Hello again,
As promised, I decided to devote this blog to telling the story of how I got involved with this project. All of you out there in crimson land may not know this but I have been a huge King Crimson fan since I was about 13 back in 1983. As a matter of fact, I ALMOST got a chance to see the 3 Of A Perfect Pair tour in the summer of '84 at the Pier in NYC. I had just recently gotten heavily into the 3 '80's KC albums (Discipline, Beat, and 3 Of A Perfect Pair) as a freshman in high school, and had a friend that started to turn me on to the older stuff, starting with In The Court Of The Crimson King. I wound up not being able to go to the Pier show in '84 because I had tickets to Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden the night before. It was the first time I got to see Billy, and it was awesome. My dad used to take me to all kinds of rock concerts when I was a kid, (he and my mom actually took me to see the Jackson 5, in 1973 at the Garden - I was only 3 years old!) and when we were leaving the Billy Joel show, we saw all kinds of flyers pasted around NYC, for the KC Pier show, the following night. My dad said it would be difficult for us to get back into the city the very next night, (I grew up about 45 minutes outside of Manhattan, in NJ) and that we would have to catch Crimson on the next tour. Little did I know that the next tour would be like 11 years later...but at least I did finally get to see KC twice. First, with the Thrak sextet on the H.O.R.D.E. tour here in Nashville. And then a few years later, the quartet did a few very rare club appearances at 12th & Porter, a 200 person capacity club, also here in Nashville, that I have played hundreds of times myself.
I was a huge Yes fan from the time I was about ten years old. Being a keyboard player, Rick Wakeman was my hero. And of course I started to follow all of the other projects that Yes alumni were involved in. When I realized that King Crimson was the band that Bill Bruford joined after jumping ship from Yes, I immediately began to explore the newer recordings as well as the back catalog.
I had every studio album the band ever released on vinyl and later cd, so I guess you could say I was a pretty big fan. I was very familiar with all of the personnel and various records (I love to read liner notes and pride myself on my ability to name all the players on any album in my collection) so when I got a call about a gig to play piano with Annie Sellick, who is a dynamite jazz vocalist here in Nashville, and was informed that Ian Wallace would be playing drums, the light bulb in my head went on. Hmmm? Could this be the Ian Wallace that I know played with Don Henley, Bob Dylan, and even...KING CRIMSON???
I waited until the day of rehearsal and as I was driving to Ian's house ironically to meet him for the first time and then rehearse, I wanted to double check the directions. I called and Ian answered. When I heard the british accent I knew it had to be him. When I got to his house, I saw all the platinum records on the wall and this confirmed my suspicions.
Well, we rehearsed, then later went to a soundcheck. And played the gig and had a ball. All the while I'm thinking to myself, I have got to ask this guy if he is the one that was in King Crimson but I didn't want to come out and be a goober about it, after all, we had just met and had a job to do, which was to play the gig with Annie. And you just never know, some people are kind of funny about talking about the things they've done in the past, no matter how much other people love them, or are influenced by them.
Anyway, after the gig, I stuck around and talked to Ian and Margie and Ian mentioned that he was getting ready to go out on the road for a few weeks. I asked him who with, and he said the Schizoid Band. "I knew it was YOU!" I said. And then we had a great laugh and talked about how much I loved King Crimson...yada yada.
It's funny because, soon after that, Ian joked with me that he wasn't sure if I liked him when we first met that day and during the gig, because I guess he may have thought I was standoffish...and that was me just trying to be cool and not be like a fan, bugging him about his days in Crimson. I could just imagine me asking him a whole bunch of stuff and him being like, "Get away boy...you bother me!" Anyway, Ian turned out to be one of the sweetest, kindest and friendliest souls I have ever met and we began to become good friends.
A few months later he invited me over to his house to discuss something...and then presented me with his plan to record a cd of King Crimson music, but all in a straight ahead. acoustic jazz format. He told me he wanted me to be a part of it. I was honored, humbled and thrilled to be asked. It was such an intriguing proposition to be invited to contribute to the legacy of this band that I have loved since I was a teenager. It was especially enticing because Ian made it clear that it was not to be a tribute album but rather a piano bass and drums trio, playing the music of KC in their own style. A real jazz concept record where, instead of the compositions being written by John Coltrane, or Duke Ellington, or even Cole Porter, the repertoire would be all KC music. What an exciting opportunity. I was really excited to be involved, since although I have been a fan of all kinds of rock music, I have been playing jazz since I was in junior high school. Some of my jazz piano heroes are: Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, Herbie Hancock and of course, Keith Jarrett. There are many others too. Lyle Mays and Thelonious Monk come to mind as well. To me, Ian's idea for the record sounded just like "Oscar Peterson plays West Side Story" or something like that. It seemed like it would be a blast to make, and believe me it was.
Well anyhow, it's been a while since I blogged so I got a little carried away but that's how I got involved in this.
Next time: What's in Jody's CD player this week and currently on his iPod?
