On the Road with Jack Morgan & The Russ Morgan Orchestra (eBook)

Reality In Your Face

Some band members dressed on the bus, others inside the venue. John dressed on the bus, so I did, too. Jack was in his room at the back of the bus. The door was open, and I could see him standing in front of a mirror in a black tuxedo, straightening his bow tie. I took mental note of the color. Red.

The band wore three-piece black suits and ties. John opened a cabinet stuffed with ties and handed me one. I suddenly became self-conscious about my vest, or lack of one. I showed John my sleeveless gray sweater and he looked at it with a frown.

“Hmm, we’ll need to do something about that,” he said. “We have a couple of extra vests onboard, but they’re way too big for you. Just wear your sweater tonight. I’ll tell Jack you didn’t have time to locate one before you came out with us. Just avoid Jack before the show.” Ok. Now I’m really getting nervous.

We go back in and it’s now about twenty minutes before the job and the ballroom is filling with people. It’s an older crowd, all dressed in their Sunday best. I pulled a red silk handkerchief from the mute box and laid it on Jack’s tray by his water. Then I went to the piano to review the opening medley.

“That top one is the theme song, ‘Does Your Heart Beat for Me?’”, I heard Eddie saying over my shoulder. “We play it down, take the repeat, then segue to the next chart. Now listen to me, this is important. Right before the repeat in the theme song, the piano has a bell tone. It’s solo piano only, so whatever you do, don’t miss it. Lay for it. If you nail it, you’ll be off to a good start. If you miss it . . . well, you don’t want to do that.” Then he looked at me and put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Just relax and play. The band knows the charts, just follow along and try not to step in any holes. Now let’s get off the stage before Jack comes along.” With that he went to get a glass of water. I ran outside to chain smoke.

With less than ten minutes to go, nobody sat on the bandstand. There was no warming up of instruments to be heard. The band stood gathered near the bandstand, waiting on the cue. As usual, Eddie was the cue. When he walked on stage and took his place, the band followed suit. The woodwind players began wetting their reeds, and the brass players sat blowing warm air through their horns. Nobody made a sound on their instruments though. There was no tuning pitch given. When the clock reached the top of the hour Eddie raised his stick above his biggest cymbal and said, “Here we go!” The horns came up as Eddie called out, “One . . . Two . . .” CRASH!

With the crash of the cymbal the band came in and the dancers filled the floor. Simultaneously, Jack made his entrance from the opposite side of the stage. Applause filled the hall.

Jack had the little trumpet mute with the over-sized cork stuck in the bell of his trombone, and at the end of each phrase he would raise his horn to his mouth and make the strangest sound I’d ever heard from a trombone. It sounded like a baby crying. Wah-Wah-wah-wah.

The band was loud and full, a thick rich sound for such a small band. One reason, I would learn, was the instrumentation of the three-man sax section, with two baritone saxophones and a tenor lead, instead of the more traditional two altos and a tenor. Another reason was the amount of air moving through the horns onstage. This was no high school band. The harmonies were rich and the sound well balanced. I had noticed setting up that the sax players all doubled on several instruments. The two guys playing baritone sax also played soprano sax, alto sax, clarinet, and flute. John, the tenor man, doubled on soprano sax, clarinet, flute, and bass clarinet. All their instruments were set up around them on stands where they could be easily reached at any moment.

I laid low, thinking about what Eddie had said and watching the bars of music roll towards my moment of truth. As we approached the repeat bar, I counted each beat even more carefully until it was on me. One . . . two . . . PING!! I did it! Although Jack did not make any gestures or seem to notice, Eddie smiled at me and gave me a big thumbs up. I was exhilarated. I’ve made it! I’m a big league player now! I’m playing with the pros! But my moment of triumph was short lived. Less than thirty-two bars of music later my life would turn into a living hell and remain in that intense state for the next four hours.

It was going by too fast. We were segueing all over the place, jumping from one arrangement to another. I was lost. I could not decipher the faded penciled in cues and notes. I did not understand the handwritten symbols scribbled on the music. John was flashing me signs—two fingers up, three down, and so forth, but I did not know what he meant. The band was giving me worried glances, and I began to hear Jack make comments like, “Jesus Christ!” “Holy Shit!” “Mother of God!” He was glaring at John a lot and leaning over him saying things I could not make out. I could tell by John’s expressions that they were not compliments.

When the first set of tunes finally ended, after about twenty minutes that seemed like an hour and a half, Jack quickly said over the microphone, “We’ll be right back in two minutes with the next dance set.” Then he spun on me.

“What the hell was that?” he demanded. “Have you ever played in a dance band before? What the hell is going on? You can read music, can’t you?”

Although frozen with fear, I managed a nod.

“You better get it together, son!” he said as he turned to the band.

“Okay, boys—270-A, 330, 337 and big ten. Let’s go!”

Everyone was yanking the charts out as he called them by number. By the time I found the first one Jack was already giving the count, “One, two,” and the band started playing. It was a nightmare. Somehow, I managed to struggle along, destroying harmonies and arrangements as I went, or leaving out whole sections of piano solos because I was on the wrong page. Jack became increasingly hostile with his remarks, cursing me and cursing John for hiring me. After an eternity we came to our first break of the evening. I hurried off like a beaten puppy to hide from everyone, lick my wounds, and try to smoke myself back into a calm state.

When the break ended, I crept back onto the stage, avoiding eye contact with anyone, and we started the second set. It was no better. I was clearly in over my head. Suddenly, without warning, Jack hollered out “Piano fake!”

He held up his hands to give the count and I was frozen stiff. Eddie and John were both looking at me and saying, “Just play something you know!” Brad, the bass player, leaned over to me and said, “just call a tune, man, let’s go. Play a ballad.” I took a deep breath and said in a broken voice, “Misty, in E flat.”

Immediately Jack counted it off, I did not even get the pickup notes in. To make matters worse, I was used to playing ballads at very slow tempos in piano bars, I knew absolutely nothing about ballroom dancing or dance tempos. I played the tune at half the speed that Jack had counted it off.

Jack threw up his hands and said, “That’s it, boys, pack it up. By the time he gets to the bridge the job will be over!”

In fact, he cut me off halfway through the piece and brought the band back in on another arrangement, bringing the tempo back to where it needed to be.

After that I was so shaken up, I could not even play the tunes I knew. The job droned on and on. As we neared the end of the night, Jack called “In the Mood.” By this time, I was an absolute nervous wreck. Even though I’d played the piece before and had heard it a thousand times, I was afraid to play anything other than the “Oompah-Oompah” rhythm written on the page. Eddie was hollering at me now “Just play rhythm! Just swing it, man!”

Suddenly, after glaring at me for the first thirty-two bars, Jack came over and slid onto the piano bench, knocking me out of the way. He started playing chords on the piano, in simple basic swing rhythms, like I’d played a hundred times before, but was now suddenly unable to remember how to do. After a chorus or two he jumped up and finished the arrangement on his trombone as the crowd roared their approval. Then Jack called out “Theme” to the band and began bowing and thanking the audience as we launched again into the band’s theme song, “Does Your Heart Beat for Me?” As the dance came to a close, Jack turned to us and conducted a dramatic ending. Finally, it was over.

As we tore down the stage, the band was solemn. No one spoke to me. Fortunately, Jack had left the bandstand, going through a routine of shaking hands and signing autographs, compact discs, and cassette tapes.

Having him out of my face did not make me feel better, though. And the band was clearly keeping a safe distance from me now, not willing to bring themselves into the line of fire by way of association.

Once on the bus, Jack said no more to me, he merely announced what time our departure would be the next morning. When we arrived at the motel the band scattered in different directions—some to the bars, others to all night restaurants or fast-food joints. Floyd and John asked me if I’d like to join them, but I declined and went to my room.

That was one of the loneliest and most depressing nights of my life. I’d left the security of my home and a good job some thousand miles away, and only had one night’s pay to my name. I’d left my friends, my jazz gigs, and everything familiar. Worst...