IN DAYS OF YORE, I WAS IN LOVE, EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR, FOR THE STRANGEST REASONS, AND THEN I BECAME INTIMATE, AND INFATUATED WITH:
3 EAST 52ND STREET WAS THE PLACE WHERE EVERYONE FELL IN LOVE AND LIVED LA VIDA LOCA, STARTING OUT ON THE EAST SIDE AND THEN HEADING OVER TO THE WEST SIDE TO HEAR JAZZ OR HEAD UP TO HARLEM.
AL HAIG WAS THE CHOSEN PIANIST OF CHARLIE PARKER, DIZZY GILLESPIE AND LATER STAN GETZ AND A HOST OF MANY "YOUNG BLOODS" - HE WAS THERE.
THAT MAGICAL WORLD IS GONE BUT I'M "TAKING A CHANCE ON LOVE" AND HAVING AN AFFAIR WITH HAVING US ALL APPEAR AT THE STORK CLUB AND I'M READY TO BOOK YOU IN THE WINDMILLS OF MY MIND...AND YOU TOO CAN HAVE AN AFFAIR
WITH
THAT ADORABLE LITTLE BLOND WONDER: JUNE CHRISTY AND HER GROUP, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, MISS CHRISTY:
STORK CLUB.
TONIGHT ON THE BILL WE HAVE AL "TAKING A CHANCE ON LOVE"
FOR THE FIRST SET...NOW, HERE COMES OLD BLUE EYES AND MISS DINAH SHORE, THEY TOO ARE "TAKING A CHANCE ON LOVE"
AT THE STORK CLUB EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE!
FRANK, YOU LOOK SO HANDSOME AND DINAH, LOVE THAT RED DRESS,
DO YOU WANT TO BE BOOKED, DO YOU WANT TO BE HOOKED, DO YOU WANT TO TAKE A CHANCE ON LOVE AND HAVE AN AFFAIR AT "THE STORK CLUB?" DO YOU? WE ARE OPENING IN LESS THAN 30 DAYS...
AHHH MARTINE, THIS IS THE KIND OF ACT WE NEED, WANT AND DESIRE. WE AIM TO PLEASE.
NO LONGER WILL THE DOORS BE OPEN ONLY TO THE RICH, FAMOUS OF HIGH SOCIETY OR THE MOB OR MOVIE STARS, OH NO,
LYNDA LYNDA, WE NEED YOUR EXPERTISE, SAVVY AND ELAN AT THE STORK CLUB AS THERE ARE YOUNG PERFORMERS AND I'D LIKE YOU TO SIT IN ON THIS AUDITION INSTEAD OF GOING HENNAING THIS WEEKEND. WE NEED TO GET READY FOR THE OPENING AS WE ARE NOT CLOSING ON THE INAUGARATION WEEKEND, OPEN 24/7...WHAT DO YOU THINK OF CHRIS BOTTI AND RENE?
I really want to fly back in time and share those video's as if it were the first time!
I want to wear the frocks and put on the perfume!
Seeing Frank Sinatra and Dinah Shore so relaxed like that is such fun - and that twinkle fingers Al Haig guy is pretty amazing!
I'm gonna be there - wouldn't miss!
Mxx
Sorry, I'm just a smalltown cat from a hick burg out west of the Poconos...and even the Alleghenies...and I didn't get taught about polite talk to royalty people. I'm just a kid who heard jazz on Canadian radio, fell in love with it, started collecting the records, and when our high school band got to come to the Big City I decided to sneak away and try to see some of the great ones. I didn't have much money in my pocket because Mom and Dad don't approve of this music. They say I look like I've been drugged after I've been listening to it in my room. Anyway, I took all I had with me after we all were supposed to be bunked down in the hotel...and I went to find 52nd Street---which I heard was Jazz Heaven. I guess that was years ago though because there weren't all those places anymore where you could hear Coleman Hawkins or Eddie Condon or Marian McPartland even. And I went around the corner to find Birdland where you could go in even if you were underage and sit in the Peanut Gallery and watch Bud Powell yell at his bassist. There was a place to go downstairs but I don't think that was it. And I couldn't find the Metropole out on Times Square either---which I heard was so crowded all the time you couldn't get in, but that was OK because you could hear Red Allen out in the street. So I finally got directions to the Stork Club, and thankfully I still had my wallet (I had heard about the pickpockets) and some change in my pocket. The sign said there was jazz in there, so I headed to the door...but there was a doorman there who didn't think I was dressed right or something. I had heard you have to give people like that money and I reached for a couple of bucks...but he said How much you got in there kid? That scared me a little but I decided to trust him and I told. And he said Kid you better go home: there's admission and cover charge here and you ain't got it. So I guess now I have to get rich to hear this music played in a concert or club. Gee, I thought jazz came out of the streets and was music of the people.
As the author of Death of a Bebop Wife, the biography of jazz master of bebop piano: AL HAIG, the chosen pianist of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, I have lived in layers of my life, loving the music, more than the man, hence I have written a jazz history book, a murder mystery about one of the young bloods of the bebop revolution.
