Joni Mitchell wrote a song titled “Amelia” that contained a line about one’s life becoming “a travelogue of picture postcard charms.” I think I am beginning to understand what she meant.
Last week, for example, my wife and I decided to spend a few days in Pacific Grove. While having breakfast on the second day, I read the Monterey County Weekly and noticed Bruce Forman was playing at a jazz club in Carmel. I mentioned it to her; she did not know anything about him, so I told her about seeing him for the first time at the Berkeley Jazz Festival in 1979 playing guitar with [tag]Richie Cole[/tag]‘s group and being very impressed with his work. I told her about his years of weekly gigs at Pearl’s in San Francisco and his various recordings.
We spent the day wandering in and out of cafes, bookstores, and shops on Lighthouse Avenue and Central Avenue. In a small, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it bookstore on Central Avenue, I found a thin collection of profiles of Bay Area jazz musicians, published in 2000. I do not remember the title; I do remember Bruce Forman was one of the profiled artists. The writer asked him about his approach to playing and he replied life was easy and being good is the hard part (I am paraphrasing his response: I did not purchase the book, note its title or author, nor take any notes while reading it. I also should mention the book contained a profile of Vernon Alley, one not quite as well-written or as heartfelt as the one by David Gonzalez in L&BH’s “Profiles In Jazz” column from this past October. Trust me.) The profile also mentioned Forman currently lived in the Monterey area.
About an hour later at Book Buyers In Monterey on Lighthouse Avenue, I was making a mental list of which books in the fiction section would be coming home with me and found a hardback copy of a new book titled “Trust Me.” It was about a jazz guitarist’s Faustian bargain and was written by Bruce Forman. I was hot on, if not THE trail, then A trail.
It would have been a different story if I was able to report how I eventually ran into Forman and got to sit in with him during that evening’s gig in Carmel. Or if I had looked up from reading the description of Forman’s book, found myself face to face with Joni Mitchell, and began reminiscing with her about the above-mentioned Berkeley Jazz Festival (she was the headliner that year, playing songs from her “Mingus” recording with Herbie Hancock, Jaco Pastorius, Tony Williams, and Don Alias), travelogues, and picture postcard charms. I put the book back on the shelf. No Bruce, no Joni.
The trail, however, led home to my CD player and my copy of “Hollywood Madness” by Richie Cole. Forman played guitar on it, part of an excellent supporting cast including Eddie Jefferson (his final recording), The Manhattan Transfer, and Tom Waits on vocals; Dick Hindman on piano; Les DeMerle on drums; Michael Spiro on percussion; and Marshall Hawkins and Bob Magnusson on bass.
Cole’s alto sax leads this fine group of musicians through an album of Hollywood-themed songs including, of course, “Hooray For Hollywood,” “Hi-Fly,” “I Love Lucy,” “Relaxin’ At Camarillo,” and “Waitin’ For Waits.” Cole was never better than on this recording, Spiro’s percussion on “I Love Lucy” would make Ricky Ricardo proud, Waits is Waits, Jefferson is missed, and Forman’s every note reminds me of that afternoon twenty-seven years ago in Berkeley.
To order “[tag]Pure Madness[/tag]” by Richie Cole, which contains “Hollywood Madness” on one disc and its predecessor “Alto Madness” on another, visit www.amazon.com or your local used record store. I found my copy in a Louisville, KY shop; you may want to stick a little closer to home.
[tags]CD review[/tags]
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