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Joe Puma was quite the character, a diminutive, equine-faced man with a rapier, take-no-prisoners wit. He was always ready with a quick, acid one-liner. It curled your toes while cracking you up.
In my early '20s I studied with, hung around, and aped the sayings of Chuck Wayne. Puma knew me vaguely from seeing me at Chuck's house, where I came for a lesson while Puma went upstairs to take a break from rehearsing their duo.
A short while after, Chuck and Joe had a steady gig at Stryker's, on W. 86th street. Chuck didn't make it one time I went with friends to hear them. A good tenor player, somebody of the caliber of a Carmen Leggio, was subbing. I was greatly disappointed by Chuck's absence. I was also young and stupid, so I waltzed up to Joe, asking
'Where's Chuck tonight?'
I could see his mind working like a radio tuner trying to find the iciest, most withering rejoinder to put me in my place. Finally he turned to me, looking like he was inspecting an insect, and said
'As you get older you'll like my playing better'.
Worked like a charm. I was properly upbraided, and after my ears matured a little came to realize he was the better, more swinging jazz player while Chuck was one of the greatest guitar players ever.
Around this period I went to hear him at his regular gig at Gregory's, where he worked with Hod O'Brien and
Linc Milliman or Frank Luther (and, sadly, a 'singer', reputedly---what a surprise---the boss's girlfriend). Still parroting Chuck's 'wit and wisdom', Chuck had bitterly trashed a famous and beloved guitarist as an 'opportunist', because he would play with certain high-profile people but turn down others less in the spotlight who Chuck felt were just as good. So when I talked to Joe that night I was peppering my speech with 'opportunist' and 'opportunism'. Not one to miss a chance to icily straighten out a dumb, impressionable kid, when it was time to go back on the stand he glared at me and intoned
'I think I'll take this opportunity to go up and play. But maybe I'll call a couple of guys first, and ask if it's OK'.
Their relationship had turned sour at a certain point. So when Chuck complained in a conversation about their children ('My kids play rock') Joe's comeback was 'What do you expect?'
The best known Puma one-liner is the one where he was working a duo gig with Ron Carter. Supposedly Ron had complained on break that he didn't want to play any more Gershwin because 'he ripped off
my people'.
'Tell you what: Next set we won't play any tunes at all, and you can beat on a log'.
Ouch, and with more than a dollop of uncalled-for racism, but still a classic one-liner.
When I recounted this to Carl Thompson he told me 'You don't know the other story'.
'What story?'
'Joe couldn't find a bass player for a gig, and someone said 'why don't you call Ron? I think he's open'. Joe declined, and kept calling bass players and striking out. Again, someone said 'No, really. Call Ron'.
'Nah, I don't wanna work with a bass player who talks like David Niven'.
Chevy Chase played in a rock band as a young man, and is reputed to be envious of musicians.
One night Puma was working a joint with a bass player who had to go make a phone call. The place was very narrow with nowhere to leave an upright, so he gave it to Joe to hold. In walks Chevy Chase. Spotting Puma with bass, the first words out of his mouth were:
'Oh, bass player. Play me some Scott LaFaro'.
'Act me some Olivier'.
The last time I saw Joe Puma he was working a midtown seafood house called the Red Eye Grill, with Warren Vache and Murray Wall. I said hello on break and he asked how I was doing.
Still with some wisenheimer vestiges, I replied 'Oh, just trying to play some nice notes and stay ahead of the sheriff'.
'You better watch out. The sheriff may play better than you'.
Next break a Mark Elf CD was played. Joe looked at me a bit apprehensively and asked 'Is that you?'
'No, I think that's the sheriff'.
I didn't really say that, just thought of it later. After all, I'm no Joe Puma.
Any witty guitar player stories? I know Sgcim has some other Puma tales...Last edited by fasstrack; 09-13-2016 at 09:57 PM.
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09-13-2016 02:01 PM
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OK. (Cracks knuckles). Here's one about the great Jimmy Raney:
Jimmy came up to play the 1980 JVC festival as part of a Stan Getz reunion group (that included Al Haig and Roy Haynes). He was staying with a young Louisville friend, tenor player Tim Whalen. The place was hard by the waterfront on Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn. 3 Louisville guys shared it: Tim, pianist Dave Leonhart and drummer Mark Plank. There was also a mouse the guys dubbed Bucky (they eventually caught and hung him on a lampshade). Jimmy called the place 'the Louisville ghetto'.
That 'ghetto' was dingy and ill-decorated. Jimmy's observation: 'Tim, I've seen furniture on the street, but it always looked better than this'.
One day Tim and the guys decided to have a session with Jimmy. Naturally, all we 'younguns' were looking forward to it. Jimmy didn't have an amp or guitar, so I was designated to get my stuff for him as I was living a few blocks away. On the way back my amp, a near Buick-sized Fender, hit a pothole or something. When we got to Tim's it didn't work.
Me: 'Damn. I was gonna sell it'.
Jimmy (in his drawl): 'Well, you won't get much for it naaoow!'
Then somebody brought Jimmy some coffee. It somehow got spilled on him.
'Motherfuckerrr'
Finally the session started. Jimmy, rail-thin and spindly in green gym shorts and no top, sat on the floor cross-legged, like some Louisville Buddha, and (having plugged into Tim's stereo) played some choruses on my Guild X500 worth their weight in gold. He commented about one tune that it 'slowed down a bit'.
After the session ended, Jimmy informed Tim:
'I'm gonna go sleep on my good ear. Let me know if anyone calls'..Last edited by fasstrack; 09-13-2016 at 09:59 PM.
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Uh oh Joel, I guess you know who this is... Like the other forums we've both posted on, there are a lot of dangerous people here, people who have served several concurrent sentences for jazz guitar player manslaughter, jazz guitar player sexual assault, and even a few jazz guitar player murder one's, so keep me anonymous, because I value my life.
As far as Puma goes, I went to a clinic he and CW were giving, live on BAI, and they asked if anyone wanted to sit in with them on a blues. I volunteered, and when I finished, Puma said, "Man, what club are you playing at? I'm coming down to catch you."
The audience went hysterical with laughter.
Then they took questions, and I had to open up my big mouth and ask Puma, "I've been going to see you two guys for two years now, and have you noticed that your playing has changed, and started to resemble Chuck's playing?"
Again there was hysterical laughter, and Puma seemed embarrassed. I forget what he said.
After the clinic was over, I went up to Puma, and told him I preferred his playing over Wayne's, and was dismayed over the change in his playing.
He just looked around the room and said, "Let's not wash our dirty laundry in public".
I don't remember if I told the story about what Puma said about Dick Garcia here. I saw him at Gregory's, and asked him, "Do you know what year Dick Garcia died?"
He looked at me and said, "Yeah, he might as well be dead. I saw him in here the other night, propped up against the juke box, looking like a ghost."
He didn't say anything more about it, and left me completely bewildered.
Another example of his dark humor was when he dismayed a friend of mine by cracking a joke at the huge benefit concert they had for Attilla Zoller, just before his death.
Puma looked at the huge gathering of guitarists, and said, "What if he's not even sick? All this for nothing?"
One guy I knew related to me in tears how Puma ripped him apart verbally, when Puma got tired of the guy doing favors for him. The guy attributed it to Puma's bitterness about never becoming a 'star'. Who knows?
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You are henceforth, and shall remain, anonymous.
I wouldn't mind being sexually assaulted by someone a bit more curvaceous than the average mug here.
More dark than funny, but he was. And Chuck was bitter for the same reasons. Two peas in a pod, who grew to dislike each other intensely. I'm trying to keep this light and humorous, though, so I will delve no further into the decayed relations of these two lovebirds. And Puma was way funnier than Chuck, who I loved back then.
Anyway, it's all going into a book that was near-complete when the computer housing it had a hard drive crash---and dumbass me didn't back up the files.
I loved Atilla, man. Went over there initially to study with Raney when he crashed there, then later to ask him to please put one of his pickups in a guitar that wasn't working out for me. Bought him breakfast and we played some.
After he played a beautiful elegy he wrote for Jimmy at the latter's St. Peter's memorial (attended by exactly one African-American, Tommy Flanagan---who was on the bill----I thought that a disgrace and a slap in the face of a jazz giant) I said 'Yeah, Atilla. Beautiful elegy'.
''Elegy'? Vot ze fock is zis 'elegy?''.
Last time I saw him was 2 weeks before he passed, in front of Arturo's where Steve Berger et. al. were playing. His skin was leathery, and he was emaciated and gaunt. I wanted to cry, man. We embraced and he went inside to have the good time that he had every day til the end. I thought he was a great man and a way underrated player...Last edited by fasstrack; 09-13-2016 at 05:42 PM.
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Yeah, I was at JR's memorial, too. A friend introduced me to Howie Collins there.
Jim Hall played his 'Skylark' arr. (he seemed to play it for everyone's memorial
).
I remember you noting the lack of African-American attendance, and I thought, 'Yeah, that's odd.'
Today I think, 'WTF!'
I studied with Atilla in the group lessons they had in the Jazz Interactions program (could you imagine something like that today?), and he completely changed my way of playing. He said," Stop jumping up and down the fingerboard playing licks! Stay in Position!"
There was one of his private students there, who could play way above me. He was a dark Hispanic(?) cat, who spoke with a huge stutter. I saw him after that at one of the concerts Atilla did, and he has a seriously beautiful chick with him. I don't know what became of him or what his name was.
I did some gigs with Vera Auer, the vibist, and she was friends with both Atilla and JR. She had some wild stories about JR that I can't go into here.
What is it about guitar duos? I read about Bucky and Geo. Barnes' last gig, and they wound up just stopping in the middle of it, getting into an argument, and never playing together again!
Let me know when your book comes out. Your 'buddy' (haha) Axelrod has a book about Tal that's finished, and Phil Woods wrote a 1,000 page autobiography that's still not published!
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good stuff here..nice to be a fly on the wall for "you two's" conversation..makin me homesick
carry on
cheers
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What is it about duos? Maybe it's what sitting 4-8 hours at a clip does to the prostate. Who the f%^^k wouldn't be a f%*%&ing grouch after that?
I haven't seen hide nor hair of 'my buddy' in 'many moon'. Another character, BTW...
There was a guy named Tim Breen, out of Westport, Ct., maybe one of the greatest guitarists ever to play, scared the s&&*t outta Benson and everyone else who heard him with his uncanny drive, feel, top-of-the-beat groove, sense of architecture, scary chops, etc. He was just unreal. Breen never recorded under his own name, and his biggest big-time gig was with Frankie Valli, so he has, Buddy Bolden-like, receded into the mists of legend.
He used to play with my nameless friend at a joint in the East Village (speaking of duos), about which Mr. Tact, Wayne Wright, said in introducing so-and-so to somebody '---'s playing in the Village with an incredible guitar player'. Nice, Wayne.
I had played with Sam Brown, Wayne and Mr. Nameless in my early '20s. I was quite neurotic and insecure then, and it got into my playing. I ran into Wayne at the Vanguard afterward. He said, with classic restraint, 'you sound good, but you gotta see a shrink'.
My girlfriend turned to stare at him and said 'Mr. Magoo'.
Breen was a notably irreverent wag, though. His girlfriend was praising Elvis Presley shortly after his death. We (Tim, myself and another guy) were trashing him. 'He's had such an effect on people' she countered.
"Yeah. Like he's had a real big influence on Julian Bream'.
About Stevie Wonder:
'The poor, blind f%^&k doesn't know what he's doing'.
His roasts of Charlie Parker are unprintable and not for public consumption, but nonetheless cracked me up, in spite of myself.
He drifted into hard drugs, unfortunately, and died at 56 after doing time for crack possession. Nothing too funny about that...Last edited by fasstrack; 09-21-2016 at 12:45 PM.
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Jim Hall was no also-ran in the humor department either.
I went to hear him at the Vanguard. Went to pay my respects where he was sitting on break. A kid approached the table, and, sans introduction, piled into rhapsodizing about his great talent and all the instruments he played, etc. Jim listened politely until the kid wound down. After the kid left I quipped 'that was actually a 43-year-old midget'.
(Jim, in Groucho voice, rising into Groucho squat with mock cigar shuffling) '...and he just picked your pocket'...Last edited by fasstrack; 09-13-2016 at 09:13 PM.
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You probably heard the story about Wes Montgomery and practicing:
Somebody asked him how much he practiced. Wes reportedly retorted
'I never practice. Sometimes I open the case and throw in some raw meat'...Last edited by fasstrack; 09-13-2016 at 09:50 PM.
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Sam Brown looked in his wallet one day at the Local 802 union floor, and saw he had one less recording check than he thought. Without missing a beat he cracked
'Oh well, you gotta allow for shrinkage'...
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Tim Breen was listed as being on a record by a fusion band called NY Mary with two Conn. guys I've played with, Rick Petrone and Joe Corsello plus Don Hahn.
I used to catch Sam Brown in the city with Joe Farrell, and once at The Guitar, KB's club. He was in bad shape. You told me about how he went...
He played his white Tele back then. Did he ever record any bop? Most of the stuff I heard him play was early fusion.
Wayne Wright was a great guy and rhythm guitarist. I jammed with him once just before he passed. We talked about
his and Phil Woods' emphysema. He said that Phil got his emphysema from sinning.
I asked him what he meant. He said, "You know, sinning- drinking, smoking, smoking weed- sinning."
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Yes, NY Mary. He used to talk about Don, who is still around, sounding beautiful.
Originally Posted by sgcim
Didn't know Wayne too well, just thought his behavior a bit untoward in the above stories. Probably he was a good cat.
Sam was beyond category. He had a way of phrasing and playing long lines that was unique to him and also very soulful---on a nylon-string. The Keith Jarrett records didn't show what he could do. He played his ass off on tunes, and was rounded---a session and Broadway guy. Even Tim would say he'd give up some of his chops to play changes like Sam. He was an original, but his lifestyle caught up to him. Please don't let's go into his exit, it's brutal and distasteful to speak of. I'd rather people remember the player he was.
At the height of his decline he did a gig with a nameless guitarist whose playing I love and was an early mentor and good friend for 40 years, but I no longer talk to because of his destructive side. The way this guy tormented poor Sam...Well, he was dragging tempos, etc., but the poor man was sick. Cut a motherf^%$er some slack.
I think Steve Berger has that Tele now...Last edited by fasstrack; 09-14-2016 at 12:26 AM.
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It appears this Joe Puma gentleman's contribution to Jazz has not gone unnoticed:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Puma
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The same goes for Chuck, although it seems whoever authored his wikipedia page was a very meticulous soul.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Wayne
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A good thing. I kibitzed about his humor, but didn't mention his playing. It was wonderful, swinging and melodic----and he seemed to know damn near every tune... Originally Posted by AlsoRan
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I've seen it. Yes, very in-depth. As it should be for one of the greatest guitarists who ever played... Originally Posted by AlsoRan
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Great stories, by the way, folks.
We are all human and they say in our greatest strengths you can find our greatest weaknesses. What gets us to our goals can be the things that make us fall away from them.
These colorful fellows that were mentioned here were not much unlike some of the talented characters I have known.
I especially loved he the one-liner from Jim Hall. He just seems like he was such a great and easy-to-talk-to person.
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I like Joe Pass's quip whenever he had to tune his guitar: 'Hey, they told me this thing was tuned at the factory!'
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He seemed quite shy. I didn't mention that in that brief conversation that night I started to say 'I always wanted to get together with you for finishing school'. When he heard 'wanted to get together' he looked horrified. His face dropped. When he heard the 'punchline' he smiled and said 'finishing school!'. Originally Posted by AlsoRan
He actually knew who I was b/c the late Bill Finegan had recommended me (and some other guys) as guys he should contact and rub off on. He did ask for my #, at Raney's memorial but, sadly, never called. What a missed opportunity for me...
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I had some fun and VERY inspiring afternoons in the early '90's hanging out with Jim at the Blackstone Hotel above the old Jazz Showcase. I would see him a handful of times a year, when he came through. Whenever I would cross paths with Peter Bernstein, he'd always ask me how Jim was doing. One time, I replied that I only see him every so often, you live in NYC, shouldn't I be asking YOU that question....And he explained that when Jim was home, he was HOME, and it was much easier to catch him for a hang when he was on the road.....
PK
Welcome to PaulKogut.com
http://www.youtube.com/paulkogutmusic
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You are lucky. Some guys put in some kind words about me to him, but I guess it was not to be... Originally Posted by paulkogut
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I was lucky indeed. Who knew that being in Chicago would make it easier than being in the City?
PK
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BTW: You sound excellent, great ideas and flow and like yourself, I reckon. Some good players here. Glad I found the joint Originally Posted by paulkogut
...
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Thanks! Nice to meet you here on the internets. I’m digging your stuff as well, nice arrangements of the Beatles tunes in your medley!. I just played a little solo version of “In My Life” at a friend’s wedding. which leads me to a funny story that he was a part of. I know the thread is “Funny Guitar Stories” , but I’ll risk telling a “Funny Drummer Story” and hope the moderators let it slide….
My pal Martin was hanging with the drummer from the rock band Styx, and talk turned to Chicago drumming legend Barrett Deems. The Styx guy (let’s say John?) professes his admiration for ‘the world’s fastest drummer’, and Martin offers to take him by a gig and introduce him. At the set break he says “Barrett, this is John. He plays with Styx.” Barrett pauses for a moment, then replies. “What the fuck? We ALL play with sticks”…..
PK
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Unbelievably, I just read this after getting off the phone with Linc Milliman. He's been staying here in Oz at my sister's place. Originally Posted by fasstrack
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