THE BLOG

ELLA FITZGERALD "FIRST LADY OF SONG"
Ella Fitzgerald's last concert at Carnegie Hall featured Joe Pass to play duets with her. I called the hotel earlier that afternoon to speak with Joe. The operator said he wasn't in his room, but he might be rehearsing with Ella, should we connect you to Ella's room? I couldn't believe that she asked me that. I was thinking to myself, "what kind of idiot would refuse talking to Ella", so I said sure. As it turned out Joe had already left, but Ella was so gracious and talked to me for quite a while about her trip to Europe and how she hoped they would still love her at tonight's concert.
I wasn't the only one that was surprised that I spoke to Ella; that night her manager saw me and came over and said "how did you do that?" I said "do what?" He said "talk to Ella for so long on the telephone. Because when her soap operas start she doesn't talk to anyone and I mean anyone, she even kicks me out of the room, and I'm her manager!" I can only guess that she felt like talking that day and was thrilled to be performing there at Carnegie Hall.
That night I didn't actually get a seat out front. Somehow Joe Pass seemed to get me the most memorable ways to see his shows. This night he brought me up to Ella's room where they had two small sliding doors which when opened up, were right above the stage and I could look down and see the whole show.
After Ella's performance all the celebrities paraded up to her room, like Carly Simon, Peter Allen and Tony Bennet and a long line of people. Joe asked if I wanted to join them for drinks. What an amazing night, not only was I with the finest solo jazz guitarist in the world, the First Lady of Song, but at this hotel lounge (I believe we were on 56th Street) Wes Montgomery's brother, Buddy Montgomery was on the piano. Now how can you get a better night in seeing jazz than that!
JOE PASS "GOING MY WAY?"
In the early 80's, Joe Pass, one of the finest solo guitar players that ever lived, had just finished his last set at Fat Tuesday's. I was alone that night, sitting at the bar. Joe looked in the direction of the bar and said "Is anyone going my way?" I asked where he was staying and he told me that he was around the corner from the Plaza Hotel. Since I lived in Queeens and I could go home lots of ways I told him I would drop him off.
As I dropped Joe off, I told him that should he ever need a ride, I'd give him my number and he could call me. Joe told me "you pick me up tomorrow and you can get in for free" - So, I did that for the next 12 years.
JACO PASTORIUS FINDS NEW SNEAKERS
The beauty that went on inside Jaco's head never ceases to amaze me. Whenever I heard Jaco play a song his presence was always so strong. He didn't have to overplay or overpower a song to make that presence known either.
I only got to see Jaco play in a group setting 2 times, once with Weather Report in 1977 or 1978, when they played in Virginia Beach and the second time in Forest Hills Stadium, when Jaco was the leader of Joni Mitchell's Band. Both times were amazing! Up to that point the best electric bass player I'd ever seen was Stanley Clarke, but Jaco had so many more sophisticated harmonies going on and to me his sense of "space" was perfect.
It was in the early 80's that I got to meet Jaco at the 55 Bar where he came down to hear his friend Mike Stern play. I had taken a few lessons on guitar from Mike's wife Leni. Jaco was a Greenwich Village regular and so I met him on numerous occasions after that, just stopping to chat here and there.
One day, as I was walking into Tower Records near NYU, Jaco was close to the door yelling at the employees and saying "You people should be giving me these records, I'm the greatest musician in the world." I could see the employees were kind of intimidated and so I walked up to Jaco and said "hey Jaco what's wrong?" he just turned to me, gave me a wink and smiled and then said "You know me" - Yeah, Jaco was just trying to get a charge out of these people and nothing more. He was just being playful and didn't mean any harm at all. He asked me where I was headed and I said that my car was about 10 blocks away, because I couldn't find a parking place any closer; He said well hop in my cab. Jaco had a cab sitting outside of Tower Records while he went in to shop. As we started to walk to the car, he looked into this garbage can saw these old Ked style canvas sneakers with huge holes in the tops and said "hey, I could use a new pair of sneakers" and took them out of the garbage. Jaco was such a funny guy. He was always zany and just a one of a kind person. Now, who could forget a guy like that!
LOTTE JACOBI AND ONE DEGREE OF SEPARATION
Years ago, I went door to door speaking to people about the Bible. It was something I grew up doing. It was on one of these times going door to door in Dearing, New Hampshire that I came upon a little woman that was in her mid seventies. She opened the door and said "come on in look around and I will be right with you."
I was quite surprised that someone up in years, would be so trusting, but I thought maybe I have a friendly face. When she came back and asked "are you ready"
I was surprised, and then she realized that I wasn't there to have my photograph taken. As I could see in the few minutes I was there, she was a wonderful photographer and had pictures on her wall of people that anyone could identify as well as others that just looked important and interesting. I saw before me pictures of Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Robert Frost J. D. Salinger, Paul Robeson and Max Planck.
After laughing at the fact that we both assumed to know who the other was, and were both wrong, she told me a little about herself. Her name was Lotte Jacobi and she had been a photographer since she was a young girl in Germany.
About a month after first meeting Lotte, I asked if I could interview her. I would love to write a story about her for Readers Digest, I told her. I brought her some cut flowers the day of our meeting and she spent about 10 minutes looking all over for a vase that would accommodate them, after which she told me, should I come back again, please don't bring me flowers. She had plenty in her back yard and she even had her own beehives too, as she was a beekeeper.
Lotte told me that she had been a friend of Albert Einstein in Germany and that her friendship continued after they both arrived in America, after fleeing Hitler. You will see Lotte's pictures in many books on Einstein, because he always insisted that her photos be used.
This past year, while I was still living in New York City, I had a chance to visit the Jewish Museum. The museum was having a full exhibit of Lotte Jacobi, who has been called by some to be the finest female photographer of the 20th Century. Gracing much of a full wing of the Museum, I was able to view many of the same pictures I had seen back in 1973 on the walls of her studio there in Deering, N.H. Lotte was someone that befriended many of the talented musicians, dancers and scientists of her day. She portrayed them in ways that no one else did prior to her. Lotte was very clear to point out that she didn't wish to have any preconceived ideas about any of her subjects.
Recently I was thinking about the game that is played called "The Six Degrees of Separation Of Kevin Bacon". The idea of the game is that Kevin Bacon as an end point can be linked in Hollywood by six degrees or less to almost any other performer. It made me laugh, because using that premise, having known Lotte Jacobi means that there is only one degree of separation from me to Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, J.D. Salinger or Robert Frost as well as other very famous people. Of course, in reality it doesn't mean anything, since I never met any of them. But, what is something I'll always be grateful for is to have met such a gracious artist as the one and only Lotte Jacobi herself!