Episode 1490 - Elliott Caine
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what's happening what the fuck duckens how's that thanksgivingy what's happening how are you where we at are you listening uh
Marc:Have you ducked away?
Marc:Are you at your people's house?
Marc:Are you at a house that you don't wanna be at?
Marc:Have you been taken to a house by somebody you love and you're doing it because it's your turn to do it this year, to go to the other house?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:Are you alone?
Marc:Are you just hanging around by yourself, telling yourself,
Marc:I don't care about holidays, but there's nothing open and I can't do anything but sit and reflect, sit and stew, sit and be sad.
Marc:What have you done?
Marc:Are you watching the dog show?
Marc:What are you doing?
Marc:Are you freaking out?
Marc:Are you fucked up already?
Marc:Are you locked in the room you grew up in?
Marc:Where are you?
Marc:Where are you at?
Marc:What's going on?
Marc:Are you yelling?
Marc:Are you with somebody who's yelling?
Marc:Is there yelling going on?
Marc:Is somebody making a bad dish that they make every year and you just suck it up and eat it?
Marc:Are you cooking?
Marc:Where are you at?
Marc:How are the kids?
Marc:What time is it?
Marc:Do you know where your children are?
Marc:Remember that ad?
Marc:They used to come on on TV back when there was only three stations, just a priest sitting uncomfortably, awkwardly at a desk or something.
Marc:It's 1130, parents.
Marc:Do you know where your children are?
Marc:It's 10 o'clock, parents.
Marc:Do you know where your children are?
Marc:I am in Florida, and I am punchy.
Marc:You know the word?
Marc:Punchy?
Marc:I'm a little... Look, I got back from Denver.
Marc:I was home for a day.
Marc:I got back on Sunday.
Marc:On Monday, I spent half a day moving towards driving to and then talking to Albert Brooks, which you'll hear on Monday.
Marc:And then I got my shit together, but I paced myself out.
Marc:I was surprised.
Marc:I'm usually filled with a certain amount of dread just when I have to travel these days.
Marc:I don't know why.
Marc:But I flew down here on Tuesday morning on JetBlue and I sprung for the mint and they gave me a nice vegan meal.
Marc:And I got here at like eight at night and I'm just, I lock in.
Marc:I've got to conceive of the dinner before I get into it.
Marc:I've made this dinner before.
Marc:Obviously, many of you know, but this year I'm not, I'm vegan, which is fine.
Marc:I'm not bragging.
Marc:I don't give a shit what you do.
Marc:But when I lock into something, I'm going to stay locked in until the day comes where I don't.
Marc:But right now I'm locked in and I figured out that I can make almost everything vegan.
Marc:outside of the stuffing that everybody likes, the turkey, the turkey gravy, obviously.
Marc:Other than that, all vegan.
Marc:This is going to be a smaller crew than usual.
Marc:My aunt passed away a few months ago, my mother's sister.
Marc:I haven't seen my cousins or my uncle since that happened.
Marc:I figured there'd probably be a little bit of a wait in the air, but I'm happy I came.
Marc:I felt like I should come.
Marc:I've enjoyed cooking so far, but then again, I haven't slept much.
Marc:My mother and I aren't fighting.
Marc:Her dog has diarrhea and is doing that around the house.
Marc:I don't know if it's for me, but having sick animals.
Marc:Her boyfriend, John, who many of you know from me talking about him here on the podcast or on Bits, is still himself.
Marc:There's still a lot going on in the house that's unnecessary.
Marc:My mother just had to change her clothes to take a ride to go pick up some
Marc:paper plates and things and john was uh you know i had four minutes to wait and uh i'm just cooking he goes tell your mother tell tell you tell toby that i'm uh i'm gonna be outside i'm gonna be outside pruning uh the bush on the on the other side of the house tell tell her i'm gonna be pruning the bush i'm like okay all right out on on this side okay john i'll be out here okay
Marc:That went on for a while, but then there's, you know, it's almost a gift in a way that the dog is shitting all over the house because it gives him something to focus on and clean up.
Marc:There's nothing that he likes more than to clean up.
Marc:I watched him eat a pomegranate today.
Marc:It was very exciting.
Marc:My mother has a flipping through reels problem.
Marc:I think she's on Instagram, just sits in her chair and flips through reels and watches them almost like hypnotized immediately.
Marc:It's all right, I guess, right?
Marc:We haven't talked much, her and I, since I got here, but everything seems copacetic.
Marc:Again, there's a heaviness in the air, and there's the severe reality of
Marc:These are older people.
Marc:Now, again, many of you have been through this stuff.
Marc:I'm fortunate to have my parents still alive.
Marc:I'm 60 years old.
Marc:They had me when they were 12.
Marc:Not really.
Marc:But she's still alive, and John's kicking along.
Marc:They're clearly aging.
Marc:But I don't know.
Marc:It's given me some other way to...
Marc:look at this experience, and I don't even know if it's intentional.
Marc:You know, as I come down here, I think about my parents, my parents' inappropriateness, whatever trauma they caused me, whatever, however they wired me in the way that, you know, I've been kind of emotionally hobbled and self-esteem-wise hobbled.
Marc:But, you know, I don't know.
Marc:It's not that it goes away, but after a certain point, I don't know.
Marc:What the fuck difference does it make?
Marc:But here's my other revelation, is that I'm going to have Thanksgiving here, and I'm not going to make it about me.
Marc:I imagine that at most gatherings, someone's making it about themselves, and I imagine that some gatherings are problematic because there's a competition between two to five people who would like to make the day about them.
Marc:And that causes a lot of resentment and patterns, and I get it, but I...
Marc:I'm just here.
Marc:I like to do the cooking.
Marc:I'm excited that the leftovers are going to be mostly vegan so I can actually eat them without the same amount of disgust and shame the next day.
Marc:Come the second or third day of eating turkey and stuffing leftovers filled with butter and
Marc:fat uh you know it's almost like you know when you feel kind of crappy after you eat or you're tired or whatever you feel generally for me it's not good almost ever but on thanksgiving specifically that uh you know that just keeps going you know however you manufacture your leftovers from the next few days but that's not going to be an issue
Marc:But I guess my point is, is that I know that generally what I say on this day is that if you need to take a walk, take a walk.
Marc:If you need to pull out of a conversation, pull out of a conversation.
Marc:Use whatever you have at your disposal to maintain your sanity and
Marc:Whatever means, whatever methods you have at your disposal to maintain your sanity without hurting yourself or others.
Marc:Try not to engage in emotional abuse.
Marc:And if you can stand up for yourself, try not to take any.
Marc:But sometimes you got to suck that up.
Marc:sometimes it's it's hard to deflect or protect yourself but uh it's only a couple days right but it all stands folks it all stands if you want to uh to take a walk before you blow your stack take a walk and and and another thing if the dish didn't come out right fuck it
Marc:It's Thanksgiving.
Marc:Everyone will understand and just pick the top off or throw it away or make them eat it and pretend like they like it.
Marc:But try to take care of yourself, but also realize that...
Marc:Who knows what the future holds?
Marc:Environmentally, politically.
Marc:And I know there's political problems, but we're starting to realize at this point with family members and people that have lost their minds or are no longer the people we know that that's the way they are now.
Marc:Maybe if their beliefs come to pass politically, they can all laugh or when they see how awful it is, they can all feel bad as they watch their...
Marc:college-aged, transgender, progressive children being thrown in trucks.
Marc:But maybe grandchild.
Marc:You know what?
Marc:Maybe that's too harsh.
Marc:What I'm saying is all that stuff, none of it fucking matters in the way that you're at Thanksgiving, you know who not to talk to, you know who not to engage, but at least try to realize that nothing is good almost anywhere.
Marc:And that if you can somehow appreciate the fact that the people you're with, you love them, you care about them, or you used to love them, figure it out and try to accept it.
Marc:Because the bottom line is, who the fuck knows what's going to happen?
Marc:It's probably not going to be great.
Marc:Happy Thanksgiving.
Marc:Happy Thanksgiving.
Marc:Acceptance.
Marc:How's that?
Marc:But also appreciation, if you can.
Marc:If you can find it in you, even for the ones that have turned.
Marc:Try.
Marc:Happy Thanksgiving.
Marc:I'll be doing a live talk with Cliff Nesteroff about his new book, Outrageous, at the New York Public Library on Wednesday, November 29th.
Marc:It's a free event, and you can go in person or watch the live stream.
Marc:Go to nypl.org slash events.
Marc:My Los Angeles dates...
Marc:I'm at Dynasty Typewriter on December 1st, 13th, and 28th.
Marc:The Elysian on December 6th, 15th, and 22nd.
Marc:And Largo on December 12th and January 9th.
Marc:I heard a rumor that Ellen DeGeneres might want to do a spot on my show in January.
Marc:Then in 2024, I'm in San Diego at the Observatory North on Saturday, January 27th for two shows.
Marc:San Francisco at the Castro Theater on Saturday, February 3rd.
Marc:On February 4th, I'll be hosting McCabe and Mrs. Miller at the Roxy Theater in San Francisco.
Marc:Go find that.
Marc:Portland, Maine at the State Theater on Thursday, March 7th.
Marc:Medford, Massachusetts outside Boston at the Chevalier Theater on Friday, March 8th.
Marc:Providence, Rhode Island at the Strand Theater on Saturday, March 9th.
Marc:And Tarrytown, New York at the Tarrytown Music Hall on Sunday, March 10th.
Marc:Go to wtfpod.com slash tour for tickets.
Marc:Woo, man, right?
Marc:So look, folks, who's on the show today?
Marc:Dr. Elliot Kane.
Marc:Dr. Elliot Kane is on the show today.
Marc:Now, how do I want to preface this?
Marc:Now, I've talked about this guy before.
Marc:Dr. Elliot Kane is my optometrist.
Marc:He's got a practice in Highland Park.
Marc:It's got a hand-painted front sign.
Marc:It's a very...
Marc:cozy office he's got there on York, and he's got jazz records in the windows.
Marc:And I remember I got referred to him maybe by the ladies I buy glasses from over at Society of Spectacle.
Marc:But I went to this guy, and he was a character.
Marc:He talks like a jazz guy, you know?
Marc:And he's like, yeah, man, yeah, man, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And it turns out he's a jazz trumpeter.
Marc:And he was pretty serious about it.
Marc:And he's still pretty serious about it.
Marc:And he plays gigs.
Marc:I went to see him twice.
Marc:He's done session work around town.
Marc:He's still locked into the jazz thing.
Marc:But ultimately, he's my optometrist.
Marc:But I thought...
Marc:This would be an interesting episode.
Marc:I don't usually do this type of episode.
Marc:So I finally got around to doing it.
Marc:He's an Indianapolis Jew jazz trumpeter, and he comes up around a lot of jazz.
Marc:And it was an interesting sort of look back into the world of the 60s, into the jazz world of Indianapolis, into just a life, making that decision.
Marc:some of us make in our lives to kind of sideline our dreams, to have a little bit of security with the hope that we still pursue those dreams.
Marc:Sometimes those dreams stay paramount in our minds as the priority, but they just don't have the space needed to be that.
Marc:But nonetheless, you know, you do it.
Marc:You go at it.
Marc:And this guy's a serious jazz bow, man.
Marc:Now, a couple of things.
Marc:We talk a lot.
Marc:And I mentioned Ben Sidron.
Marc:Now, Ben Sidron is a jazz pianist that I've had on the show years ago.
Marc:He's also a jazz historian and a great guy.
Marc:He's out of Madison.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Ben Sidron, a lot of records, a lot of books.
Marc:Also, another thing I want to clear up, or at least set up, we both mention Mark Summers from the Nickelodeon show Double Dare and the Food Network, who I've had on.
Marc:He's a character.
Marc:But he mentioned to me when I talked to him that he grew up with Elliot Cain, Dr. Cain.
Marc:And Elliot Cain, Dr. Cain, calls him Mark Berkowitz.
Marc:And he was on my show and they mentioned each other.
Marc:And I just want to get those things out there before you listen to it.
Marc:So, you know, it's not confusing.
Marc:Sometimes we get going or I get going with a guest and we just go, man.
Marc:But that's sort of the lowdown on Elliot Kane.
Marc:And to me, as somebody who's like sort of an aspiring jazz appreciator, and that's a deep rabbit hole, I just wanted to see how it would go.
Marc:He's my optometrist, man.
Marc:You know what I'm saying?
Marc:You can go to ElliotKane.com.
Marc:That's Elliot with two L's and two T's and Kane, C-A-I-N-E.
Marc:You can check out his work and his future gigs there.
Marc:He plays around town.
Marc:He plays in Highland Park sometimes.
Marc:And this is me talking to my jazz optometrist, Dr. Elliot Kane.
Music
Marc:You want to wear the headphones?
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Do it.
Marc:Like you're recording a record.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I'm overdue, way overdue.
Marc:When was the last one?
Marc:I think I had the last one on CD.
Guest:The last CD I had was, yeah, Hippie Chicks on Acid, which was 2011.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've written some new tunes lately.
Guest:It's just time, man.
Guest:I needed to clone myself, you know?
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:Yeah, man, it's...
Guest:Where are you playing, though?
Guest:Where's the weekly gig?
Guest:Okay, one of them just ended today.
Guest:I got noticed today.
Guest:What do you mean you got noticed?
Guest:A premature ending?
Guest:Well, I've been there for 15 months.
Guest:A year and three months.
Guest:It's at the Roosevelt, Hollywood Roosevelt.
Guest:And what they did is they redid the restaurant.
Guest:It had been one of those Nancy Silverton restaurants.
Marc:Fancy?
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:And they made it more like a... I think they're making it more like a... What do you call it?
Guest:A bistro type of thing.
Guest:And the wall that separates...
Guest:The lobby where I play is, I think, is gone or a lot of it's gone.
Guest:And so the sound, it's too loud for the diners, apparently.
Guest:Coming through.
Guest:That's what I heard.
Guest:The director called me this morning, just this morning, told me they had like a duo playing the other night, guitar and bass maybe, and that was too loud.
Guest:And my group's a four-piece group.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:With...
Guest:You know, me on trumpet, then piano, bass, drums.
Guest:But I'm at the York this Sunday.
Guest:I have my monthly gig at the York.
Marc:How long has that been going on for?
Guest:Except for like a year of the pandemic, it's been going on since probably about 2015.
Marc:That's where I kind of knew you were a musician.
Marc:was at the York.
Marc:I mean, I can't remember exactly when I got hip to you as a musician, but I think I went to you as an optometrist first.
Guest:I think so.
Guest:I remember seeing you at the York with some lady friend of yours, man.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:And that was before we were just setting up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I got the gig at the York, usually every third Sunday.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I play a trio gig at a little dive bar in Long Beach called the Wrigley Tavern.
Guest:That's a drive?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's a schlep.
Marc:Yeah, it's a drive.
Guest:But it's every Saturday night, and it's not a high-paying gig.
Guest:We get tips.
Guest:That makes it a decent.
Guest:We get pretty good tips there.
Guest:So it's just me, guitar, and bass.
Guest:Just playing jazz standards.
Guest:And my thing there, as well as has been as the Roosevelt, is I memorize everything.
Guest:I'm really...
Guest:I hate to see cats, decent musicians, their nose is buried.
Guest:Just a simple effing chart.
Marc:So you memorize the classics.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But when you riff, you riff.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:You just talk.
Marc:It was funny because I, you know, I knew I was going to talk to you.
Marc:And...
Marc:You know who Ben Sidren is?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:So, because I figure, you know, I'd hit up, I'd text Ben because he's in, where's he?
Marc:He's in Minnesota, right?
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:Yeah, he's up in, he's in, no, he's in Wisconsin.
Marc:He's in Madison.
Marc:That's where Ben is.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So I figured, like, and he came up around that area.
Marc:He came up in Chicago.
Marc:I figured maybe he'd know Elliot Cain from Indianapolis.
Marc:The great Jasmine from Indianapolis.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And he said, so...
Marc:I said, do you know Elliot Kane?
Marc:He says, I checked Elliot out, dig his bent tone and the Bruno vibe.
Marc:Not hip to him, but some of his tunes sound a bit like Blakey, right?
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:Definitely influenced by the Jazz Messengers.
Marc:Lee Morgan, you know.
Marc:Yeah, we talked about Lee Morgan.
Marc:But let's go back, though, because I talked to a guy you grew up with.
Marc:Oh, Mark.
Marc:Mark Berkowitz.
Marc:Mark Summers.
Marc:Mark Berkowitz.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I was so thrilled that, you know, he knew you.
Guest:It was a trip, man.
Marc:And that they're like, because, look, I grew up in New Mexico, right?
Marc:So that's like you kind of knew the Jews.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And I know there was like a swath of sort of upper Midwestern Jews that came over at some time, you know, like Dylan is, you know, he's a Minnesota Jew.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I knew there were, but what was the scene in Indianapolis, not musically, but Jew-wise when you were coming up?
Guest:Well, I came up in the 1960s, you know, and the neighborhood I grew up in was not particularly a so-called Jewish neighborhood.
Marc:What business was your dad in?
Guest:He had a little drugstore downtown Indianapolis.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:It was next door.
Guest:First catacorner, but then it eventually became, you moved it a half block.
Guest:It was next door to a burlesque parlor.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And on the other side of my dad's little drugstore was a bar called Frida's Golden Nugget.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And so I was raised in kind of a, I'll call it a waspy neighborhood.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:A few Jewish families, mostly not, definitely all white.
Marc:Indiana wasps.
Guest:Yeah, which is another story, too.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, Dan Quayle and so forth.
Guest:Mike Pence.
Guest:Mike Pence.
Guest:Oh, another wonderful.
Guest:I saw your routine, by the way, with Mike Pence.
Guest:I thought it was excellent.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Anyway.
Guest:So I used to help my dad starting like age seven or eight.
Guest:I used to, at underage, selling liquor.
Guest:I knew all the wine.
Guest:I knew all the liquor, cigarettes.
Guest:I used to sell for 28 cents a pack, by the way, cigarettes.
Guest:28, man.
Guest:Back in the 60s, yeah.
Guest:And I met a much wider demographic, let's say.
Guest:Different people of different nationalities, different skin colors.
Guest:Because of the neighborhood.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because the neighborhood, it was two blocks from the bus station, downtown Indianapolis.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:So he sold, like, so it was more of a, like, he sold everything.
Marc:It was a drugstore, but, you know, they had, what, you know, liquor and food and cigarettes.
Guest:But not so much food, maybe ice cream.
Guest:You know, it was a one-man drugstore, one person, and I would help him.
Guest:And you'd see... Characters.
Guest:Characters, from the bottom of society to the local celebrities, let's say.
Guest:And some of the people who were down-and-out winos were the most interesting people for me.
Marc:Well, yeah, I mean, it's interesting when you're a kid.
Marc:Like, my grandfather owned a hardware store.
Marc:in new jersey in like a little town new jersey and there were these guys there were like these four these five old men that used to just hang around the hardware store sure talking and you know as a kid i just you know there's something about these guys where you're like how did it happen what's where why is he like that i want to talk to him and he just i was always kind of attracted to those guys to hear what they had to say or where they've been
Guest:oh yeah yeah yeah no it's interesting stuff like there'd be a number uh a few guys i remember their names too one guy oh of course man there were two black guys one guy's name was yakey and the other was dennis yakey and and there would be the pawn shops there which were owned by our fellow yids yeah and um they would pick up some yiddish so they would talk to my dad these throw yiddish phrases at my dad you know these guys they were you know unfortunately they were
Guest:winos.
Guest:They had issues, man.
Marc:You know, uh, Yankee was, uh, throwing around some Yiddish.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, this mocks do baby, you know, this kind of stuff.
Guest:And, and, uh, I would go to lunch, uh, at some restaurants, actually an uncle of mine owned a restaurant a few blocks away.
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:And on the way there, there was an abandoned storefront that was occupied by gypsies.
Guest:And when I walked past them, I'd be 10 years old or whatever, and this woman, she would, come here, little boy, I'll tell you fortune.
Guest:And so my dad said, you never go in there, you know?
Guest:Never go in there.
Guest:And so this is what year?
Guest:Early 60s?
Guest:Early to late 60s, yeah.
Marc:In your teens then?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So your folks spoke Yiddish in the house?
Guest:A bit when they didn't want me to understand.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Where were they from?
Guest:My father was originally from Lafayette, Indiana.
Guest:And his immigrant family, his older siblings were from Europe.
Guest:And then my mother...
Marc:They were from an immigrant family from, you don't know where, in Eastern Europe?
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:My father's family from the Ukraine near the Polish border.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Galicia?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I would say it was probably, it was never said that way, but his Yiddish was different than my mother's Yiddish.
Guest:My mother's family was from near Kiev.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Yeah, I got that.
Marc:I'm from there.
Marc:That half my mother's line's Ukraine, Poland kind of trip.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:A place where you don't want to be right now.
Marc:No.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But it's interesting how those borders have changed.
Marc:I found out a lot about that stuff, about where they came from, because that guy had me on that show, that Finding Your Root show.
Guest:Oh, Far Out.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Guest:Yeah, he's from Harvard, right?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Professor Gates.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Yeah, that's an interesting show.
Guest:I didn't know you were on that, man.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, they tracked it all the way back, man.
Marc:I don't know how they do that, man.
Marc:They got people.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, they put the money into it.
Marc:I don't know how they... Someone goes and checks those records.
Marc:It's kind of wild.
Guest:That's a fascinating show to me.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Both your folks are Jewish?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So high citizens.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, what was the scene, though, in terms of of Jews?
Marc:Was there was because like, I mean, Indiana is pretty white.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:In Indianapolis.
Marc:I've spent some time there.
Marc:Yes, I do know that from last.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The guy interviewed me, by the way, from the public radio station there.
Guest:He did.
Marc:Because what did I turn him on to you or what?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, he turned him on to me, and he got curious about me and looked me up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he said that you did a good imitation of me.
Guest:But it was a little strange.
Guest:I mean, I had to deal with some stuff growing up.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Being Jewish.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I got in some fights.
Guest:I got beat up one time, I remember.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And one time I beat some kid who was younger.
Guest:We were on the school bus coming home, and, you know, he wouldn't shut up with the Jew shit, you know?
Guest:I said, okay, let's get off.
Guest:He wanted to fight.
Guest:And, God, I mean, I knocked this fool down.
Guest:I kind of left it there because I didn't want to really hurt him.
Guest:I just wanted to say, you know, shut up.
Guest:Stand up for yourself.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But was there a big Jewish community?
Guest:You know...
Guest:Me and Mark Berkowitz.
Guest:There was maybe Indianapolis, maybe 8,000 Jews, I would guess, growing up.
Guest:And a fair percentage were actually Sephardic.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The prettiest girls were Sephardic girls.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Always.
Guest:Yeah, always did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was brought up reform.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:That existed then.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:There was reform.
Guest:There was reform and in, you know, the... So you could play jazz in the temple.
Guest:Yeah, you could actually.
Guest:That happened.
Guest:I didn't do it.
Guest:But Mark Berkowitz's...
Guest:Older brothers and my older brother one time played.
Guest:His older brother is a drummer, and my older brother played piano.
Marc:How many siblings you got?
Guest:I have one older brother and a younger sister.
Marc:When do you start?
Marc:Like, it's the 60s, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:How old are you in like 69?
Guest:In October, I turned 18.
Guest:All right, so it's all happening.
Guest:It's hard.
Guest:I didn't know jazz.
Guest:I loved playing trumpet, like band music, orchestra music.
Marc:When did you start doing that?
Guest:Oh, when I was probably 11 in sixth grade.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But like, but the world, the country's coming apart at the seams.
Marc:Right.
Marc:69.
Marc:You feel that?
Marc:Oh, big time.
Guest:Well, we, you know, we're liberal.
Guest:My parents were liberals.
Guest:You know, I radicalized in college.
Guest:I mean, I was a...
Guest:I got into Marxism big time.
Guest:What college?
Guest:Indiana U, Indiana University.
Marc:Okay, so that was happening on campus.
Guest:That was happening.
Guest:First was, I think my freshman year or so, I was involved with Farm Workers Support Committee.
Marc:In Indiana?
Guest:Yeah, in Indiana.
Marc:And what did they do?
Guest:Well, they were urging boycotts of scab lettuce and scab grape.
Marc:Okay, yeah.
Guest:And I also was involved in the anti-war movement too.
Guest:I wasn't an organizer at that point, but I would just take,
Guest:I got radicalized.
Guest:At first, with Vietnam, I was trying to ignore it, you know, when I was in high school, you know, it's a bad thing, but, you know.
Guest:You didn't get your number picked, huh?
Guest:My draft number was 166, so that was good enough not to be in the draft.
Guest:How did that work?
Guest:You just, you picked, it's like a lottery, man.
Guest:You just pick a number, one through 365 or 366.
Marc:Okay, so they pull up to a certain number from each bunch?
Guest:Yes, right.
Guest:And so mine, 160, I'll never forget that.
Guest:166 got me out of the... Man, you left out.
Marc:I was lucky, yeah.
Marc:But you were on campus and there was a lot of action going on?
Guest:Yeah, Indiana, Indiana U had a pretty, as conservative as the state is, had a pretty active anti-war movement and radicalization.
Guest:There were several Marxist parties, left parties.
Marc:But it's interesting that you frame it as being radicalized.
Marc:I mean, it was, you know, it's interesting that what's going on now in this country and what's going on in colleges and in schools and everything else is still a reaction to that.
Marc:To the late 60s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What are they called?
Guest:The Vietnam syndrome or the Vietnam effect, something like that.
Guest:No, to this day, there's a lot of wariness and cynicism of the government.
Guest:Are they liars?
Marc:Yeah, but there's also a bunch of right-wingers saying that we're fighting communism.
Marc:That, you know, that liberals are commies.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:Which is totally ridiculous.
Marc:But they set that frame when you, like, in the 60s.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Well, you know, there was different levels people went to.
Guest:You know, like some people, a lot of people, probably most people say, oh, you know, we have a great government.
Guest:Vietnam was just a little mistake we made.
Guest:Sure, yeah.
Guest:And for me, it wasn't that.
Guest:It was this is part of the sickness of the system is neocolonialism.
Guest:Right, sure.
Guest:So you got dug in.
Guest:I got into reading a lot of Leon Trotsky and Lennon and people like that.
Marc:And what effect did that have?
Marc:How long did that stick?
Marc:Did you finish college?
Marc:Yeah, I did, eventually.
Guest:Yeah, it was a lot of things going on, and I got into jazz music at that time.
Guest:I got interested into my own ethnic history, into Jewish history.
Guest:For one thing, I was wondering, why were all these famous commies Jews?
Guest:What'd you find out?
Guest:Well, I found out more about them.
Guest:Why was the radicalization happening in Eastern Europe, and why did it carry over?
Guest:to the Americas, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And also, I got very interested in African-American history, too.
Guest:There were definitely some parallels.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and I read a lot about Malcolm X and Malcolm X's autobiography, of course.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you probably remember, you know, certainly when Bobby Kinney got a shot, right?
Guest:I was in high school then, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Pretty devastating.
Marc:That was the same year Martin Luther King got shot, right?
Marc:Or around then?
Guest:Yeah, it was a month or two after that.
Marc:I can't even imagine really...
Marc:With the country as connected as it was through, you know, one device and everybody getting the same information, how insane that must have landed, all of that.
Guest:It was—yeah, it was.
Guest:It was pretty crazy.
Guest:And I was still in high school.
Guest:I was still, you know, a good liberal Jewish boy, you know.
Guest:But it was not until later on that I—
Marc:You started to think, why did they get killed?
Marc:And who was, you know, part of what's wrong with the system?
Guest:Yeah, not that Bobby Kennedy was particularly a radical, but it seemed like he was definitely coming out more and more against the war in Vietnam.
Guest:And he seemed to be supportive, particularly farm workers, he was supportive of.
Guest:So I give him credit for that.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:So where does this all lead you ultimately?
Marc:What kind of degree you end up with?
Guest:Well, I got a Bachelor of Science or Arts?
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:In psychology, actually, is my undergraduate degree.
Marc:No shit.
Marc:No shit.
Marc:So your point, where's the jazz coming from for you in the middle of radicalization and hippiness?
Marc:What are you being exposed to?
Guest:Okay, so my freshman year, I saw the main jazz instructor at Indiana University was named David Baker, who was from Indianapolis, African-American guy.
Guest:Pretty brilliant guy.
Guest:And I saw his group perform.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'd already started listening.
Guest:At school.
Guest:Yeah, at school and campus.
Guest:And I'd already started listening.
Guest:My dorm library had some LPs by Miles Davis.
Guest:I remember Birth of the Cool as well as Around About Midnight.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then they had the Clifford Brown Memorial album.
Guest:And probably 95% of it was over my head.
Guest:But I dug it.
Guest:You know, there was something about it.
Marc:What do you mean by over your head?
Guest:Well...
Guest:I'm used to listening to rock and roll.
Guest:I'm used to listening.
Guest:I mean, I'm a big Brian Wilson fan.
Guest:I love Brian Wilson.
Marc:So the Beach Boys were your guys?
Marc:Oh, I love the Beach Boys.
Marc:And what else were you listening to in college?
Marc:Did your brother turn you on to shit?
Guest:Yeah, to an extent.
Guest:That was later on.
Guest:I think he had a Thelonious Monk album, and that was definitely over my head at this time.
Marc:It's interesting because when I started listening to jazz, and even now,
Marc:I don't really necessarily know what I'm listening to.
Marc:I know blues structure and whatnot.
Marc:But whether it was over my head or not, I think that either you've got a brain that digs it or doesn't.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Like, you know, I can still listen to plenty of jazz.
Marc:I don't really know what's going on, but I can roll with it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because I have a cousin that literally can't listen to jazz because it makes her anxious.
Right.
Marc:A number of people like that.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So, but like the rock music at the time was pretty exciting though, right?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was, you know, I don't know if you've seen those documentaries on the Laurel Canyons.
Guest:Yeah, sure, sure.
Guest:Yeah, it was an awakening in America that time.
Guest:Not just music, a lot of stuff.
Marc:But even the Beatles, you must remember the Beatles happening.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, the Beatles, the Beach Boys Beatles, they evolved.
Guest:They, you know, from the early blues, just bluesy stuff, they got into some pretty heavy stuff, yeah.
Marc:You're kind of a bluesy guy.
Guest:I like the blues, man.
Guest:Yeah, I like the blues.
Guest:I mean, there's a...
Guest:You know, how music hits you sometimes.
Guest:I mean, my first jazz record I bought was Kind of Blue, my Miles Davis.
Guest:And how can you not like that, man?
Guest:So that was a good introduction for me.
Guest:And then probably the second album I bought was by the great Lee Morgan.
Guest:It was called Search for the New Land.
Marc:Best.
Guest:Yeah, Lee was fantastic.
Marc:So after you saw Baker play at the school,
Marc:You lit up?
Guest:That was it?
Guest:Well, his trumpet player was a very good trumpet player.
Guest:Not a Jewish guy.
Guest:A Jewish guy?
Guest:Yeah, Larry Wiseman.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:And he became almost like a big brother to me for a while.
Guest:Yeah, he was a really good lead player and very good jazz player.
Guest:So you approached him, and you were just sort of like— Yeah, can I get a lesson with you?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and so, yeah, he charged me $5 a lesson.
Guest:Five bucks?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I just paid $200 for a guitar lesson two weeks ago.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Times have changed.
Marc:Times have changed.
Marc:But I got a video with it.
Guest:Oh, that's cool.
Guest:That's cool.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And yeah, he was a real good guy, you know, and he was a good teacher.
Guest:And so and I got interested in the jazz scene and you get in the jazz, not only jazz history, but that also overlaps with kind of African-American history, too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, yeah, it was a it was a wake up.
Marc:So you're in college, and I know that Indianapolis, all towns have their little pockets of whatever, and jazz is a pretty specific pocket.
Marc:Was there a place when you were 18 where you could go hang out?
Guest:Yeah, maybe about a year or so later.
Guest:My sophomore year, I was practicing in the music building just another Saturday night without a date, and I'm in the music room practicing trumpet trying to figure out...
Guest:how to play over chord changes, and knock on the door in the practice room, and it was a trumpet player, an African-American player.
Guest:And he says, I hear what you're trying to do, and blah, blah, blah, let me help you with this.
Guest:And we became friends.
Guest:He was five years older than I was, and he had been to Vietnam.
Guest:He played from Cincinnati originally, but he knew the ghetto jazz scene.
Guest:At that time, it still existed.
Guest:In Indianapolis.
Guest:In Indianapolis, yeah.
Guest:I remember him taking me to a club called The Hubbub.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And The Hubbub had pictures of the greats from Indianapolis on the walls, like pictures of Freddie Hubbard.
Guest:He's from Indianapolis?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:No shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And...
Guest:I did a gig with his brother once.
Guest:His brother was a piano player named Erman Hubbard.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Nice piano player.
Guest:And then the Montgomery's, Wes Montgomery.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:And his brothers, all from Indianapolis.
Guest:J.J.
Guest:Johnson.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, Larry Ridley, a great bass player who's still alive.
Guest:And, oh, a lot of cats.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so he took me to these places that were still...
Guest:They still had these jazz afternoon matinees where young people like myself could sit in and make fools of ourselves.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, but it was good training.
Marc:Like an open stage, you had a band that would kind of lock in and then guys would come up?
Guest:Typically, it would be like an organ trio.
Guest:So it would be a B3 organ with guitar and drums.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And yeah, they'd play...
Marc:certain tunes and then maybe the second set they'd open it up and you could sit in you know and be three like jimmy smith yeah just like jimmy smith yeah okay those kids charles erland jimmy smith so you're going there you like what 19 yeah and you know and you're you're taking jazz lessons or you're trying to figure it out what's the process of figuring out jazz
Marc:Like in just terms of basics, you know what I mean?
Guest:I'd say one thing is trying to learn the tunes.
Guest:Best to try to learn the tunes from the records if you can.
Guest:And then try to learn the solos, you know?
Guest:And then try to pick apart the chords.
Guest:I mean, that's not really easy.
Marc:And there was no YouTube, so you're sitting there with a record dropping the needle every two seconds.
Guest:Ruining many LPs, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, stop the tour tape with your hands, you know?
Marc:Yeah, and are you listening primarily to Lee?
Marc:Lee and Miles.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And to this day, those are my two favorites, too, to this day.
Marc:So now, so you're going around, what's his cast name, the trumpet player?
Guest:Marcus Brown was his name.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How was he?
Marc:Good?
Guest:He was a good player.
Guest:Kind of, I don't know if you know, Blue Mitchell's style of player.
Marc:I do, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, he kind of came out of that kind of Blue Mitchell school, and he got me my first professional gig.
Guest:We played...
Guest:with a band it was called uh kind of an r&b band it was allison and calvin turner and the sound masters a very popular band in central indiana among uh certain people and my friend marcus kind of was the most streetwise person i ever knew yeah yeah he he knew how to hustle yeah yeah yeah and was he uh uh like what was the scene in terms of the of drugs
Guest:Well, you know, we didn't—I probably did a few things I shouldn't have done, but I never got into anything real heavy.
Marc:Never got strung out?
Marc:No, no, I never did.
Guest:I knew people who did.
Marc:Yeah, of course, you know.
Marc:I mean, it's sort of fascinating to me that jazz culture, even as insulated as it was, you know, it had obviously a huge impact.
Marc:on society and music, but so many junkies, man.
Marc:Yeah, right, right.
Marc:You know, and I have to, you know, I interviewed Ron Carter.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:And that dude, you know, like, he's on about 2,000 records.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, he's like the guy, the bass guy.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:And, you know, and he's like, you know, he carries himself, you know, as like almost like a professor.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like someone who commands respect and deserves respect.
Marc:But he was always the guy.
Marc:He was the straight one.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Like we didn't get too far into it, but it just seems to me that there were just hours and hours of, you know, either waiting for someone to show up or hoping they can fucking play.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Yeah, you read some biographies of these people, you know, and you didn't know whether... I think there's a recording session where Miles didn't even have a trumpet, you know, and someone had to bring him a beat-up old trumpet or something to play the session.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and like Bill Evans.
Guest:Yeah, I saw Bill Evans once, yeah.
Guest:How was that, later in life?
Guest:Yeah, it was when I was in Indiana U. My last year, probably 1975, 76, yeah.
Guest:So he was in okay shape, no?
Guest:Yeah, he was okay shape.
Guest:He was a group with, who was playing?
Guest:Elliot Sigmund on drums.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Shoot, who's the bass player?
Guest:Eddie Gomez.
Marc:Yeah, he was with Gomez for a while.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Was that great?
Marc:It was wonderful.
Marc:All right, so you're playing trumpet in an R&B band, basically.
Guest:Yeah, but in those days, there was a crossover between R&B and jazz.
Guest:Like, for example, I have a couple records by this B3 player, Lonnie Smith.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I know Lonnie Smith.
Guest:Oh, yeah, he did.
Guest:He passed away a year or so ago, a year or two ago.
Guest:Anyway, and at the time when I was playing with this Allison and Calvin Turner, they would say, someone called, yeah, let's do the Lonnie Smith thing.
Guest:And I had no idea what it was.
Guest:It was only until I bought the records.
Guest:Oh, this is what we used to play.
Marc:So that's interesting, though, because I never thought about it like that.
Marc:But B3 is the crossover.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Marc:Because that groove, it's way before the edge of jazz improvisation.
Marc:It kind of grounds you in kind of a post-gospel funk groove.
Guest:Yeah, it comes out of the church.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:There's one CD I have called The Turning Point, which is pretty cool.
Guest:They do a version of Eleanor Rigby.
Marc:Yeah, I have that record.
Guest:And then I have an LP called Think.
Guest:That came out of the same session with Lonnie Smith.
Marc:Yeah, I have those records.
Guest:With Lee Morgan and David Fathead Newman.
Guest:Oh, it's wonderful music.
Marc:Yeah, well, it's kind of interesting.
Marc:So, like, you know, despite whatever you might realize it now, but that was pretty good training to sort of get you into advanced bebop, right, eventually?
Guest:Oh, I thought, yeah, it was invaluable.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was wonderful.
Marc:And were you doing a lot of gigs?
Guest:You know, it was...
Guest:Boy, that was like winter vacation, you know.
Marc:Oh, yeah, all right.
Guest:But I was working, God, I remember I was working a horrible job in a shoe warehouse, you know, in the wintertime, you know, on a Christmas vacation.
Guest:And that got me out of that.
Guest:That got me out of that, you know.
Guest:And I made some money playing music going down to Florida.
Guest:And then we did some gigs in central Indiana in some towns.
Marc:So what's your old man think about, you know, his Marxist jazz bow?
Guest:My parents, at first, were very overprotective of me, you know, with their stuff.
Guest:What are you doing?
Guest:What are you doing?
Guest:But then, after I played, you know, at least semi-professionally, they would brag to all their friends.
Guest:Oh, yeah, my son's doing this.
Guest:My son's doing this.
Guest:And then, you know, and after I...
Guest:Came out to California in the 90s.
Guest:I was playing with a pretty well-known ska band.
Guest:And we went to Japan quite a few times.
Guest:And my mom, of course, was the bragger.
Guest:She would tell her friends.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And her friends would go like, what band?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, ska.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Middle-class Jewish women digging ska, right?
Marc:So you're back at school after you do this run with the Turners.
Marc:Are any of the big guys, your heroes, coming through?
Marc:No.
Marc:I saw... Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Does Freddie still... Does he have still a family there?
Marc:Is Hubbard coming in?
Guest:He came to Indiana U. I saw him at IU when I was a sophomore.
Guest:How was that?
Guest:It was wonderful.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:God, I was 19 years old, and yeah, Freddie was...
Guest:Happening.
Guest:Really happening.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then in Cincinnati, where I had family, they had the cool jazz festival.
Guest:That was the cool cigarette company.
Guest:It was one of George Wein's things.
Guest:So I went three years in a row, age 18, 19, and 20.
Guest:The first year, among other people, Cannonball Adderley's group.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:And then the second year, Lee Morgan's group.
Guest:Really?
Guest:You saw Lee Morgan?
Guest:Yeah, six months before he was killed.
Guest:Yeah, I saw Lee.
Guest:How was that?
Guest:It was fantastic.
Guest:It was beyond words.
Guest:And then the last year I went, I saw an all-star group put together and it had Thelonious Monk.
Marc:Come on.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Wonderful, huh?
Marc:Now, what was the audience for jazz then?
Marc:I mean, were these big crowds?
Marc:Yeah, it was a pretty big crowd.
Guest:It was in the baseball stadium.
Guest:Mostly black or no?
Guest:Mostly black.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was in the baseball stadium in Cincinnati, and yeah, it was wonderful.
Marc:So you finish out college, but you're practicing all the time.
Guest:I'm practicing.
Guest:Yeah, I had a few gigs throughout my college career, even including being in optometry school.
Marc:Yeah, what was that decision?
Marc:So, you know, you're coming out of college with your psychology degree and your politics and your trumpet.
Marc:And what are you thinking?
Marc:I'm thinking I got to make a frigging living, man, you know.
Guest:And my parents, I told my parents, I got a lot of encouragement from various music teachers at IU, professors at IU.
Marc:To what?
Guest:To be a music major.
Marc:Oh, I thought you said to be an optometrist.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:So I told my parents I wanted to change my major in music.
Guest:And they said, that's fine.
Guest:You'll just pay your way through college.
Marc:This is undergrad.
Guest:Undergrad, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I thought, and then I did a, there were a lot of interesting discussions I had, right?
Marc:Yeah, like what?
Marc:With them?
Guest:Yeah, there was some spirited discussion.
Marc:So they held that over there.
Marc:They weren't going to pay if you did something, what they saw as irrational.
Yeah.
Guest:You know, I mean, looking back, I see their point.
Guest:They're from poor immigrant families, you know.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:They're nervous for you.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And my older brother, who was more the straight-A student than I was, he abandoned all that stuff.
Guest:He was pre-med.
Guest:He started pre-med, and then he said, screw that, and he majored in English, you know.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:What does he do?
Guest:He's retired now.
Guest:We don't talk to each other very much.
Marc:Oh, that's too bad.
Marc:It is too bad.
Marc:Was he an academic?
Guest:He taught high—he wound up teaching high school and junior college English.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, literature, you know.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:So a lot of pressure was on me.
Marc:Yeah, you better stick with something.
Guest:You're going to be the Jew doctor.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So I talked to a grad student at IU, someone who was a good friend of Freddie Hubbard, by the way.
Guest:His name is Don Pickett.
Guest:Don had written some tunes for Freddie that Freddie recorded.
Guest:And Don said to me, you know, it doesn't matter what you major in.
Guest:If you want to be a musician, you'll be a musician.
Guest:You'll do it.
Guest:You'll find a way to do it.
Guest:And so that really stuck with me.
Guest:You know, it's just like learn not to waste time, whether it be, you know, watching television or watching stupid stuff on the Internet or wasting your time with people who are a drag on you, you know?
Guest:So...
Guest:I learned to be really efficient with my time, you know?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And so, yeah, I practice that trumpet every day, man.
Guest:And only if I'm sick, really sick.
Guest:But I put in one to three hours a night, you know.
Guest:Sometimes I don't.
Marc:Now?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:I mean, I go to bed till one in the morning, two in the morning.
Guest:But, yeah, I got to play through some of my stuff on trumpet, man.
Marc:Yeah, that's what Sidron said, you know, because I said you were my optometrist.
Marc:And he said, well, he kept his lip in shape.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You got to on trumpet.
Guest:You know, at least I have to.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'll put it that way.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I imagine you have to.
Marc:I don't even know what it takes in terms of the mouth and the trumpet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It takes consistency.
Guest:I mean, let's say if I laid off for a week and I came back and I had to do a gig, I'd be good for maybe a couple tunes.
Guest:And then after that, my lip would be for shit, you know?
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:You got to keep it worked out.
Guest:Yeah, you got to keep it worked out.
Guest:What is very cool, at least my experience with trumpet, is you learn every time.
Guest:Every time I pick up that horn, I'm into learning something new about this thing.
Guest:And my technique has gotten a lot better in the last couple years.
Marc:I think that's true.
Marc:I'm not much of a guitar player, but I kept...
Marc:Learning.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then all of a sudden, it's like with instruments, no matter how old you are, one little thing could open up a whole other world.
Marc:Oh, big time.
Marc:It's a weird thing, man.
Marc:It is.
Marc:It's like writing.
Marc:If you're writing every day and you're locked in, you learn things about yourself and you go places you never thought you would.
Guest:Big time.
Guest:And you may go through down periods as well as up periods and you may get frustrated and want to throw the damn horn against the wall or whatever, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, yeah, the main thing is if you want it, you do it, you know?
Marc:Yeah, and I think the thing about jazz is that, like, obviously, you know, the audience for it is specific and probably smaller than it was at its beginning.
Marc:Oh, for sure.
Marc:Right?
Marc:But, I mean, but that is the nature of that racket, right?
Marc:So, like, you know, the pressure of, you know, selling out a fucking theater is not on you.
Marc:The pressure is to deliver the goods, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's to deliver the goods.
Guest:I mean, and in the local club scene here in L.A., I mean, who's ever booking the music will say, well, how many people do you think you can bring in?
Guest:I don't freaking know how many people.
Guest:You know, I mean, sometimes I get a really great crowd.
Guest:At the York, I usually get a really good crowd.
Guest:But, yeah, some places, man, you know, you don't.
Guest:But you got people?
Guest:Yeah, I got people who follow me.
Guest:Yeah, I got a fan base.
Marc:All right, so what happens?
Marc:You know, your parents win the fight.
Marc:And you decide on optometry because why it was a reasonable amount of time to get a practical medical degree.
Guest:Yeah, because I have to say the reason I did optometry as opposed to straight ahead medicine, let's say, is because I didn't want to do the residency hospital and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Guest:You know, you do four years of medical school and then you got to spend another two years in the hospital.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and I thought, well, I could do optometry.
Guest:I had a decent science background.
Guest:My grades were okay, you know?
Guest:And so let me do this.
Guest:And so most of my optometry, until I opened my office in Highland Park in 2009, but most of my career I just worked part-time.
Guest:I worked three days a week.
Marc:Okay, so tell me what happens.
Marc:You haven't put together a band yet after college.
Marc:No, no, I had not.
Marc:And then you go directly to optometry school?
No.
Marc:In Indiana?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I went to IU School of Optometry.
Guest:So I was seven years at Indiana total.
Marc:So that was a three-year program?
Guest:No, it's actually four, but I got in after my third year.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:And I did take some summer school classes, too, to make up.
Marc:And all through it, you're playing, you're hanging out on Indianapolis Avenue and...
Guest:Well, you know, Indiana.
Guest:He was in Bloomington, Indiana.
Guest:It's 50 miles south of Indiana.
Marc:Oh, holy shit.
Marc:Of course I know that.
Marc:I play Bloomington like once a year.
Marc:There's a little club up there that I go work out at.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:That's a weird little town, man.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:You know, because he got the college and then he got whatever surrounds it.
Guest:Well, I tell you, one time in the 60s, we're driving back from Bloomington.
Guest:We had either dropped my brother off at school or visited him and we're driving back about 20 miles north of
Guest:Bloomington is a little town called Martinsville.
Guest:And I saw a burning cross there.
Guest:Come on, man.
Guest:Serious.
Guest:I couldn't believe my eyes.
Guest:I thought I was dreaming.
Guest:But I looked out there on a hillside about maybe a half mile away.
Guest:Yeah, there's a burning cross.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Lord have mercy.
Marc:I tell you, every time I go to Bloomington, there's something weird about it.
Marc:Yeah, because I know the school's there, and it seems like I'm always there when school's out.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Like I'm going during the summer.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So there's a few kids around.
Marc:But the club, I get a good draw there.
Marc:It only seats like 150 maybe.
Marc:But it's just a vibe there.
Marc:You know, when the students are out there, you've got the locals, whatever that is, and then you've got the people that have been, you know, living around the college for the last 30 years.
Guest:Oh, yeah, eternal students, you know.
Marc:Yeah, and then you've got tweakers on the perimeter.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:It's a thing, and they switched that train track.
Marc:You know, you can walk along that track now.
Marc:There's a chunk of track that's not functional anymore.
Guest:Oh, in Bloomington, huh?
Marc:Yeah, and they've made it like a walk, and there's some hip shit going on.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, there was some good stuff.
Guest:I have friends to this day, you know, that I made in college.
Guest:Yeah, and we keep in touch, and...
Guest:And I had some fun times, man, you know.
Marc:So what happens after optometry school?
Guest:So I had—I took—I needed to take my board examination, so I took Indiana board examination because of my home state.
Guest:I pretty much knew I didn't want to be living in Indiana, though, you know, and I was either going to—
Guest:live in new york or else california for the music yeah for music and just in general yeah vibe let's say too you know and i so i couldn't take my new york vibes because a new york exam because it it coincided with the indiana exam but i could take the california exam yeah so i wound up here and i with the idea that oh in a year i'll i'll take the new york uh state board but in the meantime i met the woman who became my first wife yeah you know and i was getting a life here and we're in california yeah so when did you move out here
Guest:Fall of 76.
Marc:So you've been out here a while, man.
Marc:So your folks had come out here, too, or they came out later after you got married?
Guest:They came out here three years after I did.
Marc:Because you got—what, did you have a kid?
Marc:Not yet.
Marc:Oh, but they saw it coming.
Guest:Maybe.
Guest:So what happened, they were going to tear down the building that my dad's drugstore was in.
Guest:And by that time, he was in his 60s—
Guest:And he didn't want to start up a new business.
Guest:And my parents always liked California.
Marc:So you lived in Highland Park in 76?
Guest:I lived in Pasadena in 76, but Highland Park in 77.
Guest:No shit.
Guest:No shit, yeah.
Guest:Different world then.
Guest:It was a way different world, yeah.
Guest:It was a lot different, yeah.
Guest:It's all Latino, right?
Guest:It was mostly Latino.
Marc:Some artists?
Guest:Yeah, there were some artists here.
Guest:There were some political people.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But I lived in a back house.
Guest:Actually, I think, I'm not sure where you used to live in Highland Park, but I lived on a street called Stratford Avenue 51.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I lived in a back house, which was perfect for a single guy, you know.
Guest:And I remember across the street, there was this paraplegic drug dealer.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It was, you know.
Marc:Yeah, wow.
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:I'm assuming he had some help.
Marc:Yeah, he had some help.
Yeah.
Marc:Some good help.
Guest:Yeah, and that was cool for a while until in the front house was a family.
Guest:I thought they were old, but they were probably in their mid-30s.
Guest:And the wife used to flirt with all the young guys around there.
Guest:And the husband would be really, really jealous, man.
Guest:And he kind of threatened me one time.
Guest:And I had nothing to do with his wife, of course.
Marc:Yeah, but you just don't want to be in the sights of that.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:You don't want to be a suspect.
Guest:Yeah, I don't want to be a suspect.
Guest:Yeah, dead or alive suspect.
Guest:But you're back there jamming?
Guest:Yeah, I'm practicing, yeah.
Guest:And apparently my landlord called me up one day and said, a neighbor called and said that if he, the landlord, didn't do anything about the situation, which was me playing trumpet, then he would do something about the situation, this other guy would do something.
Guest:So I knew it was that.
Guest:The guy in the front house.
Guest:So I moved... So by that time, I moved in with my first wife-to-be.
Guest:We moved just... It ranged you in 56, actually.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:We rented another back house, a little bit bigger back house.
Guest:And we were there for a few years.
Guest:And then eventually, we bought a house in Highland Park, eventually.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You still got it?
Guest:No, it was sold, because I split up with my wife.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And she eventually sold it.
Guest:Yeah, she got it, but then she sold it, eventually, too.
Marc:She sold it for, like, when it was hot?
Guest:She probably...
Guest:God, I don't know how much she did.
Guest:Nothing like what it is now.
Guest:She sold it probably for $100,000.
Guest:We bought it for $70,000.
Marc:Yeah, and you got a kid with her?
Guest:Yes, yeah.
Guest:He's in optometry school now, by the way.
Guest:Yeah, he's starting his fourth year in optometry school.
Marc:So, okay, so you're in Highland Park.
Marc:You're in Los Angeles.
Marc:There's a scene here.
Marc:I don't know what it looks like in the 70s, but what did it look like when you were going out to find the jazz?
Guest:Oh, the jazz scene?
Guest:There were some cool clubs.
Guest:Well, there was the Lighthouse, which was going pretty much full-time, and there was another club called Concerts by the Sea.
Guest:That was Redondo Beach, and I saw a lot of good people there as well.
Marc:So you're checked in.
Marc:You're just going.
Marc:You're watching all the jazz.
Marc:You're taking it in still.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I was like a kid in a candy store when I came to L.A.
Guest:It was so much.
Guest:And so what are you doing for work?
Guest:I was working.
Guest:I started maybe one year full-time working for an optometrist.
Guest:He was young, too.
Guest:He was 32, 33 years old.
Guest:My job interview with him was he pulls out a joint and says, do you do this?
Guest:That was my job interview.
Guest:It was good with him for a while, and then it eventually soured.
Guest:And I worked...
Guest:Again, I wanted to always be a good optometrist.
Guest:I don't want to deny that.
Guest:This is my responsibility to do right by people.
Guest:But my main interest was getting to be a good musician.
Marc:And did you get in with a band in the 70s?
Guest:Okay, so I played with garage bands, mostly kind of Latino rock garage bands, East L.A.
Guest:bands.
Marc:So you were in that trip.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Because I know on that first record, the one from 2000,
Guest:La Super Cool.
Marc:That's it.
Guest:I'm in a car.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, but that opens with a salsa band.
Guest:Yeah, it opens with a tune called Millennium Montuno, which was put on a jazz compilation CD.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, put out by a label.
Marc:So were you picking up that groove playing with the Latino bands?
Marc:Well...
Guest:Yeah, a little later on, because those bands were kind of more Latin rock bands, and they dabbled a little bit in what we might call salsa, you know.
Guest:But it was later on, I played with some Puerto Rican bands, and I played with this Cuban musician named Rudy Calzado, who wrote some tunes for Celia Cruz.
Guest:You know, I did some stuff with him, and then...
Guest:I went through some changes.
Guest:My older brother knocked my teeth out when I was a kid, and I've had teeth problems off and on, upper front teeth, you know, and so... Is that when the problem began?
Guest:Well, it was hard for me to play high notes for a while because, you know, in the salsa scene... He Chet Baker'd you.
Guest:He Chet Baker'd me, yeah, man.
Guest:So I played with cumbia bands after that, and cumbia bands, usually the demand for high notes is not as much as the Cuban and Puerto Rican.
Marc:You adapted...
Guest:You adapted, yeah.
Guest:And eventually build my chops back up.
Guest:But periodically, I've had to deal with that issue with my upper front teeth.
Marc:Yeah, they're good now, though?
Guest:Yeah, they're good.
Guest:Yeah, for about a year and a half now, it's good.
Marc:No kidding.
Marc:So it's really been a lifelong struggle.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And there's only one blame for that.
Marc:whatever man you know the past is the past sure man but it's just interesting that you whatever the trauma is whether it's inside or outside you carry it and you got to deal with it you carry it it's all on me yeah i don't blame anyone yeah it's me and but now i i feel really good about my chops so it just sounds like you're you're playing with whoever you can whenever you can you're staying active and engaged and keeping uh you know yeah it's mostly my own group nowadays i play with when did you start your own group the first one
Guest:Eventually, I mean, eventually.
Guest:Originally, kind of middle, late 90s.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I was playing with this ska group that was a Latin ska group.
Guest:It was called Jump With Joey.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And we were popular in Hollywood.
Guest:We did a lot of Hollywood parties.
Guest:And I made contacts with some of the owners.
Guest:So nights I would call the owner, well, I'm getting a little jazz group together.
Guest:Can you throw me a gig here and there?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And so that's how I kind of got my thing going.
Guest:And you've been playing with the same guys?
Yeah.
Guest:it varies a bit but I've had one of my bass players has played with me in the beginning we used to play at a club called Lava Lounge yeah I remember that with an acid jazz group together yeah what's acid jazz how do you define that oh it's kind of it's got a synthesized groove or what
Marc:Jazz mixed with funk and hip-hop kind of thing.
Marc:The thing I love about going to see you as the optometrist, it's like York, the street is changing so much, but you still got that hand-painted front.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:It's like a remnant of what Highland Park used to be.
Guest:I'm a dinosaur, man.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:It looks good.
Marc:It was clear that you got the pulse on the neighborhood.
Marc:I guess so, man.
Marc:I just do what comes natural.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And you probably have at this point, you know, been through, you probably have family people that come, that have been coming to you for years.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Some people, uh, particularly a lot of Latino families, they used to see me.
Guest:I used to work at a health center about a mile from there and they say, Oh, you know, I speak Spanish pretty well.
Guest:And they would talk to me and say, Oh, doctor, so good to see you again.
Marc:That's sweet.
Marc:It's really sweet.
Marc:It's nice being like a neighborhood fixture in a way.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What do you think?
Marc:How do you think the neighborhood's going?
Marc:You like it?
Guest:The change?
Guest:Well, yeah, I like it.
Guest:I mean, it's more interesting.
Guest:There's some negative things.
Guest:I mean, the rents have gone skyrocketing, you know, and people who are just making, you know, let's call it a working class income.
Marc:It's hard.
Marc:It's tough, man.
Marc:And it's like, you know, gentrification's got, you know, it's, it's,
Marc:I don't like it, man.
Marc:You know, I mean, that's one of the reasons I kind of split because, you know, I feel that tension that I don't think I'm projecting, but there is a tension to it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, there is.
Marc:It didn't feel aggressive, but it felt, you know, I don't know.
Marc:I felt responsible because I talk it up, you know, but I lived in a box up there that was less than a thousand square feet.
Marc:It was a nice little house.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But now it's like, you know, it's I look on Zillow.
Marc:It's like 1.2.
Marc:Right.
Guest:The house.
Guest:I mean, what the fuck?
Guest:The house that I bought for $70,000 in the 80s is, yeah, on the market for a million dollars, man.
Guest:That's bullshit, you know?
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:Yeah, it's capitalism.
Guest:You know, it's this kind of investor capitalism, and it's just driving everything crazy.
Guest:So you're still a little radicalized.
Guest:It's good.
Guest:Oh, you know, I'm still a commie Jew, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, like, yeah.
Guest:No, I went to Nicaragua in the 1980s, man, when the revolution was happening.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah, and that doesn't mean, I mean, kind of hot shit.
Guest:Did you play?
Guest:I think I had my trumpet with me.
Marc:I think I was practicing.
Guest:Ortega's house band down there?
Guest:Yeah, well, he's gone, I don't know what, he's gotten weird too, man.
Guest:Yeah, the power's gone to his head.
Marc:Sure, man.
Marc:I mean, everybody sells out.
Guest:I guess so.
Guest:It's enough to make you cynical sometimes, right?
Guest:Very.
Guest:I'm not completely cynical, man.
Guest:I mean, music keeps you a little less cynical.
Guest:It keeps you less.
Guest:There's still hope, man.
Guest:So how many records you got out now?
Guest:Of my own, I have four.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and then I've been a side man on quite a few records.
Marc:And yours are all on iTunes.
Marc:It's either Elliot Kane or the Elliot Kane, what, Quintet?
Guest:Quintet or Sextet, whatever.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And in the 90s, because I was playing with a few very popular bands, I played, I'm on one record of Beck.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Guest:And I'm on one record of, who else?
Guest:There's a band called Filter, actually.
Marc:Yeah, I remember Filter.
Guest:And that record went platinum, and so I got a platinum record at home, man.
Marc:Did you get a little platinum residuals?
Guest:I do get residuals every so often.
Guest:Yeah, not enough to quit the day gig yet.
Marc:Right, yeah, man.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So you're open to session work?
Guest:I'm open to session work.
Marc:You got a rep?
Guest:No, it's me, myself, and I, man.
Guest:You want to be my rep?
Marc:So they got to go to the website.
Marc:You need some trumpet on your record.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Check in with Dr. Elliot Kane on York Boulevard, Highland Park.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:For all you listeners out there, get me a gig, man.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:It's the optometrist joint with the jazz records in the window.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:I have a Lenny Bruce album in the window, too.
Marc:Did you ever see him?
Guest:No, I'm a little too young for that.
Guest:But I don't know if I ever told you.
Guest:I hung out with his mom.
Marc:Yeah, Sally.
Marc:Sally Marr, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and that was through a patient.
Guest:I used to work in the Crenshaw area for a couple years.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I had a patient, a middle-aged African-American woman.
Guest:It was something different about her, obviously.
Guest:And sure enough, she's an actress and a comedian.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Her name was Esther Sutherland.
Uh-huh.
Guest:And she was from the East Coast, and she had told me during the course of conversation she knew Billie Holiday and that she knew Lenny Bruce.
Guest:And I said, well, those are two of my heroes.
Guest:And she says, well, I'm having lunch with Lenny's mom this Saturday.
Guest:Would you like to join us?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:She was a pip, right, Sally?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She was really, she reminded me a bit of my grandmother, except my grandmother never used the word motherfucker.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But she did give me a- Only in Yiddish.
Guest:Only in Yiddish.
Guest:Chaleria.
Guest:Chaleria in Yiddish, right?
Guest:But she gave me a booklet that Lenny had printed and subsequently tried to have destroyed because of his drug and obscenity trials, but his daughter was- Kitty.
Guest:Republishing, yeah.
Guest:So she gave me, it's called Stamp Help Out.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You ever seen it?
Guest:Uh-uh.
Guest:Oh, I got to show it to you.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I got some record that he put out, you know, to get money for the drug trials.
Marc:Like, it's a little 10-inch.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:That was a small press.
Marc:I can't remember who gave it to me or where I got it.
Marc:I know Richard Lewis has got a couple, and Kitty had one.
Marc:Maybe Kitty...
Marc:because I did something for her with the shirts.
Marc:Maybe she gave it to me.
Marc:I can't remember.
Marc:It's cool, though.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, he was a hero of mine.
Guest:I mean, when I discovered Lenny Bruce, it was the book called The Essential Lenny Bruce.
Marc:Oh, yeah, that's all the bits.
Guest:Yeah, and I didn't know who... I was a sophomore in college, and this girl I know lent it to me.
Guest:And at the time, I was pretty...
Marc:shy withdrawn underconfident person and i read that this was like it was i found jesus i found god the bible yeah it's like oh my god this is he's saying all the things that were inside of my yeah man i found a first edition hardback cover of that in a bookstore used bookstore in phoenix arizona and it had a bookmark in it that was a campfire girls bookmark oh wonderful i thought this is perfect
Marc:Well, it was great talking to you.
Guest:Oh, thank you.
Guest:Thank you for having me.
Marc:And you got that monthly gig at the York.
Marc:Your albums are available on iTunes.
Marc:And if you need your eyes checked and you're in the L.A.
Marc:area, Dr. Elliot Kane.
Marc:Thanks, brother.
Marc:Thank you very much.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:Keep the dream alive.
Marc:You can go to ElliotKane.com for all this stuff and hang out for a minute, folks.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Look, as I mentioned, yeah, it happened.
Marc:Monday is Albert Brooks Day here on WTF.
Marc:And right after I got home from the hotel where we talked, I jumped on the mics with Brendan to debrief.
Marc:But I asked him, are there any regrets around any of the movies?
Marc:And the only story he has, really...
Marc:is about the in-laws, and it's very specific.
Marc:Oh, that remake?
Marc:Right, but he did not have a problem with doing the movie.
Marc:It was why it got called the in-laws, because it wasn't called that originally.
Marc:Oh, and and and it's a sort of a kind of convoluted kind of, you know, fight on his part.
Marc:You know, even though it was a remake, basically, but they weren't calling it the in-laws.
Marc:And and Albert was very upset that they decided ultimately to call it the in-laws.
Marc:And you can listen to that story.
Marc:You can hear the rest of that bonus episode with a full Marin subscription.
Marc:Just go to the link in the episode description to sign up or go to WTFpod.com and click on WTF Plus.
Marc:All right, there we go.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:Use whatever means, use whatever options, use whatever methods you have at your disposal to maintain your sanity during this holiday without hurting yourself or others.
Marc:You know, keep it together, people.
Marc:If it sounds weird, I'm in a hotel room.
Marc:You knew that.
Marc:All right, I'll talk to you Monday.
Marc:Here's some guitar from the archives.
Thank you.
Marc:Boomer lives.
Marc:Monkey and La Fonda.
Marc:Cat angels everywhere.
Marc:Happy Thanksgiving.
Marc:Can you do it?