randulo’s unblog

Started a new Remembering Paul site for people who'd like to contribute to his memorial

On the night of our 30th wedding anniversary I learn of the death of Paul Lagos, a man who had a tremendous influence on me musically since our first meeting in the early 70's. Paul and I were born on the same date, but different years.

Paul played with Kaleidoscope and recorded with Leo Kotke, did a lot of recording in L.A., played in the Johnny Otis Revue and then went on tour with John Mayall, John Klemmer, did a bunch of gigs in Los Angeles with jazz and blues players. We toured together in the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1972.

Yes it was a long time ago, when you got on stage with instruments; drums, guitars and a sound system and made music, sounds you heard in your imagination and then translated through your limbs to skins and guts.

Paul taught me about Miles and Coltrane and Joseph Schillinger, about Joe Henderson and Thelonius Monk. We were kids, Victor Conte and I, and we lived in his basement with his flea-infested Great Dane, "Gretta", and we were privileged to meet the likes of the brilliant saxophonist Richard Aplanaugh and Don 'Sugarcane' Harris - who, with Dewey Terry, wrote "I'm Leaving it All Up to You", one of the most played songs on the radio for years. Paul was a GIANT, I'll miss him.

The last time I saw Paul was on a tour for my own CD in about 1995 in France and Switzerland. Ironically, Paul and I played in Geneva in 1974 with a band called the Curtis Brothers. That gig was the inspiration for my song "Woman In White" which was linked to by a nurses' site but in fact the woman in white wasn't a nurse but a powder. Oh, the irony of the Internetz...

Paul, I didn't get to tell you that I loved you man, and now I can't even find out how to contact the woman you lived with to tell her how much your life and advice meant to me. Maybe someone will read it here.

We shared a short period of music nearly 40 years ago, I feel "we hardly knew ye". Thanks for Trane, Miles, Bird, Monk and yes, the blues I feel tonight in learning of your passing.

Please take a moment to listen to this song. It isn't Paul on drums, he would have played it a lot better, but he was there when this moment took place and we laughed about it many times - because we survived it.

The Woman in White

I had a dream
In the blue of the night
I was caught in the scheme
Of the Woman in White
Long ago
Through the mists of the past
She blackened my soul
It all happened so fast

Down Cadillac Valley
I copped me a dime
Did it in the alley
To save a lotta time
When I almost died...
As I slid to the ground
I heard kind of cry
Like a siren sound
And I remember
Moments of bliss
The scent of a smile
or the color of her kiss
But seeds of sorrow
Lay buried deep within
And I'm never going back 
Never goin' back there
Ever again
I woke with a scream
In a stone cold sweat
I know that means
That I'll never forget
That she got my money
Nearly took my life
It's time I stopped running
From the Woman In White
And I remember
Moments of bliss
The scent of a smile
or the color of her kiss
But seeds of sorrow
Lay buried deep within
Never going back 
Never goin' back there
Ever again

"I hate jazz." said one of the girls we were able to lure backstage in
some town on some road in some state some year in the 1970's.
 
"Why?" I asked, having to try to keep the party going and get it got to
the conclusion we were hoping for, Victor and I.
 
"Because it's so repetitive." said Bambi.
 
We always had stuff playing and at that time it was a tape of Ron Carter with
Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter and Tony WIlliams. The baddest of the
bad, together. They played some kind of crazy stuff so creative it
scared me. As the above exchange was taking place, Ron and the boys
launched into the head of a tune, played it twice, and then took off on
15 minutes of improvised solos. Although improvised, at this level there
is structure and if you listen you can hear it. It's the best kind of
structure, not contrived but perceived and shared on the fly.
 
So after 15 minutes of beauty from chaos, the band played the head of
the tune again. Bambi said: "See what I mean? Too much repetition!"
 
Ironic that she actually was able to recognize the melody (thanks to
repetition through the changes of the head) and yet couldn't hear the
music.
 
Imposing order on chaos doesn't guarantee quality, but at the worst, at
least it's a sign of good workmanship.
 
Turning chaos into beauty is a miraculous thing, like a spider web. It
takes a human being to perceive the structure and with it the beauty of
the creation of great art, great music, great food and great wine.

Some of my most poignant musical memories took place in a club called
Shelley's Manne-Hole, in L.A. I lived there in the early 70's, way after
a deceased friend wrote about it as "a green and groovy place to be". It
was already a smoggy and brown place to be, but there was excitement as
a young musician trying to hook up with gigs and recording dates.
 
"Cop and blow" was always a big thing, go look at the people who changed
the idiom, like Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk, McCoy Tyner (Trane was
already dead and I never saw him play live) and lots of locals like
Bobby Hutcherson. In a jazz club, then as now, while brilliant talented
people compose gems live for you on stage, materialistic conversions
between dealers and hookers and their public go on unhindered.
 
Why "poignant"? Because in the case of Bill Evans and Monk, both were
visibly at the end of their tethers, tired, sick and almost beyond the
reach of the ecstasy that such artists must have felt in their earlier
gigs when they were moving up, not only in fame, but in power of
expression.
 
Wow, that seems so heavy I need to insert an anecdote that might make you
laugh as it does me when I recall it. This was in another jazz dive, The
Lighthouse in Redondo Beach. The band playing was Airto. He always had
to say, "Ey, Ear, Toe" and point to the body parts. Good musician and a
spirited human. His (wife?) was Flora Purim, remember she sang on Chick
Corea's Return to Forever version of Spain and all that. Another
far-reaching music innovation. So anyway, Airto and Flora are standing
next to each other at their mics and they each had a marked round pot
belly. The Brazilian music they were playing was loud and had a lot of
breaks to mark the rhythms. Conversation was impossible (not should one
want to converse) but my saxophonist friend Richard A. turned to me and
said, exactly at the moment of a four beat break, when the entire
crowded room was absolutely silent: "Can you imagine them shtupping?"
and then the music started up again.
 
 
Here's a link to a much earlier Bill Evans recording at Shelley's