Hanging at Hermann's

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Tickles arrived in town late last Friday afternoon to play an anniversary gig with a Quintet he joined 20 years ago. Hermann’s, the longest continuously open jazz club in Canada, celebrated its 28th anniversary that week, the Quintet being one of the highlights of the celebration.

Led by Stu (trombone, piano) and featuring Tickles (piano, tenor sax), Cam (alto and soprano sax), Ken (bass) and Dave (drums), the multi-award winning Quintet comprises the top musicians in Canada, possibly the world. (I’m only the teensiest bit biased due to baby bro’s presence among them.)

Stu’s a larger than life kind of person, a Dylan Thomas type who dominates any room he’s in and whose brilliance hauls you up by the nape of the neck and demands attention. When he plays with the other members of the Quintet, enchantment descends – an extra dimension insinuates itself, a chemistry combined with such consummate skill and artistry it takes your breath away.

I arrived at Hermann’s early as there are usually standing-room-only crowds when the Quintet plays. Perched on my accustomed stool by the bar – the one that affords the best view of the musicians and the best acoustics – I watched people arrive and imbibed the rising sense of anticipation and excitement. As usual my thoughts wandered off, this time to the weekend nearly 20 years ago when I first began getting to know the members of the band.

They were at the start of a cross continent tour that included Toronto and New York and ended up at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, famous for many historic events, not least the assassination of RFK in 1968. I was living in the Remote Coastal Village and in the throes of organizing a Spring Break trip to France for myself and 32 students. In exchange for some fund-raising help, I told the Band Teacher I’d try and convince the Quintet to extend their tour to include a concert and workshop in our village.

It didn’t take much convincing at all and, once the concert was over, they descended on my home to be fed. Tickles arrived bearing apple pies from my Mom and I had a savoury beef stew bubbling on the stove. Post-performance ebullience filled everyone except San, Stu’s girlfriend and the Band Manager. Prior to the Remote Village gig, they’d gone down to Washington State to kick off the tour.

Apparently there’d been some trouble at the border. “May I remind you,” San said sternly as I ladled stew into bowls, “that water balloons are forbidden. Absolutely. At all times. No exceptions.”

General murmurs of agreement greeted her pronouncement. Stu finished his dinner quickly and sat down on the couch with his back to Cam, who hunched over the table spooning up some last bits of tender carrot and beef. Then he casually removed a straw from the inner pocket of his suit jacket. From one of the front pockets he withdrew a handful of paper pellets. He put one of them in his mouth, chewed thoughtfully, raised the straw to his lips and blew. Soon Stu’s back was peppered with spit balls.

Dave, meanwhile, brought delight to eight-year-old Creature’s heart by doing his famous – and startlingly realistic – gorilla imitation. Many children fled screaming when he contorted his face and let his knuckles dangle floorward. Not so Creature. She asked for it to be repeated again and again.

So – spit balls flew and a gorilla stumped through the carnage while Stu sat oblivious, telling tales of gigs past.

This happy halcyon scene faded from my mind as the crowd grew. Stu arrived and came by to say hello.

“I don’t know how it will go tonight,” he said. “We haven’t played together for a long time. I’m not even sure what we’ll play.”

I said I was sure it would be wonderful.

Cam appeared at my elbow. “I don’t know how it will go tonight,” he said. “I can’t even remember the last time we played together and we haven’t rehearsed.”

I repeated my reassurances. Tickles loped in. “I don’t know how it will go tonight,” he said. “We haven’t played together for ages, we haven’t rehearsed and Stu didn’t even bring any music.”

I offered yet more reassurances and, glancing at the two grand pianos inexplicably crowded into the musicians’ corner, added brightly – and in jest – “Maybe you’ll play some two piano.”

Tickles looked seriously alarmed. “I hope not,” he replied. “We’ve never done that. Besides, one of the pianos is a piece of crap. It took 15 years to convince Hermann to buy a decent one. I don’t know what it’s still doing here.”

He wandered off and I felt badly about teasing him.

Fifteen minutes later they began to play and, of course, it was wonderful – intricate, subtle, rich in tone and feeling.

Suddenly, unobtrusively, Tickles moved to the crappy piano and Stu sat down at the good one. Gently, so softly at first that it was like the liquid chords of one instrument, they launched into a two piano duet. A kind of glamour fell over the room. Fairy Tales.

After the break, Stu made the obligatory speech in praise of Hermann. “Three years ago,” he went on, “I wrote a song for the 25th anniversary, Hanging at Hermann’s. In my usual, absent-minded musician’s way, I gave the only copy to Hermann. He did me the honour of having it framed and hung it on the wall here.”

He moved aside a black curtain that had been looped up to deflect glare. Sure enough, there was a framed score, snuggled between a couple of decrepit trumpets. The rest of the band trooped over and gazed intently at the wall for a few minutes.

Stu let the black cloth fall into place again. “We haven’t actually played it again since that night,” he said, “But we’re going to give it a try now.”

And, once again, the melody that began to weave its way around the room was polished, elegant, riveting. Then, towards the end of Tickles’ piano solo, there was a slight thickening of sound. Stu had spontaneously turned on the bench where he was sitting to tentatively add a chord, a feather touch, once more making two pianos sound like one.

Abruptly, a fire overtook them. And it was a duel, a sound storm, a whirlwind of rising harmony and surpassing beauty, a haphazard gift of the moment, an exquisite merger, a duet. It commanded absorption, travelled like an electric current up the spine and filled the heart and the brain and the veins with glory.

We are the music-makers
And we are the dreamers of dreams
Wandering by lone sea-breakers
And sitting by desolate streams...

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth...

World-losers and world forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yes, we are the movers and shakers
Of the world forever, it seems.
A.W.E. O’Shaughnessy