Legally Blue

March, 2021

Those that know me know I have an almost insufferable passion for music, especially live jazz but also blues, classical, and rock. I’ve been playing keyboard instruments since I was 12, when I broke my clarinet after a junior high school holiday concert and needed to learn how to play the family Conn organ so I could perform Christmas carols. Since then I’ve played in various types of amalgamations, from bass clarinet in the school band, where I wrote an impeccable arrangement for bass and alto clarinets of the theme from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, to keyboards in innumerable garages and venues, including on stage with my daughter at the San Jose Jazz Festival.

Early in 2017, having finally freed myself of my volunteer work with the State Bar, I bumped into Chris at one of his gigs and asked him if he knew of any playing situations for a keyboard player. Over a subsequent lunch, he pitched the idea of playing Hammond B3 organ and a little piano with another of his bands, Legally Blue. Although I had jammed with the band during a prior jam session, I couldn’t really play the blues. Further, I had never really touched, let alone played, a Hammond B3 organ before (the B3 being THE quintessential organ for blues, jazz, and rock), I decided to give it a try. I was mostly a jazz.player, but as I told Chris you can play blues without jazz but you can’t play jazz without blues. Besides what could go wrong with playing music I didn’t know on an instrument I couldn’t play.

The Hammond B3 is a beast. It weighs in at well into the hundreds of pounds. It can purr like a kitten or roar like a lion, and can rip you to shreds if not handled properly. And it must be played with another multi hundred pound speaker and amplifier combination called a Leslie. These instruments do not fit imn the Mini Cooper I was driving at the time, even with the convertible top down. So the lure of this beast lying in wait with a Leslie (a Model 127 for you geeks out there) in the Legally Blue high altitude research facility and practice studio was an opportunity no self respecting keyboard player could pass up.

As luck would have it, Hammond had just released a single keyboard version of the B3 (the XK5 for you geeks out there) which was considerably lighter than a classic B3 and didn’t require me to buy a truck to haul it to a gig. It was a gracious accommodation for a band devoted to vintage authenticity to spare me and my back the challenge of staging a real B3.

My paltry experience with the blues did not come close to preparing me for Legally Blue. Except for one song nothing was written down so I had to learn everything by ear from the band’s two CDs. Which meant that my first B3 teacher turned out to be JK, my most excellent predecessor. Every song was carefully and uniquely arranged, which kept me twisted in knots. Every practice I had my ass handed to me, although they did it so nicely.

They were your typical Silicon Valley over achievers. Thank the Goddess none of them were lawyers. Chris the bassist and Mike the drummer were so locked that they sounded like a single instrument. I had met Aart the guitarist on a business deal years before, and then later at the same jam session that gave birth to the band, and his playing just floored me. Joining the group at the same time was Cheryl on lead vocals, who called me little brother because I was a month or so younger than her. Dave was on sound, as integral to the band as any of us on stage I’m sure Chris was embarrassed at foisting me on this fine group. If he wasn’t embarrassed he should have been.

So why am I telling you this and what does it have to do with ALS? When I first thought of this particular blog, it was going to be a single segment where I got to the point then moved on. As I started writing it, however, I found the experience cathartic, healing the still raw wound caused by losing my ability to make music.

The blues heal. In my case, not only do the blues heal, but Legally Blue in particular continues to heal. In subsequent segments, I’ll try to explain how. If you’ll join me in this indulgence, then check this out, as loud as possible if you please: https://youtu.be/-NBDW4ytD10