tag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:/blogs/tom-sez?p=11Tom Sez...2020-09-29T12:25:45-07:00Tom Hensleyfalsetag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/64454172020-09-29T12:25:45-07:002022-06-01T12:13:56-07:00The Celebrated Hensleys<p><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="vimeo" data-video-id="462915880" data-video-thumb-url="https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/965949175_295x166.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/462915880" frameborder="0" height="180" width="320"></iframe>Today, September 29 happens to be my birthday. The way I remember that is that the same date is also our wedding anniversary. Let me tell you about that.</p>
<p>58 years ago today, I married, I got hitched to, I plighted my troth with, entered into a lifetime contract with, joined up with, made myself one with, betrothed, became a marital partner with, and espoused, and hooked up in holy matrimony with a beautiful woman with red hair whom I was lucky to discover in the wilds of Indiana. </p>
<p>She was busy. In college, she had appeared in operas at the Indiana University Opera Theater (including, notably. as a pregnant flower maiden in Wagner’s Parsifal). Then, the summer before our marriage, she appeared in musical theatre around the eastern US, appearing in Rosalinda with Kathryn Grayson, Steve Lawrence in Pal Joey, and Giselle MacKenzie in Gypsy. After we married, she recorded vocals on radio jingles for me. </p>
<p>Then we moved to California, and she quickly found work singing with the Los Angeles Camerata, including doing a notable direct-to-disk recording of the choral movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. She sang with a chorus of New York session singers, joining us in our performance for Liberty Weekend, marking the grand reopening of the Statue of Liberty in 1986. </p>
<p>She also found time to give birth to our two children and was the most important component of our wacky life together in Hollywood. </p>
<p>We made a big fuss in 2012, when we celebrated our 50th aniversary, with a backyard full of friends being serenaded by a mariachi band, and have continued to celebrate in the eight years since then. </p>
<p>In 1982, when we were still getting acquainted, and had only been married twenty years, a good friend named Joshua Freilich persuaded his good friend, Phil Hartman, to help us celebrate by putting together the attached video, which tells the story of our marriage more entertainingly, if less accurately, than we could tell it ourselves. It has not been seen in years, until now, so I’m sharing it with you to honor Phil Hartman. who really should be with us today, but is not. RIP, Phil.</p>
<p>No gifts are required. We've got too much stuff already.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/64354432020-09-16T16:19:29-07:002022-05-28T14:48:22-07:00I Am Not Woman, but let me tell ya...<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/714b38997b93f2a37ebaabac0ffa85ebc7101370/original/memories-1-177.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" /><em>The photo at left was taken at someone's office somewhere in Amsterdam, sometime back in the last century. But what I do know is that it's Helen Reddy,, Sarah and myself. looking out the window at something.</em></p>
<p>There’s an app on my iPhone called Citizen. I’m not sure how it got there, but I must have signed up for it in a moment of delirium. Every so often it makes an ominous sound, announcing something it thinks I should be aware of—shots fired somewhere nearby, someone spotted with a weapon, an auto accident with injuries, usually on Magnolia Boulevard, or some other potential intrusion on our calm Valley life. For a while, we had a run of people wielding machetes. The other day, there was a woman brandishing a knife in someone’s pool. </p>
<p>One Saturday morning, there was someone at Popeye’s who was “menacing people with a guitar.” (“I’ve got a raised 9th chord here, and I’m ready to use it!”). </p>
<p>Recently, Citizen has developed a strange new habit: it’s been reporting suspicious activity that occurs near Jeff Wald: “iPhone stolen ½ mile from Jeff Wald’s house, shots fired 1 mile from Jeff Wald’s house,” etc. </p>
<p>Full disclosure: I used to work for Jeff Wald 40-some years ago, but we haven’t really communicated, aside from than an occasional phone call, in a very long time. As the Wald incidents continued to pile up on my Citizen app, so did my curiosity. A few days ago, after another report of suspicious activity near Jeff Wald’s house, I picked up the phone and called Jeff Wald, who answered by saying, “What is with all this Citizen stuff?” Apparently he’d been getting those alerts too, except they were described by their proximity to our house. Jeff was just as baffled by them as I was. </p>
<p>Perhaps Citizen was just trying to get Jeff and I to touch base, because that’s what happened. We certainly had a topic to discuss: the Helen Reddy biopic was just hitting the streaming services. and we were two people who knew more about the subject than most. </p>
<p>In the very early 1970s I was newly arrived in LA and was happy to be offered a job as pianist with Helen, who was also new in town and seeking to break her first single, “I Don’t Know How to Love Him.” </p>
<p>I went to Helen and Jeff’s house, a medium-sized bungalow on Woodrow Wilson Drive, just off of Mulholland, and ran through some of her material. After a while, Helen made me a peanut butter sandwich. The material was good, the sandwich was great. </p>
<p>Side note: a couple of years ago I was asked to contribute a paragraph for a plaque honoring Helen at the London Palladium, where I recorded a live album with her in 1998. I wrote that I would always be grateful to Helen for introducing me to the joys of Laura Scudder crunchy peanut butter, which has been served here at Hensley Farms ever since that first rehearsal. </p>
<p>So I took the gig, which usually consisted of hopping a plane from LAX to in North Carolina or Utah or somewhere similar, where the three of us would rent a car and drive to the gig. After some months of this, I put together a band, and persuaded some of my friends to go out with us: drummer Mike Berkowitz, bassist Jack Conrad, and guitarist Mike Warren at first. Sometimes we had a sax player. First it was Ronnie Starr, later I remember the late Richie Kamuka on the gig. Larry Brown took over on drums when Mike had other work. In New York, we used Bill Takas, whom I remembered from Indiana, on bass. We weren’t exactly a band, but a pretty good collection of players. </p>
<p>Jeff was as portrayed in the film: volatile would be a good word. But he was remarkably transparent about the business side of what he was doing, which was trying to make Helen a big recording artist. I remember my favorite Jeff quote: “I can get a record played on every radio station, I can get her picture in every magazine, I can get the best reviews—but sooner or later someone, somewhere, has to actually buy a copy.” </p>
<p>We were doing “I Am Woman” from the very beginning. I produced a couple of recorded versions of it, as well as another song which I thought had more commercial potential, “Don’t You Mess With a Woman.” Shows how much I know about picking a hit. We recorded a lot of tracks in Dallas, because Jeff wanted Helen to do a gig at the Fairmont Hotel there, and he couldn’t afford to pay the band, so he covered it via Capitol’s recording budget. I think he blamed me for the record being so expensive, but it didn’t bother me, since I didn’t really consider myself a producer. Producers, the ugly secret is, have to deal with record companies, and no one wants to do <em>that</em>. </p>
<p>Jeff, I’ll be the first to say, was a great manager for Helen—except for the night he took a gig as a replacement for a band that had to cancel due to weather, and we ended up in Las Cruces, New Mexico, as the opening act for Ike and Tina Turner. When we walked on stage and I gazed at the faces of the audience, it was a lot like the “Springtime for Hitler” scene in “The Producers.” </p>
<p>I still have someplace my printed invitation to the after-party for Ike and the Family Jewels. I couldn’t attend, because we got the hell out of town at intermission. I wish I had been there to suggest that Helen and Tina do a duet of “No Way to Treat a Lady,” but this was before Helen had recorded that one, and it would have surely provoked Ike to kick someone's ass. </p>
<p>When I talked to Jeff the other night, I reminded him of my earlier description of the moment when I knew Helen would be successful was when he was able to persuade her to shave under her arms, so she could close the deal for her NBC TV show. He told me, “I’m going to use that in my book,” so when you see Jeff’s memoir, remember you read it here first. </p>
<p>One day, I remember being called to a meeting at Helen and Jeff’s new house, a much larger one on Outpost Drive, and Helen sent me upstairs to speak to Jeff in the bedroom. I walked in to see Jeff Wald sitting in the middle of a king-size bed, totally naked and screaming into a telephone. When he saw me walk in, he put his hand over the receiver, changed his face momentarily, and said: “It’s HELL running Capitol Records from your bed.” </p>
<p>And he was doing that. The entire promotion department lived in fear of Jeff, because he could get anyone fired if he felt they weren’t doing enough to sell Helen. He often told me of his battles with the then-president of Capitol, a fellow named Al Coury. </p>
<p>Many years later, Al Coury married a friend of ours, and we often saw them socially. The reward for me was getting to hear the same stories Jeff had told me, except from Al’s perspective. And they worked equally well each way. </p>
<p>When Helen became the star of the early version of the TV series “Midnight Special,” I was the bandleader, and when Wolfman Jack became the host, I stayed on for a while. </p>
<p>Eventually, Jeff and I had had one of those “You can’t fire me, I quit!” moments, and I moved on. My studio musician career had picked up speed by then, and “I Am Woman” had become an anthem by then, so everybody ended up reasonably happy. </p>
<p>When Jeff and I had our lengthy memoir chat after viewing the screening of “I Am Woman,” we spoke of their divorce and Helen’s more recent health problems, he said something to me that qualified as an ultimate mixture of funny and sad: “The great thing is that she doesn’t remember that she hated me.”</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/64272902020-09-07T13:17:38-07:002023-12-10T10:37:03-08:00Laborious Day<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/8de39c042bb58765712dec32c2fb4a599afec196/original/bop-girl.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" />Since today is Labor Day, I note that some here have shared stories about their first job. So this is the story of my first job in Los Angeles. </p>
<p>I had been doing what I could to meet musicians, sitting in at jam sessions at parties, subbing for double-booked piano players, and making phone calls to every artist who’d ever appeared at the Embers in Indianapolis. (The only such artist who responded was the late Stanley Myron Handelman, who invited us over and hired me to play at the recording session for his album “Spiro Agnew is a Riot.” But I, as usual, digress.)</p>
<p>But then I met Mary Keye, a legendary singer-guitarist. She was working at a small club in Sherman Oaks called the Ruddy Duck, and she needed an organist to play Hammond B-3 with her and her drummer named Joanie, to be the latest edition of the Mary Kaye Trio, an act which was huge in the earliest days of Las Vegas. </p>
<p>“Can you play the bass part on the foot pedals?” Mary asked. “Sure,” I lied. So I was hired. But there was one problem: Local 47, the Musicians Union in LA, did not allow new members to take steady gigs until they had been in town for six months (I invite correction on the correct data here), and so I couldn’t take the gig. </p>
<p>“That’s no problem,” said Mary Kaye (whose father was legendary Hawaiian star known as Johnny Ukelele), “Come on, let’s go down to the union.” </p>
<p>So I went with Mary to Local 47 ib Vine Street, where she introduced me to the powerful union secretary Max Herman, who was obviously her old friend. </p>
<p>He asked me the particulars of my career, and how long I’d been in LA, which was a month or two. “Well, that’s long enough,” said Max Herman. and I was issued a full-member status, and the following Monday began playing organ (with the bass notes coming from my left hand) at the Ruddy Duck at Fulton and Ventura, just walking distance from our first house, and our current one, too. That was fortunate back then, since we only had one car and my wife had Wednesday rehearsals with a choral group with which she had already picked up work.</p>
<p>In a 2003 interview for Vintage Guitar magazine, Mary Kaye (whose actual name was Malia Ka'aihue) claimed to be descended from Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani, through her father Johnny Kaʻaihue (Johnny Ukulele) whom she claimed was "pure Hawaiian" and stated, "he was the son of Prince Kuhio, Queen Liliuokalani's cousin." I don't know all the details, but I believed her.</p>
<p>The Mary Kaye Trio is credited with founding the Las Vegas "lounge" phenomenon at the Last Frontier in 1953, an all-night party atmosphere where stars and common folk rubbed elbows in a freewheeling environment. Mary’s career had calmed down by 1970. The Ruddy Duck was less freewheeling and not all-night, but there was still some occasional elbow-rubbing. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/bd953e91093035240d4c5dd0a11926ba3ee0f7e9/original/d0b58bd0dff33589cfa4df8336633.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_right border_" /></p>
<p>Mary was a good guitarist—in fact, Fender produced a Mary Kaye model Stratocaster for her—and had a lot of friends in the business. Performers came to the club, and sometimes would sit in for a tune of two. I remember singer Herb Jeffries doing Flamingo with us, and guitarist Mundell Lowe sat in now and then. </p>
<p>Mary Kaye died in 2007. Her son Jay Kaye was also a musician. In 1968, at the age of 15, he put out his first LP, Suddenly One Summer, which later became a cult psychedelic album. Wish I’d had a chance to meet him. </p>
<p>Thanks, Mary, and thanks Max Herman. I’ve been a union guy since I joined Local 3 in Indianapolis as a teen-ager, and I was happy to be one then, and I still am. A union member, not a teen-ager.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/63947472020-07-27T13:55:56-07:002021-07-19T09:29:35-07:00Wake Up Post<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/c81d1f66e50844cbfb306ae4c11333e1b790d4a9/original/mm-2017-3734-1600.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" />Thanks to Facebook, it was pointed out to me, very early this morning, that today is the birthday of singer Maureen McGovern. This news actually woke me up, because it made me remember a day 40 years ago, and the more I remembered about it, the more I needed to write it down. So I got up early to tell you this. </p>
<p>My wife and I were invited to a wedding in 1980. The groom was someone I worked with frequently in the studios, and I felt that we should attend, although it might be strange. </p>
<p>The wedding was at the groom’s home in Beverly Hills, a fancy joint with lots of square footage, and enough turf for a big party outside. Many attractive, well-dressed people folks attended, none of whom I knew, aside from the groom, who was understandably busy. </p>
<p>Okay, there was one person I sort of knew: the then-lieutenant governor of California, a not-especially-popular music business person named Mike Curb. I knew his name because it was on a list of people I had been cautioned to avoid when I arrived in California. Still, he seemed harmless enough in this setting, aside from his security contingent, a bevy of young, stern-looking young men with discernible anxiety. And no financial dealings would be involved, so it looked safe. </p>
<p>By 1980, I knew quite a few people in the Hollywood scene, but none seemed to be in evidence on this particular afternoon. My wife, who was more accustomed to attending events where she knew no one, just enjoyed the scene. I, meanwhile, walked around seeking a familiar face. </p>
<p>And finally, I found one. </p>
<p>Maureen McGovern was a singer whose big hit, “The Morning After,” came out in 1972. I had done a album with her a few years later, and it produced a minor hit called “Can You Read My Mind,” which was featured in one of the Superman Movies. We had a good rapport in the studio, and I was happy to see her. </p>
<p>She remembered me, in the way most singers remember piano players, so we re-bonded that day, in the way one does when one doesn’t really know anyone else in the room. We spent most of the afternoon chatting, talking about mutual friends who weren’t there, and sampling the ample foodstuffs provided. We probably had the deepest conversation of anyone in attendance, except for the security guys, who were speaking intently into their cufflinks. </p>
<p>The afternoon ramped down until we exchanged goodbyes and headed for home. That was the last time Maureen and I spoke, and I’m sorry to admit I hadn’t really thought of her much until this morning, when I learned it was her birthday. </p>
<p>I checked online and determined that her career had continued quite nicely: and I’ve managed to keep myself fairly busy as well. That’s how this town works, after all. Oh, and the marriage we were attending (many had suspected the groom might be gay) produced four children, so he was a successful producer in more ways than one. </p>
<p>I admit it's a skimpy story, so let me jist conclude by saying, here and now, happy birthday, Maureen. We must get together sometime. Anybody we don’t know planning a wedding anytime soon?</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/63790472020-07-07T15:29:24-07:002021-04-27T15:37:48-07:00Ringo's and Wendell's Birthdays<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/c11a3b95956cf4f0d1f6593e1c80c106bfb8443d/original/ringocover.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" />Today is the day that our cousin Wendell turns 10 and Ringo Starr turns 80. We figured Ringo already has plenty of drums, so we thought of buying a drum set for Wendell, but we didn't know what size to get her. And her parents would never forgive us.</p>
<p>Oh, and thank you, Ringo, for being a few months older than me. I remember walking into Sunset Sound for a recording session back in 1973, not knowing who the artist was to be; and seeing a trap kit with plain old stenciled letters on it that clearly read: </p>
<p>RINGO STARR </p>
<p>THE BEATLES </p>
<p>…and thinking, Ohh, that’s kind of a big deal.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/63779482020-07-07T14:43:40-07:002020-09-04T03:36:38-07:00Cigarmania II<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/c31852c10e045a624c69ae54b636e0e786ea330a/original/memories-1-163.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" />In my other blog, the Diamondville Chronicles, I recently told the story of our band’s pre-turn of the century love affair with cigars. </p>
<p>But this is my other blog, the one in which I spill the beans on non-tour-related events, so I now want to tell you the REST of the story, about when we came back from our first Australian tour, way back in 1976. </p>
<p>While we were down under, we learned that we could buy Cuban cigars there. That was a big deal at the time, since they were embargoed from our country, and could only be brought home by sneaking them through customs, a hazardous and quite illegal task. </p>
<p>I would never have done that sort of thing, because I’m not fond of danger. Actually, I suffer from PTSD, except in my case it’s PRE-traumatic stress disorder—I suffer from flashbacks of things that might happen eventually. </p>
<p>When I got home, I hit the ground running—I had booked several days of recording sessions at A&M Studio A, on an album being produced by the great Chris Bond, a favorite producer of mine. The act was the not-yet-famous but promising duo of Daryl Hall and John Oates. </p>
<p>I got more dressed up than was typical for a session day. Maybe it was because before I left for Australia, I’d done a bunch of work with Ben Benay, and Ben always was rather snappy dresser—at least, he wore a corduroy sport coat whenever he was in the studio. </p>
<p>So I put on a coat I’d worn in Australia, a cool-looking number. There were great players on the dates, Scotty Edwards or Lee Sklar on bass, Ed Greene on drums…and Chris Bond, who had played guitar in their band, guided Daryl and John to some of their best work. </p>
<p>When I sat down at the piano, I put my hand in my jacket’s side pocket and discovered—OMG—there were two cigars in the pocket. Not just mere cigars, mind you, but two Romeo Y Julietas, two fine Cuban fancies. I had completely forgotten they were there when I'd packed. If I'd known, I would have been panicked going through customs.</p>
<p>We worked a while on the first couple of tunes, which didn’t have a lot for the piano to do, and my mind had time to drift back to my pocket. When it came time for our first break, I was ready. While we were recording, I had noticed that Daryl Hall was off smoking a cigar someplace adjacent to the control room. I caught Daryl's eye, pulled out the two Cubans, held them in my hand, and said “Interested?” </p>
<p>Daryl apparently knew a good cigar when he saw one, and motioned me into a separate empty studio, where we sat and smoked, with just a bit of chat. As we were finishing, he said, “You know, this next tune could use a little piano on it, maybe on the bridge. You want to try it?” </p>
<p>Sure, I said, and we went back in to work on the next song, a peppy number with the title “Rich Girl.” On the chorus, I stuck in a couple of aggressive chords, which went over pretty well. Later, I realized how unlikely that whole scenario had been. If I had somehow set out to sneak Cuban contraband through customs to have them available a couple of days later, in order to stir up work for myself, that would have seemed really stupid. </p>
<p>Rich Girl turned out to be a major hit record, and has been a long-lasting one. In those days, whenever you played on a hit, other people called you for sessions, believing that you had something to do with the last hit, and it kind of worked that way for me. One of my favorite studio pianists, Larry Knechtel, once told that for years every producer he worked for wanted him to do something like the intro for "Bridge Over Troubled Water," even if they were recording a polka.</p>
<p>That, by the way, was the only time I ever recorded with Hall and Oates. There was a nasty shakeup in their management, and Chris Bond was out and other, less sympathetic music biz types took over the controls. Lucky for me, since I couldn't afford Cuban cigars for a lot of sessions.</p>
<p>I thought Chris Bond was a certified genius—his rhythm track charts were very sweet and complete—I mean, he was notating very specific drum parts, and nobody did that. My own charts in those days were very NON specific. I remember writing out a page that had a clef sign at the top and the indication: “Guitars play something great.” </p>
<p>I recently got a new use union check for “Rich Girl,” which was apparently sampled as part of the basic track for a successful hip hop recording. I don’t know its name, but that turn of events made me feel sort of <em>au courant</em> and of the moment, even if that moment took place 44 years ago.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/63760622020-07-04T13:31:15-07:002022-05-28T14:49:10-07:00RIP The Great KAPUSTIN!<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/3a529bd3b8d3f7ec19412b79edbfcdd4e8d3ffac/original/nikolai-kapustin.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" />Another tragic loss for the world: The absolutely supreme Russian composer and pianist Nikolai Kapustin passed away on July 2. You probably aren't familiar with him, but if you enjoy hanging around the intersection of jazz and classical music, you will be incredibly enriched by becoming aware of his work. Let me help:</p>
<p>He's well-represented on YouTube, and I suggest you begin with this, the <a contents="score and recording of his&nbsp;Eight Concert Etudes, Op. 40" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrpjWM8JT7k" target="_blank">score and recording of his Eight Concert Etudes, Op. 40</a>.</p>
<p>Even those who know of Kapustin may have never seen him playing his works. Here's a <a contents="video of him playing his&nbsp;Impromptu, op. 66, no. 2." data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn9fTO7zp5Q" target="_blank">video of him playing his Impromptu, op. 66, no. 2</a></p>
<p>And here's something I almost never would say: I strongly suggest you read the comments that accompany the pages containing these videos. It will help you understand the reverence he is held in by so many of us humble piano pickers. His work is that important!</p>
<p>Here's one more, from 1964. He's video of him playing with the <a contents="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyepVRxrk9M" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyepVRxrk9M" target="_blank">Oleg Lundstrom Big Band - Toccata Op. 8</a>. Coolest thing I've seen in a very long time.</p>
<p>RIP Nikolai K.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/63693452020-06-28T12:50:43-07:002021-06-25T23:45:40-07:00Fight On, Fight Off<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/327d2c2dd0b978bd7c53bdf438d2dbf57c41f3c7/original/uschool.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" />We attended our cousin’s high school graduation in Texas the other night—virtually, of course. It was quite a sight as her class of 623, all masked and socially distant, paraded through a football stadium and were issued their diplomas in a ceremony that went on all evening. I suggested to her parents that it might have been quicker to just give a souvenir to everyone who wasn’t graduating, but that was just me being a troublemaker. </p>
<p>Our cousin was the class’s salutatorian and gave an inspiring speech to her 622 classmates. We were home watching it all on TV, so she didn’t have to worry about me embarrassing her on her big night. It’s enough that she has to endure the dual burden of being both brilliant and beautiful. </p>
<p> My own graduating class had 90 members back in 1958. It was described as an “experimental school,” which helps explain how I somehow got a diploma despite never having passed algebra, geometry, chemistry or anything else else considered useful then or now. But that’s another story. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, in Texas, hey closed the ceremony with a climactic playing of the school’s new fight song. For many years it had been “Dixie,” a song with a troubled portfolio, and the school’s students and faculty had the good sense to get rid of it and commission a new fight song without the baggage. The performance of the new song triggered a response in me, but not the one you might expect. </p>
<p>I graduated from University High School in Bloomington, Indiana. Our fight song used the melody of the Ohio State song, a place that certainly knows something about fighting. For the Univees, the lyric became: <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/15412e1c42deac8a7b675d6f6b05c5fa8668590b/original/memories-1-149.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Okay, cool, I still remember it, but… </p>
<p>Following the class of 1972’s graduation, there was no more University High School. It was deleted, terminated, obliterated. It’s passed on! It is no more! </p>
<p>It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet its maker! It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace, pushing up the daisies! Its metabolic processes are cancelled. It's shuffled off its mortal coil It’s an EX-SCHOOL. It's moved to the other side of town, and its name changed to Bloomington High School North, which just further underscores the fact that it has legally ceased to exist. </p>
<p>So obviously I had to rewrite the lyrics, beginning with the first line: “University, let’s win that old ball game tonight…” </p>
<p>Of course there will be no ball game tonight, or any other night for that matter, since U-School had evolved to a plane of non-existence and joined the bleeding choir invisible. </p>
<p>“We’ll cheer you on to victory and make them fear the red and white…” </p>
<p>Putting aside the moral dilemma of whether it is an entirely appropriate goal to seek to instill fear in the general public of two innocent ordinary colors, it was felt that in any case, there was little likelihood of achieving such a goal. </p>
<p>“UHS, we know you can win…” </p>
<p>Well, we know nothing of the sort anymore, do we? </p>
<p>And we didn’t then, either. If the lyric had read “UHS, we know you might at least look good and perhaps surpass expectations,” it might have been a more accurate statement. </p>
<p>“And we’ll back those Univee men…” </p>
<p>Clearly, a relic from a different and clearly sexist era. </p>
<p>So a decision was made to rewrite the lyrics in toto. However, Toto happened to be on tour in Japan at the time, and therefore unavailable, so the task was handed to a nameless, blameless and shameless alumnus from the class of 1958, commonly know as, well, me. </p>
<p>The lyrics were problematic enough, but the music also had to be rethought. If not, I might expect receive a letter from a legal firm representing a nearby Big Ten school, albeit a mediocre one, asserting: </p>
<p>“This musical material has been found to be substantially plagiarized from the well-known song generally known and associated with The Ohio State University. Any further attempts to denigrate and besmirch this composition by associating it with a secondary school, and a non-existent one at that, will result in swift and brutal litigation.” </p>
<p>Eventually, after more work than I ever did while in high school, I was able to fashion a brand new, unassailable fight song for NOW—up-to-date, yet nostalgic; a song with a great sense of joie de merde, with an infectious ailment that all could share. </p>
<p>Here are the words of my fight song: </p>
<p><em>ALMA MATER MORTIS </em></p>
<p><em>University, you no longer need to win that old ball game. </em></p>
<p><em>We no longer fight for the red and white, 'cause tonight it’s not the same. </em></p>
<p><em>There is no more Jordannus, the jazz club is defunct. </em></p>
<p><em>The faculty can’t remember whom they passed and who they flunked. </em></p>
<p><em>The building may be standing down where Jordan crosses Third, </em></p>
<p><em>but there are no pants up the flagpole, </em></p>
<p><em>and “eat a big one”’s never heard. </em></p>
<p><em>chorus: </em></p>
<p><em>The Univee is history, we’re stiffer than geology, </em></p>
<p><em>but alma mater mortis, you will always be “U” to me. </em></p>
<p><em>They have emptied out all our lockers now and cleaned up all our messes. </em></p>
<p><em>The rec room’s lost its rectum, the Quad has stopped the presses. </em></p>
<p><em>The study hall is finally silent, but no books are being read. </em></p>
<p><em>There’s no interest in the principal and driver’s ed is dead. </em></p>
<p><em>The cafeteria’s empty and the Chatterbox is gone, </em></p>
<p><em>so a lot of salmonella must go somewhere else to spawn. </em></p>
<p><em>The Univee is history, we’re flatter than geography, </em></p>
<p><em>but alma mater mortis, you will always be “U” to me. </em></p>
<p><em>The Univee is history, we’re guinea pig biology, </em></p>
<p><em>but alma mater mortis, you will always be “U” to me, see? </em></p>
<p><em>Alma mater mortis, you will always be “U” to me. </em></p>
<p>I recorded a version of it, performed by the “All Univee Alumni Marching Band,” so-called because I played all the parts, and I officially remain an alumnus. If you feel courageous, feel free to sing along with the track below…</p>
<p>But you can disregard those other options at the bottom. That's just junk my web provider insists on adding for its own reasons. I haven't figured out how to make them go away.</p>3:10Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/63614122020-06-21T11:10:42-07:002020-07-28T16:03:41-07:00Happy Ralph's Day<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/98deda67a032ac9b86f3f3b3d15393f1a054e017/original/memories-1-139.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsInNtYWxsIl1d.jpg" class="size_s justify_left border_" />My father was the kind of fellow who would drive around Bloomington, Indiana on a hot summer day with his windows rolled up, so that people would think his car was air conditioned. </p>
<p>My father loved playing poker and drinking with his friends (the only one whose name I remember was Junebug Clark) at the Elks Club, and he planned to give us an Elks membership as a wedding gift until I talked him out of it. </p>
<p>My father was also a racist. I know that because he once said to me, “I’m not a racist.” That was the opening salvo in what has become the traditional racist conversation.</p>
<p>He began by saying “I hope you never do THAT again.” I knew what THAT mean—he was upset because I had just used the family living room for the very first rehearsal of my very first trio before our very first gig, and...</p>
<p>My bassist, Louis Bridgewater, whom I was lucky to have convinced to play with us beginners, happened to be black. My father explained that he had nothing against “them” as long as they were shining his shoes or washing his car or mowing his lawn, or…well, you get the idea. </p>
<p>I tuned out as he continued, as was my habit then. He was from a racist time and a racist place, and I was just beginning to figure that out. </p>
<p>And yet… <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/dff9f93ce97e450be0d94ae1daf034be9d9c5db4/original/memories-1-140.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsInNtYWxsIl1d.jpg" class="size_s justify_right border_" /></p>
<p>A few years later, I made my first record, again with a trio, and it could be found of every juke box in town. If you were a student at Indiana University that year, you may have thought that “Gnaw Bone” was a giant hit, because, after all, it was on every juke box in town. </p>
<p>My father owned every juke box in town. I was just figuring out white privilege. </p>
<p>My father also took me to the funeral of Hoagy Carmichael’s mother, and introduced me to Hoagy, who was his high school friend. I shook Hoagy’s hand. I haven't washed it since. Oh wait, I have.</p>
<p>I won’t judge my father by today’s value system, because it’s all hopefully different now. That was then and this is now, and many eighth notes have rolled out in the intervening years.</p>
<p>But I do wish he was around now, so I could say to him, “Guess what, dad—I’ve been doing THAT for the rest of my life."</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/63193512020-05-16T14:41:39-07:002022-02-12T05:38:19-08:00Still Best in Show<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/ed6161e618764920e24574d079445b27771203dc/original/memories-1-88.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" />We were wrapping up our regular Saturday morning breakfast Zoom meeting (“Marie Callendar’s in Exile”) today when the news about Fred Willard’s passing came through. </p>
<p>I’ve had complaints about the number of dead people who’ve appeared in my blogs lately, so I’m trying to focus on the live ones I know, but I gotta put that on hold, because Fred was special. </p>
<p>I thought back to January 30, 1975, when we put together an all-star concert at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre. The lineup included the band I was producing, the Roto Rooter Good Time Christmas Band, my old college pal The Trumpeting Fool, Doctor Demento, and the Ace Trucking Company (pictured). </p>
<p>I don’t remember how we able to snag the Ace Trucking Company. It was early in their career, but they were already great, especially Fred Willard. The show, of course, was a financial disaster, for a number of reasons that have long since passed their statute of limitations. But I claim it was a creative blockbuster, and no one is going to tell me different. </p>
<p>I reminded Fred about that performance when I saw him at an event at the Gene Autry Museum a while ago. He didn’t remember the event as fondly as I did—it was clearly not a career highlight for him, but for others of us it had aged more pleasantly. </p>
<p>I last ran into Fred after a Hollywood Bowl show by Weird Al Yankovic in 2016, when we, along with Fred and his wife Mary, were waiting to get on the after-show shuttle to the handicapped parking lot. We chatted during the ride, and I made sure not to mention the Wilshire Ebell evening, instead chatting happily about how much we’d enjoyed Weird Al’s show. Like Fred, Weird Al always delivered the goods. </p>
<p>Fred’s appearances in the Christopher Guest documentary films were always best in show, especially in Best in Show. More recently Jimmy Kimmel, whose judgment is dependable, hired Fred to do a lot of hilarious sketch appearances on his show, simultaneously classing up the Kimmel show and keeping Fred busy. </p>
<p>RIP Fred Willard, you were loved by many.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/63170022020-05-14T17:50:21-07:002020-05-15T20:07:49-07:00I'm Still Rooting for Them<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/efedc3cd027f6e206f25773561f684a36f43da01/original/the-roto-rooifp.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" />In the mid 1960s, my wife and I started a store in Brown County, Indiana. It was called the <strong>One of a Kind Shop</strong>, and our business plan was to buy cheap junk in second-hand stores, tote it home, fix it up a little bit, and sell it for much more money to antique collectors. </p>
<p>It was, for me, a time of many goofy business ventures. I started a movie theater, also in Brown County, called the <strong>Nashville Nickelodeon</strong>. It showed old-time silent movies, for which I played piano, giving me an item on my resume not generally shared by piano players in the 1960s. </p>
<p>At the same time, I started a tourist magazine called <strong>The Brown County Almanack</strong>. Last I heard, the Almanack was still being published, after it was picked up by the local weekly newspaper. </p>
<p>In my spare time, I wrote jingles, and at night I had the house band in a night club in Indianapolis. More stories for later.</p>
<p>This didn’t leave much time for sleep, especially when I started playing the Jim Gerard TV show in the mornings. So we moved to Indianapolis, and that’s yet another story, which I’ll mercifully skip for now. </p>
<p>At some point we figured things out and moved to Los Angeles. I’ll also skip the paragraphs describing that move for another time, how I started getting some work, and somehow bought a house. </p>
<p>I’ll pick up my account in the early 1970s when, as part of our quest to fill every cubic cubbyhole of that house with whimsically ironic effluvia, my wife and I started making the rounds of flea markets in the Los Angeles area. The most productive one was the frighteningly enormous <strong>Rose Bowl Swap Meet and Flea Market</strong>, where we dropped a lot of spare loot on egregious gewgaws from many eras. That is also where I first encountered the <strong>Roto Rooter Good Time Christmas Band</strong>, which is the story I’ve taken a very roundabout way to get to today. Here, halfway through this endless blog entry is, finally, how it happened: </p>
<p>As I rounded a corner near an exit from the Rose Bowl, the Rooters were just cranking up what they called the Buick LeSabre Dance. That peppy number was segued omtp their version of most of the score from "The Wizard of Oz." </p>
<p>I stood mesmerized for 45 minutes as they ran through a typically all-encompassing set—the most compelling blend of the virtuoso and the inept I had encountered since hearing Thelonious Monk on a rough night. When the RRGTCB finished playing, I uncharacteristically introduced myself as a big-shot Hollywood type who could get them a record deal. </p>
<p>This was nonsense, of course—but not totally fictional, as it turned out. I did get them a record deal, albeit one with Vanguard Records, a small New York label for whom I had done an album ("The Masters Of Deceit”—I’ve mentioned it before, but don't bother to look for it) in the 1960s. I was somehow still on speaking terms with Vanguard’s president, Maynard Solomon, and I was fully aware that he was a Beethoven scholar and wouldn't be able to resist any band that did the Fifth Symphony with choreography. </p>
<p>Eventually, the Vanguard album was recorded at the fully professional MRI studios in Hollywood, and the label even paid me a small stipend for my services as producer—although those funds promptly went to fund the bailing out of a band member who had been arrested on the eve of the first recording session. </p>
<p>The album was a critical success but a marketing flop. Vanguard was never known as a label which promoted its artists heavily, and sometimes it seemed that their publicity department was under a non-disclosure agreement. Potential album buyers assumed the Roto Rooter Good Time Christmas Band was either (a) a corporate performing unit of a drain-cleaning company, (b) yet another album of Christmas Carols or (c) something left behind by space aliens. Mostly true, but in any event, the mass market left it alone. </p>
<p>I did mention the album to an old friend and fellow Vanguard artist, <em>Peter Schickele</em> (AKA ”P.D.Q. Bach"), and he phoned Maynard Solomon to ask the label to ship him a copy. Solomon replied: "Sure. Would you like 500?" At that moment, we realized that Vanguard was not counting on Roto Rooter for boffo sales. </p>
<p>The album eventually made the gradual transition from New Release to featured album to Discount Item to Collector's Rarity, with mint-condition copies now selling for more money than the band members made from it. </p>
<p>A few years ago, the Lawrence Welk Organization counted its money (“A one and a two”) and found it had enough to buy Vanguard Records. When I heard about this, I called the Welk offices and inquired about the Roto Rooter album, whether it might be possible to reacquire it or something. I was told that no, there were no plans to reissue it on CD; and no, they weren't interested in allowing the band to reissue it either. "We don't do that," sniffed a Welkster. Perhaps Lawrence had issued an edict from the grave, condemning this band because he was still pissed off about Roto Rooter’s notable melding of genres between ”Bubbles In The Wine" with "21st Century Schizoid Man." <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/aaf4474b9dbc87c61c07bc92951b8e9dcfa17bf4/original/tomroto.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_l justify_right border_" /></p>
<p>For many years, the Vanguard album remained a vinyl-only rarity, meaning that digital listeners were deprived of the joy of hearing me walk around the studio (during "The Rite of Spring") swinging a long plastic tube into which I was chanting "<em>Roto Rooter Roto Rooter Roto Rooter</em>" to Stravinsky’s catchy melody. </p>
<p>The Roto Rooter Good Time Chrismas Band achieved the difficult feat of being simultaneously behind the times and ahead of its time. </p>
<p>The cover of the LP was quite stunning in its own stunned way, as you can see above, but at the right I’m also showing you a previously unseen alternate version of the cover, with an in-person appearance by the album’s producer, a then-young man who turned out to be, if can you believe it…me.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/63097312020-05-08T16:54:35-07:002021-12-07T14:17:25-08:00Cocktails for Too Many<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/74e756fdb1a896c0d7d4cfc57cb21e468bcd68cd/original/memories-1-81.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" />We celebrated Cinco de Mayo yesterday. I made frozen margaritas with mango and pineapple, Sarah made California nachos, and we listened to Linda Ronstadt’s albums, <em>Canciones de mi Padre</em> and <em>Mas Canciones</em>, playing on the Sonos. </p>
<p>We decided to make this our default celebration for this holiday in the future. </p>
<p>Thursday, we had to settle down a bit, so we listened to a lot of Maria Schneider’s music. She’s the greatest composer, orchestrator and bandleader around these days. </p>
<p>We’re enjoying dining at home, but after a while, you’d like to see an occasional new face across the table. </p>
<p>Somebody from one of my groups suggested a picnic—separate tables in a park somewhere. Maybe, but I foresee difficulties: parking, rest rooms…that’s just not going to happen. </p>
<p>Instead, I thought I would post a photo from a banquet in 2005, one with a lot of people honoring our old pal Jamey Aebersold in his home town of New Albany, Indiana. I’ve played in Albany and in New Albany. I can’t tell you which one is better, but New Albany is newer. </p>
<p>This all-star conversation is between David Baker, Pat Harbison, Dickie Washburn, and…why, that’s me! We’re all at table #9, if that’s important to anyone. The thought of nine tables just seems so extravagant now.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/63043662020-05-04T11:04:08-07:002020-05-05T11:17:03-07:00The Jim Gerard Show<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/2b0b7df6eb467aa596309d25db01c4294f1ade62/original/90.png/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.png" class="size_m justify_left border_" />Sorry to report the passing of an old friend, Jim Gerard, a radio and television personality from Indianapolis. </p>
<p>For five years, up until the time I moved to Los Angeles in 1970, I played piano on Jim’s daily TV show on channel six. We did the show before a live audience every day, with a nifty seven-piece band for which I wrote many of the charts. Along the way I developed a dangerous habit of speaking up when I felt the conversation needed a little boost and/or correction, and the station soon conceded by adding a microphone at the piano, so I could spout off when necessary. It seemed to be necessary pretty often. Jim always worried about what I might say next, and you can sense a little of that in the clip I’ve posted here, particularly when I began talking about the drug company that was one of his sponsors, but it turned out all right for everybody. </p>
<p>At the same time we were doing the Jim Gerard Show, David Letterman was a rising local star, doing weather daily at the station on the other side of Meridian Street. A part of me still sometimes wonders if Dave ever looked at our show, and thought to himself, “Hmm, I’ve got to get me one of those wiseass piano players when I get my own show someday.” </p>
<p>Inevitably, I met Paul Shaffer. He came backstage before out show at Madison Square Garden some years later, but I had the good taste not to mention to him that I might have been responsible for his gig. </p>
<p>By the late 1960s shows like Jim’s were becoming pretty rare in secondary markets, and a year after I left Indiana, Jim’s show was off the air. </p>
<p>But Jim was a hardy survivor—he signed a deal with one of his sponsors to continue a scaled-down version of his show, with no band and no wise-ass piano player, on another station for many more years. </p>
<p>When we played in Indianapolis on tour in the 1980a, Jim invited me to be a guest on the later incarnation of his show, and I loved being asked to do that, and I promised myself I wouldn't be a wiseass. <a contents="That visit is the clip I’ve&nbsp;posted here" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://vimeo.com/414625392" target="_blank">That visit is the clip I’ve posted here</a>. As you can see, Jim wasn’t exactly a high-pressure interviewer, but he was such a doggoned nice guy that he was liked by everybody. Except, maybe, Mel Torme. But that’s another story.</p>
<p>RIP, Jim Gerard.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/63004572020-04-30T15:29:20-07:002021-05-24T01:04:43-07:00Put-on in Podunk<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/99a695fb8c87c8e26515afd2896151f3489c38ff/original/memories-1-75.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_left border_" />Fifty years ago, early in 1970, my “weird band,” the Masters of Deceit, performed in concert at Hanover College in Madison, Indiana. It didn’t go well. but it went well. </p>
<p>That is to say, we played quite well, I thought, and I have recordings to back that up, but we were enthusiastically disliked by much of the townsfolk. </p>
<p>They were probably expecting a trio playing what we used to call cocktail jazz, which would have been a reasonable expectation. What they got was something else: a group of artists intent on making a statement, kicking ass, and working hard to be <em>avant garde</em>. </p>
<p>There was a review in the Madison Courier the next day. There was an editorial on the front page of the Madison Courier the next day. Both were extremely critical, but, strangely, the editorial was a stroke of good luck for me. </p>
<p>The headline was “Put-on in Podunk,” and its focus was on our aggressive attitude about the nature of our art, and our perceived lack of respect for Madison’s traditions. But, luckily for me, they chose to express that by comparing me to, of all people, Andy Warhol. That was surely intended as an insult, but when I went to New York with that editorial in my pocket, we got some unexpected attention. Andy was a hot commodity at that time, and if I was compared to him, I must be good. Or something. In fact, we ended up signing with Vanguard Records, whose president, Maynard Solomon sensed impending greatness in us, just as he had with Beethoven. The Madison Courier was right about one thing: we didn’t sell many records, and a few months later I got out of town, leaving Indiana for Los Angeles. That move turned out well for me, and it turned out well for Indiana, which got along fine until it had the misfortune of electing Mike Pence as its governor, after which things got messy. But I couldn’t be blamed for that, because I had already made my getaway. </p>
<p>One more gift from the Madison Courier: a rare photo of the final incarnation of the Masters of Deceit, shown here. Left to right:</p>
<p><strong>Gary Potter</strong>, trombone—Gary has retired from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he had theories about teaching and was theaching about theory. </p>
<p><strong>Jamey Aebersold</strong>, saxophone—I’ve written about Jamey before. He is a certified NEA Jazz Master, and created an entire ecosystem of learning about jazz, </p>
<p><strong>Stan Gage</strong>, drums—Stan would have been a major jazz artist, had he not passed away in 1992. He had already worked with Jackie and Roy, and Mose Allison, Oh, and he was the subject of Sacha Feinstein’s poem <em>Sonnets for Stan Gage (1945–1992) </em>as well as the subject of Royce Campbell’s recording “Elegy to a Friend.” </p>
<p><strong>Dick Straub</strong>, bass—I lost track of Mr. Straub after me moved to LA. Recent sleuthing reveals that he had a lengthy career teaching bass in the Las Vegas area. Dick, if you see this, post a reply. </p>
<p>So that’s what we were doing half a century ago, and we got away with it. I even got away with the outfit I'm wearing in that photo.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/62836612020-04-15T17:16:35-07:002020-04-30T05:01:03-07:00RIP Lee<p><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="y6OuYbNxGrw" data-video-thumb-url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/y6OuYbNxGrw/mqdefault.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/y6OuYbNxGrw?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="180" width="320" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe>I was going to write about something else, but I learned of the passing today from pneumonia of the great alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, and with all that’s going on, I want to acknowledge him. </p>
<p>Look him up, listen to his playing. Maybe you won’t, but that’s what I’m doing right now. </p>
<p>I checked my archives and I found that on Sunday, February 4, 1968 I did a concert in Louisville with Lee and Kenny Dorham, another under-appreciated voice from the bebop era. </p>
<p>The gig was for the Louisville Jazz Society, and we played in a club located on the top floor of a downtown office building. </p>
<p>Lee had just gotten a brand-new pickup mic for his alto, so that he could play through an amp, and he was eager to try it out. Unfortunately, the downtown office building was apparently located quite near the transmitter of a Louisville radio station, so when Lee turned up his amp, it picked up the signal of the local FM station. The station was playing its evening set of Mantovani-style dinner music. We all began laughing, and I suggested we could record an album called Lee Konitz with Strings. </p>
<p>That was the only time I got to meet and play with Lee, but his name came up during our 2017 tour, when we played Louisville and I took a bunch of our band members to a winery in New Albany to hear Jamey Aebersold play and sit in a bit. </p>
<p>Jamey is legendary in jazz circles, so it was a great chance to visit, and I chatted afterward, and I asked after Lee, who had turned 90 by then. Jamey said that he had recently heard from Lee, who had developed an interest in learning to do scat singing. For the uninitiated, scat singing is that Lambert, Hendricks & Ross vocal style of attaching tricky words to difficult melodies. </p>
<p>I’m sure he was working hard at getting better until the end. RIP Lee Konitz.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/62802632020-04-12T10:08:28-07:002020-04-12T10:25:40-07:00Happy Easter!<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/2ab80bed41f89ac84043e1da1469e2a59a786116/original/screen-shot-2020-04-12-at-10-21-48-am.png/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.png" class="size_m justify_left border_" />There's a not-so-new new video posted, logically, on the <a contents="videos page at Hensley Farms" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://hensleyfarms.com/video" target="_blank">videos page at Hensley Farms</a>. It's called "Sing Joy," and the artist called Tony, Tom and Ludwig.</p>
<p>Tony, Tom and Ludwig is not, as you might have expected, a new boy band planning to storm the charts, if there are still actual charts to storm. </p>
<p>And they’re not boys. Au contraire, mes enfants. While Tony and Tom are relatively normal-age people by human standards, Ludwig is a very senior citizen. In fact, he will be turning 250 next December, raising the average age of the group considerably. </p>
<p>Wait, I’m lying. That's their publicity bio sheet. This is the truth: </p>
<p>It’s a holiday, and I thought it would be fun to share this artifact from the last century with you people who hang out at Hensley Farms. </p>
<p>Truth: while going through my archives during our quarantine, I came across the track, which dated from the early 1970s, when Tony Asher (with whom I was collaborating on some commercials for Mattel), asked if I could record a rather rockish track of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, which I apparently could. Tony then wrote far too many words and learned the well enough to perform a truly surprising vocal—aided by some of his friends, big-time backup singers in the LA studio scene. I’m not sure exactly who played or sang or just stood around when we recorded this, but I assume everybody who should have been paid was paid. Tony, in case you don’t know him, is a great lyricist and co-writer of songs you probably know, including one we recorded with Neil Diamond some years ago, which remains one of my favorites. </p>
<p>If you were part of this recording, just convince me and I’ll be relieved to share that information.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/62728422020-04-05T17:11:10-07:002020-04-06T14:28:16-07:00Solitary Men and Women<p>Okay, the worst president in our history has brought us to the worst point in our history. I got that, but I can't do anything about that. That's up to all of us. What I can do is play the piano, occasionally sing, and less occasionally write a song. I haven't really done much of that yet, but today we had a karaoke session with some friends, and I came up with a haunting torch song for the occasion. This is it:</p>
<p><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="vimeo" data-video-id="404425120" data-video-thumb-url="https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/874273647_295x166.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/404425120" frameborder="0" height="180" width="320"></iframe></p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/62516482020-03-16T18:22:45-07:002020-03-20T14:42:52-07:00The Diamondville Chronicles: Prologue<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/63c1c8ba076ac4c52c6bdd74e6580a4527db9267/original/memories-1-25.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" /></p>
<p>Here’s a photo of me, taken at the Broad Museum in downtown Los Angeles. I am shown exchanging greetings with a sculpture by artist Jeff Koons, one based on a publicity still from a 1923 Buster Keaton film called “Our Hospitality.” </p>
<p>The sculpture is part of what the artist called his “Banality Series,” which seems like a questionable call on his part, because Buster was far from banal. He was a comedy genius whose art is likely to endure far longer than that of Jeff Koons. But that’s for some other discussion. The reason I brought this up is because my the Diamondville Chronicles is about my most recent touring gig, but the truth is that my very first touring gig was one on which I accompanied Buster Keaton. (I usually disclose this fact in those very rare moments when I’m trying to make myself seem even older than I actually am. </p>
<p>Buster was one several stars featured in a state fair grandstand show which toured midwestern states in the early 1960s. Other stars included Rosemary Clooney, the Smothers Brothers, and a passel of vaudeville acts, including the flying Zacchini Family, who were shot out of a cannon to land on a trampoline; and Dockey’s Dogs, a team of dogs, specifically Boxers, who wore basketball uniforms and chased a meat-scented balloon on, around, and far beyond the stage. </p>
<p>Buster was doing slapstick, mostly wordless, including falls onstage, outdoors at night, despite the unavoidable fact that he seemed like the oldest person in the world to me at the time. Actually, he was younger than I am right now. </p>
<p>On a day off during that summer of shows, a number of us went to the movies. I’m not sure who all attended, but the film we saw was one of those compilations of silent films that were marketed with a title something like “The Golden Age of Comedy. I made it a point to get a seat rather near Buster, because I wanted to see how he would react when one of his early films would inevitably be shown. </p>
<p>Sure enough, I kept an eye on his when his work came on the screen. I wish I could remember which one it was, but it was a masterpiece, and watched closely to see if Buster would laugh at his own work. </p>
<p>He didn’t, but at one payoff moment, I saw him smile, as if to say “That one didn’t go too badly.” </p>
<p>I wish I had more Buster stories to share, but that was about it. </p>
<p>I was playing in the Tommy Dorsey band, which was by then led by trombonist Warren Covington, who told me that I would never make it in the music business unless I learned to shine up my shoes properly. I didn’t, so I guess I won’t. </p>
<p>I did a bit more touring after moving to Los Angeles in 1970, starting with Helen Reddy, at the very start of her career. An Australian film company made a biopic of Helen, and I could theoretically be a character in it, but won’t be. I toured with teen idol David Cassidy, and they’ll probably make a movie about him someday. I did some shows with Seals and Crofts, but I don’t think there will be a movie about them, but what do I know? The last miscellaneous gig I did before coming here was with Paul Anka. After going through four weeks in Las Vegas experiencing Mr. Anka, arriving in Diamondville seemed really sweet. I remember thinking, I may stick with this gig for a while. </p>
<p>And sure enough, despite Warren Covington’s prediction, I was able to hold a steady music job for forty years, despite my funky shoes and my complete inability to connect with the musical taste of the masses. One good reason for this outcome was my having hooked up in 1976 with a performer who was very much in tune with the taste of the public. </p>
<p>As further luck would have it, for the last 30 of those 40 years, I published a showday daily newsletter, slavishly if not seriously tracking the actions and behavior of our company during its travels. I wasn’t being paid for this effort, but I compulsively worked at it as if I was—plus I was being paid quite adequately for my musical responsibilities allthose years. </p>
<p>This resulted in my compiling a copious archive of tales from the tour, which I now am calling the Diamondville Chronicles. </p>
<p>This is the first excerpt from this journal, and there will be more to come, trust me. </p>
<p>My newsletter was called the Arch Angel Post-Bugle Intelligencer, or the PBI for short. The archives of that cheerful little effort provide the raw material for my Chronicles, and the cooked material as well. So check in here and have a snack straight out of our lives.</p>
<p> </p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/62319872020-02-28T18:34:39-08:002020-11-12T20:48:47-08:00Headed for the Present<p><span class="font_regular"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/3fbe1d28ba86a8f92b6cd1e70f8c5db9b71788bc/original/memories-1-36.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" /></span><span class="font_regular">I love technology almost as much as I hate technology. Even thought it wasn't really necessary, we kept up with all the latest tools of our touring trade. We were one of the first bands to use in-ear monitoring, doing away with the monitor speakers that have robbed so many veteran musicians of a portion of their hearing. (Thank you to our audio man Stan Miller, for making us digital before some of us knew what that meant, and saving our ears.) </span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">Alan Lindgren, Larry Brown and I made what was arguably the first album that was recorded direct from sequencers and samplers to CD, without an analog step in the middle. We were proud of that back then, but the way things have developed over the years, our pride is considerably diminished. That feeling is expressed in the version of "Headed for the Future" on the 2017 Jazz Time album. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">We used lasers before lasers were cool, and used them a lot less when not using them was even more cool—but thank you to Wacky Ed Auswacks for being our laser pointer. And we did a few projects with him during our off times. We actually won an award caled the THEA award, some kind of themed entertainment deal. We weren't too impressed about it, until I went a screening at the Disney studios in Burbank, and found that they had their THEA award displayed in a case withj a spotlight on it, so I may have to dig that object of the archives and display it someplace in the house.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">On another techno-front: The Diamondville web page was created in 1996, before most sane people used the internet, and before we could even spell HTML. You can still see that original site today, so If you're so inclined, use <a contents="this link" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://web.archive.org/web/19970111143410/http://www.diamondville.com/" target="_blank">this link</a>. But don't follow the links you'll on that creaky old page, because they're pretty antiquated these 24 years later. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">Oh, and the more recent Diamondville page is still up, although it's frozen in time beginning around 2011. It's at <a contents="Diamondville.com" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://diamondville.com/Diamondville/Diamondville.html" target="_blank">Diamondville.com</a>, right where you'd expect it. If you do visit that one, you'll find a proto-blog called Diamondville Doings, which you might want to click on, because some of it is still reasonably funny, at least if you're as perverse as I am.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">You may have noticed I've had this site shut down for a week or so--I was attempting to move it to a new platform, because I found the Bandzoogle setup to be restrictive and craved a more creator-friendly means of working, but it became too much work, frankly, for what is now more of a hobby for me. So I settled for spending a little more time trying to learn how to do this site the way Bandzoogle wants me to do it, rather than the way I want to do it. And it's not so bad, I guess.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">A couple of organizational things I should explain: the Tom Sez page, this one, is going to be about miscellaneous stuff that crosses my mind, while a second blog I added, The Diamondville Chronicles, is for tour-related stories, for a book I'm hoping to assemble about that particular part of my history. I'll probably get tied up trying to decide what goes where, but maybe, just maybe, it'll be a little more efficient to read. Hell, I don't know. I'm just headed for the future, even if I have to go to the past to find it.</span></p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/60963452020-01-13T13:24:54-08:002020-09-16T22:01:04-07:00Distant Drums<p>I never met Neil Peart. Never even heard him play, since we worked different sides of the street. But over the years I’ve lost so many friends who also happened to be excellent drummers that I might have some understanding of how his friends and co-workers feel. </p>
<p>I’d like to take this moment to remember some of the fine drummers who crossed my path along the way, and send a quick shout out to them, wherever they are: </p>
<p>•Jack Gilfoy </p>
<p>•Stan Gage </p>
<p>•John Von Ohlen </p>
<p>•Dennis St. John </p>
<p>•Carlos Vega </p>
<p>•John Guerin </p>
<p>•Jeff Porcaro </p>
<p>ªEarl Palmer </p>
<p>•Hal Blaine </p>
<p>•Willis Kirk </p>
<p>•Killer Ray Appleton </p>
<p>•Vince Charles </p>
<p>I hope I haven’t left anyone out who should have been included. I already feel a bit like Spinal Tap.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/60620242020-01-05T12:29:54-08:002020-09-19T02:08:56-07:00Diane's Keaton's birthday (and me)<p>Today is Diane Keaton’s birthday, so I’m wishing her a happy one, and I’ll tell you the story about Diane and me. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/28ce6e34405dd3abcaa7ba59a579704c9313b765/original/memories-1-4.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsInNtYWxsIl1d.jpg" class="size_s justify_left border_" />By 1974, I was pretty busy with studio work, which I enjoyed, so I turned down most other type gigs for a while. Then I received a call to work a week at the Ice House, a club in Pasadena, accompanying a singer named Diane Keaton. Artie Butler had played for her in New York, but wasn’t available for LA, so I somehow got the call. </p>
<p>I accepted enthusiastically. For one thing, I remembered a time when I had turned down playing for Bernadette Peters, because I thought they meant Roberta Peters, and feared the music would be too difficult and operatic for me. I didn’t want to make that mistake again. </p>
<p>Diane didn’t want to drive on the freeway, so she asked if she could come to our house through Coldwater Canyon and then ride with me to Pasadena. No problem, I said, and so on the first day she drove up to our little cul-de-sac home, which we later sold to Dorothy Lamour and her husband, but that’s another story altogether, so forget I metioned it. </p>
<p>In a case of life imitating art imitating life, Diane pulled up in front of the house and drove directly into a trash can, a scene identical to one which appeared a few years later in Annie Hall, causing my wife and I more laughter than most others in the theater. </p>
<p>We hopped into my car and headed for Pasadena. Diane was the opening act for Pat Paulsen, a comedian (and briefly a satirical presidential candidate), whose career was at its peak, meaning that the Ice House was packed with people who had come to see him. </p>
<p>Diane was doing a set of standard ballads, the kind I had played on dance jobs and in night clubs in Indiana for a many years, so it was easy and comfortable to play for her. She was not a belter, but a gentle performer of great songs, and that was just fine with me, and she was happy with my no-frills accompaniment. </p>
<p>Between sets, "our" dressing room was occupied by Paulsen’s people, and Diane was not anxious to hang around the club being asked what Woody Allen was really like. (Diane had done a couple of films with Woody by that point, but was not at her full movie-star fame level, so she was not the main attraction at the Ice House.) </p>
<p>She thought it would be a good idea to hop in my car and drive around Pasadena, so we did just that, and whenever we saw something interesting, I would pull over and she would hop out and snap some photos. </p>
<p>This became the routine each night of the week, a pleasant, friendly gig for both of us. My wife enjoyed Diane, too, and vice versa. When the week ended, we stayed in touch, and she left for Europe to film “Love and Death” with Woody. </p>
<p>Some time later, after she got back to LA, she came to the Troubador to hear <a contents="Tom Hensley’s Biggest and Best Band Ever Yet" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.facebook.com/Tom-Hensleys-Biggest-and-Best-Band-Ever-Yet-107540379356/" target="_blank">Tom Hensley’s Biggest and Best Band Ever Yet</a><a contents="Tom Hensley’s Biggest and Best Band Ever Yet " data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.facebook.com/Tom-Hensleys-Biggest-and-Best-Band-Ever-Yet-107540379356/"> </a>(see separate Facebook page about that silliness), and afterward we visited, and she told me, “Hensley, I always knew you were crazy, but now I know—you’re crazy!” </p>
<p>And that was it. I haven’t heard from her since. I hope she wasn’t offended by my big band’s deconstruction of music she loved, but I think it was more a case of her taking the full-time job of being a movie star and me becoming busy spending forty years on the road playing for Neil Diamond. I did try sending her a message through her agency, unsuccessfully. When her photography began to appear in museum exhibitions, I wondered if any of her work shot from my car was contained in her shows, but assumed that her Pasadena studies were not deemed relevant, and that our Ice House week had been long-forgotten. </p>
<p>Then last year, while rummaging through my archives, I found a very sweet and intelligent hand-written letter, several pages long, she had written us, describing life on the set in Europe. It made me wish we had stayed in touch, and that I could have sent her my PBI newsletters from the road, which I know she would have enjoyed. But forty years had gone by without a reply from me, and what kind of jerk does something like that? And I didn't actually hae a return address, since my letter had come from the set somewhere in Europe.</p>
<p>I also made note of the fact that my first touring gig, in 1963, was a summer of state fair shows where I played for Buster Keaton. Yes, that Buster Keaton. </p>
<p>For a while I wondered if I should seek out some rehearsal piano for Michael Keaton, in order to complete the legendary Keaton trifecta. But then I realized that Michael Keaton’s real name in Michael Douglas, and Diane Keaton’e real name is Diane Hall, and my real name is irrelevant, so I abandoned all thought about the trifecta, settling in its place for the memory of Dick Cavett’s caption for a photo of Aristotle Onassis considering purchasing the former residence of Buster Keaton: Aristotle contemplating the home of Buster. </p>
<p>So Diane, if you happen to come across this, give me a shout and we can catch up. And, by the way, did you ever take a picture of me? I had to use the computer to jimmy up the fake one of us above. You look great, me not so much.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/60466292019-12-26T16:17:55-08:002019-12-26T16:29:13-08:00Another Birthday Behind Bars<p>Phil Spector's birthday today is not a happy one, one might guess. I did a bunch of recording sessions for Phil back in the day, and mostly enjoyed a lot of things about them: the cast of characters who would turn up made the dates entertaining, the music was sometimes unexpectedly wonderful, and Phil was mostly nice to the musicians, except when he wasn't. </p>
<p>I've dined on stories about my Spector dates for years. I remember when we did an album with Leonard Cohen. We were at a studio in Glendale, and when we had a rare opportunity for a break, I stepped out the front door onto Glenoaks Avenue. Leonard Cohen was sitting on the curb, with heis feet in the gutter. I said to him a phrase which was always appropriate at a Spector date: "Are you all right?" Without looking up, he replied, "What in the world am I doing here?" I found myself asking that same question.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/b8ff31b97e347a18a2559e1e273104cf85156428/original/5786928-122519-kabc-phil-spector-mug-split-img.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" />I usually conclude by mentioning that I eventually told my wife that I wasn't going to accept any more of Phil's gigs, because the presence of guns worried me. I said: "There's going to be an ugly scene eventually, and I don't want to be around when it happens."</p>
<p>A few years later, there was, and I wasn't.</p>
<p>Looking at the photos that came on line today, I realized that, for Phil, the real punishment turned out to be not the years in prison, but having all those photos of him in the newspapaers without his favorite wig.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/60385582019-12-21T15:09:33-08:002022-04-04T17:31:30-07:00Happy Birthday, David B.<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/ad3906218ef3dbe0078978b386fbaf8f6ffd81c4/original/memories-1.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" />Today was David Baker’s birthday, and everyone who knew him is posting a picture of themselves in his company, so I’ll join the party. When he passed away, I posted this: </p>
<p>You can find plenty online describing his greatness, his kindness, his generosity, and how much he was liked and loved; but I’d like to add a few cents from my experience. </p>
<p>I met David when I was in high school, and was fortunate enough to hang around with a crop of other young would-be jazzers, many of whom were in the IU Music School. </p>
<p>At the time, jazz was forbidden there. I mean literally. This was long before the jazz program became a beacon of the school. We bebop punks would get together in groups of 4 or 5 or maybe 6, and jam in the practice rooms at East Hall, an old postwar quonset hut complex located where the IU opera theater now stands. </p>
<p>It was a big deal whenever one of the better players would be present, such as Larry Ridley or Joe Hunt or Al Kiger, but especially David Baker, whose trombone playing was already highly respected by many. These were important times, but the guy in charge of the practice rooms was unimpressed, and would regularly come around and shoo away any of us who were caught playing jazz, David included. He laughed, regarding it as sport. </p>
<p>Whenever we were kicked out we would, like a cluster of ants, quickly reassemble in another room some distance away in the building, where we would resume jamming until we were discovered again. </p>
<p>At some point, I decided to start my own group, and got a few like-minded horn players, bass and drums to sign on, although I was still in high school. But I didn’t have any charts for us to play. </p>
<p>I told David about my situation, and he said “I’ve got a seven-piece book. Why don’t you copy the charts in it and use that?” </p>
<p>Mind you, this was long before copy machines, digital cameras, or the other tools of today’s trade. I had to copy each part by hand, not an easy task, but eventually I got it done. </p>
<p>We played our charts for dances and parties, and sometimes in small concerts at my high school. University High School was a quite progressive institution (to prove it, consider this: I got a diploma!) Only once did we run afoul of a teacher, a gentleman who asked that we not announce the title of David’s composition, “Dog Fashion.” from the stage. I didn’t know why he objected to that title back then. </p>
<p>A couple of decades later, I was in LA and starting to get paid for writing charts, affording me the luxury of using a copyist. My copyist pointed out a few little peculiarities in my manuscript, which I realized were artifacts of having learned arranging mostly by painstakingly copying David Baker’s charts. </p>
<p>After David’s passing, when I read people who praised David’s generosity, the four horn library popped into my mind. </p>
<p>Another random memory: When I had the house band at the Embers in Indianapolis, musicians who came to town with the acts would inevitably ask about David. I remember driving Bassist Herb Mickman, who was working with pianist Peter Nero at the time, over to David’s house, so he could take a lesson while he was in town. </p>
<p>A few years ago, my wife and I were in Bloomington to visit relatives, and we made a nostalgia visit to the IU campus. We walked around the music school (Sarah was a graduate in Voice there) and we passed a room with David’s name on the door. I shyly knocked, and David opened the door wide. The room was quite large, and he was teaching a class at the time. </p>
<p>I started to apologize for disturbing him, but he pulled us inside, and introduced me to the class, as if I was a big deal. I think that moment was probably my coolest moment ever. </p>
<p>No matter how well you knew David, or how casually you knew him, he made you feel like a close friend, and that brand of genius is rare and blessed.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/59714522019-11-24T11:35:21-08:002021-10-28T15:26:56-07:00Take THAT, Ferrari<p>We made it to the screening of Ford V Ferrari the other night, and I’m happy to report that my minuscule contributions to the soundtrack music did not ruin the movie at all. Films nowadays are such a free-for-all battle for your attention between dialogue, sound effects and music, and, yes, picture—I’m always rooting for the music, naturally—that I am happy to testify that I heard the cues on which I had contributed a bit, and everything worked together quite well. Oh yes, sometimes all those automotive noises can make you feel like they’re beating on your eardrums with rubber hoses, but that can happen even in a film about butterflies these days. </p>
<p>Actually, my only complaint with the music is that there were a few cues on which I wished I had been able to play, because it sounded like the Muzoids were having such big fun. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/157a53bdea6975416761025b88cadbf752389c5e/original/pmx110119feagt40-005-1570456599.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsInNtYWxsIl1d.jpg" class="size_s justify_left border_" />The trend toward lengthy movies continues, with F V F clocking in at over 2½ hours. The photo here is a simulation of the line for the men’s room afterward. </p>
<p>Here’s a pull quote, in case their publicist needs one: </p>
<p>“Ford V Ferrari includes the finest use of Italian expletives since Breaking Away.” </p>
<p>(Afterward, I did hear an audience member lamenting the lack of subtitles during the scene in which Mr. Ferrari expressed his displeasure about race results. Spoiler alert: oops, too late.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/59689542019-11-21T20:49:38-08:002020-01-06T13:51:30-08:00Keeping Score on the Scoring Stage<p>Six months ago, I settled in to watch some playoffs, of the non-musical kind, when I got a surprising message from a friend, a fellow keyboard player who was himself off on tour. He said he had recommended me to sub for him on a movie session. I had misgivings, but he assured me it would not be difficult or stupid. Still, I had the vague memory that I had never enjoyed movie sessions as much as record dates, but being newly-retired, it was unseemly to be picky. </p>
<p>The next day, I got the call—actually not a call but an email (gone are the days with multicolor answering service phones in every studio), and replied yes. I quickly set about practicing and trying to resuscitate my chops from wherever I’d hidden them. I had a week to get myself ready, and tried to do so. </p>
<p>The session was on a Saturday, at the old studio in the Capitol Records building on Vine St. I spent many hours in there over the years, some idyllic, some tedious. I remember one day and night spent doing some shaky pseudo-disco tunes apparently financed by drug money. It was a marathon session, and the musicians were being paid in cash. At the end, in the wee hours, we all paraded into a side room where a woman sat with a suitcase full of small bills. Each musician left with a wallet full of cash, too thick to be folded over. Those bulging wallets stuck out of the pockets of every pair of jeans in the room, and a skilled and savvy stickup artist could have scored a major payday in the dark parking lot next to the Capitol tower, but none seemed to be on duty on that night. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/d6f548d2bd14b49200a37ceb53b8c78ccab28724/original/memories-1-1.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" />At Saturday’s session, I was pleased to find a few pals from my studio days. George Doering, whose recording career began about the time I was headed out on the road, was there, playing fine guitar. And Dan Fornero, who put in some time as part of the Horn Dogz on our tour, was present as expected, since he has found a spot on most big dates in recent days. </p>
<p>It was nice to be back in the studio, but I have to confess to feeling a bit of a letdown going from playing great, memorable, instantly recognizable songs to digging into a setlist of compositions with titles like M1B5a. Sometimes your fellow players are in the headphones, other times you have to use Dr. Harold Hill’s think system to imagine what else might be going on in the ensemble. And there was bar-counting, a lot of bar-counting. </p>
<p>I remember the time my wife and I went to a Da Camera Society chamber music concert, and the organizer, Dr. Mary Ann Bonino, invited us to sit with her. That was very kind and delightful, except that we were sitting close enough to the players to have a clear view of the charts, and I found myself involuntarily counting bars of rest. I quickly remembered that bar-counting is the antithesis of music appreciation. </p>
<p>So I found myself counting a seemingly infinite number of bars of rest before playing a group of 16th notes which were living by themselves for reasons apparent to the composer, but sometimes not to me. I think I played everything I was supposed to; but, more likely, I didn’t. </p>
<p>I thought back to a couple of movie dates from the ‘70s that had stuck in my mind. One was at Universal, and my enduring memory is of the school bell which rang to indicate the end of a ten-minute break, lending a factory-like ambiance to the proceedings. I remember a story I was told about fabled guitarist Tommy Tedesco, who was said to have entered a studio for a movie session and told the conductor to wake him up at bar 400. </p>
<p>I had arrived early for that session and fround the studio empty, excapt for a rented Arp 2600 synthesizer, which was new technology then, and totally unfamiliar to me. I sat down and turned it on, but couldn’t figure out how to coax it to make any kind of sound—it had no keys, only patch cords—and I grew increasingly fearful of humiliation, until the contractor arrived, walked in and said, “Oh, you’ll be playing piano today.” </p>
<p>I once did a Phil Spector session where we played a tune which had a four-minute fade. On one take, I made it a point to play a grievously wrong not at a safe moment in the fade, so that I could listen to a playback and make certain that it wasn’t possible for me to do anything which would be noticed. Such was the case, and I was able to relax, safe in the knowledge that I couldn’t possibly destroy anything. </p>
<p>That may not have been the case for the score of this movie which I will finally see at a screening tomorrow. I hope that everything was satisfactory for the team responsible for the music, which I will most likely never see again. If not, I send them my apologies, with some more for Jim Cox, the gentleman keyboardist for whom I was subbing. I sent him a note assuring him that my performance would certainly not make him lose his session work to me when he returns to town. </p>
<p>The movie that we were working on, I note, opes in Los Angeles this week, and we are seeing it Friday night. It’s called Ford V Ferrari, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to enjoy it. I know I will enjoy seeing it far more than recording the little bit of music on which I appear.</p>
<p>Full disclosure: I have an ailment called Neuropathy, and one of its results is a numbness in the feet which makes it difficult to operate pedals on a piano (and more so on an organ) in a fully professional manner. Most of the charts I was given on this session were written for organ (Insert drum fill). I’m hooping the excellent orchestration will obscure the faulty dynamics coming from the organ, and allow my mind to wander to long-ago movie magic.</p>
<p>The first movie session I did was a little science-fiction film called “Silent Running.” The composer was Peter Schickele, who quickly became a friend. That was a very long time ago, and my feet were better then. I could remember those sessions. Or I could go way way back, to when I owned a theatre in Indiana, the Nashville Nickelodeon, where I played an out-of-tune piano to accompany silent movies. Now THAT was work.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/59571362019-11-11T16:28:48-08:002020-01-06T13:46:12-08:00Madness to our Methodists<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/5939c0e948994c2a0eaf8c05fdde8d45ddf91175/original/memories-1-12.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" />Last night we did our little show at the Northridge United Methodist Church’s Jazz Vespers. A lot of friends from now and then showed up, and a wonderful time was shared by all. Since it's been a while since we played in public, and we were making up our setlist as we went along, there was a hint of nervousness among us, but having such a friendy audience did a lot to calm our nerves. </p>
<p>We felt a lot better due to having Julia Waters and Bill Cinque there to sing when it was needed, and Alan Lindgren and the Larrys, Brown and Klimas did everything needed to make it feel good. It was great to have a group of people there who knew what to do when the red light came on. (What NOT to do, for example, it to sit in a window in Amsterdam.)</p>
<p>If you're interested in having a look at what went on, <a contents="there is a video available for viewing by clicking this link:" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1ZKOjY99q0" target="_blank">there is a video available for viewing by clicking this link:</a> Please be non-judgmental—it was a free show, after all, One thing: the video begins a few minutes before we actually start playing, so feel free to exercise your fast forward finger if you wish.</p>
<p>They have inexplicably asked that we return and do it again, and we might just do that. As you might guess, I'll let you know.</p>
<p> </p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/59558352019-11-10T10:42:48-08:002019-11-21T20:51:45-08:00How we Took Down the Wall<p>Yesterday, we did some rehearsing for our performance tonight, and I inexplicably thought back thirty years.</p>
<p>On October 30, 1989, we played at the Deutschlandhalle in Berlin, Germany. During our stay in Berlin, a lot of us piled into a bus and went to dinner at the Grand Hotel in East Berlin, as it was called at the time. It was just a few days later that the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. </p>
<p>Of course, we took pride in being among the last people to be hassled going through Checkpoint Charlie, headed into the Eastern zone for an evening of wining, dining and stogie-smoking at the Grand Hotel—then an island of luxury in an otherwise-drab East Germany. The Grand was only open to foreign guests, as it did not accept East German Marks, only Western hard currencies. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/28bdc8afd1cf89d955d150def45927c343c32cd6/original/berlinpic.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_right border_" /></p>
<p>About a week after our little party there, the Berlin Wall began coming down. Coincidence? I think not. I defy you to prove that we had nothing to do with this bit of history. </p>
<p>Parts of the 2004 film The Bourne Supremacy were filmed in that hotel. Famous guests included: Peter Falk, Peter Ustinov, Larry Hagman, Pamela Anderson, and Plácido Domingo—so give them the credit! But don't forget the touring folks who dined at the Grand Hotel when it was really grand</p>
<p>We have officially outlasted the Grand Hotel—it’s now known as the Westin Grand Hotel Berlin—but, some of us have changed our look just a bit, too. I’m sure there’s no need to identify any of these people—you know who they all are, don’t you?</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/59405972019-10-27T11:51:36-07:002021-12-27T13:07:10-08:00An actual gig? Yes, it's true!<p>Two weeks from tonight, Let's see, that would be...November 10 at 6 p.m., we’ll be doing a kind of a performance, a jazz vespers, at the Northridge United Methodist Church at 9650 Reseda Blvd., Northridge, CA . </p>
<p>What is a jazz vespers? Beats me, but we’re doing it. We’ll be playing some nice tunes for about an hour, and if you’re in the neighborhood, we’d love to have you drop by. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/dcc0db36a5fb7a24390c4c5f91e643bf89ae0203/original/memories-1-9.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" />When I say “we,” I mean the musicians who are taking part in this: Alan Lindgren—we were the dueling keyboards in the Neil Diamond band for forty years; Larry Brown—composer, engineer, drummer, producer, and the guy with whom Alan and I did those “Joy Circuit” albums a couple of decades aog; Larry Klimas—the saxophonist with our touring band for 20 years or so, who took over the role of Neil’s duet partner on “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” to much acclaim on our last tour; Bill Cinque, our band’s bassist on that final tour; and Julia Waters—who, with the Waters family, has probably sung on every record imaginable. </p>
<p>The program will be brief and it’s free, so if you don’t like it you will already will have your money back. Come see us if you can.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/59198222019-10-08T14:03:48-07:002019-10-08T14:07:25-07:00Davi Det Lives<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/f0af67d1782f371930da23eedd8159f1f0f332cd/original/ps1davidet.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_left border_" />Here’s a photo of Davi Det at MOMA’s PS1 in downtown New York. It’s not his first appearance at MOMA, but definitely his most recent. </p>
<p>Davi Det, as my friends mostly know, was a Fluxus artist who died in 1996. Back in the 1960s we collaborated on performance pieces, as well as a bunch of songs which appear on my most recent album, The Davi Det Songs. </p>
<p>If you’re helplessly curious, look for the album on <a contents="CDBaby.com" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/tomhensley3">CDBaby.com</a></p>
<p>PS1 hosted a talk by his Aqui Magazine (the covers displayed on the wall in the photo) collaborator, Cliff Baldwin, who will be visitng LA next week. We're planning to get together and conjure up his spirit for a little while. </p>
<p>If you have a copy of the Davi Det Songs, you're invited to play it next Monday, time to be announced, to share the experience.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/59157872019-10-04T13:17:29-07:002020-10-20T03:02:58-07:00My Gig With Diahann Carroll<p>The passing today of Diahann Carroll brought back some memories for me, and I thought I’d share a couple. </p>
<p>I played for Diahann when she did appearances on the Tonight Show from time to time, back in the Johnny Carson days, and into the Jay Leno era. </p>
<p>I remember the first one I did—I got a call from a record producer I knew, asking if I was available. I hesitated, because friends had warned me that he tended to be problematic about paying musicians, but I realized that my paycheck would be coming from NBC, a more reliable source. (Aside from a TV movie I did for NBC Productions, but that’s another story altogether.) </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/9d5241579b07d7ddd121161c2c00887b3efdca6a/original/diahannbook.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsInNtYWxsIl1d.jpg" class="size_s justify_left border_" />The show went well and we got along famously, and I did more shows with her. I remember that the band’s pianist, Ross Tompkins, asked if I wanted to play with the show’s band on the instrumental they played during a commercial break before our segment. I regarded this like someone handing me the keys to their Porsche and asking if I’d like to take it for a spin. </p>
<p>Diahann was also very kind to me, and a thoroughly musical singer, so my gigs with her were always enjoyable. </p>
<p>Flash forward a few decades: At one of the lunch groups that I frequent, I was told a story by the late, legendary Hal Kanter relating to Diahann. He also told it in one of his autobiographies, so I figure it must be true. </p>
<p>Hal wrote the script for the Academy Awards for many years, and happened to be sitting at his table at the 1961 ceremony when his fellow Savannahian Johnny Mercer headed for the stage to pick up his Best Song Oscar for co-writing “Moon River” with Henry Mancini. On his way, Johnny leaned over and whispered what Hal considered an offensively racist comment in his ear. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/e9479a75840790a4e694f182a0b9c8f720e820e8/original/halbook.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsInNtYWxsIl1d.jpg" class="size_s justify_right border_" /></p>
<p>Hal was not happy with his friend’s joke, and was still a bit steamed the next day when he began writing the script that became the pilot for a TV series called “Julia,” which eventually became the first series to star an African-American woman as anything but a domestic helper, and made Diahann Carroll immensely famous. </p>
<p>So today I’ll have kind thoughts and happy memories for Diahann and Hal.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/59071142019-09-26T22:05:49-07:002021-05-17T23:34:56-07:00Davi Det has his Day<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/5b131c41656939e2e5b473087516efdb34ee3ac3/original/memories-1-1.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsInNtYWxsIl1d.jpg" class="size_s justify_left border_" />My most recent album, The Davi Det Songs, has been submitted for the Grammy awards this year in the classical category. </p>
<p>That begs for an explanation: submitted just means that it’s on a very long list of albums that are eligible to be on that list. It would be nice, if it made the cut to reach the actual nomination stage, but that’s highly unlikely, since few voters will have the chance or the inclination to hear it. That’s okay with me—after forty years of playing for Neil Diamond, doing songs that millions of people know and love, I’m enjoying doing something odd just to please myself. </p>
<p>But if you happen to be a Grammy voter, it would be really sweet if you gave it a listen. You can find it on CDBaby.com, Apple Music, Spotify, and the other likely suspects. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/0685e547f891d62f11ff4ff4c69e5fac0c360cd5/original/memories-1-2.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsInNtYWxsIl1d.jpg" class="size_s justify_right border_" /></p>
<p>Next question: classical? Yes. after due deliberation, The Davi Det Songs is officially a resident of the classical genre, whatever that means. It features a small ensemble accompanying the stunning voice of Daisy Press, who brings all the right tools for the job. Daisy describes it as 21st Century lieder, and that sounds reasonable to me. </p>
<p>And I’ll be really happy if our efforts draw a little more attention to Davi Det Hompson, the visionary Fluxus artist, who gave me a huge pile of words that eventually became the album. Since his death in 1996, Davi Det’s reputation has continued to grow and pop up from time to time in various locations, including as part of a show in downtown New York at MOMA/PS1 this fall.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/a99fad380667df1239ecb31c500a166a7f39313e/original/memories-1-3.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsInNtYWxsIl1d.jpg" class="size_s justify_left border_" /></p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/58782712019-09-02T12:53:59-07:002019-09-24T15:24:33-07:00Intensive Labor Day<p>Labor Day 2007, only 12 years ago, we were back home again in Indiana for my brother’s funeral. (Joe was the talented one, who was a legislator and a prosecutor and a judge and an author of dozens of books, whereas I am a wandering minstrel.) </p>
<p>After the funeral, on our way from Madison (where Joe lived and died), we were Indianapolis to meet up with an old friend, drummer Jack Gilfoy. </p>
<p>Jack and his first wife Peg were the first married couple we knew, and their happiness encouraged us try out the marital state. </p>
<p>Jack had a gig that day, playing on the patio at the Jazz Kitchen with a big band, part of a Labor Day jazz marathon. So we met for lunch across the street an hour before he was to play. </p>
<p>During lunch, I told Jack that if the band’s piano player was late I’d be happy to play a few tunes with them. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/25f30981e2dc95a25c337cc7b9aa41d5f1850fab/original/memories-1-7.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_l justify_left border_" />Not only was he late, he didn’t show up at all, so I ended up playing their whole set. </p>
<p>Not only did he not show up, he had the piano book with him, so I had to twist myself around enough to be able to try to read from the bass book. </p>
<p>I won’t claim it was the best I’ve ever played, but we got through it. I was worth every penny I wasn’t paid. </p>
<p>That Labor Day, following my brother’s funeral, was the last time I saw Jack Gilfoy alive. He died a month or so later. </p>
<p>The great Indianapolis pianist Claude Sifferlen was playing with a group that preceded the big band. As we made our way to the table we were given, near the bandstand, there was a bass solo going on, and Claude was looking down, as one sometimes does when a bass solo is taking place nearby. </p>
<p>As we walked by the bandstand, Claude looked up and caught my eye. I said to him, not loudly at all, “You’re too fucking good!” He cracked up laughing, knowing it was the truth. </p>
<p>It was the last time I saw Claude—he died a couple of years later. </p>
<p>You never know when a day is going to be memorable.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/58696892019-08-25T15:05:43-07:002019-09-24T15:24:12-07:00A Swiftian Moment<p>On October of 2014, we did a short promotional trip to New York and London, making some TV appearances to promote an upcoming tour set to take place the following year. </p>
<p>On October 3rd, we flew to London to do a couple of tunes on the Ken Bruce Show for BBC radio, followed a couple of days later by a bit on Graham Norton's Show. The other guests on that show were to be John Cleese and Taylor Swift. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/77ca16c3c677a4d390ca5516ed9326d10699e1fe/original/silly-walks.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" />I settled into my place at my keyboard and soon Ms. Swift arrived at the studio. She walked directly in fron my station at the keyboard on her way to the desk where Mr. Norton was planted. I remember feeling somewhat intimidated by the sheer length of her legs, which were longer than my attention span. Which, in turn, led me to a moment of reflective inspiration. </p>
<p>If Graham Norton really wanted to have some fun with his guests, I conjectured, he would be well-served to have Mr. Cleese teach Ms. Swift how to do his epic “Ministry of Silly Walks” bit. It seemed that this could be the greatest piece of business involving the use of legs east of the Rockettes. </p>
<p>I continued to imagine that scenario for most of the time we were doing the show, but there was no one to whom I could float my suggestion, and I saw little likelihood that anyone would care to react to a crazy idea from the piano player, so I swallowed my thought and played my part. (I did, however, manage to grab a photo of myself seated on the show’s set, which sharp-eyed viewers might be able to recognize on the cover of my “Jazz Time” album.)</p>
<p>But to this day, whenever I look at the video of our appearance on the Graham Norton Show, I stubbornly cling to my vision of Taylor Swift’s impressive legs in the Cleese pose pictured here. You’ll have to do the same, because it's never going to happen.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/58444372019-08-01T13:59:15-07:002021-11-20T12:31:17-08:00The Musician's Day<p><em><strong>The Musician's Day </strong></em></p>
<p>Guest columnist: Erik Satie </p>
<p><em>(editor’s note: Yes, THAT Erik Satie. He was not only a pretty fair composer of cute little tunes, he was also an author of wonderfully witty articles—including this one, which seems to be a prescient model of our post-touring era.) </em></p>
<p>An artist must organize his life. Here is the exact timetable of my daily activities: </p>
<p>Get up: 7.18am. <br>Be inspired: 10.23 to 11.47 am. <br>I take lunch at 12.11pm and leave the table at 12.14am. <br>Healthy horse-riding out in my grounds: 1.19 to 2.53pm. <br>More inspiration: 3.12 to 4.07pm. <br>Various activities (fencing, reflection, immobility, visits, contemplation, swimming, etc...): 4.21 to 6.47pm. </p>
<p>Dinner is served at 7.16pm and ends at 7.20pm. </p>
<p>Then come symphonic readings, out loud: 8.09 to 9.59pm. </p>
<p>I go to bed regularly at 10.37pm. </p>
<p>Once a week (on Tuesdays) I wake up with a start at 3.19am. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/1b27023f89b96263ab58c62a8ade5b3ab2a2906b/original/memories-1-5.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" />I eat only white foodstuffs: eggs, sugar, scraped bones; fat from dead animals; veal, salt coconuts, chicken cooked in white water, mouldy fruit, rice, turnips; camphorated sausage, things like spaghetti, cheese (white), cotton, salad and certain fish (minus their skins). I boil my wine and drink it cold mixed with fuchsia juice. I have a good appetite, but never talk while eating, for fear of strangling myself. </p>
<p>I breathe carefully (a little at a time). I very rarely dance. When I walk, I hold my sides and look rigidly behind me. Serious in appearance, if I laugh it is not on purpose. I always apologise about it nicely. </p>
<p>My sleep is deep, but I keep one eye open. My bed is round, with a hole cut out to let my head through. Once every hour a servant takes my temperature and gives me another. </p>
<p>I have long subscribed to a fashion magazine. I wear a white bonnet, white stockings and a white waistcoat. My doctor has always told me to smoke. Part of his advice runs: “Smoke away, dear chap; if you don’t someone else will.” </p>
<p>As you can see, Mr. Satie’s regimen was strikingly similar to the Diamondville daily drill, with a few slight variations. </p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/58137592019-07-04T09:28:40-07:002020-04-18T12:31:04-07:00Memories of Old Glory<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/c36ecfd2ba675d570875e9fb704ae22edc711ab4/original/memories-18.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_right border_" /><span class="font_large">I have a lot of July 4th memories from my 40 years of touring with Neil Diamond. There was 1976, when I was still a new guy on the band, when we played for the grand opening of the Aladdin Theater of the Performing Arts in Las Vegas. It was the country’s bicentennial, and on the 4th we gathered on the roof of the Jockey Club, where we were staying, to observe fireworks emanating from Caesar’s Palace up the street. And we gathered in Mr. Diamond’s suite for the wedding of Richard and Tina Bennett. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/8c7df60705c09f43fc31464984a0cdd4bf5b9c3e/original/memories-1.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_right border_" /></span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">A decade later, we performed at what was called Liberty Weekend, celebrating the grand re-opening of the Statue of Liberty, which had been closed for remodeling. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">The Statue of Liberty and the Bennetts’ marriage, by the way, have outlasted the Aladdin Theater, which was imploded in 1998. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">But right now I’m thinking about the 4th of July, 2009. The country was in a better place then. We had a properly-elected president, one we could believe and believe in, and we didn’t have to be ashamed of a country which holds children in concentration camps. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">In 2009, I was in Boston with our band, to play with the Boston Pops for a concert that was televised live with the wonderful Craig Ferguson as presenter. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">I got to chat with Mr. Ferguson, and we talked about our then-recent concert in Glasgow, Scotland, his home town. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">I told him it had rained heavily as we played at the Hampden Park stadium but the audience, attired in umbrellas and trash-bag raincoats, seemed not to care, perhaps because they were drinking so heartily that night. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">“That’s what they do there,” he told me. “It wasn’t until I left Glasgow that I realized I was an alcoholic.” </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">Ten years later, becoming an alcoholic seems like a rational decision in a country that has become a caricature of itself, and is ruled by a tyrant who spends tax dollars <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/92aba206a46f7e93fa4b40e4c58fdc18569b3c21/original/memories-8.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_right border_" />to turn a once-inspiring celebration into a partisan rally for himself. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_large">So today, I think I’ll find a video of that 2009 4th of July, and pretend for a little while that everything since 2016 has been wiped clean.</span><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/693740bd8ba6ea4a1f813a01ee79631549123bb6/original/memories-9.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/a2598a0e851b2e14714f5dc8e817272db07813ed/original/memories-11.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/98988c8540b25b8a54a5e416b6aba44c5d2dafcf/original/memories-10.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/e9d20d9756effca092905e3fbd941e9b6aa6ddb0/original/memories-25.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/bc528940cfe0bc5ca676e2076c597f24f5ba9361/original/memories-15.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_xl justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/092c7d31ba44963520c684d4cd8d0126fbf1fea4/original/memories-19.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/03d0ae3cac50acd3e80aac4709c5ff066b596d22/original/memories-5.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/a6af4498bf13bbb2ed16fc8e658fb00b13bfb441/original/memories-20.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/ad697645f2ef26591667dfc61f945919a0268200/original/memories-26.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/57714502019-05-28T15:13:46-07:002019-07-04T08:38:02-07:00Size is or isn't everything<p>This photograph shows our audience at a show we did at Glastonbury in 2008. I'm stating that for the record before D. Trump claims it to be the crowd at one of his rallies. These people are lively and happy and don't want to cause anybody any trouble.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/c6df54bf14c913e6f7d43777b1a8678c7a0fa012/original/memories-1-1.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_left border_" />We did have some trouble that day, however. There was some kind of an audio mishap between the stage, the sound boards and the BBC, which was carrying it all. It resulted in several minutes of silence from many of us, while the drums continued, creating a nice solo moment for Ronnie Tutt and King Errisson, which has to be regarded as a net gain.</p>
<p>It makes me think about how much I enjoyed playing with those rascals for so many years. I don't want to say I get nostalgic for the tour, but last night I went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. When the light came on, I did twenty minutes.</p>
<p>Unlike Mr. Trump, I'll add some honest details. The size of our audience was increased due to some other acts on the show, including Kings of Leon, Jay-Z, Amy Winehouse, James Blunt, Crowded House, Martha Wainwright, Leonard Cohen, John Mayer, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Gilbert O'Sullivan—all of these on our stage (The Pyramid Stage) alone, along with others, probably including your favorite.</p>
<p>I had time to wander around the grounds a bit, and people seemed to be having a really good time. Then I had a chance to climb up to the area above the stage and watch the stage and John Mayer's band from above. If I could attend this way, I might attend more of the giant festival events, but otherwise I steer clear, leaving more room for others who enjoy crowds more than I do.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/57148902019-04-10T14:24:18-07:002021-11-02T22:30:34-07:00Thus Endeth Jazz Appreciation Month<p>After landing in Louisville, and settling in at the downtown Louisville Marriott, the first thing on the agenda of some Touroids was getting out of Louisville. Getting out of the whole damned state of Kentucky, in fact, and heading across a big bridge into the next-door state of Indiana, and the charming little town of New Albany. The lure was a performance by a jazz musician born and raised and still living in New Albany. His name is Jamey Aebersold, and he is legendary in the jazz world, and beyond, as a great performer, writer and educator. An official NEA Jazz Master, in fact, and those are not in abundance. </p>
<p>Mr. Aebersold was playing with a snappy quartet in a refurbished old building, the River City Winery, in a sprused-up old downtown. There was quite a crowd in the room when the first Uberload of Muzoids arrived, and even more so when a second car dumped its load of Hollywood Horns (without their horns, sadly). </p>
<p>Upon arrival, each Touroid was issued a copy of the Jazz Handbook, published by Jamey Aebersold Jazz, chock full of practice suggestions, tips and tricks, and the secrets of improvisation. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/49fabf8d988143e389456339c2c166127e8dad1a/original/memories-1-1.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" />A quote: “Everyone has the ability to improvise from the youngest child to the senior citizen. You have to have desire and set aside time to work at it until moving your fingers becomes automatic and the distance between your mind and fingers grows smaller and smaller to where you think an idea and your fingers are already playing it. It’s not magic. If it is, then magi equals hard work and perseverance. When asked, ‘What is the greatest obstacle to enlightenment?’ the Buddha replied, ‘Laziness.’ I agree!” </p>
<p>Part of Jamey’s successful business model is his jazz play along CD/music packages, which are used all over the world for training by amateurs and professionals alike. </p>
<p>One of the things I specifically wanted to ask him was the correct pronunciation of the name of another jazz legend, Lee Konitz, with whom I played a gig in Louisville 50 years ago, so I could drop his name in a pathetic attempt to enhance my paltry jazz cred. </p>
<p>Jamey gave me the correct pronunciation (KOE-nitz), and also told me that Mr. Konitz, now age 90, uses his playalong disks to practice scat singing. </p>
<p>Before his group's downbeat, Jamey walked into the audience, and gave each visiting Touroid a 25-cent piece. Yes, a quarter. Not, as you might think, so they could call someone who cared. Instead, he said, “Look at these closely.” And those who did, and whose Codger Vision was working acceptably, could read the inscription of the name Duke Ellington on the back of the coin. A genuine Duke coin.</p>
<p>As I said, the Hollywood Horns arrived disarmed, so intimidated were they by Jamey's credentials, and there was to be no jamming for them, despite our urging. But both our keyboard dudes, who feared no jam, sat in for a tune each, and acquitted themselves without embarrassment on an unfamiliar instrument. “Acquitted” is the appropriate word, too, because the Muzoids were joined by my nephew, Mike Hensley, who had driven to New Albany from Madison, Indiana, where he is a judge, holding the same seat once occupied by his father, the late “Honest” Joe Hensley, who was the talented one in my family, with 21 novels published as well as 100 short stories,. My grand total, on the other hand, is—let’s see...exactly, uh, none. Unless you count thirty years of this PBI crap. But that’s another story, or perhaps dozens of them. Further deponent sayeth naught. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/6fe9ca8de8fdaabf049403b6d286f7d7b252a4a0/original/memories-1.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_right border_" /></p>
<p>After the jazz gig shut down (a little after nine), several Muzoids were driven back to the hotel by Judge Mike. On a street corner on the way to his car, they stopped to look at a music store. It was closed, obviously, or Richard Bennett would have been inside guitar shopping, but outside was a weatherbeaten upright piano, and I stopped to play a few bars for the invisible crowd on the street. </p>
<p>The evening was wrapped up nicely by Judge Mike's action-packed drive through the Louisville street grid’s closings, impending destruction and random one-way direction changes. Eventually, we arrived at the hotel, which is why you’re reading this. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/9149e54af308eb75901978de04ccee2bd038ebd0/original/memories-1-2.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_right border_" />Footnote 2019: A few days after our lovely evening in New Albany, Jamey Aebersold emailed me that he had just been informed by the management of the River City Winery that his group’s services would no longer be required. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why the music business sucks, as does one no-longer-hip establishment in Southern Indiana where being a certified NEA Jazz Legend is insufficient credentials for a gig. If you were planning to go there to hear one, never mind. Jazz Appreciation Month is officially over.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/57058322019-04-03T12:59:21-07:002021-06-12T12:49:47-07:00Norton Futilities<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/a092ec28a0c43d42be58586fa6769e3204fd4da5/original/memories-1-14.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" />Back in 2014, we did a pre-tour tour, promoting the tour that was coming up the following year. We went to New York and to London, doing TV appearances, including <a contents="one on the Graham Norton show." data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T46sPqN6Gj8" target="_blank">one on the Graham Norton show.</a> </p>
<p>If you want to hear my boss sing or me play on this clip, save your time. The version on YouTube has been stripped of our performance. I don’t know if that’s because of music clearance issues. my appearance being too frightening, or some other reason, but I won’t be hurt if you skip watching it all. </p>
<p>I saw it all, however, from my vantage point at the keyboard, and there’s a little detail I’d like to share. When we arrived at the studio for rehearsal I was sitting at my station as Taylor Swift walked across the stage in front of me, and I had what I thought was a brilliant idea: the producers should arrange to have John Cleese teach Taylor Swift how to do the ministry of silly walks bit for which Cleese is known. Cleese may not be able to stretch enough to do those moves these days, but Ms. Swift is well-equipped to kill with that routine using those legs which are undeniably long. </p>
<p>Of course, there was no one to whom I could make my wee suggestion, and I was tasked with playing the piano (which, let me repeat, you will hear none of here), and not brainstorming schtick, so a chance for a great laugh was lost to history. </p>
<p>One other thing: you may think that Neil and Taylor Swift are both pretty well-known internationally, but the clear star in the room, as far as the audience was concerned, was Kevin Pieterson, the cricket player. To me, Cricket was just a character played by Connie Stevens on Hawaiian Eye. In an odd coincidence, Connie Stevens once attended a party at our house, although I don't remember why.</p>
<p>I also note that if you delve deeply into the comments below the Graham Norton video (never a good idea, actually), many viewers were most focused in John Cleese’s crotch and Neil’s ears, neither of which I noticed.</p>
<p>Mitigating factor: I best reward I got out from this appearance was a colorful snapshot (not the one above) I shot of the guest seating area on stage. I later used it on the cover of my Jazz Time CD, thinking no one would ever recognize it. I was wrong about that--a surprising number of people did.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/56875612019-03-20T19:42:41-07:002019-03-20T19:42:41-07:00Four Years Ago in Boston<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/0d986fd1ca92c33bf2545fa7d86f58ab02c247b9/original/memories-1-5-21.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_right border_" />Wait--it wasn't Boston. It was across the bridge in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I'm hanging out in a cute little club/art gallery called the Lilypad where the moment captured in this photo occurred. I was uncharacteristically sitting in with some serious jazzers, most notably a drummer with whom I had played many years before, back in Indiana. Drummer Joe Hunt is now on the faculty of the New England Conservatory, but when I met him he was playing around Bloomington, shortly before heading east to meet up with George Russell, and acquire his own solid jazz credentials by playing in Russell's sextet. Joe is still quite amazing, both his playing and the fact that he appears to be the exact same age as when I first met him. I believe the fine bass player with whom we're jamming is Bob Nieske. (Note the placement of the Exit sign. We really didn't want anyone to leave while we were playing. But don't worry—Joe is set up to double on fire extinguisher.) Just another tour memory.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/56836292019-03-17T16:00:50-07:002019-03-17T16:04:19-07:00Airing of the Green<p>This is a the day when we like to look back at our many visits to Ireland over the years. We did a lot of memorable shows there, met a lot of special people, and lingered post-tour multiple times to ramble around the countryside. </p>
<p>We had tremendous audiences in Dublin, enthusiastic and ready to party. Irish audiences always clapped and sang along, even on songs where it was unexpected. I never thought of “I Am…I Said” as an audience participation number, but they made it one. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/2c869e8917ba7677242b5918c99a185a156d3f71/original/memories-1-5-19.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" />Among the fine friends we made over the years, I’d like to mention Michael Devine, who always provided our transportation in Ireland. Mick, as he is known, drove our vocalist every time we came to town—except once. That was the year he had to send a sub due to a previous commitment to attend a wedding in Taos, New Mexico. He was especially needed at the wedding because he was to give away the bride, a young actress named Julia Roberts. His absence was excused. </p>
<p>Our original Irish promoter, the late Jim Aiken, set the bar for how our rowdy bunch should be treated when we blew into town, and during every trip to Dublin, his name was brought up reverently.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/213cf505e7b40dcae1696db8085859754e04bd82/original/memories-1-5-20.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_right border_" />Another friend from Dublin was a woman named Grainne O’Driscoll. When we met, she was working in advertising, putting together commercials for Guinness. When we returned a few years later, she had made a big transition into operating her own Pilates studio, and therefore went from toasting us to stretching us. </p>
<p>There were lots of other people we met, sometimes at dinner in a restaurant or at a pub or someplace even more unlikely. We think of all of them on this day, even the ones whose names we can’t remember. We love you all.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/56751132019-03-09T19:14:10-08:002020-12-08T02:08:04-08:00A Big Thumbs up for Women<p>Yesterday was International Women’s Day, and I found myself looking back at a couple of my first gigs when I arrived in Los Angeles, both of them with remarkable women. </p>
<p>The first was at a club called the <strong>Ruddy Duck</strong>, quite near where we now live, playing Hammond B3 organ with the <strong>Mary Kaye Trio</strong>. Mary came from a royal musical family in Hawaii and Las Vegas, where she was a giant star in the early days. </p>
<p>I wasn’t really an organist, but I managed to cover it, and it was great to have a steady gig. Serious players sometimes came by to sit in. I remember guitarist <strong>Mundell Lowe</strong> joining us one evening, and <strong>Herb Jeffries</strong> came by to sing with us on occasion. </p>
<p>My other memory for Women's Day is my first LA touring gig, as pianist and musical director for <strong>Helen Reddy</strong>. “Musical director,” meant that I was the only musician on the premises. Helen, her husband <strong>Jeff Wald</strong>, and I would fly to a city, rent a car and drive to the venue. The first gig was for an auto race in Charlotte, and Jeff was upset when he found that Helen was expected to kiss the winner of the race.</p>
<p>In those days. Helen envisioned her career as somewhat like Joni Mitchell’s: an introspective singer/songwriter. Jeff had other ideas, and he prevailed, to her financial benefit. One crossroads I remember is when he persuaded her to shave her armpits in order to secure her first TV deal with NBC. </p>
<p>I eventually put together her first band, and it was a pretty good one. Mike Warren on guitar (he later played with Donna Summer at the peak of her career); Michael Berkowitz on drums (he later moved to NY and became the king of Broadway, playing for Liza Minelli, Marvin Hamlisch, and an entire zoo of others); the late Jack Conrad on bass (he later wrote hit songs for the Babys and others); and assorted saxophonists (I remember Ronnie Starr and Richie Kamuca, to name two). Jack Conrad was pleased when Helen offered to write lyrics for one of his songs, which she eventually recorded as "Summer of '71." Jack was less pleased when he discovered that her lyric for the chorus began "We're out of our mescaline minds," insuring, in those days, that there would be no big payday for radio performances of the song.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/6bd96568ffb94683c23f6433c355b7a2379ca217/original/memories-1-5-17.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" />This photo shows Helen with my my wife Sarah and myself. It was taken in Amsterdam on a tour back in the early 1970s. A couple of decades later, Alan Lindgren and I were scoring a film called "Thanksgiving Day," and found that the script included a scene in which the star, Mary Tyler Moore, was driving her car while its radio played "I Am Woman," which advanced the plot. Helen's people's price to license the record was too high for the film's budget, so we redid it with Sarah doing the vocal, beautifully and convincingly. It was a natural choice, since Sarah sat through many performances of it in the early days, and we did “I Am Woman” at every show. I actually produced an early version of the song for Helen, but producer Joe Wissert was later brought in and he did a faster, rockier version of it, which deservedly became the hit everyone knows. (I actually preferred another song we cut at the time, “Don’t you Mess With a Woman,” which illustrates my commercial judgment.) </p>
<p>I eventually had an inevitable falling-out with Jeff and moved on, but by then I had established my studio career and was happy to stay in town for a while. </p>
<p>Some years later, I joined up with Helen and Jeff to do a show which was recorded as a 2-disk set at the London Palladium. Afterwards, I was asked to send a quote for a plaque honoring Helen at the Palladium. My contribution included this: </p>
<p>“When we began to rehearse, I went to her house, and she served me delicious peanut butter sandwiches. I’ll always be thankful to Helen for introducing me to the wonders of Laura Scudder crunchy peanut butter.” </p>
<p>Helen is in poor health these days, but she is not languishing. An “I Am Woman” movie is lurking, made in Australia and soon to appear here. Her life is a great yarn, and hopefully the movie will be heaps of fun, although it would be far better if it had bonus narration by her band, since our tales would liven it up. </p>
<p><em>Full disclosure: My main memory of my time with Helen is the night of our first show at the Bitter End in New York. On the opening tune, a splinter from the piano’s black keys went under my thumbnail, causing so much pain that I had to play the rest of the show with my thumb elevated in hitchhiking position. I was really happy for that show to end. Punch line: afterwards, a couple of the club’s beautiful waitresses extracted the splinter and nursed my hand back to health in time for the second show.</em></p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/56576312019-02-24T13:31:49-08:002021-01-11T01:18:46-08:00Here's the Thing...<p>This is the project I’ve been working on for the last couple of years. More precisely. I should say this is the project I’ve been working on for the last fifty year. </p>
<p>In the mid 1960s, besides gigging with the local musicians in my home area of Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana, I started my own band. It was a jazz/rock/psychedlic/noise/comedy/magic outfit called the Masters of Deceit. It was greeted by reactions that ranged from apathy to antipathy, with tiny pockets of respect. </p>
<p>Along the way, I collaborated with a local artist named Davi Det Hompson, who took part in concert events, wrote liner notes and song lyrics. His lyrics were not exactly suitable for my weird little band, as far as I could tell, so I put many of them away, in a box I labelled “art,” promising Davi Det that I would complete them when the time was right. </p>
<p>Then a lot of that time went by—I moved with my family to Los Angeles, where I became a studio musician and eventually spent forty years touring and recording as the pianist for singer Neil Diamond. Meanwhile, Davi Det and his wife moved to Richmond, VA, where they made their mark in the art world. Then, in 1996, he died suddenly and shockingly, while running. I was crushed by this news, and regretted that we had never pursued our project to completion. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/7970b0b253db63b039cff87256f50c33fadbafed/original/the-davi-det-songs-cd-cover.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" />Early in 2017, Neil Diamond retired from touring for medical reasons, which brought big changes to my life as well as his. When I was digging through my archves in search of a plan for the future, I came across my big box of “art”—mostly song embryos, and mostly from Davi Det. I realized that (a) I was gifted with a lot of years that were denied to him, and (b) my personal musical direction had evolved to a point that I was more comfortable joining his lyrics to my music, and I really needed to recommit myself to finishing the project. </p>
<p>I was fortunate to have convinced Daisy Press to do the singing. Her parents were memhers of the Neil Diamond band, and Daisy and I had been close all her life, and our musical preferences were wonderfully simpatico. Recording these pieces with her was more fun than work, and I was repeatedly moved by her performances. </p>
<p>This is the resulting album, “The Dav Det Songs,” because I’m proud of the way it came out. I’m not sure exactly who is the target audience for it, but it’s just something I felt the need to do. It’s available from <a contents="CDBaby.com as a download or CD" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/tomhensley3" target="_blank">CDBaby.com as a download or CD</a>, but I’m trying to conjure up an audience for a product that is admittedly obscure, but rewards those who pay close attention. </p>
<p>If you enjoy it, let me know. In any case, thanks from Davi Det and myself.. </p>
<p>Tom Hensley</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/56528572019-02-20T21:15:59-08:002019-02-20T21:15:59-08:00Fluxus One, Fluxus All<p>Davi Det Hompson (1939–1996), also known as David E. Thompson, was a Fluxus book artist, concrete poet, creator of mail art, sculptor and painter from Indiana, who lived and worked in Indianapolis, and later Richmond, Virginia. His chosen professional name was a nom d'art transposition of the letters of his name. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/dbbc0595470b79c0111080c7561401325ce998b4/original/ddh.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" />In 1969 he participated in "Various—Art by Telephone," a vinyl LP compilation by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, which also included sound works by John Baldessari, Dick Higgins, Ed Kienholz, Sol LeWitt, Claes Oldenburg, Richard Serra, Walter de Maria, and William Wegman. In 1970, he was included in the exhibition Ray Johnson: New York Correspondence School at the Whitney Museum in New York. </p>
<p>Among his more than 30 solo shows was one at the Alexandre Iolas Gallery in Manhattan in 1972. Starting in 1979, he frequently collaborated with the artist Cliff Baldwin. In the summer of 1982, his work "You Should See What I've Been Typing" was on the cover of Art Journal magazine. In 1989, he was artist in residence at Franklin Furnace in TriBeCa, where he curated an exhibition of printed art. He participated in Art ex Libris, an international book art invitational exhibition in 1994 at Artspace Gallery in Richmond. His correspondence with John Bennett was published in 2011. In 2006, Hompson was part of a group show of Virginia artists in Norfolk, Virginia, and in 2015, a 1978 creation, "Telephone Events par Ben," by George Brecht, Ken Friedman, and Hompson was performed as part of a Fluxus festival at le Centre Pompidou in Paris.</p>
<p>Those are some of his credits listed in Wikipedia. I will now add some additional info I know about him: </p>
<p>A recent Fluxus festival in Los Angeles inexplicably omitted his work completely, which puzzled and annoyed me, since Davi Det was a friend of mine, as well as an undeniably major artist. </p>
<p>I was lucky enough to be his collaborator in the mid-1960s, and the work from that period is what led to my new CD featuring Daisy Press. Davi Det, who died in 1996, would have been as proud of what Daisy did with his words as I am with her performance of my music. </p>
<p>I’ll post more about this album in coming days, because I'm pretty proud of it..</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/56378032019-02-11T10:31:12-08:002019-02-20T21:02:02-08:00Grammy, How I Love Ya<p>I apparently enjoyed watching the Grammys last night a lot more than others, but sometimes I’m easy to please. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/29c07e6fc198448223c72e0fce97d03670f092d5/original/memories-1-5-13.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsInNtYWxsIl1d.jpg" class="size_s justify_left border_" />I first went to the Grammy awards in the early 1970s, when I was new in town and happy to be part of the scene, to arrive in a limo and walk on a red carpet, even if nobody knew or cared who I was, particularly me. It was held at the Shrine Auditorium then, and much more intimate than it is now. The after-party was at the Ambassador Hotel, and my wife and I got to dance to Count Basie and his band, and I remember than much more than who won that year. </p>
<p>Then, a few years ago, we played on the show with Neil. It was at Staples, and they rushed us in and out, on and off, and my only real memory is of looking out at the audience and seeing Paul McCartney sitting in the front section looking at me (how could he look at anything else?) and thinking that was cool. Further, deponent sayeth naught. </p>
<p>I loved the opening of last night’s show, and enjoyed more of the performances than I expected. </p>
<p>My biggest memory jolt came from seeing Diana Ross celebrating her 75th birthday. I flashed back to a recording session I did in 1981. </p>
<p>By then, I’d been touring for five years, and my sessions had declined, so I was happy to be recording, particularly for an artist I’d never worked with before, Lionel Richie. I figured I was there because the arranger was the late Gene Page, a wonderful and talented gentleman who seemed to like the way I played ballads, and called me frequently for sessions with Motown artists that I might otherwise never have had the chance to work with. </p>
<p>When we finished a final take after a few hours, I dawdled on the way out, stopping in the control room before leaving, where the folks in charge were playing the song loudly on big monitors and holding a phone up to the speakers. That’s what you did in those days, before digital hookups made the process far more efficient. </p>
<p>The song was “Endless Love,” and they were playing it for Diana Ross in New York, determining whether it was in the best key for her, since she would be singing along with the track. Apparently it was. </p>
<p>There’s a Wikipedia entry about the song that lists different personnel than those in the studio that day (except for drummer Ed Greene, who was always on Gene’s dates), so perhaps there’s more to the story than I know, but I know what I saw, heard. and played back then. </p>
<p>It was great to hear Diana last night, still killing it in her distinctive way.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/56346462019-02-08T18:50:09-08:002019-02-08T19:01:06-08:00Jazz Overtime<p>On April 21, 2017, I released a little album with a long title. It was called “Jazz Time: The Music of Neil Diamond.” </p>
<p>I didn’t know at the time that it would be a wrapup to my 40-plus years of touring with Mr. Diamond, but it turned out to be perfect for that occasion. </p>
<p>The album chalked up some sales during the tour, since it was usually available at the merchandise stands in the venues we played. </p>
<p><a contents="" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/tomhensley2"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/fcad096467aa99c7bdf3676e57337ecb0b25c852/original/jazz-time.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" /></a>But unless you attended one of our shows, you might not have known about it, since there was little publicity other than a few radio interviews along the way. </p>
<p>To tell the truth, I’m far removed from the jazz mainstream, whatever that is, although I once floated in it—but that was back in Indiana in the late 1960s, which leads me to the story of how Jazz Time came about. </p>
<p>I remember when Andre Previn, Shelley Manne and Leroy Vinnegar released a jazz trio album of the music from “My Fair Lady” to resounding success. I remember thinking that it was a neat trick to turn songs there were so non-jazzy into a totally cool and hip experience, and wondered if that might be possible with Neil’s melodies. </p>
<p>I thought it would be fun to pretend that I was putting together a compilation album of Diamond songs as they might have been treated if they had been on some of my favorite jazz albums. So… </p>
<p>The first one that became obvious to me was “Holly Holy.”s Placing it in the style of Ahmad Jamal’s classic recording of “Poinciana” came to me so naturally that it was a breeze to record. </p>
<p>I thought “Kentucky Woman” would be difficult, because it is such a major-chord tune, but when I reharmonized it. got our genius horn guys to flesh it out, and added some subtle Dean Parks steel guitar magic, and hoped to make it feel like an outtake from Miles Davis’s “Birth of the Cool” album. </p>
<p>One song that many fans haven’t heard as much was “Home is a Wounded Heart,” and I fashioned it after a beautiful album of ballads recorded long ago by Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane. </p>
<p>That one turned out so well that when we began rehearsing for our 2017 tour, we used that same approach for a new version of “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” in which Larry Klimas filled the Barbra Streisand/Linda Press duet role. He did it so well that on tour we were treated the spectacle of witnessing a tenor saxophone solo receiving a nightly standing ovation. </p>
<p>The version of “September Morn” on the album was inspired by a long-ago album featuring violinists Yehudi Menuhin and Stephane Grappelli. I first recorded the piano accompaniment and then asked Alicia Engley (from our beloved Catgut Grrlz) to play on top of it it. She loved the idea, but told me she didn’t really improvise. (She plays so beautifully and naturally that I always had assumed she was jamming with us.) </p>
<p>I remembered that Alan Lindgren was a violinist way back before he became a brilliant keyboardist and arranger, and so I persuaded him to write out a violin solo for Alicia, turning it almost into a little sonata, which she played so perfectly that I told her that when people hear it, she will be deluged with calls for jazz gigs. </p>
<p>That’s enough blabbing or now. There’s a story for every song on the album, and I hope some of you who don’t know about it will give the songs on Jazz Time a listen and comment about them and speculate on what you think inspired them.. </p>
<p>Spoiler alert: I did “Hello Again” in the style of almost every pianist I’ve ever admired.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/56258232019-02-03T12:09:53-08:002019-02-03T12:09:53-08:00A Bowl of Super, Please<p>For many years, I’ve enjoyed Super Bowl Sunday immensely, going out to nice restaurants comfortably, and taking advantage of a time when all the rubes are gathered in front of the TV watching young men exchange brain injuries for large sums of cash. </p>
<p>I went to an NFL game once, back when the Los Angeles Rams played at the Coliseum. I sat in a section where Jonathan Winters was compulsively performing for strangers, and Gypsy Boots was doing some excessive volunteer cheerleading. If you don’t know either of those names, you’re on your own, but you will not be tested on this material. </p>
<p>When the Rams moved to Anaheim, I was offended. It was just down the freeway, but they might as well have moved to St. Louis—which, in fact, they eventually did. I didn’t watch another NFL game for decades. They were dead to me. It must have been in my blood: I came from Indiana, where football was an activity contrived to fill the space between baseball season and basketball season. I filled my Sunday afternoons by tuning in an occasional exciting women’s college volleyball match instead. When I first became a fan, I cheered for the team wearing the shortest shorts, but I eventually learned to watch the ball. I remember a year when we were touring Australia during the Olympics, and I walked into Hosty (which those who are familiar with “Taking America to America” will recognize as our nickname for the hotel’s hospitality suite) and several members of our group were watching a women’s volleyball match, and I pointed out the names of each of the US team’s players, plus what college they had attended, a feat which left several of our musicians dumbfounded. </p>
<p>Full disclosure: In 1987, I played in the Super Bowl. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/cec9f9cee387c47a2ca888bd9eeddea7d424af87/original/screen-shot-2019-02-03-at-11-44-53-am.png/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.png" class="size_m justify_left border_" />It was Super Bowl XXI, using that precious way they have of giving these events Roman numerals, as if they were some kind of ancient historical event. To be consistent, I guess I should say that the year was MCMLXXXVII. </p>
<p>Our vocalist was set to perform the National Anthem at the start of the game. We had recorded a track at Arch Angel, Neil’s studio, so the band didn’t actually need to be there, although some of us rode the bus to Pasadena. I was there with my video camera for the game plus the sound check, at which our ace sound man Stanley Miller attempted to conquer the notoriously hostile acoustics of a football stadium. And he did conquer it. Our track played flawlessly, and our guy sang the tune with extreme gusto, making us all proud. Fox Sports rated in number 10 in its list of all-time great Super Bowl anthems, noting “Diamond gets all the points for sheer, workmanlike efficiency (gone in 60 seconds!) and for bringing a close to the song with a Neil Diamond-esque audience singalong.” </p>
<p>I have to admit it was a pretty brisk tempo, as I realized when I watched it again today. We did the entire anthem in the less time that most of today’s performers spend on the word “free.” </p>
<p>The New York Giants, I should add, defeated the Denver Broncos that day by a score of XXXIX to XX.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/56179912019-01-30T14:44:18-08:002023-10-16T07:52:19-07:00First Bass<p>With all the nonsense coming out of the White House these days, the only people I can talk to who make sense are musicians.So I had lunch yesterday with Alan Lindgren and Larry Brown. We three collaborated on a few albums, under the name the Joy Circuit, back around the turn of the century. And of course Alan was there for almost all of my 40 years with Neil Diamond. One conversation topic that came up was Reinie Press. Alan declared that Reinie was the finest bass player he'd ever played with. </p>
<p>"Everything," he said, "his sound, his intonation, his reading, his improvising. Reinie was the perfect bassist." I couldn't disagree, and neither could Larry. There are lots of fine bassists in LA, but Reinie stood alone.</p>
<p>Here's how I met Reinie: In 1970, I had just moved to Los Angeles from Indiana, and I was trying to become established in my new home town, trying to be a working musician (yes, that's an oxymoron). One way to do that was to substitute for other, busier musicians on occasions when they needed a night off. </p>
<p>One such subbing gig for me was for sitting in for a fine pianist named Byron Olsen, who was then playing keyboards in the onstage band for the musical “Hair” at the Aquarius Theatre in Hollywood. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/74b181f25969e8fc110eb40ffd709bbe0431e523/original/dscn0768.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" /></p>
<p>When I arrived for my first run-through visit, I met the bassist and conductor for the Hair band, a genial young man named Reinie Press. The two of us were destined later to become busy in the studios, and we did record dates together many times. One day early on, he invited my and my wife to lunch so we could meet his new wife. Linda, it turned out, had met Reinie when she was in the cast of Hair. We enjoyed a lunch at Art’s Delicatessen, got acquainted over a lengthy afternoon chat and put each other in our address books. </p>
<p>By 1975, I was a pretty busy studio dude, and after recording a couple of albums with Neil Diamond, I was invited to meet with Neil to talk about joining his touring band. I knew a couple of others in the band—the leader and drummer, Dennis St. John, was an early acquaintance, I had worked a bit with Richard Bennett and King Errisson. </p>
<p>I wan't sure if I wanted to go on the road, and asked some of my studio pals. They told me I shouldn't do it, that I would lose all my studio work. But I was foolhardy, and said yes. (It turned out they were right—I did eventually lose my studio work. But, eventually, so did they, and I was still in the comfort of a very happy family band.)</p>
<p>When I got to the first rehearsal at a studio on the Paramount film lot, I was happy to find that Linda and Reinie were there as well. The band was great, the music was exemplary, the audiences were ultra-friendly, and we all spent a jolly 40 years on the road together. </p>
<p>Linda somehow became pregnant during one tour, and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl they named Daisy. Daisy grew up on the road, and was “home-schooled,” mostly on tour, with an entire band of Auntie Mam types to give her life lessons as only musicians can give. As she got older, she took on various lobs on tour, including as my intern for my somewhat daily newsletter, the PBI, a task which she did expertly. </p>
<p>Daisy and I bonded even more due to our shared interest in new music. That is a term for classical music with added fun,</p>
<p>Years later, and with many adventures in between, Daisy Graduated from the Manhattan School of Music, and established herself in New York as a bold interpreter of experimental classical music in the US and Europe and the principal singer at Brooklyn's famed "House of Yes." </p>
<p>Reinie and Linda retired from touring just before our 2015 tour, and although we missed having the Presses to kick around, I found myself working with Daisy on a very special project. The result of that project is about to, as they like to say these days, drop. I’ll be posting a lot about that very soon.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/56104962019-01-24T10:56:38-08:002020-10-13T00:03:33-07:00A Birthday Flashback<p>Today is the birthday of my long-time boss, bandleader, vocalist and chum, Neil Leslie Diamond. </p>
<p>When I was very new in town, I somehow was invited to audition to join his band. On a warm summer afternoon, I drove to Modern Musical Services, on Cole Place, just off Sunset Boulevard. Cole Place had a tiny left-turn lane and I got my first and only LA traffic ticket for not negotiating it skillfully enough. So I was admittedly a little grumpy when I arrived (at the appropriate time, thank you) and was told that Neil was listening to someone else, so I was asked to come back later. </p>
<p>When I returned later, I was again told Neil was listening to another pianist, and told to come back again in a half hour. When I returned a half hour later, I was told that Neil wasn’t happy with what he’d heard and had gone home. And that was the end of it. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/acd1f238d37b96604f5dadb1782e5729f334110d/original/00260121.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_right border_" /></p>
<p>I went back to our small rental in Van Nuys, and with amazingly inexplicable moxie for a new guy in town, I prepared a bill for my waiting time that afternoon (it was about $35, as I recall), and sent it, along with what I imagined was a witty note, to Neil’s office. </p>
<p>To my surprise, a few days later, the bill was paid. </p>
<p>When I received the check, I remember thinking okay, this guy is all right. When the check cleared, I remember again thinking okay, this guy is all right…and solvent, too. </p>
<p>I returned to my newcomer routine of subbing on others’ gigs, rehearsals, casuals, and jam sessions, all of which eventually led to my beginning to get real recording work. I played on my first hit record—Chick-a-Boom, by Daddy Dewdrop, in case you were wondering— which in turn eventually led to a lot of other recording, including a couple of Neil Diamond albums—Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Serenade, in case you were wondering—which in turn led to a phone call asking me to come over to Neil’s house and talk to him about joining the band and going on tour. </p>
<p>Which in turn led to 40 years of wonderful times touring and playing with a great singer and band. </p>
<p>One more thing about Neil’s birthday: </p>
<p>The telecast of the Super Bowl XVIII in 1984 included a legendary commercial for Apple Computer which ended with this tag line: “On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce the Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984.” The mention of his birthday in that ad obviously got his attention, because later, on February 16, while we were in Cincinnati to play at the Riverfront Coliseum, our vocalist said to me, “Let’s go look at that Macintosh.” </p>
<p>We went to a Cincinnati Computerland store and played with the new device and ran it through its tricks—Macwrite, Macpaint and the like. Before we left, he ordered a dozen of them for people in our company. The surprised Computerland employees must have surely thought “Wow, these Macintosh things are going to be selling like hotcakes!” (I’m guessing that sales dropped precipitously the next day, when we left town.)</p>
<p>By the way, we continued to use Macs everywhere, onstage and backstage, on our tour for the next 34 years. </p>
<p>One result of this, and the reason why I’m writing this, is that since then have I never forgotten the date for Neil’s birthday. </p>
<p>Happy birthday, pal.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/56104212019-01-24T10:13:07-08:002021-05-03T21:34:55-07:00One Year Later<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/e17bb01fed47b37755583f74196fb597316723f3/original/memories-1-5-11.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" />On January 22nd it will have been a year since Neil Diamond announced his retirement from touring. It also marked my retirement from touring, so I am collateral damage, in a sense. </p>
<p>So what have I done in the last year? </p>
<p>Not much, it seems to the naked or semi-nude eye, but actually it’s more than it appears. </p>
<p>During the course of my 40 years of touring with “the best band in the land,” as Mr. Diamond effusively referred to us, there were regular pauses, some longer than others, when we went back to recharge our batteries and reacquaint ourselves with home and family, so we were pretty well-prepared to deal with life on our own, filling our days with recording, writing, golfing, dining, and conjuring up foolish ideas for things which either materialized or didn’t. </p>
<p>I n 2016, I filled the hiatus before our final tour by recording an instrumental jazz album of Neil’s songs. It was a project which had intrigued me for a long time. I came from a jazz background, and I’d always wondered doing such a thing had never occurred to other jazz players. </p>
<p>Some of the songs might seem too jolly, all major keys and open chords and such, but when I think back to examples such as Andre Previn’s fine album of the music from My Fair Lady, Neil’s tunes didn’t seem such an awkward fit. </p>
<p>The album is all that I’d hoped, and I’ll be posting some things from it on this site, along with subtle suggestions about obtaining a copy, along with some background on why it came out the way it did. </p>
<p>I didn’t originally think of it as a farewell to a 40 year gig, and I may return to that material sometime in the future, But I’ve moved on. I spent most of 2018 finishing up an album that I began 50 years ago, about which I’ll be spilling the beans here very soon. </p>
<p>The new album is done now and off being pressed into biscuits and cookies. Come back if you’re at all interested in what happens when Muzoids turn their minds to old friends and new tasks.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/55022882018-11-06T13:38:21-08:002019-01-29T09:13:55-08:00Moving Forward<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/32ae4f22765c756a27c24f071ab9365d713af03e/original/img-1895.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />I<span class="font_regular"> should have gotten three or four of those stickers, just to make my other-party friends nervous, but I actually only voted once today. </span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">At the polling place, I noticed a wrapped-up grand piano, and began to experience that feeling again, the one that seized me in a number of European railroad stations last year, but I decided that sitting down and serenading the voting process would be a less than optimum gesture, and if I was doing to be arrested at the polls, I would prefer that if be for hurling a cream pie in Mitch McConnell's face—you know, something that would actually do some good for the country.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">Then I wondered: if I DID decide to play the piano while people exercised their constitutional right to vote, inappropriate though that might have been today, what song would I have chosen to play? A song of my boss's? America? Play Me? It seemed to me that we'd been played enough lately by that character in Washington. Then it then occurred to me that a fine bipartisan choice might be that lovely tune by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse: "Who Can I Turn To?" </span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">The moment passed with no further action other than the voting itself, but that was enough. I went home and rewarded myself for performing my civic duty by eating a fine ginger cookie. Hope you all did the same.</span></p>
<p> </p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/54274572018-09-13T13:27:49-07:002021-06-25T11:57:22-07:00The French Connection<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/4b0cc461cb51465ab3f4a94d222133a9fe7a87ee/original/memories-1.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />If you look closely you may be able to pick out Tim, Cathy, Sarah and Tom Hensley at the breakfast table, speaking French. Why this? Why now? Well, therein lies a tale. </p>
<p>In 2016, Tim’s epic anecdotal biography of Alfred Hitchcock, “Sir Alfred No. 3,” was published by Fantagraphics in a limited signed and numbered edition of 1000. Of course, those all sold out, and are now appearing on collector sites at silly, inflated prices (I saw it on eBay for $499.99). </p>
<p>But as of the 14th, you’re in luck—at least if you happen to be able to read French—because the French edition of Sir Alfred No. 3 drops that day. The artwork above is from part of the expanded content, an “about the artist” section which is as apocryphal as the Hitchcock content and equally entertaining. For only 14.99 Euros, it appears. In the second panel, Sarah is upset because Tim has expressed his long-concealed desire to do office work. (By the way, in the strip I am the pianist for singer Perry Como. Tim's artistic license has been renewed.)</p>
<p>The publisher is Dargaud, the same French outfit that released the original graphic novel version of “The Death of Stalin,” which later became the funniest movie of last year. </p>
<p><a contents="Here’s a link to the Dargaud page for Sir Alfred:" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.dargaud.com/bd/SIR-ALFRED" target="_blank">Here’s a link to the Dargaud page for Sir Alfred:</a></p>
<p><a contents="And here's the same page, roughly translated into English" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.dargaud.com/bd/SIR-ALFRED&prev=search" target="_blank">And here's the same page, roughly translated into English</a></p>
<p> </p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/53808512018-08-09T10:24:26-07:002018-08-09T10:24:26-07:00At Work and At Play<p>Parade Magazine has posted a <a contents="lovely video" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://parade.com/691817/laurawhitmore/exclusive-premiere-watch-neil-diamond-perform-cherry-cherry-from-the-greek-theatre/" target="_self">lovely video</a> of our performance of Cherry Cherry at the Greek Theatre in 2012, from the upcoming (the 17th) release of Hot August Night III. The band is featured in this video, so I have an airtight alibi for that night, even if you claim to have security camera footage of me stealing your hubcaps.</p>
<p> </p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/53795212018-08-08T12:14:22-07:002018-08-17T09:44:19-07:00Dueling Invisible Pianists<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/edf9177157c255dd80b9def5361d476d2907b149/original/twopiano.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />After Alan Lindgren retired from touring in 2012, his rele in the band went to Mark Le Vang, who did a great job. The photo above was taken at Calgary's National Music Centre, just one more thing Canada has figured out that continues to elude this country. The photo shows Mark and I sharing a piano in a non-traditional way.</p>
<p>In our mutual backgrounds, Mark and I share another thing which you may not be aware of. At one time, each of us was an invisible pianist. Let me explain:</p>
<p>One of Mark's early gigs was playing and taking requests from visitors to the Magic Castle in Hollywood. The Castle is a club for magicians, frequently visited by tourists who can finagle an invitation, and a very entertaining spot on its own. One of its features is "Irma," an invisible pianist (who was actually Mark, behind a wall and unseen by the audience.) Irma would communicate by means of little piano flourishes, and playing songs, some by request, and some whose titles became part of the conversation.</p>
<p>I learned about this fascinating part of Mark's history after we'd been on the road for a while, and I had to share with him a similarly bizarre part of my employment history:</p>
<p>A year or so before I was asked to become part of Neil Diamond's band, I was playing on a television game called "Name That Tune." One of my duties was the "Bid a Note" section of the show, in which the contestant would bid on the number of notes it would take him or her to recognize a song. If the bid was, for example four notes, I would play the first four notes of the melody on the piano. The funky old, otherwise unused, piano and my fingers were shown in a small circle at the top of the TV screen. Otherwise, I was not seen.</p>
<p>So Mark and I had that shared experience, but I one-upped him. A few years later, on a hiatus from the tour, I played piano on the pilot for the series "2½ Men." Like Mark at the Magic Castle, I was on the back side of a wall. But in this case, the other side of the wall was occupied by Charlie Sheen, who was pretending to write jingles at the piano. I was required to do a kind of mind meld that would allow me to intuit what Charlie would play if he was actually playing.</p>
<p>In retrospect, doing a mind-meld with Charlie Sheen doesn't seem like the safest kind of mental activity, but it seemed to go pretty well. However, by the time the series was picked up, the hidden piano conceit was gone, so I was unneeded. Also gone was the fine Broadway actress Blythe Danner, who had played the part of Charlie's mother. She had been replaced by Holland Taylor.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/53780112018-08-07T11:41:17-07:002022-08-31T13:37:22-07:00The Larry King Show<p>For the last thirty years, I've published a newsletter on each show day. One recurring feature of the PBI, as it was known, was The Larry King Show, a comic strip about the adventures of saxophonist Larry Klimas and percussionist King Errisson. Here is one such strip, a study of the variety of snack items provided on one of our charter jet flights.<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/4244d18e36b1ea38a6095f11987de448caf5d604/original/memories-1-10.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/53682902018-07-30T20:00:37-07:002018-07-30T20:00:37-07:00The Art of Art<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/343e54fc6e9c1da89d3f16969d9e5853558dd0c8/original/flenniken.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />The amazing scene above was created by the legendary Shary Flenniken, whose resume reads like a history of American underground humor. </p>
<p>As you may have noted in the press, the annual Comicon convention was held the weekend before last in San Diego. I used to attend that shindig, back in the days when it was more about comics and artwork, and not so much about movies, tv, costumes and contracts, as it is today. </p>
<p>Comicon began as an event celebrating artists, rather than a victory lap for the people who profit from the work of artists, and in those days, many up-and-coming artists attended. One of the joys of being there was the opportunity to meet and chat with them, and sometimes convince them to do some artwork for you in exchange for some money. </p>
<p>Many of my treasures on the wall come from those days, including the one above, by the legendary Ms. Flenniken, who graced National Lampoon with her Trots and Bonnie strip back in the seventies. </p>
<p>Obviously, I am unworthy to be portrayed by someone of her stature, but what the hell? I happened to catch her on a nice day in San Diego, and she was clever enough to depict a scene which heretofore had only taken place in my fertile imagination.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/53286592018-07-03T16:10:45-07:002021-04-27T15:34:20-07:00Song of the Day<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/80d7b6068fd1d39bd05283add1dbe65a9fb1693d/original/memories-1-7.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />July 4th has always been a big day for our band, with a lot of memorable performances over the years. </p>
<p>The last couple of fourths, however, have been rather wistful because of what’s been done to the country by the unskilled people charged with running it. So I’ll just have to rely on memories for this time around. </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/dc80a7721b949738e5a7273cafcbb721364edd5c/original/memories-1-8.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Those memories begin for me in 1976 in Las Vegas, our first fourth as a band. That was, among other things, the day that our guitarist Richard Bennett Tina got hitched to his wife Tina Ward Bennett in our vocalist’s suite before the show. Fireworks later followed (no irony intended), which we watched from the roof of the Jockey Club across the street after our show at the newly-opened Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts, which is now newly-demolished. It was the bicentennial, and worthy of a big party, and we had good reasons for one.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/750cae61a5a8ab3f407c5a3a88baf23799cea0cb/original/memories-1-3.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />Flash forward many years to Dubin, where our caterers served up a holiday themed spread for a rehearsal day, albeit one with a bit of Asian flavor. Any day in Dublin brings fun, and this one was no different.</p>
<p> Another year we were invited to "our home in England," Woburn Abbey, where our friends threw an American-style Independence day party for us, even though we were in England, the place we got our independence from.</p>
<p>Then there was Boston in 2009...<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/37ada2bd44fe101b75beb26ae1b4b2db9d08d4dd/original/memories-1-5.jpg/!!/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_none" alt="" />The 4th is a jolly time in Boston, so we jumped right in, performing with the Boston Pops (that's conductor Keith Lockhart hanging with the vocalist above), for an evening hosted by the brilliant Craig Ferguson (below, next to an unidentified Muzoid). </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/a5f4680197414ce1bacdedcea576fc95850b5d54/original/memories-1-9.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/ca4ba8e199ad333eff9a9a549824a2dbc3b70782/original/memories-1-4.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p><em>Above, our vocalist says "Hi, Pops!"</em></p>
<p>And there was the very impressive one in 1986, on Governor’s Island in NYC, when we re-opened the Statue of Liberty after it had been refurbished. The ferry ride back from the island was one of those rare moments when everyone on the boat was the most important person there.</p>
<p>I hope our country gets back to normal sometime soon, so we can celebrate it the best way possible. We’ve got a really good song for it, one about immigrants traveling here. </p>
<p>Perhaps you'd like to hear the fine version of it that we did at the Greek Theatre in August of 2012. It will appear on our upcoming Hot August Night III package, coming in August. <a contents="Here's a link to see it right now." data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrgCxSSwBto&app=desktop" target="_blank">Here's a link to see it right now.</a></p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/53227092018-06-28T13:36:27-07:002018-06-28T13:46:53-07:00Harlan Ellison has left the building<p><a contents="Harlan Ellison" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.cbr.com/harlan-ellison-dies-84/" target="_blank"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/cebac0f168fe84a87421eabefddccd9b8806812f/original/memories-1-2.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />Harlan Ellison</a>, who died today, was a long-time friend and collaborator to my late brother Joe. When we moved to LA long ago, we became the beneficiaries of that great friendship.</p>
<p>Harlan was irascible, brilliant and motivated. He was a great friend (and, as been documented, a ruthless enemy), and time spent with him was never wasted. Harlan once came to a party at our house and spent the entire evening sitting a at a typewriter in our living room, writing a story which he sold the next day.</p>
<p>A visit to his house, sometimes known as the Lost Aztec Temple, was what we used to call an E Coupon coupon ride; a work of art in itself, full of mystic treasures, from the exterior gargoyles made to look like members of the Nixon administration, to the low-ceilinged secret room below, which was made intentionally inaccessible to tall people. His work always sold, and he created it tirelessly. He had an enormous fanbase.</p>
<p>And he loved music. I remember when I once had temporarily convinced myself that MP3 recordings sounded pretty good, he played me a pristine LP of Aretha Franklin's first album, which was pure jazz, and it cleaned out my ears so thoroughly that I couldn't listen to an MP3 file for months afterward.</p>
<p>We hadn't seen him for months, not since he declared that he just wasn't up to visitors any more.</p>
<p>His wife, Susan, has been a valiant caregiver for the duration of his recent years of illness, and we send her our love and all the comfort we can offer.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/53211562018-06-28T08:00:00-07:002018-06-28T13:40:58-07:00Last Tango in Glasto<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/18b39b56402f293fe0c1178479abeb262c954bf7/original/memories-1.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />On June 29, 2008. The Arch Angel touring organization wrapped up phase one of its plan for world domination with a performance for an audience of wild-eyed youths and a few adults who managed to sneak past security at a festive gathering in Glastonbury. </p>
<p>The late afternoon performance was telecast live by the BBC to a nation hungry for another look at us, or perhaps it was just hungry. It was tea time, after all. </p>
<p>"It wouldn't be Glastonbury without the mud," we had been told, but still our vocalist was promising to the press that we would deliver some California sunshine to the site. Somehow, he was able to deliver. </p>
<p>As it was, our performance—which had the potential to be something akin to a gig at the old Hollywood Tropicana, the saloon at Hollywood and Western where the main attraction was mud wrestling—was a sun-kissed love fest. The sight of 130,000 or so people, depending on who’s counting, waving their arms during Sweet Caroline was one that Touroids won't soon forget. (Those 130K audience members weren't there just to see us--Jay Z, John Mayer and Leonard Cohen were among the others on the bill.)</p>
<p>Nor will they forget our unplanned break in the middle of the show, when electricity for the audio system went away for a while. King and Ron kept the beat going, which was all that was required for most of the audience and the Beeb, so when the juice was restored, the vocalist leaped in at the exact spot where the interruption had occurred, with a look on his face that could have been interpreted as “I meant to do that.”</p>
<p>Convincing a jury that the extended percussion solo was entirely planned was made a bit more difficult because of the puddles of sweat accumulating around Bernie Becker’s audio work station. But Bernie is such a grizzled veteran that he knew how to make us sound like we were doing just what we intended.</p>
<p>After the show, traffic made it necessary for us to a swift exit (we call it a "runner") with our police escort. We had planned to have dinner on the bus, but a little culinary miscalculation, resulted in our having to enjoy a sumptuous banquet of potato chips and peanut butter. Mmm, my favorite!</p>
<p>Later on, the reviews from our appearance began to roll in, and while that little moment out of time had been noticed by some, the spin tended described as “Diamond Triumphs over Technical Glitch.” Which, in retrospect, was exactly what had happened. Bravo, British journos, you got it right fer once.<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/339d12a09507da8e1aa2a040c4d82ff10a888439/original/memories-1-1.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/53169962018-06-25T16:52:44-07:002022-05-19T12:21:19-07:00Fake Osmond Alert!<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/c7d935311fc27d6a93d4f6cb0652ba33a8863d95/original/memories-1-4.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />Picutred above, Left to right, are: Donny Osmond, Jimmy Osmond, Alan Osmond, Tom Osmond, Jay Osmond, Ron Osmond, Wayne Osmond, Marie Osmond, and Merle Osmond. </p>
<p>Two of the individuals in this portrait are not actually bona fide members of the Osmond family. Yes, it's an extended family, but it doesn't extend quite that far. Perhaps you can spot the fake Osmonds if you look closely. If you do, write down the names of the two Osmonds you think are bogus and put your entry in your bedroom wastebasket. Then watch for your mail. If your answer is correct, you will receive an absolutely FREE advertising circular from a major department store in your area! Good luck! </p>
<p>Full disclosure: We were doing a TV appearance in London a decade ago, and The Osmonds were guests on the same Jonathan Ross show as our motley bunch. Ron Tutt and I, who had played on a lot of records with various Osmonds a long time before that, took advantage of the opportunity for this little reunion picture. None of us had aged a bit, except some of us.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/53053572018-06-20T14:24:20-07:002021-04-27T15:28:45-07:00Bluegrass memories<p><a contents="" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.amazon.com/Bluegrass-Generation-Memoir-Music-American-ebook/dp/B07D4F8BRQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1529530714&sr=1-1&keywords=neil+rosenberg+bluegrass" target="_blank"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/9641d7f6e176fcd70b1617da1c349b77a68b51af/original/51ty247x5pl.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></a>An old college friend named Neil Rosenberg just sent me a copy of his new book, Bluegrass Generation, and I settled into it happily. Along the way, it presents some moments in my life that I don't get to recall often, specifically a period in the early sixties when I was playing bass in a band called The Pigeon Hill Boys. If you don't know much about bluegrass, it's like country music, except way better. Maybe you could consider it a cross between country music and bebop. Unless you're Irish, in which case it sounds like Irish music.</p>
<p>Neil Rosenberg, the book's author, was a scholar who came to Bloomington from back east, and was the instigator who drew a number os us into it. I came, of course, from a jazz background, like many in Bloomington, as the book explains. t inexplicably gravitated into the picking world. We played for our meager following at coffee houses and folk festivals around Indiana and beyond, and I enjoyed all of it. </p>
<p>I especially enjoyed a festival concert in Ann Arbor, Michigan, an all-day event which concluded with a gala set featuring all the featured acts. We followed a folksinger whose name was misspelled on the poster as "Bob Dillon." Yes, it was that guy. It didn't destroy his career, apparently.</p>
<p>My only memory from that day is that during a lengthy break, I walked down the street in Ann Arbor and found a jazz club where an afternoon jam session was going on. I went in to check out the scene. After a bit, I stopped by the bandstand, and uncharacteristically asked if I could sit in.</p>
<p>I was dressed in my full bluegrass mufti, including cowboy hat, checked shirt and jeans, and I enjoyed the predictable look of horror on the musicians' faces at the thought of an apparent hillbilly buffoon sharing their hip space, but they were good sports about it, and didn't bar me from the premises. I felt their palpable relief when they determined that I could play somewhat credibly in their genre. This was many years before Charlie Haden made it perfectly okay for jazz players to diversify into bluegrass. I told Mr. Haden that story a few years ago, and thanked him for blazing the trail.</p>
<p>In his book, Neil recounts tales of his work with Bill Monroe, who is regarded as the father of bluegrass. Neil is also the author of a book called <em>The Music of Bill Monroe (Music in American Life)</em>. The Pigeon Hill Boys played at Monroe's Jamboree venue in Bean Blossom, Indiana a few times. It's in the book. It's all in the book.</p>
<p>This photo (below) of the Pigeon Hill Boys rehearsing amid blue grass and green leaves in Bloomington a very long time ago is also in the book. Left to right, the troublemakers were Neil Rosenberg, Charlie Leinenweber, an unidentified Touroid, Bob Patterson and Jim Neawedde.<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/232a20ee6ebdb9d764ce939c3e525e9314d38f19/original/memories-1-3.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/52879472018-06-11T21:11:13-07:002020-07-04T07:14:31-07:00Alas, poor Birmingham<p>When we played Birmingham, (the one in England, not the one in Alabama or the one in Michigan) in 2008, the PBI lamented the sad state of the town and bemoaned the loss of its most remarkable landmark. We were there last year, and they were working hard on trying to restore Centenary Square, but it still lacks the feature that made it special. <a contents="Read about it in my blog from then." data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://diamondville.com/Diamondville/Diamondville_Doings/Entries/2008/6/11_Birmingham._No_Further..html" target="_blank">Read about it in my blog from then.</a></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/76c6cb2a6ba8d72941196901ed1566eb744a7651/original/memories-1.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/52813792018-06-07T10:24:12-07:002018-06-07T10:24:12-07:00VERY basic training<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/fcd6908d7c720c3cc29f7c8ae7443436f1773bd0/original/memories-1-2.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />Dipping once again to my blog of 20 years ago, here's the story of a train trip in England, and how the train service in 2008 wasn't what it used to be back in 1999. And, of course, train travel today isn't what it used to be back in 2008—so I figure the takeawau is that things never are and never were what they used to be. On the other hand, we had Vince Charles on the train with us in 1999, so a good time was had by all. <a contents="You can read about it by clicking here" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://diamondville.com/Diamondville/Diamondville_Doings/Entries/2008/6/7_Very_Basic_Training.html" target="_self">You can read about it by clicking here</a>.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/52750082018-06-04T13:34:24-07:002022-02-17T23:02:10-08:00The Last PBI<p>For those unfamiliar with it, the PBI (Arch Angel Post-Bugle Intelligencer) was a newsletter I published in Diamondville on every showday since 1986. Over this weekend, I sent out the final issue to all our tour members and a few friends.</p>
<p>The last issue was 40 pages long, and could have been even fatter, but I just had to declare it finished. Maybe I'll eventually enlarge it into a book or something, but for now I thought I'd share this page which didn't make the cut. You may recognize the person portrayed.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/46a9e696aa996a0796384bb7290141997849b950/original/memories-1.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/52710702018-06-02T13:05:49-07:002018-06-02T13:05:49-07:00A decade ago: My Wurst Day in Hamburg<p>Once again, let's hop into our hot tub time machine and travel back to that magical year, 2008, when we were encamped in Germany, and I posted <a contents="an account in my blog describing&nbsp;my adventure du jour" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://diamondville.com/Diamondville/Diamondville_Doings/Entries/2008/6/2_My_Wurst_Day_in_Germany.html" target="_self">an account in my blog describing my adventure du jour</a>. (Click there to read it, of course.)<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/0025b500d765fdb2ef5e1597edd126cca2ac8184/original/memories-1.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/52616872018-05-28T10:43:35-07:002018-06-01T17:13:36-07:00Tour memory: Antwerpists<p>Ten years ago today, our tour took us to Antwerp, Belgium. Touroids were wandering around the city, and I ran into one near the waterfront. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/4e5123f524397f3106a2459a2b3178a824cf690a/original/memories-1-2.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />. <a contents="Here's my blog description of that day." data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://diamondville.com/Diamondville/Diamondville_Doings/Entries/2008/5/28_Antwerps_Are_We!.html" target="_self">Here's my blog description of that day.</a></p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/52601212018-05-27T08:52:13-07:002018-05-27T08:52:13-07:00500 Miles From Home Again<p>Every year I pull out this post for those who didn't see it before. It's all about my Memorial Day gig, and how moving to California saved my life.</p>
<p><a contents="500 Miles from Home" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://diamondville.com/Diamondville/Downtime_Doings/Entries/2007/5/25_500_Miles_from_Home.html" target="_self">500 Miles from Home</a></p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/52310452018-05-12T15:05:41-07:002020-11-09T21:26:05-08:00Indianapolis, Labor Day, 2007<p>That's the EXIF summary of these three photos. Here's the story behind them.<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/f1e5c580fedb164d7715f0bb1d2747c2be237978/original/honeat-jow.jpg/!!/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsInNtYWxsIl1d.jpg" class="size_s justify_left border_" /></p>
<p>We had made a sad trip to Indiana after the death of my brother. A few years earlier, I had put together of CD of Joe singing some older standard tunes ("Songs We Almost Know," left, by Honest Joe Hensley and Bumbling Brother Tom), a task he did very well. At one time he had been a professional singer. That was before he became a professional lawyer, a professional prosecutor, a professional state legislator, a professional judge, and a professional author. </p>
<p>We drove to Madison for his memorial service, where they played the CD we had recorded. I was proud that Joe had achieved something done by a very select few: he sang at his own funeral.</p>
<p>The next day, we drove to Indianapolis, where we were to meet drummer Jack Gilfoy for lunch. He had an afternoon gig across the street from the restaurant where we ate, so we strolled over to catch the show, which was part of a Labor Day marathon jazz event at the Jazz Kitchen, a well-known club in the town where I used to live and work.<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/c04d894c1454cd68edb6bfed8e6519f1244fa028/original/memories-1.jpg/!!/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsInNtYWxsIl1d.jpg" class="size_s justify_right border_" /></p>
<p>We were early enough that the group which preceded Jack's was still playing. On the way to our table, we walked by the bandstand, where I recognized the wonderful pianist Claude Sifferlen playing. A bass solo was happening and Claude was typically looking down, but as we passed by, I caught his attention, He looked up and recognized me and I said to him: "You're too fucking good!" We shared a laugh. That was the last time I saw Claude, who died a couple of years later.</p>
<p>A few minutes later, the bandstand was changed for the Buselli–Wallarab Jazz Orchestra, a fine big band with lively, traditional charts. I had told Jack that if their pianist was late, I'd be happy to play a couple of tunes. Jack got up from the table and headed over to his drum set, but came right back to tell me that the pianist had, in fact, not shown up at all. Also, the book of piano charts was not there. So I ended up playing their whole big band set trying to read from the bass player's chart. Let's just say that I didn't sound my best, as usual. Afterwards, Jack said to me, "Be careful what you ask for."<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/40c18da4c006fb5efea575b1c8f6f2c6441b12a1/original/memories-3.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>That was also the last time I saw Jack Gilfoy. He died a year later, while we were touring Europe, and I didn't even get to attend his memorial. </p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/52069272018-04-27T21:04:01-07:002022-02-11T02:19:10-08:00Something to remember us by...<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/f9ef815e2917f983027c5ba414102daa9e45a9e2/original/screen-shot-2018-04-27-at-9-19-54-pm.png/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />A few years ago, we put together an album of songs about our tour. Now that our tour has ground to a halt, I thought it might be nice to make a little video using one of those songs to illustrate some memories from tour last forty-plus years. <a contents="Have a look if you like." data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://vimeo.com/266979799" target="_blank">Have a look if you like.</a> It can also be found on the music page <a contents="here" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://hensleyfarms.com/music" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/52060082018-04-27T12:04:05-07:002018-06-27T16:34:42-07:00Insert drum fill here<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/7bffa2d008a59843aca86a0c88a53bfec981152b/original/hensley-baldini-von-ohlen.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>Here you see the house band from the Embers, a swanky night club which brought fairly big-name talent to Indianapolis audiences in the 1960s. On the right is Don Baldini, in the middle is an unidentified Touroid, and on the left is the sensational drummer John Von Ohlen. John is one of the all-time great big-band drummers (although he moved our little trio along real well, too), playing with big names like Stan Kenton, Woody Herman--you get the picture--before settling in Cincinnati with his Blue Wisp big band, which I took some of our band members to hear some years ago, right after we hit Skyline Chili, of course. Here's a report from the September 19, 1996 issue of the PBI:</p>
<hr><p><strong>CULTURAL EXPEDITION BAGS BIG BAND BOOTY</strong><br>The Arch Angel Jazztronauts set foot into the wilds of downtown Cincinnati last night, in search of the only native American art form—and they found it. Rhythmist R. Tutt, Fundamentalist R. Press and a PBI reporter made their way to the Blue Wisp promptly at 9:30 for the scheduled performance by the John Von Ohlen 16-piece big band—but the band wasn’t ready for them. Drummer Von Ohlen (an old pal and musical co-conspirator of a nameless, blameless Muzoid) told the PBI that his bass trombonist was late, “and he’s got all the music stands.”</p>
<p>Music stands? What are those? thought our Muzoids, whose playing instructions are secreted in various parts of their bodies rather than scrawled on paper where ANYBODY can see them. We learned that this band has been playing Wednesday nights at the Blue Wisp for 17 years now, and the music stands had yet to fail to arrive.</p>
<p>Sure enough, a few minutes later the boneist and his stands appeared and after a speedy setup the big band set about its work in an impressive way. While the band sounded hot enough to us Von Ohlen apologized for some sloppiness, explaining that some of his best players were working the touring production of “Sunset Boulevard.”</p>
<p>“Just another reason to feel contempt for A. Lloyd Webber,” we answered, once again taking the opportunity to point out that the composer’s mother refers to her other son Julian as “the musician in the family.” This was no consolation to Von Ohlen, who said he wished we’d been there the week before, when things were REALLY cooking.</p>
<hr><p>They're having a birthday celebration for John on <strong>Monday, April 30th from 7:30 to 10</strong> at a Cincinnati club called the <strong>Greenwich</strong>, and if I was in those parts, I'd be there, after having some Skyline Chili, of course. It will feature Von Ohlen's Flying Circus Big Band and fellow drummer Jeff Hamilton will be there to sit in for the festivities. </p>
<p>The evening will be a benefit for John, who's had some serious health problems, the kind which inevitably lead to financial problems; so some of his friends/fellow Muzoids have set up a GoFundMe page to helo him out. If you're a fan of John's, or a fan of incredible big-band drumming, and you're in the area, you should be attending the party. Otherwise, you can always <a contents="visit the benefit page for him" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.gofundme.com/keepVOswinging" target="_blank">visit the benefit page for him</a>. I did.</p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/51966842018-04-22T20:44:16-07:002018-04-22T20:44:16-07:00Sorry, you won't be seeing me doing this.<p>It's just as well that we're not going to be touring anymore, since I discovered that <a contents="these people have stolen the act I was going to use on the next tour." data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.lolaastanova.com" target="_blank">these people have stolen the act I was going to use on the next tour.</a></p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/51962012018-04-22T12:48:41-07:002021-04-27T15:35:50-07:00Bird lives it up<p>I bought a bird feeder last year, and we finally got around to putting it up. Noe it seems to be the talk of the avian community around here. Brunchtime shows daily.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="vimeo" data-video-id="266002240" data-video-thumb-url="https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/696150272_295x166.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/266002240" frameborder="0" height="180" width="320"></iframe></p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/51914882018-04-19T17:46:16-07:002018-04-19T17:46:16-07:00Don't Try This at Home—or anywhere<p>I suppose I could complain about political stuff today, but that's too easy. Today I want to complain about a commercial. A car commercial coming from Dodge, which is apparently an automobile company, and it's been all over my TV lately. It features three numbskulls driving different-colored Dodge jalopies at exceedingly high rates of speed through a deserted urban area, while an ominous announcer reads this copy: "If you're one of us, deep down, you already know..."<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/478b90cd49a1c2511e6ee2ea15c4783adb699ea3/original/hqdefault-3.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>All I know deep down, is that I'm not one of you, and I don't want you driving around my neighborhood. This is as if the Ginsu Knife Company was running commercials depicting people throwing their knives at people.</p>
<p>Dodge isn't the only doing that advertises their product in such an idiotic way, of course. BMW has done it for years, including one classic where someone drove a car through a busy office. That one was a while back—they might want to remake it now showing the driver drinking a beer while sending out a text.</p>
<p>When the BMW ad was running, there were a number of horrible crashes around these parts, many of the involving street racing, that I simply could not refer to as "accidents."</p>
<p>Okay, back to the ball game.</p>
<p> </p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/51873652018-04-17T16:55:16-07:002018-04-17T16:55:16-07:00I'm Not Going Anywhere<p>Since the end of the tour, we've been calling up local friends we haven't seen in a long time, usually because of conflicts with our tour schedule. My mantra now is "I'm not going anywhere," and those magic words frequently pay off.</p>
<p>For example, we had lunch today with our old friends Phil and Melinda Proctor. We brought in tasty sandwiches from <a contents="Don Adrian's Cemitas Poblanas" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://la.eater.com/2015/5/19/8626287/cemita-heaven-in-the-san-fernando-valley" target="_self">Don Adrian's Cemitas Poblanas</a>, and had an old-fashioned chat and chew. Phil brought us a copy of his new book, "<a contents="Where's My Fortune Cookie" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.amazon.com/Wheres-Fortune-Cookie-Phil-Proctor/dp/138970503X" target="_blank">Where's My Fortune Cookie</a>?" and I gave him copies of my current CDs, "<a contents="Jazz Time" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/tomhensley2" target="_self">Jazz Time</a>" and "<a contents="Taking America to America" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/tomhensley" target="_self">Taking America to America</a>." I guess this made it a business lunch, but it was mostly pleasure.</p>
<p>Phil is one of the founding members of the <a contents="Firesign Theater" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://firesigntheatre.com/index.php" target="_self">Firesign Theater</a>, a groundbreaking comedy ensemble, and he and Melinda are active in theater projects here in LA. The Firesign Theater has lately been hearing a lot from the Library of Congress, and not because they have overdue books. You can <a contents="read a little about it here" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2017/09/pic-of-the-week-firesign-theatre-comedians-share-their-story/" target="_self">read a little about it here</a>.</p>
<p>Phil's flagship piece for the Firesign bunch was his "<a contents="How Can You Be In Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.amazon.com/Places-Once-When-Youre-Anywhere/dp/B0026OIBNG" target="_self">How Can You Be In Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All</a>." My first listening to that one, back in the day, permanently altered my consciousness.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/a5a81c62cbc9a2aaaf2559a96941dd6c97b0e6d3/original/img-0750.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p> </p>Tom Hensleytag:hensleyfarms.com,2005:Post/51122302018-03-06T10:36:23-08:002021-12-24T12:23:29-08:00Blog Redux<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/285648/9ecd8cb59d78aaab5722892cd2c66bdecbe00272/original/website-1-8.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>I'm a blogger again. </p>
<p><span class="font_regular">I created the Diamondville site in 1996, added a blog shortly after, and kept at it sporadically until eventually stopped doing it, after passing an excess of verbiage in various pages, ending up on Facebook, which is not the best place for a literary rascal like myself. But now i'm sharing my feeble thoughts on the Hensley Farms page, where I started. I'll post more frequently now that we're not touring, and I'll dredge up some of my greatest hits from the slush pile, too.</span></p>
<p><span class="font_regular">Thanks for noticing.</span></p>
<p> </p>Tom Hensley