Monday, December 26, 2005

Check out Alex's take on Sly Stone and "There's a Riot Goin' On" at MOISTWORKS because this is what popular music criticism is all about. One of my favorite LPs and I agree with most everything Alex says except he is deep and I'm not.

Thinking about Sly made me think of "Pain", by the Ohio Players. The bassist is Marshall Jones. I first heard this in about ninth grade in the middle of night in a school gymnasium in Baldwin, Michigan.

I was from the small, rural, very white town of Reed City, Michigan, and had just joined a summer marching band called the SuperCats. The SuperCats were based in Baldwin, the county seat of Lake County, which was roughly half black and half white and even poorer and more rural than Osceola County. The SuperCats were very cool: they were all brass and percussion; they didn't march, they just strode along in time; they wore simple navy slacks, blue shirts and berets; and the percussion section's cadences often became extended jams as they marched. I think I had gotten recruited for the band because I played tuba in the district all star concert band over at Ferris with some kids from Baldwin, but I wasn't cool.

One of the first trips I took with the band we sacked out overnight in the school gym the night before we left for some little town's summer festival. Maybe we were leaving early the next morning. "Pain" by the Ohio Players came over the gymnasium sound system. I wasn't sure about the singing and flute solo but the rhythm section was fabulous and I wanted them to play the same groove all night. I always remembered it and sought out the recording years later, cranking it out over our R&B band's new sound system during sound check in some VFW hall in Dundee.

One of the girls in the SuperCats showed me around her neighborhood in Idlewild, with the lake, the undeveloped streets cut out of the oak and hickory woods, and the deserted nightclubs. It was years later when I learned that this village on a lake near Baldwin was for a generation one of the most important African American summer resorts in the Midwest. The Flamingo and Paradise clubs hosted Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Della Reese, Louis Armstrong, B.B.King, Jackie Wilson, and Aretha Franklin. I believe the Four Tops and Sarah Vaughan spent formative summers of their early careers there. No doubt the parents of some of the kids in the SuperCats had some stories about partying with these international stars on a summer night in the Michigan woods.

There's an annual jazz festival in Idlewild now.

About all I had ever heard about Lake County was a story my dad told me once or twice. He was a state policeman at the Reed City post. He said during deer hunting season the troopers would dress in hunting gear and drive over to roadhouses out past Baldwin in the Pere Marquette State Forest. In the bars the troopers were propositioned by prostitutes from Grand Rapids, up for a couple of weeks to work the deer hunting crowd. They'd walk them outside, put them in a patrol car or a bus or something, and go back in for more. He said one trooper came out with a woman on each arm.

3 Comments:

Blogger LibraryMark said...

I remember the supercats. I was a little kid growing up in Battle Creek, and we had a cabin near Houghton Lake. We were up there for a 4th of July holiday and the supercats were in a parade. I thought that they were the coolest marching band ever. They must have made a serious impression on me - I'm 50 now and still remember them.

Mon Aug 23, 09:31:00 PM EDT  
Blogger Jerry Brabenec said...

Wow, thanks! I'm so pleased that somebody actually read a post...

Wed Aug 25, 09:37:00 PM EDT  
Blogger LibraryMark said...

Jerry - Still play tuba? I forgot to mention that I am a tuba player, too. Played it in college, got a BM in jazz studies from WMU. I'm playing in a quintet still, but I gave up trying to make a living as a musician a very long time ago. I miss playing, but I never miss life on the road!

Sun Dec 12, 07:50:00 PM EST  

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