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Bob Belden - Three Days Of Rain (OST)


JSngry

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9 minutes ago, JSngry said:

To some degree, yes. Bob was in a different league than anybody (except Lyle Mays once he started to come into his ow), but he didn't start out that way. He came to NT a year before I did, and apparently his attitude and esthetic was more or less fully formed long before his skills were, and not everybody appreciated that. I did, but many did not. But the dude did the work, all of it, and at some point he had to be acknowledged for the talent and thinker he was.

As for our friendship, we were travelling different creative paths for a while, and/but then there was this guy named Paul Holderbaum, an arranger, who had his own library (mostly originals, but some Oliver Nelson charts that he had gotten from ON's widow), and the wanted an "anti-Lab Band" big band, so at some point Bob & I ended up being the tenor players. Bob had been scorned, but his attitude remained intact, so he thought that a fellow tenor player who was into Ayler and Ornette wasn't "serious". But after a few times playing together, he realized that, ok, yes, a different approach, but very serious nevertheless, so we became friends, especially in terms of record collecting and weed consumption. I was never an "A-lister" in terms of his circle, but neither was I looked at as a freak and a stranger either.

Then, of course, Bob left NT and did what he did. Fast forward a few decades, and one day I get an email from him talking about how he'd been digging my postings on the old BNBB, here's my number, call me sometimes and let's catch up. Very un-Bob-like, so I let it pass, just responded to the email and figured that would be that. Well, one day the phone rings, and its Bob. Bob was a talker, so I let him talk. But he did want copies of the Quartet Out CDs, which he played for Tom Evered and told him that THIS was who he should be signing, etc. I laughed at that, because we both knew that that was not how it works. But I got a chuckle out of it because it was so Bob, the cocksure attitude in the face of knowing that nothing was going to happen, but just do it anyway, fuck it. He did say that he really remembered me as somebody who refused to buy into the lab band bullshit about how to do ANYTHING. That was nice.

Over the years, a few more phone calls, plenty of emails. The last phone call was about his gig in Irag(?) or where ever it was, and the unlimited supply of drugs they had at their disposal. I asked him if there were women to match, and he drily replied that they did not want to play into the imperialist cliché THAT much.

All in all, it was a casual friendship, but always pleasurable. And when he talked (which was always, LOL), it was always interesting. Always. Like I said, the guy did the work, and not just with the music, but with the business as well. As a result, he had opinions based on all sorts of "fly on the wall" type observations.

A totally unique character, imo. He's missed, that's for sure.

That is awesome.  Thank you for sharing. :tup

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