I thanked my lucky stars (who comes up with these clichés?) that Justin Van Dyke had not been around for the debacle of my experience with Elmer Dickson, another floating Professor who worked the arts schools circuit teaching history. This was not music history, so the hard core instrumentalist might not have approved of it on principal. It was a class that freshmen had to take and it was billed as The History of Western Civilization. (2 credits, one semester.)
Elmer, and of course we all called him 'Fudd,' strode in on day one of a bad week (as you'll recall - nosebleeds, butt-fuck failure) and held his arms aloft and yelled:
"The history of Western Civilization doesn't start down here."
He crouches as low as his elderly legs can take him.
"It starts up HERE!"
He's on tip toes, which by now, I know as 'relevé.'
"It starts up here, with Homer."
("What'd he say? Homo?")
Again, with Elmer, I made the mistake of writing in my full high dudgeon. He used those little blue exam books and we scrawled out our bullshit until the clock ran out. When I got the first paper back, his comments in the margins were embarrassing. "You write so beautifully in our native tongue! Why not offer me a copy to keep?" I would keep these blue pamphlets with such marginalia hidden from the others in the class. It was no use. Elmer began to single me out for bellowing praise. No music student worth a semiquaver was supposed to either like these academic requirements, or to do well in them. I was, as we have seen, suspect among my peers.
Of course they weren't really peers. They played instruments well, and I was struggling. I took trumpet lessons that first year. Then I tried drums. As a sophomore, thinking of Mara and Thoreau's flute, I tried to learn the flute. I couldn't get a noise out of it. Every time I picked the rented instrument up, I'd be dizzy just trying to get a sound. Furthermore, the thought of the flute now made me weep. I failed. The exam in flute was a nightmare. I stood there, with the baby flute book open, and blew over the hole, no sound emerging but the rush of my breath on the way to disaster.
"Cal, I have to ask. If I came to you and played like that, what grade would you have to give me?"
"I'd fail you," I said, tears pouring helplessly down my face.
"I'm sorry. But I have to flunk you."
So over the Summer, rather than re-take the hopeless flute, I rented a clarinet and played the shit out of it. When the instrumental teacher said,
"Very good. You get a B."
I was a happy man. I still struggled with piano. Smith still marked my scores until they were torn. I stuck with Smith, not out of loyalty to Goode, who I had now abandoned, but because he provided some solid discipline. There was no way I was going to be playing like Van Dyke. I now took voice lessons. Perhaps I could learn to sing. The requirement for a second instrument disappeared in the Junior year. Again, I thank those lucky stars. I'd never have graduated if that were not the case.
And besides all of that, Elmer somehow persisted even after I was free of his course. Even though I'd shaken off Goode, and Don Davis was dead, I soon found myself being madly, embarrassingly pursued by Elmer Fudd. I was now the straight man, but I had a dreadful history to live down.
Somehow or other, and I really can't recall exactly now, Van Dyke and I began hanging out. I could make up a story... perhaps it was that I came up to the piano after a nasty chorus rehearsal. We did tackle more Brahms, the "Schicksalslied," and I remember Van Dyke once telling me it was the hardest shit he'd ever played up to that point. (That point was a ways ahead, out past the intended scope of this volume.) To see Van Dyke struggle with something was a merciful sign of vulnerability. It was a lot more inviting to approach a human than a sight reading machine. So let's say that's what happened. I went up to the keyboard and stood behind Justin as he went over some bit of knotty accompaniment. Aware of my presence, of course, he speaks, but maybe more to his score than to me:
"Shit fuck."
"It's a bitch."
"No shit."
I try imitating Zoltan's accent.
"Justin my boy, you are having a crisis of energy."
"I'm having a crisis of too much marijuana."
"Ooo. I always suspected you did this stoned."
"The only way to do this. Although this shit is kicking my ass."
"So, you're like a piano major?"
"Nope. Organ."
"I can't believe it!"
"Why not? It's a total body workout!"
"It's just that I've always loved the instrument. The king of instruments. I used to play a bit at a church. My family, they're church goers, choir singers, organist lovers. I used to watch the organist when I was a kid. I thought it was just amazing."
"It is that."
He gave me a quizzical look, an eyebrow raised, a smile curling slightly.
"You wanna come out and blow some dope?"
"I'd love to."
And just like that, everything had changed in the blink of an eye. My new hang was the key to respectability among peers, perhaps (though the musicianship had to be owned and that was the only currency), and beyond that superficial benefit, I was about to become involved with a much more sophisticated scene. I was about to embark on the second half of learning what music was about, what life was about, and where I fit into the vast scheme of things. In the blink of an eye. Changed.
Of course it took time to get out to Framingham. Justin drove a shit box, but at least it worked. His was a big boxy thing. There again we had a commonality.
"Shit, Justin! I learned how to drive in one of these things. Ours was a '66. I got up on a hill, line of traffic behind me, and I still hadn't got the hang of the clutch. Dad says, 'put in the clutch and count to ten.' This was to keep the gears from screaming. I put in the clutch and got to maybe three before BANG! We hit the car behind us. Dad says, 'you're supposed to also keep your foot on the brake.'"
"Well, this one's got its problems, but it gets me around. C'mon, jump in, let's hit it."
The scene in Framingham was very cool. It was, in fact a family scene, as Justin was sharing his flat with a young couple. I was introduced as 'that composer dude, and general troublemaker,' to Sue and Greg Llyon. It was evening, they were making dinner. Justin and I were clearly not invited. Very curious, this couple, wrapped up in their own difficulties. Justin and I took over the living room. He put on the first side of "Bitches Brew." Imagine! It was only about 5 years old at the time! I, of course, had no clue what it was. Greg poked his head in and gave Justin the thumbs up. Justin looked up from what he was doing (filling the pipe) and nodded back. He took a lighter and lit his bowl, then took a big drag and handed the pipe over to me in one fluid motion. I had just formed the question:
"What is this we're listening to?"
"Miles. Bitches Brew." (Through clenched teeth, retaining the pot smoke for full effect.)
"Miles?" Bowl in hand, I take in my first dope since the heady days of HS. Van Dyke exhales, filling the room with acrid smoke. The exhalation coincides with a hint of exasperation at my profound and unreasonable ignorance of jazz. It's true: I didn't know shit.
"Davis. Trumpeter. Bandleader. Composer. This from '69. Named after wife."
"Witch..."
"Nope. Bitch."
"Funny."
"Great. Great music, don't you think? If you're hearing this for the first time, you're in for a treat."
As with so many of the visits to Framingham, I don't remember how I got home. I assume I took the bus to the T and caught the T back to my crib. (I now was learning huge swaths of the jazzer lingo.) Jazz was all new, but my time with Van Dyke would have been less tolerable if it were a one way exchange, from his mind to mine. That's not to say I had much to teach. It was rather that we had commonalities. Besides the King of Instruments, there was Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. We could always speak of backpacking, the great out of doors, walking in general and later, Zen. We strode the blocks of the old towns, and discovered we had Walden and Thoreau in common. Justin's gig (ie., church) was not far form there and he threatened to take me out some Sunday to hear the Mary Baker sermon, "Ancient and Modern Necromancy, Alias Mesmerism and Hypnotism, Denounced."
"You're on."
"Plus, you get to hear me play some Bach."
"No further incentive needed. Just tell me when in the liturgical year you get to that shit."
"You got it. I'll give you fair warning."
Huge swaths of many literatures were fuel for our rants, for Justin was a formidable reader of not only musics, but also words. He claimed that he read all the time, but also claimed to read automatically, not recalling what he'd read. This was, in fact, bullshit. He knew much about auto mechanics, aircraft engines (take that, Dad!), birds, bees, carpentry, the Charles, rock climbing, Dickens, Dickenson, the diapason (of course), electronics, Everest (wanted some day to climb), enteritis (bad shit), flying (he'd taken lessons, but had no license), fishing, filigree (he hated it), God (not a believer), gold (not a hoarder, but favored the standard), Golding (loved "Lord of the Flies"), hatchets, Harlequin romances, hasps, inter-cooler turbines, inverted triangles, intensity of effect (in favor), Jesus (not a fan), Jews (was sure that Hitler had been one), and Jehoshephat (usually jumping, otherwise biblical), and Kerouac.
"Kerouac?"
"Jack."
"You're kidding! You've read "On The Road?"
"Man, I ate that shit up in High School."
Now I demonstrate my ability to quote from memory, semi-accurately, large chunks of poetry:
"' I know the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, ...and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear? ....nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides growing old. I think of Dean Moriarty, the father I never had, I think of Dean Moriarty.'"
"Dean Moriarty, aka Neal Cassady, man. That's some very good shit."
