© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all
rights reserved.
“His approach was
characterized by great melodic facility, harmonic sophistication and a natural,
easy command of swing, and the music he made was both invigoratingly inventive
and thoroughly accessible. Like Charlie Parker and other great melodists in
Jazz, Joe Pass
had the singular gift of improvising lines of natural, singing clarity and firm
inner logic.”
- Pete Welding
Back when the World
was young, I worked for a residential treatment center that specialized in
offering care to adult, psychiatric schizophrenic
patients.
At the time,
residential treatment centers and day treatment centers were fairly new for
patients with this diagnosis.
They were designed
as an alternative to hospitalization as there was a developing clinical view in
those days that such admissions, besides being very costly, did little to help
in providing the long term care patients with this diagnosis required.
To a certain
extent, the new clinical perspective embraced the notion that stabilizing
schizophrenic patients in order to protect them for doing injury to themselves
or to others might involve hospitalizations, but helping them to function is
less restrictive settings after such inpatient stays might ultimately prove
more helpful and healthy for all concerned.
The “do’s” and “don’ts”
of residential treatment centers were just becoming highly regulated by the
states that licensed them.
Sadly, in addition
to the many other challenges they face, along the way, many adult, psychiatric schizophrenic
patients develop alcohol and drug abuse as a secondary diagnosis.
Interestingly,
many of the “clients” in our residential treatment center responded well to art
and music sessions offered in a milieu environment [broadly speaking, one which
allows the clients to mingle with each other rather than to be in isolation].
Since I had a
“background as a musician,” in addition to my administrative work, I was
honored with the role of leading the weekly music therapy session which largely
consisted of having guest musicians perform at the center or in playing
recordings.
For whatever
reasons, perhaps appropriately subconscious, I was really smitten with
guitarist Joe Pass during the period of my involvement with the residential
treatment center and frequently played his records [CDs were still fairly new
at the time].
One day, one of
the clients picked up the LP jacket sleeve and read aloud Joe’s given name:
“Joseph Anthony Jacobi Passalaqua.”
He turned to me
and in a moment of extreme clarity that such clients sometimes have, said:
“Passalaqua – The Poet of the Guitar.”
Obviously, I’ve
never forgotten that remark. And I’ve also never forgotten that residential
treatment center and its many clients. My years there were in many ways and for
many reasons, one of the high points in my life.
Residential
treatment centers, alcohol and drug rehabilitation and music had all had an
earlier involvement in my life, but not in any formal sense.
By way of
background, although we barely understood any of its inner workings, let alone
how it connected to the “outside world,” I was part of a group of young
musicians who were among the earliest supporters of a place called Synanon.
Founded in Santa Monica , CA in 1958 by Chuck Dederich, Synanon was a residential treatment center
that existed for the expressed purpose of helping drug and alcohol addicted
musicians and other artists.
Synanon was
located in an old brick building situated a few yards from the beach and the ocean
on the Pacific Coast Highway [California Route 1]
We would drive to
it along Santa Monica Blvd. [no freeways, yet] bringing bags of used
clothes, groceries and a few schimolies to donate to the musicians and artists
in residence at Synanon. Sometimes we’d participate in jam sessions while we
were visiting.
One of Synanon’s
most famous “graduates” was none other than Jazz guitarist Joe Pass who was just concluding his residence
there during my initial visits.
Like so many of
his contemporaries from the Jazz world of the 1940s and 50s, Joe had gotten
lost in the “world” of heroin addiction.
Fortunately, for
all Jazz fans, Joe found his way again, and a big “Thank You” is owed to Chuck Dederich and the folks at
Synanon for “saving my life” and to Richard Bock of Pacific Jazz records for
help in re-launching Joe’s career.
Dick recorded Joe
in a number of different contexts and had a role in Joe’s introduction to
Gerald Wilson’s big band. Kudos to Gerald as well for featuring Joe as not too
many big bands have a guitarist as one of its primary soloists.
Dick Bock’s first
association with Joe dated back to the Pacific Jazz recording – The
Sounds of Synanon [PJ-48. He recruited John Tynan to write the
following liner notes for the album. At
the time, John was the west coast editor of Down
Beat magazine.
© - John Tynan, copyright protected; all rights
reserved.
SOUNDS OF SYNANON
“There are times
in the ironic drama of Life when happiness and fulfillment bloom out of misery
and despair. The modern jazz Sounds Of Synanon were born in the deepest misery
and degradation and in the most hopeless despair, for the seeds of the music
were planted in seven individuals whose lives had been blighted by drug
addiction. Arnold Ross ... Joe Pass ... Greg Dykes ... Dave Allan ...Ronnie Clark . . . Bill Crawford
... Candy Latson ... These are the seven who had forgotten how to hope; who
existed from fix to fix; whose pursuit of heroin may be traced through jails
and penitentiaries, sanitariums and hospitals and suicide attempts, to a final
day in each of their lives when, like drifting flotsam, they were cast against
the sanctuary of Synanon House.
Synanon exists to
save lives by keeping the drug addicts who live there away from the narcotics
that enslaved them. And what is Synanon? It is people getting well. Inside the
forbidding red brick old armory at 1351 Ocean Front, Santa Monica , Calif. , the miracle of rehabilitation is a
24-hour phenomenon. Between midnight and dawn or at bustling noon a sick addict may appear at the reception
desk, seeking help.
"No dope
fiend wants to get well; he wants to want to get well," is a hard-boiled
saying at- Synanon House: But-the residents there share an aggregate knowledge
of dope addiction so practical in its intimacy that no new member's fantasies
are ever swallowed as facts. The foundation's residents are humanists; they are
not sentimentalists. And if they live to save lives and battle the monster of
addiction, they are determined to fight with utmost efficiency, unencumbered by
the baggage of a do-gooder attitude that puts more value on intentions than on
results achieved. Synanon is for work, not dreams.
Fulcrum and
inspirer of the work at Synanon House since September 1958 when the foundation
was established, Charles E. "Chuck" Dederich is still at the helm of
the organization. (The opening track in this album, “C.E.D.” is dedicated to
him,) In the first article on Synanon to appear in a national publication, this
reporter wrote in Down Beat magazine in January 1961, "An educated and
eloquent man, Dederich, at 47, bears t he physical scars o f his own long
sickness - alcoholism. He hasn't had a drink in five years and now runs the
foundation with an understanding, strength, and a determination that is
contagious."
A professional statistician,
Dederich for many years held top positions in advertising, merchandising and
public relations. For the last 10 years, before I quit drinking,' he said
dryly, I was a promoter-in the negative sense of the word."
Walker Winslow, author
of The Meninnger Story and If A Man Be Bad and an authority on
mental health problems, has had ample opportunity to study Dederich and his
techniques. "'Dederich,’ Winslow said, 'is an intuitive psychologist. He's
one of the best I've encountered, and I think any good psychiatrist would agree
with that. He has taken the rationalizing mechanisms of the addict and the
alcoholic and has neutralized them. Then, too, he has a remarkably positive
personality. By expressing himself firmly to these people, by holding them in
line firmly, he's expressing a real concern for them. His approach is probably
the only way of reaching them and holding them, and his firmness really discourages
the phonies who wander in.’
"Winslow
considers Dederich's refusal to compromise as crucial. I've seen opportunities
here', he said, 'where a compromise would have gained a few dollars for the
foundation in the case of a member earning money and bringing it in regularly.
But if this person were damaging the organization, even slightly, Dederich
wouldn't hesitate to throw him out.’
Since the
appearance of this writer's report in Down
Beat, Synanon has benefited by the attention thus drawn to it. John
Tranchitella, president of Los Angeles Local 47, American Federation of
Musicians, organized and staged a benefit concert in cooperation with Down Beat in April 1961, from which
funds were raised to keep the foundation going. Through sympathetic and
influential political contacts, a bill was passed into law in the California
state legislature that placed Synanon under the jurisdiction of the state Board
of Medical Examiners, thus gaining recognition of Synanon by the state as a
legal place for the rehabilitation of narcotic addicts. Television cameras have
probed the corridors of Synanon House; TIME and LIFE magazines, respectively, have printed a
favorable article and photo essay on the organization, thus bringing the
Synanon message into the homes of America .
Donations have
poured into the tax exempt foundation from businessmen and a wide variety of
sympathizers, and there are now several Synanon houses established in the Santa Monica area. On the other side of the coin,
however, there remains the implacable opposition of the city of Santa Monica , whose civic fathers have long sought to
evict the Synanon residents. The foundation was convicted in a Santa Monica court of a technical violation of a
housing ordinance and Chuck Dederich served a brief term in the city jail as a
result of this.
Still, Synanon
carries on, A new house-presumably outside the Santa Monica city limits-is being sought. This is no
easy task, for although addicts come and go through its doors-some with a slim
chance for life, others to return to the needle of death-the number of
permanent residents is steadily increasing.
But the work goes
on. An important manifestation of Synanon's work may be heard in these Sounds
Of Synanon. There are but a small number of addicted musicians in residence
there but the jazz group they have created is a constant morale builder.
Consistent with the group consciousness of the residents, there is no leader as
such. As a matter of policy and mutual agreement the musicians work together,
This is not to say that talent and experience do not prevail in matters
musical. And pianist Arnold Ross is the recognized dean in this respect.
"Like all
addicts who come to Synanon for help. Arnold Ross was desperate." this
reporter wrote in Down Beat. "His first visit ... was in May, 1959. He
described the events leading to his arrival.
"I'd tried to
kill myself,’ he said matter of factly, ‘and landed in County General hospital. They found needle marks on me,
and I was booked for 'misdemeanor-marks. When my case came up, my lawyer told
me the only way I could avoid the county jail was to commit myself to Camarillo for treatment. So I did. Then, when I got
out, I went with (a) club group. I was back on dope fast. I quit the group and
tried to kick again by myself, but I couldn't make it. So I came to Synanon.'
"Heeding a variety of rationalizations, he didn't remain this first time.
But last July 7 (1960), Ross returned and stayed.
"Pianist Ross
enjoyed a rising reputation in the late 1930s and '40s with a variety of bands,
including the late Glenn Miller's army orchestra and Harry James (1944-47). In
1950, Ross says, while on a tour of Europe as accompanist to a name singer, he started his first serious
heroin habit.
"When we got
back,' he continued, I kicked. But soon
I'd started another. After that, there was no turning back. Today, at 40, Ross
has turned back. Or, to state it more accurately, he has taken a new turning.
He has taken and accepted the Synanon way.
I played cymbals
in the band, worked in a small group at N.C.O. and officers' clubs. Then I got
busted. I moved to Las Vegas and worked the hotels there. Busted again. After that i
spent three years and eight months at the U.S. Public Health Service Hospital
at Fort
Worth , Texas . Then I went back to Vegas. I recorded
with Dick Contino on Capitol and with several other commercial groups.
Meanwhile, I was in and out of jails for narcotics violations. I came to
Synanon from San Diego after a final 'marks beef.'" At the time this album
was recorded, Joe Pass had been at Synanon 15 months.
Trumpeter David
Allan was reared, and attended high school, in Chicago where he was born April
1, 1928 into a
musical family. His father, he says, was a songwriter and song-and-dance man in
vaudeville. At age 12 he was playing in a jazz band with his two cousins. He
spent 1946 and '47 with army bands in the U.S. and in the Philippines . Following an honorable discharge from the
army, Allan settled in Southern California where he formed a jazz group with pianist Don Friedman, tenorist
Lin Halliday, bassist Don Payne and drummer Gary Frommer. During this period he
played regularly with Chet Baker, Ornette Coleman, Joe Maini and Russ Freeman.
Allan attended Whittier College , Whittier , Calif. , and, he says, was one semester short of
securing his bachelor's degree in economics "when addiction caused me to
leave college." Before coming to Synanon, he was committed to the U. S.
Public Health Service Hospital at Lexington , Ky.
Greg Dykes,
trombonist and trumpeter, who plays baritone horn in this album, was born in Los Angeles , January 20, 1931 . This is his story: "My father was a
music teacher and I started playing trumpet at around 10. Through school I
played music as a hobby. After high school, I played two years in army bands.
While in hospital in Fort Worth . I changed to baritone horn and valve trombone. I worked in
local (Los
Angeles ) big bands, but have done very little work in jazz. In 1958,1
became associated with Art Pepper who helped me a great deal. Now I feel that I
am just scratching the surface; I'm starting to write music, too. As is the
case with my life in Synanon, my life in music is just beginning." Ronald
Clifford (Ronnie) Clark is another native Angeleno, born September
19, 1935 . He
attended high school with trumpeter Don Cherry and drummer Billy Higgins and
began playing alto sax. Then he stopped playing, he says, until 1959, when,
while living with schoolmates Cherry and Higgins, he started on string bass. At
the time of this recording, Clark
had been at Synanon 11 months.
Bill Crawford, a
member of Synanon's board of directors and the band's drummer, was born in Seattle , Wash. , February 3, 1929 . He began musical studies at five years
and pursued the study of harmony and clarinet for two years at the New England
Conservatory of Music in Boston . While at the conservatory, Crawford says,
he smoked marijuana for the first time. "I never returned to school after
that, he recalls. "I spent the next 10 years smoking weed, shooting dope,
going to jam sessions in Los Angeles and San Francisco , in and out of jail and working at various
jobs-including four years repairing cash registers with the National Cash
Register Co." Crawford arrived at Synanon in October, 1959. At the time of
the recording he had been studying drums for one year under volunteer teachers
Eddie Atwood and Bill Douglass, well known Hollywood musicians who donated
their professional services to Synanon.
Conga drummer,
Candy Latson, born in Houston , Texas , April 21, 1936 , relates: I've had no musical experience.
But I'm a great admirer of Candido and I'd like to become a good conga drummer.
I started playing just one year ago at Synanon when I just happened to see an
old conga sitting in the corner. I started tapping and have been tapping what I
feel ever since. I would like to learn to play the conga drum very much. All I
do know is to play what I feel. But I have a lot more to say, because I feel a
lot more. Latson, at the time of the recording, had been at Synanon 21 months.
…
In the last
analysis, this album would not have been made possible without a combination of
generosity and unselfishness on the part of individuals and business concerns
that helped the musicians of Synanon in ways tangible and otherwise:
Hollywood's Professional Drum Shop and Drum City; the aforementioned drum teachers
and bass teacher Ted Hammond; Don Randall of the Fender Sales Co.: who donated
a guitar and accessories; Gaines and Stein Music Co.; Pedrini Music Co.; Remo,
Inc.; Reggie Olds, of the F. E. Olds Co., who donated a horn to the band; and
Los Angeles disc jockey Frank Evans, of KRHM-FM, “one of our biggest
supporters,” in the words of board member, Bill Crawford.
After so many
words, it remains evident that mere words cannot begin to tell the story of the
men who make these Sounds of Synanon. Let their music tell it instead.
- John Tynan”