Fox Fur

I just found out from Facebook that a good friend of mine with whom I had lost contact and hadn’t seen in more than 11 years, passed away last year.

We became friends through music. Ralph was in my music theory class and also an amazing jazz drummer. During my time in Binghamton, we were in the official jazz band and also were in a hotshot jazz quartet (with me on the alto sax). Our quartet, naturally, was named after combining all our names (both first and last) together: The Ron Feldleck (Ralph, Eric, Jon, John-Flor) Quartet.

One of my best musical memories from that time was when we covered Madonna’s ‘Spanish Lullaby’ and I’d do these obnoxious (but totally sincere), Kenny G-like 32nd note runs when I soloed on that song. Next, Eric would do these obnoxious 64th note atonal runs on the electric guitar. Then Jon would ease the quartet back from all the obnoxious note runs with fewer, yet concise bass notes he learned from the school of Ska. But it was Ralph who kept us together with the steady, yet hypnotizing groove from his drums. Always in time, always with great feel and dynamics.

Our quartet jams in these claustrophobic practice rooms were always challenging, yet suffused with joy.  Between the spaces of music, we smiled and told vulgar jokes to each other…then more music… then another jab about how Jon ‘manhandles’ the bass, or how Ralph thought that my hyphenated name was ‘cool’…and how no one would understand what was going on in Eric’s head.

Outside of the quartet, he was a really cool, laid-back guy, and I always looked forward to hanging out with him. Part of it was selfish; I kept trying to recruit him to do some kind of a professional band arrangement in the future. Yet he wasn’t as certain of his talents as I was with his. “I love how you are so optimistic with music {as a career}” he would tell me; “I definitely am not as optimistic in my abilities {as you are with yours}”. I always told him that he was an excellent drummer and that he shouldn’t worry because his talents would get him far.

I know that if he was around today, we would already have made plans to hang out with each other after one of us initiated contact. Then on our hangout, we would have talked about music,The Ron Feldleck Quartet, and life in Binghamton and afterwards. He would have been really excited to hear my voice after all these years, and we would have continued with our friendship as if we just saw each other a week ago.

I regret that I’ve forgotten about these memories, as if I repressed them. These were great memories. And I regret that I waited too long to reconnect with him…because now I can’t.