Just got some sad news.
Don Barney passed away last night. Don was a fine piano player that I worked with during the 90′s. He’s also the character in one of my favorite stories that I’m re-posting here:
We were playing a gig at the Elk’s Club in Watertown, NY with Andy Mider a few years back, and Andy called a medley of Nat King Cole tunes that we always did. Near the end of “Unforgettable”, when it came time to segue to “When I Fall In Love”, Don looked over at me as if to ask “What key?”, like he often did. (even though Andy would spend 5-minutes running down each tune and key before every medley!) I mouthed “B-flat”, and off we went.
About halfway through the chorus it seemed to me that something didn’t feel right. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something was strange; Don was struggling with the changes and my hands didn’t seem to be in the right place on the neck of my bass. Suddenly, it occurred to me what had happened. While I had said “B-flat”, Don thought that I said “E-flat” and was clearly not comfortable with the key. What made it worse, was that it was a piano feature with him playing the melody!
Later during a break, Don said, “Hey, what happened on that tune?” I explained that he had misinterpreted my “B-flat” as “E-flat”. Still not totally grasping the explanation, Don says deadpan, “I can’t play it in E-flat.”
My reply was equally deadpan: “No kidding.*” (And I cleaned THAT up.)
Don turned 90 this year. Quite a guy.
Andy Mider and I just spent some time on the phone talking about Don and the fun we had playing together in Andy’s Quartet. It dawned on me that after all the travels, bad weather, long sets, and silly gigs, we never had a cross word between us. Quite different from the organization I just left.
That story I’m still writing……
