Right out of high School in 1975 I was still very focused on mastering "jazz" particularly the Coltrane Love Supreme/Sun Ship style. I had pretty much mastered BeBop or at least the theory behind it and still sought to go to jam sessions to hone my skills. I was
playing in funk bands but only a few guys mostly horn players could really play BeBop so I had to go to jams around tristate area on my nights off. I heard of a jam from Vic Juris, who also took lessons from my teacher Harry Leahey, at Charlie Browns Steakhouse, or was it Good Time Charlies, I forget. It was being hosted by Richie Cole who had just quit The Buddy Rich Band and was about to become a major figure in jazz.
We hit it off immediately since he was a happy go lucky type. Richie was about to release his first LP, Trenton makes the World Go Round on a small label. He never got a major label deal but ended up selling a lot more records than guys on Blue Note, Columbia, Etc. He eventually broke through with his records where he teamed up with Eddie Jefferson. He ended up gigging with The Manhattan Transfer during their most successful recording phase and got major college radio play.
Richie became one of the biggest names in jazz. We lost contact during my rock years in LA, but when I resumed playing "jazz" in 2004, I saw that he was playing in LA so I went to see him play and we took up where we had left off 30 years before. Being from New Jersey is like a fraternity. Now I would really get to know this character.
He called me one day and announced he was living in Playa Del Rey with a UCLA psychology professor girlfriend 20 years his junior. He told me she had followed his career since high school and had all his recordings. He started playing more gigs in LA but its tough to draw if one plays too much. His main money-making gigs were once a year trips to Russia and Eastern Europe. Richie told me he got paid in cash and didn’t keep any of his money in a bank account. I would go up and hang out with him and he brought his girl down to my house in Newport Beach area.
He started inviting me to sit in at his gigs and hired me to play a few times. He
usually used keyboards. His main guy was Mike Melvoin. Playing with Richie was not a
great experience since he plays a lot of his tunes in an extreme up-tempo. As a
guitarist these super-fast tempos are not easy, and you will end up sounding like a
country picker trying to keep up. I ended playing half time octave solos, I felt I wasn’t
showcasing my talent. Notice most famous sax guys always played and recorded with
keyboards. Richie had become a drinker by this time, never drunk but already smelling
of alcohol at noon when I visited him at his girl’s beach house. His routine was to get
up and go out onto the beach and hang out with some local drinkers all day. I
wondered how long his relationship with his psychologist girl would last with this daily
routine. After about a year or two I got "the call", she had kicked him out and he
needed a place to stay. Just his luck the apartment above my garage had just been
vacated by the tenants and was empty. Of course, he would stay "only a few weeks," but as usual it turned into a few months LOL.
Hanging with Richie everyday was great he was always upbeat, and he showed me a lot of his unique skills. He was a talented horn arranger who could make 3- or 4-pieces sound like a big band. Every day he regaled me with stories and took me up to Venice beach to hang with his Buddy Rich bandmate Sal Marquez. (I wrote about his Frank Zappa stories in my previous tales).
Despite the infamous stories of Buddy and his tyrannical reign over his band, as
exhibited by famed The Buddy Rich Tapes, this was after Richie and Sal’s days and
when Buddy had to hire young guys out of Berklee College of Music. These youngsters were not up to par and embarrassed Buddy at major venues, if you have never heard these tapes of him admonishing these little spoiled marching bands check them out, its hilarious!
Buddy Rich - The Bus Tapes - (YouTube)
Richie and Sal said they never had one problem with Buddy and no one who took the
gig serous and learned their parts did.
Here's Some Richie Cole Stories:
His dad owned two clubs in Trenton. One was a jazz club called Harlem’s. Richie
claimed his first sax was one he found left behind at this club. He and Phil Woods hated each other. Richie never really explained why, I suspect it was they were both Bird clones and sounded very similar. They physically resembled each other; both were leprechaun looking Celts. Both always wore caps. Richie his beret and Phil his Chairman Mao hat, both wore scarves a lot. Both had little mustaches, they could easily be mistaken for each other by the man on the street. Because of Richie’s popularity Woods was talked into recording an LP together. It was called Side by Side.
Phils career was My teacher Harry Leahey played with Phil for a few years and brought me to a few Phil Woods band practices and thought Phil was affable guy. They were from different generations Woods had grown up at the beginnings of BeBop and maybe resented a young whippersnapper selling so many records. I think the reason for Richies ire was Richie was a street guy from Trenton, grew up with a dad who owned clubs, and had to get a scholarship to Berklee. Phil was from Springfield Mass and came to New York to go to Juilliard and Manhattan School of Music paid for by his parents. Richie, like all real street guys hated experimental music and thought guys like John Cage as hustlers while Phil thought those clowns were great.
Richie saved the whole Phil Woods band at the 1971 Newport Jazz Festival when for
some strange reason they had booked Sly Stone. A group of Sly fans broke through
barricade and started smashing stuff when Phil Woods was about to go onstage.
Richie had his famous van parked at back of stage and they piled in, weaved through
crowd to safety, a escaped possible instrument damage.
Richie’s first house he bought was right next to Bohemian Grove! If you don’t know
about this joint, look it up. I was getting my history degree at this period when Richie
was staying at my crib and doing a lot of research into “secret societies” and their
influence on world history. One day we were hanging out with Gilberto Torres the
famous salsa flautist and Gil was interested in my research. I started talking about The
Bohemian Grove and Richie made a face and said “that’s all conspiracy theory
nonsense I lived right next door for 2 years and there was nothing strange going
on”…he paused then looked like he was thinking about those years, then said “ Well I
guess there was some weird stuff that happened”…LOL.
Richie was the defendant in a precedent setting divorce case when his wife went to
Dominican Republic to divorce him, he said she took him to the cleaners and he lost
everything, his house, his car, etc. He told me this is why he keeps no money in the
bank.
He witnessed Eddie Jeffersons murder in a Detroit club and claims Jefferson came to
him and said there was going to be trouble with an acquaintance of Jefferson’s who
was a member of The Nation of Islam. Before the gig started Muslim came to the
dressing room and Jefferson told Richie to leave. After the gig Eddie called a cab.
When the cab arrived, they walked out, and a car drove by blasting Jefferson with a
shotgun. The cops later arrested the Muslim. The murderer had known Jefferson for
decades and once had been a dancer in Eddies revue, who had got fired. He was
acquitted due to the political influence of the Nation in Detroit.
Richie established a new routine at my beach house. Instead of going to the beach he
started going to a joint within walking distance every day to drink. I had lived in the
area for about five years and never went there. I don’t go to bars unless I am playing
music there or seeing a friend play, I never go to bars that don’t book bands. Richie
insisted you join him and he was the life of the party. The place was full of questionable
looking characters. After a few months we got a renter and Richie had to go. He called
me a month later and he was staying in a legal whorehouse outside of Vegas! The
owners were fans of his. He joked that he was the “house psychologist”, what a clown!
He then ended up moving in with his daughter in the Pittsburgh area. He broke his arm
and was out of commission for a few years. But got better and kept recording, putting
out a new recording every year until he died in 2020.
I will always remember Richie with a big grin and his trademark beret, a Jersey boy all
the way.
Notable Quotes On Music
On how he approached soloing over “Rhythm Changes”
“Play whatever you want over the A part but when the bridge kicks you better be ready
to play something good”
On Ornette Coleman
“Even if he played in tune it would sound out of tune”
On Anthony Braxton’s “Musical Equations”
“It doesn’t add up”
On why he never played “Giant Steps”
“Too many changes, I don’t want to have to think that much, ruins the fun!
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