Billy Ruane

On the night it became known, my phone went nuts at around 9pm. "The Phoenix is reporting that Billy Ruane died...." The news moved through the system very fast. 

And I flashed to one of our last face to face moments. He stopped by the gallery to give everyone food and make arrangements to get a disc of the night's concert with Junko Simons. My mission was to get it to him. We talked about getting old and he gave me an excited description of his disagreement with his physician about the meaning of blood pressure data and what was more important, with him insisting the opposite of conventional medicine's outlook was true. I had a feeling this would be a problem, in the back of my mind, but also thought, maybe he's right. 

He wasn't and now he's gone. Billy loved his salt and his fatty stuff and had gained more weight than his short frame really wanted to handle. And he had three flights of stairs to traverse. I oughta know, I lived there myself. He also loved caffeine. Not coffee, no, his Eucharist was Vivarin and he was despondent when it was discontinued as No Doz would not do. 

One of my regular chores as his sidekick was to do vivarin runs to 7/11. I imagine whatever substitute he found..,red bull?? counter nostrums?, was the detonator in the ticking bomb of his poor old heart. I assumed he was sturdier.

He wasn't and now he's gone.

Swing Circa 1857, Jazz Robespierres and Boston’s Undiscovered Wax

a very nice posting from my pal Andrew Sammutt's jazz blog Clefpalette, highlighting my jazz record memoir for the Battersea Review, linked within.

http://clefpalette.wordpress.com/2013/06/23/swing-circa-1857-jazz-robespierres-and-the-search-for-lost-sounds/

Swing Circa 1857, Jazz Robespierres and Boston’s Undiscovered Wax

Posted on June 23, 2013 by Andrew J. Sammut

I got to know Rob Chalfen through his work directing Outpost 186, an intimate space for progressive jazz in the Boston metro area, and through conversations about early jazz where his knowledge and insights never degenerate into dry encylopedism. It should also be mentioned that the recordings of WC Handy and World War I Puerto Rican municipal bands never sounded better than coming out of his turntable and speakers.

The impresario, record collector and audiophile shared some of his memories and a few war stories from a fifty-year love affair with jazz online at The Battersea Review. From childhood discovery to the tireless stone turning, with side trips through the civil rights movement and the elitist phase we all go through, Chalfen wittily and warmly describes how music and life don’t just intersect but grow from one another. Enjoy.