Here are a few anecdotes that didn’t make it into Making the Low Notes:
Jay Leno “opened” for a dance band I was working with at a posh North Shore home situated on Lake Michigan about twenty years ago. Some guy with way too much money was throwing himself a 50th birthday party and had hired Leno to do a short set before we were supposed to hold forth. Leno ambled into the tent where the musicians were gathered around several pizzas like a pack of wolves and very politely asked if he could have a slice. He’d just flown in from L.A. and hadn’t had a chance to eat. He shot the breeze with us as if we were all old pals, went and did his 20 minutes and headed back to O’Hare. We later heard that he earned a cool $50K for his appearance. More power to him.
There used to be a small venue in Chicago’s Lincoln Park called Toulouse. It was a glorified piano bar, but occasionally someone semi-famous would check in for a week’s worth of shows. Pianist Buddy Greco was one of the club’s out-of-town guests and I got called to work with him. It was one of the longest and worst weeks of my professional life. The guy was a jackass, there’s just no two ways about it. His piano playing was erratic and he insulted me more than once on the bandstand for both my looks and my playing. I wanted to punch him out, but (luckily) I’m not that kind of person. To add insult to injury, when he was supposed to pay me at the end of the week, he “forgot his checkbook” and I had to hound him by phone several times before he grudgingly deigned to pay me. So, yeah, I’m not a big fan.
The late pianist Bobby Enriquez was in Chicago in the early 90s at a short-lived dive called The Jazz Buffet. He was involved in a second-rate variety show that I somehow got called to play. Dude was an asshole to me and everyone else. I never cared for his rather histrionic playing and he was an absolutely atrocious accompanist to those young performers who were trying their best just to hang in there while he flailed away. It was a surreal situation; I never understood why this guy would have chosen to do that particular gig, as didn’t suit his style at all. The club wound up stiffing me for several hundred dollars, but even if that hadn’t happened, my takeaway from this experience would still have been pretty negative. I hate so say this, but I’m glad Enriquez is dead. I wanted to kill him myself a few times.