THIS HAPPENED

As I begin writing, it has been fully 6 months almost to the day. Many miles, even milestones, have flown by in these months,. Still, where I stand today feels like only a beginning. 

It was the very end of October, almost Halloween. Sindhu and I were in Athens, nearing the end of 2 weeks in Greece, an adventure that seemed much too brief. In those last days I got a serious and intense download of  clarinet - in all afternoon private lesson from insightful and amazing Greek clarinetist Dimitris Brendas. And almost simultaneously, the very next day, I found myself in the home of a quiet and delightful nay master, Filipos Stratakis, playing for him as he took notes for a custom-built nay. Two days later, I was blessed with a new instrument. Fast forward three days and I was in France, and the only musical instruments I had in the world were my treasured Egyptian nay, a couple of bansuri flutes I had brought along and Filipos’ beautiful new Turkish style nay, my new treasure. 

I had left sunny Greece, sad to go, but excited for the impending French tour with Lionel Young Band. Suddenly, in  a 5 minute blink of the eye, my working instruments - alto sax and clarinet were gone!  Window broken, door of our shiny black tour van hanging open. Instruments gone, including all reeds, customized mouthpieces, hand rebuilt harmonicas, even an iPad with 2000+ music charts, of every imaginable genre (well, several genres, anyway). 

They were my tools of the trade, but so much more - the 60 yr old Mark VI alto, I had gotten from Warner Logan in the first bud of my “pro” career. “You’ve got a good gig, you need a better horn,” he said as he pulled the sax out of hiding. I bought it on time -  for 1/10th of its value today - that was 1972. The clarinet was found for me by the great Balkan Turkish and Klezmer clarinetist, Meg York. It was an instrument I had dreamed of for years before I even knew what it would be like. When it showed up, the angels sang. Because IT sang!

Now all gone, solid gone. And we were racing the clock to soundcheck for only the 2nd of 17 dates, all over France. It was just the start of a solid tour of blues concerts plus a few storied venues, arranged by Guillaume Tricard. The first night had gone well, in Dunkirk, and we were all feeling, “This is going to work!”.  

That was not a given, for any of us - the band toured briefly in France 8 years before, thanks to Guillaume’s father Didier, who was one of the founders of Black and Blue Records in Paris. 2011 was a great tour - on the heels of winning the International Blues Challenge in Memphis and a summer of touring blues festivals in the US and Canada, the band was hot - starting off with 4 nights running in a Paris jazz club, SRO every night.  But the band was at the end of a rough road, we were at each others throats after a long summer of long drives, early sets, poor pay and constant vehicle woes. It didn’t last much longer. A truly great band, we had all played together again in the US and long since mended fences. 

When Lionel got a call from Guillaume (we ha met briefly in 2011) we were all quite excited. Then in his early 20s, he was already seasoned from traveling with the blues artists his Dad had brought over from the States. But we were apprehensive, too - France had been the “beginning of the end” 8 years ago. Guillaume was taking a chance on a band he’d seen in his youth…  We all had fingers crossed, hoping for a great tour. 

After a brief walk on the famous beach, Guillaume made the short drive across the countryside to Wattrelos, France, near the Belgian border. Getting into tour gear, we were remembering quickly the rhythm of it all - you can’t always get what you want when you want it, be it food sleep or whatever, but when the van stops, it’s time to rock and roll.  We pulled up the curb outside a small, stylish downtown hotel in the tiny city and piled out, grabbing luggage and moved things in the van around. Then, in the 5 minutes we took to dump bags in our hotel - 

… My whole world was suddenly upside down! Coming out to the street and taking in the scene, a huge NOOOO! formed in my lungs.  I ran down the street a couple of blocks til I was out of breath, asking street people if they had seen anything (in horrible, indecipherable French!) When I got to a corner with a metro stop and bus plaza, my heart fell .They were long gone. Wattrelos is a tiny city - who thought it was a place to be on guard?

Walking back to the van, I started beating myself up - naivete, laziness, lack of awareness and more., all my usual self-tortures. But I quickly remembered that these instruments had been with me around a quarter of the globe for over 45 years. They had traveled all over the US, from Canada to Argentina, mostly by land and more recently from Turkey to Singapore. Harlem, Miami, Tijuana, Mexico DF, la Habana, Recife, Rio, Paris, They stuck with me through many musical adventures and some sketchy situations. Now, right now, they are gone, nowhere to be seen. And my histrionics were not helping the situation. Mind raced on - should I fly home? What use was I now? My whole purpose for existence was gone, in an instant!

This was a very special tour - dear to each and to the whole band, and I quickly realized - there was no going home. Dates were booked, posters made, seats sold, hotels paid, but more important, we were a 5 piece band returning to France after 8 years. Kim Stone had fallen off a ladder the week before, breaking and cracking bones. Kim has traveled the world several times over with Spyro Gyra and with the Rippingtons - he didn’t need another European tour. But there he was prepared to ice  and play the entire tour in a chair. Daryl Smith had already been forced to stay home because of bureaucratic issues around his passport.

The van moved off toward the venue. I sat with my friends, totally isolated. Stripped of my identity, going to a gig I couldn’t play. We arrived and the band went onstage to soundcheck and I stood on the side, feeling really weird. What to do now? Then someone from the production company waved me to the back of the room. I was introduced to a musician who handed me his alto sax.”Please play this tonight!”  The engineer said “We are working on a clarinet, it will be here later.”

Now I was really in shock! Soundcheck over, the band was being rushed off to a hasty meal. “Sorry guys, I have some work to do!” I had to find a way to become friends with this strange sax, including mouthpiece and whatever reeds were in the box. And in one hour, I had to feel like I owned it, an extension of my personal expression. I had to make it sing the blues, MY blues! And I had to hold up my end of the energy with a great band, all of whom I was so grateful to play with.

This was the beginning of a tour I could not have imagined. One where all presumptions and imaginations had suddenly flown out the window, floating away like a birthday balloon that escaped a ypung boy's grasp. But there was no vacuum, no space for sentiment or even anger, not a moment to relax. A whole new set of parameters and challenges had moved in and become my world.

TO BE CONTINUED….