Edmonton, Alberta, Friday, June15,1979, and I left work at morning break, in the middle of moving furniture, and ripping up carpets, dithering in my mind; to take in the talent rich line-up of the Playboy Jazz festival, which I'd read about in "down beat" magazine, months before? Then, I read, after the PJFest advert and line-up, in The L.A.Times I picked up at a newsstand on Jasper Avenue that morning.Turning a page, I saw that John McLaughlin and The One Truth Band were playing at THe Santa Monica Civic Center, on Monday evening, June 18th.
I called my temp agency and told Dave, the manager, I was going! I'd mused out loud about going to LA to see the fest a few months, sitting hungover, with a jaywalking ticket, just issued, and no chance of being sent out one morning from the temp agency waiting room, so Dave wasn't too surprised.:-)
After a panic attack waiting for a transit bus... looking in my shirt pocket for my tax return money, a wad I'd saved for a month, (still in the pocket of a dirty shirt I'd changed that morning) at my rooming house, I got back to my room, sped on the bus back uptown to my bank near the HOtel MacDonald, and caught a cab, to the big airport . I'd just flown down from Edmonton,( where I had arrived with a brush-cut, from the Maritimes, on Joni"s birthday, 1978), to LA, caught a bus over town to HO|_|_YWOOD and getting a ticket at the Bowl, from a couple who sold me a spare, out in the crowd. I sat down, near the end of another act's set (Goodman? or Basie?), the swivel stage turned to present Joni and the band, and she sang familar lyrics, from "Dreamland" (DJRD); "It"s along, long way from Canada" ..' my very long hair stood up on end.
Sandy Freeze April 22.2013