PREVIEW
Buster Williams Quartet
Where: Hermann's Jazz Club
When: Sunday, 8 p.m. (doors 7 p.m.)
Tickets: $35 advance, $39 door (Victoria Jazz Society office 250388-4423, Lyle's Place, Ditch Records, Royal and McPherson box office 250 386-6121)
If you play the double bass, blisters can be a painful - and messy - problem.
No one knows that more than Buster Williams, the admired American jazz bassist who's gigged with a who's who of musicians and singers. The Camden, New Jersey, native (and collaborator with Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughan, Herbie Hancock, Chet Baker and Sonny Stitt) says his most memorable blister experience happened with saxophonist Jimmy Heath.
Plucking and pushing the thick strings of the acoustic bass causes wear and tear on the hands. Blisters are inevitable. Williams developed an especially large one during a gig with Heath. It was summertime; the saxophonist wore a white seersucker jacket with black stripes.
"My blister busted and blood spewed all over his jacket," Williams, 70, recalled with a laugh from his New Jersey home. "He got away from me quick. I looked at him and I couldn't stop [playing]."
Williams' appearance at Hermann's Jazz Club promises to be a musical highlight of the season. His quartet includes pianist Patrice Rushen, drummer Ndugu Chanceler and saxophonist Mark Gross. The concert will showcase Williams' compositions as well as other material.
The Grammy-winning bassist was a prodigy; Williams started playing with Heath in his mid-teens. His breakthrough into the "big scene" happened in 1960, when he was 17. Williams' father landed his son a gig with Sonny Stitt and Gene Ammons.
Back then, Stitt and Ammons were riding especially high as the "Boss Tenors," burning up bandstands with their duelling saxophones.
When their regular bassist became unavailable for weekend dates at Philadelphia's Showboat nightclub, the call went to Williams' dad, a professional bassist. He was already booked, so he suggested his son.
Young Williams donned his suit and drove to the club. He sat at the bottom of a flight of stairs, waiting for the band to arrive from their rooms upstairs.
Stitt arrived first.
"After a while, I see these long legs with this tan mohair suit. And these pants got such a perfect crease. ... Sonny Stitt appears. He looks like a giant. He's slim, regal. He's elegant."
The teenager nervously stood and introduced himself.
"His eyes squinched and there's wrinkles in his forehead," Williams recalled. "He said, 'You gonna make the gig?' I said, 'Yes sir, I'm gonna do my best.' He said, 'Are you gonna make the gig?' I said, 'Yes sir!' He said, "OK. Let's hit.' "
Williams not only made the gig, he impressed Stitt and Ammons so much, they invited him to go on the road immediately. He left home at 4 a.m. the next day to drive to Chicago. Williams remembers his mom cried all night.
And his father gave him advice about travelling with hard-living jazz musicians.
"He told me how to act like I'm smoking reefer and not smoke it. How to pinch it, make sure no smoke gets in my mouth," Williams said, chuckling.
His mother gave him a Bible. And his dad told him to hide his first pay package within its pages. That way, if Williams ever got stranded on the road, he'd have bus or train fare.
Back then, jazzmen prided themselves on being elegant. Stitt drove a white Cadillac and travelled with two toy poodles. "One was called Champagne," Williams said.
Ammons, meanwhile, drove a fancy Chrysler Imperial.
"I had to sing to keep him awake," Williams said. "Because he'd insist on driving. Also, he had these bad habits, almost falling asleep. I had a very important job."
His teacher had been his bass-playing father, a strict disciplinarian. It was his dad who advised him to play despite blisters, insisting it was the only way to develop necessary cal-louses. Today, Williams gives his own bass students the same advice.
"The bass will not adapt to you. The only thing it will do, it will fit in your groin. From that point on, you have to adapt to the bass."
