Playing the blues @ 3 Quarks Daily with Out of Control

I’ve got a new post at 3 Quarks Daily:

On the Road with The Out of Control Rhythm and Blues Band, https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2023/11/on-the-road-with-the-out-of-control-rhythm-and-blues-band.html

It’s an expansion of a post from about two weeks ago: On the road and Out of Control [It’s the blues]. I'm the trumpet player at the lower left in the video above.

Both posts are built on incidents which I recount in varying levels of detail.

One incident that didn’t make the cut happened when we held auditions for a new guitarist. We put an advertisement in the local entertainment weekly, The Metroland, and prepared audition tapes for those who wanted to tryout. I think we had, say, three tunes on the tape, different kinds of tunes. They had to learn them for the audition. Beyond that, we wanted to see how they soloed.

I forget how many dudes tried out, but one guy didn’t take us seriously. He showed up with beautiful equipment, twin cream-colored Marshall amplifiers, with gold plated fittings on the amps and his guitar. But he hadn’t looked at the audition tape. He just wanted to jam a blues in E. I forget whether we indulged him, but he didn’t get the gig. If we’d had a lever that opened a whole in the floor and sent him packing, we’d have pulled it quick.

A somewhat different incident happened while we were performing at The Blockhouse Beef and Brew in Schenectady, which was a hangout for a gang of biker Vietnam veterans. The place didn’t have a stage; we just set up on the floor in a corner. We were playing some tune, I forget which, and I was playing the trumpet, I think on some back-up figures (as opposed to a solo). Suddenly I felt someone stroking my inner thigh. I looked down and saw a woman kneeling in front of me, stroking my thigh. As I looked up I saw her boyfriend standing behind her. “Danger Will Robinson! This does not compute!” I had no idea what was going on, but it seemed like there was some potential for harm. Fortunately nothing was going on. Just some chick who wanted to stroke my thigh.

Go figure.

Finally, here’s an incident I published in my book, Beethoven’s Anvil (pp. 93-94):

A number of years ago I was playing trumpet with a rhythm and blues band in a bar in downtown Albany, New York. It was two in the morning and we were exhausted at the end of a five-hour gig. My chops were shot.

We decided to play one more tune, “Stormy Monday.” Normally I didn’t solo on that tune; however, it is a slow blues, and I dearly love a slow blues. So despite my exhaustion, I decided to take a chorus—one cycle through the tune. I started playing simple figures in the lower-middle register and then elaborated on those figures and moved to the upper register. I hit my climax at the penultimate bar of the chorus, as anticipated, and was ready to stop playing. But, the rhythm section wasn’t playing concluding riffs; they clearly expected me to play another chorus. If I’d had any sense I'd have ignored them and stopped. My lips were crying out in pain; if I played much more my lip muscles would surely fail.

I didn’t like the idea of following a good chorus with a mediocre one. I couldn't remain in the trumpet’s difficult upper register, nor could I drop back to the middle register and then build back up—the two most obvious options for constructing another chorus. In a split-split second I decided “oh, what the hell” and did a Sonny Rollins, dropping to the middle register, growling and flutter tonguing to make the nastiest, bluesiest sound I could. Another power had entered my playing. Captain cat went on the prowl and the music went into overdrive. Solid.

As the band stood around after the gig, several people came up to me and chatted, touching me on the forearm on their way out. But it wasn’t me they wanted to touch. It was the power that emerged during that second chorus.

Perhaps I’ll gather some more anecdotes and spin another post out of them.

"Inside these Walls" by the Out of Control Rhythm and Blues Band

I can't believe that I haven't already put this on New Savanna, but I've done a search, and it's not there. So here it is.

It's performed by the Out of Control Rhythm and Blues Band, which I've just blogged about. The band recorded it in 1996, well after I'd left (in about 1990). It's by Rick Rourke, alto and tenor sax, and backup and lead vocal. He wrote both the tune and the lyrics. It's autobiographical in nature but, like all good art, has wide appeal. I did the photographs.

On the road and Out of Control [It’s the blues]

The road was generally somewhere in the Capital District of upstate New York. Think of it as a bunch of towns and small cities centered around Albany, the state capital, Troy, where I lived at the time, and Schenectady, incidentally, where my grandfather had his first job in the United States, and where the band rehearsed in the basement of a photography studio in a somewhat sketchy part of town. The studio was owned by Rick Siciliano, lead vocalist and drummer for The Out of Control Rhythm and Blues Band. I played with the band from about 1985 to 1990 or so.

What a time we had, the tunes, the gigs, the stories, the women – at least for Rick, the rest of us, not so much. There’s no logical way to tell the tales, so I’ll just let ‘er rip and hope for the best.

I gather the band started as a Blues Brothers cover band, which was itself something of a cover band. “Cover band?” you ask. A band that plays, that is, covers other bands’ tunes. But you can’t play three sets a night on the Blues Brothers repertoire, so the guys had learned a bunch of other tunes by the time I joined. Even had an original, “Baby Tell the Truth.”

I signed up to be the substitute trumpet player. When the regular guy couldn’t make it, I’d get the call. I forget just how the audition process went, but it’s not like there were 30 trumpeters lined up to get the gig. Fact is, the time when trumpet was king was long gone by then so there weren’t many trumpeters, period. I forget just how I learned the tunes, but there were no charts. Perhaps Cris Cernik, keyboardist and den leader, or Ken Drumm, saxophone and business manager, got me a set of rehearsal tapes. Whatever. I just listened and learned by ear, like all real musicians play, except for classical cats and other advanced miscreants.

Anyhow I soon became the one-and-only full-time trumpeter for the band. We played the majority of our gigs in the Capital District, but we did venture out on occasion: Glens Falls (I once saw Mike Tyson fight there), a wedding in Wilton, Connecticut (quarter of a mile from Dave Brubeck’s place), Montauk (unverified rumor has it that Jann Wenner heard us; if so, he didn’t put us on the cover of his magazine), another wedding at a compound in the Adirondacks where sound man extraordinaire Jim Boa miked my trumpet so I could stroll among the revelers, Americade at Lake George, 25,000 middle-age bikers including Malcolm Forbes in full red, white, and blue leathers with his Capitalist Tool balloon, and Montreal in the dead of Winter, where it seems like half the blues guitarists in town lined up to sit in with us at a local jam, which was after our regular gig, playing in white tails for dancing at a GE Plastics marketing convention (Bo Diddly had to borrow a guitar from us because, you know, airlines).

We got around. But as I said, mostly to clubs in the aforementioned Capital District. Saratoga Springs was at the northern edge of the district. One of our favorite clubs was there, the Metro. It was owned by Peter Paquette, former art instructor at Skidmore College who dressed a bit like Don “Miami Vice” Johnson as I recall, and had three venues: the downstairs bar, where we played; a disco behind that, where Steve Rosenbaum DJed (I’ll get to him in a moment); and an upstairs room with a bar, tables with table cloths (but no food), and a jazz trio (classy). This video will introduce you to five members of the band (out of seven) and to the Metro as well:

That’s Steve Rosenbaum narrating the video. He started Our Town Television after he graduated from Skidmore and did a story about us. We returned the favor by playing his wedding, to Pam Yoder. [Somewhat later they moved to NYC and did an award-winning documentary on 9/11, among many other things.] The gig in the video, that was filmed in the downstairs bar at the Metro. We’re playing “Flip, Flop, and Fly,” originally by Big Joe Turner in 1955, covered by various other artists, including The Blues Brothers. And they conveyed it to us, and a gazillion other garage bands as well.

Why was the Metro one of our favorite clubs? The venue was nice, a bit larger than most of the bars and clubs where we played. Management – Peter Paquette – was cool, and so was the staff. The crowds were into the music. On a reasonable night they’d get up and dance, pretty important when the music is basically dancing music. On a good night, well, that’s something else indeed. Remember at the end of the video (about 3:19) Rick Rourke (saxophone and back-up vocal) says: “It’s the closest you can get to really being feeling totally happy with yourself.” That’s the truth. That’s why we liked the Metro. Often enough, though perhaps not 50% of the time, that’s how it was.

For my money, though, the best gig we ever played was at a scrappy sports bar in North Troy. What I remember is that, more than at any other gig we played, the crowd generated energy – whatever you want to call it – more than enough to answer ours and then some. All we did was surf the energy flow, direct it here and there. Front and center was Lenny, a fan, long hair, leather jacket, wallet on a chain, blue jeans, scruffy boots, and, you know, what I see in my mind’s eye is Lenny dancing on top of his Harley while spinning it around the dance floor shooting laser beams from his eyes and lighting up the crowd. I don’t think that actually happened, doesn’t seem physically possible, does it? Metaphysically, yes. Actually physically, no. But one can never tell about these things.

Then there was that New Year’s Eve wedding in the Berkshires. Rick and I drove together. There was just enough snow to touch off the Winter Wonderland vibe, but not so much as to make the driving treacherous. I loved wedding gigs, though many of the guys in the band seemed to be skeptical, perhaps because they didn’t like the idea of being a wedding band. But we weren’t a wedding band, and Ken made that clear when he booked the gig. We play our regular repertoire, no chicken dance, but we’ll learn a tune for the bride’s first dance. We do jazz-lite for the reception. That’s it, and you pay us an arm and a leg for the privilege. So the people were serious about dancing, and you always had three, maybe four, who knows, generations out on the dance floor.

Anyhow, this gig was at one of those places known as cottages by the people who built them, but to you and me they’re mansions. Most of them are no longer private residences, too costly to maintain. This one was an event venue. I don’t remember much about the place, but there was a lot of dark wood paneling.

As part of the deal we agreed to let the groom’s good buddy sit in on harp – that’s blues talk for harmonica, why, I don’t know. We were a bit iffy about this, because who the hell knew whether or not good buddy could actually play, but they’re paying the bill, so what choice did we have? It’s not like we’re Buddy Guy or the Rolling Stones. We’re just a bunch of kick-ass local guys. Anyhow, buddy shows up with a case full of harps in every damn key, which could be a good sign or it could mean he just had some spare change and no sense. But when he took out his bullet mike, we began breathing again. A bullet mike is a small mike you can cup in your hand right against the harp. He knew what he was doing.

A good time was had by all – though they did stiff us a bit on the meal. Oh well.

Finally, I guess I should tell you about opening for B. B. King at the Palace Theater in Albany, New York. Obviously, it’s a special gig. Perhaps some might even say it’s an honor. But that’s not quite right the connotation. Honor? It’s a gig. The thing is, it’s not as though being local guys opening for one of the all-time greats somehow exempted us from actually having to show up and play our assess off. No, whatever else it is, it’s a gig like every other gig. You have to play the music, no matter what the venue or how big the crowd, you have to PLAY, otherwise what’s the point?

And that’s what we did. We opened with The Running Blues, which has a horn line that’s high wide and screaming. Since I play the trumpet – about which Garrison Keillor has said, “Now there’s an instrument you can really embarrass yourself with” – it was up to me to put it over. Things were going great until the very last note, a high one. Nothing came out of the horn. Not a damn thing. Did I panic? Hell, no, couldn’t afford to. Besides, Chris over there was cranking it out on the Hammond B3 with the whirling Leslies, he covered the note. No one (in the audience) new that the trumpeter choked. Looked like I was wailing away. The gig went fine.

Afterward we got to meet the Beale Street Blues Boy Himself. Us and about 50 middle aged matrons in flower print dresses and wide going-to-church hats. B.B. had a good word for every one of them. Us too.

There are other stories I could tell you, lots of other stories. That’s enough for the moment. But I want to say something about the band itself, who and what we were. Above all else, and here I’m dead serious, we were musicians, making music together. Nothing else counted. Outside of the band, we were very different. Some of us were college-educated, some not. Blue collar, white collar, irrelevant. Every one of us had some clothes that were band clothes. We didn’t wear uniforms – except for that time when GE Plastics bought us white tails because someone had the silly idea that all those salesmen would actually dance without any women to dance with – but we did dress for gigs, each according to our own style. There was no formal leader. We all got paid the same. Sometimes we paid the roadies more than we paid ourselves. Why? Because they had to work longer hours, that’s why.

Now, I say “we,” but it was Ken who did it. He was the business manager. We didn’t hold a band meeting about it. Ken just did it, we all knew he did it, and we were fine with it – at least I think we were.

There were lots of tacit understandings going on. Had to be. No other way to make things work. Were there tensions and troubles? Of course, we’re human. But we worked it out. Why? For the music, that’s why.

“It’s the closest you can get to really being feeling totally happy with yourself.”

E pluribus unum.

* * * * *

For more news of the blues – it's tacky, I know, so sue me – check out these posts.

Memories of a King, the Beale Street Blues Boy

It’s possible that the first photo I ever saw of B. B. King was on the cover of Charlie Keil’s Urban Blues, an ethnographic study that spilled over into common discourse and made Charlie’s career. And I’m sure I read more about him in that book than I’ve read about him since then. But I don’t recall when I first heard King’s music and I only ever saw him live but twice in my life, once at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) in upstate New York in the late 1970s or early 1980s and then a bit later in Albany, New York, when I opened for him as a member of The Out of Control Rhythm and Blues Band.

I don’t remember much about the SPAC performance except that before long he had us dancing in the aisles, at least those of us close enough to the aisles that we could get out there and dance. The rest of the rather considerable audience had to be content with giggling and grooving in or in front of their seats. By this time, of course, King’s days of struggling were over and his audiences were mostly white, as are most of the people in the USA – though those days will come to an end some time later in this century.

Dancing in the aisles: that’s the point, isn’t it? The music enters your body, lifts it up, and you become spirit. The blues? Why not, the blues?

My memories of the Albany gig are a bit richer. To be sure, as I recall, King’s music was better at that SPAC gig, for the music comes and goes even with the best of them. Our manager (and saxophonist) Ken Drumm had seen to it that King had champagne waiting for him when he arrived in his dressing room and that got us an opportunity to meet him after the gig. But we had to line up with everyone else – mostly middle-aged ladies in big hats and Sunday dresses – and wait our turn. We didn’t have more than a minute, if that, in the man’s presence.

And that meeting is worth thinking about in itself. King was the son of Mississippi sharecroppers. I don’t know about the rest of his band, but I recall a thing or two about Out of Control’s line-up at the time: two lawyers (I suppose we could call them ‘Big City’ lawyers for contrast, though Albany isn’t that big of a city), an advertising executive (that would be Mr. Drumm), a commercial photographer, a Berklee College drop-out, a car salesman, and an independent scholar (me). All brought together in the same place at the same time to worship in the church of the blues. I suppose I could invoke the melting pot cliché, but there was no melting going on, though the music was hot enough. As for the pot, to my knowledge the Out of Control boys were clean that night. I have no knowledge of BB’s band.