On my way summer's day walking over to Ribs &Bibs and bumping into my main man, Karl Johnson, after some years of near misses in clubs and on sessions. Just as tall- walking as I remember. Karl was my first piano partner, and we hit for, probably, two or three years altogether. This was, maybe, '90 to '93. We'd play three sets on Tuesdays or Thursdays downstairs at "Milt Trenier's (empty) Show Lounge". (Well, nearly empty. Maybe my girlfriend Lisa in a little black dress and pearls. Maybe old red-cardigan Roosevelt, who lived across the street in a lonely 34th floor McClurg Court apartment. Maybe one of the fat, fast aging, low-level "made men" in a suit - Asian call-girl in tow.) Sometimes people would come and clap. Most times not. I'd work for the door ($2.00 cover); maybe make ten dollars. Maybe six. Maybe nothing. (I never knew, or even asked, what Karl made, though I know he wasn't playing for any door. I didn't mind. I had a gig.)

Those days, cat was bad, man. Cat was bad. He was a strong cat, too; whip thin, with a commanding intellect and mojo for days. He was forceful in his approach, with a vice grip on time - forceful in the statement he was making: weird, hip supernatural arpeggiated fractals crashing headlong into true-blue, church-certified gospel licks, careening off into a kiltery, odd-time bebop. Nothing subtle here. He played a squint-eyed challenge and could back it up, like a jackknife springing.

On set breaks he'd tell me road stories and come across with ultra-serious advice about music, women, money, cars and self-protection. Or else stride over in his shiny black boots and black leather jacket & probably a hip bolo tie & boldly put the make on some bad chick who'd come in.

Cat had history. Ran his own all-black USO band in the mid sixties, piloting his green Cadillac through Southern overnights. He'd advance the date in the next town while the band packed up the gear and piled into the bus to sleep sitting up through lampless, two-lane highway nights. In fact (?) one time, as integration was becoming policy, they had a white lady as the band's business manager. She came on the road with the band once, but she wasn't digging the bus. Naturally, she started crashing in the back of the Caddie while Karl smoked and drove through the dark.

It was one of these times when they were out there somewhere that the local Klan got wind of the deal, saw red, and set up a roadblock with torches and sheets, the whole nightmare. I don't know how many cats were in on it - enough to matter. He sees the thing coming at a little distance and has time to quick get out his double barrel sawed-off shotgun from under the dashboard. (!)

Well, he opens his window and, with his left hand, lays the barrel end pointing forward on the side-view mirror, finger on both triggers. Then, he gets that great big-assed V-8 all charged up and roaring. The Sheet-Heads dig this mother bearing down on them (I guess they just had a mess of cats there but no logs or anything to jam up the actual road) and try to close ranks. Karl waits until he's within about two hundred feet of them. Before they can even raise a brick filled hand he throws up the brights and lets the have both barrels. Manager wakes up screaming, but all she sees as they blow through is a red and white blur whooshing by and the reflection of fire and headlights.

Karl said that she was still pretty shaken up when they stopped a couple of towns down the road to call the band to tell them to stay put for the night & not to venture out. As I say, she came on the road with the band once.

Another time, he had a steady at a roadhouse owned by the outfit in the far southwest suburbs where you had to check your gun at the door. He comes out at two or three in the morning when he comes off work & finds his brand-new '72 Olds Cutlass missing. Now, he's seen other cats have cars towed out of the lot before - usually because they owed somebody money, or because they had insulted someone higher up. Sometimes they were just held for a while, as an inconvenience or a lesson to the car's owner. Every once in a while they'd dump one in a nearby swamp. But Karl wasn't in need of a lesson.

He was in good with the company and had kept himself clean. He was just the piano player.

"Plus," he said, "I had just had to lay off this one chick I had been stayin' with cause she was talkin' about marriage too much. So I was in no mood, to put up with any of that bullshit!

"Now I never checked my gun at this club, 'cause they trusted me and never asked me about it, so I was still carrying, you dig? So I walk right back into the club - the place is only about half full 'cause it's late, see? - and I walk right up to the bar, pull out my gat and SLAM it down. (That gets everyone's attention right away.)

"'Now,' I say, 'which one of you motherfuckers stole my car?'

Silence.

"Come on. I know one of you motherfuckers had it towed or drove it out & parked it somewheres. Now goddammit, I just bought that car & I'm gonna have it back tonight. So nobody's leavin' until I'm packed up and sittin' in the driver's seat with my foot on the accelerator makin' dust fly. And there'd better not be a scratch on it.

"Comes a voice: 'You mean the Cutlass, Karl?'

"I say, 'You damn right that was my Cutlass. Who's that talking?'

"Out from the shadows steps the big man - that's right - the man himself, & says, calmly, walking towards me,

'Sorry, Karl. I thought it was my punk nephew's, and it's too handsome a car for him. Tony, go and get Karl's car for me and have them put it out front. Sorry, Karl. My mistake. Al, get Karl a drink while he waits. And Karl, put the gat away, will ya? You're makin' the ladies upset.'

I picture him standing there, waiting silently, ominously at the bar; smoking a cigarette, burning from within, grinding his heel.

"They had my car out front and shined up in fifteen minutes."

I believe every word. Cat was a jazz super hero.

Spent the first afternoon in the great disheveled Tokyo metropolis reading Martin Amis, swimming in the sun-bronzed pool on the roof before going in to practice- potted palms and an old green hedge blocking out Tokyo's cement gray labyrinth. But even seven flights up the haze from the city's exhaust joined with humidity vapor clouds to make the ultimate urban muck. Steam rises slowly from the patio tiles so that, just ten feet away from something, there was a ghost between you and it. Five zealous, uniformed pool attendants ran around all afternoon through the tropical goop at top speeds bringing towels and drinks for the three or four of us who had lucky days off.

I can dig that amount of dedication to work; running in the heat. What I cannot imagine is going day after unspeakable day having to block out the poolside music they have at the Tokyo Grand. For five straight hours I hear the same forty-minute loop: "Elton John's Late-Career B-Side Banalities". Let's see, there was "I Never Lied to You", "I'l Always Love you", "Isn't Love FUN!?!", and the ever popular, "It's So Cold Without You" - all done up in the stock pop professionalisms of composition and orchestration (Did somebody say, "Drum Machine"?).

The Horror. The Horror.

The opening reception of the Madarao Festival, at a ski lodge way up in the green misted mountains on Japan, feature speeches and toasts in a noisy brown room, food steaming and waiting on banquet tables all covered over in saran wrap - 1/2 miso- oriented, with fish and squid, 1/2 beef-oriented with pasta and green salad. Fifty or sixty Japanese business cats in suits chattering and smoking cigarettes as the guests of honor (Arturo Sandoval's band, Karl Denson's cats, my own quartet and the 4-star band of Wayne Shorter) take it all in with interest and jet lag. Arturo, sweating, in baseball hat and shorts and towering over our hosts like the biggest kid in fifth grade and just in from dodge ball recess.

I get to meet Wayne there. Danilo Perez and John Patitucci kindly introduce LH, me to him over in one corner by the wine & ice cream. We all shake hands & over the din of giant traditional ceremonial Japanese drummers hitting at the other end of the hall I thank him for letting me write words to some of his pieces. I doubt he knows who I am or what I am talking about, which is fine.

Wayne is the spearpoint - the very tip of the innermost cutting edge of the music. Even Miles knew this, calling Herbie on the road in the old days to ask, "What does Wayne do all day?" - i.e., how does this super genius of composition and line spend his time? (I, on the other hand, am the furthest fragment of wood at the very other end of the spear pole & spend a lot of time following the rest of the spear around.) The cats and I have been looking forward to hearing Wayne and seeing the band on this gig ever since we found out we were coming. Meeting Wayne now, I get that wide-eyed, breathless, try- not-to-say-anything-stupid you get around your ultimate hero the first time you meet him.

I hope I don't make an ass of myself. Thankfully, Wayne is open and very kind. I'd also like to say a brief word about the strength, joy and ultimate light of kindness flowing from the cats in Wayne's band, both on and off the stand. I'm happy to say that I've gotten to play a little with each of them Danilo and I share some friends in Chicago and try to catch up each other when we can. I first met Patitucci in Malta, of all places. We also were on this Joanne Brackeen side together, with Liebs. John has been beautiful to me every time. Brian Blade was even on a gig or two with LH and me on our first tour of New York. Just smoking.