After I’d been on staff for my first year at the Daily Aztec, the student newspaper at San Diego State, I asked about getting to contribute to the weekly entertainment section, Stanza. I was willing to review mainstream rock and heavy metal, while pretty much everyone else on staff was into more arcane styles. While the others were fighting over free review copies of Hüsker Dü and Bad Brains, I was happily reviewing shows by Dokken and LPs by Great White.
But if hard rock was my entry ticket to the arts desk, it was in reviewing two other styles nobody else on staff cared about that I started on a journey I’m still traveling: Covering jazz and blues.
My mom had given me tickets to see Count Basie at the San Diego Zoo in the summer of 1983. I didn’t want to go, but my buddy Pardo was into jazz thanks to his dad being a drummer in the Navy jazz band. Seeing Basie opened my ears that summer.
That fall, back at the Daily Aztec, the Stanza editor, Rick, handed me a flat cardboard box. “Trageser, I need you to review one of these albums from Alligator Records. They sent us a letter saying we haven’t reviewed anything in a couple years, and they’re going to drop us from their mailing list.”
I protested that I knew nothing about the blues.
“Look, you like guitar solos, right? Well, they play guitar solos in the blues. Heck, heavy metal comes from the blues. Give me a review.”
The two LPs — which I still have — were “Bad Axe” by Son Seals and “Nightflight” by Fenton Robinson.
I took them home, expecting to be bored — ended up playing those two records until the groove about wore down smooth.
The next semester, jazz legend Miles Davis was kicking off his North American tour in San Diego, at the iconic Humphreys by the Bay outdoor venue.
I had no way of affording tickets to that — but then one of the staff photographers, Andrew H., came up to me in the newsroom one day and said he could get media passes to cover Miles — he’d shoot the photos, did I want to write the review?
Silly question.
We met at campus that day, and I drove — I had a sweet ’67 Mustang fastback at the time, so we could tool down to the harbor front in style.
We had pretty good seats down near the front — not good enough for Andrew to take photos from, though, so he spent the time before the show scouting good spots up front. What had him worried, though, was the nasty storm moving in from the Pacific.
“Miles is very superstitious,” Andrew told me. “I don’t know if he’ll play.”
Well, superstition cuts both ways — and maybe Miles didn’t want to jinx his tour by cancelling the first show.
Even though the rain was coming down before the band took the stage, Miles played.
The crew covered the amps and electronics with tarps. Miles — dressed in all-black at the stage in his career, including black leather pants and a black gaucho hat pulled down low over his eyes to keep the rain out — even faced the crowd while playing. This was during a period where he was famous for facing away from the crowd.
His two most recent albums were “Decoy” or “Your’re Under Arrest” — both albums firmly in Miles’ fusion period, which was upsetting jazz purists, and that was largely the playlist that night.
After the first song, I turned to talk to Andrew about it — and realized he was no longer next to me. I looked back up on stage, and saw him huddled next to an amplifier taking shot after shot with his power winder.
I remember wondering if he was supposed to be up there — and then after the next song, my question was answered when I saw him appear to cartwheel off the stage into the grass up front. There was some kind of scrum with security, and then I didn’t see him any more — and he never came back to his seat.
A better person than I would have gone to see if he was okay — but I was there to review a show, and it was turning into a once-in-a-lifetime show. (Plus I drove — so I didn’t have that to worry me.) Miles’ defiance of the weather was elevating his playing, which had become known for being a bit uninspired in the 1980s. Not that night: The harder the wind lashed the rain, the more energetic Miles’ playing became. His band fed off that, with guitiarist John Scofield in particular stepping up as a musical foil.
When the show ended, and I was making my way toward the exit, Andrew was waiting for me on the other side of the metal fence with a big smile on his face. I lagged back until the crowd thinned , and Andrew came back through the gate.
“I got thrown off stage!” he said, proudly. I laughingly told him I saw.
“They opened my camera and tore my film out,” he said, but didn’t seem too upset about that.
I raised my eyebrows by way of asking for additional details I felt he’d held back.
He opened up his palm to show a film cannister: “They didn’t find the roll I’d already shot and put in my pocket!”
Andrew had one more bit of good news — he knew somebody who knew Scofield, the guitarist, and thought he could get us back to meet him.
We walked back behind the stage, which feeds into the stand-alone bungalows where the band was staying after the show. Andrew talked to someone in security, and then next thing you know we were in Scofield’s hotel room with a few other folks.
I was too intimidated to do anything other than soak up the atmosphere, but Andrew chatted with Scofield for awhile before we made our way back to the car.
Those photos he’d shot of Miles in the rain came out pretty good, too — he made two prints for me, one with Scofield playing behind Miles. I had them framed, and they hung in the living room for many years until we redecorated a few years ago. They are currently in storage, but when I get them out I’ll scan them in and post them with a link back here.
-30-
Brother Bill would have been proud of you both. Jim Missett