[78-L] 78-L WOODY'S BAND (was Greatest addicts)

[JD]

> Date: Sat, 23 Jul 2011 13:04:11 -0700
> From: Cary Ginell <soundthink at live.com>
> Subject: Re: [78-L] Greatest addicts
> To: <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
> Message-ID: <BLU142-W311E0D751CB2A629F56C6CB0310 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>
> More per capita than most were in Woody Herman's Second Herd. The Four 
> Brothers (Getz, Cohn, Sims, and Chaloff) were all strung out. If they 
> weren't on heroin, they were on dope. Woody and Bill Harris were 
> alcoholics.
>
> Cary Ginell

Although he was on the band at some point during that period Al Cohn was 
definitely not one of the "Four Brothers".
They were Getz, Sims, Herbie Steward and Chaloff.

   > "If they weren't on heroin, they were on dope."    Heroin isn't dope???

Some of those guys cleaned up in later years and became top session players 
in NYC, in particular Bernie Glow, one of the greatest of lead trumpet 
players and a true gentleman.  If Woody had been a heavy boozer (I have my 
doubts) , he too may have straightened out. In late 1954 I spent a very 
pleasant afternoon with him when he played Ft. Knox.
He'd been invited to spend the afternoon at the home of a colonel who 
fancied himself a song writer and I'd been selected to write out the tunes & 
play them for Woody. Woody had no idea of why he'd been invited and this 
could have been a situation of major annoyance for him. Instead he was 
completely gracious, seemed genuinely interested , sight sang the tunes over 
my shoulder and sowed absolutely no signs of having been an "alcoholic".

When discussing "Great Addicts" there are plenty of better places to look 
than the music business.
JD