank Demond, Benjie Jaffe and Joe Lasti are still on the road with the band and they still play sweet and hot. The last time I saw them do it was at the special function at the United Nations a couple of years ago. They had the most international Second Line in their history.

The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Aboard the Queen Elizabeth 2, November 9, 1994

Sometimes you can go home again, and sometimes you can’t. In July 1974, I tried to take a trip back in time and almost made it.

Jess Stacy was one of my favorite pianists and I had worked for over a year to get him to agree to a solo recording, something he hadn’t done for a couple of decades. He finally relented and was scheduled to come into New York in early July and recording was to commence on July 5th, but as was usually the case, I wanted a little more. 

Among my favorite trio recordings of the 1930s were those made by Stacy, along with Bud Freeman and George Wettling in 1938. They had recorded seven selections for Commodore, among the first records released by that legendary label, and I always thought they were outstanding performance. I had Jess Stacy, I thought, why not see if I could arrange for Bud freeman to be in town at the same time, find a compatible drummer and see if the time machine might work.

As it turned out, Jess was willing, I found Bud between engagements, Phyllis Condon allowed him the use of the spare room at her apartment, and Cliff Leeman was the perfect George Wettling substitute. I planned on recording the trio the day after I finished the solo recording with Jess.

It was a simple affair and worked as well as could have been expected. Jess actually played better in the trio setting than as a soloist the day before, or at least he was more relaxed and ready to take more chances. Bud just did what Bud always did, play pretty, play hot, and come up with lots of variations on the groundbreaking material he’d fashioned in the late 1920s and into the 1930s. I’ve always thought that Bud didn’t get the recognition he should have; he was playing music in 1928 that was far superior to that being played by some saxophonists who have loftier reputations.

There were four originals on the date, largely based on Bud’s improvisations. They had no titles and he didn’t offer any. Since John DeVries was scheduled to design the cover, I suggested to him that he not only come up with a design, but name the songs and write the liner notes. He carried out all four assignments with customary aplomb.

He signed the liner notes Lawrence “Bud” Freeman. It is perhaps the funniest liner I’ve ever read. Bud was the ultimate Anglophile and in deference to his love of all things English, John titled the songs Toad In the Hole Part II, Kick In the Ascot, Evelyn Wabash Blues and Leeman, Freeman and Nod. I don’t know if Jess was concerned that he was “nod” but if he was he never said anything about it. But he was always pretty quite.

I had the Rolleiflex loaded with Daylight high speed Ektachrome and ready on a tripod to capture the moment. When the last note was gobbled by the tape recorder, we pulled the microphones aside, moved the piano forward out of the corner and I asked the guys to hold still for a moment. The only light source was the studio skylight. I used up one roll and this is the most cheerful of the batch, and is probably the last time Jess and Bud were together. The Ektachome held up very well and didn’t require any color correction. I wish this were always the case. The music also holds up, but with artists like these, forgotten, as they may be these days, it always holds up, ready to be enjoyed another day.

Jess Stacy, Bud Freeman, and Cliff Leeman, WARP Studios, New York City, July 6, 1974

I met Mississippi John Hurt in the fall of 1963. He was in the Washington D.C. area at the time, recording for Dick and Louisa Spottswood, playing gigs, mostly at the Ontario Place Coffee House, and getting ready to burst on the national scene at the Newport Folk Festival. He’d been discovered tending cattle in Avalon, Mississippi a few months earlier and there was a bit of a buzz about this legendary musician resurfacing after having been “lost” since the late 1920s. He was in his early seventies; I had just turned twenty-three.

John was the first musician of his sort I’d ever heard live. I can’t really say he was a blues musician because this doesn’t describe his talent sufficiently. Folk-blues-balladeer may be better. But whatever he played, whatever he sang, I was enthralled, just like everyone else who heard him. He made a lasting impression on me and it wasn’t just because I was young and impressionable. I’d never heard anyone like him and today, over forty-five later, I still haven’t.

One of the best memories is listening to him at Chez Spottswood. In the living room surrounded by thousands of old records, or in the kitchen, accompanied by Skip James, playing a little spinet piano that was not well-tuned, or just sitting on the back porch. One kitchen jam session was recorded and a few years ago I transferred the tapes to a CD and relived a nearly fifty year old afternoon musicale.

On occasion I drove John to work. This was fine with me; it meant I’d get a good seat and would be required to stay all night. He usually wanted me to stop along the way and buy him a half pint of Old Hickory, which I did even though it meant I’d have less on reserve to buy another Coca Cola at Ontario Place.

One day in late 1963 I took my small 35mm Kodak along. I took two flash pictures that night. I would have taken more, but some folkie yelled at me that I was spoiling the mood. Maybe, but I’m glad I took them. That mood vanished forty-five years ago and those two pictures are still around. The original Kodachrome was misplaced, this was long before I began taking serious photographs, but I somehow I managed to save two prints, one of which we’ve scanned and managed to restore.

John Hurt is also still around and going strong in 2010, at least in terms of legacy. In an issue of Newsweek in 2008 I spotted a picture of John with Skip James and if you look on Amazon.com today (July 8, 2010) 154 CDs and LPs are listed. This is quite remarkable for a guy who recorded a handful of songs in 1928, went back to Mississippi and stayed there, until he reluctantly returned in 1963. He didn’t love his new fame unconditionally, but continue to record and make personal appearances until his death in 1966, and the timeless music he left behind remains as alive today as it was in an OKeh studio in New York in 1928 or the Ontario Place Coffee House in 1963.