No argument there – you got out there when the getting was good!
Break a leg, Jaledin! And let me know how the gig went!
Q
Very nice on both counts, DfrntBreign! Thanks for sharing! Forgot all about Mr. Allman, so thanks for the cut!
Q
Oregon, huh? Well, I guess I can cross my new bud Jaledin off “Das Schloss” Quasi invitations, huh?
Still, you and any of our buds who can pick, slam and/or grin have a standing invite here with me and the beautiful Dondra!
Drummers are especially welcome, as I am always looking for some new chops, and like I wrote earlier, the instruments are getting dusty, y’all! 
Quasi
Thanks, but I ain’t going down nowhere south in the summer! My guitar player begged off tonight, so I just cancelled, even though I could have played solo. Not that much fun IMO and it was just a beer and burritos type job, so no big loss of money. Shit, I have to to get a real job, man! Oh well, it’s all good.
FWIW my main guitar guy had some heavy stuff happen to him recently, and he has a bunch of livestock to take care of – no animosity towards him at all. But here I am, “Mr. Professional” on a Saturday night with no job. Some musician, huh?
I can maybe roust some top-notch rhythm cats if you want to have a shin-dig, though! It’s a long drive for us, but it’d be fun to meet you in person.
Ya got a scheiss-dreck drummer and a rhythm guitarist (don’t wanna make it cry or sing) who isn’t worth a shit, either. What else do ya need, “Mr. Keys”?
J/K, buddy. It’s good to know you.
Quasi (Bill)
You are always welcome here, J, as are all my Doper buds, musical or not. I don’t know how much time I have left to me, due to my bat-shitted-ness, but i cannot think of a better time to spend it than to play with you and any other musicians here. I think I could go happily playing one last drum solo.
Q
Aw, you’re always good for a chuckle at your comments Quasi. Thanks for the laugh. Honestly, I don’t know how long I have left either – I’m only 35, but all my adult life I’ve been smoking like a chimney and drinking like the Irish half of my family (and they’re mostly all dead – not kidding).
You don’t seem too demented to me, Quasi! I bet you’ve got a good long while left, but I appreciate it’s going to be a long road to go for you and yours. If that sounded too light-hearted, it wasn’t meant to be – I know first-hand it’s rough, but, hey, Beethoven made it too, and he probably had the syph (is what I remember hearing). Ditto, you ever in Portland OR, look me up and I’ll find someplace we can play and borrow some trap drums for a Doper-style jam session in public with some chill people in the crowd.
I’ll read the letters of Beethoven you mentioned earlier in another thread – I only know the Thayer biography when I was in HS being a screw-off. Your perspective on his life and his work is something I’ve never considered, even though I knew a lot about his life and, certainly, his music. (And ixnay on the “Mr. Keys”! I’m just an average honky who happens to get down with keys! Nothing special, just an average musician with an inflated ego to match.)
Cheers, kiddo.
I can’t tell you how much I love The Maestro. I weep when I hear any of his works because I know how much love he put into them and how much he suffered for us all. Talk to me about him sometime, please, and yes, do please read his letters. Such a sweet man. He cared for us so much.
Q
Jaledin ain’t never heard of “The (Young) Rascals”!!!
What Y’all think we oughta do with this young’un, Y’all???
I say we tie him down and make him listen to Dave Clark 5 Music!!!
Cheers, little guy! (I’m 61, DOOOD!)
Well, you’re younger than a lot of cats I hang with and talk smack with on a regular basis – 61 ain’t shit, boy!
ETA how come Beethoven and not Bach (JS)? The latter is what made me come around to choral music (I’m not religious, FWIW, but I respect Christianity as a metaphor), whereas Beethoven always made me think of a late-18thCentury early 19-th C Jordan Rudess, just getting his rocks off. It makes me happy to think his last Piano Sonata was made from pure joy and love – it has every emotion available to humans, as far as I’m concerned, and I wish someday I could get the technique to play it good.
Sadly, I’m not there yet, but I’m consoled that few people are – the second movement – it’s ridiculously difficult technically and musically.
I used to have one. Well, a C3, which was just a B3 with more wood around it. I had Roll-r-carry dollies to move the thing around with. Sold it when I lost my job and it went to New Orleans…right before Katrina, so it’s dead now for sure. It was a 1958 model, and damn near mint.
I had a few Rhodes over the years, the last one, a Mk I suitcase went to france when I sold it a few months back. A hohner clavinet as well, and a Vox Jaguar, a moog or three, a couple of prophets…I miss all the old keys I used to have, but it’s just stuff…
Why Beethoven and not Bach? Apples and organges my friend. Bach was Baroque and though I have no qualms with that genre, Beethoven has always spoken to my heart. As I may have mentioned before, the one thing a musician needs was torn away from him (for whatever reason - sickness, the beatings from his father, etc) and he overcame it. And that is the way I listen to him. I know it is a movie and they sensatioanlize, but when I watch Immortal Beloved and Copying Beethoven, they never fail to bring tears to my eyes - especially that standing ovation he could barely hear if at all.
I love the man, simply stated.
I can sit and read (and speak) about The Maestro all day long. So yes, Bach too, but not as much as Beethoven.
It would be a privilege to hear you play sometime, J. Do you have anything on YouTube, my friend?
And the invitation still stands. Come on down and meet us. We’d love to have you and any rag-tags you bring along. Bring a bit of happiness to this ol’ Dude. Come for my birthday (12.31) and stay as long as you like!
Your fellow musician pal,
Q
Did you know there are many works The Maestro wrote which no one can translate, and did you also know the guy had great sense of humor? Listen to his endings sometime. He plays with his audience and he was also a great improvisationist.
Ah Jesus. It feels so good to write about him, it really does! I wish so much I had lived in his time. I would have been his best friend (or as much as he’d let me be!:))
Quasi
Please stop me before I hijack again!!!
Sorry, mods, admins and friends!
Q
Back to the subject, okay?
All those organ virtuosos: Did they START with the organ or the piano?
I’m thinking they may have skipped the piano because the organ can hold a note longer?
Burning question, so please edumacate me!
Q
Some did, some didn’t. I may not remember correctly, but I believe Don Patterson and Groove Holmes and Jimmy McGriff (? probably not – he plays a good piano) and Dr. Lonnie Smith and Big John Patton all started on Hammond. Jimmy Smith started on piano, I know for sure. I believe a lot of them may started in church or just got the bug after JOS (=James Oscar Smith) turned them on to the sound and cut out the middleman and went straight to organ. Liner notes probably aren’t the best source of info, but that’s all one has to go on for a lot of them, unfortunately.
Oh, Quasi, I know all about (the arrogance!) Beethoven’s little inside jokes – but even the spritely bits of the Op. 111 no. 2 variations seem far more deep than just jokes. At least one mentor when I was in middle school wanted me to play it for his funeral. Probably won’t be able to. That is one hard motherfucker to play, even just technically. All those internal trills.
@bdgr – I only played one C3, but I liked that it seemed sturdy. By contrast, almost all the Bs I played had been road-tested and were all shaky and spindly. Those legs don’t seem adequate to hold all the weight of the electronics (and all the slapping and finessing of the organ), and being moved all the time, even with Roll R Karys (can never remember how to spell that – I’ll just say the regular organ dollies). How did the Clav hold up? I always wanted a real Clavinet, but I heard they were finicky about being maintained, and lots of digital sims get pretty darned close for the small amount I get to play Clav parts. You had quite a showroom of stuff – you must have been hot shit back in the day! I can’t stand fiddling with the mechanics – even my Rhodes is beaten up now and I can’t be bothered to get it in tune and resolder the front output. Don’t even talk to me about tuning a Wurlitzer – some hot shot always says, “Oh, it takes me an hour to tune a Wurlitzer.” Bull-fucking-shit – those things are awful to maintain, but they sound so gorgeous. I’d much rather just use a tremolo pedal on a Rhodes and get close enough.
@Quasi. My web presence is not that good. I just got around to putting up a little MySpace (yeah, I know, old stuff) page, but the only recordings I had were some improvised boogies from like 10 years ago. Too lazy to re-record, since my work comes from word of mouth, and the only guy who has a WAV-file recorder with an omni mic I can borrow easily is a giant weed-head, so, you can imagine, it’s tough to coordinate a time to pick it up. Also, too much a PITA to get some people together in my apartment just for some little demos. You can listen if you want, I’ll PM you, but these are just old boogies done a long time ago and I can’t even listen to them without wanting to cringe and re-record them or add some new stuff. [Christopher Walken]I haven’t killed anybody…since…1984[/Walken] but it makes me want to.
I don’t the sustain of the organ had anything to do with it, though – Jimmy Smith, from what I know, really started a whole new revolution (yes, I know there were other fantastic players on Hammond earlier). His way of playing bass with the LH and tapping on the pedals was new with him, as was his technical ability in the RH. Watch a video sometimes – he’s usually not “shadowing” the LH with the pedals – just tapping a few notes randomly to give the illusion. Don did shadow, and so do a bunch of others. It’s not that JOS couldn’t play it on his feet alone – just sounds better the way he did it, or at least sounds like Jimmy Smith, and that’s what every cat was after.
I used to live in Buffalo, NY, and, from what I learned, every single shop-front that played music for a cover back in the 1960s had a nice Hammond and a nice Leslie – it was a huge deal back in the day. No surprise every kid wanted to play him some Hammond, and, just like Bob Gibson, any kid wanted to throw as hard and bad as him at the next thing running.
Just what I’ve picked up, nothing scientific about it, just lore.
Doesn’t matter. What matters is your presence presence. I’m just a piece of shit drummer, but I sure would like to play my drums with someone of your stature.
I don’t pretend to know what you do, J, but man, it sure would be nice to hear you live. I have a Yamaha (Something) Grand 220, (sorry no 88’s) just waiting for ya’. And like I said, everything’s gathering dust due to my sickness, I reckon.
But may I tell you this? I’m going back to Vienna as soon as I can, and they’re going to have to deport mine and D’s asses before we leave on our own.
Ah, God, J! I cannot BEGIN to describe to you how very wonderful it felt to climb those same stairs The Maestro did and to see his little garden in the courtyard. Such a little place of respite for such a great man.
And yes, as I write, my Maestro is playing in the background.
Sorry, guys (and gals), but this is and always will be a man close to my heart.
Bill