Ed Gerhard at the Stone Church
I haven't been feeling well of late, which is an old age thing, so I decided it was time to go out and hear some music to cheer myself up, which is an any age thing. So when my grandson said he was heading up to New Hampshire to a place called the Stone Church to hear this wonderful guitar player I had met a few times years ago, and have and listen to a bunch of his music on the music player over the years, I thought it was the perfect occasion for putting in the extra effort such things require at my age.
I will admit that it doesn't take much these days, but oh what a night just the same. I wish the boy could have come along, but he was tied up with his own doings; he would have learned something about mastery of the phrase, the power of voicing, the saving of technique for musical emphasis rather than show, the tension of the well placed hesitation, the proper relationship between the man and his instrument, the pacing of the material, and the sheer joy a well delivered banter between tunes can provide. Ed has these gifts in spades that only thirty plus years of doing it every day can provide no matter how deserving the original talent.
I sat there in wonder being taught with each passing musical moment that each generation produces these individuals and there is no need to worry about the future. The world of my youth that was quickly backsliding towards hades did not prevent the emergence of a Louis Armstrong and a Duke Ellington after all. So I sat there at our second row table eating my steak salad and sipping on a Sam Adam draft on the day before the 75th anniversary of the legalization of 3.2 beer back in '33 thinking that except for the disturbance it would have caused I could have gone right then and there and it would have been more than I could have ever deserved (which is probably why it didn't happen).
I am not sure I could have ever envisioned this thing 30 some odd years ago when I first met the young Ed at Al's Place the same way I met Cormac McCarthy, Bill Morrissey and my Elf woman Annie Williams. They were all friends back then and I suspect still are. Ed was going under this blues name that I suspect he has gone to great strides to put behind him so I won't do any damage by telling here. But I can tell you one thing that hasn't changed, or I should say has returned to dear Ed, it this constant sense of joy in his delivery. It's like whatever effort was required to make him get up there and avoid making a fool out of himself as he likes to say, if he is going to risk it, it will only be for the sheer pleasure derived.
It only happened two or three times, but I particularly remember the first. The crowd was much more roudy than usual for Al's and when I showed up with my cornet Ed was more than happy to endulge my desire to jam with him and I was thrilled to because he was mostly a blues man back in those days (something that still takes up its fair share of his performance today, listen to the Sunnyland music if you want a good taste of it). So we went into this extended jam that was not unlike those few times back in the late twenties when my father took me to some back country juke joints and road houses when we would play places like St Louis or Memphis. I was in heaven for sheer memory of it. I can't play anymore but my mind is filled easily with the joy of holding the instrument which Ed is quick to remind you of.
I went over to say hello and express my gratitude for a wonderful evening and excepted his for my coming. It was clear he didn't remember Al's, but that is fine. I saw him once afterwards when he was trying to strike out on this guitar only path he has mastered. He had for the moment lost the sense of banter and seemed to feel he had to separate himself from the audience to get away from everything he was trying to escape. I am glad he escaped, and am doubly glad he escaped the need to escape, for he has come full circle singing the true blues from the tips of his fingers, a blues that uplifts which my father once said you had to be black to understand. This Spainish kid that used to hang around the park once told me that "Frankie, we all black now." I don't know about we all being black, but Ed got there. Go see him sometime, he can take you there for a moment.
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