die Szene war ja uns ja neulich auch im Chuck Thompson Thread begegnet, und da hatte ich nochmal dieses Kapitel aus Max Hartstein’s Buch gelesen… und wo ich da diese Gestalten hinter Ferlinghetti stehen sehe…
ist erzaehlt aus Sicht des Bassisten, den wir hier nicht sehen, das „Jazz Underground“ ist natuerlich der Cellar und „Bob“ ist Bill Weissjahn, der rechts im Foto Klavier spielt… hier kommt es hier (und da steht auch noch mehr)
Bob and I met in a low-rent basement jazz club in the North Beach, San Francisco’s Italian and artists community at that time. The club was under an Italian restaurant and grocery store. It had been a much larger speakeasy during Prohibition. Most of the available space was not being used. Simple plasterboard walls enclosed the long, narrow bar and one row of tables and chairs, with an aisle in between them. The place served only beer and wine, along with snacks, coffee, and soft drinks. To add to your confusion, we shall change the club’s name and call it the „Jazz Underground.“
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Bob, the club owner and piano player and his wife and Ilene were very much behind the jazz and poetry movement. Their backing of the process at the Underground gave jazz and poetry a stage in a time when such spaces were very rare or nonexistent. We had one or more poets on stage every Wednesday, largely due to Bob and Ilene’s support. Many jazz players hated it and some were very uncooperative, but not at the Underground.
We did our best to put the poets in the foreground, in front, featured like a vocalist. Many players don’t like playing softly and holding back for vocalists either, but that’s what you have to do, so they can be heard distinctly. It’s even more so for a poet. It was always so frustrating and sad to see a poet forced to shout at the top of his lungs to be heard over the music. Even if heard, the words tended to lose their meaning. Bob was always musically very supportive of the poets.
I had the poets who were reading each Wednesday evening over to my studio apartment in the afternoon and rehearsed with them what they were going to do, working out little arrangements so that they had enough space and we had some too. The poets were always very eager to do this planning and rehearsing, and it made for some very original and sophisticated performances.
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