AprilCadence2013

Jazz Stories Bruce Ditmas
The only drawback was he had this quad-speaker thing, he had four speakers all
over the stage. and so the shit got loud of course, and they blamed me. and that's
okay, they can blame me for that, i'm not like a particularly soft player. But every
night saluzzi is just busting my ass, like relentless. it got to the point where i told
enrico, just "i'm going back to rome. Get anybody else, take me off. i don't want
to do the record, please, give me a break from this! he didn't let me go, we did the
rest of the tour, we did the record, which people think is a great record. But at the
end of that, enrico didn't talk to me for like 20 years!
Cadence: Maybe you needed 20 years too after that...
Bd: But then it goes even weirder, because enrico's got this autobiography that he
wrote, it's in italian. in this book, he talks about this tour, and about how i'm like
the source to blame for everything went wrong on this, and how the record wouldn't
have ever been anything if it wasn't for manfred and his input. i'm telling you, what
a load of kissup bullshit, if i might say. You know? cadence: You don't recall being
the source of the problems.
Bd: Well you know what was the big joke? We were in the session, and manfred
comes into the studio and takes harry peppel's guitar from him - you get this feeling
he's gonna rip off some amazing chord or he's gonna explain the whole thing, and
then just holds this guitar and gives it back to harry and walks out of the studio,
doesn't say a word. and that became like a joke the rest of the tour with enrico that
he wouldn't "remember" now or be willing to say.
Cadence: What does Manfred play? I believe he's a musician as well.
Bd: he must be, because he does have a sensitivity. i think his strong thing is
letting guys do their thing and doing this amazing mix. Being really into evaluating
the takes, too. i mean you can't argue with the product.
Cadence: Yeah. I agree. But he took the guitar, and...
Bd: did nothing. i mean he could've like, taken the trumpet, right? and then, i'm just
remembering the details, it was like impossible for enrico to stay really in tune with
this ridiculous Bandeleon which he had, which was like out of tune all the time. so
this was a constant issue. and then before every take, we've got dino saluzzi in the
dimly lit studio in ludwigsburg, with a spotlight on him, praying to God before every
take, that something will deliver him from this, like, in my mind, "evilness" that's
coming from the drums. so hilarious.
69 | CadenCe Magazine | april May June 2013