Sonny Rollins

Witnessing a living legend can be a dicey proposition. Chuck Berry at 70 was an abomination, one of those Wish I Hadn't moments that destroyed whatever respect I once had for the cat. James Brown in his 60s made me wince and wonder about his knee pads.

So Sonny Rollins, the great tenor saxophonist whom I'd never seen, was a calculated risk. At 79, I should just be thankful to have witnessed him in the flesh. As he walked on the stage of the Bass Concert Hall on Sunday night with an uneasy, limping gait, the impression was underscore: after more than fifty years of jazz innovation, I was fortunate to experience a live Rollins performance before he exits Stage Left from this good earth.

But once his microphone was fixed five minutes into the first tune, age and time vanished, and performance he led his five piece group was just that: a performance of a great player essaying lush ballads, familiar ballads and even flashes of hard bop, no perspective required. His tone, his command, his presence, the players around him - everything was what great music should be. His brass counterpoint, trombonist Clifton Anderson (his nephew) provided the perfect counterpoint to Sonny and riffed improvisations as satisfying as the front man's. Guitarist Bobby Broom, who played his first gig with Sonny when he was just sixteen – at Town Hall, no less and also served briefly as Miles Davis’s guitarist, as the only guitarist to work in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, and had a long stint with Dr. John (a tip of the Hatlo Hat to Matt Farmer), took his improvised leads on his Gibson to places where the bus doesn't run before bringing it all back to the basic groove. Rollins' showed his obvious delight, pushing him and urging him on, mouthing his approval whenever Brown's breaks moved him. The rhythm section of Bob Cranshaw's cool and understated bass, drummer Kobie Watson's expressive fills, and Victor See Yuan's smooth conga and percussive fills provided a solid foundation for all the riffs that flew from the players.

Rollins' improvisation was a joy to hear and see, working his tenor hard, extending a note while letting his right hand drop to his side, walking out to the plank where only Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders went with confidence, then downshifting to full and mellow clusters of notes that shimmered in their luxuriance on "They Say It's Wonderful" back to back with "My One and Only Love," both from the Johnny Hartman-John Coltrane studio collaborations in 1962-3.

Over the course of an hour and a half, the ensemble grooved and wailed steadily on a handful of tunes, earning a string of standing ovations at the completion of each. The only pause in the articulated groove was towards the end when Sonny limped to the microphone to growl out "AWWWW-STIN" in appreciation of the crowd, noting twice that the last time he'd passed through town was playing the Armadillo, which he pronounced with the kind of conviction you could tell he had a soft spot in his heart for place. The band closed with "Don't Stop The Carnival" a Rollins standard with it signature Second Line backbeat. While it was clear Rollins don't do no encores (at this stage of his career, encores are redundant and standing up for close to two hours on those old legs of his is no cakewalk), the audience was not going to let him go, so he gathered the group to walk out on stage one more time and wave, then walk off. The cheering didn't stop, so the group reluctantly came out for one more, with Sonny playing AND singing lead on a blues shuffle "It's a Lowdown Dirty Shame." The band played, departed, came out for one more wave at the crowd, and everybody went home tired and happy, the cats who made it all happen included.

TWO POSTSCRIPTS

The acoustics at the redone Bass were pretty sweet once the sax mic glitch was resolved.

And Hank Alrich of the Armadillo World Headquarters recalled the last time Sonny played Austin for me today, via email:

"The airplane had hit a huge air bump and he'd smacked his upper lip against solid structure and split it open. He played a long and amazing set with blood running down his sax, took a break and did another one. What a fucking hero.

"How the hell can Austin not bring back Sonny for all those goddamn years? That is beyond pathetic. Live music capitol, my ass."

Nine Pin Bowling

from the May issue of Texas Coop Power (click on the headline for the whole PDF file)






STILL STANDING AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

BY JOE NICK PATOSKI
PHOTOS BY WYATT McSPADDEN

IT’S SATURDAY AFTERNOON AT THE Fischer Bowling Club, a humble building
beneath shady oaks on a two-lane county road in the Hill Country with a
red-wood storefront exterior made distinctive by eight white bowling pins
arranged in a circle on the wall around a red pin in the middle.

Inside, it feels like a long time ago. Four teams of bowlers are keeping the
pin boys at the end of the alley under the Willkommen zum Fischer sign busy, setting up a new diamond-shaped rack of pins whenever all the old rack of pins are all knocked down, or the red pin in the middle, also known as the kingpin, is the only one left standing.
The bowlers sit in the rooster benches—as the three rows of bleachers are called—waiting their turn to roll, exchanging pleasantries and small talk, while the team captain records the team scores on the chalkboard by the side of the lanes and calls up the next team bowler. After rolling balls and knocking down pins for a while, on cue, everyone takes a break, with half of the bowlers going outside to stretch and the other half heading to the bar, popping open $1.50 beers and 50-cent sodas, keeping tabs on the honor system, firing up the jukebox or flipping through the pages of the bowling club scrapbook on the counter while three kids scamper beneath them. After a few minutes’ respite, a petite, gray-haired lady blows a whistle, and
everyone goes back to bowling.

Step inside any of the 19 ninepin bowling clubs clustered around Comal,Bexar and Guadalupe counties, and step into Texas as it used to be. Ninepin bowling is one of the last Old World traditions that Germans brought with them when they settled a broad, fertile swath of Central and South-Central Texas in the mid-to-late 18th century. Ninepins were the most popular form of bowling in the early United States, but since the 1930s, when the game was outlawed in several states for its associations with gambling and other shady activities, Texas has been the only place
where ninepins remains popular.Tenpin bowling replaced ninepin, and its popularity was sealed in the 1950s when pinsetters were automated.

But ninepin, along with the kids who “set ’em up,” never lost favor in Texas.
Today, the tri-county ninepin clubs are the last place in America where bowling
is done like this. Ninepin bowling has a direct connection to a time when social clubs functioned as community centers for German immigrant farmers and others
working the fields. It was often the only social option outside the church.
Annual memberships under $25, a night of bowling for about $6 and beers under $2 are reminders of how fun used to be a whole lot cheaper and simpler. All one needs to do is commit to bowl one or two nights a week and (for the better bowlers) be willing to travel to “roll-offs” against other clubs.

The functional exteriors of the buildings,ranging from cinder block to limestone to modern metal siding; their lowfrills,full-service interiors with tables, chairs, ballrooms, bar and jukebox; and their locations at the edge of cultivated farmland, at crossroads or in oak-canopied oases, are testament to the industriousness and values of the clubs’ founders. The current members, who revel in the old ways despite encroaching cities and suburbs, are testament to the staying power of ninepins.

The specter of the Target sign hovering above the horizon marking yet another power-center mall going up within eyeshot of the Freiheit Bowling Club in New Braunfels does not diminish what the club and the corrugated tin-sided Freiheit Country Store next door symbolize. In the here and now,ninepin bowling clubs not only still
function as they were intended to when they were established more than a century
ago, they’re cool. You don’t have to bowl or even go inside to appreciate nuances such as the sign out front of Solms Bowling Club, just south of New Braunfels and
just west of Interstate 35, that spells out “Solms Bowling Club 100 Years” in
horseshoes. For all the intrusions thatso-called progress brings, most bowling
clubs have enough land for barbecue pits, shaded pavilions and horseshoes
on the side or around back to get away from it all.





One such example is the eight-lane Mission Valley Bowling Club west of
New Braunfels at the crossroads of State Highway 46 and FM 1863. The newbie
of ninepin clubs, established in 1943, it remains a surviving slice of countryside
in a rapidly developing area. Similarly, it may take some rooting around to find
the Bulverde Community Center Bowling Club behind the Bulverde Community
Center and next to a school on Ammann Road. Even the Spring Branch Bowling Club on busy U.S. Highway 281 conveys that feeling of refuge. Go around back where the pit and pavilion await under a thicket of oaks, and it still feels like country.

The presence of a ninepin bowling club means a drinking establishment or dance hall is in close proximity, often as not. The Bexar and Germania bowling clubs outside Loop 1604 east of San Antonio are within walking distance of the Double Ringer Lounge (known locally as “Teddy’s”) at the crossroads of Zuehl as well as a public shooting range. The Barbarossa, Bracken and Freiheit bowling clubs are all adjacent
to classic beer joints. The 120-year-old Freiheit country store and dance hall has a rep for its griddle-cooked hamburgers, shuffleboard, jukebox and a sign out front that says, “Gun Owners Parking Only, Violators Will Be Shot.” The Fischer Bowling Club, operated by the Agricultural Society of Fischer, which dates back to the 1870s, is adjacent to a 100-year-old dance hall also operated by the society that is available for private functions. The six-lane Blanco Bowling Club is most famous for the Blanco Bowling Club Café in front of the alleys, world-renowned for its
truckstop enchiladas and lemon and chocolate meringue pies.

People are perhaps the most crucial ingredient of all that makes ninepin what it is. There’s a lilt in the accents of many bowlers who act like they’ve known each other since they were kids. This may well be the case, since some bowlers go back three or four generations. Listen close, and what you thought was pronounced “bear” for
Bexar is referred to as “becks-are” by ninepin bowlers.

Folks at one club seem to know folks at other clubs, as was the case with Kendra, who ran the Freiheit Country Store next to the Freiheit Bowling Club, who said to say hi to Alvin Seiler at the Barbarossa Trough next to the Barbarossa Bowling Club; and with Sharon Coker, the manager at the Laubach Bowling Club, who showed off the bowling pin-themed curtains she redid and gave a brief history of the club founded by the San Geronimo Harmonie as Dean Martin crooned “That’s Amore” on the jukebox. She reckoned that the bowlers in Marion were tougher competitors to go up against in a roll-off than the bowlers over at the Bexar, Germania and Cibolo bowling clubs.

As long as there are good people like Coker, the balls roll, and the pins are reset manually (don’t forget to tip your pinsetter), ninepin remains the only way to bowl in at least one part of Texas that’s like nowhere else in the world.


















THE CLUBS
Barbarossa Bowling Club, 4007 FM 758
(between Zorn and New Braunfels), New Braunfels,
(830) 625–2034
Bexar Bowling Alley & Social Hall, 15681 Bexar
Bowling Club Road, Marion (1.5 miles south of
Interstate 10 off Trainer Hale Road, east of San
Antonio), (830) 420-2512
Blanco Bowling Club, 310 Fourth St., Blanco,
(830) 833-4416
Bracken Bowling Club, 18397 Bracken Drive
(off FM 2252, north of Evans Road), Bracken,
(210) 651-6941
Bulverde Community Center Bowling Club,
1747 E. Ammann Road (west of Bulverde Road and
FM 1863), Bulverde, (830) 438-3065 www.bul
verdebowlingclub.com
Cibolo Bowling Club, 601 N. Main St. (north of
FM 78), Cibolo, (210) 658-2248
Fischer Bowling Club, Fischer Store Road (off
Ranch Road 32), Fischer, (830) 935-4800
Freiheit Bowling Club, 2145 FM 1101 (at FM 483,
1 mile east of Interstate 35), New Braunfels, (830)
625-0372
Germania Bowling Club, 1826 Zuehl Road,
Zuehl (near Bowling Club Road, 1.5 miles south of
Interstate 10 off Trainer Hale Road, east of San
Antonio), (830) 420-2675
Highland Social Club, 2929 S. W.W. White Road,
San Antonio, (210) 333-4567
Laubach Bowling Club, 1986 Laubach Road,
(1.5 miles east of State Highway 123), Seguin,
(830) 379-9033
Marion Bowling Club, 111 W. Krueger (north of
the railroad tracks by the Catholic church),
Marion, (830) 420-2205
Martinez Social Club, 7791 Saint Hedwig Road
(at FM 1516), San Antonio, (210) 661-2422
Mission Valley Bowling Club, 2311 W. State
Highway 46, New Braunfels, (830) 629–0028
Rogers Ranch Bowling Club, 1651 Rogers
Ranch Road (County Road 223 off FM 2001, 1.5
miles east of State Highway 21 between Lockhart
and Niederwald), Lockhart, (512) 398-2809
Solms Bowling Club, 175 N. Solms Road (1 mile
west of Interstate 35), New Braunfels, (830) 608–
9691
Spring Branch Bowling Club, 12830 U.S.
Highway 281 (less than a mile south of FM 306),
Spring Branch, (830) 885-4611
Turner Bowling Club, 120 Ninth St., San Antonio,
(210) 227-4412, www.turnerclub.org
Zorn Bowling Club, 12000 State Highway 1

The Life and Times of Vince Bell, Texas Songwriter

Vince Bell has been a stalwart of the Texas singer-songwriter scene since he emerged in Houston in the early 1980s. He was a rising star in Houston and in Austin until he was almost killed in a car wreck in 1983. A severe head injury effectively wiped out his career. For awhile. His determined rehabilitation and subsequent comeback have culminated in a trifecta this year: an album, a one-man play, and a wonderful book titled One Man's Music, that tells the tale. Head injuries are difficult to diagnose and even more difficult to overcome, which Vince relates well in his telling. We see progress from the outside; he sees it from the inside looking out. Either way, his recovery alone makes for an inspiring story. But it's the details along the way that make this such a good read, capturing the vibe of the Old Quarter and Anderson Fair in Houston through anecdotes such as his wild night opening for Townes Van Zandt and recalling his last recording session before his car wreck in which Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Johnson and Chris Holzhaus added their guitars. Tim Leatherwood, Mandy Mercier, Kathleen Hudson and a cast of great pickers and poets all make cameos.

This is a fine book about Texas music, the singer-songwriter tradition, and a personal journey that ends triumphant in the here and now. I'm proud to know Vince as both a friend and a fellow traveler.

Click on the headline to go to his website, www.vincebell.com and catch up on all his exciting exploits.