The Vampire's Revenge

Halloween will be here in a few weeks and I thought it would be fun to repeat a revised version as my new blog
Tales of CBGB’S:
The True Story Behind The Vampire’s Revenge

Once upon a time in New York City, there lived a beautiful Vampire. She was 5’7’’ with long flowing blond hair and beautiful deep blue eyes. One would say she was absolutely stunning. She looked young, although she was reputed to be over 500 years old. Lorna was able to hide her fangs, except when she smiled. By not smiling she was able to add to the allure of being dangerous. mysterious and sexy at the same time Lorna loved music. Every night you could find her at some club either dancing or listening to music.

Our story begins on a Sunday night in October of 2004. In fact it was the Sunday before Halloween that Lorna made her way downtown to the famous now defunct CBGB’S, where she could hear some of the best up and coming rock and roll bands in the country. It was also the number one place to find young new blood to quench her hunger. When she arrived the band hadn’t begun to set up yet, and it looked like it would be a while before they would play. The crowd was just beginning to make its way into the small club. She decided to go next door to the Galleria. Sometimes there were some interesting groups playing, but on this night, again, the band was just starting to set up. She was about to leave when she heard some strange sounds coming from the downstairs lounge. She asked the young man standing at the top of the stairs, "What is that?" He said it was the Sunday night Downstairs Avant Jazz Series. Lorna decided to take a look.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, another young man sitting behind a table, asked her: “Who are you here to hear?” She said: “Anyone.” He said: “That will be $10 please.” Lorna gazed into his eyes with her hypnotic stare and he said: “Go right in.” Lorna went straight to the bar. She sat down and listened to this strange but intriguing music. She thought to herself: “What have I been missing?” Just then a good-looking young musician (he carried a case over his shoulder…it looked like some kind of horn) said to her: “You must be new here. I’ve never seen you here before.” Lorna smiled and said: “Yes I am.” He looked at her beautiful face with that seductive closed lipped smile and Stephen was immediately smitten and very much taken with Lorna, as Lorna was with Stephen. He asked if she could wait till he finished his set and maybe they could hang out together. Lorna anxious for some new blood said: “Of course.”

Later on that evening, at Stephen’s apartment, Lorna began her Seduction. Slowly she enticed him with short sweet kisses along his face and neck. Stephen felt her rapture and was sexually charged as Lorna lay in his arms. Noticing her fangs, he wanted to ask her Who’s Your Dentist? but he didn’t want to break the mood. Lorna spent a lot of time kissing his neck. Then all of a sudden she dug in with her fangs and started to suck the blood right out of him. Shocked at first, he shouted: “No! No!” But then he began to enjoy it. Stephen moaned as he went into a dream like stupor and when she stopped sucking, he cried "No! No! Don’t stop! Just One More Bite."

Lorna decided she would not kill Stephen, but make him a Vampire. That night Stephen went through a Transformation. When he awoke 24 hours later, Lorna explained what she had done to him. He had been brought over to the Dark Side.

Stephen was very upset. All he wanted was to have a great time with this sexy lady and now he was a Vampire and part of the walking un-dead! Lorna explained how great it is to be a Vampire. Now, he could live forever, "but be careful, you must never walk in the daylight. The sun could kill you!"

The only thing that really bothered Stephen was that he could never play a daytime gig again. On the positive side, most of his gigs were at night and he preferred night to day anyway. With daylight savings time in the winter, it would get dark at 4:30, which isn’t so bad. He would have to plan his practice time and feeding and social life around his vampire hours. One thing was for sure, he would have to give up Sunday afternoon brunches with his Mother and adjust his embouchure (the placement of the mouthpiece). Because of his newly formed fangs he would have to learn play without them being too obtrusive. Oh yes! Because of his paleness he might have make some adjustments with tanning block or makeup and definitely wear sunglasses, which would make him look cool!

The very next night Lorna took Stephen out for a stroll. This was his The First Day (night) as a Vampire. Lorna wanted to teach him how to live and survive in his new reality.

His first kill wasn’t as hard as he thought. In fact, it was fun. With his newly found strength and his keen sense of smell and sight, overpowering his victims was easy. He felt just a little guilty about killing, but he told himself it was the only way for him to survive. He would save on grocery bills and never have to go to the bathroom again and he’ll only try to kill bad people. Stephen thought to himself, who could be luckier than I. I can live forever, and play the music I love forever too.

Then he thought to himself, the audience for free-form-avant jazz is getting smaller and smaller. With this new power of mine, what can I do to help change this? Suddenly a light bulb went off in his head, and Stephen knew exactly what he had to do.

“Yes! This makes absolute sense! If I infect hundreds, no, thousands, no, hundreds of thousands of people, and because I am free form- avant jazz musician, these hundreds of thousands of people will love this music and we will finally have the audience we deserve. It could go on through eternity and I’ll never be out of work!” It was at that very moment that the Blood Lust took over.

For the next year, Stephen did not stop. Sometimes he would bite up to thirty people a night. At this rate, in the next ten years, he could infect over 100,000 humans.

For some unknown reason, the audiences at his performances were not getting larger, in fact sometimes only a few people showed up. His plan was not working! What could be going wrong? He thought his idea was just what free-form avant jazz needed, a Blood Sucking Vampire, but it was too late. Because he spent so much time hunting at night, his lust for blood was increasing and he couldn’t stop himself.

The summer of 2005 would go down in infamy. It was reported on Fox News (and we know, they don’t lie); July 9th, that without a doubt there is a Vampire loose in New York City. Someone had seen Stephen devouring a helpless woman in a back alley off of Canal St. This attack was videoed taped. The tape ran on every major news station throughout the world. The woman appeared on CNN, 60 Minutes,Oprah and every TV news outlet in the USA. Each time, with tears in her eyes, she told what she saw and she described the desperation in the victim’s eyes. She called 911, but it was over in less than a minute and by the time the medics arrived, the woman was dead and the vampire had disappeared in a flash.

A frenzy took over New York City. Everyone was searching for the Vampire. Major Bloomberg begged people to stay home and let the police do their job, but The Hunt was on! Days went by and then a month, but without any results. People were scared and frustrated. Stephen had become sloppy. More and more victims were piling up, and yet, no one had seen this Vampire.

The Mayor called for calm and made another special announcement. He had sent for the great ‘Vampire Hunter’. Derek was world-renowned. He made his reputation as a Vampire Hunter by killing over three hundred vampires.

The day the Hunter arrived at JFK from Transylvania, there were thousands of people lined up along the Van Wyck Expressway. Two million showed up for the ticker-tape parade along Broadway. When the entourage of Limo’s pulled up to City Hall, the crowd cheered as the Derek stepped out onto the Red Carpet that led up the stairs where the Mayor welcomed him. In a brief ceremony, Mayor Bloomberg gave Derek the keys to the city. When the Hunter stepped up to the podium he growled and screamed “Vampire! Vampire! Where You Gonna’ Go? Where You Gonna’ Hide?" With that, the crowd went wild. They stormed the steps of City Hall and carried him over their shoulders while shouting, “Where You Gonna’ Go? Where You Gonna’ Hide?”

Three days later the police found Derek’s body ripped to shreds. It was said that a newly engaged couple, while walking down 5th ave and 33rd St., could hear shriveling and screeching yells. It was as though an animal was ripping a human being to shreds. As they walked by, the couple looked at each other and said: “Wow, that sounds strange,” and as typical New Yorkers they continued on their merry way.

A few nights later on the Letterman show, Dave got a call while on the air. At first he wouldn’t take it. In fact he yelled at his staff for trying to put through this called while he was doing his opening monologue, but the producer ran on stage, an apparently whispered in his ear; “It’s the Vampire!” Shocked! Dave took the call, ‘live on the air.’ Of Course, NBC were angry that the Vampire would call Letterman and not Jay Leno. It made perfect sense that the Vampire called Dave. Jay leno is in LA and Dave is in New York and New York is where all the killings were going on and NBC had no way of knowing that the Vampire was a fan of the Letterman Show long before he was a Vampire. In fact, he was still felt betrayed that The Tonight Show moved to L.A.

As Letterman put the phone to his ear, he could hear the Vampire shouting, “I will have my revenge.”

And thus dear readers the music to the The Vampire’s Revenge was born.

Bill and Me

In the month of August I got an email from the Ruby Flowers Production Company that asked if I was available to perform on September 14th for a benefit to raise money for the Cecil Taylor Art Museum. There were musicians flying in from around the world for this event. Of course I said “yes” and would be honored to play for Cecil.

A few days later I was sent a list of musicians who were definitely performing and was asked whom I want to play with. One of the bass players was Albey Balgochian, who I regularly play with and is an amazing ‘out player’. My drummer, Jay Rosen was not on the list because he would be coming in from Europe that day and would be too late, but Andrew Cyrille was available, I always wanted to play with him, I was given the OK. As the date got closer, each day I was given more info about the concert. It would be at Brooklyn Borough Hall and the event would start at 6PM. There would be many rooms and each group would perform ten-minute sets. There would also be a Green Room with food and drink for the musicians, This was going to be a classy production and I was happy to be part of it. As the weeks went on, some musicians dropped out and new ones came aboard and somehow the trio I was to play with didn’t exist anymore. I decided to just go with the flow and let things be and not rock the boat.

Then an email came in that announced Bill Cosby would Emcee the event; this was amazing. I knew Bill is a big jazz fan and always had jazz musicians on his show, but never avant-garde musicians. I didn’t care. All I knew was I was playing for Cecil and introduced by Bill Cosby!

A few weeks before it was all to happen, Cecil decided he didn’t want a benefit. Of course I was disappointed, but what could I do?

Two days later an email came in and asked if I could perform on the following day, September 15th at le poisson rouge Lounge for a benefit for the Dizzy Gillespie Foundation that helps musicians pay for medical bills. And Bill Cosby was very much connected to this foundation and would host the event too. How could I say no?

Again emails came in with lists of musicians. Many musicians who were on the original list were gone and new ones had replaced them. Andrew Cyrille was not available, but my regular drummer and long time friend who can play anything, Jay Rosen was. Terrific! I would be in my element.

I was told to show up at 6pm and the first set would start at 7:30. I arrived with my wife Carol at exactly 6:30. Carol found a spot at the bar till other friends arrived and the she sat at a table with Richard and Roberta Berger.

At approximately 7:50 Cheryl Wills from Channel One introduced Bill Cosby. Bill came on stage and was immediately funny. This is a man that I watched from the time he was on Johnny Carson, Mike Douglas and every talk show you can think of, and every time he had me along with and millions of viewers in stitches, laughing at his unique sense of humor. When I Spy became a national television hit, I made sure I watched every episode.

To this day Carol and I watch the re-runs of the Bill Cosby Show, which in my estimation was a role model on how a family can be. It was clean, funny, and informative and stressed family values that are surely missing in the last fifteen years in the so- called sit-coms that I call sick-coms.

Before each act started to play, he would ask whom the musicians were and he would do a little bit and tease them and the band would play. By the time the third band played, I realized none of these musicians were ‘out players’. They all played ‘straight-ahead’. It was modern be-bop, all good, but not what would have been played at Cecil’s event. I was sitting with Albey and we both looked at each other and laughed. I said while laughing, he’s going to F#@**N hate us. And Albey, laughed and shook his head yes.

A short time before we were to play, Rash Moshe asked if he could play with the trio. He said it was too confusing who he was to play with, so he rather work with us. I said, “of course play with us”. Ras is good guy a great player. I used him on The Vampire’s Revenge and of The Bird The Girl and The Donkey. He brings so much talent and creativity to any group he plays with.

My group was standing about ten feet from the stage, waiting for Kim Clarke’s group to finish their set. I told the guys I wanted to play solo for about forty seconds and then join in and when they do, rip it. So that was the plan. Bill Cosby asked, who’s up next and Cheryl Wills announced the Dom Minasi Group. Bill immediately asked which one of us was Dom Minasi. I nodded and he came over to me with mike in hand.

Bill: Okay Dom, What are you going to play?
Me: I don’t know.
Bill: What do you mean, you don’t know?
Me: I don’t know”
Bill: Does the bass player know what to play?
Me: Ask Him

Bill goes over to Albey and asks, “Do you know what to play”? Albey answers’ Yes!
Bill walks back to me
Bill: He knows
Me: Of course he knows. He has to know.
Bill: what are you talking about?

This went on for a few minutes. Meanwhile I’m laughing. Bill is making faces and the audience is laughing and in my head, I’m thinking, here am I on stage doing a ‘bit’ with Bill Cosby. What could be better than this?

We began as planned, I started and the band came in. We played at a very high energy level for about 10 minutes. The crowd went wild and we got a thunderous amount of applause.

When we finished, I unplugged my guitar and was about to leave, when Bill comes over again with mike in hand and says’, "Wait a minute. Tell me about yourself and where are you playing next"? I was kind of stunned. Here is Bill Cosby asking about me…Whew! What can I say?

A few minutes later I took my wife backstage to meet Bill. He was so gracious to both of us and told me how much he loved the set.

This was one of the best nights of my life. I am so grateful to all, especially Annabel of Ruby Flowers Productions that helped make the night a success.

Dom Minasi