Jammin' At The Elks Lodge  by Barry Anthony  

Photos (except those in which he appears ) by Barry Anthony

My friends and me

The first real jazz band that I belonged to was called "the Saints of Dixie land".  It was a group put together by a fellow high school student Tracy Warner.  Tracy, a gifted clarinetist and soprano sax player was the ringmaster of this fledgling organization.  Each Tuesday evening at Tracy’s house 7 of us students would rehearse pieces of music that were written and played by musicians long before any of us were even born.  Tracy had a large collection of classic jazz records from which we drew our first musical influences.  All of the musicians in the “Saints” played in the high school band and orchestra, could read music and played their instruments with a fairly high degree of proficiency. 

Back row, Left to right, Tracy, my brother Steve, and yours truly.

  It has always been a mystery to me how a bunch of 17-year-old kids could love a music so far removed from their own time and culture.  "Basins Street Blues" was a song performed by musicians in 1910.  Basins Street, located in the “Red Light” district of New Orleans 90 years ago, was home to saloons, brothels, prostitution, drugs and the most violent characters. It was far removed from the experiences of teenagers living in an upper class Southern California bedroom community in the late 1960s. Yet, when we played "Basins Street Blues" I felt, in some magical way, transported to Basin Street and could taste the essence, the flavor of it. I discovered then that mere words could never describe a place, a time, or a mood like music could.

Even now I love my frequent “excursions to the “Red Light” district whenever I hear and play “Basin Street Blues”.  There is a joy and a hope in the even the saddest songs. There, you experience the wild passion, the bawdy humor and wit, and the ever-present yearning and longing for love. There you know the bittersweet taste of innocence and idealism in the midst of a very real and harsh world.  In short, Dixieland jazz covers and speaks for the entire gamut of human emotions.  I knew then that this was the music for me. It was my ticket to a place I could not otherwise visit. This was soul music. It seemed to free the souls of those who played as well as those who listened to it.

  In the years to come I would try my hand that many different types of music and come to see that each afforded my soul a different vehicle for its expression.  But none could equal the power of Jazz.  I may have been born 75 years to late to experience being apart of that era, but when you play jazz like that, you can go there and your listeners can go there with you.

Jammin at Shakey's Pizza Parlor

One of the numbers we used to play "Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?" became a favorite of mine.  The melody and the lyrics to the song describe vividly memories of New Orleans in beautifully nostalgic terms. The song has always made me feel a longing for a place I have never been.  I felt familiar with streets I have never walked upon, remembering bars and restaurants as if I frequented them regularly and felt homesick for a place I have never called home.  This was the magic of Jazz music for me.  

Tracy had several short volumes of standard arrangements for the Dixieland combo.  These were not hard to read but the challenge of the music was the solo, being able to improvise a new melody over the chord changes of a standard song.  The art of playing at jazz solo is a highly esoteric art form requiring a musician to blend technical skill with his deepest emotional and intuitive ability. The amazing and tricky part is that the musician must know where he is in the music at any given moment and utilize only those notes appropriate to that point in the song.  If he plays notes that are not appropriate to that moment in the song it becomes quickly apparent to any listener that he is playing wrong notes.  The faster the song goes by, the quicker the musician must be in making his choices. This highly refined musical skill can only be developed through experience. The musician must solo constantly to develop the skill.  Over a period of many years the wall that separates a musicians ability to technically execute an idea in his mind at the very moment he conceives of it, is gradually broken down.  Then the magic begins, slowly at first in moments of brief but unmistakable genius when a musician begins to feel that what he plays comes from somewhere else.  In these brief but shining moments there is little effort or struggle necessary to produce moments of great power and grace.  Once felt, the practitioner is hooked on the experience of "taking the ride", and he seeks to expand and prolong the feeling for as long as possible. However, no matter how well a soloist becomes at taking a ride, a number of factors can cause him to lose his way.  His feelings of the moment, the other musicians around him, or the unfamiliar piece of music can cause momentary lapses of brilliance (or worse) in a solo.

The Great Gil Bernal

While there's no formal method for a young musician to master the art of the jazz solo, there are traditional vehicles or tools that almost all jazzmen have utilized in the mastery of their art.  One of these is called "the jam session".  "Jamming" is one of the essential spirits and way of Jazz.  Quite simply it means putting things together or "jamming" them together in an experimental fashion.  The unexpected and constantly surprising results of the jam session is the purpose of it. It could be called a form of gambling where each participant brings himself to “the unexpected and the unknown” to see what surprises he contains, although I know that each one comes for his own reasons.  The musicians, out of their normally familiar surroundings, must now rely upon their wits to make music for there are many surprises in the jam session.  This is what makes them so much fun.  Of course there is always the possibility of losing one's way and this can be an embarrassing and humbling experience which I suppose goes along with any experimental process.  "Nothing ventured, nothing gained" applies to jamming, although I personally chose little experiments in my early attempts at jamming so as not to have to eat too much humble high all at once. 

My own first feeble attempts at jamming were made at the Tuesday night rehearsals of the "Saints" at Tracy's house.  There, armed with Tracy's recordings (another vital tool in the mastery of jazz) we practiced our soloing ability (or inability) on traditional jazz numbers. Our enthusiasm and diligence resulted in the band becoming quite popular at a variety of events including a regular stint at Shakey’s Pizza parlor, complete with red and white striped jackets and straw hats, playing for glory and pizza only. 

Finally, in my last year of high school, I discovered a new location to perfect my jazz improvising skills.  “The Society for the Preservation of Dixieland Jazz” was one of a number of jazz booster clubs going on around town and usually meeting on one Sunday of each month.  The meeting place, usually an Elks or Moose lodge, rented on a Sunday afternoon was a gathering place for musicians to have jam sessions and concerts while the general public was invited to listen for a small fee.  Usually the rooms were capable of serving refreshments that included liquor, hot dogs, popcorn as well as  providing a place to dance.  There were as many as five or six separate jazz clubs holding meetings on various Sunday's of each month around town, each one with its own jam session.  Invariably rivalries between clubs would arise but the musicians were like nomadic creatures wandering from jam session to jam session in quest of their thrills and their art.

  While all clubs were run somewhat differently, the protocol for the musicians was the same.  When you arrived you made your way to a sign in area where the musician would place his name under the instrument he wished to play on a session.  It was not unusual for musicians to be able to solo and accompany the others on several different instruments. 

A person designated as musical supervisor would assemble a group of musicians to jam for about 30 minutes.  Sometimes there were too many musicians on your particular instrument to be able to get on a set.  Sometimes the opposite was true and you could find yourself playing for almost two hours without a break.

  It was the great nervousness and application that I finally made my way to my first jazz club meeting when I was about 17. I felt comfortable jamming with my friends on Tuesday nights but the decision to venture into public jamming with a variety of musicians made me nervous. There were no music stands or music on the stage.  In this place musicians played by ear or by memory.  I was made to feel welcome right away despite the fact that these lovers of traditional jazz music were always quite a bit older than I was.  For the first time I was not looked down upon by older people for being young and dumb.  I had an immediate status because I was a player, like instantly becoming a member of fraternal order.  It seems ironic that this fraternal order of jazz musicians would meet in the fraternal order of an Elks Lodge, replete with the head of one of the unfortunate creatures hanging on the lodge wall.

  This fraternal order of jazzmen included all of the jazzmen of the past as well as those that were living and playing at the jam.  In the course of the jam session you could hear the influences of 100 great jazz players in everybody's solos. Everybody had a musical idol or more, and paid homage to that idol in their solo. Everybody could tell who your favorite artists were in your improvisations.  I felt a surge of pride when some of the  older members of the club told me that I sounded like a young Bix Beiderbeck. Some of them had been around when Bix was playing back in the early 20’s.  Tracy had turned me on to Bix and he had indeed been an early influence for me. 

  I would come equipped with only about seven songs committed to memory. As a trumpet player I was expected to lead the organization by playing the melody of the song.  The older, more experienced players new hundreds of songs and a good part of my education came from hearing the traditional favorites played over and over again.  Gradually my repertoire grew and I learned how to improvise over different types of songs.  Each song came complete with its own quirks and turns.  After awhile I came to hear the same types of patterns in different songs and knew more about what to expect even in songs I hadn't heard before.

Each Sunday jazz would be reborn at these meetings.  It is said that New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz and while that may be true, every Sunday jazz was being reborn at an Elks Lodge somewhere. Every time a musician picked up his instrument and improvised his solo, jazz was reborn, taking on a brand new form, a synthesis of all the influences in the musicians life up until very last moment when he leapt into the next measure of music without knowing what he would do next. The real magic comes when a great group of musicians each one performing to the best of their powers, jam together.  Some inner chord is plucked in the hearts of the players and the listeners in that moment that unites everyone present in a warm and friendly feeling.  It has always served to remind me that jazz is about the human experience, about being deeply emotional, passionate beings. Touching the highest in yourself, however brief, is as close to a truly religious experience that I have had, and I think many musicians would agree.

Yours truly taking my ride.. Note the French Horn player in the background. Not really traditional.

One of the things that always struck me as most important about the jam session was its social benefit. At 17 years of age I had a fairly small circle of friends and people I associated with on a regular basis.  These were usually people of my own group a having similar interest to my own as well as similar problems and challenges.  Being a regular participant of the jam sessions brought me into close proximity with a very different group of people than I would have normally met.  Some of the musicians I played with regularly were born 40 or 50 years before I was.  From them I heard tales of times long since past, of great events and remarkable players that I would never encounter.  Some of the musicians had actually performed with the legendary figures of the jazz world.   Some had developed their instruments to a high degree in their youth, and laying them aside for a more conventional lifestyle, had returned to the love of their youth. Like seasoned military veterans of war, they relished telling me the tales of the glorious exploits of their lives.  I came to regard the veteran jazzmen as treasures, living containers of half a century of knowledge and history. Jamming at the Elks,  I came to respect my elders.

                                  The Great Jim Matheson                                Danny Davis, 87 President of the club and a superb musician! 

Sometimes, because of their advanced age, they would have to bear the humiliation of losing their physical powers as well as the earning powers to get the money they needed for even basic survival. I would chat with one 83 year old drummer about his extreme financial hardship.  In his youth he had been an active musician with many bands in his local area.  He was a man who had stormed the beaches of Normandy on D day. 

  Later, he became a professional photographer of great talent and ability, owned his own business, married, had children, and now at 80 struggled to find $300 to repair a broken transmission on his car.  With an agonizing look in his eyes and despair in his voice he revealed to me that he had to live on only $400 that came from his Social Security benefits.  He could call his son who lived back east for some money but he didn't want to.  His pride was in the balance.  With a voice full of indignation he asks me "how could someone who gave four years in his youth and risked his life in the service of his country, who worked almost every day of his life and raised a family be eligible for no government financial assistance of any kind, while illegal aliens, who had only just arrived in this country were eligible for financial assistance under existing government programs?" How does a high school student or an adult respond to the rage and ugliness of injustice? I could not answer that question when I was an inexperienced youth and I still cannot answer it today, but I was not insensitive to their pain and for me, compassion and understanding were born with the music on those Sunday afternoons.

At a recent jam session that I attended I watched and listened to a five-year-old trombone player named Davey onstage with a group of older musicians.  His tiny black tennis shoes did not even touch the ground nor could his small arms push the trombone slide out to its full extension. For the most part he would sit with his trombone in hand respectfully watching the others play.  On occasion he would lift the instrument up to his lips and play a few well-placed notes.  "What a symbol" I thought.  The end and the beginning, the experienced and the inexperienced sitting side by side, sharing the same stage, united by one piece of music, one purpose.  Shakespeare said "all of life is a stage and each one of us walks across that stage for a brief moment called a lifetime.  It's  amazing to me that life could contain so many opposites in one framework, called a jam session.  I was curious about Davey, and after the set was over I went up to have a word with him.

After very formal adult like introductions and a little musician small talk, I asked; "So Davey, how is it that you play the trombone?  Are your parents musicians?"

"No, my dad doesn't play anything."

"Did your dad and mom bring you here today?"

"I came with my dad, " he said, and pointed to a man seated not far away listening to the session.  “His name is Earl."

And then, looking me squarely in the eyes said, "my mom and my dad don't live together anymore". Once again I am left with no answers.  He says it without lament or regret, as a statement of simple fact.  And I thought perhaps I could accept my own circumstances with such equality. Challenges confront human beings at every age.  One can learn much from a five-year-old.

  Of course the delicious and mysterious question that has haunted my mind since my days with “The Saints of Dixieland”, presents itself again in Davey.  "How does such a young child come to relate to music made a century before his birth and without even the guidance of his parents to it?"

After reflecting a moment I thought, ”The music has called him here today like everybody else, as it has for a hundred years. Under the watchful eye of a furry Elk they gather, from every station of life, to jam, to test themselves, to know the pleasure of reinventing themselves and the music they love best, again and again.”

Over the many years that I would attend these jam sessions, they would shape my views of the society I live in, of my place in the world and my art.