The Missing Links regularly played at a disco club downtown called the Pussycat. The venue had a dinner theater upstairs where a black dance troupe, called Oscar Brown Junior and Friends, performed as well. As I was getting ready for our band’s set one night, a tall black dancer from the show named Glen popped into the dressing room.
“Tonight, you are going to become a man,” he said in his deep voice. I knew Glen was gay, so I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. A shot of fear went through me when he turned and locked the dressing room door behind him. He was huge and muscular. I actually thought Glen might try to force himself on me, until he jutted a hand into his pocket and pulled out a joint. What a relief!
Walt and Terry had started smoking pot, so I figured I would give it a try. Glen lit up the joint, took two drags, and passed it over. I held it out in front of me, hesitated for a moment, and then inhaled.
“There you go,” Glen said, urging me on. “Take a big toke.”
I fought to keep the smoke in my lungs but coughed it out anyway. The warm sensation that washed over me with each drag left a permanent smile on my face.
When it came time for the Missing Links to go on, I was still high as a kite. I attacked my drum set and couldn’t believe how incredible our music sounded. But at the pause in our first song, I stopped playing altogether. I thought it was the end of the tune! A hush came over the audience and Walt and Terry both whipped their heads around to shoot me a look. They could tell by the glazed expression on my face that I was stoned as could be. Walt gave me a knowing nod, and we started the song back up again. It was a remarkable experience, but after that night at the club I didn’t make a practice out of getting high before our shows. As the backbone of the band, it was important for me to stay clear-headed and focused when we played.
Even though our band had a busy touring schedule, I still made my way down to drop in on some of the JPs. They were renting an old tavern, which they called “the Club,” to use as their private hangout. It was good to shoot the shit with the guys every now and then. They were supportive of the band and often came out to see the Missing Links perform.
Our band played everywhere around the local club circuit, but one of our favorite venues was a place called the Cheetah on West Lawrence Avenue, formerly the Aragon Ballroom, a cavernous dance hall that had been built back in the 1920s. The new owners had converted it to resemble a New York-style club in order to attract the younger crowd, covering the furniture with multicolored fabric and putting in psychedelic strobe lights over the painted dance floor. The ballroom had a bunch of pedestal stages where each of the bands on the bill could set up. Interestingly enough, the Aragon Ballroom was where my parents had met way back in the day during a Saturday night dance.
I took a stroll into the club’s boutique one night to kill some time before our set and caught sight of a striking Asian girl working behind the cash register. She had long, shiny black hair and a vibrant smile. I thought she was the most gorgeous girl I had ever seen in my life. I tried to act casual, but it was no use. I stared at her until she finally looked up from the register and made eye contact with me. It was a brief glance, but all I needed.
After I worked up enough nerve, I walked up to the counter and introduced myself. She told me her name was Rose and we began chatting. I found out she lived with her mother on the North Side of Chicago around the Montrose and Diversey area, which at the time was a rough part of town. I could have stood there all night talking with Rose, but our band was due to go on soon. Before leaving the boutique, I made sure to ask her for her number.
When our band got out onstage, I was happy to see a few of the guys from the JPs in the crowd. It was always nice to see them out there supporting the band. However, they weren’t the only gang in attendance that night. Before long, they got into it with some of the Franklin Park guys as I watched from behind my drum kit. The large strobe lights blinking on the ceiling only added to the chaos as a vicious brawl broke out on the dance floor. It was impossible for the club bouncers to break it up. Nobody could see what the hell was going on, just flashes of fists, arms, and faces. The one thing I could make out was that JPs were outnumbered and getting their asses kicked.
Eventually they made a run for it and disappeared out a side entrance. It looked like the Franklin Park guys were about to leave when one of them recognized me up onstage. He got the attention of the others and they stood together in a group, gesturing in my direction. My heart jumped up into my throat and I scanned the room for an escape route. Were they going to wait until the end of our set or rush me right in the middle of the song? Either way, I was in trouble. Not only was I alone, but there was nowhere to run because my drum set had me boxed in.
Just as they were getting ready to make their move, a short kid walked up and joined their group. He began talking with his hands and pointing toward me. After a short discussion, the Franklin Park guys backed into the crowd and exited through the side door of the club. I couldn’t believe my luck. Then it dawned on me. It was the same kid I had saved from a pistol-whipping back at the Hi-Spot Bowling Alley. Before he left, he stopped in front of the stage and nodded. I nodded back. Without that guy saving my ass, I would have been a goner!
After all the commotion died down, I looked out from behind my drum set and noticed Rose standing in the front row with a few of her girlfriends nodding along to the music. She returned my smile from the stage and I was hooked right then and there.
We started dating shortly thereafter and I spent any extra money I had taking her out. Aside from her physical beauty, Rose was a very kind and gentle girl. She took care of her mother, a beautiful Japanese woman who had fled Hiroshima after the war and moved to the United States with Rose’s father, a burly Irish soldier, from whom she was divorced after Rose was born. Although I was traveling out of state to play with the Missing Links on a regular basis, Rose and I developed a deep emotional bond and fell in love. It was nice to know that she was waiting for me back in Chicago whenever I came home from our gigs.
The Missing Links were not only building up steam as a group, but also growing as individual players. Walt had begun attending music classes at DePaul University, and one night he brought the head of percussion at the school, Bob Tilles, to see us perform at the Club Laurel. Walt was eager for Bob to hear the music our band was playing. After we finished our set, Bob walked up to me holding some written sheets of music.
“Do you realize what you just played?” he asked. I looked it over, but couldn’t understand what he had transcribed on paper.
“You have some serious talent,” Bob continued. “If you have any interest taking your technique to the next level, I’d be open to having you come down to study with me.”
I was flattered by his praise and decided to take Bob up on his offer. It turned out to be a wise decision, because he opened my eyes to a whole new world of the endless possibilities of percussion. Once we connected, he taught me the finer points of “woodshedding”—shutting yourself off from everything and honing your technique for hours on end. It was the only method that was going to get me to the next level. Our weekly lessons about the inner workings of jazz, along with my endless hours of performing and practicing, transformed me from a good rock and funk drummer into a highly skilled musician. The newfound musical knowledge brought with it a powerful sense of inspiration.
Flawless technique is what separates the great drummers from the rest of the pack. Proper mechanics and a solid sense of timing are essential, but taste is what lets you develop a signature sound. So many influences helped me come up with my style. I listened to everyone from Tony Williams, Elvin Jones, and Grady Tate to rock greats like Ringo Starr, Mitch Mitchell, and Hal Blaine. I recognized what they were doing and then set out in my own direction. Bob also turned me on to the wonders of legendary drummer Buddy Rich and the sheer excitement that came through in his playing. After hearing Buddy, half of me almost felt like giving up because I never envisioned myself reaching such
a high level, but the other half was deeply inspired to do whatever it took to elevate my own playing.
As my skills improved, my confidence grew and allowed me to make more daring choices in my drumming. The excitement washing over me while studying with Bob stood in stark contrast to the dread I began to feel playing the same cover tunes with the Missing Links night after night. It was tough to stomach the old standards like “Moonlight in Vermont” and “Misty.”
Although most of my days were spent practicing or performing, I still found time to drop in to the hot dog stand to hang out with Pete Schivarelli. He had been away at Notre Dame playing football, so it was good to see him again. One afternoon while we were hanging out, I mentioned I had to split for my drum lesson down at DePaul University.
“Why don’t you take my Cadillac?” Pete offered.
“Are you sure?” I told him.
“Yeah,” he said. “Leave your car here and come back for it later.”
Pete tossed me the keys to his forest green Cadillac convertible and I was on my way. I felt like such a big shot cruising through the downtown streets of Chicago with the top down. I hung a slack arm out the window and drove as slow as possible to make sure everyone on the sidewalk got a good look at me behind the wheel. I was invincible driving the luxurious Caddy . . . for a while, anyway. Turning off of Wabash Avenue, I cut the corner too close and sideswiped a support beam for the el train track. I jerked the car to a stop and stared wide-eyed at the steering wheel. I was already sweating as I leapt out to inspect the damage. It wasn’t pretty. The entire left side of the Cadillac was scraped to hell. Pete was going to kill me!
At a pay phone, I dialed his number with a shaky finger. As expected, Pete was irate.
“What the hell did you do, Danny?” he shouted over the phone.
“There was a bit of an accident,” I answered.
“An accident? Oh Christ! I’ll be right down there. Don’t move,” he told me before hanging up.
When Pete arrived, he was angrier than I had ever seen him. He was doing everything he could to keep himself from strangling me to death.
“Get in. I’ll drive you back to your car,” he said through gritted teeth.
We drove in total silence for a few blocks until we reached the first stoplight. When the light turned green, a man was still walking in front of our car. Already on edge, Pete beeped the horn at him, and the guy spun around and flipped us both off. That was all Pete needed to send him into the red. He flew out of the car and took off after the guy. I yelled after them, but it was no use. Better for Pete to take out his anger on some random man than fume at me over what I had done to his prized possession. Pete was one of the meanest guys I had ever seen and if he’d caught up to the guy it would have been ugly. I don’t think that man knew how lucky he was.
I tried to console Pete by offering him the stereo out of my car, but its value couldn’t come close to covering the body damage to his Cadillac. Eventually, he found some way to forgive me and let it go. Pete knew I didn’t have anywhere near the kind of cash to pay for the damage. I may have been pulling in great money at one time, but that had changed.
Although my curiosity for drumming was peaking, the Missing Links started losing momentum in the local club circuit and our audiences were drying up. Each paycheck was smaller than the last. The low point came when we played a club called the Money Tree in a tough section of the West Side. The manager of the place treated the bands he booked like they were his dogs. There was no respect at all. The guy demanded that the band back him up while he sang Frank Sinatra songs. He was completely off pitch and out of time. He had no sense of melody, but none of us could say anything. If we did, we would be fired on the spot and thrown out of the club (or maybe even worse, judging by the look of the customers and workers in the place).
Midway through the manager’s first Sinatra number, “Strangers in the Night,” a drunk at the bar yelled, “You sing like a monkey fucking a football!”
I’d heard a lot of cursing in my time on the streets, but had never come across that one before. I did everything to stop from bursting out in hysterical laughter behind my drum kit. The other guys in the band turned away from the stage lights to hide their snickering.
The joyful expression dropped from the manager’s face as he glared out in the direction of the bar area. He narrowed his eyes and pointed at the drunk. “Geno,” he said into the house microphone. “Get this fucking guy outta here!”
Geno, the huge bouncer of the club, closed in on the bar and kicked the man right off of his stool. He picked the guy up by an arm and dragged him through the place, knocking over chairs and tables. When they reached the rear wall, Geno used the man’s head to open the back door to the alley.
Our horrible gig at the Money Tree felt like rock bottom for us. Not long after at another show at Club Laurel, the bathrooms in the venue overflowed and the rancid odor of sewage hung in the air for the entire night. The place was wall-to-wall stink and nearly impossible to stomach. In a way, it was almost as if we were the ones stinking up the place. Overall, the gigs marked the beginning of the end for the Missing Links. There was no overlooking that I was in desperate need of something new.
My interaction with the skilled musicians at DePaul was deeply inspiring and I came up with a bold idea. I thought about putting together a band of only the most talented players in the city—a supergroup with a mind-blowing horn section that could play an inventive mix of rock and jazz. Since any band is only as strong as its weakest member, everyone would first and foremost have to be a gifted musician. This new group would be about the music and not about spectacle. There would be no egotistical frontman trotting around the stage. In my mind, there was no place for that. It was time to take everything we were doing to the next level.
Although Walt and Terry may have wanted to get involved with a project that was more advanced, they were working on different plans. Walt and Jackie had gotten married and Walt was still pursuing a music degree at DePaul. He had become the protégé of a guy named Jerome Stowell and was being groomed for the second clarinet chair in the Chicago Symphony. A guy named Jimmy Guercio, a friend of Walt’s who had also attended DePaul and was making a name producing hits for national acts like the Buckinghams and Chad and Jeremy, had approached Terry to join a new project he was working on. Guercio had recently signed a band out of Chicago called the Illinois Speed Press, formerly the Rovin’ Kind, to his production company, Poseidon Productions. The Rovin’ Kind were one of the top bands in the city, with a lineup including the likes of famous blues guitarist Kal David, Paul Cotton (who later went on to join the band Poco and write the hit song “Heart of the Night”), keyboardist Michael Anthony, and Freddy Page on drums. Guercio was looking for a bassist to join the group before he moved them out to Los Angeles to take advantage of the hippie scene that was developing. He was convinced Terry fit the bill.
I wasn’t going to sit by and watch Walt and Terry find new projects. We had been connected for the last three years in two bands. I had no interest in playing in other groups without them. I didn’t have much time, so I got in touch with Walt and pitched him the supergroup idea.
“Let’s at least give it one last shot and get serious,” I urged. “Delay your symphony gig for a while and we’ll put together an all-star band.” The more I talked, the closer Walt listened. “We both love horns,” I continued. “Let’s bring the horns back to our music.” He was into the idea, but told me he needed to discuss the situation with his wife before making a final decision.
I let out a giant sigh of relief when Walt came back a day later and said he was in. One down, one to go.
Terry was considering Guercio’s offer to go out west and play bass for the Illinois Speed Press, but hadn’t yet figured out what he wanted to do. He had gotten into pot and psychedelics and was starting to get high on more of a regular basis. He was basically going along wherever the current took him. With Walt already on board, I was more confident approa
ching Terry. What many people didn’t know was that although he started off in bands strictly playing bass, Terry was a gifted guitar player with a distinctive Ray Charles type of vocal range. It would be the perfect idea to have him switch over from bass to guitar for the new project Walt and I were planning. The six-string had always been his first love. Being the carefree, easygoing guy that he was, Terry didn’t take long to come to a decision. When he let us know he was in, it was just what Walt and I wanted to hear.
Once we had established the core of the group, everything fell into place. Another friend of Walt’s from DePaul named Lee Loughnane also expressed interest in joining our new group. I was already familiar with Lee’s trumpet playing because he had sat in with the Missing Links from time to time. He had been performing with a band called Ross and the Majestics around Chicago, but was looking for something new. In the meantime, he and Terry had moved into an apartment together and had become almost inseparable. It was like Lee was Terry’s shadow—whatever Terry did, Lee did. When Terry and Walt brought up the idea of Lee joining, I wasn’t immediately for it. My standards for a trumpet player had been set ridiculously high from my time playing with Jimmy Ford. Jimmy was an absolute monster, and I wasn’t so sure Lee could measure up. He seemed too timid in his soloing ability, but he was also very determined to join our new band. Ultimately, I figured we had to at least give him a legitimate shot.
Walt had another friend of his from DePaul in mind to add to the lineup, a guy named Jimmy Pankow who played trombone and was also a talented arranger. It sounded good to the rest of us. And just like that, we had our horn section.
Lastly, we were on the prowl for an organ player who could sing and also play the pedals. Organ players playing bass pedals were in vogue at the time, so we decided there was no need for a bass guitarist. Luckily, a friend was able to turn us on to a talented musician from the South Side of Chicago. His name was Robert Lamm, but being such a big fan of Ray Charles, he performed under the stage name of Bobby Charles in his group Bobby Charles and the Wanderers. I tracked down his number and called him right away. In our minds, Bobby had the right qualifications: he had an incredible voice and played a Hammond B-3 organ.
Street Player Page 5
