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Hey motherfucker! out, experimenting with loud rhythmic redundancies on one
Hey motherfucker! or two notes, bop jive crossbreeds between Illinois
All you do is sit on your can Jacquet and Albert Ayler and licks akin to Stooges guitar riffs.
Get out in the streets and proove you ' re a man Sounded great to me, and Roger and Tim were enthusiastic as
We been siltin ’ still too long. hell at first but after ten or fifteen minutes they seemed to
It ' s time to pull the lever grow a little weary, stopped playing and sort of stared at lint
On the ones that stole the ground on the carpet or the silent Dick Van Dyke Show TV screen
from unborn feet forever!
between glugs on the port. Not that that bothered me in the
Rehearsing with just three bandmembers and only one gui- slightest; the flow of my high- energy inspiration is so constant
tar was not the easiest chore in the world, but it got looser as and sustained that I don't really expect any of my peers to
we got drunker, and just as things really began to cook 1 was keep up with me. Now if it was Trane or Pharoah 1 was riffing
with...
siezed with an inspiration that seemed brilliant at the time but
was to have a dire denouement. Huffing and shrieking through Anyway, the evening ended in utter confusion as we all got
my Hohncr Marine Band , I gazed around Roger ’ s room strewn so drunk we passed into that sometimes blissfull, sometimes
with smudged manuscripts, tattered skin mags, half-empty bot- disastrous state of ambulatory unconsciousness where you
tles and records with wine stains in the grooves, and suddenly I have to make phonecalls the next morning for your own edifi -
saw, leaning dusty in a corner, an old alto sax that Roger had cation, hoping you haven't stumbled into some absurd ,affe. I
*
borrowed from his brother-in- law months ago with the inten- vaguely recall Tim driving me home as I kept yammering and
tion of branching out from flute and never quite gotten yelping through the sax, becoming less coherent with each
around to. note, until at last 1 was blowing a single pure true note with a
Instantly I dropped the harp, which has such a limited vocal laugh running through it, pausing only for breath. Tim
palette for an experimental artist anyway, and snatched up the yelled at me to shut the fuck up, to which I replied: "You
horn. Just holding it in my hands and toying with the keys was must be kidding, " and only stopped to scoop myself out of
-
like a revelation, flashing me back to my high school days and the car, drag myself up the stairs of my apartment house and
lessons on another borrowed alto. Sitting in the practice room fall fully dressed into total oblivion on my bed.
of the music store with the patient, plodding instructor trying That night I had a strange and wonderful dream. ' It was one
to teach me scales and embrochure technique, when all I of the best dreams of my entire life. I was in a vast auditorium
wanted to do was cut loose with a scaring Bronx blast that modeled after the little theatre of my old junior college, filled
would blow the roof off the place. A saxophone has always to the dusty windows with people, and all alone on the stage I
been a symbol of power with me, ever since the days I first sat stood with my sax, fingering and blatting it every whichaway,
chilling and rocking to things like John Coltrane ’ s Africa/ Brass blowing out the crassest garble that even 1 had ever heard. The
while staring in awe at the pictures of the man on the jacket, audience was getting restless, and a few minor mutterings were
awash in yellow and purple lights, blowing the truest testa- beginning to be heard. But suddently I began to have a very
ment in history through that big honking horn. strange feeling, and I realized all at once that it was the hand
Days home from school faking flu I would put Trane on loud of Ohnedaruth himself passing cooly over my brow. In that
as my Sears Silvertone could blare, and stand up on a hassock instant I was struck with the divine insight that the way to
reading Allen Ginsberg’s "Howl" at the top of my lungs, play more is to play less, that I was overblowing and dissi-
pretending I was in a North Beach or Greenwich Village pating my energies. So I relaxed, and began to apply both
coffeehouse. Music fueled me, although I was just dimly realiz- breath pressure and finger movements in a calmer, more
ing that I was at core a verbal child. In the shower I wailed and deliberate, meditative manner. And that was when the
whammed at imaginary keyboards, drums, later guitars, but breathiest , most sublime tune began to emanate from ray in-
most especially saxes, emulating my heroes with 20- minute strument, from me. It was fantastic, it was a holy moment. I
atonal ragas that soared to their stormiest climaxes when the sounded exactly like Pharoah Sanders. The audience sat
hot water ended. hushed in awe. The gentle, strong current of the melody
I also took lessons at various times on real guitars, pianos, wound on and on, growing more godlike with each measure,
trumpet , drums and the aforementioned sax, never meeting and my euphoria, increasing with it, was beyond all measure,.
with much success because I was always too fired with the was so intense it was almost post-emotional. At its peak I
imperatives of inner song to bother learning music book drivel realized that, through the windings and turnings of song, I had
like "Old Black Joe" and "My Bonnie. " Afternoons with the somehow begun to play "The Girl From Ipanema." But it
alto I would practice scales for five or ten minutes, feel them sounded just as holy.
sliding ineluctibly into improvisation, wail awhile and then I woke up the next day with one of the more notable
light a Chesterfield, settle back hunched in my chair with my hangovers of the month and a memory made of swiss cheese.
axe lying casually on my crossed legs, fingers of one hand still The sight of the saxophone leaning up ’gainst the wall of my
at the keys, listening to my Jackie McLean records, dreaming. own bedroom dumbfounded me, and I immediately called up
Later I began to smoke grass and in the random, perfect riff- Roger and demanded: "What the fuck’s this saxophone doing
ings of euphoria actually sorted out Gershwin ' s "Summer- at my house?"
time." 1 joined a Johnny and the Hurricanes type band for one "Don’t ask me! ”
afternoon; couldn ' t play "Night Train " or "Let ' s Get One," "Well, what the fuck happened last night?" *
but sure did wail, even if the reed was cracked.and its tip "I was gonna ask you that! "
chipped and bitten away a good half- inch. There was no hope of cognition. It 's that bad Gallo Port;
The reed on Roger’s brother-in-law s alto was new but stiff it'll fry your brain just like a wino's. That’s why all us teen -
’
and dusty and had probably never been used. A “professional" agers like it so much. Roger said maybe he and Tim would be
musician would have taken it off the instrument and sucked it over to drink and watch some TV a little later, and I hung up
until it was limber enough for proper tone, but I was in too and set about trying to get myself together. I don’t usually
much of a hurry to bother with any of that Julliard con- drink in the morning, but today the quality of my hangover
servatory shit. Something infantile about sucking on a piece of was so extraordinarily intense that I was nearly blind, and
wood, anyway. I just , hauled the damn thing up from the spent about three-quarters of an hour walking around the
corner and started working out, HONK! BLAT! SQUEEEE! house in circles and staring at the purplish- black fuzz in the air
Rippling fingertips working the keys, gravel vocalisms tearing before deciding to break down and break in the Jack Daniel's
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