Chet The Dog

Posts Tagged ‘Roy Eldridge’

Bernie’s Playlist (1): If You Were Mine

Music by Matt Malneck, lyrics Johnny Mercer. Teddy Wilson on piano (and bandleader), vocal Billie Holiday, and the trumpet that takes it out is Roy Eldridge (Admin once saw him play, front table in a small club; requested More Than You Know).

Welcome High Hopes, Cocoa & Carmel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE929BM2PKc

The Life

We drove away from Cactus Heights, Lt. Stine, ambulance, crime scene tape, all that.

“The hard part is going to be keeping Ray out of this,” Bernie said.

And if he said it, I believed it, a good thing, because I’d been thinking that the hard part for me was trying to remember what was going on with the case, and now I didn’t have to worry about that.

Bernie sighed. “Guess it’s time for us to head for L.A.,” he said. “Not my favorite place, and it’s going to raise Bob’s bill, but what choice do we have?”

I didn’t know. Soon we were on a freeway, driving toward the sun, which was sinking in the sky and getting bigger and redder as it did. Loved seeing that! Bernie switched on the music. Billie Holiday and If You Were Mine, Roy Eldridge on trumpet. That trumpet did things to me, hard to describe. This was the life.

Make New Friends In The Exciting World of Tin Futures

Lately we’ve been listening to Charlie Poole a lot in the Porsche. “Absolute country music pioneer,” Bernie says. “And one of the great boozers in music, right up there with Hank Williams.”

I’m a music-lover myself – Roy Eldridge and his trumpet, Elmore James and his slide guitar – but Charlie Poole turns out to be a banjo player and there’s something about the banjo that hurts my ears. Bernie loves the banjo, has talked about getting one more than once. When it comes to ears there are big differences between me and Bernie.

“I think there’s a Charlie Poole festival somewhere in North Carolina every spring. Would that be fun or what?”

I wasn’t sure. First I’d heard of North Carolina, and what if there were lots of dudes playing banjos?

Meanwhile Bernie cranks up the volume. “This is my favorite cut.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdNP9D7wbcM

Speak, Memory (More Clearly)

Lt. Stine changed his mind, came with us – me, Bernie, Suzie – to the Dry Gulch Steakhouse and Saloon after all. Has the Dry Gulch come up yet? Maybe in Dog On It? Or possibly Thereby Hangs A Tail? So much to remember! But the point is it’s a great place and they like me and I like them. At first – this was on the patio, the tiles nice and cool underneath me – I was so busy with the steak tips that I missed a lot of the back-and-forth, but it was all about the petroglyph thieves and Bernie asking them nicely to stop and then the knife came out and after that did the fur fly! Whatever that means, since I was the only one with fur and it remained on me the whole time, completely intact – and kind of thick and glossy, if you don’t mind me tooting my own horn. Whatever that means. How else would you play a horn? Not that I can, of course, but I love the trumpet, especially when Roy Eldridge is playing. Bernie says they called him Little Jazz, can’t remember why. But I almost can. It’s very very close. Do you ever get that feeling in your head?