I caught myself thinking back to this little music-related story, and thought, apropos nothing, that some of you might enjoy it.
Many years ago, I was working a dead-end job as a free-lance hotel A/V technician, for a dreadful company.
One day I was told I was going to do live audio for an evening fundraising event at a hotel.
Now, I had next to no experience running any kind of mixer at that time, let alone live sound. The company rep assured me it was going to be 'real simple'......
The gig turned out to star Pearl Bailey with her husband Louie Bellson on drums, a bass, and a small horn section....'real simple' audio
.....
I will say that both Pearl and Louie were two of the most gracious, relaxed people I have ever met. I can understand how they dared to marry at a time when 'that just wasn't done' because they fitted together perfectly.
Pearl got on the mic, and said to me: "Honey, you can turn me down some; trust me, I know how to make myself heard!"
Well, the audio went (sort of) ok, and the evening was good fun. The event producer, a good-looking woman in her early 40es, had said hello and then left me alone.
I noticed throughout the evening that she had a very apprehensive look on her face, and that she was never without a glass of wine. A man who was part of the team was near her as well.
When the gig ended, I went and said hello to both Pearl and Louie and she later sent me an autographed picture.
At this point, I had nothing else to do (the mixing board stayed where it was) and so, to relax a bit, I took one of the opened (almost full) bottles of wine and went to the room next door where a nice grand piano was sitting.
The guests were now gone, and I started noodling on the grand, enjoying the luxury of a good piano, and slugging some wine too.
I was playing 'The Rose' when a door to the room opened, and the female producer came in.
The wine was taking its toll on her, but what really hit me was when she came closer. She had tears in her eyes.
She leaned on the piano as I finished 'The Rose' and said:
"Would you play that again? That is my favorite song."
So I played it again and she started telling me about herself.
She had been a dancer with Bob Fosse until an injury some years ago had sidelined her, and she had gone into event production. She was a fine-figured girl, all right, tall and with ash-blond hair. 10 years earlier she would have been a killer.
As I played, she took another sip of wine, then came over, and sat down in my lap. I will swear to this on any book you care to produce, it is the truth.
I was at the time a fairly shy young man, but the wine had given me some courage, so I just slipped my arms around her and kept playing. So there I am, feeling strange but very good, with this nice hunk of woman in my lap, playing piano.
Then the door to the room opened again, and the man I had seen with her earlier came in.
As he came closer, she said:
"Oh, that's my husband."
I am fairly certain that I missed several notes on the piano at that point, but I did keep playing, trying to maintain my 'international man of whatever' air, even as I was starting to sweat a bit.
He came over and leaned on the piano, and he had this beatific, slightly goofy smile on his face as if it was not only not uncommon for his wife to sit on strange men's laps, but it was also something he actually found amusing.
She stayed where she was, and the three of us chatted a bit, amidst them calling up a few tunes (played badly by ear, but hey..)
At the time, it didn't even hit me that if the hotel night manager had come in and seen this, the report to the A/V company would have been very messy indeed.....
Between drinking the hotel wine on the clock, and having the client for the event sitting on my lap with her arm around my neck, I am sure I wouldn't have worked in that hotel again....
But it is one of my sweeter memories as it relates to music and such, and it made many other dismal A/V jobs tolerable, just from the remembrance of it.
I wonder where she is today?
CC.
