It Takes A Long Time To Remember My Name

Album tracks:

» Stories
» Corner of the bar
» Might be first love
» After midnight
» Don't know love
» You're the sadness in the wind
» I picture you when I'm drunk
» Without your memory
» It takes a long time to remember my name
» Goodnight song

It's been like 12 years since I listened to this album. It brings back a lot of memories. Mostly sentimental. The whole story is worth a couple of beers...

I was on the standard pre-law school year off trip through Asia, passing by Taiwan to meet an old college buddy who worked with me at Naoki's Japanese Restaurant in Colorado. On my second day, he conned me into staying 8 weeks to take on a gig as an English teacher substitute at some business language school. Here I was on my way to Tokyo to play bebop and catch up with the dream I had of working into the jazz scene there, and suddenly here I was in Taiwan teaching English.

The job lasted 8 weeks, and during the course of getting to know my students, mostly business people, they found out I loved music and had played the saxophone for most of my life. So as an end of semester present to their teacher, they took me out on my last Saturday to a club that featured mostly Dixieland music played by an interesting mix of English guys who had jumped a cruise ship, and some Filipinos. We talked a bit, and my students edged me on to tell them that I also played, and this got us all an invited the next day to join a jam session. I was pretty happy to play again after a few months off the horn, and played a few standards for my students, who applauded wildly, and generally embarrassed the hell out of me.

The next day I got a call from the guitar player, Rick, a serious Joe Pass style player, who said, "Hey man, you got a nice sound. I'm playing solo at this new club tonight. Why don't you bring your axe down and play a little? I'll buy you dinner. Oh, and wear a suit."

So I hopped a cab, went and bought a bright green plaid suit for $75 at some corner shop in the market, and made it over to the club. If you're playing jazz, man, you gotta have a bold suit.

I walked in the club, and spotted Rick in the corner talking with the owner, who was obviously very gay. The owner looked up, took one look at my suit and said, "You're hired! You guys start tonight. Four months." It was like something out of 52nd Street. I felt like Bud Powell. We huddled up and put together 3 sets of music and that began my introduction to Taipei nightlife. Little did I know that this club, Apocalypse Now, was the epicenter of hip, where the models, the lookers, and all the wannabes congregated to drink, swoon, and be seen. Not a bad gig.

A few weeks later, some local musicians started coming out, hearing that there was jazz in town. Guys from the orchestra, some expats, some local players. It turned into quite a scene. One of the orchestra players, Tom, took me aside and said, "Hey man, see those three guys over there? They're in the music business. One of them owns a record company. His wife is in the orchestra with me. He wants me to introduce you." So I sit and have a beer with them. Then one of them says, "You play pretty good. You also look kind of Chinese. Do you want to make an album?" I think about it for about a half second and say, "Sure. Why not?" We shake hands, and he tells me to meet him at his office the next day.

The next day I show up, we chat a bit, and he tosses a contract down in front of me. "Here. Sign it and we'll start recording next week." I take a quick look at the agreement, realize I'll never get paid, and put down my signature. Might as well see where this takes me.

Well it took me to nearly 200K copies and into one wild career. Never went back to law school. Japan took a rain check. I was riding a pretty cool wave.

Notes: This was mostly sight reading stuff at the session, and I had to play these cheap-o saxes the record company provided, "Because yours looks too old and these are nice and shiny." I was bumming through the whole session fighting pitch the whole way. And for me, going from Horace Silver to what I coined "Italian Soap Opera Music" was a big change. I was too proud and stuck on what I liked to play, to really make a great effort, but I played with my heart, and when I hear it again now, I get a nice warm sad feeling. I was really into Art Pepper at the time, and deliberately went for an "Eyes of Laura Mars" feel bridging the gap between soap and soul. My favorite cuts are 3, 4, and 7.

Credits:

Keyboards - Neil Boisen / Lin Shao Ying
Drums - Huang Rei Fung
Guitar - Yo Chen Yen
Bass - Kuo Chung Shao
Classical Guitar - Roberto Zayas
Recorded by - Huang Chin Her at Ya-Hsuan Studio / Chen Kuan Yu at Mi-Di Studio, Taipei
Mixed by - Chen Chien Ping at Ya-Hsuan Studio
Coordinator - Wu Ser Tze
Direct Coordinator - Lin Hsiao Han
Script/Proposal - Liu Rei Wen
Photographer - Chen Fu Tang
Make Up Artist - Cheng Jen Kuo
Album Designer - Chen Chi Ying / EGO Designer Studio

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