Klarinet Archive - Posting 000254.txt from 1999/12

From: John Vosbikian <johnvos@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] stage fright
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1999 16:26:46 -0500

>johnvos@-----.com wrote one of the best reminiscences I've read here!
>
>This is a fabulous retelling of an incredible time. I don't know how
>old you are,

I turned 51 last November... (blah).

>but the last Greek restaurant I can think of on 8th Avenue
>was the Acropolis on 47th and 8th, and it disappeared about two years
>ago. I took a bunch of people there on a rainy night in June 1997 and
>it was GONE. The sign is still there but now there's some some of
>tourist chotchkeh/chazerei palace there, the kind of place that sells
>t-shirts to out-of-towners with "New York F--k--g City" silkscreened on
>it. How droll for those folks from Horse's Breath, Arkansas. Actually,
>the Acropolis was rather sedate. Even when I'd go there in 1969 it was
>sort of quiet. But the food was excellent and not at all expensive.
>
>If there's a good Greek restaurant in New Jersey aside from some of
>those hideous diners with so-called "Greek Specialties" on the back
>page, I'd like to hear about it so the owner can adopt me and I can
>assume Greek nationality.

I think the Greek restaurants and clubs are in Astoria, but they
aren't like Greek town was in its hay day. There are some half
decent Turkish restaurants in N. Jeresy (don't know the names
though), and I hear that there is supposed to be an incredible
Turkish restaurant in Brooklyn (I'll get the name for you). The
"Turkish Kitchen" in NYC isn't bad... ehh.

>
>> Stage fright? Not when your standing in the middle of a horde of
>> drunken Greeks, screaming "Yassou Klarino Yanni!!" in your ear while
>> spitting paper bills and slamming them onto your forehead.
>>
>> Reeds? The best clarinetists I ever heard were Greek & Turkish
>> gypsies... they only purchased 1 to 1-1/2 Ricos and seemed to prefer
>> rubber bands and chewing gum to springs and pads.
>
>Justaminutenow. You mean the Greeks and Turks could play in the same
>club and not beat the crap out of each other with their clarinets and
>cases if table legs weren't handy? These HAD to be different clubs,
>right?

Greek town was a phenomenon. Most of the restaurants and clubs were
owned by Greeks (one of the best though, for music, was Egyptian
Gardens, owned by an Albanian) but musicians and patrons were from
all geographies... the music came first, politics and histories were
forgotten for the night. But they didn't mingle.

>Chewing gum? Well, I reattached a pad to my bass clarinet by
>doubling-over a small strip of duct tape. So why not chewing gum? I'd
>have figured rubber bands for the ligature, but how you do this for
>springs is beyond my imagination.

Yes, for a quick fix, they'd hold the pad with gum... one clarinetist
even covered the hole. When I asked how he played that note, he
seriously replied, "I don't." The rubber bands were wound around the
barrel and pulled the arm up in position... or pushed (like on the
octave key). The funny thing was, they would keep their horns in
this condition for the longest time. What amazed me was how easily
they would play the 52 note scales -- perfect intonation -- with
horns that they probably didn't spend more than 50 bucks for in a
hock shop. Of course, all they play are Albert systems horns; still
do.

>
>> And diet? Well, just imagine squat, smudged glasses filled with 100
>> proof Raki (Armenian/Turkish form of Ouzo)... yes at fourteen they
>> had me drinking this as if I were a new born suckling mother's
>> milk... along with a steamy bowl of "Pacha", a gray colored stew made
>> from lamb's head, tripe and GARLIC!!!
>
>I was once in a group therapy meeting in 1966 where we took the evening
>off from therapeutics and drank two or three bottles of Metaxa. Then
>one of the guys in the group drove one of the women home and impregnated
>her. It kind of messed up the therapeutic aspects of the group, y'might
>say, at least for those two. That stuff is one of the two liquors I've
>ever tasted that has almost psychedelic properties. Tequila is the
>other.
>
>The surviving liquor stores on 8th Avenue still have Raki. But reading
>the above...I consider myself properly warned....

My father and I used to make our own, and in our culture, it isn't
unusual to see young boys drinking. In fact... that lamb stew I
wrote about? It's actually a breakfast, served in the wee hours of
the morning with Raki and Lavash. Space cadets we were. Now of
course, we've become "civilized."

Sorry, I could ramble about these days forever. Music, Raki, food,
dance made "Kef" a state of mind that could last for days. Armenians
still have their Kef weekends... non-stop... but not the same since
all the old timers are gone. They were a riot. When I was a kid,
the Armenians gathered during the summers in Asbury Park, NJ. It
wasn't unusual to walk past the "Hye Hotel" and see a herd of short,
troll-like men playing backgammon and cooking a thick gruel made from
barley and pulverized lamb in rows of kettles. They'd stop you in
your tracks and forced you to eat this stuff covered with butter and,
of course, sample their homemade Raki... then you could go on your
way. What way? It was like eating lead. You'd just sit their,
hardly able to move a muscle. I guess it was their way of keeping
the kids in check, huh?

>
>> Great memories. The kind that would've pasted a smile on Paul Bowles.
>> John V.
>
>Yeah, there's a sort of Sheltering Sky casbah ambiance to the whole
>thing....

You got that right!

Anyway, sorry to ramble about something so off-topic... but in a way
it isn't because this was as much a haven for clarinetists as any
concert hall. It just struck a funny bone in me when I've been
reading of all the discipline in Western concertizing and recalling
folk mentality to music. They both have their place, but I still
prefer a cigarette burning next to me whenever I play a horn.
John

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