57. Tarantella by Chuck Mangione
https://youtu.be/xwVCY1ZCoFQ
Toward the end of the summer of 1981, I got my first job as a lifeguard at Lava Hot Springs. My sister Renda was the head lifeguard, and she needed a few new lifeguards to work for about 6 weeks before the pool closed. Since it's kind of hard to find people who both (a) know how to swim well enough to rescue someone and (b) are willing to go through one week of training to work for just 6 weeks at minimum wage, she talked me into doing the job, even though I wasn't 16 yet, which was supposed to be a requirement to get the gig.
At the end of those six weeks, I had a fist-sized wad of cash saved up just as school started up. No, literally--it was a wad of cash rolled up into something that was the size of my fist. And why didn't I put that money in the Downey State Bank where all of the rest of my meager wealth was? Because like most teenage boys in the '80s, I wanted to buy something really bad, and I could only get it from someone at school, because I had no idea how to get my hands on it, but I knew someone who did. So during the first week of school, I walked into band class with over $500 in my pocket and gave that wad of cash to...Tom Banyas. He was kind of surprised that I had brought cash, as he was expecting a check from my parents. But I wanted to do this on my own, and teenage boys living in Marsh Valley in the '80s didn't have checking accounts. Cash was the only way to do business.
About two months after giving Banyas the money, he told me that he'd received the thing I had ordered, and that I could have it that day, but he asked if it was okay if we opened it and showed it to the class. Being the shy boy that I was, I said that I'd rather not draw attention to myself, so I'd rather take it home and open it on my own.
Just kidding. I was a class clown of epic proportions and was always on the lookout for some way to get attention from others. I was totally up for the big reveal in front of the entire band class. So Banyas brought out a black case, and I opened it to feast my eyes on its contents privately for a few seconds--just to build dramatic tension--then I reached into the case and took out my shiny new silver flugelhorn. I held it up for everyone to see while Banyas talked to the band about the differences between the trumpet and the flugelhorn. He then let me play a few notes on it before asking if he could play it. I of course let him do that, and he played something really nice, and he then showed how it was possible to reach some low notes on the flugelhorn that couldn't be played on a trumpet. Then we had band class, and I let some of the other trumpet players like Chris and Doug play it a little bit. I remember Doug saying that he was nervous that he'd drop it and put a dent in it, so he gave it back to me. (Three days later, I dropped it and put a dent in the bell, which remains there to this day.)
What does all of this have to do with the album Tarantella? The whole reason I wanted to get a flugelhorn was because about a year before I heard the song "Legend of the One-Eyed Sailor" played on the FM radio while waiting in the parking lot at night for Mom to finish up some church meeting. It was a 7 minute and 47 second song, so it was probably the longest song I'd ever heard on the radio in my life at that point. I liked that song so much that I went out and bought a rather expensive double-album at Fred Meyer (Grand Central?) just to get that one song.
Chuck had written "Legend of the One-Eyed Sailor" about 10 years earlier, so you'd think I would have been able to find a cheaper album with that song on it. But the record selection was slim in Pocatello at that time, even more so at that store, and I was lucky to find any Chuck Mangione albums, much less one that had the song I wanted. So I went home and listened to the "Legend of the One-Eyed Sailor" repeatedly on the stereo downstairs. Eventually, I started to listen to the other songs on the album, and I found that I liked them all very much. It was also my introduction to Dizzy Gillespie--the famous trumpeter with the super-large puffed-out cheeks--who Chuck loves so much that he wears a chain around his neck that has a pendant in the shape of Dizzy's trumpet, which has the horn bent upwards due to an accident Dizzy had in which he dropped the horn right before a performance (I can relate). He loved how the sound was so different coming from it at that angle, so he kept it that way from then on.
Anyway, Dizzy is featured on "Things to Come," "'Round Midnight," and "Manteca"--a song he wrote. "Manteca" is an 11-minute long song, so you really have to want to listen to it to get all the way through it, but Dizzy plays the Jews harp at the end, and that's supremely entertaining--at least I found it entertaining enough for me to go out and buy a Jew's harp so that I could learn to play it too.
Another jazz great that is featured on the album is Chick Corea, who just died about a month ago (February 7, 2021). He plays piano on "My One and Only Love." And he plays trumpet and percussion on a few of the songs as well.
During my freshman year at Ricks College, when Chuck Mangione came to perform on campus, I went to the concert with Chris. I was thrilled to hear Chuck play live, and his set included a number of songs off this album, including "Legend of the One-Eyed Sailor," "Bellavia," "Hill Where the Lord Hides," and "The XIth Commandment"--the last song being an extra commandment that was not featured in any of the Old Testament classes at Ricks. (Jazz musicians have to follow a higher law.)
Over the years, I've purchased other Chuck Mangione albums, all of which are a delight to listen to. But it was this album that really turned me into a Jazz fan (of the music, not the basketball team). And this album is the last straight up jazz album on my list. There are other albums that definitely have a bit of jazz in their DNA, but none of them are like Kind of Blue, Time Out, or Tarantella. I suppose I should put all three of these higher on the list of albums, but my appreciation of jazz songs like this inform my appreciation of all other types of music, so I put them here on the list as a way to recognize the influence that jazz music has had on my overall taste in music.
I don't have my flugelhorn or trumpet anymore. I gave them both to my niece, who played them in her high school band. Her band teacher wouldn't let her play the flugelhorn during marching band (stupid teacher!). But her band played in the Rose Parade, and for a brief 3 seconds, she was on national television playing my old trumpet, which I had inherited from my brother Jeff after he died. So even though I didn't ever make it in the music industry, at least my trumpet somehow managed to get heard and viewed by millions of people.
Finally, I can't emphasize how important Tom Banyas was to me as a teacher, and how he taught me to love jazz at a very deep level by letting me play some trumpet solos on some of the jazz songs we played in high school band. Both Chris and I tried out for band in college, but my performance during the audition was so embarrassing that I never even went back to check if I made it. The guy asked me to play a bunch of different scales and sight read a piece of music, and I couldn't do any of it. Anyway, that audition put a very abrupt end to any desire I might have had to become a musician. But I have played a number of instruments in public since then, including a rousing performance of "Sweetly Sings the Donkey" on the accordion--a performance for which I received mixed reviews. But then again, I was singing it in front of a large gathering of intergenerational Republicans and Jazz fans (of the basketball team, not the music), so that's to be expected. Maybe I should have played "Thunderstruck" on my Jews harp instead.
