Putting some words to this experience

10/13/08
It’s 2:30 am and I can’t sleep. The full moon is approaching in a day. Yesterday was my little brother’s birthday. He’ll be 34 this year. My good friend and bandmate Brian Casey died this month 9/8/08 at the ripe old age of 36! Maybe I used to think that was old when I was 21 but now I think that’s the same age as my baby brother and it’s too young to retire! This has been really hard for me as well as the whole music community b/c he was such a positive spirit and prolific song writer.
We always had a great connection while playing together in Mary Adam 12 for so many years. It was a very childlike and fun relationship at the time and we made up goofy names or sayings for things that we found very funny. On stage it was always joy and musical surprises that kept the shows fun and full of that party and celebratory atmosphere. He also really felt the music in his soul so there was a wonderful combination of serious musicianship and joyful humor coming through at the same time. What an awesome time we had!
Steve Perakis told me about Brian’s death on the steps of the Ross Museum in Delaware. I had gone to see the exhibit since I knew he or Tammy would be working. He had just found out the night before from Brian’s parents. As soon as he told me I just had to sit down and cry because it was such an unbelievable feeling to imagine Brian being gone. He was not someone I expected to die so young. He seemed like he would become an eccentric older jazz composer who would be working with groups and artists and would have a crazy beard, wild hair and funky glasses. I can picture him now in my imaginary future as a brilliant professor or director. So far the memories I have popping up in my head include many long and fun van rides with the band, the occasional wonderful foot rub after a show, finding him making out with a girl backstage one night (to his gentlemanly credit she became his steady girlfriend), tears in his eyes and him kneeling on one knee with his head down the last time he performed with MA12 at the end of the set, him singing Sunny Side Of The Street at Staches and throwing in a line about how he’d be rich as Dan Dougan, many horn parts that will always make me think of him, the bright look in his eyes and his big smile any time we’d run into each other just out and about, his great voice where he sometimes stutters while making his point, the time I told him years later that I often thought about the album we recorded but never released b/c of a band fight about the mixing and I wondered if I had just been too young and clueless not to recognize that it was genius and he laughed and said “I was also young and clueless and I can reassure you it wasn’t great!” , and my last memory of him visiting me at Comfest in his soaking wet tshirt after the storm and even after I offered a dry shirt he wanted to wear his shirt b/c of its funny saying about musicians and then later I saw him up on the jazz stage with Honk, Wail and Moan in his soaking tshirt and I thought to myself that you can’t even read the saying and he looked cold! My regret is that I missed his last show with HWM at Dick’s.
On the way to the calling hours I had WCBE on and they played a HWM tune and Sunny Side of the Street. It was a beautiful sunny day and I felt happy to hear that song and think of Brian singing it. His family displayed a lot of great photos and band memorabilia at the funeral home. At the funeral Steve spoke a lot about their work together and Brian’s composing style and how he would bring a chart in for the band with different colored shapes to describe how it should feel or go in that section. He said that the guys all trusted Brian enough to just go “okay, sounds good, I can play blue squiggle mark…”, and they would just go for it.
A week later Brett Burleson turned his gig into a tribute night to Brian at Dick’s Den and I was very moved by all the performers who showed up and played in his honor. Highlights for me included HWM with Tammy P singing “Demon Gravity” and the New Basics New Orleans style tribute including “Oh When The Saints” with Tim Perdue telling a funny story about Brian making clear to everyone that “Saints” is not a happy tune. An emotional moment for me was when our old friend John Conway came up to me and sang (actually, he did his best trombone impression) of Brian’s horn riff from “Holy Roller” an old MA12 song. He said, “That’s all I can say,” and shook his head and looked down. It’s a bittersweet feeling to be aware of how wonderful it is that someone’s music can make them live on but they are now physically gone and there will be no more smiles or words or music coming in the future. It is all retrospective now.
The next weekend Jim and Judy Casey, Brian’s parents, invited his friends to come and take Brian’s music, books, Cds, albums and mementos. I chose some books about Ellington and Mingus, Cds, an old MA12 press kit and lots of cassette tapes. It was a whole box full of stuff. I’d been thinking about a song Brian wrote for MA12 called “Please Don’t Come Back From The Moon” so I hoped to find a recording of it. I still have a cassette player in my car so I put all the tapes in my car and figured I’d listen to them all eventually. I had to drive to Cleveland one day for work so I started with Dick Mackey ‘Because of You’ then put in some MA12 live show that I didn’t remember and cued up was “Please Don’t Come Back From The Moon” ! Then I put in another one and about 2 songs into it on came Brian singing “Sunny Side Of the Street” from our last show at Staches. It was very cosmic since I’d been thinking about both of those songs all week. The sun started to set as I was driving home and Brian’s vocals and funny lines he threw in made me laugh. It was a happy moment. I was grateful for that too because the day before was my weepy Sunday. It just hit me hard that he was gone and I basically cried all day. I sat at the piano for a while and either my mourning or Brian channeled a song to me dedicated to Brian so I have a new song for him. It’s called “Moonlight” in honor of his fascination with the moon and space in general.
The Saturday night before my weepy Sunday I had a dream that Brian came to visit and said goodbye. We were at a music festival and we were in basically what was the green room for the venue and there was some problem with whatever band was playing and I had to deal with it and Brian was just hanging back in the shadows watching. He was supportive in his energy and when I had a moment we walked outside and he said he just stopped by to visit but had to leave so we said good bye and we both knew he was going for good and that he had already passed on. It was very sad watching him walk away in my dream. I think that was the catalyst for weepy Sunday.
The cassette adventure continues every time I drive somewhere. So far I’ve continued on with a Yumbambe ‘New Charts’ tape, New Basics Brass Band ‘Generous Portions’, Rickie Lee Jones ‘Traffic From Paradise’ and Duke Ellington ‘Monologue’ which is way cool by the way.
Well, its 3:13 am and I’m finally getting a little tired but not tired enough to sleep!
The journey will continue…

Brian Casey Scholarship Fund

From Stephanie Stein in California:

Hi Tim,

I don't believe we've met, but a few of us who were friends with Brian over the years and now live in L.A. put together a scholarship fund in his honor. Sara Wookey and myself have helped contact people and set it up. The Pasadena Jazz Institute holds a jazz summer camp for kids every year, and we have started a fund to send a deserving student to the camp next summer. The Brian Casey Scholarship Fund has been established at the following location:

The Pasadena Jazz Institute
260 East Colorado Blvd., #206
Pasadena, CA 91101

www.pasjazz.org

If anyone we haven't contacted out here - or folks back in Ohio - would like to contribute, they can send a donation to the above address, attention to Paul Lines, with Brian's name in the memo.

Thanks so much, and thanks for setting up the blog. It is nice to read so many memories of such a wonderful and talented person.

Thanks Again,
Stephanie Stein
Los Angeles, CA

Happy Birthday, Brian

Every October 4, I would call Brian and sing some version or another of Happy Birthday. So here it goes...

Happy, happy, happy birthday.

Happy, happy, happy birthday.

Happy, happy, happy birthday.

To you, to you, to you.

Ole!

I'm a Lucky Man

For 16+ years I shared a bedroom with Brian. It was more than just a room. It was our place. Two brothers doing what brothers do. Baseball cards, matchbox cars, Casey Kasem and the Sunday Top 40. Setting up a "fort" to barrage our sister with paper airplanes or rubber bands. Jamming Cheap Trick and The Beatles on the turntable. Playing on Sunday mornings until 8:15 so we could move in to the rest of the house. Never making fun of me for having the closet light on. Sleeping closer to the door (because the kidnappers would get him first).

As a kid, nobody could have had a better best friend. Adult too.

I'm sorry I spit in your mouth. (actually I can't believe you thought it would just hang there)

Don't worry Brian, Dad will turn off our radio when he goes to bed.

Mike

From Dick's Den

Here are some photos from the memorial at Dick's Den last Thursday. It was a great night - thanks to everyone who came out to listen and/or play. Click on any photo to go to the Brian Casey set on Flickr, which includes more from that night.

(Sorry, those of you on the right sides of these photos got cut off due to insufficient column width - click on each photo to see the full frame.)

From An Old Friend

Here's a message I received from an old friend of Brian's...

Hi Tim,

I don't think we've met. My name is Elizabeth Lessner, I am local restaurateur and I knew Brian when we were teenagers. I just wanted to share a memory of Brian with you if you would like to add it to your blog. Thanks for making it, it is so hard to read but beautiful.

I met Brian when I was only 15 years old. He was two years older than me and we spent every single day together during the summer of 1989 working on a play at the Columbus Junior Theatre. I have wonderful pictures from that time, I must find them. Most nights, he would borrow his father's car and we would sneak into Dick's Den to hear jazz. He taught me everything about jazz and I loved learning from someone so passionate.

At the end of the summer I moved away and we kept in touch writing letters for a while. Ten years later I moved back to Columbus and it was like he'd become a Columbus celebrity. I loved searching the weeklies for his name and his many bands and musical affiliations. I loved riding the bus past Dick's Den hoping to see his name on the window. It's been years since we've spoken, it occurred to me to reach out to him when a mutual friend was talking about him recently. I'm sorry for what I missed. His wit, kindness and brilliance is what I remember most.

My heart goes out to you and Brian's friends and family during this very difficult time.

Best,

Elizabeth Lessner

Jonathan's Eulogy

Because I knew I would be unable to get through it (writing this intro is hard enough), I asked my husband Jonathan (Brian's brother-in-law) to speak at the funeral. Not intending to discount their relationship at all, I originally wanted to "use" Jonathan as my mouth, because there was so much I personally thought should be said. Jonathan, though, bounced some general thoughts off of me, sat down, and wrote. He read me his "draft" and I didn't think a single word needed to be added or changed. I will be forever grateful for the words he spoke so eloquently:

For Brian.
I can’t make sense out of the senseless. I keep trying and it just doesn’t work. At these times, more often than not, I turn to music. And there’s Brian again.

Brian loved music and loved being a professional musician. He often worked multiple jobs so that he could continue doing what he loved. Imagine that – putting that much time into something just for the privilege of doing what you love so that you can do more of it. I can barely tolerate doing one thing so that I can do something I like, but Brian remained in a different league so he could BE a professional musician. I admire him for that and I don’t know too many people – maybe none – who would do that.

We all have our favorite Casey tunes. “Scientists discover nightlife on Mars” and the other version of the politically corrected title “Aw Heck, Let’s Go to Mars” are both up there. “Don’t you methyl with my ethyl” is mine. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sung that while I pass Chemical Abstracts, Bethel Road (because it rhymes), or a chemistry lab – which can get kind of annoying when you work near a chemistry department.

His music found its way to kings, presidential candidates, barflies, brides, and babies.

I try not to say the phrase “Words can’t express how I feel” because its disrespectful to poets. Brian had the luxury of being both a poet and a musician. He could say things with and without words. He could complete silent films with his thoughts, bringing them alive.

Reading his FaceBook page, he lists a number of bands and releases where you can hear his music. He also says that his music plays in his living room, kitchen, car, and head. Just this morning, we listened to a new composition that used a cell phone set to vibrate, license plates, guitars as percussion instruments, and others instruments that I hadn’t heard of – yet he commanded.

I got a kick out of reading who he lists as his musical influences. Ellington and Mingus, Brian Wilson and Tom Waits. You’ve got to like that. He also lists the architects Corbusier and Xenakis, the numbers pi and phi, and silence. That’s Brian.

You could probably also throw in Mike Myers and Monty Python. He loved a joke. I don’t know how many times he’s seen Austin Powers, but he could quote chapter and verse of those movies and insert them at the oddest times. He never let the formality or appropriateness of a time dictate a punch line, and I really loved him for that.

Brian’s inside jokes -- and he had thousands of them -- gave people a quick connection to him, like you were “in” with him very fast.

Brian was a good musician because he loved being a musician. He was a good uncle because he loved being an uncle. He would write music for his nephews Henry, Sean, and Ryan, and his niece, Emily, often. I think he knew that you guys will grow out of toys, but grow into music. Henry and Emily, Brian loved you very much and loved playing with you too. Be sure to share Brian with Sean and Ryan as they grow up.

He had a unique bond with each of us. Those inside jokes helped. Its part of what makes it so hard to say goodbye. He was so many things because he loved being all of those things to all people.

The world got a little less musical on Monday.
The world got a little less poetic on Monday.
The world got a little less funny on Monday.
Brain, we miss you deeply.

Requiem for Brian

Dear Brian,

I wasn’t going to write anything, as I wasn’t someone who knew you intimately as a friend, roommate, or collaborator, but it occurred to me this week that you must have touched the lives of thousands of people in your lifetime, creating a web of connections, and I’m just one of those strands, but perhaps my remembrances will help fill in a few holes, and trigger a few other memories.

I remember you and Steve and a group of other players playing at Victorian’s Midnight Café, after being inspired by another jazz player’s system of and signals to communicate during a piece. You’d point to tell someone to solo, give another player the finger to tell them to stop soloing, and built whole pieces on the fly via improvisation. During one piece Steve’s phone rang, and I thought he’d ignore it, but he answered it, and passed it to you and that became part of the piece. The keyboardist did a fantastic solo that ended with him playing the keyboard with his nose while making chicken sounds. I could tell that everyone on stage was having a great time playing, and making music.

I remember a gig at the Distillery with Steve and others. halfway through the first set someone threw something at you from the bar. Ever the gentlemen, Steve issued a warning, followed by an offer of a round of drinks for the guys who had just been so rude, but when a bottle flew minutes later and hit an instrument, the gig was over. Such was the life of a giging musician in the campus area.

I remember coming to see the Brian Casey quartet playing in the basement of Donatos on a weeknight. Gina Jacobs was running the till, and I think the two of us got an almost private show. I had been listening to early Chet Baker, and the quartet had the ability to weave counterpoint in the same way Chet did, through a set of original tunes. I imagine there were a lot of almost private gigs like that. It clearly wasn’t about the money.

I remember lots of gigs at Dicks Den with Honk Wail and Moan. I learned that they never started quite on time, and that when they did, they’d always start with “Moanin”. The break between sets might seem as long as the first set was, but the music was worth waiting for.

I remember a Sun Ra gig at Little Brothers. The hall was pretty dead when I got there, but at about 10PM, it seemed as if the whole crowd from the dance concert that had been going on the same evening came down, and the energy flowed from the audience to the stage and back again. Jim Capeletti did a movement improv at the foot of the stage, and Jordan Fuchs came over to stick a dollar down his pants, as if he were a stripper. If your fellow musicians were your biggest fans, then dancers must have been a close second.

I remember so many dance concerts with your music: SadFish with Stacey Reichman, Dither with Gina Jacobs, Tere O’Connor’s Dance Downtown piece with your crazy songs that you called “pop songs”, but were anything but. I remember you standing in the middle of one of the Sullivant Hall studios halfway through a performance and saying “special sensors placed under your seats during the first part of tonight’s performance have been gathering data as input to allow us to present you with the most pleasing music possible for the second half” And then you did a lovely Baritone solo.

I remember stopping by Lillian Gray’s house once, and the two of you were engaged in a songwriting session. I think you played me a selection, and I said “It’s not done yet, right? There’s no chorus!”, but I was wrong. You embraced the music as it came, and didn’t force it to fit the mold. I think that’s one important lesson that I learned from you: that you shouldn’t color within the lines, and should accept the accidents as treasures, Straight lines might look nice at first, but the ones that bend a little because they were drawn with a human hand are more interesting in the long run.

The other thing I learned was fearlessness. You were never afraid to share your creative work, sing, dance, wear loud shirts, cut your own hair, or play a new instrument in front of people. I think that if someone had handed you a bassoon, you would have been happy to be on stage struggling with it a week later while playing a new composition. “I’m an artist,” John Lennon once said, “and if you give me a tuba, I’ll bring you something out of it” You did that with every instrument you touched, I think.

To whomever is handling the Casey music archives, two requests: there’s a recording of “Marla”, a Mary Adam 12 outtake from their first album in Brian’s collection somewhere, but he wasn’t interested in go rummaging around in the past, only looking ahead. It deserves to be heard. I can still hum “Under the Hudson Street Bridge” from the Brian Casey quartet shows. I hope some of those tunes were recorded. There are so many more. Please tell us that those musical moments weren’t ephemeral, they were too good to only be heard once.

Pity those of us left behind, as we’ll have to make do with a musical universe that’s a little smaller without you. We can only hope that wherever you are, you have your wry smile and horn with you, and are busy writing new tunes for a new audience.

from Stefan Farrenkopf

Years ago Brian and I collaborated on a project to stage a swing musical version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Shakespeare provided the book, and I had the concept and the resources – I direct theater at a high school – but I lacked the knowledge of the music of the period. I also needed a big band. And an arranger.

I called the right guy.

For about a year Brian and I met at Stauf’s countless times to put the show together. We laughed a lot. Brian had a sharp understanding of the play, and seemed to know a period song to suit every mood and thought in the show.

Brian and I worked for almost a year on our show A Midsummer Night’s Swing, or It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Dream, but, as always, the final weeks of rehearsals were rushed, and many of the arrangements that were performed were never finished on paper, including his original piece for the show, “Titania’s Lullaby.” It was beautiful, and I hate to think it’s gone.

The show was a big success, and working on it forged a friendship between Brian and me that stayed strong despite rarely seeing each other. I was surprised and thrilled, years later, when Brian dropped out of nowhere and onto my front porch for a birthday I had years later; we had no friends in common, really, and it had been ages since we’d talked. Brian knew that he wouldn’t know anyone there, but he came, alone, and was funny and sincere and fantastic. He had a great time. Seeing him was the highlight of the night for me.

I got a call from Brian a couple of months ago. Whenever we talked we talked a lot; it seemed that despite years between conversations, we had never really lost touch. Brian had an idea for a play and was looking for a playwright to help edit, or maybe to collaborate – I wasn’t sure which. I was excited about the chance to work with him again. His idea was to splice Waiting for Godot and Peanuts. Of course.

Honestly, I didn’t get it at first, but he was so excited I jumped in with him. After re-reading Godot and reading lots of Charles Schultz, it made sense. Alas, I lacked follow-through. I thought there would be time later. Nothing came of it, as far as I know.

(I’d be interested if Brian discussed this idea with any readers of this blog, and whether he ever pursued it. I’d love to know more about what he had in mind or had come up with.)

Last week I was considering what show to choose when or if I return to directing theater. I decided the show to do would be our version of Midsummer. I thought about how I needed to give Brian a call.

The Other Paper

Thanks to Lee Brown for writing an article about Brian that appears in today's edition of The Other Paper. You can read the article by clicking **HERE**

Also, don't forget about the show tonight at Dick's Den - hope to see you all there.