Holt Remembers

I Remember - Kenny Barron

2010-06-10T16:59:00.006-04:00

For those of you who are not familiar with the name, Kenny Barron is considered one of the greatest living jazz pianists in the world today. The reason you may not know this is because – unlike the “big names” in jazz piano like Oscar Peterson or Keith Jarrett, Kenny Barron is not your typical showman. Perhaps not as showy as Oscar, and certainly not as controversial as Jarrett. But in jazz circles Kenny Barron’s name is spoken with reverence. “Kenny Barron is now recognized the world over as a master of performance and composition,” says www.allaboutjazz.com .

For a period of time during my younger days, Kenny Barron was my teacher.

How did such a thing happen to a young Montreal jazz student like me? It began during my days at McGill University. I was learning the jazz tradition from folks like (trumpeter) Charles Ellison and (pianist) Armas Maiste. I was ingesting the tradition through recordings, supplemented by the occasional live concert in Montreal when the great masters of jazz would stop in for a few nights and play at the local clubs. I was a Bill Evans fanatic at the time, and listened to every recording I could find of his. I also discovered Kenny Barron on records, along with other bop-oriented pianists like Tommy Flanagan and Wynton Kelly. And so I dove in deeper.

One day I was rehearsing with (saxophonist) Bob Mover at my old house on St. Joseph Boulevard. In that 7 room upper duplex there were many such rehearsals during those days. Bob had us working on one of his original works. As I looked down at the sheet music, Bob told me that none other than Kenny Barron had written out those piano parts. I was awed. This is actually Kenny Barron’s writing, I asked? Indeed it was. Then it began to dawn on me that Kenny wasn’t just a name on records and tapes – he was a real person, and he lived in New York City – not that far from Montreal. One thing led to another, and Bob called Kenny to ask him if he would give me a lesson. Thus began an association between Kenny and myself which lasted a few years, an association which saw me drive to New York every month or two, take the subway to Brooklyn, and spend an afternoon with the master.

That first lesson was daunting, I’ve got to tell you! I was young – 23 years old. It took much longer than I thought to drive to New York. I took a room in lower Manhattan for the weekend, called Kenny to make sure that the whole thing wasn’t some sort of mistake (which I was sure it had to be), but he was expecting my call and was light and easy on the other end of the phone with the directions to his home. I remember, I bought a big New York deli sandwich and boarded the subway, ate the sandwich en route and found my way to a mid-size folksy looking house in residential Brooklyn. Kenny looked like any other family man, surrounded by the trappings of family life – wife, school kids... I don’t know what exactly I had expected... something a little more bohemian? Could this really be the master who generated those solos on my Dizzy Gillespie records?

Then we went over to the piano. Kenny Barron’s piano. A large black satin finish grand piano, you think? Perhaps a deep wood grained 7 foot German Steinway? Concert Bossendorfer? Re-built Bluthner? After all, an endorsement from KB could mean the difference for any esteemed manufacturer. But there was no grand piano of any kind. Just a simple upright, a basic home piano, slightly out of tune. Nonetheless, when Kenny sat down and I watched his hands create those Kenny Barron melodies and voicings, there was no longer any doubt about who he was, and where I was. That moment remains etched like a mark from a lightning bolt on my mind. The sounds I heard were true and they were quintessential Kenny Barron.

We spent an entire afternoon together. He played, I played. He suggested things, I struggled to grasp them. We listened to Kenny’s records, drank Kenny’s cognac, and the afternoon passed.

He charged me $20.

When I protested, he refused to hear any argument. You’ve come a long way, he said. And that was that.

In the months that followed, the lessons were similar. Sometimes they were shorter than an entire afternoon, but never less than 2 hours. He gave me homework, which I would return with next time. He wrote out lines and voicings, and now – like Bob Mover – I too had paper with Kenny Barron’s handwriting on it!

After a lesson, I’d go back to my hotel room and think about everything. There were times that Kenny would be playing in a club later that night. Of course I would go and see the performance, and there before my very ears I would hear many of the musical sound bytes we had worked on and discussed, but now they were woven into a smooth and elegant improvisation.

I learned much from those times with Kenny. He showed me how to play better, and also to listen better. He also showed me much by his example, like how to combine celebrity with humility, and how to live a righteous life. Simply standing next to a person like Kenny Barron can have a powerful and positive impact on you, if you are open. I soaked it up like a sponge, and it has stayed with me.

In an interview in Jazz Times, Kenny was asked “What is your most prized possession?” He answered simply, “I have no prized possessions. I can live without anything. "

Like his music, Kenny’s words are guileless, profound, and powerful.

I Remember - David Holt

2009-12-01T13:14:00.023-05:00

David Holt
Born July 26, 1923 Montreal Canada
Died December 2, 1979 Hollywood Florida

I would like to take this opportunity to salute and remember my father, David Holt, who died thirty years ago. My dad was a regular guy. He was born in Montreal and grew up in what was then Jewish Outremont, not unlike a character in a Mordecai Richler novel. He met my mom in 1946 and they were married in 1947. When I asked her what was the thing she remembered most about him during that whirlwind courtship, she said, "He was a terrific dancer."

They moved into an apartment and had their first child, my brother Leon, so named after my maternal grandfather who had recently died. A few years later they bought a tiny duplex, and they had me.

In the early years of his marriage, my father struggled to make a living, and he struggled with anxiety. During that difficult period of his life he expressed himself in poetry. Some years later, he shed these problems. He stepped into the sunlight and became the wonderful father I remember. But he was and remained a regular guy. He did not run for office. He did not become a famous celebrity. He did not become fabulously wealthy, nor did he command a great empire.

Dad's time on earth was short. My parents had just sold the family home and moved into an apartment in downtown Montreal for what was to be the beginning of their new life. They were in Florida at their condo when he noticed some unusual bruising on his skin. Admitted to hospital for tests, he died a few days later. They had not even unpacked the carton boxes in the new Montreal apartment.

Gandhi said "My life is my message." David's life was a great message to all of us regular people. He loved his wife and kids. He loved his friends. He conducted his business with honor and integrity. He gave generously - of himself. He was funny. He saw the joke in life. And he used his humor to engage people, to disarm suspicion, and to spread joy. David was genuinely interested in people. He had time for people. And he was in awe of the mysteries of life and death.

It seems my mother's comment was profound: Where life was concerned, he was a terrific dancer.

Without realizing it, my Dad was a creator and purveyor of God's will - of the flow of the Universe. Simply by being himself, he took part in the creation of others. To this day, I can hear his voice mingled in my own at certain times. I can hear his influence in my own expressions, and I acknowledge with gratitude his part in the creation of me.

"This song of mine will wind its music around you,
my child, like the fond arms of love.
The song of mine will touch your forehead
like a kiss of blessing.

When you are alone it will sit by your side and
whisper in your ear, when you are in the crowd
it will fence you about with aloofness.

My song will be like a pair of wings to your dreams,
it will transport your heart to the verge of the unknown.
It will be like the faithful star overhead
when dark night is over your road.

My song will sit in the pupils of your eyes,
and will carry your sight into the heart of things.
And when my voice is silenced in death,
my song will speak in your living heart."

- Rabindranath Tagore

I Remember Len Dobbin

2009-08-05T13:59:00.004-04:00

Len Dobbin was a cool jazz voice on the radio when I was a teenager just getting into playing jazz. In fact, my love affair with jazz began in the 1970s when I discovered the album “Headhunters” by Herbie Hancock in 1973. Up to that point I had been playing pop and folk music, like most teenagers coming out of the sixties. But Headhunters started me on a new journey. For the next few years a learned more about crossover jazz music, later to be known as “jazz-funk” and “jazz-rock”. I wrote and recorded music in that genre, performing with musicians such as Graham Chambers, Jimmy Oliver, Steve Hall, Burke Mahoney, and Zeek Gross. Those were the days of the legendary backroom of the Rainbow Bar & Grill in Montreal – kind of like a poor man’s Minton’s for crossover jazz.

Len Dobbin was the presiding jazz deity at CJFM; his Sunday night show drew many devotees. The remarkable feature that I remember about Len from those days was his open-minded support of local Montreal Jazz. Len was a mainstream jazz guy. He didn’t like crossover jazz, and thus he didn’t like my music much. But he never even hinted at that. In fact, he mentioned my name on air just like every other jazz musician, and he even played one of my early unreleased recordings (Night Flight) and had me as a guest on his show. There just wasn’t a prejudicial bone in Len’s body.

In 1976 I began studying bebop with Armas Maiste at McGill University, and my love for bebop jazz was born. From that time on, as a newly-minted mainstream jazz player, I began to have more to share with Len, and he with me. Over the years I saw him at various clubs and gigs, and found myself a guest on his show a few more times. When my first album was released in 1983, once again I was back on Len’s show, this time with saxophonist Bob Mover. It was a moment to remember. In the midst of the show while a record was playing, Len got up to go to the bathroom but didn’t make it back by the time the track was over, and Bob and I suddenly found ourselves co-hosts!

After I moved to Toronto in 1987, I saw Len only occasionally, and then mostly on a social basis. His health had deteriorated due to years of heavy drinking. Len was an alcoholic who found his recovery in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous in the mid 1990s.

In 2009 I emerged from a decade long jazz retirement. I shared my excitement with Len via email, and he showed up to hear me at a jam session in Montreal in June of this year. It was so great to see him again, though he seemed somewhat frail. But he also seemed filled with a sparkle and a genuine joy of life that I had not seen in him before. We had a wonderful reunion that night, but Len got tired and decided to leave the club early before I had yet played. I was planning on being back in Montreal the following week, so Len bid me goodnight and said he would be back to hear me play the following week. A mere few days later, Len suffered a stroke and died. He had been in that same jazz club, “Upstairs”, when he became ill. The jazz deity was felled in a jazz club in his beloved Montreal. How fitting.

Len was a giant, not just because of his encyclopaedic knowledge of jazz recordings and artists, not just because of his love for and understanding of jazz music, and not just because of his unrelenting support of Montreal jazz. Len was a giant because of all of these things, combined with the fact that he was a caring and loving person who would go the distance to help another person. All of us who knew Len are enriched by the experience, just as we are diminished by his absence.

I Remember Maury Kaye

2009-04-30T15:39:00.012-04:00

Maury Kaye had a remarkable career playing in and writing for studio orchestras in Toronto. He was also the preferred accompanist for the top jazz vocalists of the time. But all that happened before I met him.

When I first encountered Maury Kaye, he was already an old man. Old to me, anyway. I was just a jazz pup, just getting going in my life. I was in my early 20s, a student at McGill University’s Faculty of Music. I was naive and excited about jazz and spent nearly every waking hour practising, listening, performing, or talking about jazz. It was my life, and that life was just beginning. Maury, by contrast, had already done most of his great works. He had played with people like Tony Bennett; he had been involved in creating music for television; he had worked with all the top players and he had carved out a niche in the world of music.

I didn’t know any of this when I met Maury in 1977. He was in his mid-forties, but he looked twenty years older, wizened by the tough years of his life. Maury was a small man, his back perennially bent by an invisible weight. He looked like the epitomic beatnik, complete with long hair, goatee, and hat. He spoke softly.

There was always a bit of competition between the Montreal jazz pianists of that era, but I never felt any of that from Maury. He was always warm and compassionate, always willing and eager to share his musical insights. We had long talks about music, women, and life in general. He shared his experience with me openly, and there was never a hint of professional competitiveness.

Maury may have looked slight and unassuming, but when he ascended the bandstand and began to play, any residual “aw,schucks” mannerisms vanished, and his deportment assumed an intense and even grave manner. He looked serious, and his music was serious. In those years, Maury played often in a trio format with bassist Jean Cyr and a variety of drummers. He also frequently added singer Barbara Reney to complete his quartet.

In addition to his piano performances, Maury was also a prolific composer and arranger; he delighted in hearing others perform his works. There were several of his pieces that became standard repertoire for my own quartet. His influence was felt by many Montreal jazz musicians during those days.

In his later years, Maury’s health began to decline noticeably. He had obvious respiratory difficulties, which he confessed were caused by talc deposits in his lungs, a result of his prior intravenous drug abuse. He had a close circle of friends at the time which included (bassist) Dennis James, Dennis’ girlfriend Jacinta Luis, myself, and of course Barbara Reney and Jean Cyr. Maury was admitted to a respiratory clinic in the Laurentian Mountains north of Montreal for a period of time. I remember visiting him up there, and he was still busy writing and practicing piano as if he had a gig next week. But there would be no gig. Maury never got better.

I think the last time I saw Maury was when he came to my house for dinner. As in most Montreal houses, mine came with a steep set of outdoor and indoor winding staircases which Maury and his green oxygen tank ascended with great difficulty. Even as his inevitable end approached, Maury's cheerfulness and courage were indefatigable.

Maury was buried in a Montreal cemetery in February 1983, at the age of 50.

As I write these words and remember my good friend Maury Kaye more than 26 years after his premature death, I’d like to dust off some of his old music and bring his spirit to life by performing his music again. Anyone in possession of his music is welcome to post links to it here.

I Remember Charlie Biddle

2008-11-04T11:29:00.003-05:00

Charlie Biddle – even the name sounds like show biz. But it didn't take long for that name to become a pseudonym for Montreal jazz. I guess it helps to a club named after you.

When anyone talked of Montreal jazz, Charlie’s name always came up. Truly he was one of those larger-than-life figures. Not only did he have a big personality, but he was physically a big man. When he would shake my hand, it was like shaking hands with a bear. My hand would be engulfed up to my wrist; he’d hold it like that for a couple of seconds and grin at me, and I was never fully sure whether he’d give it back or not.

Charlie was an ambassador of jazz. He made things happen. He created a music scene where there was none. Sure, he played bass. But that was only a part of his talent. His other and perhaps more important talent was that he made people feel good. He made regular people feel good about listening to jazz. Charlie made friends with everyone, so eventually he had a lot of friends. And a lot of influence.

I played with Biddle on many occasions, too numerous to count. We played duo, we played trio, we played with horn players, we played with singers.

Before he founded the club that would bear his name, Charlie Biddle and Nelson Symonds were an inseparable duo. In fact, that was the first time I ever heard either Charlie or Nelson – playing together. It was a remarkable thing to see and hear. These two seemed as one, and played a high energy music that would overwhelm you after a few minutes. It was totally compelling. Hypnotic. In fact, I never saw Nelson without Charlie for a number of years. They were like one guy.

I started hiring Charlie from time to time in those early days of my own jazz career. I found his playing sporadic. At times, it was uncertain, yet at other times it was remarkably solid. When he was on, Charlie was very on and he played great. I soon began to understand that the quality of Charlie’s playing depended upon his mood and who was on the bandstand with him, mostly the latter. If he was playing with some illustrious out-of-towner, his playing was extraordinary. But if it was just another night behind a mediocre singer, his playing declined and his level of inebriation rose. Yet make no mistake – when Charlie was inspired, he laid down those bass lines like railroad tracks for a train to come thundering through.

It didn’t matter in what environment you met Charlie, he was always the same - authentic. I remember visiting him at his country house - was it in Vermont? He’d show me around the area with that “aw shucks” banter, and effusing hospitality. Yet he was a proud man. He was proud of his achievements and he was proud of his family.

Of course, the greatest memories for me were those on the bandstand at the club which bore his namesake, “Biddles”. After Oliver Jones moved on, I became the regular pianist there, playing every Thursday through Saturday night for my last nine months as a Montrealer, prior to moving to Toronto. Charlie and I (along with various drummers) played behind some wonderful horn players and vocalists. We particularly enjoyed having Ranee Lee as a guest, a vocalist whom Charlie seem to have “discovered” for his club. Charlie’s mood and playing depended on who was out front, and when Ranee was there Charlie wore a constant smile. When she started singing, I would look over at Charlie and he’d grin back at me, his big head bobbing up and down to music. The club was always packed, especially on a Saturday night. After each set Charlie would introduce the band, announcing our names with great flourish, like we were royalty. But for himself, he used the understated monogram “Charlie Biddle on the fiddle.” There would be thunderous applause.

Had Charlie Biddle not been on the “fiddle”, there would have been none of these great performances. Oliver Jones was hoisted into the limelight by Charlie, and went on to become one of Canada’s jazz stars. Ranee Lee became a name of musical theatre as well as jazz vocals. And whatever had passed between Nelson Symonds and Charlie to cause the duo to break up in earlier years, Charlie made sure that Nelson was one of the regular featured artists at the club along with everyone else.

I still wonder why it was only when Charlie was on his deathbed that the government came to call, to commend his contribution. He was given the order of Canada with a house call, hastily followed by a similar award from the Quebec government which scurried in at the end. But they were the latecomers. We were there, and we remember Charlie Biddle’s goodness.

I Remember Frank Zane

2008-09-21T12:37:00.010-04:00

In the summer of 2000 I was a novice. Bodybuilding had only recently taken root in me. I had done my first competition, an embarrassing affair. An inauspicious beginning, yes. But I was hooked. Bodybuilding had entered my soul and ignited a passion.

Frank Zane had been an influence on me from prior years, when my trainer had introduced me to the name. Frank’s physique made an impression me, not only because of its near-perfection, but also because Frank was around my height and had a similar build to begin with. Frank Zane began to become a personification of my bodybuilding goals. And besides, Frank Zane was mysterious. He had become involved with Buddhism and meditation. He had been a mathematics teacher, of all things. He was an enigma, and I liked that.

In those days Frank offered a 3 day one-on-one training program in his private gym. I decided to go.

And so it was in the summer of 2000, after a 5 hour flight from Toronto, I arrived late on a Sunday evening in San Diego. I picked up my rented car and drove to La Mesa. Next morning I called Frank for directions. Soon I was driving up the hill to Frank Zane's house, where the first one to greet me was Tyler, the family dog. As you might expect, Tyler was big, and in shape. Frank Zane's dog, right? I walked across the back lawn into the garden doors that lead directly into the gym.

Frank was milling about, and we quickly got acquainted. First impressions are always interesting. Frank was cool and cerebral. Very focused. Over the three days I spent with him, those initial impressions proved to be accurate. But there is another side to Frank I did not notice until later; he is very candid. And so I pressed him with questions as we did the training. Questions and comments like “what was it like … “

There were surprises. One of those surprises was Frank’s tone when he spoke of competing. Here was a man who won top honors in competitive bodybuilding, a three time Mr. Olympia. One of the tiny handful who beat the great Arnold Schwarzenegger in competition. But surprisingly Frank did not sound like he loved that time in his life, nor did he sound like a man who missed being in the thick of things. In fact, he spoke of his days as a world-class competitor as something he was glad to be finished with. He reminded me that to compete the way he did was a sacrifice of profound proportion, a sacrifice on many levels. His focus was so intense and complete in those days that he went for long periods where he did not even talk to anyone. Kind of like a monk's vow of silence. (Gee, I thought, isn't pre-contest dieting enough of an austerity?) When I asked him if he intended to enter competition ever again, perhaps in the Masters Olympia, the answer was a resounding no, without hesitation. I glanced over at the three Mr. Olympia statues, unceremoniously displayed on the top of his fridge. They concurred.

Nowadays Frank had more modest goals, though still daunting. His main goal was to reach peak condition again and present his physique to the world at some point in the future. (That ended up being six years later at age 64 - see picture below.) But he was adamant that he would never again put himself through the rigors of competition.

The 3 day training we did, “The Zane Experience”, is unusual in that Frank is no personal trainer, in the conventional sense. He’s Frank Zane, three times Mr. Olympia, and one of the most unique bodybuilders in history in terms of size, proportion, and posing. During the workouts, Frank was my training partner. He did a set, and I did a set. I got to watch him, watch his form, his approach, and his intensity. Then he would correct my form as I trained. That in itself was remarkable.

The routine we did was Frank’s personal routine. This is the routine that works for Frank Zane. In other words, a routine created for him based on his own level of experience, goals, and limitations. On that latter point, Frank has to deal with a 58 year old body with its attendant quirks and demands, as well as specific injuries and prior surgery. I will naturally have a different set of these parameters, and so my task is to integrate these two blueprints, to come up with a revised blueprint for myself.

On this day Frank has a new 3-way split routine, which we did over the three days I trained with him. These three days are orchestrated in descending order of physical taxation. Day 1 is upper torso, including back, chest, and shoulders. It’s a big workout. Day 2 is legs. Day 3 is arms, including biceps, triceps, and forearms. Additionally, all three days end with an ab workout.

As for the subject matter covered in the non-training part of the sessions, we spent lots of time talking. We talked about diet, nutrition, and supplementation. On the third day, Frank took outdoor pictures of me posing, and then told me that it was important to have someone take photos of my physique on a regular basis, in order for me to objectively see the progress (hopefully not the lack of progress) and to have a pictorial record of that progress.

We spent a lot of time on posing technique. Frank showed me that posing began with correct foot placement, something I really did not yet grasp. He even traced the position of his feet on a piece of construction paper with a felt marker. He rolled it up and I took it home like someone fresh from a dance lesson. But the point was clear. This was the basic stance, a base from which other foot positions were born, and from where the poses grew upward like a tree would grow. From its roots. The result was that my poses began to look a lot better.

Frank’s Pre-Competition Advice
This is how he did it…

• Sodium maintained at 1 gram/day beginning two weeks out.
• Last workout on the Tuesday preceding the Saturday show (4 days out).
• Legs: Stop squatting two weeks out, but continued leg extensions every day and constantly tensing and posing the legs.
• In general, increase volume and do more exercises as the date approaches.

Carbs For The Final Week

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday: 100 grams carbs/day.
Thursday 150 grams carbs
Friday 200 grams carbs
Saturday (day of the show): Awakened at 6:AM. Ate a slice of baked yam, and continued to each one slice every 45 minutes or so, up to one hour before the show, for total consumption of not more than 2 yams or so.

Frank took no diuretics and did no radical cutting of his water intake prior to the show.

I Remember Dawson College

2008-02-22T10:33:00.021-05:00

Photos by Steve Holt

Funny how quickly things happen. I happened to be in Montreal one day, on September 13, 2006. I was walking to meet a friend, when I simply found myself inside a police perimeter. On that day, on that walk, I was not expecting to see literally thousands of pedestrians on the move, hundreds of police, medical teams, SWAT. Like a set for an epic movie. Extras over here please. Places everyone.

Then I heard an odd sound in the distance which gradually became louder and entered my consciousness through the din. It gradually became known to me as a woman screaming in pain. She had been shot, and was being wheeled down the street toward me, to one of the many waiting ambulances in front of me. The crowd murmured and then fell into a hushed silence as her screaming got louder. It was a sound I will never forget. A sound I would like to forget. That young woman’s screams and the men in bullet-proof vests crowded around her stretcher as they rumbled down the street toward us. One officer gripping her outstretched hand while running along side the gurney. A dark grimace on his face. All at once the scene was transformed. No longer a movie set, but a dark and terrible thing. Everything came into focus, sickening and real.

Nobody wants things to be that real.

We – the thousands of people who had suddenly merged – didn’t know what was happening. Without realizing what we were doing we became a composite mind and body, inching our way closer to Alexis Nihon Plaza, the mall bordering the college. The word was passing electrically through the crowd… there were two shooters, one in the mall. This people sea, getting closer to the mall.... like the tide, stupidly closer. Then with no warning, the tide turned and the sea became an ugly panic wave. Everyone was screaming and running at full tilt away from the mall. I was caught up in the surge, running flat out. Then we halted, like a collective crouched animal. We waited. Pulse pounding in our ears.

More police moved in. Reporters crushed into a circle around a police spokesman who was making a statement. A giant man made larger still by a bullet proof jacket, he was enjoying his moment. I was armed with a camera and attitude, so I too became a reporter, jostling to the centre of the circle - demanding answers. Seemed there was only one shooter. Riflemen trotted in and crouched behind nearby cars. They seemed more wary of a bullet than we did.

On that terrible day in the history of Dawson College, I interviewed several people, many of whom had been unwilling players in the drama as it had unfolded. One young girl told me of how she and other students had been corralled back into a classroom by a security guard and locked in. She and her fellow students waited in sickened silence for more than 45 minutes, while they heard gunfire sporadically erupting outside their door.

Police released these and hundreds of other youngsters and their teachers in small clusters, a few dozen at a time. We watched at the edge of the police barricade as they ran for their lives to the safety of the yellow tape, some with their hands in the air in a wordless plea of “Don’t shoot!” as if they feared being shot by police as they ran.

It did not seem like Montreal.

Later that evening, I went about my more normal business in Montreal. But it did not seem right that people were going about their normal business. They were being too normal. They were doing too many normal things like laughing, chatting with friends, listening to music, going to restaurants. It seemed wrong. A girl had died. A young student, her life just beginning to unfold, only a year or two out of high school. Anastasia would have been thinking about her assignments, or her teachers, or perhaps friends she was to meet after class. It didn’t seem right that people in Montreal were doing normal things. There were victims in critical condition in hospital, their lives changed forever.

It didn’t seem right that I should be going to the gym for a workout. But I did.

Perhaps in times such as these we need to do normal things. Perhaps we try to hang on to a perceived sense of order in an senseless world. Who wants to dwell on the truth - that this is not a civilized place?

I Remember Dave Draper

2007-12-10T11:46:00.001-05:00

I got into bodybuilding as part of my extended mid-life crisis. In my mid forties, I had already done the usual mid-life stuff – separated from my second wife, changed jobs… that kind of thing. I’d never been to a gym and started going for reasons which today remain obscure, even to me. But before too long, I began to enjoy weight training. Bodybuilding soon followed.

In the following years I met many bodybuilders, including several of the people we view as legends. Many of these are not people I would have over for dinner.

Dave Draper was not a name I was familiar with before the bodybuilding phase of my life began. In the 1960s, although I did listen to the Beach Boys, I had no idea that Dave was becoming the archetypal muscular blond beach dude. I didn’t know he’d won the Mr. America in 1965 and the Mr. Universe in 1966. I never saw his pictures on the covers of all those magazines with all those beach bunnies and surf boards.

In fact, by the time I’d discovered bodybuilding, Dave was a myth in his late fifties. He wasn’t competing anymore, but he was a major presence in bodybuilding nonetheless. He was still training like a fiend, and he was still gigantic and lean. I later learned that Dave had a remarkable past. He had done a lot of traveling. From the Mr. Universe days he had traveled to hell, via the path of alcoholism and drug addiction. He traveled to the hospital and had practically been pronounced dead from congestive heart failure. Then he traveled that mysterious tunnel of spirituality and recovery, emerging in the 1980s as giant in more facets than mere physique.

That’s a lot of traveling.

My meeting Dave Draper began through the internet. In the 1990s Dave and his wife Laree had started an online group. Even though Dave didn’t actually post to the group, his presence attracted a large following. I started posting there, and in fact it was Laree Draper who nicknamed me “The Vegetarian Bodybuilder”, as I had been a vegetarian for some years. The name stuck, and has since become a trademark.

A few years after the group’s inception, Dave and Laree decided to have a gathering. A bash, they called it. Not a cyber gathering. A real gathering. Of humans. In person. How irregular. You did not have to receive some sort of invitation. Anyone who wanted to come could come. How completely irregular. And so it came to pass that in 2001 on the Draper’s home turf of Santa Cruz California, a group assembled to meet Dave Draper, to learn from him, and just to socialize. I don’t think it was supposed to be an annual event, but the following year they did it again, this time in Las Vegas. The following year the bash was in St. Petersburg Florida.

When Dave decided to have the 2004 bash in New York City, my wife Laraine and I decided to go. By now the Draper bashes had a framework. They were a weekend long and included a seminar with Dave as well as various informal social gatherings.

On this occasion somewhere between 50-100 of us fortunate souls piled into a gym in mid-town Manhattan for the seminar. There we encountered Dave in person. My first impression… the guy was absolutely gigantic. Even in baggy civilian clothes, his chest seemed impossibly large, even considering his towering height and massive frame. And yet, incongrously, his whole demeanor was quiet. Even a bit shy. In the spotlight he seemed somewhat uncomfortable.

At the seminar he was joined by longtime bodybuilding legend Mike Katz, another behemoth. Katz and Draper stood together, mixed in amongst the barbells and weight training machines, but the personalities couldn't have been more different. Katz clearly enjoyed the attention, at ease and comfortable taking questions and speaking his mind. Draper looked like he would have been happier just having a quiet and anonymous workout by himself. He took the spotlight - not as an act of desire, but as an act of service.

He was there to give something away.

Talking later to him in a more intimate environment, it was confirmed that Dave Draper had not traveled to New York because he wanted a fan club. He genuinely didn’t, and said as much. The simple fact was that he liked people. He was genuinely interested in the people around him, and seemed to enjoy their company. How utterly unusual!

That night we all went out to dinner, and got to know not only the Drapers, but each other, as most of us had only met in cyberspace.

There is another highly unusual fact that must be mentioned here, and it is this: As far as I know Dave Draper is not a particularly wealthy man. He makes a living writing books and selling a few diet and exercise related products from his website and at trade shows. Yet Draper did not charge anything for the weekend. There were no fees to be paid nor tickets to be purchased. Dave and Laree got on plane, booked their hotel room, Dave gave a seminar for free, and we all went out to dinner that night and paid for our own meals. The following day, we arrived at a Manhattan Planet Hollywood where Dave had set up a private reception for us, complete with an impressive buffet lunch. We ate, drank, chatted, took photos, and spent a few Sunday hours with the Drapers as their honored guests.

For those of us fortunate people who have met Dave Draper, we have been changed by the experience. We have learned something of exercise and diet. But, I believe more importantly, we have learned something of right living. Dave Draper personifies many of the moral qualities we all seek, and these qualities are embodied in an almost impossible physique.

References:
http://www.davedraper.com/mag-muscular-development.html

http://www.davedraper.com/bodybuilding-history-contents.html

I Remember - David Geffen

2007-11-26T12:01:00.003-05:00

In my life as an analyst, I met some influential people. Some were very wealthy people who ran some very large companies. Some of these people who wielded great power were paradoxically very weak individuals. They presided over the demise of their company, or credited themselves with its success when such success occurred in spite of them and not because of them. On the other hand, there were some executives who were strong and visionary leaders, and as such they were profoundly inspirational and left their mark of success on everything they touched.

David Geffen was one of these latter types – a visionary and a creator of wealth and success.

In the mid 1990s three men decided to form new company. Those three men were Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen. The company was to be called Dreamworks.

I was an analyst. I was covering Seagram, which owned Universal Studios at the time, and there had been an important relationship between Steven Spielberg and Universal. If Spielberg was no longer going to distribute films through Universal, there was going to be a material impact to Seagram’s bottom line. The investment community had made guesses, but no one really knew what was going on. I needed to know more about Dreamworks.

Of the three founders, Spielberg was inaccessible. Not yet covering Disney, Katzenberg was an unknown to me, but Geffen had been quoted in the newspapers subsequent to the Dreamworks announcement. David Geffen, one of the richest people in the world, the man who had created perhaps the most successful record label in history… seemed to be in the mood to talk.

I decided to lob in a phone to David Geffen.

The receptionist asked me who I was, and what was the nature of my call. I figured I’d leave a message and that would be that. After a short pause, Geffen came on the line and said hello.

Alrighty then. I explained who I was and what I was after, and he gave me a few opaque factoids. I asked him if he would take a meeting with me, and he said sure.

Well I’ll be.

And that is how I found myself on a plane bound for Los Angeles one day in my rarely-boring life, on my way to meet the multi-billionare.

It was very warm when I finally checked into my hotel in Burbank. The place was filled with an assortment of entertainment industry creatures. I called Geffen’s assistant and told her I had arrived. I had most definitely arrived, I thought. In truth, this would be a big coup for me; every investor-client would want to know what I had learned.

Imagine my dismay when the nice Mr. Geffen called to ask me, in a newly impatient and dismissive tone, why we couldn’t just do this on the phone. As I sat in California, thousands of recently-flown miles away from my office, having breakfast on the terrace in the hot sunshine, Geffen was annoyed that I had come and was looking for a way out of the interview. He was busy. Can’t we do a phone interview, he asked me-told me. I was nonplussed. Whatever answer I blurted out I cannot remember.

Geffen said he would send a car.

Sometime later the car arrived. We rolled through the restricted alleys of the Universal Studios lot and pulled up in front of a small structure not much bigger than a couple of trailers. From the sun, I went in and stood hot inside in the reception area, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the subdued light. I sat in my damp gray business suit, peering at a few others who waited also. They were dressed for summer. A courrier was delivering a script.

It didn’t take long to get ushered into Geffen’s trailer park office, casual and vacation-like. Geffen looked like a middle-aged relative I might meet at the golf club.

And so it began, my long sought interview. From the time the secretary closed the door, Geffen became absolutely unhurried, like he had all the time in the world to talk with me. For my part, I never forgot why I was there, and blended social chatter with risky questions. Geffen was extraordinarily candid, considering this was an on-the-record talk with an analyst. Nevertheless he said what he felt like saying, and left the burden of distillation and dissemination up to me.

I learned things in that humid office-box. I learned that above all, the business world was a world fueled on relationships. The adage “it’s who you know” was borne out right there, as I saw how the Dreamworks deal would benefit – not harm – Universal, because of the chemistry between (Seagram CEO) Edgar Bronfman Jr. and Geffen. If you were friends, you took care. You didn’t screw your friends. You didn’t betray people. That was how David Geffen’s world worked. Even to the point of taking a full hour to talk one-on-one with an analyst from Toronto.

I remember David Geffen as an unapologetic man who said what he thought, who didn’t suffer fools, but didn’t abuse his station either. Geffen was a person I enjoyed speaking with. I remember him as a bright, outspoken yet gentle man. A mensch.

I Remember - Larry Coryell

2007-11-22T13:00:00.002-05:00

Getting the call to perform with a legend always struck me with a sense of ambivalence. On the one hand, it would be a thrill to do it, but on the other hand, there was always a sense of some foreboding. Perhaps the legend would turn out to be a jerk. Or perhaps I’d screw up.

It was with that kind of mishmash of feelings that I found myself, having received the telephone call inviting me to perform with Larry Coryell. During the early 1970s Larry had attained quasi-divine status in the world of jazz-fusion. As a teenager I had seen him live at a university in Montreal. I don’t remember the music of that concert as much as I remember the awe and amazement of sitting near the front row and just being present in front of Larry Coryell and Alphonse Mouzon. In those days, I was a young and committed jazz-fusioneer.

It was years later when I got the call to be part of the quintet in Montreal. But I was no longer into jazz-fusion. By now I was a bebopper. So it was with mixed feelings that I showed up that first night to play with the hero from my earlier days. I hadn’t been following Larry’s career and I wondered what kind of music he was into.

This was a two night gig in a packed club, with no rehearsals. Just show up, shake hands, and play. Larry was great – a total gentleman. No attitude, no issues. And he played his ass off, beautiful new material that he had written, material which was not fusion at all, but was very mainstream jazz. Jeez, I thought, I never even knew he played that stuff.

So there we were, jumping into the first tune of the night. After a few minutes, the newly-formed band felt comfortable and solid, and we all began to push the envelope. Comping behind Larry Coryell was…, uh – well, fun. It’s one thing to listen to someone play, but quite another thing to perform with them. That’s when you get to influence their playing. Larry’s antennas were fully up that night, and he responded instantly to my harmonic and rhythmic urgings. But I think it was even more exciting for me personally, because here I was in concert with a musician we all used to worship. In my teenage years, Larry was a demigod. We copied his licks, transcribed his music, and listened to his recordings with reverence.

Then came my little “incident”. Larry had written a unison line on a blues and placed the sheet on my piano. It was a line to be played in unison with guitar, and at breakneck speed. Not being a great sight reader, I fumbled through it. After that night was over, I went home and practiced that line until I no longer needed the sheet music, and I could play the thing upside down and sideways. The next night, Larry called the tune and I gobbled it up. Without the chart. In the midst of the tune Larry yelled out “You MEMORIZED it!” Glad you noticed, I thought, and grinned at him.

I Remember - Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson

2007-11-21T18:51:00.001-05:00

I performed a couple of times with Eddie Cleanhead Vinson when he came through Montreal. I remember him as a warm and untroubled person, happy to get up on stage and play his horn and sing his songs. We performed at The Rising Sun, a jazz club in Montreal.

At first, I actually had trouble understanding Eddie when he spoke. His accent was that thick. And, he tended to mumble. So at first, all I heard was some gravelly mumbling, with each sentence punctuated at the end by “…sheee-it.” It took a while, but my hearing soon became initated to his twang, and it sounded normal.

After the gig, we’d go out to eat. Clubs in Montreal closed at 3AM so we’d get to the restaurant by around 3:30 or 4AM. I remember one particular night being at The Main delicatessen. The place was packed, notwithstanding the hour, with entertainers, musicians, partiers, etc. A French-Canadian waitress leaned over our big circular table where the band sat with friends, and she asked us what we wanted to order. When it was Eddie's turn, he of course ordered in his unintelligible dialect. The waitress, who barely understood English to begin with, stared at him. No one stirred, and then Eddie spewed out forth a few quiet expletives which were equally unintelligible, ending the diatribe with the old and by now familiar “…sheee-it.” signature. The waitress turned to me and shrugged. I translated into "English". She dutifully wrote down the order. Eddie smiled.

On the bandstand, Eddie lost the fish-out-of-water thing. He was at home. We would open the set with “Tune Up”, which he claimed he wrote and Mile Davis stole. Eddie’s alto sound had a telltale inexplicable authenticity – it was bebop.

Eddie was a blues singer and a bebop alto sax player, but he was also a golfer according to his conversations. He professed to be a scratch golfer, and I believed him, as he was not a fellow who tended to embellishment. Based in California, he told me stories of how in his day a black man was unable to play golf at any club, anywhere. “All you could do was caddy,” he said.

I Remember - Peter Gzowski

2007-11-21T14:11:00.001-05:00

Somewhere around 1992 or 1993 I found myself in the studio with Peter Gzowski. Having been interviewed many times on various media – as a musician or as an investment analyst – I was accustomed to less. Less knowledge, less congeniality, less preparedness. But Peter knew all about me. He knew of my strange past, music and finance in an odd tryst. He knew about the music I was there to promote – my new CD was all cued up and ready to be played.

I can recall vividly my first glimpse of Peter. It was an image that would turn out to be prophetic. He was encased in what looked like an aquarium with cloudy water. In fact, it was cloudy air... a glass office filled with cigarette smoke. Peter’s office was probably the last permissible smoking area in the CBC building at the time. There he was, hair wild and jacket rumpled, swimming around in that smoky aquarium, circling what looked like an old Remington manual typewriter. Peter would one day succumb to smoking-related illness.

But not on that day.

On that day Peter was alive and well and very present. He opened the door of his tank and emerged, eyes twinkling. He seemed genuinely interested in little old me. There wasn’t a hint of cynicism. He was simply like a curious kid, investigating a new toy. His guest.

The show started with a cut from the new CD “Just Duet”, a collaboration between myself and (bassist) Kieran Overs. Peter obviously liked the music. He was genuinely curious about my rather odd life and careers. After all, how many Bay Street analyst musicians did he know? On air we chatted easily. The show finished with another cut from the CD.

I’ll remember Peter for the many interviews I heard while listening to the radio, but mostly for that day in the studio… watching him work. Like a true master, he performed a difficult task while making it seem like the easiest thing possible. Peter was well-prepared for the interview. Questions were never posed in a confrontational way. He laid no traps. It was just innocent. And honest. At the end he wished me well, then re-entered the cloudy aquarium once more, to puff on a cigarette and contemplate his Remington and his notes.

Innocent and honest. That’s how I remember Peter Gzowski.