[Harp-L] 7/15/06 post revisited

["Mick Zaklan" <mzaklan@xxxxxxxxx>]

  Just for the record, Chris Michalek and I had a nice chat at S.P.A.H.
last week.  It was great to see Chris and hear him play; especially since he
had been absent from last year's convention with a serious illness.
Wouldn't seem like a S.P.A.H. convention without him and the other regulars
in attendance.
  Chris had challenged my 7/15/06 post (Big Walter, Toots, and Howard Levy)
online and for a very good reason.  I had related a story about Toots
Thielemans and Howard Levy meeting for the first time at a club in Chicago
and Howard being asked to play onstage.  Turned out Chris had been on the
phone with Howard around the time I posted and Howard had absolutely no
recollection of the incident.
  Well, since I had been told the story nearly a quarter of a century ago
by a guy who was with Howard in the club that night, recalled seeing it
mentioned in *Downbeat* magazine, and clearly remembered quizzing Howard
about it during a harp lesson at his home; I wasn't going to give it up that
easily.  I emailed Howard the next day with the essential story and some
additional details.  Thankfully his memory kicked in and my credibility was
rescued.  The response from Levyland was:

Mick,
Yes, that's about right. He had been kind of taking it easy, but after
I sat
in, he smoked the rest of the night! I think I played Autumn Leaves. I
really
don't remember who was playing, but I think you were right, and that it
was
Kenny Baron and a bass player whose name escapes me. There was no
drummer.
Best,
Howard

  I thought it might be a good idea to date this little bit of harmonica
history and see if I could find the original *Downbeat* mention.  Howard and
I both thought it had occurred in the late 70's.
We were wrong and I apologize to Harp-L for the inaccuracy.  Too long of a
story to tell here;  but with an assist from Toots and the late actor Telly
Savalas, I was able to tentatively date the Levy-Thielemans hook-up as
taking place on 11/5/80.  That narrowed the *Downbeat* search to the
December 1980 and January 1981 issues.  After hand-cranking and eyeballing
microfilm for an hour and a half at a not-so-local library, I found what I
wanted in the January 1981 issue (page 11):

  Chgo: the *Jazz institute of Chicago's *yearly membership meeting turned
up a new challenger on jazz harmonica in Howard Levy, who played hot bebop
with the quintet Jazz Prophets.  Levy, along with award winning whistler
Michael Rasfield, Acme Recording Studio owner, met the *db *champ, *Toots
Thielemans*, who was harping and whistling at Rick's Cafe Americain (with
pianist Kenny Barron).

  That's *Downbeat*'s spelling and boldface.  Again, sort of an historic
moment.  The very first time these two jazz harmonica giants met and heard
each other play in person.  And as I mentioned in the original post, a
friend of Big Walter Horton's had been pestering him to come out to hear
Toots that week.  Walter begged off, but it definitely would've been a
surrealistic evening if these three harmonica mavericks had converged at
Rick's at the same time!
  While researching this thing, I actually stumbled upon another meeting of
harmonica titans that I had forgotten about.  Howard Levy and Charlie
Leighton locking horns at the piano bar during the 199l convention in
Romulus, Michigan; with Ron Kalina feeding them chords on piano.  Whew!
That one I have on tape.

Mick Zaklan