Dick Garcia Transcriptions

[jmgalich]

I just replied to Deacon Mark's Chuck Wayne post with a link to some Wayne transcriptions on Francois Leduc's YouTube page.

Francois Leduc - YouTube

He recently posted a couple of Dick Garcia transcriptions, including Kimona My House. After listening to this one more than a few times, following the transcription, I'm still blown away by how good he is/was. To my ears, he's a cross between Billy Bean (70%), J.S. (15%) and Raney (15%).

John Galich

[sgcim]

I wish I knew of that transcription before I wrote a big band arrangement of "Kimona My House". It would've saved a lot of work transcribing the head and some of his solo for the horns.
It worked out great for big band, and the guys played the schist out of it.
That was the first jazz record that Bill Evans ever played on, and you can hear by that last chord he played that there was something very new hitting the NY scene.

As for his influences, I also thought that Raney was probably one of them, but it turned out that a friend of mine who was Tal Farlow's protege, and wrote a book on Tal that's coming out soon, listened to some of Garcia's stuff and said that he played a lot of Tal's stuff. I don't argue with this guy, because he's got perfect pitch and internalizes this stuff on a much deeper level than most people.
I was on the phone with him and I played a thing DG did with Bobby Scott, and my friend knew that DG was going to play a Tal thing on his solo before he played it!
Anyway, thanks for the link to LeDuc's you tube page.

[wintermoon]

I wonder how Garcia and Bean would be perceived if they were well known and their careers weren't derailed for personal reasons.
those two were as good or better than anyone.

[SOLR]

I wonder how Garcia and Bean would be perceived if they were well known and their careers weren't derailed for personal reasons.
those two were as good or better than anyone.

I really enjoy Garcia's playing/tone (ES 295?). Apparently he had a 13 year career ,self taught at 9 years old turning pro at 13 years old. He's still with us at 94 but I found no other info.

S

[jmgalich]

This is admittedly a late reply. Anyway, Seth Greenberg's biography of Bean is worth reading.


Bean faced several issues that hindered his success. I think today, people might say Bean was somewhere "on the spectrum." One issue was his nocturnal personality. Bean's understanding of work is that it happens at night in the clubs. People would call him to ask about recording dates and whether he could be there at 12. Thinking they meant midnight, Bean would say, "OK, cool." Once he found out that it was Noon, Bean said it was "too early for him." Eventually, people quit calling. Another issue was that he was a perfectionist who freaked out about making the tiniest mistakes. Then there was a woman with whom he was involved who had questionable intentions and an equally questionable background. Apparently, she got Bean to drink more heavily, which led to the inevitable. Side note: Bean preferred listening to horn players like Charlie Parker and Sonny Stitt. When asked about Tal Farlow, Bean said, "He's a rambling guitar player."


I know Garcia disappeared from the scene in the early 1960s after leaving Shearing. It was as if he were abducted by aliens. Then SGCIM learns that he's a Buddhist living in the house he bought for his parents when he was with Shearing. What issues might he have had?

John Galich

[sgcim]

I read Greenberg's dissertation online from the Columbia University library, and he claimed that Stan Getz was the reason for Bean's decline.
Getz was having auditions for a guitarist for his new quartet at the real Birdland, and Bean and Gabor Szabo showed up. Getz chose Bean, and they went on tour with two Black guys in the rhythm section, and no piano.
Getz was very popular, and they were playing all the best clubs in the US to packed audiences.
Getz was a junkie back then and started coming very late to all the gigs, just to pick up the pay.
Sometimes Getz didn't show up for days, so Bean had to front the band for the entire tour. He was only in his mid-twenties and had no support from the drummer and bass player who hated the young white kid with red hair.
The pressure was killing Bean, and he didn't know what to do,
Up to that time he had never touched a drop of alcohol.
After one drink, he turned into a hopeless alcoholic, thanks to the constant pressure he was under from Getz' sick behavior.
After the tour, he got his stuff from his NYC apt. and went back to Philly to live at his mother's house the rest of his life.
He tried to do gigs, but would bo juiced, he would show up to gigs without a guitar. He eventually stopped playing altogether. It took him years,but he finally sobered up. He spent the rest of his life as a drug counselor

With Garcia, I can only go by what two musicians who used to play with him told me.
The first words Aaron Sachs ever said to me on our first gig together were: "whatever happened to Dick Garcia?"
I did many gigs with Aaron, and he said Garcia was the type of guy who was always hung-up about something. He just seemed to always have problems.
I caught Joe Puma at a club once and said to him. "It's too bad Dick Garcia died so young".

He looked at me and said, "Dead? Yeah he's dead alright. Last night his ghost was in here, leaning on the juke box like always. Some people are dead and they don't even know it!"
That was all he said. I've heard he became a cab driver. He joined some cult on the West Coast. He was sighted in Montreal playing at some club etc...
But then I ran into some whacked out, belligerent rock guitarist (are there any other type? LOL) on some rock guitar website who played a Les Paul in some metal band, and he told me the stuff John posted about his uncle, Dick Garcia. still living in his parents house, in seclusion. Members of the family would visit him to bring him something to eat, but outside of that he had no human contact.

Maybe the three of us should break into his nephew's house and steal those tapes of the family jam sessions they had every Sunday afternoon with him and his vocalist wife!
I want those TAPES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!