A couple weeks ago I got word that friend Mike K., who was the singer and guitar player way back in my first band in high school, had died. He was right around my age. I haven’t seen him in many years.
Then Friday my friend Gus died. Gus was the drummer in several of the bands I’ve been in, going back to when I got back into playing music eight or nine years ago. First was The Relix, and then Left Hook, which we formed when The Relix folded. Gus was in his early sixties. I last saw him about a year ago.
So I’ve been thinking about how bands come and go, and more generally, relationships and situations in life. Everyone is in it for their own reasons, and you never know when things will end, even if everything seems fine. Then you stop seeing people you were close to because everyone is always busy with their lives and goes their separate ways, and one day it’s too late.
Then Saturday Eric, the drummer for my jazz group, abruptly quit. Apparently he got a job playing with a big band in Manhattan, and it’s a better gig for him. The next day Rich, the piano player, decided he’s leaving the group too. Jay, the bass player, looked at the situation and declared it to be the end of an era.
This all caught me by surprise. I guess there were signs the group had plateaued, even as I’ve been focused on continuing to improve my own playing. I think Gary and I, as the two main songwriters, were still keen on honing our songs. I thought we had another album in the offing, indeed we had a bunch of great songs; it was just a matter of lining up the studio session. But those guys were beginning to loose interest. Ever since I got back from Spain it felt like one or the other was missing rehearsal, and several times we had to cancel.
It was a good run for sure. We had a quite a few great gigs and recorded an excellent album. When we started playing together, I brought in a few of my songs, and this inspired everyone else in the group to start writing too. We were together about three years, and we came out of a jazz circle that went back a few years before that, also to the time I started playing again. It was probably the best of group of musicians I ever played with, and I improved alot in that time. So it’s really too bad.
Now it’s back to square one, starting over. Sometime a new group emerges from an old one, sometime not. I’m asking around. And this while I’m trying to get a new rock band off the ground too. Ah well, we’ll see how it goes.