johnny case
stopped by sardines last night to hear johnny case's trio, with confusatron's matt skates subbing for byron gordon on bass (and _not_ lording it over anybody that his regular band had just been voted "best jazz group" by the fweakly's readers). johnny says his new recording, love's bitter rage, should be out by the end of the summer. it consists of all new case compositions dedicated to the victims of latin american death squads trained by the school of the americas at fort benning, georgia. the band includes joey carter on drums and percussion interludes, byron gordon on bass and first-time cello, and two vocalists (one who sings in english, the other in spanish).
my favorite story from the interview i did with johnny a coupla yrs ago (which didn't make the editorial cut when the story ran in the fweakly) involved byron and his predecessor as johnny's regular bassist, the late charles scott. i remembered scott from seeing him (along with pianist thomas reese and drummer walter winn) in marchel ivery's quartet at the recovery room on lemmon avenue in dallas back in '78, when i'd just arrived in texas. sometimes miles davis' '50s pianist red garland would sit in, and there was one memorable night when ornette coleman's '60s drummer charles moffett brought his three teenage sons over from fort worth to raise the roof while the ivery group was on break.
byron was a classical performance major at tcu, working as a busboy at sardines when charles' equipment started giving out. when scott's amp failed, busboy byron offered to go home and get his rig for the veteran bassist to use. when scott's instrument was in the shop, byron took to leaving his upright in the restaurant. one night, when johnny was playing solo, byron diffidently approached and asked if he might sit in for a song. after that, byron became a regular call for johnny anytime charles (whose health had begun to deteriorate along with his equipment) couldn't make the gig. "he'd always say, 'i'll play, but i wish mr. scott could be there,'" johnny recalled.
besides his musical endeavors, activist johnny's also been participating in antiwar protests organized by code pink outside the halliburton offices in the carter-burgess plaza at main and 7th downtown. the group has been picketing on the street outside from 4 to 6pm on wednesdays. will history show that dick cheney is to operation iraqi freedom as william randolph hearst was to the spanish american war? the verdict's still out, but we're betting on "uh-huh."
my favorite story from the interview i did with johnny a coupla yrs ago (which didn't make the editorial cut when the story ran in the fweakly) involved byron and his predecessor as johnny's regular bassist, the late charles scott. i remembered scott from seeing him (along with pianist thomas reese and drummer walter winn) in marchel ivery's quartet at the recovery room on lemmon avenue in dallas back in '78, when i'd just arrived in texas. sometimes miles davis' '50s pianist red garland would sit in, and there was one memorable night when ornette coleman's '60s drummer charles moffett brought his three teenage sons over from fort worth to raise the roof while the ivery group was on break.
byron was a classical performance major at tcu, working as a busboy at sardines when charles' equipment started giving out. when scott's amp failed, busboy byron offered to go home and get his rig for the veteran bassist to use. when scott's instrument was in the shop, byron took to leaving his upright in the restaurant. one night, when johnny was playing solo, byron diffidently approached and asked if he might sit in for a song. after that, byron became a regular call for johnny anytime charles (whose health had begun to deteriorate along with his equipment) couldn't make the gig. "he'd always say, 'i'll play, but i wish mr. scott could be there,'" johnny recalled.
besides his musical endeavors, activist johnny's also been participating in antiwar protests organized by code pink outside the halliburton offices in the carter-burgess plaza at main and 7th downtown. the group has been picketing on the street outside from 4 to 6pm on wednesdays. will history show that dick cheney is to operation iraqi freedom as william randolph hearst was to the spanish american war? the verdict's still out, but we're betting on "uh-huh."
posted by stashdauber at 9:05 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home