One university, three concerts

My efforts to track Guaraldi's concert and studio schedule have revealed that he performed at my college alma mater, the University of California/Davis, at least three times.

It's possible there were more than three. Cal Tjader's Quintet toured California in 1957 and '58, while Guaraldi was a member; the combo's many stops easily could have included UC Davis. A California college tour with Bola Sete in October 1965 also might have featured a stop at UC Davis. For that matter, Guaraldi easily could have managed one-offs, since Davis is only a 90-minute drive from his Bay Area haunts.

But I'm certain of only three appearances: November 3, 1963; September 26, 1968; and October 7, 1972. The latter is particularly frustrating, as I entered UC Davis as a freshman in the autumn of 1973, thereby missing him by just one year. He never returned to Davis during my undergraduate years, more's the pity.

That aside...

1960s-era masthead of the UC Davis
student newspaper,
The California Aggie

Thanks to the archives of the UC Davis campus newspaper, The California Aggie, we get a fascinating portrait of the jazz genre's slide into "unhipness" during the course of this decade from 1963 to 1972, along with a general sense of the rise of the anti-establishment attitude of the paper's student journalists.

The 1963 appearance was made while Guaraldi's Trio — Fred Marshall, bass; and Jerry Granelli, drums — shared the bill with headliner Dick Gregory and folksinger Margie McCoy. This ill-fated cross-country college tour was cut short on November 21, when President Kennedy's assassination brought the entire country to a halt. The tour's appearance three weeks earlier, however, was just another stop along the way; The Aggie duly sent an unbylined reporter to cover the show. He (I'll assume it was a guy, given the era) did a noteworthy job, treating the event quite respectfully, allowing for early 1960s attitudes that make us wince today. Thus, Gregory is identified as a "Negro comedian," while McCoy is dubbed a "talented blonde."

Guaraldi is cited as "the great jazz pianist," and the reviewer clearly enjoyed Dr. Funk's set, calling particular attention to his handling of Henry Mancini's "Mr. Lucky" and Guaraldi's then-newest composition, "Treat Street."

But I hope it was a typo, rather than bad ears, that prompted the writer to identify the Guaraldi trio's final number as Fats Waller's "Litter Bug Waltz."

Guaraldi and his trio only rated a single long paragraph, though; the bulk of the review went to Gregory's set, which followed an intermission. The writer cited several of Gregory's more amusing lines, such as the fact that he liked football because "it's the only time a colored man could chase a white man and have 40,000 people stand up and cheer" ... or how his favorite Halloween ritual involved visiting an all-white neighborhood, knocking on a door and asking if the adjacent house really was for sale. These obvious laugh lines aside, the writer also made a point of discussing Gregory's stronger political content.

All in all, a thoughtful and well written piece. ("Litter Bug Waltz" aside.)

More power!

Bassist Kelly Bryan became a member of Guaraldi's trio in the fall of 1967, during what was to become a transitional point in the jazz pianist's career.

Kelly Bryan in 1968: You gotta love the threads.
(Sadly, no, he doesn't have any photos of his various
gigs as a member of Guaraldi's trio. More's the pity!)

The reason: Vince’s fondness for experimenting with all sorts of sounds, and his seduction by good ol’ rock ’n’ roll.

In hindsight, we probably can’t blame him; jazz clubs had all but vanished by this point, replaced in the San Francisco area — as everywhere else — by folk and rock venues. Guaraldi undoubtedly regarded his first-gen electric keyboards as a means of remaining relevant. Perhaps to the dismay of his long-time fans, though, he experimented with these new toys on the fly, during his club appearances, rather than developing at least some technique in the privacy of his home studio.

The results often weren't pretty, but hey: It was the 1960s, and some listeners probably expected things to get way, way out during an extended jam.

Bryan was present at Ground Zero, during one such gig, and he remembers it well.

Kelly was one of my more enjoyable interviews: amiable, helpful and always willing to be prodded by a few more questions, as I attempted to clarify various details. Our chats also helped motivate his own literary desires, and he has been penning his own memories of this quite engaging period in his life. (Frankly, Kelly, if what's to come reads as well as what you've already kindly shared, you must consider some sort of formal publishing arrangement.)

Anyway, Kelly cheerfully agreed to go into a bit more detail about his early days with Guaraldi, along with some general thoughts about the early days of electric instrumentation.

The rest of this entry, then, belongs to Kelly.

**********

In late January and early February of 1968, I played for a week with Vince Guaraldi and John Rae at the Bear Valley Ski Resort, in northern California. Vince had taken an interest in skiing and would spend all day on the slopes. He must have done well, because he always made it back to the lodge in time for dinner and the gig ... and all in one piece. I went skiing a couple of times and took lessons from a pretty blond ski instructor. By coincidence, she lived in Berkeley, too, so I got her number and dated her for a while when we were both at home again.

It might have been after the Bear Valley job that Vince said, "Well, Kel, now we've played every kind of gig there is ... except a hanging.”