This is a story Audrey Morris delivered as we were recording The Saturn Session in West Palm Beach. I’d corralled Charlie Cochran, Patti Wicks, William Roy and Audrey into a recording studio for an afternoon of song and anecdote and this is what Audrey told us -as I remember it. She said early in her career, she was entertaining in a Chicago club where the piano was in a sunken pit, below a circular bar. Now Audrey is a superb singer/pianist who deserves anyone’s full attention, but at this club the crowd was ignoring her intimate stylings and simply chattering away above her. Audrey did a full forty-minute set and became increasingly frustrated and depressed as she offered these gems to an unheeding crowd: Rodgers and Hart, Jimmy Van Heusen, Cole Porter, her whole classy repertoire fell on deaf ears. And then, as she took a break, who should enter the room but Oscar Petersen, the great Canadian jazz pianist.
To many aficionados Petersen comes next in the pantheon after Art Tatum. He was a musician of impeccable taste and invention -and a huge star in the world of jazz piano. Oh, Oscar, wailed Audrey, here I am singing my guts out and nobody hears a note; what am I doing wrong? Petersen smiled in sympathy. It’s not you, Audrey, he assured her, they’re simply not in the mood to listen now, and I’ll prove it to you -watch this: And he climbed into the pit, sat down at the keyboard and reeled off the most brilliant rendition of The Man I Love, with all his dazzle, taste and elegant brio.
And not one of the crowd paid the slightest attention.
There are half-a-dozen more stories like this on the CD, The Saturn Session –along with some of the tastiest performing and unusual repertoire. Patti and Audrey come from a jazz background, Charlie and Billy come from the Broadway/Hollywood arena. Bobbie Horowitz and I come from cabaret. You may sample all of us at CDBaby.com.
“But just listen: my friend Seely and I went down to the Stratford, in Philadelphia, you know? Because the Beatles had appeared in town the night before, and next morning we ran down to their hotel before they checked out, we thought maybe we could cadge an autograph or somethin’, and of course there was about a hundred policemen protecting them -all around the hotel, oh, and wasn’t it packed with teenagers, all squealin’ their guts out doncha know -well, what none of us knew was that the boys had snuck out through the kitchen entrance hours before and wasn’t no way anyone was gettin’ an autograph or anythin’ else.” “Wow,” I said, just to keep her going, though I doubt anything could have stopped her. “So I says to my friend, ‘Seely,’ I says, ‘wait here, I’m goin’ round the back’ and I snuck in the kitchen entrance and grabbed an elevator, and took it up to the tenth floor and there was the maid, vacuuming up the suite, they were just beginnin’ to clean it, and I march in with great authority and I says to her, ‘This where John Lennon stayed?’ and she says Yes, and so, –cool as you please, I march over to the rumpled bed, -she hadn’t made it up yet- and there on the night table, in an ash tray, is a cigarette, like all squashed out. So quick as a flash I open my purse and scoop in the butt. I take a quick look around to see if maybe John’s forgotten anythin’ -like possibly a bedroom slipper- but no, there wasn’t nothin’; so I scurry out and when I get downstairs, Seely’s amazed, simply amazed. I showed it to her. And when I got back, I put it in a china bowl and I have it upstairs, now, if you’d like to see it.” “Well, Maddie,” I said, “thanks for the offer, but…what are you gonna do with it? I doubt you could sell it, a used cigarette butt.” Maddie looked at me as though I’d gone insane. “Don’t you see???” she hissed at me. “How valuable it’s gonna be? That little butt? Because after a few more years, when science has made the advance, I’ll be able to clone him. John Lennon. Because I’ve got his DNA -on that cigarette butt.”
