The Man From Pittsburgh Almost Made Me Smile
Thursday, September 14, 2017
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| Linton Garner & his Peck Horn |
Of late as the weather begins to cool and the prospect of another winter in front of me, it is hard not to be melancholy. It gets worse when I think of how many people I photographed who committed suicide. Today, coming back from a saxophone and cello concert in New Westminster my list of 9 grew to 10 when I remembered yet another one.
I
arrived home determined to write a blog with a more positive and cheerful note.
And yet this one will be bittersweet as I remember a fine man, pianist Linton Garner, who died when he
was 88. He had an easy smile and a a reserved demeanour.
He had a sense
of humour and instinctively knew what to say when I asked the right question.
Once at
Rossini’s in Kitsilano, a jazz joint he
often played in I took my friend Patricia Hutter then one of the bassists at
the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. I asked a question of Garner, knowing how he
was going to answer.
“Linton,” I
asked, “I understand you are from Pittsburgh. Who else is from there?”
His reply
was the usual one, “There’s Roy Eldridge, Ahmad Jamal, Art Blakey, George
Benson, Kenny Clarke, Stanley and Terry Turrentine, Ray Brown, Billy Strayhorn,
Earl Hines, my brother Erroll, Billy Eckstine…””
When it
seemed he was going to go on forever, I interrupted, “Who isn’t from Pittsburgh? “
His answer was, “There’s J.J.
Johnson, he’s from Indianapolis.”
Below is my
corrected (sort of) notes of my interview with Garner. They are fine, interesting but I
am not quite sure if I want to smile.
