Fade to Blue (21 page)
Sunday, we sleep late, have breakfast in Guerneville, and lounge around the rest of the day, finally ending up with a long walk along the Russian River. I’m ever alert for another twinge in my hand but even when I squeeze it into a fist, I feel nothing. Still, when Andie leaves for the long trek back to the City Monday morning, I call the doctor in Santa Monica who got me through the surgery from my accident.
“Evan, great to hear from you,” Dr. Martin says. We spend a couple of minutes catching up, then I run out of questions. “This is not entirely a social call, is it?”
“No.” I tell him about the soreness in my wrist. “Probably nothing, but my girlfriend insists I get it checked out.”
“She’s probably right.” He pauses for a minute. “There’s a doctor in San Francisco who’s doing some good work in performing arts medicine. I know he’s worked with some musicians in the symphony. I met him at a medical conference last year, and we compared notes. He’s pretty busy, but let me give him a call. Maybe he can squeeze you in. I’ll fax him your records.” He gives me the doctor’s name and number. “I’ll have him call you.”
Dr. Mark Hanna calls back in two hours. “Dr. Martin sent me your file. If you can get into the city, I can see you this afternoon. Otherwise it’ll have to be sometime next week.”
“Great. I appreciate it.”
He gives me his address. “Three o’clock. I want to see you play.”
***
Driving into San Francisco, I think about something I’d once read about Bill Evans years ago in the liner notes of one of his recordings. Something about how the discipline of knowing how to make his mind, hands, and feet respond can allow, and at times, even cause the flow of musical ideas. In other words, his whole body contributed to his playing. I hadn’t paid a lot of attention to that at the time, but it made sense.
I find Hanna’s office in a small building near the University of California Medical Center a few blocks off 19th Avenue. I even luck out with a parking space, and walk in a couple of minutes after three.
“Go right in,” the receptionist tells me when I give her my name. “Just down the hall. First door on your left.”
I knock and open the door. Dr. Hanna is behind a large desk, his feet propped up, a file folder open on his lap. He looks up and smiles. He’s a big man with a bushy beard and ice-blue eyes behind tortoiseshell glasses. No jacket and his tie is loosened, and his sleeves are rolled up. He reaches across the desk to shake hands and envelops my hand in his, but his touch is very gentle.
“Mark Hanna,” he says. “Okay if I call you Evan?”
“Sure. Thanks for seeing me.”
His eyes go back to the file as I look around his small office. The walls have the usual bookcases, filing cabinets, diplomas, and a few framed photos. He closes the file and sets it on his desk. “That was quite an accident you had. Lucky you can play at all. Martin’s surgery was spot on.”
“I was lucky to have him.”
“Yes, you were.” He stands up and comes around his desk. “Come with me.”
We go into another room, not much bigger than a walk-in closet, taken up almost entirely by a spinet piano, a bench, and a stool on rollers. Hanna slides the stool over to the piano and sits down. “Okay, play something for me.”
I sit down at the piano. “Anything?”
“Yeah, doesn’t matter what. Try a ballad.”
I start on “What’s New,” very conscious of Hanna’s eyes on me. I play for about a minute and he stops me.
“Feel anything?” He reaches across and presses his finger on top of my right hand. “There?”
“Yeah, a little.”
“Okay, play something up-tempo.”
I play on a blues for a couple of minutes before he stops me again.
“Good,” he says. “You don’t stomp your foot.”
I look down at my feet. My right foot is sticking out a little to the right, near to the sustain pedal. My left is almost straight.
“Now bring both feet back under the bench, as if you were going to stand up and play again.”
I do as he asks and he lets me go on longer this time before he stops me. “How about now? Feel any twinge, any pain?”
I look at him, surprised. “No I don’t.”
He nods and smiles. “Moving your feet under you more creates a better alignment of the body, and supports the skeletal structure. It takes pressure off the hands. Forcing part of the body to absorb downward shocks can cause, and over time even create hand, forearm, or shoulder pain. Having your feet under you enables your skeletal arch to be reconnected to the floor and the keyboard.”
I sit in total shock for a long moment, then begin to play again, conscious of my feet under me even more. I stop and look at Hanna. “You’re kidding. That’s all it takes?”
“Well, not quite, but it will help a lot. Yours was not a minor injury. You had severe tendon damage, and long rehabilitation, which I’m guessing you probably pushed to the limit.” He takes my right hand and runs his fingers all over from the wrist down to the individual fingers before he lets go.
“Surgically, there’s nothing more that can be done, but there are some exercises you can do, and if you pay close attention to body alignment, those twinges should go away.” He slaps his hands on his knees and gets up. “Okay, we’re done.”
I get up from the piano and move aside. “Oh, one more thing.” Hanna sits down at the piano and plays a short version of a Thelonious Monk tune. He looks up at me and grins. “Not bad, eh?”
“Not bad at all.”
He laughs. “That’s why I’m a doctor and not a pianist.”
“What do I owe you?”
He waves his hand in a “forget it” gesture. “I might use you in a future paper. Just let me know the next time you play at Yoshi’s.”
I’m sitting at Andie’s kitchen table when she comes in, studying some photocopies of skeletal hand drawings in front of me. There are also a few pages of exercises Dr. Hanna had given me. Andie peers over my shoulder, studying the drawings.
“So that’s what your hand looks like.”
“Well, anybody’s hand.” I point to a place near the wrist marked “carpo-metacarpal joint.” “If that was my hand, an x-ray, it would look different, and show the damage from the accident.”
I place my hands flat on the table and move each finger up and down, then independently in small circles. “The good doctor promises me if I do these exercises religiously, and keep my feet under the piano bench, except when I use the sustain pedal, I should be okay and those nasty twinges will go away.”
Andie drapes her hands around my shoulders. “I’m so proud of you for going to the doctor. Aren’t you glad you did?”
I lean back against her. “I am. Thanks for pushing.”
Andie comes around and sits on my lap. “We should celebrate.”
“We’re going to. Dinner and some jazz. I already made reservations.”
“What’s the occasion?”
“Christian Jacob is at Yoshi’s.”
There are two Yoshi’s. I’d played the one in Oakland twice, but another one, a little bigger, a little more plush, had opened in San Francisco. The theme was the same. Good food, great jazz, and often marquee names on tour.
After an early, sumptuous Japanese meal in the restaurant, we make our way into the main room. I’d managed to get a table near the stage with a good view of the keyboard. We order drinks, and in minutes, the lights dim and Christian Jacob is announced over the state-of-the-art sound system.
As the trio takes their places, a silence falls over the club. I don’t recognize the bassist or drummer, but I suspect they are regulars with Jacob. They exude confidence as they await the first tune. I’d first heard Christian Jacob with trumpeter Maynard Ferguson’s nine-piece Bebop Noveau Band from a few years back. He’d gone on to lead his own trio and had several CDs to his name.
He begins rubato on one of the most gorgeous-sounding pianos I’ve ever heard. The word was that it was over $100,000 and shipped in from Germany. Head down, Jacob plays the first few notes of “Sweet and Lovely.” I can’t help but notice both his feet are back under the piano bench. I glance over at the bassist. He stands, head down, his left hand around the bass, listening, thinking about his first note. The drummer, holding brushes in his right hand, scans the audience, but he’s no less engaged. He turns toward the bassist as Jacob nears the end of the first chorus. A brush in each hand now, he strikes the cymbal in unison with bassist’s first ringing note as Jacob goes into a medium tempo.
The trio plays with the song for three choruses, loping along with a two-beat feel, floating on the pulse of the rhythm, teasing, establishing more and more tension, building to a point that strains. Long buzzing lines by the bassist, and intricate patterns of brush strokes by the drummer. I can almost feel the anticipation of the bass and drums, then finally, at the beginning of the fourth chorus, they bear down and pull out all the stops.
The bassist pulls the strings into a solid, singing, walking four. The drummer switches to sticks, and the tension is released as they push through two more choruses before Jacob, who barely looks up, turns things over to the bassist for his solo and much applause. Jacob then turns to exchange eight measure solos with the drummer, who plays so closely to the tune, you can almost hear the melody. They close out the tune, and before the applause fades, Jacob slips into “Nardis,” a beautiful Bill Evans song. The rest of the set is a mix of ballads, two originals, and finally a rousing version of the old warhorse, “I Got Rhythm” to close out the set that belies any doubt that this trio can swing. The lights come up, the trio stands, exits the stage, and the spell is broken.
“Wow,” is all Andie can manage.
I nod, still feeling the chill on the back of my neck as we make our way out to the car. I sit for a minute, lighting a cigarette before I start the car.
“What is it?” Andie says.
“Nothing, I just…”
“What?”
“In there. That’s what I should be doing more of.”
Friday, after a phone call from Sandy Simmons, I leave for L.A. to meet with Skip Porter, the music editor. “He works out of his house in the Valley,” Simmons says. “Let him know when you’re coming and he’ll pick you up.”
I fly into Burbank and find Porter waiting for me. He’s early thirties, a scruffy beard, in jeans, t-shirt, a Dodgers baseball cap on backwards, and a friendly smile. “Got any other bags?”
“No, just the carry-on.”
“Cool. Wait here. I’ll get the car.” He disappears into the throng of arriving passengers, and returns in a few minutes in a black Mercedes coupe. I get in and he takes off almost before I can close the door and fasten my seat belt, the radio blasting hard rock. In minutes we’re roaring down the Ventura Freeway toward the West Valley. Trying to talk over the radio is impossible, so I just sit back and hope for the best.
We exit in Woodland Hills. Porter careens around a corner onto a side street, then pulls into a circular driveway in front of a rambling ranch-style house. He shuts off the engine and looks at me. “Fun, huh? Man, I love to drive.”
“I can tell.”
Inside, there’s little furniture other than a long couch and low coffee table in front of a large flat-screen television.
“You just move in here?”
“About a year ago,” Porter says. “Come on, I’ll show you the goodies.”
I follow him to a back bedroom. Inside it looks like a recording studio. There’s a mixing board, television monitor, two large monitor speakers mounted on the wall, three computers amid a tangle of wires and cables, and an electric piano with a full keyboard.
Porter sits down in front of the mixing board in a plush office chair and gestures toward the equipment. “This is where we do it.”
To me, it looks like the command center of a spaceship, and Porter is Captain Kirk. He looks at me and smiles. “It’s not as intimidating as it looks. Everything is connected. Let me walk you through something.” He motions me to the piano. “Play something, doesn’t matter what.”
Porter clicks on one of the computers, opens a new file, and names it “E. Horne test.” I play a few choruses of blues, varying the tempo a couple of times, then stop.
“Cool.” He saves the file then runs it back and plays it over the speakers for a minute. On another computer, he opens a file and hits play, and a film begins with no sound. A man in a car, driving along a beach road in moonlight. After a couple of minutes, the man pulls the car to the side of the road, gets out of the car and gazes over the edge at the surf below.
Somehow, Porter synchs my piano choruses with the film, using the two computers. I watch the computer screen dance with vertical slashes, not unlike a heart monitor, moving across on a solid bar line. At the bottom of the screen numbers flash by. “Okay, let’s add something.” He opens another file marked “sampler” and selects “walking bass.” He plays bits of two or three. “Which one?”
I shrug. They all sound good. Porter selects one, then opens another sample file for drums. “Sticks or brushes?”
“Sticks.”
He saves both files then merges them with my piano, and like magic, it’s a trio. He listens for a moment, nodding his head. “How about a sax? Coltrane, Stan Getz, Phil Woods?”
“I’ll let you do the honors.”
He selects Getz sound and links it to the trio, then backs everything up, including the piece of film. He leans back in his chair and hits play. Now the man in the car races down the highway with a quartet. This time, as he gets out of the car, Porter moves one of the slide controls on the mixing board and fades the music entirely.
I stare at the monitor for a few moments, amazed at how quickly and smoothly it was all done. “See, man, we can do anything.” He smiles, pleased with my amazed expression. “Digital magic. In the old days you’d have to use a stopwatch, count frames, and match the music to the action of the film.”
“Where do all those sampler files come from?”
“Huge database. Every musical sound you can think of. Jazz, classical, rock, you name it, it’s recorded and stored somewhere. Remember the show
Miami Vice?
Jan Hammer did the whole thing like this”
“What if you had really used Stan Getz?”
Porter laughs. “He’d get paid.”
For another hour, Porter demonstrates the equipment and answers my questions until my mind is reeling with the possibilities before me.
“Don’t worry about all this,” he says. “You do the music. I’ll do the rest.”
***
Skip drops me off back at my hotel in Santa Monica, where I’m greeted once again by the very solicitous manager. “Mr. Horne. Your room is ready and we have a car reserved for you as per instructions from Mr. Robbins.” He hands me several slips of paper. “There are also these.”
I glance through messages from Grant Robbins, Ryan, and Coop. “Thanks. I won’t need the car this evening. I’m just going to stay in my room.”
“Very good. And you are accepting calls?”
“You bet.”
I try Grant Robbins and Ryan but both go directly to voice mail. I leave them both messages that I’m back. Coop answers his phone. “Where are you?”
“Back at the hotel in Santa Monica. Want to get some dinner?”
“Yeah, give me an hour or so. I got some things to finish up here.”
I unpack and take a long hot shower, my mind still swirling from Skip Porter’s demonstration. I change clothes, and go back down to the hotel bar to wait for Coop. I’m still on my first drink when he walks in.
“Know anybody with a green van?” He takes a stool next to me at the bar.
I look at him blankly. “I don’t think so.”
He takes out a grainy black-and-white photo and lays it on the bar. I look at it and shrug. “Guess I have to take your word that it’s green. Where was this taken?”
“Near Ryan’s beach house in Malibu. Surveillance photo.”
“Why?”
Coop orders a club soda and takes a long drink. “Ryan’s had some strange phone calls and a couple of e-mails. We put a couple of guys on the beach road.”
“Saying what?” I keep looking at the photo.
“Probably nothing. Couple of hang-up calls. The two e-mails can’t be traced.”
“Wait a minute. I tap my finger on the photo. There was a van but I can’t remember if it was green. When I was first at Ryan’s house. I was walking back from the shopping center on Broad Beach Road. A guy in a van stopped me, knew who I was and that I was staying at Ryan’s.”
“You remember anything about him?”
“I do remember a lot of camera equipment on the floor when I got close to the passenger-side door, but the guy, no, not really. It’s been awhile.”
Coop nods and puts the photo back in his pocket. “What did he want?”
“Photos, information. He knew who I was. He said he’d make it worth my while if I got him to Ryan.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That it was none of his business. I told Ryan about it when I got back to the house. He freaked out, practically accused me of giving him up. I remember thinking at the time that maybe it was a setup, a kind of test. Melanie got mad at him for accusing me. He apologized and that was the end of it.”
“Maybe not,” Coop says.
“What did the e-mails say?”
“I know everything.”
At Coop’s insistence, we opt for dinner at a small family-owned Mexican restaurant a few blocks from the hotel. Over enchiladas and a large margarita on the back patio, we once again go over the possibility of Ryan’s deeper involvement in the death of photographer Darryl McElroy.
“Somebody knows more, or wants Ryan to think he knows more,” Coop says.
We both turn down a second margarita and order coffee. I lean back and light a cigarette. “But why wait so long to bring it up now?”
Coop shrugs. “Does more damage now that the film is underway. If this e-mailer thinks he can disrupt the filming, so much the better. Even if it’s what Hollywood calls a small-budget movie, there’s millions of dollars tied up now, and the last thing Ryan Stiles needs is more scandal and bad press, whether for this film or future projects.”
I know Coop is right, but I just can’t get my mind around it. “You know, just once, I’d like to do something without getting involved in somebody else’s mess.” I take a deep drag on my cigarette and exhale a cloud of smoke. “All I was going to do was teach a movie star how to look like he could play piano.”
Coop smiles and nods. “I know, but you’re in it, too. Ryan’s mother made sure of that when she confided in you.” Coop gets up. “Be right back.” He heads for the men’s room just as my phone rings.
“This is Evan.”
“Evan, Grant Robbins. Glad to hear you’re back. Simmons wants to block the opening scene as soon as possible. How’s the music coming?”
“The opening is written, and I met with Skip Porter, the music editor. We just have to record the music and show Ryan the sequence.”
“Good, he’s ready. Let’s get together tomorrow. We can record right on the set, get a feel for the scene.”
“Sounds good. What about a bass player and drummer? This is a trio scene.”
“I’ve tentatively scheduled a couple of actors that can go through the motions. You have a better idea?”
“I do.” Coop slips back into his chair, watching me. I tell Robbins my idea and he agrees.
“Great. Makes it all the more authentic. Tomorrow then. Ten o’clock.”
I close my phone and look at Coop. “On the set tomorrow morning. You’ll be there, too?”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
Except for the harsh lights, and the camera pointed at the keyboard, it almost feels like I’m in a jazz club. Looking up at Buster Browne and Gene Sherman, both in dark sweaters and jeans on bass and drums, makes it even more real. Buster had been shocked to receive Robbins’ call but once on the set, he had warmed to the idea.
“This is very cool, man. I always thought I’d be good in a movie.” Gene Sherman is his usual calm self as we take our places. I glance at Ryan just off to the side, next to Sandy Simmons, seated in a tall canvas-back chair. Ryan and I are dressed identically. I’d gone over the sequence with him several times and he seemed fine although, I thought, a little more nervous than usual.
