I’ve told this one before, but in celebration of New Year’s, I’ll tell it again:

Back in 1971 my jazz work had petered out, and I began a couple of years of making my living with Peter Duchin’s society band. Most of our work was on weekends, playing for wealthy clients who could afford Peter’s prices.

At the end of the year, we were booked for a double-header in Texas at a rich country club. We were there to play the eve, and then on the next day they had us play the outdoor dedication of a new building that had just been finished.

The eve celebration was held in a large tent, and when we set up, we noticed that the ceiling was shrouded with a huge black net, which contained hundreds of inflated balloons.

We played for the diners and the dancers, and at midnight the emcee counted down, and at zero the cords were pulled to drop the net. It dropped all right, but nothing else did. Whoever had prepared the balloons to be released into the sky the next day had also filled these balloons with helium! They all remained at the ceiling of the tent for the rest of the night, and then the next day they joined the balloons that had been set aside for outdoor release. The band got a good laugh out of it.

***

In 1995 Claude Williamson wanted to do an album dedicated to Al Haig, and since I had recorded with Al in 1954, he came to New York from California, and with David Jones on drums, we recorded at Van Gelder studios in New Jersey for Venus Records. We also did a couple of concerts while he was here. I enjoyed playing with him.

Tetsuo Hara of Venus Records supervised the recording, and when I mentioned to him that a book I had written had been translated into Japanese by the famous novelist Haruki Murakami, Mr. Hara said, “Great! We’ll do a CD!” And so, Also at Van Gelder’s, I put a quartet together with Carmen Leggio on tenor, Joe Cohn on guitar and David Jones on drums.

A month or so later I saw Mr. Hara at a record date and told him that Murakami had translated my other book, and he said, “Great, we’ll do another CD!” So, I got the same quartet together, and we made a second CD.

So, thanks to Haruki Murakami, I have two CDs under my own name. Blessings to all the Japanese jazz fans who bought them.

***

Henry “Red” Allen was a fierce trumpet player. He dominated whatever bandstand that he played on. One night I was subbing at the Metropole with Sol Yaged’s band, playing opposite Red’s band.

When the bands changed places on the bandstand, we always played one tune together before changing. Red, dressed in a cut velvet jacket with lace at the cuffs and collar, looked askance at Sol who was dressed in a tuxedo. “What is that you’ve got on?” he asked Sol. “You look like a waiter.” He actually laughed up his sleeve, something I had never seen done before.

Red strutted back and forth, displaying his jacket. “Now,” he said, “This is how a LEADER should dress.”

“What do you want to play?” Red asked Sol, and Sol said, “Oh, anything.” Red quickly replied, “Okay, ‘Rosetta,’ in B!” and he stomped it off and tore into it.

Sol was fumbling around finding the fingerings in that key. Red cut him off after one solo chorus and came in with a powerful chorus of his own, marching as he played. The bandstand was narrow, so his marching steps were tiny, but the power of his playing gave the effect of a train coming at you.

At the end of his chorus, Red signaled for the drummer to take one, and then Red played the lead on an out chorus.

Sol had found the B major scale, and he did much better on the out chorus.

Red took all the bows himself and retired to the end of the bar while we played our set.

Now, there was a leader who led!

***

One evening in March 1954, I was sitting home alone in my Greenwich Village apartment, when the phone rang. It was Jerry Newman, asking if I was busy.  Jerry had a recording studio on West 13^th Street, and he wanted me to do a record date. I grabbed my bass and hurried over there, and met Jerry, Al Haig, and Lee Abrams.

I also met Henri Renaud, who had come over from Paris looking for Al. Henri wondered why Al hadn’t been making any records, and he had some money from a French record company with which to rectify the situation.

Jerry wanted to just use one microphone, so the top was removed from the piano and a mic was hung over the strings. Then he mounted me in the curve of the piano on a little wooden platform, getting me as close as he could to the mic.

Lee Abrams set up beside the piano, but as we did some sound checks, Jerry kept moving him back across the room until his drum stool was in the doorway of the john, and that was our setup.

Al would play a couple of bars of a standard tune and ask me, “Do you know this?” I would say yes, and we would do a take. I would have liked a take two, but one take was enough for Al, and we would go right into another tune.

We did eight tunes very quickly, and that was enough for the 10-inch LP that Henri was preparing. Jerry said, “Gee, there’s still time left. Let’s do a few more tunes, and I’ll put them out here in the states on my own label.”

We agreed, and we did eight more tunes. Al sounded wonderful on all of them.