It's possible that some of the gaps in my memory will be plugged based on rereading old journal entries or stumbling across an old concert program, though it is just as likely they are lost in the mists of time. Right now I am thinking of events I went to or whether I saw a particular artwork, and not so much intrapersonal happenings (when did I meet X or when did Y tell me some secret), since I'm finding myself less and less interested in dealing with other people as I get older. I probably will more or less become a hermit in my 60s. What's particularly interesting or frustrating is that most of what I am trying to recover is from the mid to late 80s and early 90s when the internet wasn't really an all-encompassing thing. Nowadays, much of what I would want to recover is archived somewhere or another. So for instance, I no longer bother writing down concert setlists, since there is a site dedicated to capturing them, at least for rock and pop acts. (So for instance,
here is the Steve Winwood concert that I just barely found out about in time. Vancouver was the only Canadian date on that particular tour.) However, there are still a few frustrating internet gaps, which I'll touch on a bit later.
I have a pretty good memory for which plays I have been to, though there are exceptions, particularly the late 90s when I was seeing so many shows at the Northwestern Theatre school (often 3 per week!).* I recently stumbled across a program for Strindberg's A Dream Play, and I certainly wouldn't have remembered that I had seen this (without the evidence in hand). If it comes up in Toronto, I probably should go again (and the same for his Ghost Sonata, which I probably haven't seen). I made a
list of all the Shakepeare plays I have seen, which is very useful as my memory does start to give out, but even there there are a few gaps. I'm not entirely sure I've seen Timon of Athens (though I think so). I'm less sure about The Winter's Tale, and I somewhat reluctantly passed on a chance to check it out at Withrow Park because the director made some (to me) unforgivable choices and added her own text to the play.
In terms of jazz musicians, it was generally less common to get programs, except for some of the Chicago concerts in Millennium Park. I probably don't have any programs for any of the Detroit Jazz Fest and Chicago Jazz Fest concerts. In most cases, the concert line-ups are still on-line, but I have no way to prove which events I actually attended (aside from journal entries and in a few cases messages on the Organissimo message board). I think that I did pass up a chance to see Elvin Jones at one of his last Chicago performances. On the other hand, I did see Allen Toussaint and Gerald Wilson fairly late in their careers. Also, I managed to see Bobby Hutcherson at least twice (once as part of the SF Jazz Collective), but it might actually have been three times. Again, the memory isn't what it once was.
I vaguely recall seeing one of the jazz heavyweights with my parents, but my father couldn't remember this when I asked him a couple of years ago. It probably wasn't Dizzy Gillespie, as that probably would have been seared in my memory. It's a bit more likely that it was Clark Terry, and I am reasonably sure I saw him a second time. It terms of the other major, major jazz figures, I saw Sonny Rollins on several occasions and Ornette Coleman,** Kenny Burrell once (with Gerald Wilson), Chick Corea, Roy Haynes, McCoy Tyner and Wayne Shorter (generally a disappointment live). I also saw Dave Brubeck a few times, pretty much every time he played at Symphony Hall or up at Ravinia. I'm guessing I saw him 4 or maybe even 5 times. I saw Lou Donaldson twice at the Chicago Jazz Showcase and Benny Golson 2 or 3 times at the Showcase. In terms of slightly more obscure, but still canonical, figures, I saw Pharoah Sanders at the Showcase and Andrew Hill twice (once at the Showcase and once in Amsterdam!). I also saw Johnny Griffin once in Chicago, which was an unexpected treat, as he had essentially retired to France by that point. I've certainly seen a lot of other jazz musicians over the years, but that is probably it as far as the major ones from the classic era of jazz.
I'll probably make a list elsewhere of the major free concerts I've seen over the years, but I am struggling to remember whom I saw in New York (just off the Winter Garden, which was technically where the World Financial Center met the Hudson River). It was a fairly famous Latin musician. It was probably Tito Puente, since I think he was the only Latin musician famous enough to motivate me to leave New Jersey for the night. This is a case where it probably is in my journal, but I don't have the time to sift through right now. The back pages of New York Magazine
† indicate that Tito Puente was playing quite a few free concerts around then (and sometimes with Celia Cruz) but mostly in Central Park or New Jersey. While I don't think this is false memory, I will need a few more scraps of documentation before I can clear this up.
I'll wrap this up with an example of a painting that I am sure I have seen in person. It is "Sugar Shack" by Ernie Barnes. There are actually two versions of this painting, with one being used for the TV show Good Times and one for Marvin Gayes's album I Want You. This is the Marvin Gaye version.
I was at the Chicago Cultural Center when I saw this painting. (Now whether it was the Good Times version or this Gaye version, I can't recall.) What's a bit frustrating is that I can't recall if this painting was owned by the DuSable Museum (and was part of an exhibit on African-American Art in Chicago) or was a different themed exhibit. The Cultural Center doesn't have anything in its archives prior to 2014, so that doesn't help, and the DuSable's website is even worse (with no way to search the holdings at all). I do know that this wasn't part of either the Archibald Motley or Norman Lewis exhibits at the Cultural Center (both of which I saw and enjoyed). The good news is that if I actually did see this (and I am quite sure of that), then I will also have a photo of it as well as a photo of the label. Interestingly, there is a movie about the Obamas' first date (Southside with You), which is going to really increase the number of false memories, as they shot inside the Cultural Center (but called it the Art Institute) and had the Obamas looking at "Sugar Shack" and some other Ernie Barnes paintings (i.e. showing them at an almost certainly fictitious exhibit). It might not have been out of place to actually set the record straight in one of these articles, i.e. that "Sugar Shack" was on view but in 199X or even 20XX as part of Y exhibit. I suppose if I can locate my snapshots, I can do my part to try to rescue this from the memory hole.
I think that's enough for now, and I really have to run...
* This is the exact same thing with fiction. I was reading a huge number of novels in the late 80s and early 90s (60-80 per year), and I seem to have lost the reading log I kept. At least this is one thing that I am now keeping track of in a more permanent fashion.
** Now this is an interesting, but probably false, memory. Sonny Rollins and Ornette Coleman were the headliners of the 2008 Chicago Jazz Festival. One of my co-workers was in town for part of the festival and we saw the Rollins set, which ended with a fairly typical samba-type number. I honestly can't remember if I went to see Ornette later, since I had been so disappointed by his concert at Symphony Hall a year or two before, so I probably skipped it. On the other hand, I seem to recall seeing Rollins and Coleman together. But I am 100% sure the reviews would have mentioned this, so I am probably just thinking of the 2010 concert captured on Road Shows 2 (which I've heard but clearly didn't attend).
† Sometimes going back in the Wayback Machine can cause me some unintended pain, as I see that I passed up opportunities in 1992 to see Lionel Hampton and even the Kronos Quartet (for only $20!). I vaguely remember seeing ads for Hedwig and the Angry Inch, though I probably wasn't quite ready to see that at the time. On the other hand, I also passed on the original off-off-Broadway production of Terrence McNally's A Perfect Ganesh, but I didn't mind missing out so much after I finally got around to seeing this in Chicago.
