Mike’s Drumming Adventures

Picture an idealic sunny Sunday afternoon at the prestigious Wellesley Country Club just outside of Boston. Spending breaks walking around the beautifully landscaped grounds, enjoying a cold beer on the deck overlooking the golf course…. I thought it odd that all day long people were asking, “Is John going to play?” “Hey are you guys going to let John play?” Now, every professional musician will tell you that there are many possibilities that can occur as the result of letting someone sit in. The possibilities range from harmless fun to embarrassing. It can often ends up being the equivalent to what’s known in baseball as a “rally killer.” I kept redirecting ’sit in’ inquiries to other topics such as the Red Sox or the weather.

Finally it’s time to have dinner and standing next to me in line at the buffet is the bride’s mom. She asks, “Are you going to let my Johnny sit in?” It’s the bride’s mom so reluctantly I say, “Sure, what instrument does your Johnny play?” She raised her eyebrows and with an incredulous look said, “Guitar!” “Ok, geez… just have him come up right after dinner and introduce himself.”

With a smirk, I inform the band with an apology that some guy is gonna come up and sit in and play his guitar. With a typical roll of their collective eyes they mumble something like, “Mmmm yeah, ok,,,, whatever….” After the first song of the first set ends, a gentleman steps up to the band stand holding a crying baby… “Hey man, sorry about this, my mom and sister want me to sit in…but I’ve got to get out of here…my baby just won’t stop crying so I’m going to split like right now.” The entire band stands and stares like a pack of deer blinded by headlights…our mouths agape…finally I hear the bass player, a young kid studying at Berklee pipe up, …”Oh my God, Sco…that’s Sco… I can’t believe…it’s John Flipping Scofield.” With a wave of his hand, the monster guitarist known as John Scofield vanished as quickly as he had come. The band was humbled.

In the early ’80s when I was studying with Alan Dawson, the mayor of Boston held a dinner in Alan’s honor and dubbed the day, Alan Dawson Day. Alan was given the key to the city and a dinner was held at Anthony’s Pier Four. Present were many jazz and music industry dignitaries. At the time I was listening intently to as many jazz records that I could get my hands on, especially “Now He Sings Now He Sobs” by Chick Corea featuring some amazing drumming by jazz drumming icon and Boston native, Roy Haynes. Around the same time I was also giving much attention to a trio album by Oscar Peterson. I was very excited to be sitting next to Mr. Haynes at Alan’s dinner especially after Alan had just introduced us. Wanting to make conversation with the drumming legend, I turned and said with a huge smile, “I loved the stuff you did with Oscar Peterson.” Mr. Haynes turned to me with a scowl and said annoyingly, “That was Louis Hayes.” My red face turned to see Alan Dawson keeled over with his face in his hand’s laughing his head off.