Al Haig

The pianist. Not the “I’m in control here” former General turned Secretary of State.

In early 1980, pianist Al Haig hired me to play duo with him five nights a week at a restaurant called One Fifth Avenue near Washington Square Park in New York City. I think the restaurant's owner was Gerard Schwartz, who owned three other restaurants in the city and was a medical doctor working at St. Vincent’s Hospital nearby on Seventh Avenue. For whatever reason, he was a dedicated Al Haig fan. When he initially approached Al about working there, he offered to let Al go to Steinway Hall in Midtown, select a piano to his liking, and then have that instrument placed in the restaurant—a pianist’s dream. The only requirement was that the piano could not exceed six feet in length to fit into an allotted corner of the restaurant.

Because of Al’s close association with Charlie Parker, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, and other legends, I considered it a great honor and opportunity to learn from someone rich in unparalleled experience. It amazed me that I had a steady gig that paid pretty well and got to play with one of the all-time masters regularly. We played a mix of standards from The Great American Songbook, tunes from the bebop era, including some of the more challenging Bud Powell repertoire, and tunes from contemporary composers like Cedar Walton (Al loved Cedar) and other pianists Al admired. Among his many attributes, to this day, I still believe that Al derived the most beautiful, luscious sound from the piano of any pianists I have worked with, and there have been many great ones. Al often practiced Classical music at home and frequented recitals at Weill Recital Hall, where many fine Classical pianists regularly performed. Perhaps he got inspiration from that experience.

Al, going over some music with Miles Davis.

Al seemed to enjoy the fact that he had a bit of obscurity on the scene at the time and seemed at times to be reluctant to perform in venues where he would be under the scrutiny of peers or other jazz aficionados. Al also liked to work at Gregory’s, a bar on the Upper East Side that was way off the beaten track. That always puzzled me, as the respect he garnered from his peers was universal. Al seemed to enjoy flying under the radar, so to speak. Was there a bit of paranoia? I’ll never know for sure.

Never satisfied, Al was a diligent worker who regularly put in the hours.

The clientele at One Fifth Avenue consisted of Trust Fund kids who were mainly enamored with the sounds of their own voices. The place was a real chatterbox with a tile floor and high ceilings. This seemed to be okay with Al. It left him free to play what he liked, how he liked, without much attention being paid to him.

A couple of nights we played together still stick out in my memory today. The first is the night that Cedar Walton came by to hear Al. Cedar entered through the restaurant's revolving door, and somehow, Al noticed him immediately. He abruptly stopped playing right in the middle of a tune. He walked over to Cedar, greeted him warmly, and approached the bar. Al signaled to me to take a break. The two of them sat and drank and chatted at the bar for at least an hour until Cedar had to leave to go up the street to play his first set at Bradley’s. The moment Cedar left, Al motioned to me, and we went back to playing another set. I wondered what Al thought he was doing by not playing while Cedar was in the house. Was he self-conscious or perhaps afraid that Cedar would disapprove? Nothing could have been further from the truth. Was he just happy to see Cedar and have the opportunity to hang together uninterrupted by other jazz folks? I finally concluded that it was just Al's massive respect for Cedar and Al’s way of paying tribute to another master. One thing is for sure. I’ll never know.

Another evening was when Al chose to teach me a valuable yet somewhat painful musical lesson. In a duo, the bass player often gets to solo on every tune, a highly unusual occurrence for an instrument defined by its supportive role. This night was like any other, or so I thought. We were in the middle of a set, and it was my turn to solo. I got about halfway into my first chorus, and Al suddenly stopped playing, closed the lid of the piano, and walked out of the restaurant without saying a word, leaving me alone to continue playing for a moment until finally petering out and wondering what on earth had just happened and what I should do about it. Just before I finished, I could see out of a window just behind the bandstand and saw Al walking down the street, disappearing into the darkened distance.

I sat and sat some more and wondered what I should do. Was Al gone for the night? Was he coming back? Because the patrons were essentially unaware of anything we did, nobody was present to advise me. I did not know what to do.

After about 45 minutes, Al returned and invited me to join him at the bar. He ordered a glass of wine for me and said he wanted to explain something. He then got right to the point and said, “Let’s get one thing straight. When you play a solo, and I must accompany you, I will not be your “beat janitor” trying to follow you around with a mop and a pail while the beats fall all over the place. I cannot figure out what to play when I have no idea where YOUR beat is. Understand that I hired you because I like the way you accompany me, I like your sound and feel, and I especially like your beat when you are walking lines behind me because, as you know, I hate having to play without drums. We are not allowed to have drums here due to the Cabaret laws, so the bass player on this gig also must be the drummer. I am puzzled that someone like you, who has such a good time feel when playing with me, but loses all of that when you solo. Please do me a favor: go home tonight, listen to Oscar Pettiford's solos, and think about how his feeling stands on its own. Please help me help you.”

With that, I was simultaneously embarrassed, humiliated, and depressed, and at the same time, grateful that despite the message, the messenger was laying some big-time truth and experience on me. When I got home and licked my wounds for a while, I dove into my record collection and followed Al’s instructions to the letter. It was daylight before I finished listening.

The next night, I returned to work. Al was his usual self, cordial and ready to play, and it was as if nothing had happened the night before. We opened the first set with a medium tempo blues. I imagine that Al deliberately gave me every opportunity to redeem myself on my first solo of the evening. My solo was sparse and consisted mainly of characteristic but simple rhythmic motives that I had heard drummers frequently play. The solo was far from a melodic or harmonic masterpiece, but it was simple, rhythmic, and logical, with a precise, formal shape. When the tune finished, Al looked at me and said, “That is what I meant last night. Carry on.” I guessed that was some form of reconciliation, and I played in that manner the rest of the evening and, in fact, for the rest of my career to some extent. Thankfully, the issue was never raised again, and I continued to perform with Al at One Fifth Avenue and other trio gigs we would occasionally perform.

On the morning of November 16, 1982, Al complained of not feeling well and died suddenly of a massive coronary episode in his Manhattan home. He was 58 years old. Besides being shocked at the news, I immediately thought of a tune Al liked to play entitled All Too Soon.

Getting honest feedback from the masters, no matter how it may be delivered, has been one of the most valuable aspects of my experience all these years. It has helped me far more than any empty “Yeah, baby, you sound beautiful” phrase often offered as some professional protocol. That night changed my perspective and my playing for the better. I consider it a turning point in my musical journey. I will forever be grateful to Al for caring enough about me and my playing to invest the time and effort to share his experience with me. Today, I owe an outstanding debt of gratitude to nearly every master I was fortunate to play with for their mentoring, no matter how subtle or blatantly direct it may have been. Sometimes, learning from the masters is not for the faint of heart.

As I often say, I’m just a lucky so-and-so.

TC