"You Hide It Well"

One grey Tokyo morning I was sitting in Starbucks near the Tokyo Dome when another white guy came in and ordered his morning brew.  Our eyes sort of met in mutual “expat” recognition and we wound up having a bit of a conversation.  As it turned out, he was a Latin teacher at one of the private schools. I had never considered that someone would be teaching Latin in Tokyo, but this is a big city and it certainly is a possibility.  The other thing is that he sort of looked like a Latin teacher, or at least a college professor;  dressed tweedily with a leather satchel and neat white beard.  As we chatted he inquired as to my occupation.  I told him “I am an orchestra conductor.” He looked at me intently as if to see if I was joking then said, “You hide it well.”

This happens to me all the time.  Last week I was heading down the elevator with a guy from England.  A quick conversation revealed that he was here on business and again, he inquired as to the reason I was here.  I said I was working as well:  “I’m an orchestra conductor.”  Whereupon he leaned towards me with his good ear as if he was trying to translate those last two words and connect then to the person he was looking at. 

Over the years I have tried to figure out why this happens so often.  First of all, this always seems to happen with Americans or those accustomed to American English.  I have wondered if most Americans think that conductors come from Europe and expect some sort of an accent.  Maybe if I said “I am ze conducteur of ze orchestra Tokyo Philharmonique pour Dees-neey’” it might satisfy some deep cultural archetype.  There may also be the idea that conductors are highly refined people who only dress in a certain highly refined manner.  Some guy sitting in the corner at Starbucks drinking black coffee and reading the newspaper in a sweatshirt and jeans and sporting a day-old beard just doesn’t shout “artiste!” the way one might hope for.   Conducting, being solitary by nature, leaves us to speculate about the private lives of those whose work is so public.  The few conductors I know run the gamut from insufferably condescending to almost clown-like in their self-absorption to quite free of any affectation at all.  We in the West have come to view genius as something which excuses almost any form of eccentricity.  What we can’t accept is that a genius might be just like you or me, except with a certain highly-developed ability.  We also like it when our artistic idols have a cool pedigree, like if you are from a town in Scandinavia that has lots of weird vowels in it or went to a college people have heard of, but aren’t sure where. I am from Flint, Michigan.  I went to the public schools and an undistinguished undergraduate college.  My freshman music theory teacher was a missionary on furlough.  My graduate degree isn’t even in conducting.

So what is to be done?  I suppose I could just say “I’m a trombonist” when people ask, which would replace curiosity with pity.  But that would be too easy.  Probably the best strategy is to enunciate “I am an orchestra conductor” clearly and then blandly watch for the reaction.  Real life is, after all, the best theater.  Otherwise, please leave me alone.  I’m trying to drink my coffee.

Dave and Me

During my junior year of high school (1968-69) my band director gave me a well-used album entitled “I Had the Craziest Dream” by the Dave Pell Octet. The cover had a crazy picture of Dave Pell playing the tenor sax while sitting on a gilded throne, dressed up like Napoleon and surrounded by 3 beautiful women who seemed to be enjoying the proceedings.


The disc had 10 cuts and I listened to it hundreds of times as I read the liner notes over and over. I couldn’t think of anything cooler. Even at that early stage of my musical life I recognized the creative ensemble writing and heard that the solos were not long and usually had some kind of band backing figures from the other horns. Dave Pell was doing what I wanted to do, but growing up in Flint, Michigan where everyone either worked for General Motors or for a company which owed its existence to GM, I had no idea how that could ever happen. But as it turned out, it DID happen. I got a music degree in college followed by a gig playing trombone with a touring group after graduation, got into arranging and directing, moved to Orlando and then Charlotte. I carried the Dave Pell Octet album with me through all the moves and would occasionally play it until CD’s came out in the mid 1980’s. One thing led to another until I found myself married and living in LA in 1986 and working in the recording industry writing and producing radio and TV music and, increasingly, music for the big entertainment companies like Disney, Universal, and Warner Brothers. One day in the early 1990’s I was standing in line to pay for some recording supplies. I distinctly heard the salesperson talking to the guy several places in line ahead of me when he said “Dave Pell Music” or “Dave Pell Productions” and then something like, “That will be $76.50 Mr. Pell.” My brain went into overdrive. “That’s DAVE PELL!!! He’s right there in front of me!!!” After he finished paying he walked past me but I couldn’t think of anything to say to him. “Hi, Dave? My name is Brad Kelley and I’ve got your album!” I went home and told my wife about being in line with Dave Pell and she couldn’t believe I didn’t say anything to him. I resolved that if there was a next time I would.

Fast forward 15 years and I was at the National Association of Music Merchants (“NAMM”)Convention in Anaheim playing with Bones West. NAMM is one of the biggest roundups of music and musicians in the world and as we were filing in the back entrance to the hall I encountered an older guy coming out. When I looked down at his Convention ID badge there in large letters was the name “Dave Pell.” We were in motion headed opposite directions but I approached him, introduced myself and stammered out the whole bit about having his album and how important it was to me, etc, etc. Obviously Dave had other things on his mind that day. He just sorta looked at me like I was speaking gibberish, nodded and headed off. I told my wife about seeing Dave Pell again and how things had not gone as I had hoped.

Last spring I got a call to sub in a band for a 2-hour dance job at an Italian Restaurant in Northridge. I only knew the bari player so just slipped into my seat and did what turned out to be a very fun gig. Nice charts and a very good bunch of players who were mostly all guys who had been on the road with legendary big bands like Les Brown, Buddy Rich and Count Basie. At the end of the set the band leader was introducing everyone and said, “And on tenor sax, Dave Pell.” I about passed out! He was sitting 5 feet from me! I had done a gig with my idol and not known it! Now the stupid part. I packed up my horn, stand, and mutes and got distracted in the process. I was several miles down the road before it dawned on me that I had had a golden opportunity to talk with Dave and had blown it AGAIN!!!!! By now I was getting mental about Dave Pell and had told this whole saga to a number of friends inside and outside the business.

Well, 2 weeks ago the phone rang and it was an invitation to sit in with that same band again and the guy said, “you said you wanted to meet Dave Pell so here you go.” At the gig today I had a mutual friend introduce us properly. I showed the album to Dave and told him how much it meant to me to finally meet him. He was VERY gracious, signed the cover and took a picture with me. We even had some time during the break to talk shop, specifically his approach to those great charts I had heard for the first time 45 years before. His ensemble-based writing had a clear effect on my own writing style. You won’t see a chart by me that has 64 measures of solo chord changes with the rhythm section while the rest of the band just sits there. I like to keep everyone involved, like Dave did.


I don’t know what the moral of this story is. I never thought I could actually be a musician. It never entered my mind that I would ever meet someone as famous (to me) as Dave Pell, let alone do a gig with him in Los Angeles. So, I’ll just have to leave it at this: “Thanks Dave.”