My parents danced on a pavement to the Herb Miller band on the cote d'azur in the mid 80's. He was performing outside the Palais des Festivales on the wide pedestrian area, for free. I'll never forget it. I think that got me interested in big band and jazz. My daughter picked up the saxophone as a result of my NY jazz club stories such as hearing Winton Marsalis at the newly opened Iridium Jazz club in the late 90's... thankfully she didn't choose the trumpet!😁
Someday I'm going to have to write a blog about coming up through musical eras that saw my older sister teaching to dance to Glen Miller, then Bill Haley and the Comets and Elvis with every national music then in vogue floating on the musical foundation of the southeast Nebraska farm land which was polkas. One of my class members even became a nationally known polka musician. Looking back at it, it was a very interesting mix.
Having been alive only one time I'm thinking almost any time is a good time to be alive. It's the rare individual, regardless of when they were born that doesn't go through several totally different lives within the life they're living. That's sort of a blog subject. My dad was a teenager when Model Ts were new and his dad died in our small town in Nebraska never having seen a mountain, an airplane or driven a car. He died at 42. My dad grew up as a child driving horse drawn wagons but later in life took the Concorde to Europe. 'Think he saw a lot of changes?
I was at an Indian gathering, mostly closed to anglos, in 1965 or so. I was introduced to a half dozen treasured members of a tribe (don't ask which, I've forgotten). They were treasured because they'd been warriors and had counted coup in the Ghost Dance wars of the 1890s. Only a few spoke English. While we were talking I looked up and saw the vapor trail of a B-52 going into Tinker AFB a 100 miles north of us. At the same time, a Gemini capsule was in orbit. Fighting the Cavalry on horseback to capsules in orbit. Does change get any bigger than that?
Budd, you articulate so well I'm glad that you've had the experience or connections and then also the skill to put pen to paper (or finger to button... more progress). It's been a helluva 150 years or so to witness. Stage coach to Concorde encapsulates it well!!
Interesting that you should write this (or that I should read it) as I was thinking about the musicians who were our contemporaries in the sixties and seventies music scene in which we found ourselves, however tangentially. I met Denver when I was house sitting for Pat and Victoria back in the summer of’69. He had put one of their songs (The misspelled “Fugacity”) on his debut album, just after he left the Mitchell Trio. We sat out on their front porch for about an hour trading songs and talking about people we both knew. It’s hard to remember how interconnected the folk community. Now Kristopherson’s gone. He was backstage at Kerrville one year. He wasn’t playing, he just dropped by for the evening. He’d just wrapped up shooting A Star is Born and just wanted to hear Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt play. Interesting times.
Very interesting time! Was Pat and Victoria's house the one up on the hill in Central City? If so, I helped them pull plaster lathes off the walls right after they got it to do the walls. Dirty damn job! Even at that time that old house had to be pushing 100 years old.
I only met Denver once and I "think" it was when I was pitching myself to a Coffee house in Kent, OH. A lot of my memories from that time get scrambled into one another. We're talking over 50 years, ya know.
I was running out of space. I try to keep down to 1,300 words. Reeves, if I remember right, flew his Debonair into a mountain. I skipped a number, including Otis Redding who was on board a Twin Beech (if I remember right, an H model) and, for no apparent reason, on short final it dove into the water when only two or three hundred feet high.
No I'm aware of all the big name tragedies but it's depressing. My dad loved Jim Reeves so I heard a lot of him growing up. One of the saddest was the lead guitarist for Ozzie Osborne who rented a Cessna and went in while buzzing where they were staying....not that if was that great a loss but just how fucking stupid it was
My parents danced on a pavement to the Herb Miller band on the cote d'azur in the mid 80's. He was performing outside the Palais des Festivales on the wide pedestrian area, for free. I'll never forget it. I think that got me interested in big band and jazz. My daughter picked up the saxophone as a result of my NY jazz club stories such as hearing Winton Marsalis at the newly opened Iridium Jazz club in the late 90's... thankfully she didn't choose the trumpet!😁
Someday I'm going to have to write a blog about coming up through musical eras that saw my older sister teaching to dance to Glen Miller, then Bill Haley and the Comets and Elvis with every national music then in vogue floating on the musical foundation of the southeast Nebraska farm land which was polkas. One of my class members even became a nationally known polka musician. Looking back at it, it was a very interesting mix.
bd
What a time to be alive!
Having been alive only one time I'm thinking almost any time is a good time to be alive. It's the rare individual, regardless of when they were born that doesn't go through several totally different lives within the life they're living. That's sort of a blog subject. My dad was a teenager when Model Ts were new and his dad died in our small town in Nebraska never having seen a mountain, an airplane or driven a car. He died at 42. My dad grew up as a child driving horse drawn wagons but later in life took the Concorde to Europe. 'Think he saw a lot of changes?
I was at an Indian gathering, mostly closed to anglos, in 1965 or so. I was introduced to a half dozen treasured members of a tribe (don't ask which, I've forgotten). They were treasured because they'd been warriors and had counted coup in the Ghost Dance wars of the 1890s. Only a few spoke English. While we were talking I looked up and saw the vapor trail of a B-52 going into Tinker AFB a 100 miles north of us. At the same time, a Gemini capsule was in orbit. Fighting the Cavalry on horseback to capsules in orbit. Does change get any bigger than that?
bd
Budd, you articulate so well I'm glad that you've had the experience or connections and then also the skill to put pen to paper (or finger to button... more progress). It's been a helluva 150 years or so to witness. Stage coach to Concorde encapsulates it well!!
Interesting that you should write this (or that I should read it) as I was thinking about the musicians who were our contemporaries in the sixties and seventies music scene in which we found ourselves, however tangentially. I met Denver when I was house sitting for Pat and Victoria back in the summer of’69. He had put one of their songs (The misspelled “Fugacity”) on his debut album, just after he left the Mitchell Trio. We sat out on their front porch for about an hour trading songs and talking about people we both knew. It’s hard to remember how interconnected the folk community. Now Kristopherson’s gone. He was backstage at Kerrville one year. He wasn’t playing, he just dropped by for the evening. He’d just wrapped up shooting A Star is Born and just wanted to hear Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt play. Interesting times.
Very interesting time! Was Pat and Victoria's house the one up on the hill in Central City? If so, I helped them pull plaster lathes off the walls right after they got it to do the walls. Dirty damn job! Even at that time that old house had to be pushing 100 years old.
I only met Denver once and I "think" it was when I was pitching myself to a Coffee house in Kent, OH. A lot of my memories from that time get scrambled into one another. We're talking over 50 years, ya know.
bd
Even harder to know we’re alive after eighty years.
Yes it was and I know. Hard to believe we’ve known each other almost sixty years!
Much harder to believe we're both still alive after 60 years.
bd
Jim Reeves?
I was running out of space. I try to keep down to 1,300 words. Reeves, if I remember right, flew his Debonair into a mountain. I skipped a number, including Otis Redding who was on board a Twin Beech (if I remember right, an H model) and, for no apparent reason, on short final it dove into the water when only two or three hundred feet high.
Any one else?
bd
No I'm aware of all the big name tragedies but it's depressing. My dad loved Jim Reeves so I heard a lot of him growing up. One of the saddest was the lead guitarist for Ozzie Osborne who rented a Cessna and went in while buzzing where they were staying....not that if was that great a loss but just how fucking stupid it was
Actually, having been heavily invest in both aviation and music there was a lot of "f*cking stupid" floating around in both arenas.
bd
I think that many of "us" don't know how much we don't know.
That's why we keep accidentally doing stupid stuff!
bd