I shouldn't feel shy about saying hard bop lives, it does, even after the masters die, it does. The ever funky Horace Silver, who began as a tenor sax man and moved onto piano, started The Jazz Messengers with drummer Art Blakey, and is still with us. Horace's mother was born in New Canaan, Conn., where I grew up and Horace was born in Norwalk. But it wasn't Horace who seeped me in the world of hard bop, it was Nabil, one of the great double bass jazz men ever, who lived in Bridgeport and also played with many hard bop greats.
In the 1950s, bassist Nabil Totah, came home from the Korean War to the Big Apple an aspiring musician and, after only three days of jamming in sessions was hired by Charlie Parker. He was mentored by bassist Oscar Pettiford and worked with Charles Mingus, among others. Nabil's home was an homage to jazz greats with photographs and sketches of them covering nearly every wall. He made me homemade hummus and Ethiopian coffee whenever I came to visit and and played jazz records for me in his studio and would invite me to recite my poems into his recorder and sometimes let me play his piano.
Nabil was born in Palestine to a Palestinian Quaker minister and an American teacher and once performed at a gallery show I curated for three artists in my home in Black Rock. I was fortunate to see him play his beautiful bass with his trio many times at the Silvermine Tavern in New Canaan and at Bread and Roses in Bridgeport. He was brilliant, warm and generous and the world's worst driver--it's a wonder he didn't go out of this world in his pale blue Lincoln--and, like many musicians of his time, an awful drunk until he quit. He quit cigarettes too a few years after letting go the booze, and passed away at 82 last June 7. I still play his gorgeous album, More Double Bass, which he recorded in 1998 with pianist Mike Longo and drummer Ray Mosca.
Here's "Subaru Mama," the last cut on the album, written by Nabil. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5AO_kDLF7k
Long live, Nabil. May you keep playing the double bass in heaven.
