The Angel Voice of Annie Wells

Every once in a while I like to brag... Hey, what do you mean; “what do you mean 'once in a while'”, let me finish... Every once in a while I like to brag about one of my friends.

When I moved to Rochester from Canandaigua.... No, let's go further back...

In the times of the ancient Romans...

TOO FAR BACK!

When I was in college, a friend of mine Went to Geneseo State or “SUNY Geneseo”. There was a music shop in Geneseo called BUZZO's which is an experience of it's own. In that shop worked a talented dude named Mic Fambro who many of my friends had god-like respect for. He could, and perhaps will be, the subject of an entire blog post.

But not this one.

Mic turned me on to a lot of great stuff including one of my greatest influences “The Blue Nile”. He also turned me on to and introduced me to (in a round about way) a local artist named Annie Wells.

Yup, this is about her.

I met Annie at a record release party for “Miche' and the Anglos,” Mic's amazing band, but I had already heard her music so I was actually a bit star struck. That fact that she was very cute didn't help... or hurt... or help...

Annie was also very sweet and despite my awkward fawning over her and her music was kind and forgiving. It kinda reminds me of that scene in “High Fidelity” when John Cusack and his buddies see Lisa Bonet play at a bar and (sort-of) talk to her after her set.

Annie sang and played piano in a distinct style (both) her voice had the remarkable quality of being at once airy sweet and sultry. Her piano playing was jazzy but with a folksy quality all her own.

I got to hang out with Annie here and there. Once I helped her move in her apartment building from one floor to another. The biggest challenge was helping move her baby grand piano that she wrote most of her music on.

Imagine my surprise and delight when she called me and asked if I would be interesting in playing bass in her band. I said yes right away but I was concerned. Even though I had played all sorts of music from Jazz and classical to rock, the louder variety was all I had played for several years running--and not because I didn't enjoy it. I wasn't sure if I was going to do a good job playing under Annie's whisper-soft voice and her low key piano playing.

Our first rehearsal was at Annie's Parent's house about 40 miles away from Rochester. The recent bands I had rehearsed even further away so it didn't seem that far. It was just Annie, myself and a drummer who was a bit mediocre. Having a decent drummer has always been of pinnacle importance to me but I was so pleased to be playing with Annie that I didn't complain about the drummer until she herself expressed reservations.

For my part, it was a very odd thing not to hear my amp throbbing at 100dB and to deliberately allow long warm sustained notes without embelishment, to place subtle vibratos and nuance in ways that would have been completely lost in the fray of the other bands I had played in. Don't get me wrong, I loved 'the fray', I still do, but Annie's music opened me up to a new level of musicianship I hadn't had the need for since high school, but didn't have quite the skill to pull-off until then.

Annie's first gig was at the Women's Music Festival at William Smith College. I was pretty self conscious about being a dude playing at such an event but maybe not as much as I should have been. I joked with Annie that maybe we (the dudes in the band) should dress in drag. She didn't laugh and said that definitely wouldn't be a good idea. I believe she had played at the event before as a solo artist and had a better idea what was coming. My parents wanted to come see me play—the gig was in Geneva, New York, closer to where they lived than most of my gigs. My mom happened to be busy that day but my father came on his own. The stage of the daytime concert event was the raised portion of a grassy sunken garden. There where a smattering of people in lawn chairs—about fifty women of various ages and one guy, my dad—were gathered, mostly at a comfortably distance from the 'stage'. The exception was two college age girls lying on the grass only a few feet from where we were playing.

About halfway through Annie's set, I looked down at the two girls. I wasn't sure that what I was seeing was real. They had, in front of us and the entire audience started an impromptu wrestling match on the grass. No... that's not wrestling. They were... it appeared... passionately... making out? I both looked up at my dad and made sure not to look at him. It was the kind of awkward moment like when you got you're first VCR and found yourself watching R-rated movies sitting across from your parents for the first time. F-bombs and T&A bounced unabashedly around the room while you avoided their glance and they avoided yours.

I also avoided looking at the wrestlers, which in reality, meant I could look at nothing but.

Before our next gig Annie found a different drummer who, if nothing else, apparently had a local place to practice. I arrived for my first rehearsal with Tim, the new drummer. I was impressed when I learned the address and amazed when I saw the house. It was an large English Tudor just off East Avenue across from the historic George Eastman house; the George Eastman “Kodak” house for you non-Rochesterians.

The brick driveway led to a four-car garage that was bigger than many homes with it's (empty) chauffeur and gardener quarters on the second floor. The entryway of the house had strips of polished brass between the large squares of marble on the floor. Tim met me at the door. He was a good looking guy with an warm easy-goingness that could border cavalier at times, but a good guy overall with a decent sense of humor.

Could he play though?

Tim showed me in to where we would be practicing. To call it a living room would fall several notches short of the mark; this was a a thirty-five by twenty foot 'great room'. Every inch of the walls were either covered in (real) walnut paneling and decorative woodwork or tall diamond-cut leaded glass windows, The entire twelve foot ceiling was ornate and detailed plaster bas relief that featured birds and fruit and bunches of grapes on vines. The floor was wall-to-wall hardwood but had a couple immense oriental carpets covering most of it. The furniture was arranged into several conversation areas breaking up the larger room into intimate spaces.

It was soon clear why this room was chosen, not because it was the largest or most impressive room in the house, but because of the baby grand piano at one end. I brought my amp in and we rehearsed in one of the most luxurious and beautiful places I have ever played. Annie's voice sounded particularly heavenly in that room.

My parents had once received “The Preppy Handbook” as a gift in the early eighties. It was an amusing hand illustrated book that essentially defined the American 'Preppy' in great detail. It wasn't until after I had known Tim a while that I happened to flip through the pages once again and discover that point after point he was not just kind-of preppy, he was nearly text book. From the Polos, Khakis and topsiders he wore to the VW Golf he drove, point after point, it was all there in the book. And yes, he had attended actual prep school. Not just any prep school, Tim had attended St. Andrews of Middletown, Delaware better known for being the main backdrop of “Dead Poets Society”.

And by-the-way, Tim could play his ass off! He had a slick, snappy, on-top-off-the-beat sound that was reminiscent of Stewart Copeland (the Police) and make-it-look-easy jazz chops like Dave Weckle (Chic Corea).

Annie also added a keyboard player named Chip and a sometimes sax/WX7 player named Doug. Doug walked up and gave me a hug the first time I met him as if that's what everyone does. He also had a tremendous sense of humor and he could play!

The aforementioned WX7 is a electronic MIDI control device that uses standard sax/flute fingering and a breath and pressure sensitive mouthpiece to play a synthesizer or sound module instead of a keyboard.

It was still the eighties.

I would joke with Doug that he was encroaching on my turf when he would play runs on his WX7 that unencumbered by actual physical acoustics, started with stratospheric high notes and ended on subterranean lows that were far below what my standard four-string bass could even dream about.

Annie had a lot of class and would bring it to all her gigs, even though there were one or two that frankly didn't deserve it, or her. One early show was at a rave-like club that was freezing cold and featured graffiti covered walls with several spray paint splattered TVs playing random images.

I would help out by creating computer designed posters For Annie's shows. This was a bit of a challenge as I didn't have a computer in the late '80s. I discovered somehow that if I showed up at the University of Rochester Library and simply sat down at one of their Macs, I could design and print out a poster and no one would question my presence. Yes, not the most honest thing I could have done, but I was always sure not to be seated at a computer when there were no others available.

I wish I could post one of those posters which I still have somewhere... somewhere.

Tim, the drummer, and I got along well both musically and otherwise. Drummer/bass player combinations are an important relationship that can have dire or magic consequence. He was tasteful player but also a little bit of a hot dog like myself. With a combination like this it was hard to resist playing off each other into a jazz fusion 'hot dog' mode during rehearsals which Annie was not keen on.

Tim decided to have a party for the express purpose of (besides the obvious reasons of having a party) giving both Annie and “Miche' and the Anglos” a place to play on that particular Saturday night. I told a lot of my friends about it as we all did. Tim went a step further and printed up invites that he handed out at some bars. Perhaps not the best idea since it was his parent's very nice home that he was having the party at. Even worse: technically, it wasn't even his parents house but the parsonage of the church where his father was the pastor.

Tim did take measures however. He almost completely stripped the ground floor of furniture and removed the large oriental rugs that covered the great room floor. He also placed sheets of plywood on the stairs to keep the amorous ones off the beds upstairs.

Annie played first which was great as it allowed us to enjoy the party more. Miche' put on a great show, of course and the party went off pretty well considering the disaster it could have been. There was some serious cleaning up to do and despite the stair barricades, Tim had to chase lovers off his parents' bed and clean up after them. I guess love, or at least sex knows no barriers.

Not surprisingly, a neighbor outed him to his parents when they returned. After all this was East Avenue, not fraternity row.

Annie began to record at a studio in Rochester that was so new the lobby was still studs and plywood floors in places. Not all the handles were not on all the doors. The studio itself was completely finished and functional. It featured some pretty world class gear and design. I would record at Dajhelon Productions several times in the next decade but I believe Annie was the very first person to record there. It was an amazing place to be, with or without door handles.

Listening to the tracks though, things weren't quite right. Annie herself was fine, but Tim and I were losing our ability to hold back and play tasteful, supportive and unobtrusive parts, our technical ambitions were getting the best of us. Annie's producer came in to play on some tracks but he seemed distant and distracted. The tracks sounded okay, but not great. It wasn't quite the Annie Wells that Annie Wells could be.

Maybe it was for those reasons, maybe for others I wasn't aware of, but the recording process came to a halt.

More importantly than being her bass player, Annie was and is a great friend of mine. She has a wonderful sense of humor and there was always a lot of laughter. We were once both considering parallel moves to the Boston area. I have fond memories of a road trip we once took to get a feel for the place.

Annie has a wonderful way of putting people at ease and speaks nearly as softly as she sings. To this day I can barely even imagine Annie being upset or angry. Of course, she is human and entitle to the same range of emotion and expression as everyone else.

I was hanging out with Tim at his vast kitchen table while he was on the phone with Annie. He had just rather flippantly told her that he could not play a gig that had already been booked. Tim was quiet for a minute as he listened to her response. Without excusing himself, he took the phone away from his ear, covered the receiver and turned to me.

“Joel, I think Annie Wells is yelling at me... Just a sec.” He slowly put the phone back to his ear for a bit longer and removed it again. “Yep, yep, Annie Wells is yelling at me.”

Annie, as sweet as she was, was growing impatient with Tim's attitude. She was frustrated with his recreational (over)playing and perhaps mine as well. She did some solo performances for a while and eventually starting using some members of an established Rochester band as her own; a band that better matched her classy style and were far less inclined to the progressive/fusion bent that Tim and I were.

There were no hard feelings. I went back to playing loud and aggressive but with some new skills of subtlety and expression under my belt. Tim, as talented as he was, strictly played drums for fun and had no desires to be a career musician. He continued his true ambition: to be a cinematographer.

As I had started out, I was still and remain an ardent Annie Wells fan. I was excited when her first CD “Sad and Beautiful” came out. It was humbling to hear how much better she sounded with her new band. I was glad to hear that the new bass player had learned some of my parts pretty closely and I could quietly claim some small role in what ended up being a wonderful CD. Her next disk. “Something to Dream About”, came out after I had moved to LA. It was even better than the first.

Annie did a CD of lullabies called “Sleepy Town, no voice is more perfect for that than hers! Her latest CD “Tell Me” has taken a more jazz direction with some really stellar players and I believe it is her finest work yet.

Tim sold me his Yamaha drum kit of which I still have some cymbals. The rest of the kit I in-turn sold to another friend of mine, Jeff Dopko who is another of my favorite drummers to play with. He still uses those drums to play with “Gray Young.” Tim went on to be the cinematographer for “Cherry Crush” a movie shot mostly around Rochester. I was surprised to learn that it was produced by one of my high school classmates and I remember seeing advertising for it here in Hollywood. To Tim's credit, it looks beautiful but other than that, sadly, it's not a very good movie. I once made an attempt to get in touch with Tim but never heard back.

Annie, I am still in touch with, though it has been a long time since I have been able to see her play. You won't hear music or a voice anything like Annie's. Her lyrics, even when they sport a touch a humor, are always extremely touching and personal. “Rosary” one of my all-time desert island top 10 songs, gets to me every single time.

I highly recommend picking up one or more of her disks, or at the very least, checking out her samples on iTunes or her website http://anniewells.com where you can purchase any CD individually or the whole AW library as a box set.

To really experience her charm though, one should really see Annie Wells perform which she does from time to time in the Rochester area. One would be well-advised to 'like' her Facebook page to keep attuned to shows, news and additional recordings.

These days you need a student ID to use the computers at the University of Rochester, but it's my guess they sit dormant most of the time.

DOUBLE J's Double Take

A Music & Personal Update

I wasn't able to rehearse once this week. I spent the first three days this week working two different jobs day and night. On Wednesday I tried to catch up on sleep and take care of things that have piled up while I was working so much and on the road shooting the Hundai 'Event'. Thursday I drove out to Highland to pick up Audra and we didn't get back until late on Friday. Night hours over the weekend and wanting to spend some time with Audra killed off the week for rehearsals. This kinda stinks because I am paying money for the rehearsal space and so far I haven't been able to make effective use of the place. I may have to rethink this and use commercial hourly spaces. I brought back my small PA system from where I was storing it at Audra's folks' in Highland because the last couple of times I rehearsed their PA system was gone leaving me to sing into a dead microphone (better than not rehearsing at all). Next week is pretty open so far so perhaps I can get in a trio of rehearsals then. On Friday I'll have to cough up rent again. Regarding next week being “open”, it's an interesting thing being a freelance worker; I absolutely love when I find myself face to face with a whole week when I have nothing to do, and yet there is a certain underlying terror to it. I am essentially unemployed until the phone rings again. I have every reason to believe it will but it hard to escape the reality that we're in free-fall until it does. As many know I work on Jeopardy, a steady gig many in this business would love to have but what many don't know is that's it's a part time gig (4 to 6 days a month), and only for 9 months of the year. Still, I love the relative freedom.

The Revenge of Mr. No-So-Cool

A re-write from my old Myspace blog "Diesel Fumes"

During high school I was not cool. I was not an athlete. I had never won anything, not a contest, not a raffle, not classroom bingo, nothing. I was quite conscious of this; probably why I didn't win.

In school, my academics were poor. I have mentioned my so-called learning disability in a previous post. This was a factor of course but I also just didn't care that much. I might not have cared at all, but my brother was getting excellent grades and my parents were both teachers. They were good not to pressure me to the point of rebellion but I knew they were at least a little disappointed. My teachers, noting that I was actually pretty intelligent would say “If only he'd apply himself..."

Okay, I'll do better. I'll work hard and... I'll just do better. I promised myself.

I studied, I did homework, I but after just a few minutes it was as if I was just looking at a different language on the page. Each word would evaporate from my mind as I read them. Soon my desire to pick up my bass won out over the books. I was breaking new ground on bass but looking at C's and D's as ever in school.

My social life wasn't going that well either. In my school, one of those places where everyone was very much caught up with football, we were known as “band fags” or 'biffs'. Nice huh? If I were to have listened to the masses I would have thought of myself as being the bottom of the food chain. Which of course I did. I was in high school with a low self esteem, not some semi-enlightened adult. Though I claimed to disdain them, the popular kids were royalty. I effectively bowed when they passed and cared very much what they thought of me which as a result, wasn't very much.

Girls: I thought about them all the time. The ones I liked I could barely utter an intelligent syllable to and I pretty much liked them all.

Music was what I was good at. It was my island it; the 'Earth' where I was superman and high school was my Krypton where I was just another weakling.

But music, my island paradise, had it's problems too.

I was not, nor have I ever really been, a disciplined or academic musician. I didn't practice as often as i should have and when I did I played what I felt like, not learning scales or practicing reading music—my big weak point. I had barely mustered a B- on my NYSMA (New York State School Music Association) solo competition solo on upright bass and I think they were being kind. As a bass player in the school music groups I was in, and even the rock bands I played in, I was always in the background, there was always some else in the spot light. As with many bass players, it was my self-image that had really put me there, not my choice of instrument.

Auditions, I hated them. It was not just about how well I could play, which was pretty good, it was about having the cool confidence to play before scrutinizing ears and eyes, by myself. It was a test of mojo, not just musicianship. During my senior year I went to Penn Yan, New York to audition for the Area All State Jazz Ensemble. There were several others auditioning, but I primarily noticed this one local guy warming up. He was a skinny kid that had a silk shirt with pictures of little records on it. He was playing some Led Zeppelin tune to warm up. He wore his bass strap very low, his bass almost to his knee. "Mr. Cool."

"No problem", I thought, "I can outplay this guy. I'll clean up Mr. Cool without breaking a sweat."

During my audition though, things did not go smoothly. There was no drummer, no band to play along with I was completely exposed. My mojo was out by the highway thumbing a ride back to Canandaigua. For the site reading one of the judges handed me a chart for a piece that he himself had composed and that I had never seen before (the whole point of site reading). Without anyone else to play with, I could barely get out the notes let alone lay down the good feel, the thing I was best at.

Did I mention this particular judge was also from Penn Yan: Mr. Cool's music teacher? No matter.

Mr. Cool was in and I was out. I was disappointed even a little pissed that I would have to sit out area allstate my senior year. I had put all my eggs in one basket and didn't audition for the allstate orchestra. I put it out of my mind and I most certainly didn't go to the concert.

Shelly Binder, was a stellar trumpet player from our school. She passed her audition with ease and played lead trumpet for the Area Allstate Jazz Band. She was a great player both academically and in the true musical sense. She also had what I lacked back then: self confidence. Shelly was also a good egg and has lent me some of her chutzpah on more than one occasion. When she returned from performing with the select group, the one with Mr. Cool on bass, she brought with her a jazz-rock chart that they had performed. During jazz band rehearsal she mentioned that the Pen Yan bass player, "Mr. Cool", had taken a solo in the piece. My blood began to boil but then she finished. "Joel would have done better. He should take a solo too." Mr Peters, our director agree and I was given eight bars of spotlight.

You can bet I worked my ass off on a rockin' solo.

Later that year the Canandaigua Academy Jazz Band, our jazz band, was at a jazz competition at Haverling High School in Hammondsport, New York. We were backstage, on-deck to perform. There was another band milling about that was playing after us. Among them was a tall beautiful girl in a yellow dress with a Les Paul Custom guitar strapped on.

Be still my heart! A cute girl with a Les Paul! I was instantly in love; that happened a lot (not seeing cute girls with Les Pauls around their necks, falling in love with cute girls with pretty much anything around their necks).

I attempted to make conversation with her but she, noting I was wearing a cheap, Korean-built Hondo II P-bass copy, was well aware that she outclassed me by around a thousand dollars. There was no talking to her. It didn't bother me too much though. I knew what was coming.

Onstage, in the late measures of our last piece, that same jazz-rock piece that Shelly brought in, I reached back and twisted the volume knob up on my Fender Bassman. I spun around in time to light into my solo. I wailed, my fingers flew, the notes came together together like Swiss gears and left my amp like a forest fire. I was completely in the moment. I relished every note.

The Five Points of 'Mr. Not-So-Cool's (my) Revenge:

1. I didn't even look at the snobby chic guitarist with the Les Paul as we left the stage. Maybe she was impressed with what a cheap bass could do in the hands of a bad ass bass mo-fo, maybe she wasn't, I didn't think about it much frankly. She was a lightweight who'd borrowed her daddy's guitar and could barely play with the feel of a cardboard box as far as I was concerned, and I hadn't even heard her play.

2. Mr. Cool was also in attendance for the solo. My friend Scott, also a Penn Yan student, was sitting next to him and told me that Mr. Cool was quite impressed with what I had done with 'his' solo (I choose to believe that meant intimidated as hell). My revenge was complete…

Or was it?

3. After all the bands had played everyone assembled in the auditorium to hear who had won the competition. Like with all award ceremonies they can't just read third, second, first place and be done with it, there always has to be a bunch of other stupid awards like 'best dressed trombonist' or most in-tune sax player. I didn't know, I wasn't paying attention, such awards never applied to me and definitely not to bass pla...

"The bass player from Canandaigua."

Whaa? What did they say?

There was back-slapping from all directions, otherwise I'd have thought I was hearing things. Apparently it was the award for 'best soloist'. Stunned, I began to rise from my seat to redeem my award, but the slapping hands pulled me back. Karl Taylor, our band's representative was already onstage to receive all our awards. Our band won the overall competition as well. 

I still have the plaque

4. Still reeling from my award and life's shift away from never having won anything, I sat on the bus with the rest of the band waiting for our director, Barry Peters, to return from the judges meeting. We were all on a psych from the win. Everyone continued slapping me on the back and shaking my hand. They had known about the Area Allstate thing. I got the feeling they were nearly as happy about my unexpected win as the band's championship.

When Mr. Peters reached the bus it was plain that he was very pleased too. He came right up to me grinning like the Cheshire cat: "One of the judges is the jazz band director at St. Bonaventure University. He was really impressed with your playing. In fact, he wants to pay you a scholarship to go to school there and play in their jazz band."

I've never been so blown away in my life. I was already adjusting to my first "win". The word "scholarship" didn't belong in the same sentence with anything having to do with me. Frankly, it was a little hard to take, all this honor and attention—it was also mentioned during the morning announcements the next day at school. It was all great and wonderful but I was completely unprepared to know how to feel.

5. By the time the bus reached our school and drove home it was after midnight. I rapped gently on my parents' bedroom door and stepped into the dark of their room.

"You'll never guess what," I said.

DOUBLE J's Double Take

A Music & Personal Update

I just returned home from the second and final weekend of the Hyundai 'event' I was working on. This Weekend we were in Paso Robles in Central California. the weather couldn't have been any more perfect, even if not compared to last weekend's 100 degree plus sweaty fry-fest in Arizona. Even better, our hotel, The Carlton Hotel was this awesome little restored hotel in Atescadero, California, about ten miles from our shooting location. A nice restaurant and I had a really charming very large and luxurious room, one of the nicest I've stayed in. The price: a steal at $150 a night. I highly recommend the place. I car-pooled up and back with a couple of great guys. One I already knew and one I had just met on this project who has lead an amazing life so far and had many fascinating tales to tell. Now I'm home and in about eight hours (2:30AM) I start my first shift covering Wimbledon at Tennis Channel. Afterwords I going to work sorting out the gear from the Hyundai thing. Tomorrow's going to be a long day! I got a couple rehearsals in last week. Lets see if i can get three in this week.

Fish-N-Chips-N-Beethoven, Part IV

This is from my journal during a high school trip to England and Scotland with the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. This current font indicates my comments written in the present.

See parts I thru III if you haven't already

For this final chapter of “Fish-N-Chips-N-Beethoven” play the following video while you read. Don't bother watching it, it just a series of photos.


There may have been some in our midst who were disappointed to be staying with host families instead of being put up in hotels, but I loved it. We were staying with real people and that's how I wanted to get to know the real UK.

The four families I ended up staying with during our time in the UK covered a wide area of class and apparent wealth and age. The first in Schrewsbury were a basic middle class family. They were very friendly average folks it seemed. In Harrogate, our hosts couple—the well-to-do older couple with the horrible dog—kept us at a polite arms length. The last family my roommate and I stayed with was a single mom and her two girls near London. I'll get back to them later.

In Scotland our hosts were a different story altogether and the most memorable of all the people I encountered in the UK. It was late at night when we met our Scottish hosts due to the bus breakdown. The guy who picked us up drove a three-wheeled car. He explained that even though it was just like a car, though a bit small, it could be registered as a motorcycle at a much cheaper rate than a regular car—quite expensive in the UK apparently. We met his wife briefly when we arrived at their modest condo then it was straight to bed.

There were chocolate Easter Eggs on both our pillows.

These were good people.


In the morning I awoke to hear two small boys in another room. The older was playing school master by quizzing the younger on his colors (colours).

“...And what colour is thot?” one said in a lyrical Scottish accent.
“Bluue!” a younger voice responded enthusiastically.
“Cadect.”
“What colour is thot?”
“Gdrrreen!”
“Cadect.”

I went back to sleep, but soon I heard a closer sound, the creaking of a door. I opened my eyes to see the door to our room opening slowly. A small fuzzy head peered around the door and a smaller head appeared just below the first. I closed my eyes. I could imagine being in their shoes, waiting all day with great anticipation to meet their guests from another country only to be told it was bed time and they'd have to see them in the morning. Now it was morning and behind the door were sleeping strangers from thousands of miles away. There was whispering and shushing. I decided to have some fun.

“RRRAAAAR!” I said as I opened my eyes wide. Two little boys ran down the hall giggling and screaming.

Geoff was an Englishman who married a Scot (Anne) and had moved to Scotland—though I may well have the order of events reversed. They were very open, friendly, down to Earth and funny. Geoff and Anne carried on a continual good-natured battle of Limy versus Scot. Neil and Frazier (don't forget to roll the Rs) were their young boys, 3 and 6 years-old. I sat across the breakfast table from Neil, eating his cereal, his hair a-tossle and the tie of his school uniform askew. His mother chided his appearance but no effort by either was taken to correct and off to school he went.

We toured Edinburgh and spent time at Edinburgh Castle, the classic castle on a high rock and traveled a mile down High Street to the equally amazing Palace of Holyroodhouse. I actually got to spend some time with Kristin!

 

Edinburgh Castle

Holyrood Palace

The orchestra rehearsed later that day. A half dozen of us were dropped-off a half mile from where our various host homes were. We stopped at a Chinese Restaurant along the way. The guy behind the counter spoke in, despite his broken English, the most understandable voice I had heard in the UK so far.

“Hey you guys Americans, you from New York? I from New York, Chinatown.” he said. While we were waiting for our food, one of the kids, a cellist, took out some girl's violin, propped it up on a table and played it like cello. I was surprised how well this worked.

That night those of us in the same neighborhood decided to go out to a pub. We could legally drink here, how could we not? I myself was a teetotaler at the time, but I figured 'when in Rome'.

We took a bus to a pub in downtown Dunferline. I was surprised at how low key and comfortable it was. We hung our with some local guys who were perplexed when they saw us playing 'quarters' (a drinking game popular with American high school kids at the time). I don't think they were scratching their heads over our bouncing quarters off and table and (hopefully) into the mug of beer, I think they were wondering why anyone needed a game to drink.

Being unaccustomed to English beer, let alone beer at all. I was feeling no pain after a pint and a half. We were being loud Americans at the bus stop and getting some sideways looks from some older ladies. “Bluudy Americans” I said in my best Scottish accent. On the bus ride home I felt euphoric. The reality of being there, really there, and traveling as a musician. Sure it was just a high school youth orchestra, but it was a damn good one. Laura, one of the flautists, was sitting next to me. To my own surprise I put my arm around her and to additional surprise she didn't protest.

At our hosts' home the whole group came in and watched 'telly' for a while. I tried to hide my drunkenness from our host, though I didn't think it would hurt to allow myself to indulge in my alcohol-inspired charisma in a nice conversation with out hosts.

The next morning Anne gave us a 'look' when we came down for the hot breakfast she had made , her "supreme sacrifice".

“Any 'angovers this mornin?” she said.


That evening our Scottish concert the was in the modest Lochgelly center. It was smallest room we played but it was full of people, probably more than the largest room we played at Leeds Town Hall. The concert went pretty well, but our French horn player squawked that note again. It was beginning to be a thorn in everyone's side.

Soon we boarded buses and headed south for the day-long trip back to London with a stop in Yorkshire of which I can only seem to remember there being a very large wall. Jonathon, one of our violinists and a prodigy who had written several symphonies, but also a bit scatterbrained, was missing when we boarded the coaches. After about twenty minutes of Mrs. Reifler searching in a panic he was found wandering aimless about.

We met our new host at a school in Bromley, a suburb south of London, where we would be play a concert in a couple of days. She was a charismatic, maybe a bit flighty woman with eleven and fifteen year-old daughters. On this stay there were two more kids from the orchestra staying with us. They were a couple of young Asian guys who were not only astoundingly immature but embarrassingly obnoxious. They constantly giggled like school girls. I probably would have enjoyed our hosts more if it had just been David and I, Our host talked a lot and had many projects around their house in various stages of completion. She and her girls loved the US. They had Disneyland stuff around their house from a trip to California (someplace I had not yet been).

The next evening after our own rehearsal, we attended a London Philharmonic concert at Royal Festival Hall on the bank of the Thames near Waterloo Station. It was humbling to hear how good a 'real' orchestra sounded. Maybe we weren't so great after all.

We had a whirlwind bus tour of London the next day. Our volunteer guide was a older woman who donned white plastic louvered sunglasses which were sort of hip at the time. They looked a bit ridiculous on her (as they did on anyone) but she seemed to carry them off somehow. We had a chance to explore London on our own a bit. I finally had a chance to hang out with Kristin and her friend Kathleen by default. We took the 'Tube' to Piccadilly Circus and looked around a bit. It was very touristy. We got some food at a stand and when we received our food the guy said: “you're the first American's I've ever heard that said 'please' and 'thank you'. I was unsure whether to be flattered or insulted.

When we left for our bus tour we were told to bring our concert clothes as we would be going straight to our concert afterwords. I brought my suit but failed to remember my dress shoes. So I had to wear my sneakers with my suit.

It was a significant concert for two reasons. 1. It was our last concert in England. After all those concerts and rehearsals we were at the top of our game (a sports analogy seems odd but 'oh well'). 2. Were were playing at a public school (“public school” in England means 'private' in the US, as it is funded by the public not the government). The school orchestra was playing before us and we collectively felt a desire to show off a little.

Before the concert there were kids from the host school milling about as well as the throngs of Americans. The English kids seemed shy, almost frightened of us. Shelly, the trumpet player who had gotten me my audition to join the RPYO who was not at all shy and or frightened of anything, started a round of the “Star Spangled Banner” with the brass players and even a few singing along. She decided to 'smooth it over' with the Brits by playing “God Save the Queen” but they may have been even more taken aback by that.

The host orchestra, a strings-only affair, played very beautiful slow lush soft graceful sad pieces like “Adagio for Strings” by Samuel Barber (think of the end scene in “Platoon”). Each piece they played seemed to end very softly, the conductor easing them into silence with the utmost care. I remember thinking two things: that they were a very good, well rehearsed and disciplined ensemble and “wait'll they get a load of us!”

I don't know if they were impressed in the sense of admiration, but we certainly made an impression. Our pieces were, at times, loud, complex and rhythmic and usually ended with a bang. But what about “The Moldau” It was our last piece, my favorite to play; it was full of soaring scales and multiple textures and moods as the 'story' of this tone poem follows the Czech Moldau River past beautiful countryside, austere cities, a peasant wedding and violent rapids finally flowing into the sea.

We were worried. Our first chair horn player had not gotten that difficult passage correct yet. Not once in concert. We didn't hold it against her, more like we were cheering her on wanting her to succeed. But now the stakes were higher, we were playing for our peers who had just played for us. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath as her infamous passage approached.

She nailed it! Perfect, confident, as the English say: “spot on.”

This created a collective rush for all of us. It was all down hill from there and we, pardon the expression, rocked it! We had never sounded better and there was no doubt by anyone in the theater that we were, for our age, quite good.

I met our host and her daughters after the concert. The eleven-year-old (in her adorable accent of course) said to me “Why are you wearing your tennis shoes.”

I didn't know the expression at the time, but if I had, being on the high of such a great performance, I might have replied: “Cuz that's how I roll baby.”

Because I happened to be 19 at the time (the drinking age in NY in 1984) several kids had asked me to bring bottles of wine, etc. they had purchased at duty free shops at Gatewick airport through US customs for them  at JFK. I still had some fruit that my host 'mom' had packed me off with that I threw out because I was nervous about it being 'contraband'. My carry-on bag was heavy with he alcohol it and I was a little nervous at the prospect of having to lie and say it was my own but in the end I was waved through customs altogether simply because I was carrying my huge string bass. Can you imagine?

We boarded the big dirty Greyhound bus for the trip home and I remember having the thought “The driver's sitting on the wrong side.”

One by one the kids all got picked by their parents in front of the Eastman Theater in Rochester, New York in the wee hours after our buses had arrived. By 5AM only the director Howard Weiss and I remained. He was looking annoyed... more annoyed than usual. I tried to call my parents but my sleepy brother told me they had spent the night with friends so they get up early and pick me up.

So where were they?

When they finally showed up and Howard could go home. I said “where were you?”

It had been the daylight savings time shift that morning and they had either forgotten about it or shifted in the wrong direction.

Still, I was euphoric. It had been an amazing trip. I'm sure I didn't shut up about it the entire ride home. I knew I would be back, as a rock musician next time!

Twenty seven years later I have been to the four corners of the US in a tour bus and played to crowds large and small, but I have yet to get back to England. I never properly dated Kristin either. We kept in touch by mail via her friend Kathleen but because of her age and her strict parents that was as far as it could go. I once drove to Ithaca College where she was attending a music camp of some sort and I got to hang out with her (and Kathleen of course) for a little bit before they had to get back but we lost contact after that.

A couple of years ago on a whim I decided to see if I could find her and lo and behold she was living with her wonderful family in Southern California! As a result we often commiserate on the points of being foreigners in this strange land (Rochesterians in LA). She even played violin and viola on my album! Had I been seated somewhere else on that 747, I would not have the friend I do today and my album would not have sounded the same.

My not returning to England hasn't been as happy an ending, yet. I not only want to go back but I would like to spend more than eleven days there and so does my wife. More than a month, more than three! I'm still not sure how this will transpire or if my visit will be as a musician or something else, but somehow, some day I will get back.

Cuz that's how I roll baby!

DOUBLE J's Double Take

A Music & Personal Update

I am writing this from my hotel room in Phoenix, Arizona (Glendale really). I have been here for a couple days (I fly home tomorrow) working on a "Summer Research Event" (as we're supposed to call it) as a camera tech. Yesterday and today I spent the entire day outdoors in hundred degree heat trying to keep video equipment in the trunks of test cars from melting holes to the center of the earth. If nothing else this has been great for weight loss. I'll be quite excited to go home and see what this two-day fat camp from hell (plus some difficult prep days earlier in the week) has done. I was pretty good and stayed away from the craft table for the most part. Other than working on the Jeopardy Watson project at IBM I have done very little physical work in the past six months so I am quite sore, sore, sore, SORE right now. Musically I have little to report. Extra prep days kept me from rehearsing at my new space during the week but I have the next four days off so I will get a couple in there.

Fish-N-Chips-N-Beethoven, Part III

This is from my journal during a high school trip to England and Scotland with the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. This current font indicates my comments written in the present. See parts I & II if you haven't already.

Wednesday 4/18/84 -continued

...Shrewsbury is a really lovely town; unspoiled. Charles Darwin was born and raised here. Our hosts are really nice. They have 2 kids at home; Dave 20, and Catherine 14. Dave was cool and would have taken us to a pub but we were too tired. Catherine was very quiet.

Shrewsbury, Shropshire, UK. the center of town hasn't changed much
since Charles Darwin walked these streets

Thursday 4/19/84

The next day after a breakfast of sausage eggs, bacon, toast, cereal (I was surprised for some reason that the English had Corn flakes and other familiar products) and tea, we (Dave -my roommate, Tom -horn and Scott -trumpet were delivered to the town square. We broke into groups of 25 (I wasn't with Kristin—again) for a walking tour of Shrewsbury... We ended up at “The Castle” (Shrewsbury Castle). We had a reception by the Mayor. We had time to shop before rehearsal.

Shrewsbury Castle

The large instruments still haven't arrived. So when rehearsal time came we (the players of the large instruments) could still shop and hang out while the other kids had to rehearse anyway. I bought a pair of pinstriped jeans with Mary (cello). The van didn't show until an hour before our first concert. Then, 18 bars into the first piece, all the hair pulled out of the tip of my bow. I was furious and had to play pizzicato (plucking the strings) for the rest of the concert. It was ridiculous!

One of our guides, “Tim Jones,” is a bass player and happened to live right in Shrewsbury -thank God. He said he would lend me his (bow) for the rest of the tour.

After the concert we ate a late meal with our hosts and talked late into the night.

Walking around the town, we didn't have to open my mouths for English kids to know we were Americans. They seemed to know straight off somehow.


Shrewsbury was my favorite part of England, it was rich in history and beauty. It proved to me that the way I had always thought of England actually exists... except for maybe the punk rockers. It seemed that every kid in England at that time was completely punked-out and we Americans looked like a John Hughes movie on tour. No wonder they could tell we were Americans.

There was one girl in my own graduating class who was considered the class 'punk' because she wore dark eyeliner, black stockings and shunned the frilly preppy blouses that every other girl wore. We thought she was the coolest thing in the world because she was so 'rad'. If there was one thing about England that surprised me more than anything else, it was that, even in a small town like Shrewsbury, so many of the kids were hardcore: leather, spiked hair, piercings, Mohawks, chains, studs. I was a little frightened of them frankly. It was like our safe little John Hughes movie had detoured into a post-apocalyptic sci fi... that happened to be set in an idyllic English town.

Friday 4/20/84

We left for Yorkshire. After 5 hours of winding through gorgeous countryside we unloaded in Harrogate and almost immediately started rehearsing after listening to a very so-so high school band from Canada. After rehearsal I was ready to kill Jeanine (my stand partner) The stage was too small for a hundred plus member orchestra and Jeanine and I were practically backstage and still cramped. She kept hitting my bass with her bow as I recall. Jeannine was an annoying fourteen-year-old, but I think I was also a bit bugged that, because of my lousy audition I had been placed fifth chair out of six players even though, practically speaking, I was a better player than all but one of them. The situation with my bass bow didn't much improve my mood. Even though I had a loaner bow from one of our guides, it was a German style bow; very different from the French style I'd always played with. It used an entirely different hand position that resembles the final stages of arthritis. Getting used to it was was a learning process and making my right hand sore.

We then met our hosts. Dave and I were alone this time. Our hosts were nice enough but a bit stuffy. They had an awful dog who had his name on my leg.  

We were formally 'received' by the older upper class couple in their sitting room for a brief and formal Q & A, then shown to our rooms on the third floor. We only saw our hosts at meals henceforth. I felt my behavior or rather “behaviour” was being closely scrutinized the entire time I was there. 

(At the concert) We were the last act in what must have been a tiring show for the audience. We only played part of the program of our usual show. It was funny because it was the largest audience we'd played for and the least appreciative. Backstage at that concert a kid from Canada gave me a pin (of the Canadian flag) that Canadian Commerce had given him to give away.

Our performance at the Harrogate International Youth Music Festival.
There was so little space on this stage that the first chair violin and cello
had to put their music stand up on the conductors podium.
I'm the bassist on the far right in the back who's halfway backstage.

Sat 4/21/84

We got to sleep-in (sort of). Dave and I headed to the square for pictures of the orch, then shopped.

I remember getting lunch at a pizza place that served the worst pizza I have ever tasted.

 

The Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra in Harrogate, Yorkshire in the UK.
Can you find me? Hint- I'm not looking at the camera. -you can click to enlarge-

That evening we had a concert in Leeds (or “At Leeds” if “The Who” are to be believed). It was the most beautiful hall we've played -Leeds Town hall. It seated about 700 people. Not quite 100, (mostly elderly) people showed up, but after our third straight show we were awesome! Tired again, why does Dave practice his recorders at night?

 

Leeds Town Hall, an awe inspiring place.

We were getting better with each show we played but there was one thing that kept us from sounding professional. There was a French horn passage in “The Moldau,” a beautiful piece that tells the story of a river's journey to the sea, that our first horn player could never seem to get right. It was almost a solo, completely exposed. There was a difficult leap to a high note right at the end of that section. Each performance so far she had missed the note. French horn, like violin, is a challenging instrument that sounds wonderful when played well, but like wild animal mating calls when not played absolutely perfectly. Each time we got to the horn passage the orchestra collectively held it's breath hoping she would hit that high note without 'squawnking' it.

At Leeds, once again, she squawnked.

Sun 4/22/84 (Easter)

I wanted to go to church or to an Easter Mass but our hosts didn't seem to know of anyplace. Off to Scotland...

There were both differences and similarities that surprised me about England. I'm not sure why it surprised me that there are four lane highways—or “motorways” as they call them in the UK—that look like they could be in Kentucky or Upstate New York except of course the traffic is all going in different directions on the right and left sides. Even the rest stops, with gift shops and fast food, looked very much like those along the New York State Thruway.

We had different buses this time, but Kristin was on the other one as usual. Amy (oboe), Jeanine (my stand partner), another Amy (violin) and a bunch of other girls decided it would be fun to do my hair after my very reluctant permission was granted. They matted it down with setting gel and put eyeliner under my eyes. Shortly thereafter, the bus broke down. (All the kids crammed onto the other bus) I stayed behind to help transfer luggage when a replacement bus would arrive later.

In the company of my fellow students, my funky looking hair and my rock star eyeliner looked a little bit cool, or at least was seen in the context of the fun we were having, and how can I lie—I loved the attention from all those girls—but now I was left back with a coach driver and the tour manager. I looked like an idiot and the rest of the orchestra was headed to Scotland without me.

Fish-N-Chips-N-Beethoven, Part IV

DOUBLE J's Double Take

A Music & Personal Update

During my long uneventful night hours during the French Open I finished the noise reduction modification to my Repeater (looper), some scary and intricate electronic alterations that I downloaded instructions for. The instructions warn that it's a difficult procedure. I was not deterred but maybe I should have been; I'm afraid the Repeater lost some of it's functionality under my scalpel, but it can be fixed later and thie things I killed were things I didn't expressly need, so it is back in my rack and now -more quietly- helping me recreate things like "Rice Crispies and Gin" live. After my first rehearsal (by myself) at my new space. Lou, the guy who primarily rents the place, called me to say that a guitarist friend of his who rents a space below ours told him he 'sounded really good the other night' when it was actually me he was hearing. "Keep making me sound good" Lou said. I start work this coming week (today technically) on a Hyundai commercial that will take me on the road for a couple of weeks. This will be something a little different for me and I am looking forward to it.