Some people leave lasting impressions for reasons as simple, and complex, as having taught you something that sticks with you forever.
Dizzy Dean was one of those people. Dizzy entered my life in Columbus, Ohio in the summer of 1973. I had been introduced to the local watering hole, Dick’s Den, on High St. in the Ohio State district of Columbus, Ohio. At the time, I was attending Ohio State and working at the University Hospital, running pump for open heart surgery. It was the time of love, not war, peace is the only way, era of my life, and the times.
I had been connected to some locals, Ralph Leesburg, specifically, by Gary Bolstad, who I had spent great times in Berlin, Germany with while stationed with the US Army Medical Corp.
Dizzy had been arrested on possession in Indiana and had spent two years in the state penitentiary. While incarcerated, Dizzy had written a manuscript of the history of jazz in the US. It amazed me that he had accumulated so much knowledge and transcribed it onto written pages. He shared much of his knowledge and taught me some fundamentals of Jazz that have stayed with me ever since. I include here a recording of me playing the chords that he passed on to me. My rendition is much different than his due to poetic license, however, the 12 bar blues is always open to interpretation.