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Tuesday, July 09, 2002 For good, clean fun, go to http://www1.jawink.ne.jp/koji-y/java/jhanabie.htm and start clicking on the black box. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ This morning: I found myself laying on a massage table, the massage person had classical music playing -- Albinoni's Adagio in G minor. Which got me thinking about a name from my past: Russ Kassoff. He was part of my musical life in high school (music, along with art, being the most dominant part of those years for me). An outrageously talented guy, multi-instrumental, with perfect pitch. I have a memory of him presiding over a rehearsal of Handel's Messiah, sitting at a battered upright piano hammering out an mighty respectable accompaniment to the choir, especially respectable considering he'd never looked at the score prior to that. He'd managed to worm his way into being the choir's student conductor (an extremely good choir with a national reputation), and was in charge of that rehearsal. Making him -- a gangling, slightly hawk-nosed 17 or 18-year-old -- the sole figure of authority over an 80+ person ensemble on this occasion, plowing through pages and pages of music, laughing a fair amount of the time because he was genuinely flying by the seat of his pants. And because he was hugely talented and knew it, and there it was, on sloppy, joyful, undeniable display for the rest of us. In March of my last year in high school, I drove up to the State University of New York at Binghamton to audition for the vocal department. Russ decided to try out for the music-instrumental department, we took off in my family's aqua-colored VW Bug, tooling in through N.Y.C., up the Thruway to Route 17, up through the Catskills, past Liberty, Monticello, Callicoon and Hortonville to Broome County and Binghamton. A lovely sunny day, mild for that time of the year. We entertained ourselves all the way up, meaning loud, excessive carrying-on. Russ at that time was teaching himself trumpet and had brought one along, playing it out the window whenever the impulse hit. Ten or twenty miles outside Binghamton, traffic backed up -- we found ourselves sitting in the middle of a captive audience, Russ rolled down his window and let go with some goofy Tijuana-Brass-style noodling, both of us hooting with laughter. At the University, I think we stayed in a friend's suite in Hinman College, though I have to confess I can't remember where we actually wound up sleeping. No humongo surprise, that lapse of memory, considering I spent the evening getting wildly stoned, running around the dorm laughing hysterically. The next morning, my vocal audition went underwhelmingly, but I'd had so much fun overall that I decided this was the school for me. I applied, they said sure, the State gave me a full Regents scholarship. And that was that. I never saw Russ again after graduation, though I heard occasional rumors about him working at hotels up in the Catskills, playing or directing music, less than ecstatic about it all. Contact with my old high school crowd dwindled, finally ceased altogether, and with that any news of Russ. Until today, when I went online and found out Russ has been busy working with people like Sinatra, Liza Minelli, Tony Bennett. Way to go, Russ! The note Russ scrawled in my 12th grade yearbook: "It's been a great year for the both of us even Rufus. Remember marching band and Jake and Binghamton and even Misterogers. Then there was donkey with boiled moth under glass. Keep up the Art-Janes and say when to pay cards. Good luck and best wishes. Russ Horns" rws 4:04 PM [+] |