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Way back in the days of covered wagons...or so it seems now, Sentimental Journey was just starting out. We had accumulated a bunch of old stock arrangements and were "rehearsing" weekly in a mental hospital (most fitting) after being thrown out of a local arts center for making too much noise and disturbing the concentration of the ladies turning the potters wheels.
The band didn't sound very good in those days and when a really top flight musician appeared, he usually just looked around, sighed and quickly disappeared. Dick was different, he didn't make a long committment to the band, but he sat in for a while, helped the saxophone section sort of get their act together and allowed as how he would stay through the first performance scheduled a couple of months hence. He was as good as his word and stayed those months, helping when he could and always encouraging. He played beautifully, far better than the rest of us put together as he was a mostly retired professional musician.
I remember that we used to tease Dick about his horn, which was without peer one of the ugliest tenor saxophones I have ever seen. That old Selmer didn't have a speck of laquer on it, but Dick could make it sound like a million dollars, playing authorative jazz or laid back blues. The man was a master.
When we played that first job in December 1975. Dick was there and raised the credibility of the band by his presence. Our first performance was a howling (by our low standards) success and started our run of 28 years to date. Dick left the band after that performance as promised and quietly hung up his sax, saying that he was retiring for good. I talked to him a few times over the years, but never could get him out of retirement even after the band got good enough to justify a player of his talent.
Recently at a rehearsal, a sax player who sort of "grew up" with SJO sat in with the band. John started playing with us during his college years at Emory and for years filled the tenor chair that Dick first held. I noticed that John's horn wasn't very shiny. As a matter of fact it was the ugliest tenor sax I had ever seen. Without hesitation I asked John " How did you get hold of Dick C.....'s horn?" John was totally shocked. How did I know whose horn it was? I explained that I had only seen a tenor that ugly once before, 28 years ago, and there couldn't be another one.
John replied that Dick had passed away last year and that his family was considering selling the instrument to a player who would use it. John's beautiful jazz was right at home on that old horn and it was a pleasure to hear it in our sax section again after all those years. Later we heard that Dick's family decided to keep the instrument, but the old horn did get that one last turn with the band. It was as if Dick had come back for a brief visit to see if we had made any progress after all these years. Our colleagues in the country music profession have a tune that covers this situation rather well:
Will the circle be unbroken, by and by Lord, by and bye.
Thanks, Dick, we were thinking of you too.
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