In memoriam: Mighty Sam McClain (1943-2015) “I came from eating out of garbage cans. So if I died tomorrow, I did good.” Mighty Sam McClain wrote a song summing up his old friends’ feelings about hanging out with him after he gave up his bad habits: “Too Much Jesus (Not Enough Whiskey).” Now I […]
My Dinner With Ornette
“I’m interested in bringing instant enlightenment.” I met Ornette Coleman for dinner on a late fall evening in a fashionable restaurant in downtown Boston. He was in town to meet the press a week before a December 15, 1984 concert at Berklee Performance Center with Prime Time, his “double” […]