To see them so hooked on coke gave me a sense of superiority. I watched them inhale line after line, resisting my own tugging hunger, feeling strong that I could hold myself back. My smoke was not nearly as dangerous as their powder; it was not a problem so long as I could hold off on those four-day stretches. Now that the pause was over, now that I was high again, I felt I could stop smoking any time I liked. I watched the pair chop up the white crystals and stick the silver tube up their noses and felt totally in control, secure in my strength.
There seemed to be barely enough time for a full run-through of the songs before Alessandro was back, calling us for the second show. “Got a major-league crowd out there, Maestro,” he said, his eyes sparkling. This was what he lived for. “Every time I try to count the crowd, my eyes get stuck on some angel. Never knew Como had so many beauties.”
“Got a couple picked out for the Maestro?” Bruno asked, whacking my shoulder.
Alessandro laughed. “He’s one cat who can take care of himself.” The word for cat, il gatto, meant a tom on the prowl. “I took a look outside. We got enough people wanting to get in we could fill this place up another time over. Maybe I should put in a balcony.”
I stood and moved for the door. “Give me five minutes to talk to Amy, then come on out.”
Progress toward Mario’s table was slowed by the people who wanted to say hello or make a show of knowing me. I avoided their eyes wherever possible, detesting the lies there, hating the empty smiles and the surging voices that sought to break through my barrier.
It was different with Mario’s friends. I could sense it even before I approached the table. They were clearly glad to see me, but their attitude was one of friendly calm. I reached their island of peace and watched them rise to meet me.
“Salve, Maestro.” Mario gestured with evident pride to his friends, said in English, “I want you to meet Giovanni di Alta. Maestro, this is Amy and Jake Templer.”
“Mario’s told us so much about you,” Amy said, extending her hand. She was a sloe-eyed beauty with skin the color of café au lait. Her smile warmed me.
Jake was one of the biggest men I had ever seen, hard and dark and stern. Amy’s hand was replaced by a slab of ebony. A voice from the depths of a cave said, “That was great, man. Really enjoyed your music.”
“Thanks,” I said, a little awed by the strength that poured from him.
“Gianni’s the first Italian name I ever got right the first time.”
I nodded. Correctly said, the name was pronounced like the American Johnny, but with a little lilt from the i added for Italian spice. “It’s short for Giovanni,” I explained.
“Right, Mario told us. After that set I understand how you earned that other name. Maestro.” He pronounced it correctly, rhyming it with “my” and “throw.” “Means the master, Mario told me. Did I say it right?”
“Close enough.”
“Usually got somebody else in mind when I think on that word,” Jake said.
“C’mon, Gianni,” Mario said, still in English. “Siddown a minute.”
“I don’t have much time,” I said, retreating from Jake by focusing hard on Amy. “I understand you’d like to sing with us.”
A light gathered around the table as all three smiled their pleasure. “You had a chance to listen to the songs,” Amy said, her voice a honeyed burr. “I’m so glad.”
“I thought your music was great,” I said.
Amy and Jake shared a glance. She appeared small only because of the giant seated beside her. I would have guessed her height at close to mine, but when she laid her hand on Jake’s it shrank to the size of a child’s. She turned back to me, the light in her eyes reminding me for some reason of Mario. “I’m really looking forward to singing with you,” she said.
We discussed timing for a few minutes. I was pleased to hear her review the songs like a pro, and enormously surprised to find none of the overpowering ego most lead artists used to cover up their nerves. I had a different method. I never became involved in anything that I didn’t think I could walk away from without the slightest qualm. That was the real reason behind my refusal to ever consider doing an album of my own. It might mean too much, and if it didn’t work out, it might hurt more than I could stand. My fragile balance had been built at too great a cost to risk it on something that might never come.
Whistles and cheers filled the air as the lights began to dim. I caught glimpses of shadowy faces as the room’s depths disappeared into the darkness. Before the late-night crowd was allowed in, Alessandro cleared out the back two rows of tables and staffed the bar he had built along the entire length of the back wall. People stood six and seven deep at the bar, separated by a brass railing from those who had reservations and money for the tables.
Forms moved with practiced sureness on the dark stage. Vague sounds and little orange lights marked Bruno and Claudio settling into position. Alessandro placed my three guitars up front—the long-neck Fender Stratocaster I had searched almost three years for, the hollow-body Ibanez, and the Chet Atkins—and moved my stand-up voice mike front and center. He tapped the mike, blew one time, said, “Va bene.”
That was all the crowd needed. I felt eyes turn toward me, knew that sweet sensation of adrenaline pumping up my heartbeat.
The spotlight flashed on Alessandro’s bearded features. “Signore e signori. Buona sera e benvenuti al’ Club della Vecchia Como!” He opened his arms and grinned to the applauding crowd, then pointed down to where I was seated. “Our very own maestro of guitar, Giovanni di Alta!”
I stood and vaulted easily onto the stage, then smiled and waved at the crowd. Conscious of Amy and Mario and Jake seated below me I strapped on the Stratocaster, glanced a nod toward Bruno, counted his timing with my head, and swung into the first bars of “Animal” by Toto.
In order to build up momentum we performed many of our songs in series, with either Claudio or me playing a bridge. “Animal” was followed with a song by Francesco de Gregori, a popular Italian singer, and from that we swung into “Urgent” by Foreigner. We paused after the third song, shared smiles over the applause. I thanked the crowd for coming, introduced the group, said we had a special guest who would open up the second set that night, and watched as the audience searched around the club for a famous face. I purposefully avoided looking toward Mario’s table.
An hour for the first late-night set, half an hour off, then a longer second set with time for a couple of encores—that was the schedule on which Alessandro and I had agreed. He did not care if we took longer between sets; it meant more drinking time for the crowd. But I had to make sure I could last the night, maintain the tension and the energy and the high. The first late-night set was usually divided between favorites from the British and American rock scenes and the latest Italian hits. The second set was mostly fusion jazz. I sang lead, with Bruno and Claudio on backup. They both spoke only smatterings of English, but tone and pitch were more important for singing backup than proper grammar, and their voices were good. It was enough.
After the first set was over we returned to the dressing room, where Bruno and I passed the pipe while Claudio played with his mirror. We went through Amy’s three songs one more time. They still sounded good.
Amy did not realize what a compliment it was for her to start off the second late-night set. My peaking high combined with the music’s power to make me feel invincible. My life began anew in those moments. There was no future, no past, nothing but the music and the high. I could manipulate the crowd, play the most complex forms of fusion jazz and convince them to like just about anything. It was an immense thrill, one which kept me chasing after it night after night. Later on the set gradually loosened and mellowed, flowing into a quiet and sad goodbye to the pinnacle moment, a time filled with blues and love songs. All was ending, disappearing. All was a run to the next high.
We sat and smoked and waited for the intermission to end. As we prepared to leave our little room, we shared a laugh and
a mock hope that Amy wouldn’t leave us up there with our pants down. We carried the smiles with us back down the hall, past the waiters and their rude comments, past a back-slapping Alessandro, out to the stage and the lights and the clamor.
I thanked the crowd and looked down to where Amy was seated. She replied with a quick little wave and a grin from the heart. If she was suffering from nerves she didn’t show it.
“Many of you know my good friend Mario Angeletti,” I began. “He and I go back a long, long way. Mario is here with us tonight, and he brought with him the leaders of his band, Jake and Amy Templer.” I switched to English and said to them, “We’re very glad that you could join us tonight.”
I motioned for the spotlight as they rose to their feet. The stark white lighting transformed Jake into an ebony mountain and made Amy’s high cheekbones and slanted eyes look mysteriously Oriental. Clearly the crowd agreed with me. Amy was a fine-looking woman.
“Amy, why don’t you join us up here for a while,” I said. She rewarded me with another smile and let Jake lift her up on stage. He handled her like a feather.
She walked up to the mike, grasped my upper arm, looked at me with eyes that searched deep. Very deep. I returned the gaze, unsure of myself despite the protective high.
She said, “I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time, Gianni.”
Amy Templer turned around, approached the mike with a smile and a wave for the crowd. “Thank you very much,” she told them. “It’s a real pleasure to be here with you tonight. You certainly have a beautiful city.”
There was a brief cheer from the crowd, which brightened her even more. “Marvelous; some of you speak English. That will surely help me get the message across, won’t it?” She took the microphone from the stand and flipped the cord to free it. “This first song is by an American artist, Mr. Bryan Duncan.”
She wore a dress designed like an Arab djellabah, the long hooded garb of the desert, made from white satin that cascaded in sparkling folds to her sandaled feet. The sleeves were long and loose and embroidered with little colored baubles that twinkled like prisms under the stage lights. Her dark skin made her smile look dazzlingly white as she turned to us and waved an open-palmed invitation.
Bruno counted us down, and we began.
The first song was a soft-shoe Chicago blues that Bruno laced out with wire brushes. It started out low-key and very husky, a whisper of a song with a very nice beat. I concentrated on playing this new song correctly, and I listened. Amy was good. Very good. She carried a lot of force even when she was quiet. That was a rare ability. She did not sing at that hushed, almost monotonous level because she needed to. She did it to prepare us for what was yet to come. I hunkered down over my guitar a little and listened to the words.
Lies upon lies are said to get by.
Lies upon lies are clouds in the sky.
Pretty soon it’s gonna rain,
Ya gonna get those shiny shoes muddy.
Between the fools and the wise,
A smile can be a wicked disguise.[1]
Her purpose seemed very clear, or so I thought. She was working with relatively straightforward songs, ones whose success would ride completely upon her voice. She sang the second verse with occasional surges of strength, barely veiled promises of what she held in reserve.
This was followed by a solo that on Mario’s tape had been done by a sax. Claudio and I had decided that he would perform the first half, then allow me to take over and finish it up. I played the steel-string Ibanez; Claudio had his computerized keyboards switched to the sound of an upright piano. We were trying to stay true to the song’s original feel by adding a hint of barroom blues.
When I began the solo’s second half, Amy joined in beside me. She sang a wordless chorus to my run, rising and falling to match me in harmony. It was quite a feat.
On the final verse she cut loose and showed what she was made of. The sound powered and reached out to the crowd. And to us. I saw Claudio and Bruno exchange glances, and agreed with them. This woman could really sing.
Lies upon lies to the wheres and the whys.
Lies upon lies bring tears to the eyes.
Gonna cry yourself a flood,
Ain’t gonna be no ark to save you now.
Between the fools and the wise,
A smile can be a wicked disguise.
When she was finished, she bowed low and gave the audience a smile for the applause that washed over us. I was impressed. She was carrying a new audience with songs they had never heard before, sung by a woman they did not know, and in a language many did not understand. She had the voice and the looks and something more. She shone out there. She lifted them up. She was magnetic in her happiness.
“Thank you so very much,” she said. “Bryan is a fine Christian artist whom I admire very much.”
I don’t think many of them really understood her. The applause sounded more like people who just liked her music. But I understood. And so did Bruno. He looked at me, then at Claudio, mouthed the word in Italian, Cristiano? They play this in church?
“This next song is by a musician who has been in the Christian music scene for over a decade, first with the Imperials and now on his own. ‘It Was Love’ by Russ Taff.”[2]
Bruno made even bigger eyes at me, motioned out the count, and we hit it.
It was R & B on the hard side, gutsy and heavy on the rock. The lyrics were sharp and simple, little pushes of power that struck out with the beat. A Tina Turner sound voicing words that spoke of love from somewhere beyond man.
Amy danced a swirl of flashing lights, covering the stage with streaming white satin. The crowd was up from the tables, dancing in the aisles. It was love, she said. Love. Shining down from above. It hit me, she cried, and I swung into a solo, with Amy right there beside me crying for everyone to look up and find love. Love. A blinding light from above.
When she closed us down we were all breathing hard.
“God loves you all,” she said, waving to the shouts and whistles and applause. “How could I do anything else?”
Amy Templer fitted the mike back in the stand. “This last one is older than anybody in this room. My grandmother sang it to me when I was a child. It’s called ‘I Surrender All,’ and I don’t have any idea who wrote it. Deniece Williams came up with this rendition. She won herself two Grammy awards with the album.”
I signaled our technician at the back of the room to lower the lights to two spots focused on Amy’s face. Both the stage and the club fell to blackness, her shadow sending out sharp light-angles above Claudio, Bruno, and me. Bruno whispered out the count, and we began.
It was a love song, a slow, sweet melody, a perch from which Amy could soar. And the words left no question of her direction.
All to Jesus I surrender,
All to Him I freely give.
I will ever love and trust Him
In His presence daily live.
The power in the words filled the room and hammered at my chest. I sought to escape by searching the only two faces I could see through the spotlight’s glare. Bruno and Claudio were caught up in the music, eyes half-closed, swinging their bodies in time to Amy’s soaring voice. I wondered whether anyone in the audience realized to whom the song was directed. It was difficult to understand the words of a new song, especially in a foreign language. Then again, I thought as I felt myself drawn back to listening to the song’s message, perhaps I wasn’t the only one so touched by the fierce emotion with which Amy praised her God.
All to Jesus I surrender
Humbly at His feet I bow.
Worldly pleasures all forsaken,
Take me, Jesus, take me now.
The crowd was breathless throughout. A few listeners reached forward, raising outstretched hands up into the spot-light’s concentrated beam. A few applauded between the verses. Most held their breath along with me.
All to Jesus I surrender
Lord, I give myself to Thee.
Fill me with Thy love and power,
Let Thy blessings fall on me.
When she finished and let her hands drop to her sides, there was a long stretch of silence, then pandemonium.
I stood there behind her, watched the lights come up and illuminate the fiercely cheering audience, saw her turn and open her arms to us in thanks. Bruno and Claudio applauded and smiled in return. I was unable to respond at all. I felt trapped inside a sudden surge of memories that came and went within the space of a heartbeat, yet which seared me with their power. I could see it all clearly, feel the applause wash over me in waves, but remained imprisoned within the recollections of a time I thought buried away forever.
I looked at Amy and the crowd and the band, yet saw another place when another crowd had reacted to me with a similar sense of abandon. And in the midst of my own first great success I had felt nothing. Instead of the joy and the triumph which I saw radiating from Amy, I had been surrounded by an emptiness so great it had threatened to engulf me. I had achieved a lifetime goal, and it had been worthless.
I realized that Amy was still watching me, and felt drawn by her look of heartfelt compassion. I sensed walls coming down inside me, faces of the past forcing their way out. I made a conscious effort to push it all away, but I was driven by the love in Amy’s eyes to relent, to turn within, to confront what I had been running from for so very, very long.
PART ONE
You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus.
The Maestro Page 3
