Miami Story

Originally in life, I was going to be a jazz musician.

My sister started piano lessons when I was in 3rd grade. At the same time, my mother bought an encyclopedia from the grocery store, one volume at a time. When I got to the article on music, it laid out the basics of how to read music. That, combined with my sister's piano books, taught me the basics.

Around that time, the Lubbock S&H Green Stamps store shut down. My parents had been collecting them for years, so my dad went to the closing. He came back with a guitar.

All four of us tried it out. My sister's hands were too small, and she was much more interested in singing, anyway. My mother hated having callouses on her fingertips. My dad and I started figuring it out, however.

Dad was a natural. He picked it up, and within weeks, he was playing 50s and 60s rock and roll songs. For years, he and my mother would jam after dinner, having a cigarette, almost every night.

I was still young, so I was slower. I like guitar, but it was pretty hard.

Around that time, my uncle, who was an Eastman degree holder, ex-band director, and a computer programmer, gave me a book on music harmony for Christmas. I kind of looked at it; after all, I was 10.

I started playing saxophone at 12 in 6th grade. In 7th grade, at Lanier Jr. High in Houston, I was put into a jazz band, knowing nothing about jazz. The director taught us well; I got hooked on jazz. One day, he taught us the blues scale. I took home my horn and noodled around, and this great lick came out of my horn. (To this day, I wish I remembered it!). Right then, I decided I wanted to be a jazz musician when I grew up. Discovered bari sax in 8th grade, and have been playing it ever since.

I also got much more serious about that harmony book; I worked all of the way through it. Once I realized that you did not have to hear what you were writing, the exercises were easy. Hearing the music would have to come later.

I attended the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston for 10th grade. The first day of classes, I went to a class called "Music Theory". That day, they explained what treble and bass clef were, and where all of the notes on the staff were ("Every Good Boy Does Fine"). I was incredulous.

Afterwards, I went to the instructor and asked what was being taught in that course. He explained that we would learn intervals, triads, voice leading, major and minor chords, and dominant sevenths.

This was harmony, except that the modern term apparently was "theory". I told him I already knew this stuff. He then told me to hang on, and we went back to his office. He wrote out an 8-bar figured bass exercise, and told me to go voice lead the exercise, and bring it back a couple of days later.

Which is how I ended up as a sophomore in a class full of juniors for Theory II. My senior year at HSPVA they did not offer Theory III. I really wish that they had.

I got an academic scholarship, and a music scholarship to the University of Miami in Florida. Not quite all of the tuition was covered, but about 2/3's was. The first week, they gave me a music theory placement test. They put me in Theory II, where the first day, we went over voice leading dominant sevenths.

This was a big step backwards for me, so I asked the instructor why I was in that course. He said that I did not do well on the placement test. I asked him to show me, as I found that hard to believe.

He, and the head of the department, looked at my exam. And I saw the problem immediately. In music theory, you label chords with numbers, depending on where in the scale the root is. But you use Roman numerals. And you use CAPITAL letters for major, and small letters for minor. So far so good. So, V is a major chord starting on the 5th scale degree, and v is a minor chord starting on the 5th scale degree.

These people put bars across the top and bottom of their capital Roman numerals. I just used capital letters. They graded my test assuming I did not know the difference between major and minor.

The head of the department, Dr. Kam, told me to wait a few minutes. He came back out and said,

"We are putting you in Theory III".

I said, "Really? What did I not know?"

He said, "You missed Neopolitan Seconds, and Augmented Sixth Chords."

I said, "If you give me 24 hours, could I take the test again? I am sure I could learn them tonight."

He laughed, and said, "No. I want you to really learn them, not just memorize them for a placement test."

He didn't know me very well.

He taught my Theory III class. At least he was interesting; I slept through most of the class, doing the homework in the class room while everybody was gathering before the class started.

I then took his Theory IV class, 20th Century Music. And here is where the fun began. I loved it. I also got to know him pretty well. The class was a blast.

Midway through the semester, he asked the class for help. The Miami Theory Department was putting on a Contemporary Music Festival for an entire weekend. All kinds of strange stuff was being performed.

I only performed on saxophone twice at Miami because I did not make a jazz band. I practiced a bunch! I played bass and contrabass clarinet in Wind Ensemble, and played piccolo and alto flute on several recording sessions, and a couple of master's recitals. The first time I played sax, I read in the pit for Ain't Misbehaving. It was fun; the entire cast was black, of course, but the entire band was white and in the shadows.

The second time was in the Contemporary Music Festival. We had one performance piece in the music quad that consisted of four of us wearing Walkmans and headphones, improvising to chord changes that only we could hear.

The festival opened with atonal trumpet fanfares from the rooftops of the 360 dorm towers (somewhere around 12 stories tall), and went from there.

In the leadup to this festival, Dr. Kam surprised our theory class with a guest, the avant-guard composer John Cage. He was in town as a featured clinician for the festival. He came to the back of the class and sat down with us jazzers.

He was 69 years old. Near the end of the class, he turned around to the four of us hanging out in the back, and said, "You guys play jazz, right? I can tell."

We all nodded. He continued,

"You guys want to go out to the Everglades and get some mushrooms? I know a place that has really good ones. But I need a car."

I was as straight-laced about these things then as I am now, and bowed out, but the other three enthusiastically said yes.

I went through all of this to say that at least two of the guys who took John Cage out and got stoned ended up in the Miami Sound Machine a couple of years later, and at least one of them is in this video:

Loma Prieta Memories

I know that this is not an anniversary, or anything. But I was asked to post this story on Facebook, so I decided to blog about it, and then post a link.

In the fall of 1989, I had been in California for a little over a year. My buddies from Rice and StyleWare who worked at Claris usually went on a CD run about once a month, and then dinner afterwards. Our favorite place, though certainly not the only one, was Tower Records. Not sure what city it was in, actually. Mountain View, Los Altos, and Palo Alto all had borders around there. It was at the corner of El Camino Real and San Antonio Rd, caddy-corner from Chef Chu's (yum!) and Armadillo Willy's (meh).

One fine afternoon, we decided to go on a run, and try to beat the traffic by leaving Claris right at 5:00. I already decided not to watch the World Series; neither of the teams (Giants and As) were my team, and the Astros had been in a pennant race with the Giants in 1989, and lost out. World Series games are too early on the West Coast.

I drove, and my two buds rode along. I put a cassette into my car stereo, and off we went.

We were driving on Old Mountain View-Alviso Road, which runs parallel to CA-237, at that point, almost a freeway (still had traffic lights but was freeway speed). At the Santa Clara-Sunnyvale border, there is a bridge over a creek. Right before that bridge, the car hit something like a log, followed almost immediately like another impact. But I did not see anything on the road.

I stopped the car, but it was rocking in all directions. It was an earthquake. It went on quite a while. The cars on the highway were not aware of it, but the street lights were all swaying.

The rocking (it was not shaking) stopped after a while. We looked at each other, shrugged, and kept going. "There are lots of earthquakes here, right?" "Right."

Came around the corner to the fire station, and they were lining up the trucks at the end of the driveway by the street. Then we noticed that the traffic lights had no power.

Growing up in Houston, the safest place to drive when there was no power was the freeway, since the intersections did not rely on lights. So we got on 237, exited 101, and then exited San Antonio, going towards El Camino Real.

About halfway to El Camino, at Central, the traffic started. None of the traffic lights had power. By now, it was about 5:20, and people were leaving to go home.

We were almost to El Camino when an aftershock hit. We got to the parking lot, and it was full of people milling around. Some of the windows at Tower were shattered. The light at San Antonio and El Camino was off. This is when we got scared.

I switched to FM radio, and there was only one station on the air, KSJO. The DJ said "Whoa! Another one! We are riding the waves here, the ground waves!"

The other drive-time host said, "Whoa! Look at the TV! The Bay Bridge is broken!"

"Be careful out there! And here is a surfing song for those ground waves!" and proceeded to start playing Surfing Safari.

We turned left onto El Camino and discussed our options. We were now afraid of bridges and overpasses. None of us had any food at home (we were all bachelors). The car had maybe 1/8 tank of gas. I had $4 and credit cards. I was now starting to worry about getting home to Milpitas.

We did notice that about every mile, there was power at that intersection with El Camino Real. When we got to Grant Road, there was a gas station with power. I spent my last $4 and got the tank up to almost half (gas was cheaper then!) It was getting very dark by now.

We then proceeded to go down El Camino Real some more. The plan was to go down to Bowers, and head up to Claris that way. At Remington/Fair Oaks, there was an open restaurant! Spoons! Not the best food, but it was edible, and had power. We stopped and got a table. They took credit cards! Ate a big big meal.

When we left, there was a 3 hour wait. The motorcycle store next door had a big line where they were selling generators.

Finally got back to Claris about 8:00 PM. We went in the front door. The security guard and one of the admins were manning the front desk. They checked out names off of a list, but told us we could not go any further. There was cosmetic damage, and the building was being inspected.

So we tried to go home. I had to go home on 237; it was really the only viable route, and I did not know any others yet anyway.

It was a parking lot. And, it still had traffic lights. At just about every single light, there was a major accident. It was a harrowing hour and a half for a 15 minute drive. Getting past where it intersected with 880 took a LONG time.

I drove up to the house in Milpitas, and my roommate was wondering the dark streets with a guitar, singing. We went into our dark house, and realized something. Both of us had waterbeds. Waterbeds had to be heated, or the sleeper risked hypothermia. We had no power...

I fished out my emergency transistor radio and discovered KCBS AM, where I caught up with everything that was known up to that point (the Bay Bridge break; the Cypress collapse; the Marina District burning; the cancellation of the World Series game; all of the bridges were closed). And that there was looting.

I can't believe we were worried; we were 50 miles from San Fransisco. Nonetheless, we slept on the living room floor with baseball bats next to us.

At 2:00, the lights came on for 5 seconds. At 4:00 AM, they came on for good.

We got up at 7:00, and looked around the house. All of the bookcases up stairs had fallen over, and our study was a mess. Other than that, we had no other damage.

Claris was open that day, but we did not have hot food, since their water supply had not been cleared.

A couple of side stories:

Our house in Milpitas had frequent power outages until they got the power back on that night; the transformers were all old, and evidently one would fail after fixing another until they were all replaced. A few weeks before the quake, I had a date with a woman. We were to go on a Hornblower bay cruise. I was to pick her up at 1:00 PM. That morning I was washing clothes, and the power went out, so I did not have anything nice to wear. I wore a sweatshirt and jeans. She was visibly disappointed...

Anyway, after the quake hit, her phone lines did not work for 2-3 weeks. Once I did get in touch with her, she had started dating somebody else.

Unlikely she would have continued to date me much longer anyway, but I blame Loma Prieta for that failed relationship!

One more:

My father decided that October to take a train vacation. He rode the train from Houston to Chicago, and then went west to Seattle. His plan was to ride down to San Jose, spend a few days, then get back on the train to LA, and then Houston.

He was in Seattle when the quake hit. He got in touch with me a couple of days later. Asked me if I knew if Amtrak was running. I had no idea. He called back a couple of hours later and said that Amtrak said that they were running.

I met him at the San Jose train station on Saturday after the Tuesday quake. He looked white as a sheet. The color started coming back to his face as he looked around, and grinned ear-to-ear when he saw me. Hugged me real hard.

"You looked like you had seen a ghost when you got off the train," I told him.

"Well, the train stopped in Oakland, and the station was in ruins except for our platform, and the collapsed highway was visible from the windows of the train. You don't know how happy I am to see you, here, with everything safe!"

Today, I figured I would take it easy since I knew I was going to the Blue Note Tokyo to hear some jazz. Besides it was raining, and did not feel like fighting the elements and being a foreigner all at the same time. I ate breakfast at the buffet, spent time reading a book in the lobby, did some writing, and took a nap.

When it was time to go to the club, I decided rather than walk and take a bus (which is what Apple Maps recommended), I would take a taxi. 10 minute drive.

I think that this was a really good choice. I stayed dry. It cost me about $20. Totally worth it.

The Blue Note Tokyo is a real jazz club in a real city. I miss that ever since moving to Austin. The Bay Area has Yoshi's (two clubs), and I really miss it.

There are some really good acts scheduled for the club this summer. I just missed Eliane Elias. Mike Stern is coming next week. Tower of Power will be here later this summer. There are some acts on the bill I have never heard of, but the excerpts of them they played on the video screen sounded great.

Tonight's act was Maceo Parker's Ray Charles Orchestra. I had no idea what to expect, but it certainly wasn't Maceo Parker doing a Ray Charles tribute with local musicians filling out the big band. He even put on dark glasses when he sang! I found that a bit cheesy. The music director evidently used to work with Charles, but I did not catch his name.

The band was great. and filled with local players. If I do come to spend some extended time here in Tokyo, I need to bring my horn. It would be fun to play with these cats. They are good. Some are quite a bit better than I am; most are at my level. The lead trumpet player, who also evidently was the contractor, was absolutely awesome. The bari player was the only Western fellow in the band. He was pretty good, but I did not feel outclassed.

The woman next to me knew most of the band, and had a really good time. She and I were grooving to the music, and I wish we could have danced! We had a really good time.

The food was good. The music was good. The club itself was awesome. I miss having a real club in Austin. Haven't been to Parker's yet; maybe it's this good.

Unfettered weekend in Tokyo

I am in Tokyo as part of a work trip. That is going well, and I am happy to be here.

I am fortunate enough to be able to stay over a weekend, so today I decided to do something I have always wanted to do: go to a Japanese baseball game.

There are at least two teams in Nippon Professional Baseball located in Tokyo, the Yomiuri Giants, and the Tokyo Yakult Swallows. Both of them were in town today. The Giants are the equivalent of the New York Yankees in popularity and success. Japan's biggest star, Sadaharu Oh, played for them. Surprise, surprise, they were sold out.

That left the Swallows. Turns out, they were sold out as well. I went online to try to get tickets, and the only website in English that I found had no tickets available.

I then remembered that I am in a great Western hotel (the Westin Tokyo), and they had a concierge! The concierge helped me get a ticket. He used some reseller website in Japanese. The confirmation got sent to my Inbox, but it's all in Japanese. He told me to go to the 7-11 around the corner and they would print the ticket for me. He even called ahead so that they would know what to do in case they spoke little English. The 7-11 is just across this little bridge (called the "American Bridge") which runs over the train lines. I got the ticket, and then braved said trains to get to the ball park.

From here, you walk to the Ebisu Station, and take the Yamamote line to Shibuya, where you have to change trains to the Tokyo Metro. Took me 15 or 20 minutes to figure out how to do that, and then 5 minutes more to put more money on my train card.

Meiji Jingu Stadium

The stadium (Jingu Stadium) is two stops away from Shibuya. And then it is about a 15 minute walk.

It was crowded. My seat was down the left field line, next to the foul pole.

Home plate is over there somewhere

So, the seat wasn't the best. Plus, it had no back:

Not ideal, but hey, I was at a Japanese baseball game. The Swallows were hosting the Orix Buffaloes. I was sitting in the Orix section.

In Japan, each team has a serious rooting section. They have drums and trumpets. When their team is at bat, they have custom songs they sing for each player. This goes on the entire game. It reminded me of two things: college football student sections, and the Moneyball Oakland A's drummers and bleacher creatures, who came up with custom songs for each player (The Tejada Mambo was my favorite!)

There were two players I had seen the major leagues, Nori Aoki, and Wladimir Balentien. Aoki had a successful MLB career, but was just terrible for three teams in 2017, and did not get an offer in the US for 2018, so he came home. Balentien is a failed power-hitting prospect. Never put it together in 4 seasons in the US, and has been in Japan for 9 years now.

The Swallows fans had umbrellas that they would put up and shake up and down and twirl. It was great fun.

I tried to score the game. I use the Project Scoresheet/Retrosheet scoring system. It's complex, and I have several additional notations I use. However, it's been a long time, and I was rusty. My pen wasn't behaving. And then, there is the difficulty of being in Japan.

Orix's team was only ever announced on the scoreboard in Japanese. Even the non-Japanese players had their names spelled in katakana, which is not helpful for me. They did display the positions by number (1 = pitcher, 2= catcher, etc), but they did not include uniform numbers.

The home team's starting lineup had little posed video clips of everybody, with their names on the back visible, and then superimposed titles with the names in Japanese and English. If you missed the starting lineup, you were out of luck.

None of the relief pitchers ever had their names displayed on the scoreboard. The pinch-hitter for Yakult did, but not the pinch runner. And they were all way too far away to read their names on the back of their jerseys. I could make out the numbers of the right-handed batters, and the relief pitchers for Orix. Given that I could understand at least some of the names in the songs, and that the Orix fans were all wearing jerseys with their favorite players names and numbers on them, I did managed to get 3 or 4 names. And the numbers of the relief pitchers. For Orix. Oh, boy.

And there is no designated hitter in this league. Pitchers hit.

Scoresheet is a big mess. I'll keep it to laugh over the years.

The game itself was like watching a game in the mid-80s. There were steals, sacrifice bunts, and hit-and-run plays. There was lots of scoring early, so both starting pitchers left early. Both middle relievers got to bat; one of them more than once. The manager of the Swallows screwed up a double switch late, but it did not really hurt him, as the Swallows won 7-3.

The crowd with me in it then made its way back to the train station. All of the little street food vendors that had been out when I was going to the game were gone. So my plan was to go to Shibuya, and find something to eat around that neighborhood.

When I got there and popped up, I walked around, and realized I was overwhelmed. I was hot, and it was amazingly crowded. I really started to not want to eat strange food, and find some place quiet. I bailed on Shibuya, and went back to Ebisu and went to the McDonalds. That was nowhere near as crowded as Shibuya, but it was still pretty crowded and noisy. Finally, I walked back to the hotel.

Sibuya at night. It was way more crowded this afternoon.

On the way, there was a food truck park next to the open air market in Ebisu Garden Place that had a gelato stand. I had a lemon/coconut/lavender gelato. It was pretty strange, but mostly refreshing. I finally got back to the hotel and collapsed, cooling off before taking a bath.

The open-air market at Ebisu Garden Place, just in front of the building where my work is

Traveling is hard, but rewarding. Tomorrow, Blue Note Tokyo.