Election 2016

This blog was originally intended to cover two subjects, our lives as ex-pats in France and my life with the trombone. However, as an American who’s been over here through two election cycles, I feel compelled to say something about this one if for no other reason than I'm still an American and this is a much better platform for expressing my opinion than Facebook. For one thing there’s no limit to the number of characters I can use. For another, if I shut off the comments I won’t have to deal with anonymous dickheads or the opinions of people I don’t know but have for some reason friended me on Facebook and have turned out to be dickheads or, worse yet, people I do know who have turned out to be dickheads. So I might as well get right to it.

Carol Jarvis

       Once again I’ve found myself overtaken by sloth. I started this post a few weeks ago while in the States, laying around my mother-in-law’s, waiting for the UPS truck while she and Cynthia shopped.  I thought it’d be a good time for a Trombone Hero so it’s about time I finished it. 

Back in July, 2015, I was lucky enough to be able to go to the International Trombone Festival in Valencia, Spain. Even luckier, I got to sit next to Abbie Conant during a performance by British trombonists Mark Nightingale and Carol Jarvis, this post’s Hero. The ITF is one of the few opportunities trombone hacks like me get to rub elbow more or less on a even footing with the masters.

Hit The Road, Hans

German soldier on the quay in Bordeaux in 1940

             

            August 28 in Bordeaux at exactly 11 a.m., they rang the Grosse Cloche, the Big Bell. This was an experience for us for a couple of reasons. First, it proved that they really can be on time here - the sonnerie was announced for 11 and that huge bell started swinging right on the tick.  And we were proud to be involved, even if only as spectators, in commemorating the day in 1944 that Bordeaux ended four years of German occupation. This is not something Americans know much about.

Gummi Puppen?

This post is dedicated to the memory of a friend.

            A long time ago I abandoned the idea of ever making any money writing or that anything I had to say was of much interest to anyone. This blog is evidence of that, more or less. Despite this I always write with the idea of trying to please some unknown someone (writing for your readers) but this one is for me. I have nothing more in mind than pleasing myself as I remember a dear friend whose worth to me became even more apparent after he'd gone. So I'm warning you now that this post has a bunch of video clips attached to it and I have no idea how it'll turn out. The idea occurred to me sometime before June as we were approaching the 70th anniversary of D-Day but between travel and preparing a presentation on the trombone for Bordeaux-USA, I'm only getting around to it now. In putting together my trombone project, I learned how to use Imovie and went a little nuts making videos. The same thing happened again and for the past week or so, I've been working on clips to stick into this post.

Incident At Milepost 49

The HoJo at Oakmont looked just like this

             Lately, I haven't been posting much for reasons that really don't matter but have resulted in my going through some of the essays and other writing that I've had laying around for a long time. Over the years, I've accumulated a trove of mediocrity that I once thought was pretty good. At some point, everyone even semi-serious about writing imagines their masterpieces being featured in the New Yorker or some other lofty publication and I was no different. But most of my stuff was written with no idea where it could possibly find the light of day. I paid no attention to any of the advice every aspiring writer gets on researching markets and how to appeal to editors or anything else that might have at least gotten me some encouraging rejection slips. So now I've decided that if none of this stuff is ever going to make me a member of the next Algonquin Round Table, I'm foisting it off from time to time on whoever runs across this blog accidentally in the course of surfing for pornography.
       
           The first of these I've rewritten so many times I can't stand it anymore. It was intended originally for some now defunct online magazine in Pittsburgh and I think I was encouraged by most of the previously published pieces being worse. I'm not sure Thurber would have gotten very far, either, if his mantra had been, "Shit, I'm not that bad."

Duke's Place

Duane "Duke" Wareham

            This is a post I've been meaning to do for a long time. If you've read my "About Me" page, and made it to the end, you would know that at Springdale, Pennsylvania, High School I played in a jazz big band that was then known as the "Mellowmen" and for every member it was the musical equivalent of being a star athlete. I made it into this group my sophomore year and by the time I graduated in 1970, the continued presence of females meant the band would eventually have to find a new name since "Mellowpersons" just wouldn't cut it so later editions were known simply as the Jazz Ensemble.

            It's not a stretch to say that being a part of this outfit is what got me through high school. (Most memories of these years that don't involve music cause a state that can only be relieved by judicious applications of medicinal spirits.) Of all my life's experiences, playing in the Mellowmen has probably had the most lasting and profound effect, except for the ones that filled me with bitterness and resentment so I guess I should say it had the most positive effect. It helped to create a passion for music, particularly jazz, that's never left me and was a big part of the reason I retired early to earn the music degree I'd wanted all along. Most of this was thanks to one guy in particular.

O Llama, Where Art Thou.

            Well, things are finally getting back to normal here in Bordeaux.  You might be aware that last week 5 fêtards ivre (drunk party animals), as Le Parisien called them, made off with a llama from a travelling circus and took it for a ride on the tram. English language accounts passed on just the basic story, plus a few of the photos and videos. They generally maintained the French media's lighthearted attitude with only the CBC using the word "hooligans" and mentioning calls for punishment. So Canadians have little tolerance for drunken debauchery and boorish behavior, unless, of course, you're the mayor of Toronto. The past week here it's been all Serge, all the time and yesterday was the first day he was missing from the local newspaper, Sud-Ouest, website. He will, however, be making a personal appearance at Le Girondins soccer match on Sunday so Sergermania might not have abated.

      

We're Number Somewhere Between 0 and 51

            When I started this blog, telling our family and friends about our move to France was mainly an excuse to get me into the habit of writing on a regular basis. I never really had a plan or goal and figured, like the rest of my life I'd just make it up as I went along.  After all, who was going to read it anyway? Most of the world is too busy reading and promoting their own blogs. But if you're one of the hundreds worldwide who haven't started blogging, Google's Blogger comes with a handy "stats" function that shows you how many "page views" you've had and can suck you into believing you could be the next (If I knew of anyone, here's where I would insert the name of a somebody who found wealth and fame by airing grievances on the internet).      

Our 1st Annual Marciac Festival

                  If a person played the trombone, wrote about the trombone and had trombone in the title of his blog, that person would reasonably be expected, as part of his first trip to the jazz festival in Marciac, France, to attend a concert that featured trombonist Fred Wesley and the New JB Horns. So when this person reported that his attendance at said festival did not, in fact, include Fred and the JBs but instead aging rock star Joe Cocker, one could reasonably respond, "WTF?"

Festival Swing*

          

              One of the best things about France is the huge number of jazz festivals. Although most of the biggest happen in summer, there's something going on here all year long. Jazzfests.net provides links to festivals in Europe and in France alone, I counted 183. By contrast, the most extensive list I was able to find for the U. S. counts 57.  And what's cool is that a lot of them are free and provide a showcase for local musicians, something else that's hard to find in the States. So if you're someone who spent years struggling to learn their scales and modes, listening to the masters, transcribing solos and can play through "rhythm changes" in all 12 keys just to live with the knowledge that some douchebag with a knock-off Stratocaster he bought at a pawn shop, who can't read music, knows 4 chords, maybe a couple of pentatonic scales and hacks his way through some blues and the Lynyrd Skynyrd canon yet scores more gigs and chicks - you should have been born over here. So far this summer we've been to two concerts of the Bordeaux area Jazz and Wine organization and heard American jazz royalty against the backdrop of a vineyard and free wine. Unfortunately you have to drive to these places, putting something of a damper on the bottomless wine glass idea.
             *hip reference to obscure Django Reinhardt tune

Jimmy Knepper

           

Cover photo of Cunningbird

  

            While practicing the other day I got a look at myself in the mirror and thought, "Jesus, I'm starting to look like Jimmy Knepper."  The cover photo of Cunningbird, the only CD of his I have, could easily be me, if the hair was grayer. And he's dressed as I would if left to my own devices. Now, if I could just play like him.           

            Jimmy Knepper is another trombone player who ought to be a household name. I learned about him only after moving to New York and, sometime in 1989, playing hooky from work by going to a concert at nearby Pace University. The performance, dedicated to the great Ellington trombones, was led by Art Baron and included people like Craig Harris and Doug Purviance. As I remember it, a guy named Jimmy Knepper was supposed to have played as well but some sort of health problem prevented it. So when I ran across Cunningbird (an import from Denmark), probably in J&R Music or Tower Records on Broadway (where I spent a considerable amount of time and money) I remembered the name and bought it.

Beyond Le Mer

           

The 4th of July at Chez Hinson/Gunia

  

            For the past week or so, the temperatures here have been in the high 80's and low 90's (high 20's, low 30's if you're reading in Celsius) and the last thing I've felt like doing is putting an old MacBook on my lap. But we've been here 10 months so now might be a good time for a summary and progress report.

Confessions Of A Jerry Lewis Fan

            The Cannes film festival was a couple of weeks ago and I was not invited for the 6oth consecutive year. They did, however, give Jerry Lewis some kind of award and an article in the New York Times had the obligatory quote from a French critic, miffed at America's failure to recognize his genius. France's love for Jerry Lewis is another stereotype for which I've yet to see much evidence. Months ago I saw a poster for Docteur Jerry et Mister Love ("The Nutty Professor") but this was in a movie memorabilia shop in Bordeaux so I'm not sure that counts. I've asked a couple of people here but their answers always fall a bit short of unbridled enthusiasm.  In fact, they usually give you a look that says, "Why would you ask me this?"

Fête de la Musique

            Every June 21st the Fête de la Musique, the Music Festival, goes on all over France. It's an anything goes, amateur/professional celebration of music where anyone who can play an instrument is encouraged to play in the streets and everyone else is invited to the party.  This all got started in 1982 after one of François Mitterrand's Ministers (the political not the religious kind) came up with the idea. Maurice Fleuret was a composer, music critic and in 1981 Director of Music and Dance in the Ministry of Culture (Do we have anything like that?). He read in a government report that around 5 million people in France had been taught to play a musical instrument and, being also a music festival organizer, thought a day of free music would be cool.  It's now one of the biggest events of the French summer and you can read all about it here in clumsy but at least not Google Translate English.

But I Did Not Shot No Deputies

             Doing a blog, I'm discovering, might be a bigger project than I originally considered and, lately, motivation's been a problem. It's not that it's particularly difficult and time consuming or that I have to knock myself out to post anything. But considering I've kept this up for nearly a year it's, become a habit that's extended far beyond my usual span of attention. Still, I haven't felt much like writing because I didn't think I had much of anything worthwhile to say and the number of blogs about ex-pats in France must number in the thousands. But this was, after all, only supposed to tell family and friends about our experiences across the ocean, maybe it's time to remember its not literature. So with that in mind, here's a couple of things that happened recently.

Phil Wilson

            In the category of Famous Trombone Players I've Had On Speed Dial, there's only one. My gig with the ITA, writing about the folks to whom they've given awards, sometimes means that I get to spend time talking to some of the world's best musicians. This can be a bit intimidating for me, especially in the case of someone like Phil Wilson. 

 

            When I write these Journal pieces, I usually start by sending emails and sometimes the subjects will send me their numbers and suggest a phone call. On the day I called Phil, for some reason he asked to call back and when he did, my phone captured the caller ID. We talked for over an hour and he turned out to be such a nice guy that what I had planned as kind of interview ended up being a really loose bull session.  Most trombone players, even great ones are really just regular, unpretentious kinds of people.  Fortunately, I had a recorder going so got all I needed for the article and after it was all over, I saved Phil's number to my phone. Anytime another musician came to the house I'd casually say something like, "Hey, know anyone with Phil Wilson on speed dial?" Unfortunately, that phone didn't make the trip over here.

How To Get Rid Of Your Butler, Really

      One of my posts on Barcelona described an encounter with local folk instruments called  grallas and this reminded me of something I wanted to go on about. A few posts ago (Trombone 101), I appended things with a video in which Jeeves the Butler puts in his papers over Bertie Wooster's playing of the trombone. In the original Wodehouse story, Thank You, Jeeves, the offending instrument is a banjolele and why the screenwriter thought a trombone would be better, who knows?  Irrational prejudice is something trombone players have been dealing with since before Arthur Pryor's time and it's why we don't look down on accordions.     

LE JAZZ BOEUF

            One of the things I'd planned to do here was get back into my horn since I wasn't going to have a whole lot to do anyway. And I'm finding out pretty quickly that, especially for a trombone player, you have to find your own way. So I was excited one Thursday when I passed a little place near our apartment where a hand lettered sign read "Open Swing Acoustique, Jazz Manouche, Jazz Boeuf, 19h30". Jazz Manouche is the French term for what Americans call "Gypsy Jazz" (music made famous during the swing era by Django Reinhardt) and "Jazz Boeuf" is the local term for a jam session.

            Chez le Pépère, like a lot of places here, would have to double in size to be "intimate". A small bar, a few high tables, a wall of wine bottles and the flags of a bunch of rugby teams decorate the room, and the night I walked in the sound of a piano came up from the basement, or cave as it's more appropriately called. Descending a tight spiral staircase, I recognized the tune as "Sunny Side of the Street" and took it as a good sign - a tune I can play when I work up the nerve to bring my horn. Like jazz clubs everywhere, the musicians were packed onto a tiny little stage but the instrumentation was not what I was used to at home. A little console piano, bass, two acoustic guitars and a violin. No drums, no amps, nobody who looked over 30 and everybody could swing. I'm not sure I'll fit in with these guys.

            Tuesday nights there's a straight ahead session that I have hopes for since it seems to be also young guys but they're still trying to find their improvisational voices.  This was one of the aspects of going back to school in my 50's that gave me the most pleasure. For years I had been surrounded by people who didn't really share my musical tastes. Then again, anyone into jazz can probably make the same statement. So it was a good thing to have others in the same musical boat, wanting to make an improvisational statement but not yet having the tools. I've always said that my life has been a series of events leading to the next humbling experience. So in relating the following story, I freely admit that I have no room to talk.

            I spent most of the last year or so in St. Pete trying to work up the nerve to play at one of the local jam sessions. I was fortunate enough to know a lot of the best musicians in the Tampa Bay area and when it comes to people on my level, they are gracious, tolerant and encouraging. They are also light years beyond me musically and too intimidating, so I usually went to listen. Ironically, the best way to build confidence is by allowing yourself to screw up. There are those who don't seem to be burdened by any of these issues, no matter how badly they solo and I wish some of that was contagious. It is not, however, always a good thing.

            Every form of human endeavor has its Inspector Clouseaus.  People who, despite all evidence, are completely convinced of their talent and oblivious to anything that might indicate otherwise. Most of the musical Clouseaus I've noticed fall into three basic categories, not necessarily in this order - singers with no sense of pitch, guitar players trying to play far beyond their capability and drummers with no sense of time. In fact, in almost every amateur group I've ever been involved with, there was always at least one guy with a set of drumsticks whose sense of rhythm was most charitably described as idiosyncratic.  Jazz jam sessions are usually spared these folks probably for the same reason there's no "Trombone Hero" for your Xbox.

            One night I got to Chez Pépère about the time I always get to a live music venue - right after the band went on break, which seems to last about an hour here. And when you know you'll have to nurse the only beer you can afford for awhile, it's not necessarily a bad thing if you can't speak the same language as the guy beside you, especially if he seems to be scatting to music only he can hear. (Remember when someone loudly singing or talking to himself was a indication he had a bolt loose? At another time in France, I might have suspected this guy had once been standing in a trench when an artillery shell went off right over his head.) I noticed the wire hanging from his ear but still thought I'd go downstairs and wait for the band to come back. A couple of minutes later, the scatter, who looked to be about fifty, came downstairs, wandered over to the drum kit, sat down and started tapping around with his hands. He kept up the same monotonous rhythm for about fifteen minutes until the real drummer came back and Scatman took his seat in the audience.

            The set started with a blues and the solos worked around until Scatman took one and I realized that the thing I'd noticed in his ear was his own personal wireless mike.  Any idea this guy might have been a real singer disappeared after about 4 bars and midway through the first chorus I found myself involuntarily thinking, "It's a simple blues, man" but this guy's wailing (I mean in the banshee sense) continued obliviously along. After his fourth chorus I thought maybe he was somebody's father and a few choruses later found myself thinking for the first time since I left the states that I was sorry to be in a country with no ready access to baseball bats. The band, however, politely did their best to follow.

            For the next tune Scatman Clouseau pulled out the only set of bongos I've ever seen at a jam session and the tune after that he took his turn at the drums. I don't know if the band knew this guy, if they were humoring him or being polite or what but if there was ever a time to call "Cherokee" this was it. He wasn't any better at this than scatting and I didn't wait around to see if he went for the hat trick on guitar.

            I'm not sure what to make of all that but in one way the effect on me has been almost as bad as everybody being way better.  I haven't been back to this session for a couple of weeks now because I'm afraid the same guy will be there. The good thing is now I'm practicing with a little bit more diligence just to make sure that, when I finally do work up the nerve to take my horn, I'm not the next Clouseau. I might even ask Cynthia to help as soon as I figure out what a musical Cato does.

           

             Videos are from the Jazz Manouche session. Bill Cosby needs no explanation.

So long St. Pete

     It's getting down to crunch and time and we're starting to get a little nervous. Actually a lot nervous and to say we've got mixed emotions is putting it mildly. For me, while there's no doubt we're doing the right thing, still, the United States is where we were born and raised, well, I was anyway. But beyond that, everything I have I owe to Uncle Sam. I paid my way through college as an FBI clerk and have been a public servant ever since. When I discovered police work wasn't for me, the Bureau took me back and gave me the career that is now allowing me the freedom to do whatever I like. I'm as American as you can get and I don't want to hear any of that anti-government shit.

     But we're also wondering if we're not a little spoiled. After all, we've got a pretty good life here in St. Pete and for me I've been able to pursue another dream. When I retired from the FBI in 2004, I hadn't intended to stop working but before I looked for another job I wanted to deal with a regret I'd had since leaving high school. I wanted a degree in music.

     I grew up in Springdale, Pa., a factory town about 16 miles up the Allegheny river from The Point in Pittsburgh. Playing the trombone was the only thing that got me through high school. Like most people who play it, I didn't really pick the trombone, it picked me. Somewhere around 90% of the kids who show up for elementary school band without an ax are handed a trombone and I was one of those. As it turns out, however, this instrument suits my personality probably better that any other. Trombone players as a group tend not to take themselves too seriously, possibly because nobody else does either. But when it came time to leave high school and find a career I gave the horn up, believing myself not good enough to pursue it further.

    Occasionally though, usually around Memorial Day and 4th of July, I'd get the horn out and march with the local fireman's band but that was it. After 1979, when I left the 'burgh for good, even this outlet dried so for about 25 years I hardly touched the thing. Then about midway through the '90's, it became imperative that I have something to distract me from my job so I retrieved my old 2B from my mother's house and joined a community band. After a couple of years I decided to start taking he whole thing more seriously since I was no longer satisfied with being slightly less than mediocre. I found a good teacher, Jay Shanman, and as I got better began to wonder if it was too late for me to ever be any good.

    Because law enforcement (I've never really been comfortable with that term) is perceived as a young man's job, most agencies allow for retirement after 20 years of service and the FBI added the requirement of also being 50 years old. I had 20 years at the age of 51 and did not let the door hit me on the ass on the way out.  The spring semester of 2006, I started classes at the University of South Florida.

   When I decided to do this, my relationship with most teenagers had been mutual distrust and, at best, barely tolerant. But from the first day at USF it became apparent that I was at last among my people. For over 30 years, I was forced into daily association with people who not only regarded jazz with contempt and ridicule but if they listened to music at all it almost always prominently featured pedal steel guitars and alcohol related themes. To be every day with people 1/3 my age who not only knew and dug J.J. and Urbie Green and held conversations about Miles' modal period was, well, (cue Handel).
 
     So I graduated in 2008 and for the last 4 years I've bounced around, picking up gigs where I can but, like a lot of people, but especially trombone players, not as much as I would have liked. On balance, however, I've had more ups than downs, really, although if you've been the one who's had to listen to me bitch it hasn't always seemed that way. I'm writing this after having just finished my last gig here. I've been lucky enough to get to sub regularly with the TomKats, a St. Pete big band that plays every Monday night at the Blue Parrot in St. Pete Beach and features some of the best jazz players in town. In fact. I don't really belong on the same stage with most of these folks but I've generally not embarrassed myself and held my own on the occasional solo.

       I'll probably write more about this later but I want to get something posted before I leave town.  While I've lived here, I gotten to know a lot of some of the best musicians in the Tampa Bay area and, to me, that's infinitely cooler than following guys of Mediterranean ethnicity around Brooklyn all day. And I'll just say here that I consider myself lucky to have spent time with the great Buster Cooper, who most times remembers who I am after I tell him. One of the first things I ever had published was an article about Buster that appeared in the Journal of the International Trombone Association and if I ever figure out how to do it, I'll post a link here. If you don't know Buster, check out the Duke Ellington Orchestra after around 1963 through 1972. Once I got to play hockey with Gordie Howe and this is the musical equivalent as far as I'm concerned.

    At USF I got to take lessons once a week from Tom Brantley and if I could play like anyone, it might be him. Apart from being a great human being, he's a amazing musician - one of those people that when you see and hear him play, you know you're getting all he's got. And as if that weren't  enough for me, my last semester Tom went on sabbatical so I got to study with Keith Oshiro, an alum of both the Maynard Ferguson and Woody Herman bands. Being among these three world class trombonists was the high point of my life in Florida. And thanks to Tom's wife Claire, who was the managing editor of the ITA Journal, I now have a steady writing gig, even if it doesn't pay a dime.

   The first musical experience I had after moving to Florida was to play in the summer jazz band at St. Petersburg college. This is run by Dave Pate, a saxophonist and St.Pete native and it was, without doubt, some of the most fun I've ever had and Pate was a big part of the reason for this. He's played with and for some of the world's best musicians but never, ever exhibited the ego he actually would be entitled to have. These summer bands were always a mixture of old goats like me and kids from grade school to early college. Pate treated everyone the same, made sure everyone soloed and not once did I hear anything but encouragement, even after listening to someone like me hack their way through even the simplest tunes.

   Another thing that's given me a lot of pleasure here is seeing some of my USF classmates doing well and making their way as teachers and musicians. Mark Feinman, a great drummer, and Jon O'Leary, a really sensitive piano player,  helped me get through my junior recital and now, along with Alejandro Arenas (another USF classmate) make up La Lucha, a group here in St. Pete that is really making a name for themselves. But beyond their own group, they're some of the most sought after sidemen in town and so I get to show up at their gigs and act all cool and hip 'cause I can tell people I've played with these guys.  I'm hoping to see them at Marciac some time.

   I'm going to miss all this but I'm hoping to have some of the same experiences now in a different language. If you're reading this and I've played with you somewhere along the line, thanks. Thanks more than you know. For all their foibles, I've found musicians, by and large, to be the real deal and I'd rather hang with them than anyone.

  After we find a place to live, I'm not going to have a lot to do for awhile so I'm planning on, not only total immersion language training but immersing myself in my horn again. Since this seems like a pretty good way of making the transition into a new culture, it will be a good time to work on some things I've been needing for a long time. For one thing, all the French sax players I've heard appear to prefer the same tempos as their American brethren so it might be a good time to learn to keep up.

   So long St. Pete, I'm gonna miss you. You were just starting to feel like home. Who knows, I might be back some day but if not, look me up. If you're in Bordeaux just listen for the out of tune trombone player trying to make the changes to some Django tune.