I worked in musical instrument shops for close to a decade and had a lot of fun along the way so I thought I’d share some of my stories. Feel free to share yours too.
This happened sometime between 2008 and 2010. I was working at the Woodwind and Brasswind in South Bend, IN and we had a big saxophone clinic with Frank Catalano coming up. I tried finding footage on YouTube but wasn’t able to find any...unfortunately.
The day before the clinic my manager says hey Frank’s drummer is sick could you fill in tomorrow night? I’m like there’s no one else that can fill in? He says nope everyone else has plans and they can’t get out of them. So I reluctantly agree to stand in for the clinic.
Like 5 minutes after I agree to help out I call my drum teacher just to get a feel for what he thinks. My teacher Jim says well you’re a solid player so just do your best to keep the beat. Then he says what songs are you playing? Well, one song is Frank’s and that’s called Mighty Burner and the other is a Coltrane song called Impressions...now I’ve never heard either of these songs but I could tell by what Jim said next that I was in trouble.
Can you get out of this? No joke that’s exactly what he said after I told him the songs. I laughed and asked why, then he played me some clips of the songs. The stream of obscenities that I released would’ve made Mr. Parker proud. What am I going to do, there’s no way I can come anywhere close to either of these drummers?! So we worked out a couple simple patterns I could play at the appropriate tempo for each song and that’s what I had to go on. Jim also suggested I tell Frank I’m super green when it comes to this caliber of playing...I did tell Frank but he just said it’d be fine lmao!
It’s clinic time. Frank’s up on stage talking about all this awesome stuff he’s done recently (played with Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, played in a musical on Broadway...pretty sure he got a Grammy for that, and he just released an album of his own) and now Nick is going to come up and play a couple songs with me. Now it’s bad enough that I’m walking up on stage to play with a total jazz badass but to add to the hilarity my coworkers (most of them were good friends) are standing by hooting and hollering my name, smfh.
I walk around the stage with my head down because I can’t believe what I’m about to do. I mount the stage and get behind the kit, he says you ready? I managed a very, very weak smile and nod ok. Then he tears into Mighty Burner and I’m just holding on to the tempo for dear life, it’s hard enough playing in front of people for like the first time but to be playing with a saxophone master too was crazy.
We finish the first song and Frank’s like see not so bad and then we launch into Impressions. Now my best isn’t anywhere near Elvin Jones’s worst so this was just a train wreck. I’m trying to whip out a 16th triplet pattern on the ride cymbal and it is not going well. After what seems like an eternity we finish the song. He says I haven’t played Impressions like that in a while but it was really fun. Lmao he had fun!
Now I do the thing I was fearing most, I look out into the crowd. The first thing I notice is that all the guys who said they were busy and couldn’t fill in were actually standing at the back of the room...laughing their asses off. Now my secret is out, I can play damn good jamming by myself but put me on stage and train wrecked. Bastards.
Frank thanks me for filling in and I slink off stage so I can go smoke in shame out behind the building. I was so pissed all the guys I looked up to threw me into that fire but I guess I got it and my teacher said at least I had the stones to do the gig so I had that going for me.
I look back on it now and I’m happy I did it, I mean I got to share the stage with someone that played with Buddy Guy and Junior Wells which is pretty damn cool but I’d never do it again lol. I should add that Frank was really nice about my playing and was genuinely happy just to have someone on stage with him...even if my stage fright was crippling.
Here’s links for the songs we played.
Sent from the dark side of the moon.
This happened sometime between 2008 and 2010. I was working at the Woodwind and Brasswind in South Bend, IN and we had a big saxophone clinic with Frank Catalano coming up. I tried finding footage on YouTube but wasn’t able to find any...unfortunately.
The day before the clinic my manager says hey Frank’s drummer is sick could you fill in tomorrow night? I’m like there’s no one else that can fill in? He says nope everyone else has plans and they can’t get out of them. So I reluctantly agree to stand in for the clinic.
Like 5 minutes after I agree to help out I call my drum teacher just to get a feel for what he thinks. My teacher Jim says well you’re a solid player so just do your best to keep the beat. Then he says what songs are you playing? Well, one song is Frank’s and that’s called Mighty Burner and the other is a Coltrane song called Impressions...now I’ve never heard either of these songs but I could tell by what Jim said next that I was in trouble.
Can you get out of this? No joke that’s exactly what he said after I told him the songs. I laughed and asked why, then he played me some clips of the songs. The stream of obscenities that I released would’ve made Mr. Parker proud. What am I going to do, there’s no way I can come anywhere close to either of these drummers?! So we worked out a couple simple patterns I could play at the appropriate tempo for each song and that’s what I had to go on. Jim also suggested I tell Frank I’m super green when it comes to this caliber of playing...I did tell Frank but he just said it’d be fine lmao!
It’s clinic time. Frank’s up on stage talking about all this awesome stuff he’s done recently (played with Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, played in a musical on Broadway...pretty sure he got a Grammy for that, and he just released an album of his own) and now Nick is going to come up and play a couple songs with me. Now it’s bad enough that I’m walking up on stage to play with a total jazz badass but to add to the hilarity my coworkers (most of them were good friends) are standing by hooting and hollering my name, smfh.
I walk around the stage with my head down because I can’t believe what I’m about to do. I mount the stage and get behind the kit, he says you ready? I managed a very, very weak smile and nod ok. Then he tears into Mighty Burner and I’m just holding on to the tempo for dear life, it’s hard enough playing in front of people for like the first time but to be playing with a saxophone master too was crazy.
We finish the first song and Frank’s like see not so bad and then we launch into Impressions. Now my best isn’t anywhere near Elvin Jones’s worst so this was just a train wreck. I’m trying to whip out a 16th triplet pattern on the ride cymbal and it is not going well. After what seems like an eternity we finish the song. He says I haven’t played Impressions like that in a while but it was really fun. Lmao he had fun!
Now I do the thing I was fearing most, I look out into the crowd. The first thing I notice is that all the guys who said they were busy and couldn’t fill in were actually standing at the back of the room...laughing their asses off. Now my secret is out, I can play damn good jamming by myself but put me on stage and train wrecked. Bastards.
Frank thanks me for filling in and I slink off stage so I can go smoke in shame out behind the building. I was so pissed all the guys I looked up to threw me into that fire but I guess I got it and my teacher said at least I had the stones to do the gig so I had that going for me.
I look back on it now and I’m happy I did it, I mean I got to share the stage with someone that played with Buddy Guy and Junior Wells which is pretty damn cool but I’d never do it again lol. I should add that Frank was really nice about my playing and was genuinely happy just to have someone on stage with him...even if my stage fright was crippling.
Here’s links for the songs we played.
Sent from the dark side of the moon.