Ok, it's not been quite one year since I started writing this blog, but nearly so. But just this week my good friend Kevin Flanigan emailed a link he stumbled on that he shared with his brothers Tommy and Sean [Kevin, Sean and Tom--my own personal Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard] and me: http://www.naturestable.net/. It is not a fancy website, but that's Nature's Table for you. It was a "real" place--real music and real food (although not the "real America" Ms. Palin spoke of--in fact, just the opposite!). I frankly cannot imagine my four years at Illinois without that place. I guess I didn't realize that it had only opened in 1979. To me, it seemed like a place that must have been part of the U of I music scene since the '50s or '60s (not that I thought that much about it at the time). And I'm a firm believer that the school is much poorer for not having it there still (sadly, it closed in 1991, a victim of university expansion).
But it was a scene. I never played there. My jazz chops were just not good enough at the time. But I was an devoted fan. The memory of that session with Ray's Condition Blue, featuring pianist Mike Kocour ("he's a math major? You've gotta be kidding me!") and the great Jeff Stitely on drums remains vivid (see my post of on Kocour from November 2007). I've copied some pictures from the website that include those guys, just as I remember them. (Hey, I didn't recall the flannel so much, but I guess it was "in, man, very in.") The list of daily gigs at the Table that is at the website is fascinating. I can still go down that list and tell you, with a fair amount of certainty, which gigs I was at (I mean, is it weird or what that I remember going to a Friday happy hour of hot music featuring Tom Birkner on cornet and vocals?)In a strange three degrees of separation, Stitely was a neighbor and friend to Matt Farmer. Matt went to high school with my friend Neal Connors. Not only did I meet Matt by playing gigs with him and Neal up in Chicago but we've become very good friends. And where did I meet first meet Neal? While playing in Jeff Stitely's big band at U of I, naturally!
Little things can fundamentally alter the course of one's life, can't they? One big one was my introduction to this wonderful U of I jazz scene in the summer of 1981, between my junior and senior years of high school, going to the two week Illinois Summer Youth Music program (ISYM). I also went to Indiana that year and did a band and orchestra camp. Because of that, I elected to go to the jazz program at Illinois. There I met Tom Birkner, heard and played in a big band with the even-then-amazing Kevin Kizer (a kid my age, already playing in the #1 jazz band at Illinois), experienced John Garvey (Garv), encountered Tom Wirtel (then Shabda Nur), heard the likes of Brad Wheeler, Ron Dewar, Joel Spencer and others I can't remember right now, and of course, met the Kev-ster himself. Two young trumpet playing kids--one from just south of Chicago and the other from smack dab in the middle of nowhere-- but who had a lot in common. One of the most important of which was a love of music and playing which I think has shaped the people we became, even if we were not the next Dave Bilger or Wynton Marsalis. What a scene.
4 comments:
I managed to make it to Nature's Table a few times during my not-so-infrequent college road trips to Champaign-Urbana. The Table was a cool place indeed.
I see from the reconstructed schedule posted on the NT website that our friend and occasional bandmate Brian Wilkie logged some gigs there during the Reagan years. I may see Brian tonight. If I do, I'll let him know about the website.
During that same time period, I caught a lot of those musicians when they wandered north to Chicago (and even to Evanston, where I was a student). I spent a lot of hours in little clubs in the big city listening to guys like Akio Sasajima, Ron Dewar, Jeff Stitely, and Mike Kocour. It was always time well spent.
What a great post. Just reading that schedule did bring back quite a few memories. You should go up to Champaign for the next reunion concert!
Hey, regarding your post on Istanbul -- after I went there two years ago, I came across the book Constantinople by Edmondo De Amicis (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Constantinople/Edmondo-De-Amicis/e/9781843911180/?itm=1). It's a travelogue written at the end of the 19th century. I loved it -- wish I had read it before I went.
Matt and Kevin, now I know how to get you guys to comment--shamelessly mention you in the original post!
Seriously, thanks for reading and taking the time to comment. I am going to try to ride this wave of posting -- once you stop, it's hard to start again. But I like to do the writing; it's kind of therapeutic.
Kevin, you need to start a blog. Both of you are definitely folks who think interesting thoughts and have provactive things to say. Just a thought.
Hi Rob!
I've just been bouncing around the different stuff about you on the web for the last 30 minutes. I added you as a facebook friend a couple months ago and that was the end of it. Today in my bouncing, I found a couple of unknown things about you. You may or may not remember me, I was a member of the singing group at Carmi High. I don't remember the groups name... I rember your quite good playing of a flugle horn for one performance. My girlfriend Robin Gutshall played slide trombone in the group with you. I graduated in 1980 and went to the UofI. Seeing this Nature's Table stuff really brought back memories... I was an infrequent listener there through 1985. We may have been in the audience at the same time, I want to think that I would have recognized you if you had been playing... Looking at the Voodoo web site, I see that you play some blues now. Did you ever see the "Mud Hens" while you were at UofI? That was my first exposure to "blues" and I was hooked. What is a good "St. Louis blues" group to listen to?
Rick Sundeen
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