Long ago and far away in San Francisco, that lovely city by the bay, I maneuvered myself into the food concession at the Keystone Korner, a jazz club in North Beach. It was 1975, and I had many strange and wondrous adventures there.
Tony Williams, perhaps the hardest-hitting drummer ever, had a band called Lifetime with a singer who went by the name of Tequila, who he later married.
At seventeen, Tony Williams had joined Miles Davis. He was that good. This night at the Keystone, Tequila was onstage when who should come in but Miles Davis his bad self, all dressed up in a black velvet Jeff cap and a black velvet jump suit, topped off with a pair of black bug-eyed sunglasses. He was high as a jack rabbit on cocaine and had come from a gig in Berkeley where he played with his back to the audience and then just walked off.
There were a lot of indigenous rhythm instruments that Tony Williams used on the stage, and Miles sat on the edge of the stage and began to examine them and half-heartedly shake them. All eyes were on him by then.
“Stop the music!” Tequila commanded. That done, she addressed Miles: “Miles Davis, I don’t give a fuck who you are – get off my stage!”
Miles literally slunk off the stage and went to the club’s office in the back. A few minutes later, Todd Barkan, who owned the Keystone, came out and told me to get some food for Miles. I told him that it didn’t look like Miles wanted any food, but he told me to do it anyhow.
This night my waitress was a lesbian who was on the run from the narcs in her home town. She had been a school teacher, but somebody had sent a pound of weed to her at the school, which was discovered, and she lammed to San Francisco.
My specialty was an avocado and sprouts sandwich, so I assembled one for Miles and sent it back with my waitress. Ten minutes or so passed and she hadn’t returned, so I decided to see what was up and maybe meet Miles Davis.
I was on my way when my waitress came busting out of the office, went right by me and out of the club. I handled the rest of the night by myself and after closing called her to see what had happened.
When she gave Miles the sandwich, he immediately threw it in the waste basket and then laid out two rails of cocaine for her. She had never taken cocaine and after snorting it was emboldened enough to call her girlfriend on the office phone to tell her she was snorting coke with Miles Davis. Just then, Miles reached up her skirt and planted a gram of coke in her panties.
“I just want you to feel as good as I do,” he croaked in that Miles Davis voice. That’s when she fled.
A Chinese jeweler who supplied Miles with his coke was a big fan of my avocado and sprouts sandwiches. He wore an amulet around his neck that levered a line of coke into place when you pushed the top. He would let me hold it until he finished his sandwich. He was a slow eater and I sometimes was seeing auras by the time I gave it back.
Another night, Pharoah Sanders came in with Freda Payne, who lived in San Francisco then, and another Black man, tall and quiet, who carried a large black book.
Freda, despite the prior success of “Band of Gold” wasn’t doing so good at this time, and when I asked for payment for a sandwich, she told me, “Get it from the welfare” and stalked off.
After closing, Christina Midnight, my regular waitress, and I went to Freda’s house with Pharoah and the dark stranger where we smoked weed and listened to sounds. Freda softened to the point where she apologized for stiffing me.
Pharoah’s name in the jazz community was “Rock” and he was indeed strong and solid. The other man mainly read in his book. Finally, I asked him what was up with the book. He told me to think of a word and then handed me the book and told me to open it at random and start to read. The third word I came to was “joy.” It was my word.
We couldn’t serve food during the sets and would lay up with the act waiting to go on in a downstairs version of a green room, smoking weed and listening to the music through the floor. The trumpeter Donald Byrd was a professor at Howard University in D.C. His band the Blackbyrds was made up of his best students. Downstairs, Byrd would do temperate amounts of cocaine, but, always the good mentor, he would only allow the Blackbyrds to smoke weed.
James Moody was quiet and friendly and, in addition to his classic “Moody’s Mood for Love,” he usually played a song called “Last Train to Overbrook.” I’m from Philadelphia and Overbrook is a Philly neighborhood. One night I said to Moody that I didn’t know he was from Philadelphia. He looked puzzled until I explained about Overbrook. He laughed and told me that Overbrook was the site of an alcohol rehab center outside of London where he had spent some time.
My favorite was the blind saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk, who played two horns at once and had even considered an operation to be able to play a third saxophone simultaneously. Every night his wife, whom everybody just called “Mrs. Rahsaan,” would lead him into the club and he would say hello to everyone with a broad smile and a vigorous nod of his head. He always called me “Food.” I was extremely proud to be acknowledged that way from Rahsaan.
Chick Corea was a true gentleman. The first night of his gig he went around the club and introduced himself to everyone who worked there.
The sound man tuned his equipment every night to Aretha Franklin singing “April Fools.” She made it into a beautiful anthem and I can still hear it.