SHARMAN KING STORY NEW YEAR’S EVE

When I was a UBC student in 1968 I had two fabulous mentors - Ian McDougall and Dave Robbins, who at the time was the Principal Trombonist of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. He was also Mr. CBC because he had three weekly jazz radio series for which he was writing the music.  Within one week at the end of 1968 he gave me a TV show (with seven trombones, a rhythm section and the VSO including their two other trombonists, so nine trombones in total...) a week of Ice Capades and a CBC radio broadcast from which this file originated. That week was about two thousand dollars, about six thousand “today” dollars. It made a big dent in my university finances! Fifty years later, I still get to play with Ian. We played on a Juno-winning record for Phil Dwyer a couple of years ago; it's been an amazing friendship.

George Laverock was the producer of the 1968 radio show. At the time CBC radio did a New Years' program celebrating the New Year across the country as the time zones clicked over. But because nobody would be awake in the rest of the country when the New Year happened in Pacific Standard Time-land the great minds at CBC decided we should start the ball rolling with a live-to-air program at 6:30PM. Those were the days of big budgets in radio and CBC had THREE bands in the old Vancouver commercial music studio in the Hotel Vancouver. There was a rock band (The Poppy Family), Dave's big band and Lance Harrison's Dixieland band. Marty Gillan, BJ Cook, Eleanor Collins and Joani Taylor were the vocalists.

Unfortunately, George decided it would be good scheduling to give us a break before the live-to-air program. As I recall we rehearsed until four and then had to be back to play live at 6:30. (A half-hour later in Newfoundland…) Two and a half hours off with a bar three minutes away!

What were they thinking? What could go wrong?

The announcers, technicians and all the musicians repaired to the old Devonshire Hotel, where the HSBC building is now. It was just kitty-corner from the Hotel Vancouver and the booze was much cheaper than at the Hotel Vancouver. Come eight o'clock we were back in the studio, ready for a well-lubricated start. You can tell the state of lubrication from the announcer’s slurred speech. Musicians hold their liquor much better than announcers do!

That explains the interview with Lance Harrison but there was another story from the evening.

Because it was live-to-air there was a lot to go wrong, including (when the other bands were playing) Ian's whispering into the RCA 44 microphone the trombones were around. Ian and Bill Trussell were on one side of the mic and I was on the other side facing both them and a big pink gobo behind them. That gobo is still at CBC. It's eight feet high with two four foot panels hinged to provide sound isolation for whatever is behind the gobo, typically a singer. There are two windows in the gobo so the singer can see the conductor. That meant I could see the singer, in this case Joani Taylor. She was on a raised platform so she could see over the trombones to see Dave conducting.

As I mentioned, budgets were big back then. In addition to a normal big band a tuba player was hired. Big bands don’t normally include a tuba player, therefore tuba players aren’t a normal part of the commercial musician’s social life. The tubist did not partake of our Devonshire excursion, which may help explain what happened next.

Ian had written an arrangement of Twisted Blues for Joani to sing. ("My analyst told me I was right out of my head, My analyst told me I'd be better off dead...”) It was a great Ian arrangement and it had a be-bop style tuba intro and extro which were very exposed. We started and the tubist nailed the intro. Then Joani sang the tune in her inimitable style. She sang the last line about the "double-decker buses because there was no driver on the top" and "two heads are better than one" after which came the tuba extro. Anyone who plays the tuba is sensitive to the comic potential of the instrument and the soberly played extro provoked uncontrollable sniggering from the better lubricated commercial/jazz players in the rest of the band.

During and after the tuba extro Joani had a little laughing puppet thingy she was supposed to activate with a string to provide a maniacal laugh over the tuba solo. Problem was, it got stuck on and she could not shut it off. Live radio! What to do?

With great presence of mind but perhaps not as great forethought, she raised her sweatshirt to muffle the laughing puppet. I was looking straight at her, behind the gobo. My view was from the top of her head to her midsection.

I don’t recall her wearing a bra...

Pandemonium ensued.

That was my first radio show. Somehow nothing later quite measured up to that experience. I've lost the tape of the second half, with Twisted Blues and I'd give anything to have it back. But here’s a segment of the show with an interview with Lance Harrison and Lance’s band playing Georgia Camp Meeting and Eleanor Collins singing Cabaret.

Sharman