still can't believe it

How it came to be

This is a story about how on the 9th of May 2002 I got to meet Dave Brubeck, the well known jazz pianist, who even before his quartet's hit singe Take Five came out around 1960, sent a fresh and revolutionizing storm through the jazz world. The history of this story began on a trip to the united states long before that magical may evening. In August 2001, I went to Yale, Michigan in the United States, to see my girlfriend. By then it was no big secret anymore that I was more than quite fond of Mr Brubeck's music. I already had a decent collection of recordings by then, and I'm still treasuring each and everyone of them. I had a really great time in the states back then, and while still there I was making new plans to go there again. What I didn't know back then is that I was gonna meet my idol in the flesh next time I'd be back.

Once I was back in Holland at the end of August, my girlfriend and I started figuring out ways of how to see eachother again as quickly as possible. It turned out that newyear's would be the time. The place was Holland. We had the most wonderful time in Holland, visiting such beautiful places as Amsterdam, Scheveningen, Lemmer and Leiden. In the meantime, my collection of Brubeck paraphernalia was growing and growing, and I had emailed a couple of times with Chris Brubeck, Dave's son and an incredible talent at that. On Chris Brubeck's website, I noticed that the Dave Brubeck Quartet would play twice in Michigan, on 9 and 10 May, 2002. Seeing I was planning to go to Michigan anyway around that time, it seemed like a good idea to me to combine two goodthings.

I asked Christina if she could call the places and see if there were still seats left, and how much they were. She didn't only buy the best places in the house for the May 9th concert, but she also mailed Chris Brubeck, whose mail is read by Tish from the Brubeck website, and somehow she managed to get the two of us on the backstage list. Upon hearing this, and finding out that I was gonna meet Mr Brubeck, she got so excited that she called me, even though it was in the middle of the night then in Holland. I was asleep of course, and it seems that during the whole conversation we had then, I didn't really wake up fully, leaving me with mingled thoughts. When I woke up the following morning, I got downstairs and made some breakfast, all the while telling my mom that I thought I was called, and that my girlfriend told me I was gonna meet Brubeck. My mom laughed and said that I probably just dreamt the whole thing. I agreed, and went to do some groceries. When I was just out the door, my mom called me and told me that Christina had called, and that she would call back in about twenty minutes. I quickly got the things we needed, and when I got back home the phone went, and indeed, there she was. "Do you still remember?" she asked. I must say that of course I did still remember that she called me, but it was all so blurry, and I could hardly believe that what she told me was actually going to happen. She told me the story again, and I just about fell over. Thus, the stage was set. Now all I had to do was wait. Until May 3rd.

To the States

On may 3rd, I travelled to the states, and that wonderful movie called Spider-man came out.. I had a troublesome time getting through customs though. Not only were there long lines in front of all the desks, they also didn't move. Not one single inch. After waiting for what seemed to be hours and hours (fortunately I had some good CDs with me - try imagining the faces of the people when I was beat-boxing along to Joe Morello's drum solo on Castilian Drums from the Carnegie Hall album) I finally got to a friendly customs officer called Joe (really), who was swift in his ways, so that I could spend even more time looking for my suitcase, which oddly enough hadn't arrived yet. I was very glad to see it lying happily on one of the conveyor belt a couple of minutes later. When I finally got out of the security zone, I was pretty tired, but also just happy that the waiting had finally ended. Every day spent in the States was as good as the last one, but seeing you're probably more interested in the Brubeck story, I'll fast-forward to the 9th of May, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Just around 5 pm.

Grand Rapids is a very cute town. When we were driving around there, it reminded me of a scaled-down version of New York, or at least a small big city. We had some trouble locating our hotel, but after circling around town we found it. And what a great hotel it was. After checking the foyer and the lobby, I came to the conclusion that this must be the fanciest hotel in town. Not only was it bigger than big, it was also very, very classy. That day we had been in a car for quite some time though, so we sought out our room, and we put our stuff there. Although we still had some time left, we put on our concert clothes. Before going to the concert though, we needed food. By this time I was already very tense and nervous about the whole evening. It was going to be my very first visit to a Dave Brubeck concert. After checking the rest of the hotel we would have dinner, after which we would make our way to the church where the concert was being held.

Wait a minute... isn't that... ?

The hotel was so great, we spent quite some time checking it out. There were big rooms with beautiful paintings, impressive chandeliers and even a grand piano somewhere on the second floor. Constantly on the look for a restaurant, we came across one, but for some reason we decided to look further. I'm glad we did, because what happened next was pretty amazing, and something you normally would only see in movies. We found the hotel where we had dinner. That might not seem too amazing, and of course it wasn't. But for some reason we didn't get dinner there just yet. I don't know why, but we walked back towards the lobby. Just at the moment we crossed the shop where I'd bought a new battery for my camera, I spotted a man sitting in a comfortable chair. He was talking to someone on his cellular phone. Somehow, he looked so very familiar, but I think that I just internally denied that such a thing could happen. That what could happen, you ask? Well, that I was staring at an international jazz-celebrity. I was staring at a friendly-looking man, wearing a white t-shirt and a black jacket. He had a peculiar shaped bag next to him. I kept staring at him, while he was calling. Christina was whispering lovingly, yet urgingly, in my ear that if I wanted to talk to the man I should do it, and not scare him. When he finished his call I got a slight nudge, and I stepped up to him, trembling. Collecting all my courage, I asked him "Is it possible that I know you?" He smirked and said, "Well, is it?" Kind of reassured by the friendliness and warmth in his voice, I said, "Um, is there a saxophone in that bag?" "Yeah, as a matter of fact there is," he said. Again, with a busrt of newly-found courage, I asked him "Are you Bobby Militello?"

Indeed, the man was Bobby Militello, musical partner of Dave Brubeck. He plays the saxophones, the flute, and at the concert he proved himself to be a pianist too. I really couldn't believe just yet that I was talking to the man who played all those beautiful solos. I have quite some cds on which Bobby plays, and his style has really amazed me. He can be sensitive like Paul Desmond, even almost reproducing the "dry martini" sound he had, and on other songs Mr Militello can be ferocious, and totally blow you away, as Gerry Mulligan would do. If he played the alto or the tenor that is. Almost forgetting to introduce Christina, I did just that. "Hi," he said, "call me Bob." The talk we had was fantastic. It was like I was improvising a solo, because during the whole thing I was remembering quotes from jazz pieces. I was thinking of the tune Charles Matthew Hallelujah! in the beginning. I was just so overjoyed that I was talking to such a great musician. A bit later I was thinking of Deep in a Dream, followed by More than you know. All very fitting, seeing I was happier than anyone could know. We talked about all sorts of things. It turned out that Mr Militello had lived for a couple of years in Maastricht, in holland. Now, Maastricht is very, very close to where I was born and where I grew up! It struck my girlfriend and me just how friendly Mr Militello was. He never at one point showed that he wanted to go away, or that he was bored with us. He took all the time to talk with us, while surely he had more pressing businesses to take care of. He told us that they were staying in the same hotel, and that they were only going to play the second half of the concert, and that he thought that was kind of a bummer, seeing that's when he usually gets into the whole feel of the place and audience. Nevertheless, they would make it a good concert, and the people before them, the Western Jazz Quartet, were very good in his opinion. He wasn't wrong of course. After talking about holland, jazz and the upcoming concert, he voiced a couple of doubts about just the latter thing.

It appeared that Randy Jones and Michael Moore, Brubeck's drummer and bassplayer, had missed a flight, so that they only just arrived. And they were quite a bit from the airport. Worse though, was that their instruments hadn't arrived yet. Bob told us that the instruments were on an even later plane, and that it wasn't exaclty sure whether the instruments would be there on time or not. We'd have to wait. Saying goodbye to Mr Militello was very difficult. I wanted to stay with him, talk more about all the wonderful music he made, and feel more of the 'on the road' excitement, but alas. We had to eat and he had to prepare for the concert. So as painful as it was, after some ten minutes, we said goodbye to Mr Militello. Fortunately it wasn't goodbye for that evening yet. We took a picture, and after that he walked away, and I was shaking. I was also hungry, so we went on throught the restaurant.

More soon - Stay tuned!

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