With a bunch of friends in Newport Beach, we drove up to Los Angeles.
We had "field-level seats" which wasn't exactly true.
Yes, we were on the field at the Los Angeles Coliseum but there were no seats there, only yard-markers. When we arrived, the whole stadium was booing. Somebody up on stage was running around in his underwear. He was the opening act and his set just ended.
If the stage was the end zone, we were on the fifteen yard line. But at five-feet & five-inches, I was what you might call "height-challenged." I saw more of swaying shoulders than Rolling Stones.
But a splendid time was had by all with the possible exception of the booed boy in his underwear. His name was Prince.
No one said it at the time but the neighborhood around the stadium was South-Central Los Angeles. I wouldn't be teaching there until six years hence but Jefferson High School was less than one mile away from the Coliseum. Charlie Watts would definitely have appreciated the school.
When the Rolling Stones' drummer was growing up in London, his musical idol was Charlie Parker, the legendary saxophonist.
As a kid, Charlie Watts would roll up a newspaper and play pretend sax in front of a mirror. Then he heard a jazz drummer named Chico Hamilton and stopped rolling up newspapers. Chico inspired Charlie to get a drum kit and the rest is rock & roll history.
Chico Hamilton attended Jefferson High and was a prize student of Samuel Rodney Browne, the school's world famous music teacher. Mr. Browne would be most appreciative of this Chico Hamilton tune because it is the obvious offspring of jazz and classical music.
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