day of the drum festival 1984

[alocispepraluger102]

this is an amazing site---catch it if you can.

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I have looked into the Metropolis site several times and I am glad to have more photos of the Manne – Higgins duet. I wasn’t there but I worked with Shelly at Fox studios the next morning, a Monday I remember. Your discussion of his death occurring so soon after that Sunday suddenly brought back a flood of memories. On that Monday we worked on a TV score and, during a long piece on which neither of us played, we sat in the coffee room and talked. As we got up to go back to work, Shelly said: “You know that quartet recording we made (?)…. I just listened to it again and it really holds up!” We went back into the studio with our arms around each other and I was deeply moved by his remark.

A few years earlier, when Cal Tjader died in the Phillipines – on a trip which I had asked Cal if I could skip – Shelly phoned early one morning with the news of Cal’s death, saying that he didn’t want me to hear the news on the radio. I can’t remember who phoned with news of Shelly’s death. I thought of his gesture in calling me and I phoned a number of NY friends (Konitz, Marsh, Knepper and others) with the news of his death. Shelly was not only one of history’s greatest drummers; all who knew him placed him in the very special category of, Great Man! I had many, many special musical and personal moments with him, and thinking of Shelly and Flip, I am always grateful to have been there. You opened a memory gate!

Regards,

Gary Foster

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url="http://metropolis.free-jazz.net/mark-weber-billy-higgins-a-shelly-manne-duet-september-23-1984-watts-towers/reviews/7919/"]LINK

"“Memory is something we all wonder about — as time goes by, what one remembers or wants to remember may be different from what really happened.” –Toshiko Akiyoshi

she is speaking about her composition “Memory” and goes on to say how she tried to “capture that feeling of distance from reality, to crystalize that abstraction in a certain way…..”

Memory is a faulty mechanism. Whenever I think of the 1984 Day of the Drum Festival at Watts Towers I swear that I remember three trap drummers on stage playing together — Billy Higgins – Philly Joe Jones – Shelly Manne. I have even told people that I saw these 3 play together that day. But, photos don’t lie. And none of my negatives from that event show anything but Shelly & Billy playing duets. And the program says only Shelly & Billy played together that day and that Philly Joe played duets with Tootie Heath earlier in the day but I don’t remember that at all."

Edited September 14, 2012 by alocispepraluger102