Getting Sentimental Over the NMA Reunion

The Orpheum Theatre in Galesburg, Illinois was swinging last night. The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra was in town and I enjoyed a two-hour performance by this classic legacy band, trombonist and longtime Dorsey associate Buddy Morrow at the helm.

They played Dorsey standards--"Getting Sentimental," "Opus One, "Song of India, "Marie" (with gang vocal)--with the smooth expertise of seasoned professionals. Buddy is 89 years old, and some of the sax players aren't far behind. And they cooked up some more contemporary entertainment with the unbridled energy of talented youngsters. The rhythm section looked like a trio straight out of "A" school; the pianist was 22, a quarter of Buddy's age.

The players have met the challenge of all full-time professionals who must master their repertoire and still make it fresh night after night. And, as superb as the band was, it made me appreciate the musicianship I encounter at the NMA reunions.

The Navy Musician Association bands meet but once a year. We sit on the bandstand between trombone players we played with forty years ago and drummers we met for the first time at breakfast. We play charts we haven't seen in decades and sight-read arrangements that were copyrighted last week.

We're professionals and amateurs; we're full-timers and part-timers. Some of us don't play as well as we used to, and some of us are playing better than ever.

And we swing. Last year, with the debut of a new band at the Saturday night dinner/dance, we even started to rock.

For a few days, we work, play, woodshed and wail. And just when we're getting the notes under our fingers, it's time to pack the seabags and head back home.

But for those few days, my friends, we're at the top of our game. Believe me, if the NMA Big Band had been onstage in a battle of the bands with the Dorsey organization last night, the outcome would have been in doubt.

After all, they're every bit as good as we are.

Four Ruffles & Flourishes and a Firing Squad

My informant who provided the sordid details about the White House ceremony at which the Army Herald Trumpets and the US Marine Band played Hail to the Chief out of sync with each other and in different keys--described in the post below--has learned how things went so wrong.

According to a highly-placed Washington, DC source, the Army's Herald Trumpets always perform the presidential honors at White House arrival ceremonies. The Herald Trumpets know this. The president's staff knows this. Anyone who has ever studied for the MU2 test knows this.

The coordinator from the Marine Band didn't know this. He didn't attend the dry run, didn't even attend the talk-through rundown of the ceremony.

Fortunately the bands were spaced far enough apart that most attendees, including the president, were unaware that honors music was being performed by two bands in two locations in two keys.

Not doubt this was followed by a smaller, more private ceremony in honor of the Marine Band's coordinator at which the honors were performed on muffled drums.

The Worst Thing That Could Possibly Happen

To look at the photographs of me from my ceremonial band conducting days, you wouldn't guess that, inside, I was a quivering mass of nervous frenzy. At every moment during a ceremony, I was frantically considering what was about to go wrong and how my career would suffer.

I later came to learn that I was not alone--worrying about The Worst Thing That Could Possibly Happen is a job requirement, a practical factor for the position of cermonial band conductor.

Sometimes, The Worst Thing actually does happen. The following sound file came to me from a trusted friend who passed it along as he received it from his source. He has asked to remain anonymous but states that a "top D.C. band Commander" confims the story is true. Here's the poop:

Two military bands--the U.S. Marine Corps band and the Army Herald Trumpets--were recently ordered to participate in the ceremony welcoming the Pope to the White House. The following sound file is a recording of the rendition of honors to the President of the United States. We may not have the answer as to why things went afoul, but we can agree on one thing: the Herald Trumpet arrangement of "Hail to the Chief" is not in the same key as the band arrangement.

Click on the folowing link, put yourself in the shoes of a nervous bandleader and prepare to die just a little bit as you listen to a recording of The Worst Thing That Could Possibly Happen.

What's in a name?

Someone posted a comment to the story below about John Fluck's photo-op with President Bush:

John Fluck was once asked by a nice lady what his first name was. He
responded...'Mother'!

Well, maybe. It sounds a little too perfect; sea stories about suggestive or unusual names automatically set off the Too-Good-To-Be-True warning buzzer.

However, I was a witness--well, almost--to this one:

After a change of command on Treasure Island, San Francisco in the mid-70s, I was playing the piano at a reception at the officers' club. Doyle Church, the ceremonial band conductor, walked up to me in dress blues and red face. He said, "I just did something really stupid."

All ears, I stopped playing and listened to his story of humiliation.

"I just met the base chaplain," MU1 Church said. "He looked at my nametag and said, 'You have an interesting name.' So I said, "Yeah, my daddy was named Doyle, too."

Another example of government incompetence

(Washington, D.C.) The National Department of Teleportation has become the target of a federal probe after a series of failed experiments.

Earlier this month, John Fluck, LCDR (RET), was accidentally teleported to the White House. "Was I surprised? Hell, yes," Fluck said. "They aimed the beam at me and told me I was going to a jam session in Copenhagen. The next thing you know, I'm in the White House banging out 'Chopsticks' with George W. Bush."

Asked to judge the president's musical abilities, Fluck, a former Navy musician and current NMA member replied, "How should I know? It was 'Chopsticks,' for crying out loud. He had the top part. The real work is in the accomaniment."

Teleportation volunteer John Fluck is surpised
by the results of an experiment gone wrong.

Who Changed the Changes?

Newport, Rhode Island, 1984

I'm driving along the wharf on my way to a gig. On the radio, an old jazz sax player is talking about performing again after a few decades in retirement. The interviewer asks him what is his biggest challenge.

"The changes," the old jazz player answers. "I don't remember the changes."

I break out laughing. How can you forget chord changes? I'd forget my serial number before I forgot the changes to "A Train" or "A Foggy Day." Fact is, I pride myself on never using a fake book on a gig. Fake book? I don't need no stinkin' fake book.

I arrive at the club and haul my keyboard inside. Terry Chesson is setting up on the bandstand, and I tell him about the brain-dead old sax player.

"If I ever become so senile that I can't remember the changes," I say, "Put me out of my misery."

Louisville, Kentucky, 2006

I'm sitting at the piano in a lounge full of musicians. It's my first time at a Navy Musicians Association reunion.

I am among legends. C.J. Landry is warming up his sax, Dick Bonenfant is adjusting the drum set and Rabbit Simmons is tuning his bass. These guys were the shining stars in my Navy days, the monsters, the senior musicians who set the standards I hoped to live up to one day. When I was in the basic course, students used to stand in the passageway outside Chief Bonenfant's studio with jaws dropping, listening as he showed young drummers how to coax living, breathing swing out of a Navy-issue brass cymbal.

That I am about to sit in with these giants is breathtaking.

It's also slightly risky. I haven't played a gig since the mid-1990s, when a series of stress-related muscle problems, surgeries and therapies encouraged me to stop playing. In anticipation of this reunion, I've started practicing again. After all this time away from the piano, I expect to be only moderately superb.

C.J. finishes running a quiet scale on his tenor sax and calls out, "'Desafinado' in F." Dick counts four beats and the rhythm section starts vamping.

It feels good to be doing this again. I always loved these Latin tunes, the rhythms, the chromatic harmonies. After eight bars, C.J. comes in with the melody, and we're off.

Not all in the same direction, however. By the fifth measure, I've taken a left turn and find myself playing the changes to "Take the A Train." I hear where C.J. is going and fall back in line.

Now I remember--"A Train" and "Desafinado" open with similar changes. Duh. It could happen to anybody.

Something goes wrong when we reach the bridge. The flats in the key signature march offstage and are replaced by a platoon of sharps. I have no idea what key we're in and vainly search for a chord that is compatible with the new situation. C.J. rescues me, turning his sax my way and blowing a few clarifying notes indicating the bridge is in A. I remind myself to pay more attention to the changes and spend less mental energy admiring myself.

What the--? How did we wind up in the key of C? That's the trouble with these cursed Latin tunes: the tonalities don't stay in one place long enough to let you get a good shot at them.

Well, I tell myself as we finish the head, I've got the tune mapped out now--the bridge goes to A and C, then back to F and out. I smile in anticipation. Once C.J. starts soloing, I'll be comping my butt off with those famous Frank Mullen extended chords that made me so popular as a--

Whoops. C.J. is wailing dominant seventeenth riffs over the changes now. I'd better pay attention to Rabbit's bass lines.

Uh, oh--Rabbit's going progressive, too. He's stopped walking me through the tune, his fingers now snaking up and down the neck of the bass, plucking high notes, low notes, long downward glissandos that make you hold your breath and wonder how he'll reach the downbeat in time. Things are getting dicey.

C.J. finishes his solo to a roomful of applause and turns to me.

It is my turn to solo. Immediately I make an accidental detour into "The Girl from Ipanema." In the sixth measure I catch myself slipping into "A Foggy Day in London Town," and dig myself out of the hole just as we're approaching the bridge, which, I recall, goes to the key of--

D major? F# minor? I'm sure it's a key with sharps in it, but the trouble is Rabbit and Dick don't stop and wait for the dolt at the piano to work out his personal problems. No, Dick Bonenfant's legendary driving cymbal work presses forward, Rabbit Simmons's rock-solid bass line holds things together, and Frank Mullen is off on a mental Med Cruise, floundering from key to key, left hand tentatively poking random two-note chords that cannot possibly commit the ear to any certain tonality, right hand running chromatic scales--logically, about half of these notes should have some relationship to "Desafinado"--all the while praying for the blessed moment that C.J. Landry will put his sax to his lips and lead me out of the wilderness and back to civilization.

Aledo, Illinois, 2008

I'm sitting at the piano in my living room with a fake open to "Stella by Starlight." This is how I prepare for the reunions now: in January, I start at page one, looking at the music while I play, then close my eyes and do my best to continue without looking at the music. I go through a few tunes a day until I finish the book. Then I go back to "A Child is Born" and do it again.

I've become a lenient teacher to myself. There's no point in being harsh. I've sat in with big bands and played in small jazz groups at two NMA reunions now, and none of my shipmates have mutinied or thrown me overboard.

I start with the metronome set on adagio and move it up a notch every week. I see steady progress and am content to live with my limitations. The pressure is off and I'm playing purely for enjoyment. And nothing is more enjoyable than an NMA reunion, a few days of fellowship, sea stories and, yes, music. By June, I'll be ready.

I could be ready sooner, but the changes to "Stella by Starlight" won't sit still.