As the weeks passed during that first year, I saw glimpses of another Freddie; a Hyde to the genius and generous Jekyll. During a run at a club in Madison, Wisconsin; I believe that the club was called Bunky’s, there was an after show gathering with Freddie, the band, and certain members of the audience. “Let’s get some bitches, …we’re gonna have a little party” was the usual order/request that was given to the band members as a precursor to these gatherings, which usually occurred either at the club if the management was amenable, or at a restaurant that was open late in the neighborhood.
I remember having a feeling that was a blend of excitement, dread, and anticipation that would come over me on the ride over to the club or restaurant that was the setting for these after-show parties. We each would usually get a ride over to the bar or club that was decided upon from one of the young ladies who had been invited by members of the band or Freddie. I remember one particular ride with a woman for whom I had amorous aspirations, where within the context of bits of small-talk she revealed that she had “thrown her back out”, as she had been sexually engaged with a football player the night before. In order to grasp the humor of this exchange, I have to tell you that from a very young age I had the blessing and curse of being an incurable romantic, and would always be assessing the potential of women that I would meet on the road as to the possibility of them being “The One”.
The Aftershow Party
The parties that followed shows were, for a newcomer to the band, fantastic. They were a chance to meet attractive women in the context of just having played a set or two in which we had played up to the very limit of what we were capable of. They were always different in many respects. In certain cities the party would take place at an after-hours club, in which one could continue to drink after closing time, by ordering in a code. I remember a specific club in Vancouver where one could only order two drinks; “a Light One” or “a Dark One”, a Light One being a coffee, and a Dark One denoting a coffee with a high percentage of rum or whiskey blended in.
Some parties took place in restaurants that were transformed into virtual dens of iniquity, filled with any dark possibility that one could be drawn towards; with any drug, female archetype, or variety of alcohol available and present. I came to realize that for Freddie, the combination of cognac and cocaine was one that would, in certain quantities, and sometimes combined with a small amount of heroin, bring out an alternate side of his personality that was literally a Mr. Hyde to his metaphoric Dr. Jekyll, who was the one that we lived with the majority or the time. This “step-father” was a completely different person than the one who was my mentor, teacher and generous soul. This one was to be avoided if at all possible. This was our Dark One.
Amsterdam
Our first tour of Europe was an amazing adventure for me, having just joined the band a relatively short time before. Freddie was at in absolutely top form, and it was a nightly challenge to join him at that level that was effortless for him to maintain night after night. He would never warm up. His playing was just boggling; guiding us down musical roads that I had never explored, many times using a relatively simple harmonic vehicle like the well known song of his, “First Light”, as a point of departure, while being capable of calling Cole Porter’s “Just One Of Those Things” or even the ever-challenging “Giant Steps”, on which he was just as comfortable and nimble as any great saxophone player, along with having an exquisite sense of pacing, overall structure, and motific development. I recall the first time that I heard Freddie play the Coltrane diamond, and thinking “there will never be, nor has there ever been, a trumpet player who could play like this man”.
After the show my guitar tech took me on a nocturnal tour of Amsterdam, ending up in the Red Light District, replete with the prostitutes sitting in windows, dressed to fit any man’s fantasy. As we made our way through this biblical landscape, I remember thinking that my guide knew a little too much for someone who hadn’t partaken of the available commodities. At a certain point in our journey, as we made our way down a small side-street, I inquired as to whether one could hire a woman to sit and tell me her story; how she had arrived at the point where her nightly station was in a window dressed as a French maid. His response was negative, that this would be seen as a demeaning gesture. I felt like a character straight out of Steppenwolf.
We had an early departure in the morning, with a flight departure to Lisbon at 8:30am. As I exited my room to make my way down to the lobby for the bus that the promoter had set up for us, I saw Freddie, just arriving back from the night’s festivities with an expatriate sax player who I could distinctly see was trouble. Freddie looked down the hallway at me, and I could clearly see that after a night’s festivities, that my Dark Step-father was engaged. He saw me, then laughed in a rather demonic tone, then made his way with the sax player into his room, saying “I’ll meet you at the airport!”
We climbed into the bus that had been sent for us, and made our way to the airport, then into the line beneath the sign marked “Passport Kontrolle”. As I was standing there, Freddie arrived, and came up behind me in line. I turned to greet him. He was dressed in the same suit and tie that he had worn the night before, replete with the elegant sunglasses that he was still wearing when I had seen him in the hallway at the hotel. He greeted me normally, then without warning he began to cry. This of course took me aback, and I reached over to put my hand on his shoulder, not understanding, but trying to comfort and calm him. He seemed to get a hold of himself, then moments later his despondent demeanor shifted to anger. His posture straightened, he looked around the airport, then loudly proclaimed “you white motherfuckers!…I got some Dutch pussy!” At that moment the entire airport seemed to freeze; the airline workers and the travelers turning in shock, staring at us in disbelief and contempt.
With the help of our road manager, we somehow made our way through Immigration, and got seated on a relatively small plane that would momentarily be bound for Lisbon. After getting seated in the cabin, without warning, Freddie began to yell at the flight attendant, who was dispensing orange juice and water, demanding to fly First Class. The flight attendant’s response was to quickly walk over to Freddie, and quite calmly and politely tell him to sit down, informing him quietly that there was actually no First Class on this small plane. This scenario repeated, with Freddie again firmly and angrily demanding to fly First Class. After this exchange, the flight attendant momentarily disappeared, after which a tall and immaculately attired Dutch man, who was the captain on our flight came down the aisle. “Sir…. you are going to have to calm down, or I will have to take you off of the plane”. After delivering his warning, he began to make his way back up the aisle. Moments later, at exactly the second that he turned his head to check to see if Freddie had complied and was seated, Freddie leaned over and spit a mass composed of a mixture of saliva, mucous, and the remnants of tobacco from the cigarette that he had been smoking into the center of the aisle. The captain, remaining unusually composed, turned quickly toward the front of the plane, and motioned with his hand toward the row that Freddie was seated in. A uniformed police guard with a machine gun tightly slung over his shoulder came down the aisle and calmly escorted Freddie off of the plane.
Needless to say, I was shocked by this turn of events, and wondered what the outcome of this episode would be. Would our road manager, who exited the plane behind the guard and Freddie be able to quell the situation, and bring Freddie back onto the plane? Would we all be summoned to leave the plane? Minutes later I got a message from our road manager Chase, that we should stay on the plane, and go onward to Lisbon, and that he would inform us of the plan to get Freddie there once we were in Portugal.