3 Responses to Sunday Water Cooler: Happy Birthday Danny Barker, Joe Pass, John Lees (Barclay James Harvest) and Kid Ramos

1. john in sacramento January 13th, 2013 at 8:47 pm 1

   Dunno if this is true or not. But, pretty cool if it is

   http://www.earthquakerose.com/

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2. normanb January 15th, 2013 at 4:25 am 2

   I got to see and hear Joe Pass live with Ella Fitzgerald in an amazing concert, back around the time of your recording here was made:

   Such an intimate setting! The St. Petersburg Times and 29 other civic-minded businesses and individuals paid $1,000 apiece to hire Ella & Joe (without other accompaniment!) to play an outdoor concert ‘for free’ for the townsfolk.

   I got out there early, and sat right up front – in front of all those people who had paid $1,000 each. Thousands of people showed up. It was a great show.

   I held it for as long as I could, but finally I had to slip away to the bathroom. Perhaps my movement from front-and-center to sliding off to one side triggered the jealous-bladder-syndrome effect in Ella, because she immediately had to go at the same time.

   And so it was that I met Ella Fitzgerald. She walked down the stairs on the side of the stage, turned 90 degrees, and blocked my path face-to-face. I didn’t know what to say. I was taken completely off guard, so it was something clumsy like “You’re the best!”

   She just modestly said “Not really.” (Neither of us said “Please step aside, I’m in a hurry.”) I stepped aside.

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3. dakine01 January 15th, 2013 at 4:37 am 3

   In response to normanb @ 2

   We all have out brushes with greatness. :})

   I had tickets to see Ella and Sarah Vaughn in Hawai’i in ’82 but then had “emergency” gall bladder surgery scheduled for the day before so passed them on to a buddy (I was getting out of the USAF and the surgery was scheduled on Monday for the upcoming Friday and the show was on Saturday)

   Never got another opportunity to see her live unfortunately

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