Yo Ray P.

[Monte]

I played with a piano player from Detroit Saturday night who asked me if I had ever heard of Gene Parker or his bass playin' son Ray. I guess he played a gig or two with you; his name is Bob Norris and he is in OKC working as a pilot for the FAA. He was pretty decent, soloed well in an Oscar Peterson meets Gene Harris way, although he was a little busy comping behind our tenor player. In spite of that, he was a nice cat and better than 99% if the pianists in Oklahoma, which suffers from a lack of good piano players. IMHO, the best jazz pianist here is the 16 year old daughter of Stephen Fulton. When she has to miss a gig, we have to settle for bad cocktail hour types or young guys from Univ. of Central Oklahoma or OU that thing jazz piano began with Brad Mehldau. (Not that there is anything wrong with him, but not a good starting point)

Monte

[anonymous0726]

Very cool! I don't recall Bob directly by name, although it sounds familiar, but I'd probably recognize him by face. I have a pretty bad case of NDD (Name Deficit Disorder). It's likely that my dad played with him more than I did as he gets up to Detroit more than I do.

Small world, eh?

[Monte]

He sounded like he knew your dad pretty well. He mentioned playing at an outdoor festival with both of you that he said you would remember, but I don't remember the town's name now. Other than that, just an average looking white guy in his 50's, balding, wore glasses. That oughta help . I suffer from NDD quite a bit myself.

Monte

[anonymous0726]

I think that I know the gig he was talking about. It was outside of the train station in Tecumseh, MI. I believe that this is the only time I have played with him, but I think he knows my father better...