Eddie

Growing up in Los Angeles in the forties and fifties was for me a musical experience. A neighborhood musician only a few years older took an interest in me, made it possible to sit in with him, go to gigs (carrying cases & equipment), and taking me to my first jazz concert. He played clarinet for a start, then tenor and alto saxophones, occasionally a soprano sax. He played dixieland and blues at first, but was then playing big band Stan Kenton arrangements in high school. It was several months into our friendship that he came up to the house and announced "that it was all over;" he had heard a recording of Charlie Parker and knew that a huge shift had occurred. The added factor for me was that he insisted I share a joint in his car one night, and that was just another shift

Reading the biography of Chet Baker by James Gavin ("Deep in a Dream; the Long Night of Chet Baker") I realized for the first time the dynamics that my friend Eddie was involved in. Musicians that Eddie played with are mentioned throughout the book, and his early experimentation and later trouble with drugs and alcohol became more understandable. His lengendary fishbowl of pills on his coffee table with the "Physician" Drug Reference Manual" for guidance was a normal part of things, and I acquired pills especially to study and stay awake for long periods from him, but for "kicks" too.

The most interesting thing about the book's relationship with Eddie was the description of how one era merged into another, and how this affected the music scene and our lives. "Acting like you were interested only in the fix of the moment was a radical statement at a time when the future meant everything. Americans were supposedly in the midst of a hard-earned dream. The key was mass conformity -- the stubborn belief that a family-oriented suburban life, ruled by God, was all anyone needed for happiness." "Amidst all this sunshiny optimism came the first heroes of a defiant new youth culture: Marlon Brando, Montgomery Cliff and James Dean, all of whom symbolized disgust with every fase hope infecting America." And the musicians were right there with them, of course. Eddie was the first in our neighborhood of this new, cool breed, and he was to live out his own version of Chet Baker's tragic life, "Let's Get Lost" is the title of a film about Chet's life, and the title reminds me of Eddie all the way.