Your licks are too short!

**sgcim** · 03-28-2024, 08:13 PM

Originally Posted by jzucker

Yes, I used to hear him around DC in various jazz clubs. While he was well known for the country/chickin' pickin' thing, he seemed to prefer playing jazz standards. There used to be a jazz brunch somewhere in the DC metro area with a really good buffet on sundays that he did for a long time. My wife and I used to go as often as we could to hear him. As a jazz player he was sort of like Tal Farlow harmonically. Like Tal, very unschooled. Didn't know theory or anything. We used to exchange licks though I couldn't play most of his, and I showed him some diminished scale stuff which he loved along with whole tone things. His technique was limitless so he could play very pianistically. In a way, a bit like Pasquale Grasso. When I showed him anything, within minutes he could play it back better than me and in variations I couldn't possibly have played. And many of the things he could play were beyond my technique since he used the pick and 4 fingers. He could do stuff that was just impossible for me.

Years later, I showed him some gambale sweep picking at a bar he was playing and he didn't see the point of it because he could already do all that stuff with pick and fingers!

I remember he seemed unhappy at that point as he had gotten some notoriety for some of his more popular recordings, but I got the feeling that he just wanted to play jazz...

Holy Moley! That's a fascinating story, and it all checks out in the book about him I'm reading. He was treated as God in DC, so it doesn't surprise me how his rabid fans treated you. From all accounts, the pianist you replaced was probably one of the greatest jazz pianists around, according to what Danny thought of him. Danny apparently got a lot of his ideas from him, and the sad thing was that he developed MS and died at a young age.
His name was Dick Heintze, and I don't know if he ever recorded, but he was also supposed to be one of the best B-3 players ever, so don't feel bad about being booed by those maniacs.
Danny not only didn't know theory, but when he tried to go to LA to make it in the recording studios, he couldn't even read chord symbols, not to mention notes, and left there after only about six months, very depressed about the whole situation.
He was happy doing jazz gigs around Maryland and DC, usually being paid about $25-$35 a night, and hated the music business so much that he would get sick of it, and just spend his time working on cars and drinking beers. The crazy thing about him and the cars he worked on was that he'd work on one for six months or so, and then get bored with it, and go back to playing the guitar., and wind up leaving the cars on blocks for years.
Up until I heard the stuff with Buddy Emmons, I just thought he was one of those legendary rockabilly/country/blues players that rockers dug, but he was much more than that. Thanks for the perceptive descriptions of your encounters with him!

**jzucker** · 03-28-2024, 09:53 PM

Originally Posted by sgcim

Holy Moley! That's a fascinating story, and it all checks out in the book about him I'm reading. He was treated as God in DC, so it doesn't surprise me how his rabid fans treated you. From all accounts, the pianist you replaced was probably one of the greatest jazz pianists around, according to what Danny thought of him. Danny apparently got a lot of his ideas from him, and the sad thing was that he developed MS and died at a young age.
His name was Dick Heintze, and I don't know if he ever recorded, but he was also supposed to be one of the best B-3 players ever, so don't feel bad about being booed by those maniacs.
Danny not only didn't know theory, but when he tried to go to LA to make it in the recording studios, he couldn't even read chord symbols, not to mention notes, and left there after only about six months, very depressed about the whole situation.
He was happy doing jazz gigs around Maryland and DC, usually being paid about $25-$35 a night, and hated the music business so much that he would get sick of it, and just spend his time working on cars and drinking beers. The crazy thing about him and the cars he worked on was that he'd work on one for six months or so, and then get bored with it, and go back to playing the guitar., and wind up leaving the cars on blocks for years.
Up until I heard the stuff with Buddy Emmons, I just thought he was one of those legendary rockabilly/country/blues players that rockers dug, but he was much more than that. Thanks for the perceptive descriptions of your encounters with him!

Actually it wasn't Dick Heintze - who i briefly studied piano with. I'm thinking it was don or billy hancock or something like that. The brunch was the best place to hear him because it was during the day, wasn't rowdy and he wasn't pressured into playing beer-bottle-slide and doing all his trickery. He just played jazz guitar on that gig...

**sgcim** · 03-28-2024, 10:05 PM

This is the maniac you were trying to replace. Apparently he was the organist with Roy Buchanan in the 70s.
I saw Roy Buchanan around this time at the Newport in NY Jazz Festival, on a bill with Tal Farlow in a trio with Jim Hall and a bassist around this time.
This was the first time Tal played in NYC (other than at a jazz club called The Framus in about '67), and I was extremely excited to see my fave player for the first time.
I couldn't believe what took place. Tal had developed what turned out to be a neurological problem, and couldn't play 1/1000th as well as he did in the 50s. He lost the coordination between his RH and his LH, and I left the concert in complete shock at how he played.
Here's the keyboard player Dick Heintze:

**sgcim** · 03-29-2024, 01:39 AM

Originally Posted by jzucker

Actually it wasn't Dick Heintze - who i briefly studied piano with. I'm thinking it was don or billy hancock or something like that. The brunch was the best place to hear him because it was during the day, wasn't rowdy and he wasn't pressured into playing beer-bottle-slide and doing all his trickery. He just played jazz guitar on that gig...

Damn, that's interesting. Did he ever mention which jazz pianists he liked or was influenced by? The guy played some real hip stuff on the jazz things they did, and even burned like a maniac on the blues stuff that I posted with Roy Buchanan.
There was a heavy rivalry between Danny and Roy going on. The book tells about an incident where Danny went to hear Roy at a club, and told a friend to ask Roy to play something Roy knew. Roy made an announcement that there was some guy named Danny Gatton in the audience that wanted him to play something he knew. Then he said if Danny could do better, then he was welcome to show everybody- onstage.Danny came up, and Roy threw his '54 Tele at him, and Danny says, "Hold on, this is really out of tune!", making Roy mad as hell. Then Danny plays the hell out of a blues, and the crowd goes crazy.
Up until then, Danny only played Gibsons, using only the neck pickup, and hated twangy country music, and never bent any strings.
Sometime afterwards, he got a '52 Tele and used the treble pickup, and mastered Roy's style without having played it before.

**wintermoon** · 03-29-2024, 02:35 AM

This is some footage of one of his jazz gigs at a Holiday Inn. They subbed for Murph and the Magictones when they hit the road w the Blues Brothers....

**ccroft** · 03-29-2024, 01:13 PM

Great to hear the stories and see the clip of a player I knew little about. Heard his name a few times out here on the left coast over the years. I like how he used the full range of what a guitar can do. Good lord, even employed the bridge pickup. 'A bit like Pasqualle', but with more fire in the belly. Redneck Jazz indeed! Thanks all.

**jzucker** · 03-29-2024, 03:34 PM

Originally Posted by ccroft

Great to hear the stories and see the clip of a player I knew little about. Heard his name a few times out here on the left coast over the years. I like how he used the full range of what a guitar can do. Good lord, even employed the bridge pickup. 'A bit like Pasqualle', but with more fire in the belly. Redneck Jazz indeed! Thanks all.

you'd probably enjoy his recording with Joey D...