Just this afternoon I was driving around and listening to the new Max Buda CD that Chris Darrow's wife sent to me a couple of months ago.  It definitely had "the sound" from back in the day and it reminded me of Kaleidoscope and of my father, Paul.   

These last few months have been interesting.  Life itself is wonderful, my daughter is beautiful and growing, I'm 2/3's done with an intensive masters program that has been capturing my attention, my health is fabulous, I'm surrounded with wonderful friends/community, I'm completely smitten with my new lover - life it good. I'm most fortunate.  From the day-to-day I don't always think about my father and then things come up. Like the morning a few months when I had a dream he was talking to me and telling me to get up in the morning and call his partner, and comfort her. When I awoke the next morning I went into projecting around the house and forgot to make the call until I  heard a distinct, "MooMoo, please call." Whatever I had in my hand I put down and said out loud, "Alright, alright" and made the call. I hadn't spoken to his partner since a few months after the funeral in Minneapolis.  The evening before her mother, who had lived with her and Paul, had passed.  She needed the call and the support. In less than a year she had now lost both Paul and her.  I had called at the right time, as he requested. 

A couple of weeks ago I received a call from an old military, musician friend of my father's, Melvin Lundstrad.  He and that groups of friend just heard of Paul's passing and have some stories to share.  I'll be looking forward to that call this afternoon.

Want to continually thank you for posting and keeping the memory of Paul's life alive.  Best, Michelle Lagos

Cup Full of Dreams is now available on CD

Promising Music has re-released the Cup Full of Dreams album (MPS) as a CD, with original liner notes and new additional ones. This music was recorded in L.A. with many people Don played and recorded with at the time: Dewey Terry, Paul Lagos, Larry Taylor, Harvey Mandel, Victor Conte and Richard Aplan (and your humble servant, me).

 

Ralph Quinke wrote in the original liner notes, Should you , dear reader, be perusing this text in a record store without having heard the fabulous music on this record, please listen at least to a few bars of "Running Away"... Without doubt, you will be excited by the firerworks of sounds which Sugarcane is conjuring up on his blue fiddle. From bar one, it takes off like a hurricane, fast-paced, with dream-like assurance and intense feeling.

This popped into my head last night. I used to live next door to Paul's on Fenn Street in L.A. Paul knew they Redbone guys, Pat and Lolly Vegas, maybe he played woth them at some point. (Can someone fill us in?)

So I recall Paul rented his house to these guys or their friends, and they lived not in the house but in tipis in the front yard. This in turn made me think of Paul's idea to have goats for milk and to keep weeds and grass of the front yard in years before. I can remember driving up to Paul's house before I lived near it. The first thing you'd see after passing Glenn's peacock refuge was the goats tethered in the yard eating the anise plants.

Heady days!

Over and out

This so says it all about Paul.

Unforgettable, Paul, you made the list!

I hope people keep on discovering this memorial on into the decade.

Paul, if you're out there somewhere in the cosmos, we haven't forgotton you.

No one who knew Paul could forget him.

 

Paul was less forgettable than Natalie Cole and Nat King Cole singing Unforgettable.

Paul was more memorable than A Night to Remember

Paul forgot Paris before the movie Forget Paris

Paul we f**king miss you, brother

 

Your friend  'dulo

I wanted to post this yesterday. For dinner, we put on a Bill Evans CD, Live at the Village Vanguard. Every time I hear Bill Evans play, it will always remind me of Paul. On this album is "My Romance" I can recall Paul saying "let's play Myra". He also once said the John Coltrane's tune "Vigil" was calle our by Elvin Jones, "Virgil".

What was important and the thing that makes me think of him is how Bill plays piano like a drummer. Not only is the harmonic stuff unique and complex, but the rhythms are, too. Hearing that and understanding that Bill's piano playing is like a constant drum solo, one more thing to thank Paul for pointing out!

randy

I guess its time I added some memories- the loss of Paul as my source of so much inspiriation and hope has left a tremendous void for me. His passion for music he loved was the thing he taught me most, to never back down in trying to achieve whatever musical goals you dream about and always strive to achieve them. That's all the theory side. The human side was one of the most fun-loving and funny people on the planet who also taught me to let some things go, always laugh at yourself too ( you pompous thing) and make the positive flow as strong as the negative. FROM 1966 through the time he left for Minnesota there was not a period of time when we werent engaged in some form of music (and mischief) making; no matter how uncommercial or unchallenging the project I was undertaking he wanted to be on board and that always guaranteed for me that nobody would think of the undertaking as amateur because Paul would instantly carry us to a professional level.I
was 20 years old when I met him and hanging out with him in airports and public places became an education for me. We were always dressed unusually ( to say the least) and he and I were the more conservative dressers than our colleagues but to Paul any slight to one was a slight to all. SO many times he would turn to a group of agog touristas and very loudly (in that Marine attention voice) announce "Chester, I do believe there are some people here looking askance at us. Don't they know that produces bad luck for them?" or some such thing that usually sent them scattering or staring at their shoes quickly. He would show the tatoos to cabbies who were interested in scamming us and say "Dont mess with Semper Fi", and generally terrorize anyone who wanted to give grief to the wimpy looking violin player in glasses. He managed to initimidate Hells Angels and wimpy little blowhards like Bill Graham alike, but the intimidation always turned to genuine
admiration of his abilities which in the talent-poor areas of hucksterism we worked was a major accomplishment. The line I always used about our band was that it was too hip for the room but there was always a moment where the entire joint would be rocking to his mesmerizing beat. As Julia Nelson said "he's the only man I know who can strut around behind a drum kit." He rarely had doubts about what he was doing and would regularly announce something musical that excited him as "this is the shit! LISTEN to this shit!" Most of all he could never stop deflating pompous horse menudo (as he called it) and nothing raised his scathings like racism- tacit or in your face. On this subject he listened to very little before he began exhibiting his arms as his voice went up a few octaves. BUT his most effective weapon was always his ridicule which no one for me has ever matched. He was never intimidated by the rich, famous or even people he idolized, and would
approach them in conversation as if they had known each other quite well. The shock was that often they did- as I found out meeting Ike Turner, Cannonball Adderly and Jacques Cousteau in airports in his tow. There pretty much was not a decent stone unturned for him musically when he left California. Which brings me last to his unquenchable thirst to always be achieving in music. For the first decade I knew him he was one of the most impossibly tone deaf people I had ever met (I'm supposed to have "perfect" pitch). When he would try to sing, hum or whatever it was he did as he announced a tune like "Autumn in New York" the nasal whistling that came out of his mouth was close to atonal and certainly inhuman.. after his stint at music arrangement school he applied himself rigorously to learning to sing. I DIDNT even encourage him in the least, honestly because I have never seen anyone at his age accomplish this after a lifetime of yowling. BUT he did it!
How I will never know, except sheer will. Before he left he always insisted on at least singing "Bony Maronie" in Los Chumps sets and was working on a set of ballads which I have no doubt he graced Minneapolis with. I am so pleased he returned to jazz with a vengeance there because after all that was the only real area where all of his abilites could be showcased . His flaws were probably as noticeable as his outstanding attributes and frequently we tried each others limits painfully. I know I let him down badly on a few occaisions and that he did likewise for me, but there was never any bitterness regarding these times because we both accepted the natures of the beasts we were. HE taught me to believe in my abilities because HE believed in them and to this day his final approval means more to me than any other the planet could produce because it totally came from the heart of someone who loved music his whole life. ccc