GOING SOLO

by Bert Stratton

“Side Project”: A musician breaks away from his band and does his own thing. Almost all musicians do it, at least on occasion. But because my axe is clarinet, I can’t break away easily. Nobody wants to hear solo clarinet. I’m chained to my farkakte bandmates!

Not true. Last month I was hired at the last minute — a day prior to the gig — for a Holocaust survivors’ luncheon. My accompanist, pianist Alan Douglass, couldn’t make it. But Alan had fortuitously produced some backing tracks for me a while back, just in case.

And this was the case: Alberto Solo. I played “Besame Mucho,” “Di Grine Kusine” and “Moscow Nights.” I even blew shofar, clarinet-style. This was during the High Holidays.

Nineteen people, total. I reached all 19, I think. I sat with them; I ate with them; and played clarinet while seated at various tables. There was some sort of chicken roll, courtesy of the kosher caterer. “You Are My Sunshine,” “Misty,” klezmer instrumentals, and “Tumbalalaika,” of course.

I talked to a Romanian woman about her granddaughter, who plays drums in Broadway shows. A Polish woman jokingly said she has a German brother and an Italian brother. Her brothers were born in DP camps.

Former bandmate Irwin Weinberger, and his father, Herman, 1966. Herman was a Holocaust survivor from Poland.

I got paid by the Jewish Family Service Association and Germany, via an understanding called the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany — a worldwide Holocaust-reparations cultural-enrichment program.

I’ve previously played this gig with Alan. Two years ago I wrote about it: “Holocaust Remembrance at Cafe Europa. Everybody in the audience had an astonishing story.” (link, no paywall: Wall Street Journal.)

I needed Alan two years ago. Who needs him now?