"Start": Warning! Contains: Sex! Drugs! Jazz! Reality!

By Barry Finnerty

A funny, twisted, deep, down, and decadent semi-autobiographical novel from noted jazz guitarist Barry Finnerty, set in New York City in 1994. "I took all the craziest stuff that I could remember that happened during my 25 years living, playing, struggling, and partying there," says Finnerty, "and condensed it all into a few months. Most of it is fictionalized, but certain parts - such as the experiences with Miles Davis, the Crusaders, the Brecker Bros, and Jaco Pastorius - actually did happen." Links to funny original songs, parodies, and actual videos and music recordings from the period enhance this jaded, yet highly entertaining and rollicking narrative.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483567501

Book preview

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INVOCATION

CREDO

by Jack Micheline

Write clear the sound

So they can hear it

Write the words that ring and sing

In the busses of defeat

Is a soul of eyes that dance

One in a million

For him – unknown brother

Write the sound

Make it clear

Make it sing

Make it ring

For some lost lovers

Full of despair in far off towns

For the children yet to come

For the dying and the dead

For the prisoner in his cell

In the prisons of this world

Write for all

And they shall know thy sound

Riff One

NEW YORK CITY – AUGUST 1994

Oily odors are oozing from the baked black streets. Darkness is descending over the concrete and steel beehive like a shroud. For the next ten hours the illumination of all things will come not from the sun but the neon. The headlights. All right, maybe the moon. But it is underway. The nightly transition from the natural to the unnatural. The cockroaches will be coming out soon.

All across our teeming, steamy metropolis, in this building and that, certain individuals are just getting out of bed. Anticipating an evening of action. Plotting their next hustle. Preparing to prowl.

I’m not as bad as them, of course. I’ve been up for a good four or five hours already.

And the tourists are coming in. The businessmen. Streaming across the bridges and through the tunnels, in cabs, trains and limos, from every city and country on earth. And as soon as they feel that hot hard pavement under their feet, and look up at those bright multicolored lights and those sooty brick buildings, a little voice goes off in their heads. They don’t ever hear that voice in Seattle, or Tokyo, or Frankfurt, or Oklahoma City. But when they get to the Big Apple, there it comes, unavoidable, unmistakable, rising directly out of their subconscious, speaking to them – personally – in a kind of fiendish, devilish whisper:

"You’re in New York now! Go ahead. Indulge yourself! It’s OK! (pause, then more insistently) Come on! It’s OK! Look around you, everybody’s doing it! It’s OK! (then quieter, soothingly) It’s OK…"

"Now the first thing you do…is get about a thousand dollars’ worth of cocaine. (pause) Or, better yet…two thousand dollars’ worth! Hey, don’t worry about it, it’s OK! Everybody’s doing it! It’s OK! Go ahead! There’s an ATM right over there!"

Then you go get a hotel room, a case of booze, and call up those 16-year-old Siamese twin prostitutes you read about in the magazine…and PARTY LIKE THE LIVING DEAD into the MIDDLE OF NEXT WEDNESDAY!

What, you don’t have the money? Get a cash advance on your credit card, it’s OK! Everybody’s doing it! It’s OK…it’s OK…(slowly fading out) it’s OK…!

New York, New York. The city with so much vice…they named it twice! Because they were so fucked up they forgot they named it the first time! Two junkies, surrounded by syringes, propped up against an alleyway wall:

Junkie #1: (in a narcotic drawl) "Hey…man…where are we?"

Junkie #2: New York… (his dull response before slumping forward, nodding out, floating for a timeless moment in the nether world, then suddenly regaining consciousness, opening eyes, and snapping to abrupt attention) "NEW YORK!"

A modern day Sodom and Gomorrah. That’s where we are. Possibly the most decadent city on the face of the Earth. Where all your dreams can come true. No matter how twisted. No matter how self-indulgent. No matter how harmful to your health, or incompatible with your family values. If you’ve got the money, it’s all there for you.

But if you haven’t got it…well, that’s where I am. An insidious hellhole from which there is no escape. Where dreams of glory are splattered every day against the hard shoals of reality. Yeah, I still have dreams. Twenty plus years in this motherfucker and I still got them. Shit, I was supposed to be a star. World famous. It was my destiny. One of the top musicians on the planet. And I can still play, believe me. On a very high musical and artistic level. Just put me on the stage of Lincoln Center, or Carnegie Hall, or any top concert venue anywhere on Earth. I’ll prove it to you. I ain’t bullshittin’ about that.

So what am I doing this for? Peering out the window of my funky little studio apartment into the twilight of Hell’s Kitchen, looking impatiently up the block. When the hell is Taipei going to show up? I beeped him three times already. Sometimes he calls first, other times he just comes and rings the bell.

Taipei (real name: Tyrone Masterson) is a Chigro. He’s my 5 PM to midnight man. He grew up in Taiwan, the only child of a black American father and a Chinese mother. Still speaks fluent Chinese. But he’s been in New York for over 25 years now. And his English is strictly American Urban Contemporary if you get my drift. He lives uptown, drives a bright red Mitsubishi Eclipse, sells blow, and goes by the street name of Taipei Blood. A little play on words there. But he’s not a man to be messed with. No sense of humor at all when it comes to business.

BRRINNGGG! The phone. Made me jump. Hit my goddamned neck on the back of the window. I pick it up with a strange mixture of pain and relief.

Hello?

Yow. The unmistakable low-pitched growly response.

Whassup, where you at?

Fifteen minutes. Click.

Riff Two

Whew! That’s a load off my mind. At least I won’t have to go gently into this good night, as the poet once said. At least I’ll have a little buzz to keep me company. Fend off the boredom. Add a little color to the picture, so to speak. If nothing else. Tomorrow night I have a gig at the Waldorf with Dick Hardwell and his High Society Orchestra. And as you can well imagine I am NOT looking forward to THAT.

Hmm. Twelve minutes to ETA. Let’s see. Check list. Got my straw. Got my razor blade. Got my circular mirror with the little chrome handles on it that I brought back from the tour of Czechoslovakia in ‘88. When they gave us 5 times the official exchange rate for our U.S. dollars in their sad ass Eastern Bloc currency that was totally worthless (except for there), so I bought a shitload of Bohemian crystal and brought it back. That mirror came with a set of very fancy champagne glasses. I gave them to my mom. Well, at least I still got the mirror. One of my favorite utensils, actually.

I take another look out the window. Nothing yet. I know, he said fifteen minutes. Check my watch. Still 7 minutes to go. Look around. The bathroom beckons. Gotta take a dump. Jesus. I am as conditioned as a Pavlovian dog. Just the thought…the mere thought…of the arrival of the man is all it takes to get my bumgut workin’! Well, make yourself comfortable. It’s the best seat in the house.

BEEP BEEP! Ah. That’s the sound I want to hear! I manage a hasty wipe. Pulling my pants up as I stumble towards the window again. Yes! There’s that red sports car! Awright. Out the door, down the creaky stairs, through the tiny foyer and out the heavy security door into the warm humid night.

Taipei is standing by the open passenger door of his Mitsubishi. He is wearing one of those ventilator t-shirts with the little tiny holes all over – in lime green – and enough gold chains and jewelry to choke an uptown pimp. He stands only about 5’6" but his muscular torso commands respect. As usual, there is a high-styled and heavily made-up black chick in the front seat. He smiles, displaying a gold tooth. Darkish brown skin slightly wrinkling around Asian eyes.

Whassup? I smile back.

Whassup? is his resonant bass register response as he pulls the front seat forward so I can squeeze into the Eclipse’s tiny back seat. This is Chalandra.

Hi, Chalandra, I say. How you doin’?

Fine, she says, without turning around. In a voice that could care less.

"I can see that," I answer semi-charmingly.

Taipei walks around and gets into the driver’s seat and we start to cruise slowly up the block.

So what’s happening? I ask.

You tell me.

"Same shit, different day, man. I got a tuxedo gig at the Waldorf tomorrow night. So, I should be able to pay you real soon…!"

He looks over his shoulder with an expression that says, I’m pretty sure you’re kidding but don’t fuck with me.

I grin. "I mean, for the next one, man! For the next one! I reach in my pocket and pull out a hundred and forty-seven dollars and hand it up to him in the front seat. But I got to owe you three on this one. Awright?"

Aaahhh, he groans in mock irritation. He quickly counts the money, then reaches into his little leather case and hands me back a mini-ziploc plastic bag filled with 3.5 grams of shiny rock cocaine. What is known in the vernacular as an 8-ball. An Anita Baker tune is playing on the radio.

"Giving you the best that I got…baybeee..."

So, I ask as I examine the packet under the passing street lights. Are you giving me the best that you got?

Ha Ha, he says dryly. Very funny.

We’ve driven almost all the way around the block now and he pulls up at the corner of 10th Avenue.

You going to be around later? I ask.

Hey. You never know. His typical response.

Awright, awright. Have a good one, I say. He reaches over and opens the girl’s side door and I squeeze my way out. Nice meeting you.

You too, she says. With a total lack of sincerity.

The door slams shut, and VROOOM! With a puff of exhaust the red car darts into the uptown traffic and is gone.

Taipei. Headed back to Harlem with yet another of his seemingly endless supply of finely tuned bitches. Taipei doesn’t hang out with men. Not ever. Doesn’t trust ‘em. Not since some years ago when his thenpartner shot him three times in the head and left him for dead. He survived that shit. True, it was only a 22 caliber pistol, but still, what are the odds, the chances of that? And he still has all his faculties, that’s quite amazing. The only trace of damage is that he walks with a slight limp. I asked him one time what happened to the guy that did that to him.

I don’t know, he told me in a voice that still sends shivers down my backbone every time I think of it. His whole family disappeared.

Riff Three

It’s dark now and I’m standing on the corner of 10th Avenue and West 46th Street. Oh shit! I realize I still have the pack in my hand! I slip it swiftly into my back pocket. Hope nobody saw that.

I glance down at the pavement by the north side of West 46th. Damn. Was there a parade or something around here recently? What’s all this confetti strewn around the edges of the slimy black curbsides? Bend. Squint. Wait a minute! That’s not confetti! What we have here is an amazing accumulation of tiny multicolored plastic stoppers…the kind they use as tops for crack vials! And there is a small mountain of them. Blue ones. Red ones. Yellow ones. Green ones. Gold ones. Purple ones. Orange ones. Black ones. White ones. Gray ones. Turquoise ones. If you look closely you can see a bunch of empty miniature clear containers mixed in with them. They’re harder to make out against the dark wet concrete. There’s a good number of different colored 3/4 inch square plastic bags as well. A veritable rainbow of dissolution. Man. This crack thing is catching on in a big way. Out of control. It’s a vile situation out here. A vial situation! Good thing I haven’t gotten into THAT!

There is spring in my step as I stride back up the block to my place. I glance to my left as I pass a long dark garbage can corridor between two decrepit buildings. Small flashes of light from behind the dumpster illuminate the silhouettes of two glass-pipe-smoking figures, sitting on the pavement, their backs against the bricks. Propane flames emitting from their one dollar lighters. Sad to see. Losers in the game of life. Well, as my grandma used to say, there but for the grace of God go I…

I accelerate my gait, and the rhythm of my walking is somehow inspiring my creativity at the moment. A little tune pops into my head which I begin to sing under my breath as I approach my doorway. It’s clearly a traditional blues shuffle, but imbued, I would venture to say, with a modicum of modern sensibility:

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Crack Vial Blues

Well, I’m goin’ to the corner

Gonna get me a vial of crack

Crack, crack. Crack, crack

Well, I’m goin’ to the corner

Gonna get me a vial of crack

Crack, crack. Crack, crack

When I get down to the corner

I might not never get back

Crack, crack. Crack, crack

(Stop Time)

Went in the back

Did a hit of crack

Everything went black

Thought I had a heart attack

But I’m goin’ to the corner

Gonna get me a vial of crack

Crack, crack. Crack, crack

When I get down to the corner

I might not never get back

Doo, doot doot doodle ee deet!

© 1994 all rights reserved

Riff Four

Slam. Click. Ahhhh…a sigh of relief. Back safe in my apartment. You see? I still got it! My songwriting chops are still intact. Despite the somewhat sorry condition of my situation. I mean, it’s not Swanee. Or the latest number by Hootie and the Blowfish. Or Madonna. But it’s got a little something to it there. And hell, I just wrote it in the last two minutes! You know there’s plenty more where that came from. I’ve written a lot of great stuff.

I sit down at the table. The Mets game is on the TV. Sixth inning. One to one. How appropriate, I think. I pull the bag out of my pocket, empty a good sized white chunk onto the big round mirror and crush it down with a business card. I grab the razor blade. Chopchopchopchopchopchopchopchopchop. And then the straw. SNIFF! SNIFF! Aaahhh. That’s better.

So – you might well ask – who is it exactly that is providing the narrative here? Well, this stuff does have the tendency to make one want to talk about oneself. Endlessly, in most cases. In fact, the most common sentence used at gatherings of cocaine users is Let me finish! Let me finish!

But – since we are the only ones here – kindly allow me to introduce myself. I am…Barry Finnerty. Yeah, that’s right. Your eyes are not deceiving you. Internationally known jazz guitar player Barry Finnerty, at your service. Thank you very much.

I grew up in San Francisco. Started playing piano and reading music when I was 5, then took up the guitar at 13. By the time I was 14 I was playing my first professional gigs. Tunes by the Beatles, Animals, Kinks, Yardbirds, Rolling Stones. I got my first electric guitar, a Fender Jaguar, for my 14th birthday, December 3rd, 1965, in Hong Kong, where my mom, an English teacher, was working on a one year Fulbright grant. And the rock band I joined there shortly thereafter, The New Breed, opened the show for Herman’s Hermits at a huge arena filled with screaming Chinese chicks!

Playing music came pretty easily to me. It was fun! And I was like, "Wow! I can get paid for this!?" Plus, I quickly discovered, it was a great way to meet girls. Who might not have otherwise been interested in a rather shy, insecure, highly intelligent but socially inept individual such as myself. I decided to stick with it for a while. Back in San Francisco – which had actually become the music capital of the world at that time, at least for rock and roll – I practiced my guitar for just about every free minute I had that wasn’t occupied with going to high school or tripping on the new psychedelic music scene. Not to mention a few other things of a psychedelic nature.

I played – and sang – in several bands, one of which, Beefy Red, got quite popular and played the Fillmore, Avalon Ballroom, and other major venues around the Bay Area. And I started getting into…dare I say it? Jazz. I don’t know. Somehow it seemed like a good idea at the time. If you wanted to be the absolute best musician you could possibly be – and I did – jazz was the final frontier. I worked very hard at it. Taking lessons. Going to jam sessions. Practicing 8 hours a day sometimes. By the time I was 18 I knew I was one of the best young guitar players around. I still had a lot to learn, of course, so I went to the Berklee School of Music in Boston for a semester in early 1971, shortly after my 19th birthday. And that confirmed it. Only a couple of the guitarists on the faculty were better players than me! I took a few lessons with one of them, Mick Goodrick, a fine player who had worked with Gary Burton. He asked me what I wanted to learn, and – I remember this very distinctly – I told him, "I just want to…find those notes!" The ones I was hearing in my head. I could hear them so clearly sometimes. But there were too many of them. I couldn’t identify them. Pinpoint them. Or…play them. I didn’t know exactly what they were.

After a couple of weekend trips to the Big Apple and hearing some true heavyweights such as Joe Henderson, Charles Mingus, and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis big band at the Village Vanguard, I did know one thing. I was not ready to be a big time professional jazz player just yet. I needed some more seasoning…and practicing! So I went back to San Francisco for a couple more years.

Riff Five

Chopchopchopchop. SNIFF! Chopchopchop. Sniff. OK. You still with me? Awright. Where was I? Oh yeah. Talking about me . What else? So, to continue the story…

I moved to New York in April 1973, at the age of 21, and had some very good luck early on. Barely three months later, in July of that year, I was on my first tour of Europe with the Chico Hamilton Quintet, and performing at the Montreux Jazz Festival on the same bill with Miles Davis! Not too bad, right? The kid had talent and he was on his way!

In 1974 I toured the U.S. with Airto Moreira and Flora Purim, the Brazilian husband and wife duo who had been in Chick Corea’s Return To Forever band. In 1975 I worked with the world’s greatest jazz flutist Hubert Laws and also with star saxophonist Joe Farrell’s group. In ‘76 I got into the big time Latin music scene with the legendary congero (conga drummer) Ray Barretto, who recorded my tune Salsa Con Fusion on his album that the very popular jazz/funk artists The Crusaders were called in to produce for Atlantic. They (the Crusaders) then called me to come out to L.A. and play on Joe Sample’s first solo album Rainbow Seeker and my guitar solo on Fly With Wings Of Love on that record got a LOT of airplay.

In 1977 I moved up to one of my best gigs ever. The Brecker Brothers band. Randy and Michael, on trumpet and tenor sax, were (and still are) two of the greatest horn players on the planet, and, due to their unique ability to come up with very slick horn arrangements on the spot, were among the most in-demand session players in New York. We toured for a month and recorded the live album Heavy Metal Bebop, which became a legendary musicians record, and is considered one of the top horn-featured albums in history. Also around that time, they opened up their club, on (and called) Seventh Avenue South, a couple blocks south of Bleecker Street. Which would become my second home – mine and just about every other jazz and studio musician in town – the place to hang out, drink, go to the bathroom together (you know what I’m talkin’ about)…and of course, play!

In 1978…what the hell did I do in 1978? It’s all somewhat of a blur now. I mean, it’s like 16 years ago already. I was living on 81st Street and Columbus then. A beautiful one bedroom with a view of the park with the Planetarium and the Museum of Natural History. For $400 a month I might add. And I’m pretty sure that was the year I met Miles Davis. Or it might have been some months before, in late ‘77. He was actually my neighbor for a while. From late ’74 through ‘76 I lived on West 76th Street. Between Broadway and West End. His house was on 77th between West End and Riverside. But I never saw him at the local supermarket or anything. Not much chance of that. I met him through Julie Coryell, the wife of the famous guitar player Larry. She had taken a liking to me and brought me over to Miles’ house one evening and introduced me to him as the young guitar genius about town.

Miles was going through kind of a bad period at that time. He had not played any gigs in a couple of years. He had broken both of his legs in a car accident, he was in constant pain, and was taking a lot of drugs, both the legal and illegal varieties. One time I went over there and he was wearing just a bathrobe and slippers, sitting on the sofa and holding a gun somewhat menacingly on his lap. He had one of those Advent wide-screen projection TVs – it was state of the art at the time – and had gotten pissed off at its lousy picture quality and shot a few holes in it. I don’t think I hung out there too long on that occasion.

A few weeks – or months, I don’t know – after that, I got a call from Julie. She was at her (and Larry’s) house in Connecticut. But Larry was out on the road somewhere, and she had invited Miles to come up there to recuperate for a few days. Barry, she said. Now’s your chance. Miles is here, he’s feeling better, but he needs his Percodan. Go to the pharmacy at 78th and Broadway, get his prescription, put your guitar in the car, and come on up!

How could I say no to that? I went to the drugstore, got the pills, loaded my equipment into my funky little Volkswagen bug, and headed up the turnpike to Connecticut. I had my Guitorganizer at that time, the same axe I had played on the Heavy Metal Bebop tour. It was a Les Paul Black Beauty reissue that you could play as a normal electric guitar, but also had frets that were wired to make a Hammond organ sound when you touched the string to the fret – without picking it! It was put together by the guy down in Texas that invented the Guitorgan. And I had also had him interface it with a monophonic Arp Odyssey synthesizer. High tech 70’s style, baby! Three separate sounds out of one instrument! Miles would have to dig this!

We hung out up there for a couple of days. Miles had a girl with him, I can’t remember her name. Honestly I was in awe just to be in his presence. But it was evident that he was thinking about playing again after such a long layoff. He had his horn there and took it out a few times and played some notes. Gently. Tentatively. Long tones. A few short riffs. The sound that legends are made of.

That was when I got my first taste of the Miles sense of humor. He was a pretty funny guy. One night after dinner we were sitting at the table and he said to Julie, Get me a cigarette! Julie was a bit indignant. Miles, she said. Would it hurt you so much to just say ‘please’? I mean, when you order me around like that it’s just so disrespectful and goes against all my feminist instincts.

Awright, awright, Miles grudgingly complied, in that trademark hoarse soulful whisper of his. "PLEASE get me a cigarette…. BITCH!"

Riff Six

It was the last day that we were going to spend up in Connecticut. Miles’ girl had split, and he was planning to go back to town that evening. I finally set up my gear in the living room and started playing around with it. The Arp Odyssey synth had a feature called sample and hold. You could play one note and different overtones and frequencies of that note would repeat in a rhythmic pattern until you hit a different note. Then it would do the same thing in the other key. But it was a random sampling of the frequencies, so the effect would be a little different every time. And the eq filter sweep was working on it as well, so the notes would go from bass-y to treble-y and back again. In no particular order. It sounded kind of like the intro to the Who’s song Who Are You?, but funkier.

Miles came in. Damn, Barry, he whispered. What is that shit?

My new set-up, I said. Pretty cool, huh? Check it out. I hit a low E on the Arp.

Bom​PimBom​PimBomBomBom​PINGBomPimBomBomBom​BIP​BomPimBomBom​PING​BomBombipbipBip​BipBIPBIPBIP…

I picked up my guitar and started playing a few bits along with the electronic groove that was going on. Simple, funky stuff. A couple of Jimi Hendrix 7#9 chords. An E minor 11th, 3rd on top, with some chromatic 4ths moving under it. Then, since naturally I did want to try to impress him – he had never heard me play before – I started throwing in a few hot licks. My 26 year old self, seeking praise from the master, no doubt.

Miles definitely seemed intrigued. But then he said something to me that I have never forgotten.

Barry, he told me emphatically. "Don’t finish anything!"

What? I was confused. What do you mean?

"Don’t – finish – anything!" he repeated.

Now, I really didn’t understand what he