A Classic Gig Story

I subscribe to Steve Hashimoto’s News From The Trenches newsletter, and occasionally he posts something that cracks me up and I can totally relate.  (and I’m sure some of you guys can too!) We all have classic gig stories to tell, and this is a great one.   Read the story below and just picture the scene and I’m sure you will either laugh out loud or at least smile a little bit. I asked Steve permission if I could post here and he agreed. As you read, try to imagine the heavy accents of the cast of characters.  Here you go:

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Excerpt from Steve Hashimoto’s News From the Trenches Newsletter:

It’s been a while since I had any new gig stories, but you knew that couldn’t last long. This happened at Andie’s last week. First, let me introduce the cast of characters, to help make the scene more vivid for you. We have two managers there; Elias, an excitable Tunisian (during Bears’ season when Grossman would screw up he’d slam the bar with his hand and fill the air with profanity, in many languages, but mostly in delightfully graphic English) and Al, a very dapper Lebanese. The woman in question was a formidably-figured young Russian. So try to picture the following in the appropriately accented dialectic approximate English.

         

There was a 50th birthday in the back of the room, and the young Russian woman approached us in a way that my radar just knew was going to be trouble of some sort. At least she waited till we were done with the tune we were playing to announce (not ask) that a very famous Russian opera singer was coming to the party and we would be accompanying her. As I say, she had a formidable figure, and it distracted me a bit; I sort of blinked and said

       “What?”

          “You will accompany famous opera singer. She will be here shortly.”

          “What will we accompany her on?”

          “She will sing Ave Maria.”

          “We do not know Ave Maria.”

          “Very will, she will also have her own accompanist.”

          “What will the accompanist accompany on?” (My band at Andie’s is always sax, guitar and bass.)

          “She is piano player.”

          “We do not have piano,” I said, gesturing at the obvious lack of a piano.

          “Oh? You do not have piano?”

          “No, we do not have piano.”

          “Why not?”

          “Because we never have piano.”

          “We will find piano.” And off she marched to find a piano.

At this point Al came up to us and apologized. “I don’t know what her problem is. She is very crazy. I am sorry. You do not have to do anything you do not want to.”

          “It’s okay, she wants a piano and we don’t have one.”

          At this point Elias came up and said “So, are you going to play for her?”

          “No, she wants a piano and we don’t have one.”

          “Good, I am happy.” Which just cracked me up; I pointed out to Dan Hesler and John Beard that this was the kind of management that every joint needs.

          At this point the woman came back, with the opera singer in tow. I must point out that the opera singer was VERY beautiful, and spoke not a word of English. The instigator of this whole thing said “We can not find piano. You do not know Ave Maria?”

          “We do not know Ave Maria. We are a jazz band. In America jazz bands do not know Ave Maria.”

          “Alright, then she will perform a capella.”

          “Wonderful, just tell me when.”

So of course she did not; the opera singer just flung herself into Ave Maria (I think we were in the middle of “The Way You Look Tonight”, or something). I might also point out that she had a very beautiful voice; we were nice, we actually stopped playing (I could have done the passive-aggressive thing, you know) and we all applauded her performance. Being the canny leader that I am, I told the guys to hang on just a second, I got a feeling that the other shoe’s going to drop momentarily here, and I was right, she let loose with another aria. I might point out that we could have been off the stand at this point, eating kifteh kabobs, but you never know, you know? So she finishes her number, we wait a minute or so (“Is it safe?””I think it’s safe.”), start a tune, at which point of course she launches into her third number. And, anticlimactically, that was that. Not a word of thanks from anyone over there, of course, for gangstering our gig, but what the hell, we’re just some schmucks playing decadent jazz music.

         

And for you people out there saying to yourself “There he goes with the chick singers again”, I might point out (and Typhanie will back me up, I hope) that a young woman named Kelly sat in with us at the Mill Friday night, and I was very nice to her. Of course it helped that she was very polite to us mugs on the stand, and she could sing, too. All I ask is a little respect, you dig?

 

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