High School Jazz Jam

My best memory of High School?
Tim Szeliga (74)

My best memory of High School? It would have to be producing
the JazzJam concert with Bill Gerristead(74). After twenty-five years,
the statute of limitations has run out (and a new clock can start
for libel), so I guess I can relate the details, as I dimly
remember them.

'74 was an odd year for school politics. Nixon was in disgrace
and nobody took the process seriously anymore. I ran for Secretary
and lost, which was no surprise, Jim Cooper(74) ran and lost, which was,
and Phil Kortis(74) and Lisa Kotliar(74) won, showing the brainy
could edge out the popular, given the demoralized state of the nation.
I couldn't even hang onto my Council seat, and was demoted to student
council homeroom alternate delegate, having been edged out by Debbie
Stucker (74). I still attended meetings however.

Much of that year I spent in an altered state of consciousness.
Years later I liked to say, "I only got stoned once: from 1972-1978
continuously." One of my companions was a printer turned Jazz drummer
and layabout named Kenny Nolan, who lived in an apartment above Z&S.
His primary professional gig was as substitute drummer at The Cove
in Roselle, paid under the table in cash after each performance. In getting
laid off from the printing job and riding out the Unemployment benefits
for 26 weeks, he had what amounted to a low-level government arts grant
to support him in his craft. In fact, he rode the unemployment wave perfectly,
during the Wage and Price control period and near Congressional election
time, so that each time it looked like the bennies would run out and
he'd have to go back to work, Congress would authorize extended benefits
for another twenty-six weeks. He surfed this wave well into the Ford
administration.

Anyway Kenny took drum lessons from Oliver Jackson, who was one-fourth
of the JPJ Quartet. They were Earl "Fatha" Hines' backup band for many
years (he's the "Fatha" of Gregory Hines, star of "White Nights" and
"Tap"). In one of our many pipe dreams, we thought how great it would
be to bring the JPJ to Westfield High, with Kenny in the drummers seat.
As he dreamed, I started to plan.

Student Council meetings were quite chaotic, with Phil banging on the gavel
for order, while Mr. Elder watched silently from the back of the room.
It was getting to be springtime, we still had $500 or so in the treasury,
and were wondering whether to donate it to charity or spend it on the Class
Gift. The student council was still looking for an official charity
to sponsor with a modest fundraiser, a car wash or bake sale. A plea had
come from an African charity, a sister school in Ghana or famine relief
or some such thing. As the program was described to general disinterest,
I stepped up, gave it my full support and suggested a Jazz concert be
produced, with proceeds to be donated to the charity. With a flurry of
fast talk, "Point of Order" calls and assorted gobbledegook culled from
a quick scan of Robert's Rules of Order, I managed to get my motion passed,
with the bewildered support of the Student Council. Mr. Elder said my
performance was reminiscent of McCarthy, which I took as high praise
indeed, until it later dawned on me he was referring to Joe and not Eugene.

This show was run on a low budget. We got the tickets printed by Dave
Bressler (73), who still had contacts with Mr. Giotta and the Graphic Arts
shop at the junior high. Ticket sales were slow, to say the least.
Everyone I knew who might ordinarily attend expected to be on the guest list.
Ticket distribution was handled by Bill Krauss (75) with help from Melissa
Davis (75) and a rather spacey Debbie Hudson (75), who each took a handful
and sold them door to door, billing the show as a charity event.

It was clear we needed to advertise. Outside of the school band, there was
no interest in jazz and they only listened to Maynard Ferguson. There was no
demand for melodic jazz with a strong Coltrane and Lester Young influence, at
least not among the student body of Westfield High School. I suggested a radio
ad on the Jazz station in Newark, but that was nixed. I designed a poster,
stealing the logo from the design on the Blanco y Negro rolling papers we
favored at that time, an Art Deco jazz saxophonist, leaning back and wailing.
Very pretty, very tasteful. We blew up the logo, put it in a circle in the
center with "JAZZ JAM" at the top and the particulars on the bottom and sent
it off to the printers.

They came back the next week, but when Mr. Elder saw them, he refused to let
us put them up. The musician in the logo was black, in a stylized blackface
cartoon caricature of the sort that had just about died out in the sixties and seventies,
so to me, it seemed vibrant and exciting. I argued that three-quarters of the band
was black, they didn't mind it, it was tastefully rendered and besides they were already
printed up and we didn't have any money for any more. Mr. Elder came up with
a compromise: we would White-Out the black face of the musician. Now it
looked unmistakeably like a minstrel show player in whiteface, but Mr. Elder
disgustedly OK'd it.

It came as something of a surprise to me that the musicians would want
to be paid. After all, we were providing the hall and the audience and
it ~was~ a benefit, but Kenny gently informed me that the Musician's Union
insisted on "scale", a minimum payment for each performer. I, who had never
so much as hired a polka combo for a wedding, had to learn fast. Advance
ticket sales were not going to cover the costs of the band. In another slick
parliamentary move, we got the council to guarantee our cost overruns with
the money in the treasury, although I'm not sure they knew that was what they
were voting to approve, or even if there was a quorum. I withdrew $500 from
the class bank account to cover expenses, leaving $14.

The night of the show we had the musicians backstage in the auditorium,
Bill Krauss and Marty Resnik (75) collecting money at the door, Mr. Elder
and Mr Dello Russo as chaperons, Bill Gerristead and Dave Bressler working
lights and sound, and I was nervously twittering backstage, fearful that the
wrong person would notice the quarts of scotch and tequila provided for the
artists. As showtime rolled around somebody, maybe me, announced the band
And the music began. Albert "Budd" Johnson's fine jazz saxophone filled the
auditorium, Bill Pemberton's plunking bass, Benny Aronoff on piano, and Kenny
Nolan's brush, stick and mallet work on the drums rounded out the sound. A
good ol' boy texan named Mack Goldsbury came along on tenor. I don't recall
much of the music; "Take The A Train" at one point and "Bud's Bounce". Mack
and Budd both had the gift of "circular breathing", where they breathe in
through the nose while still pumping air out into the sax, using their cheeks
and the muscles in the neck as a bellows. Mack explained it to me at great
length that evening, but I was quite drunk by then and don't recall any of
the particulars. Suffice it to say, they both played intricate solos that
had the audience wondering who would pass out first from lack of air.

Only 175 people actually made it to the auditorium that night, but they had
the time of their lives. Budd hollered to have everyone move up to the front
and enjoy the show. I went to check the till, to make sure I had the cash to
pay the rent-a-cop. Marty cheerfully informed me he advanced $40 from the
cashbox to get liquor and beer for the party afterward. Krauss, surprised,
said he, too, had donated $30 from the till for "supplies". During the break,
the musicians were openly drinking backstage. Mr Dello Russo confiscated a
scotch bottle from a student. Budd Johnson intervened and had Mr D give the
bottle to him and said that he could have it back after the break. Surpris-
ingly, Mr Dello Russo complied. Later, during the second set, I saw him and
Mr Elder passing the bottle back and forth, sharing the little that Budd had
left them.

The After Show party was to be at Alan Grigg's (72), whose parents were
scheduled to be elsewhere. Catering was by Duke's Sub Shop and Westfield
Liquors. I don't remember if the eighteen year old drinking law had passed
yet, or if we just sent someone with the money to Mindowaskin Park in search
of Hookey (Never Graduated), who was well over 21 and would buy liquor for
anyone, for a small service charge. We got all the musicians in their cars,
each with a local kid guiding the way to the party. This was our first
taste of the jazz life. Budd had a voracious appetite, for food, drink and
smoke. On first arriving, we watched him employ his circular breathing to
smoke an entire joint from the tip to the roach in one long slow continuous
drag. Budd was sixty-three years old and had been everywhere and done
everything. He enchanted us with tales of the big bands, touring with
Fatha' Hines and increasingly surreal stories. Someone handed him paper
and pen and asked for an autograph. He thought for a moment and scrawled
"I, Albert "Budd" Johnson, do hereby attest that I smoke reefer-jay, Signed,
Mom and Dad". At least that's what he said it said. We looked at this
document many times in later months, trying to decipher it.

The party went on for hours, even after Alan's parents and straight brother
Phil (74) returned home. It is not easy to dislodge forty drunken teens and
six jazz musicians from your rec room. Earlier Budd had accepted an
unfortunate tequila drinking challenge from Mack's redneck brother-in-law and
placed first. We got him to gather up his horns and load them all into his
little VW bug. We tried to keep him off the road. I hid his keys.
We offered him the sofa. Still he insisted he'd been lots drunker than this
and driven much farther, citing several examples. He had a forceful and
compelling personality, and he had done this for forty-nine of his sixty-three
years, so I handed over the keys. This was 1974 and high school kids didn't
argue with drunken musicians over driving. Alan and I figured we'd lead the
way as an escort, so there would be someone to call the ambulance or raise bail
money.

He just wanted to get to the Goethals Bridge. We directed him to North Avenue,
and to turn right at Elmora Avenue. We told Budd it was a straight shot to
the bridge. There was no point in trying to explain the Bayway Circle. Alan
and I pulled into the White Castle, got coffee and a half dozen, and watched
the sun rise over Elizabeth.

A lot of changes resulted from that night: Eileen Kardos (SPHS 75) added
jazz piano lessons to her classical for a few years, until both teachers
insisted she choose. I never produced another concert, but Bill Krauss
went on to produce They Might Be Giants' first two albums (ask your kids who
they are). Budd did make it home that morning. Occasionally I'd see his
name in Jazz Encyclopaedias. Kenny played drums professionally for another
six years or so, playing with some of jazz's lesser lights, until someone with
the same name who closely resembled him recorded "I Like Dreaming". He never
really lived down the embarrassment and eventually went back to printing as a
day job. Bill Krauss and I remain friends. Bill Gerristead went on to
become an electron microscopist. I went into remote sensing and joined the
Weather Service (and went to Woodstock 94 instead of my high school reunion).
The charity never saw a dime. There was not enough money left in the
Student Council bank account after we depleted it to buy a Class Gift,
so we sent a nice card instead.