The fall classic has passed, this year’s capped by a scintillating Game 7, the brilliant pitching of a new folk hero, Madison Bumgarner, and a third ring for the 27-year-old Kung Fu Panda, Pablo Sandoval. October brings to mind on-field memories both exhilarating and frustrating, but of late it also reminds me of Dave McKenna, the jazz piano giant and Red Sox fan who died six years ago in the midst of the American League Championship Series between Boston and Tampa Bay. McKenna was famous among the local cognoscenti for concealing a transistor radio in his sport coat pocket so that he could listen to ballgames while playing gigs at the Copley Plaza and other Southern New England saloons. He composed two catchy tunes for his boyhood idol, Ted Williams (“Splendid Splinter” and “Theodore the Thumper”), and of the various out of the way places where I ran into McKenna over the years, Fenway Park was twice the site.
Dave died on Saturday, October 18, 2008. The following day the Sox and Rays were meeting for Game 7 in Tampa, and it struck me that it would be fitting for Joe Castiglione to make an announcement of his passing. I wrote a short tribute and used a connection I have with a Boston Globe sportswriter to ferry the message to the Sox radio booth. Click here for Castiglione’s announcement, which includes his mention of Williams simply as “Number 9.” He voiced it as the Rays were coming to the plate in the bottom of the first inning.
For twenty years, there’s been a tape in circulation of McKenna playing at the Beacon Hill home of Christopher Lydon, the host of Radio Open Source at WBUR. I often go back to it to hear his rendition of “Blue Skies,” a tune I heard him play often, but rarely with the interpolation of Thelonious Monk’s “In Walked Bud” that he played at Chez Lydon. (The harmonic sequence of Monk’s tribute to Bud Powell is based on the Irving Berlin song that Al Jolson sang in The Jazz Singer.) It knocked me out the first time I heard it, and it underscores something about McKenna’s playing that gave a fresh and unique flair to his approach to popular songs and Swing Era standards. Dave dug modern jazz, which, after all, was the music of his time. Surely Nat Cole and Art Tatum and Teddy Wilson were formative for the Woonsocket, R.I., native born in 1930, but so were Bird and Bud and Dizzy and Miles, and it’s terrific to hear him calling their names along with Red Garland, Wynton Kelly, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock in the bits of dialogue that punctuate the performance on the Lydon tape. Click here for excerpts of the house concert and Lydon’s Radio Open Source feature, Dave McKenna: My Private Collection of the Master.
Whitney Balliett described Dave as a “time warp of a pianist,” playing bebop in his right hand and stride in his left. He also began his affectionate New Yorker profile of the pianist by writing that “Dave McKenna’s life pivots on paradox.” Here’s one that comes to mind: When I began seeing McKenna, I was amazed at how little attention nightclub patrons paid to his playing, and dismayed at how difficult it could be to hear his powerful attack over the din of conversation. (This was well before Bradley Cunningham began insisting on silence at his now shuttered jazz club on University Place in Greenwich Village.) When Terry Gross interviewed Dave on Fresh Air years ago, she mentioned this same annoying phenomenon and asked if it bothered him? “Not really,” he replied. “When they’re quiet, I get nervous.” Indeed, one need only compare Dave’s nightclub and house party performances to his studio recordings to appreciate how he preferred the distractions of a nightclub to the hushed decorum of the studio and concert hall.
I used to see Dave on a regular basis all over the Cape, at the Copley Plaza in Boston, with Ruby Braff at the Regattabar, and at Bradley’s, where I’d hang till the last note was struck and sometimes get a lift down to where I stayed on Spring Street from Dave and his driver. Especially memorable were the times when Zoot Sims would arrive at Bradley’s around 2, mount a bar stool, and wail till the wee small hours with Dave. In addition to various Fenway Park and Boston street encounters, the most surprising meeting I ever had with him was when I was visiting Paris in January 1991. Once I’d got settled and headed out for a walk, I immediately ran into Dave. He’d just played some holiday gigs in Germany and had come to Paris for sightseeing and fine dining. McKenna was a renowned gourmand. For a time, he was also an easy mark for wine stewards.
The last time I saw Dave was on his 70th birthday, May 30, 2000, at a church in Belchertown, Massachusetts, where he played a Sunday afternoon concert presented by MIFA. His playing was as brilliant as ever, and he offered us one of his ingenious word medleys, this one based on eyes: “Them There Eyes,” “I Only Have Eyes for You,” “Jeepers Creepers,” “Angel Eyes,” and “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.” But he was in no mood for celebration. When the emcee proposed that we sing “Happy Birthday” to welcome him back for his second set, McKenna shot us a ray that said, “Don’t dare!” And no one did. But afterwards, he attended a reception at the producer Dan Sanders’s home and was downright garrulous in talking about another “maybe this year” Red Sox season.
I first heard McKenna at The Columns on Rt. 28 in West Dennis around 1970. I was a 17-year-old passing for 21, already fanatical for Ellington, Mingus, and the down-home jam sessions I’d catch every week at the Kitty Kat Lounge in Worcester. But seeing Dave, Dick Johnson, Lou Colombo, even the legendary Bobby Hackett, at a Cape Cod roadhouse was a revelation. To discover music of this caliber played with such beauty and passion by master musicians working far from the limelight gave me a whole new insight into the workaday nature of the jazz life. Speaking of which, I once asked Dave to confirm that he was playing a regular Thursday night gig at the opulent Chatham Bars Inn on the Cape. “Oh yeah,” he replied, “That’s my corned beef.” Back in the early 70’s, Dave and his colleagues impressed in me an understanding that the ritual of music making was a reward in itself, and that riches and fame were a secondary motive. In many ways, the relative obscurity of these players was one of the things that fueled my desire to pursue a career in which I might bring a little attention to their great work. Nearly forty years later, I can tell you that it still feels like a special honor to play Dave McKenna’s music on the radio.
This beautiful image of Dave and Gray Sargent is taken from Ken Frankling’s new book of photographs, Jazz in the Key of Light. Ken, who wrote and snapped pictures for UPI in Providence for many years, might have had this picture in mind when he gave his book its title. Frankling’s sumptuous volume pairs photos with short statements by his subjects. Sargent, who’s been a member of Tony Bennett’s quartet for over 15 years, had this to day: “I usually wouldn’t pick the duo as my favorite format, but I love playing with Dave. He is like a whole orchestra. He affects my playing melodically…There are all kinds of twists and surprises in where he takes a song.” Alas, Gray’s remarks now rest in the past tense, but McKenna’s recorded legacy includes a 1991 Maybeck Recital Hall concert with Sargent. Read more and see additional images from Jazz in the Key of Light at Frankling’s blog here.