What is it about retirees and maracas, especially when the old bossa nova tune “Blue Spanish Eyes” is playing? I think maracas were actually invented for this number in order to appease the country club octogenarians who, without fail, spring to life and forcefully gesture an unrelenting desire to provide a spontaneous hundred-man percussion section whenever the tune is called. I have witnessed this time and time again. Blue Spanish Eyes starts playing, everyone starts playing air maracas and does that little hip swivel thing. I remember one time, back in the late 1970s, when I was playing with a society band called Tiffany Brass in Amarillo, Texas. All I can say in comment on that memory is, there are few spectacles in contemporary leisuredom comparable to the adrenaline-pumped 87-year-old retired vinyl salesman in plaid blazer, maroon golfing slacks, and white Hushpuppies sashaying with Phyllis Diller’s twin while surrounded by a maraca-sporting mob of AARP militants.
This chapter of my life is largely over. I’m more selective about the gigs I take, and fortunately, can afford to be. But you never get fully beyond impressions and memories like these, and now and then a wisp of lounge will make it’s way around the corner. Then you have to decide whether to run, or stick around as a witness so you can write about it later. Curiosity always seems to make me chose the later. You can now read the results in one long, multi-chaptered rant on my blog. Just look for the tab labeled “My Life In Gigs,” or click here.
So this is called the Momotaro Modern Jazz Opera and it’s on YouTube and someone sent it to me. Of course, I don’t know what they’re saying which puts me at a disadvantage, but even then I’m watching and just making that jaw open frozen face look. Then there are moments that are just so funny that the face unfreezes and the laughter commences, followed by back to jaw open. This kind of artistic bizzarity cannot be planned. It has to result from the intersection of many disconnected things — a plan here, a perspective there, a Denny’s double chili dog platter after midnight, some time working in the equivalent of a lounge in Roswell, New Mexico. Whatever it is, it is an amazing natural phenomenon to behold and sometimes celebrated intentionally in art like that of Christopher Guest. All I know is, I’m grateful that it happens. It says to me that God has an enormous sense of humor.
This is part of an interview I did with Tony about three or four years ago for a book I’ve never finished on the lounge gig scene. What a treasure chest of humor Tony is. Coincidentally, Tony is recovering from brain surgery, thankfully, not self-performed. So please keep him in your prayers.
Tony Campise Reedist, vocalist, composer Tony Campise lives in Austin, Texas, much to the delight of the other residents who appreciate the marriage of virtuosi jazz and humor. Campise’s soaring sax and flute work was prominently featured with the Stan Kenton Orchestra during the 1970’s and his solo recordings have received critical praise.
Scott: Toneman. Lounge provides an impetus for your work as a jazz and humor stylist. Am I right?
Tony: I’ve swum in that ocean while seeking to keep my head above it. Humor gives me ballast. Like a sax player buddy of mine in the Houston Symphony years ago who used to keep old hornpads and through them on the floor next to another player right before a downbeat. The otherplayer would look horrified, like “what am I gonna do?”, thinking it fell out of his horn. We were in a show with a really bad comedian onetime and the bass player rolled an old army surplus grenade canister on the stage during the show. Man, people just split!
Scott: He was an anti-lounge mercenary.
Tony: Yea.
Scott: I’m sure you had your fair share of gigs with crazed singers blowing up on stage.
Tony: Oh yea, of course, all of the time. There was Freddie’s Latin Fire Follies…man that was smokin!
Scott: I can imagine.
Tony: One of the more poignant lounge moments I remember was on a gig where we were backing Fabian. Remember that guy from the 60s? It was oh so lounge. And right in the middle of a ballad, during a quiet pause, the lead trumpet player broke wind and it reverberated throughout the Houston Coliseum. It was a show stopper.
Scott: What a contribution.
Tony: No one moved. The audience was frozen, and Fabian just kept going. And there was Bill back there red-faced. We used to call him Precious.
Scott: Did Fabian dock his pay?
Tony: Fabian should have docked his own pay. Speaking of low pay, which is another characteristic of lounge, the lowest paying gig I ever played was with Dan del Santo (God rest his soul) at The Ritz in Austin, Texas. I made $2.75 for the evening.
Scott: I love it when they give you change. I made $10.13 in Greenwich Village one time after practicing with this 9 piece band for a week. We play five sets and the guy says, “good job man, here’s ten thirteen.” I was excited. I thought he meant $1013. It ain’t a livin, unless you get a paper route to go with it. Of course, folks wouldn’t get their paper until late afternoon.
Tony: You have to have a car for that, and a license.
Scott: Tony, how would you define lounge?
Tony: Something that people buy … something that everybody gets into, but it won’t run. It’s full of fluids and stuff, but the motor is broken and the wheels are off-center.
Scott: And it has a faded two-tone vinyl roof that is ripped near the rear window, with rusty metal showing through.
Tony: Yea.
Scott: So what do you think is the attraction?
Tony: It’s wild. It connects with something inside people.
Scott: That is frightening and kind of depressing.
Tony: People like to cry, and laugh. Ya know, I’m getting tired of it all … tired of the lack of remuneration. I say I’m gonna melt my horns down and get my teeth fixed … maybe go back to my original profession — brain surgery. If I made footprints in the sands of time, then they’re all heel.
I played a little jazz gig last week at a cool Austin steakhouse and bar, Perry’s. The photo on their site is taken from the perspective of the band which is humorous since it’s doubtful the band member’s can afford to eat there. When I arrived there was no room for a drumset so I crammed my drum stool in a corner next to the piano and played a snare drum and small cymbal. From this perch where I could easily rest my chin on the piano lid, I watched a facinating site as the evening unfolded. The darker it got, the more the room was illuminated by the ocean of smartphones whose owners were not content to leave untouched for the hour or two that they sat in the bar. At one point I counted 16 Blackberrys in action — one table of six people had four going at once. Many of these people were texting and others appeared to be browsing. I saw one guy show a woman a Youtube video of a band playing somewhere other than Perry’s. Somehow it was lost on them that live jazz was happening right in front of them while they strained to hear a compressed YouTube video of a band across cyberspace. But at least they turned their ringers off. Hallelujiah!
(Excerpted from my forthcoming ebook, My Life in Gigs)
The second set (commencing at 11:45pm) was already painful. This was a “I wanna go to sleep” pain, nurtured by stacking on this fourth gig in a day after three separate outdoor festival sets with different artists in the sweltering Austin, Texas summer heat. At least I was indoors now. But the fatigue was intense, reminding me of those poor British officers who were made to stand for hours in The Bridge Over The River Kwai. I was thirsty. I could taste the dust in the air of this rat trap of a basement railroad bar.
Somehow I made it through that second set upright and found a chair to slump into for a short nap, unconcerned about the possibility of falling asleep and sprawling onto the bar floor. As I dreamed of a Posturepedic sleep I was finally awakened by the bassist. “It’s 1:10, man! Time for our last set.” Yea, right. Because there are so many cultured listeners who must hear jazz at that hour. Because the trained ear prefers jazz at 1pm when the players are on the verge of dropping into a coma. Because no one ever has the wherewithal to say, “why?”
So I said, “why?”
They laughed at me with that “I know you’re just kidding” face and the “because it’s always been this way” hand gesture. Three tunes into that third set I was fighting off sleep less and less effectively. Now our leader calls Sentimental Journey and applies the “watching the grass grow” tempo. One minute in I was sound asleep, somehow balanced perfectly on the drum throne arms dangling limp at my sides. I heard the sticks click as they hit the floor but thought I was dreaming. They sounded like chopsticks, and I imagined the aroma of a nice stir fried rice cooking in the distance. Wasn’t that a nice little tune playing on the jukebox? Sentimental Journey, I think. It must have been a minute or so before the quasi-slumbering bassist spoke to me.
“Scott! Wake up!” came the urgent whisper. “Wake up, man!”
I opened my eyes to the dim light of the cave and realized that, no, I was not in a comfortable bed sleeping in the middle of a quiet Oriental restaurant, as I had imagined. I was still on the gig, my sticks on the floor, saliva on my snare drum, and a clueless band leader who later commented on the beautiful and unexpected space I had applied to the middle of his solo.
