See, I knew it... Hillsdale High, 1970

I don't remember the year, but Bill Graham's offices burned in a fire. I just don't remember the details, but wasn't it arson or something? I do remeber that he lost all kinds of memorabila and tapes and 16mm film. He filmed a lot of the stuff I remember. I thought that all that stuff was long gone and that is why this site is such a mind blower for me.

The magic... that's what I what I'm saying. If they could make a movie like Dreamgirls, it's seems like a better screen play than that could be written about this time cut with archival footage. Maybe we will have to write it... who better?

My parents used to go to the dance hall that turned into the Carousel Ballroom, and when the bands that started it, couldn't manage it, was rented by Bill Graham for Fillmore West. I think it was a Latin social club called El Papaguyo (sp?). Early on, they still had a big board that had interchangeable signs with the names of all the dances that the bands played hung up by the PA stacks. The parents were way into Cha Cha, Merangue, Mambo, Bosa Nova, etc, I think that that's the reason that they didn't care about us going, because somehow they thought of it as a "nice" place.

I lived in Mt. View in the '80s and my neighbors kids were into being Dead Heads traveling all over the place. One day they were trying to put a new cassette player in their VW bus and I helped them out. They were playing bootleg Dead tapes and I said that I used to go see the Dead's free concerts all the time in the Haight and Golden Gate Park. They were so jealous. I said that Garcia was one of my first music heros because he could improvise, but that the last time I saw them was in Germany in '73 and they were horrible. They didn't know what to make of that, except that they would have given anything to be ten years older and experiance the Summer of Love and the ballroom scene.

I said, I would trade seeing Hendrix, Cream, Led Zeplin, Albert Lee and Jeff Beck to have been ten years older and hung out in New York on 52nd St. & up in Harlem at Minton's Playhouse. I'd rather have been around for the birth of modern jazz and bebop. Clifford Brown, Solnny Rollins, Bird, Monk, Dizzy, Miles, Bud Powell, Coltrane and Cannonball, Philly Joe Jones, Kenny Clarke, Paul Chambers, Mingus... that is the S***.

Saxophonist Michael Brecker just passed last week. I have felt the same way that I did when I found out that Hendrix died. What a waste, but what a lagacy just the same.

Billiam, Yeah, James Cotton and Magic Sam... Paul Butterfield and Roland Kirk!!!

I'm a big Rahsaan fan. Saw him many times at Keystone Korner. I never went to any of those Days on the Green or any big stadium shows at all. I was going to see Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Grover Washington Jr., George Benson, Cannonball, Pat Martino, Joe Pass, Oscar Peterson, Miles and McCoy Tyner all at the height of their powers. Three buck cover charge and one drink minimum, maybe a hundred fifty seats. A pitcher of beer was $2.75 and I never got carded even though I was the only white guy and absolutely the youngest at 18. My rocker friends that I had come up with playing in garage bands thought I was nuts. They don't now!

I think that what I learned from Hendtrix... and Clapton, Stevie Winwood, Randy California ('member Spirit?), Garcia, John Cippolina, on and on... was about energy. 'Trane and Miles, McCoy all had incredible energy. You could sit in this little club and feel the energy.

I remember somebody that had an extra ticket to go see Grand Funk Railroad at the Oakland Coloseum. We were so far away that the band looked like ants. It was loud, but somehow disconnected. I guess it was a good excuse to do drugs. What a joke. I thought, never again. I got spoiled by Bill Graham and Chet Helms.

Here is my Rahsaan Roland Kirk story. The difference between the real deal and all the half baked rockers that saw and opportunity to get rich and famous.

There was a small bar in the back of Keystone that had just four or five barstools. Mainly it was for the waitresses. There was a blond woman about forty, dressed to the nines in a slinky red cocktail dress and heels, getting drunk, sitting at the bar by herself. She was talking loudly to the bartender and was being generally obnoxious. The band was smoking and Rahsaan was at the height of his powers at that time. Between the tunes, Rahsaan would talk about the tunes or talk to the crowd. He had all these stories that he told that were part of his act or persona.

He has this story about the "Tongue Snatcher." A guy that used to sit in a tree and when a cute lady would walk down the street, he would unfurl his long tongue and snatch her up. All kinds of wild *** that only a blind black jazz musician could come up with. Stuff about racism and inequality that just made a white person want to crawl under the table.

He pretty much ignored the drunk woman until at one juncture she starts yelling, "Roland, play the blues." Freakin', Rahsaan just erupts. He grabs the mike and yells, "Play d'blues! Play d'blues?!! Play d'blues???!!! I don't gotta play d'blues... I AM D'BLUES!!!"

Yeah. Hendrix WAS the blues too.

Bright Moments...