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Encounters Ron Aprea had just come off the
road after touring with Lionel Hampton's band when he got a call from
his good friend, trumpeter Steve Madaeo. Steve wanted to know if Ron
would be free the following week to do a record date.
The place was the Record Plant in NYC -1974. The project was an album to be called "Walls and Bridges." John Lennon was no longer a Beatle, and this would be his first production attempt at a recording with horns. There were five horns: Bari/sax, Howard Johnson/tenor sax, Bobby Keyes/tenor sax, Frank Vicari/trumpet, Steve Madaeo and myself on alto sax. John would refer to us as the "Little Big Horns" and listed us that way on the album credits. After the introductions to each other and to John, I then asked Steve if I could have a look at the alto book. Looking a little uneasy, Steve replied: "There's no music but everything's cool." I chuckled and again asked if I could take a peek at the music. Steve repeated that there was no music. I remember saying something like "Five horns and no music; you're kidding, right?" Steve said: "Now don't panic, it's pretty simple stuff; just listen to me and it does get easier as you go." Easy for him, since he had spent years touring with the Butterfield Blues Band, Stevie Wonder, and the Rolling Stones. This kind of 'head' arranging was common on those bands. My training was mostly jazz bands, both big and small. Although it's somewhat common for small jazz groups to fake tunes, it's pretty rare for bigger bands to not have written arrangements. Also, most bands that I played with during that time did not live in the keys of E, A, and B. About a dozen times during the first session I came pretty
close to leaving. I kept remembering Steve's line about it getting easier
as you go. I forget the exact number of sessions, but we did many triple
sessions over a period of a couple of weeks. Steve was right, it did
get easier, and Lennon had a lot to do with that. Since he had no formal
training in arranging, he would sit in the control room and let us make
up our own parts. If he liked what we played, he would let us know and
then ask us for our opinion. He would also ask if there were any "secrets",
(mistakes.) If we thought we could get it better, he would say "Go
for it." At times he was like a one-man cheering section. His style
was very comforting, and the musicians responded with a team-like effort.
He basically turned us loose, then picked from this smorgasbord of sound
what he liked most. He would
During a break I went into another room to copy some lead sheets. John entered, walked over to the copy machine, bent over and put his face on the glass and hit the button. Two blinding lights later and out came the most amazing photostat of John's face. Steve Madaeo and I each kept a copy. My copy has been framed and displayed on my wall ever since. It's interesting when I look back at that event; I can remember thinking, this guy's gonna go blind. You can't stick your face in a photostat machine without a seeing-eye dog waiting for your next command. The photostats seemed insignificant. Steve and I rolled them up and stuck them in our instrument cases. I could not know at that time that this would become one of my most cherished possessions. I also saved copies of his photostatted lead sheets that we used for the recording. They're pretty funny. I guess I knew at the time what all that scribbling meant. This music looks like a road map, complete with arrows navigating you through this maze of pencilled-in notes. And it all worked. After one of our multi-track overdubs, complete with lines and counterlines, Steve cracked: "Man, when those arrangers are sittin' around listening to this shit they're gonna say, who in the hell wrote those motherfreakin' charts?" Most sessions ended in the middle of the night. I would walk a few blocks to the subway. John, who lived in Manhattan, generally walked home. Since his destination and mine were in the same direction, we would walk together. The conversations were light but interesting. I learned a lot about this man during those middle-of-the-night walks. He was nothing like the image I had in my mind. He was pretty shy, sensitive, and friendly to everyone. He would say hello to the truck drivers, pedestrians and homeless people. On many occasions he would stand there or kneel down and chat with total strangers in a most casual way. I couldn't help thinking how compassionate but reckless this was. He seemed oblivious to the dangers of this unprotected style. I remember thinking, is this the way Frank Sinatra or any of the other superstars do it? Actually, I already knew the answer to that question since friends of mine toured with Ol' Blue Eyes. Frank and most celebrities had bodyguards, and with good reason. Then again Frank grew up in Hoboken and was pretty 'street smart.' If only John Lennon had a little of that New York paranoia, things could have been so different. Maybe it was because I was born and raised in New York City, but I really knew something bad would happen to John Lennon if he didn't change his lifestyle. Apparently he didn't want to, or maybe couldn't. Anyway, I say with great sorrow that I was right. Damn it. On December 8, 1980 John Lennon was shot dead on the streets
of New York City while approaching a person he thought was an autograph
seeker ... rest in peace, my friend.
To the right is the copy of the music that was used during the "Walls and Bridges" recording. The title and chord symbols are in John's handwriting...the scribbles are Ron's notations. This was one of the copies that Ron was making when John decided to photostat his face. The song is "I'm Scared."
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© 2004 Lennon by Lennon Ltd. All rights reserved |
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