Music related
My first professional (money-earning) gig was in downtown Philadelphia when I was barely a teenager. I don’t know if I was more excited about playing my saxophone in a dance band or being paid. After the four-hour dance was over, the contractor handed me $12. When I asked him “is that it”, he said “yes, $12 and $20 dollars worth of experience.” What I also gained from that experience was to ask during future calls: what (kind of job), when (date and time period), where (the location) and how (much did it pay). Lesson learned. The experience was worth it.
Painter’s Mill Music Fair
Sitting in the orchestra pit I couldn’t help but observe the feet and shoes that appeared beneath the curtain hanging from the protective bar. Often shoes would come off and I would see toes tapping while others wiggled. At times ankles were crossed or feet were splayed every which way; an amazing study in “foot-ology.” Too bad smart phones weren’t available at the time.
During one of the many performances I played there, actors were galloping around the stage during a dance scene when one of them threw a fake chicken towards another who missed the catch and the bird fell into the orchestra pit. Emil Ruzenko, (trumpet) caught it and, without missing a beat, threw it up in the direction of the stage where another cast member seized it. If it had been planned, it wouldn’t have worked so well.
After each show, as the cast was taking it’s bows, the orchestra members would be packing their instruments in preparation for leaving the pit as soon as the conductor took his curtain call. I always tried to be one of the first ones out in order to get ahead of the crowd and avoid ending-up in a long line of cars trying to exit the parking lot. On one occasion, I parked on the driver’s side of a bus thinking it would be easy to remember the location. After the curtain calls ended, I grabbed my instrument case, rushed out and headed towards the bus and my car only to see, as I passed the rear end of the bus, that the space was empty and the car was gone, or so I thought. After getting over the initial panic I spotted another bus further away and, to my delight, found my car and soon sped away ahead of the crowd.
Swing and Sway with Sammy Kaye
After graduating from IU SofM in 1959 with a bacehlors degree, I headed to New York to study clarinet with Bernie Portnoy. Between lessons, I would practice and also spend time visiting with musicians at the Roxy theatre between shows. On Tuesday afternoons, hundreds of musicians would gather at the Roseland Ballroom Dance Hall to meet contractors looking for gigs. On one occasion I landed a a job with the Sammy Kaye orchestra. It was a run-out to Altoona, PA. It took hours to get there by bus and it was six o’clock in the morning when the I arrived back at aunt Martha and uncle Nat’s apartment where I was staying. Another gig took us to Cambridge, MA for a job at Harvard University. It was at the end of the week when I had purchased a new set of clarinets from Carl Fisher Co. in NYC.. After we arrive at Harvard and dropped our gear off at the auditorium, I joined others for lunch and then went back to the auditorium to practiced on my new clarinets. At the time, I thought the hall was empty.
At show time, I dressed in black trousers, a white shirt and black bow tie and a blazer provided by management. When the show started Sammy was at the microphone introducing the pieces. Also standing in front was the lead female singer. A couple of band members also had opportunities to go up front and sing. The star of the show, of course, was Sammy Kaye. Not only did he engage the audience vocally, he often would play the bridge of a tune on his clarinet. During one such moment a trumpet player poked me in my back and said “what do you think of his clarinet playing Fred? I gave a short laugh just as Sammy finished the bridge and turned around to continue “conducting” the band as the vocalist finished the song. After the show was over, the manager came up to me backstage and said “turn in your jacket.” I wasn’t sure what he meant but quickly learned that Sammy had fired me for “insubordination.” The trumpet player told me that Sammy had been in the back of the hall with his girl friend in the afternoon while I had been practicing. On the bus ride back to the City, I consoled myself with the fact that there would be no more long bus rides. I also learned to control my emotions especially when the boss was nearby. Perhaps a lesson well learned.
Air Force related
One of the perks of being a drum major when I was stationed at Sewart AFB in Tennessee were offers to join crews on military training flights. This came about because of briefings I held prior to base parades with officers, the base commander and the many squadron commanders . The purpose of these meetings was to review the parade details to insure that everyone understood their responsibilities and not screw up. Although I only held the rank of corporal, I, of course, led the parade. And, as the base commander once admonished his officers, “listen up and give corporal Schock the respect he deserves.” For the briefing and during the parade I was in in the lead. That was much better than marching in the Band. From time to time I would receive calls from pilots asking if I’d like to join them for a weekend for a flight; they were simply logging hours in order to receive flight pay. On one such occasion, I received an offer to join the crew on a flight to Mitchell AFB on Long Island. I said that I would love but too bad you’re not flying closer; I wanted to visit my girl friend in Philadelphia for the weekend. The pilot then said “what if we got you into DC?” I said that would be great; the train ride from DC to Philly was certainly much shorter than from Long Island to DC. So I joined the flight on a C-119 flying box car knowing that we would be landing at Andrews AFB, a Maryland suburb of DC. What I didn’t know were the circumstances of that landing. On the flight heading north I was free to roam and spent most of the time on the flight deck. When we were close to Maryland, the flight engineer came forward and took something out of the instrument panel. I later found out that he had replaced a fuse; a good one with a bad. By doing so, the crew could then declare an emergency and request landing at Andrews. Because communication with the tower had been rendered impossible because of faulty fuse, the pilot tipped his wings from side to side as we approached the air field signaling an emergency-landing request to the tower. When the response was a light signal from the tower, we were cleared to land. Shortly thereafter the ground crew replaced the fuse and the flight took off for Long Island and I hustled my way to the train station for the trip to Philly. Early Monday morning my parents drove me to Mitchell AFB for the mid-day return flight to Tennessee. All in all quite an adventuresome weekend.