Commentary, discussions and random thoughts about San Francisco-born jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi, beloved by many — including those who recognize his music, but not his name — and affectionately known as Dr. Funk
Friday, February 18, 2022
Bits & bobs
Friday, June 4, 2021
Playboy visits San Franciso ... back in the day
This post has very little to do with Guaraldi himself, but it does concern his San Francisco environment, and specifically many of the jazz clubs where he performed.
During the first decade and change after its debut issue in December 1953, Playboy magazine ran an occasional “On the Town” feature designed as a “cosmopolitan’s guide” to national and international cities — Paris, Tokyo, New York, London and others — that were becoming accessible to the publication’s upwardly mobile male subscribers, thanks to the rapidly expanding network of airline travel. The June 1958 issue was highlighted by a lengthy focus on San Francisco: where (and how) to lodge, dine, drink and be entertained.
Since Hugh Hefner was an avid fan of mainstream and progressive jazz, the exhaustive article included a generous coverage of Baghdad-by-the-Bay’s then boisterous nighttime jazz scene. (The action probably was richer and more extensive right then, than at any other point in time; many of the clubs cited would close, change hands or go bankrupt within the next few years.)
Although the article makes fascinating reading as a time capsule, one must, ah, tolerate the wincingly archaic “dating tips” sprinkled throughout, such as…
[San Francisco] is a place of beautiful women, characterized (more than in any other city) by independence, good jobs, a friendly love of pleasure, hideaway apartments of their own, unpretentious poise, and an utterly charming knowledge of how to dress and behave, to please a man.
…and…
Your first stop, preferably just before sunset, should be the Mark Hopkins, up at the glass-enclosed Top o’ the Mark. Relax, have yourself a drink, take time to watch the sunset, and get the feel of the city here. Many a San Francisco visitor settles for the first girl he meets — only to rue it later, when finer prospects cross his path.
(Ouch!)
Further along, having offered suggestions for the best dining and dancing, we finally come to the late-evening options. I’ve extracted those with a strong — or even fleeting — connection to Guaraldi’s career, at that moment or soon to occur:
…
Friday, March 26, 2021
More information!
San Francisco Chronicle music critic Ralph Gleason and Guaraldi stroll outside Basin Street West in early 1965, during the filming of an episode of the BBC's Inside America that profiled Gleason. |
Sunday, March 7, 2021
Ralph Gleason: Prophet
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
The De Maupassant connection
Guy de Maupassant |
Wednesday, April 22, 2020
Bits and bobs
The first order of business was a fresh look at newspapers.com, an ever-more-useful resource site for those fond of serious research. Gaining access to so much archived information was invaluable during the research phase of my Guaraldi biography, although I was vexed by the absence of two key newspapers: the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Examiner. Happily, the latter was among the many newspapers added at some point during the past decade (which is how much time has passed, since I last visited the site). The Examiner proved every bit as useful as I'd hoped, and all sorts of fresh and expanded entries will appear in my Guaraldi timeline, during the next few weeks.
(Vexingly, the Chronicle still has no comprehensive online archive: merely a partial one, with "selected articles" from 1985 to present. I can't imagine what they're waiting for, and I dearly wish they'd get on the ball!)
Meanwhile, have fun with these isolated tidbits:
On September 28, 1963, the San Rafael Independent-Journal headlined a story "Pianist Is Wanted For Throwing Drink At Woman." The incident took place at the Trident on August 30, where Guaraldi and his trio were nearing the conclusion of a three-month residency. He'd long developed a reputation for impatience with patrons who made too much noise while he and the trio performed, and things got out of hand that day. Three women were drinking at the bar, undoubtedly having a good time, and Guaraldi used the microphone to tell them to quiet down. Whether they did remains a matter of uncertainty, but — according to "victim" Dee Taylor — when the set concluded "Guaraldi appeared at the bar, cursed the girls and tossed a drink in [Taylor's] face. [He also] tossed a carte blanche machine at one of her friends."
Guaraldi was scheduled to appear before Marin Municipal Court's Judge Joseph G. Wilson on September 27, on charges of battery and disturbing the peace. Rather foolishly, he failed to show.
Hence the news brief's headline and opening sentence, with all their embarrassing publicity: "A warrant of arrest was issued yesterday for Bay Area pianist Vince Guaraldi."
Well.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Champlin at the bit
Corry, one of my many colleagues (co-conspirators?) in the realm of meticulous fact-finding, recently forwarded what he hoped might be a helpful tidbit of information. Corry focuses on the greater San Francisco rock 'n' roll scene, with a particular emphasis on the activities of Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead. You'll lose happy hours (days? weeks?) at Corry's blog, Lost Live Dead, and I recommend it highly. He shares my passion for attempting the impossible: Just as I hope to eventually nail down every club, concert and studio date Guaraldi ever had, Corry hopes to do the same with Garcia and the Dead.
So, while pursuing a lead involving Garcia's possible participation with the Sons of Champlin in August 1969, Corry came across a brief quote from Bill Champlin, who once had been asked about this very possibility. As it turned out, Champlin didn't remember Garcia sitting in during the performance in question, but then he (Champlin) added an additional comment, which is what Corry passed along to me:
I jammed with Jerry's band with Bill Vitt and John Khan at the Matrix once, with Vince Guaraldi.
Now, that was tantalizing. Readers of this blog know that I'm always after fresh evidence of "Vince and Jerry" collaborations, particularly at the Matrix. (See the May 11, 2012, blog entry.) My Guaraldi timeline already included quite a few of his verified appearances at the Matrix, and it's known that he and Garcia occasionally played together at that club, particularly during the regular "Monday jams" that took place for a few years. But I didn't have any listings that found Guaraldi alongside Garcia, Bill Vitt, John Khan and Bill Champlin. Clearly, this bore further investigation.
Happily, Champlin was easy to reach, and he responded quickly:
I couldn't remember a date of that jam, but I'll try to recall the stuff for you. Bill Vitt called and asked me to come play rhythm guitar, because Jerry was so busy fooling around with some kind of effects unit, very cool but not kickin'. So, being a friend of Bills', I brought a guitar and amp and set up. I didn't know that Vince was gonna play 'til I got there. Cool stuff for me; I'd been a fan since the red plastic Fantasy album with "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" on it. Anyway, we played, and it was very cool. Vince was way cool. Damn, what a great musician. At one point I was looking down, and suddenly I heard this beautiful soprano sax wafting across the band; I looked up, and there was Vince Denham playing, beautifully as always, after having just played with Don Ellis at Fillmore West. I found out that he and Vince had hit it off. Curley Cooke came up and jammed on my Gibson for awhile also, and then the night was over and I went home. Looking back, it was a rare night, but back then it was never a surprise to find great players coming together, even in spite of themselves and their careers.
That's all I remember, but between then and now there's been a lotta water under the bridge, and I could very easily have lost a few details of the night. I'm writing to you from backstage in Osaka, Japan, which means that I'm still out there makin' noise, so I look back on those rare jams with a lot of respect for the players. Vince Guaraldi was one of the big ones for me. Anyway, there it is. Be good, Bill.
Wow! Suddenly we're talking about Guaraldi, Garcia, Bill Vitt, Bill Champlin, John Khan, Curley Cooke and Vince Denham. And Champlin's narrative contained one big, fat clue: Don Ellis and Fillmore West.
Ellis and his band were at Fillmore West June 18-21, 1970; the magnificent double-LP set Don Ellis at Fillmore was recorded during those four memorable evenings. Now, Vince Denham wasn't yet an official member of Ellis' band — he joined a bit later, with the 1972 release of Connection — but Denham certainly could have been "hanging around" during one or more of those Fillmore sets.
After sharing this newest data with Corry, he cross-matched with some additional details:
The Grateful Dead played the Pauley Ballroom in Berkeley on Sunday, June 21, 1970 (two nights after Memphis, and three days before New York). Jerry Garcia and Howard Wales were booked for the Matrix on Monday, June 22, so that fits Champlin's timeline. It sounds like Howard Wales was booked, but Guaraldi actually played the gig.
I [also] know a lot about the Don Ellis Orchestra. Among many other things, it was sort of a session man's side project, so Vince Denham and every other working jazz musician would have had numerous friends in the Ellis band — there were 23 guys in it; Denham had to have known somebody — so whether he jammed or not, Denham must have been at Fillmore West to hang out.
And, just for good measure, Corry forwarded a clipping that ran in the entertainment section of the San Francisco Chronicle on Monday, June 22, 1970 (on Page 44, if you insist on full disclosure). You can see that at right.
So, there we have it: Thanks to Bill Champlin, I'm satisfied that we can identify June 22, 1970 — a date which, until this moment, had remained empty on my Guaraldi timeline — as the memorable evening that featured Guaraldi, Garcia, Vitt, Champlin, Khan, Cooke and Denham.
As Corry said, "Yeah, I'd go!"
No kidding. Me, too!
If all this seems like a lot of effort just to nail a single gig out of so many, well ... yes, of course it is! But that's the name of the game. I want to have the world's most accurate and informative timeline of Guaraldi's activities, and such a goal requires this level of dedication and perseverance.
Besides: If Corry and I — and other tireless investigators like us — don't do this stuff, who else will?
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Guaraldi's career: Nailing down every event
Guaraldi's life was filled with such moments, many of them taking place during otherwise ordinary gigs at greater Bay Area jazz clubs such as the Blackhawk, the hungry i, Outside at the Inside, the Trident and El Matador. One of my many "getting ready" exercises, while preparing the outline and itinerary that prefaced my plunge into the actual writing of my book, was an attempt to identify where he performed, and when, for as much of his life as possible. This began as a useful chronology; it quickly blossomed into an obsession. If I knew where he was for the first few weeks of, say, November 1968, I had to clock his movements for the rest of that month (which I was unable to do, alas).
I got lucky at times. Guaraldi's mother saved many things, such as the three-page itinerary of his 1956 winter and spring tour with Woody Herman's Third Herd; it wasn't complete, but ads in newspapers across the country helped fill many of the holes. Herman was a very popular draw; most of his band's performances were publicized.
The San Francisco Chronicle's entertainment section also was a blessing, as it listed who was appearing at every greater Bay Area club during the upcoming week. I had to be careful, though; I discovered that those bookings sometimes changed after the paper had gone to press, and that -- at other times -- careless reporters occasionally made mistakes. At times, a listing would claim one thing, but the given club's display ad -- on the same page! -- contained entirely different information.
That phase of the research would have been much easier if the Chronicle -- and its companion paper, the San Francisco Examiner -- had entered the 21st century and made its archives available online. Alas, it seems the Chronicle and Examiner are destined to be the last big-city U.S. papers to make that transition (and they still haven't). The only option? The painful study, day by day, of the four or five pages of entertainment news via a microfilm reader. (My eyes are still crossed.)
The effort was worthwhile, though, because a portrait of Guaraldi's career began to take shape, which helped immensely during the subsequent construction of the book's narrative. But this was only the Bay Area: just part of the picture. Guaraldi toured a lot during the first 15 years of his career, whether on his own or as a member of units fronted by Woody Herman or Cal Tjader. I'd get occasional hits with respect to specific stops in larger markets, thanks to papers such as the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times (all of which do have online archives). Daily Variety, Variety and Billboard also were great help, and here's something I was delighted to discover: Google Books has made every single issue of Billboard available online, at no charge. What a Godsend!
The resulting timeline blossomed to a size and scope that outgrew the eventual destination for its data. Much of the information wound up between the covers of my book, but I didn't want the reader -- particularly the casual reader -- to drown in minutia. Ergo, much got left behind. But I also didn't want the information -- and the effort required to compile it -- to go to waste. Enter the Vince Guaraldi Timeline, a companion web page designed to complement Vince Guaraldi at the Piano. This web chronology contains everything I learned about Guaraldi's movements, along with who played at his side, when known. It's a "living" document; new information continues to surface all the time.
Which leads to the obvious request: If you remember seeing Guaraldi perform at a particular venue, on a particular date, please get in touch. If you're one of Guaraldi's former sidemen, and you recall being with him at a particular gig -- note all the timeline entires with "sidemen unspecified" -- please get in touch. If you know of a gig I left out, absolutely get in touch. If you saved a poster from one of the many "group gigs" Guaraldi joined during his latter-career appearances at Bay Area rock and folk clubs, please get in touch. If you took pictures -- even ill-focused snapshots -- please get in touch. If you saved a souvenir program, or a newspaper ad such as the one at the top of this post, please get in touch.
Despite the wealth of information in this document, many, many gaps remain ... all waiting to be filled.
Think of it as your contribution to history!