--- John Mason <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Well it was the Danes who gave us Niels Bohr.
Niels had an equally skilled brother, Aage. But as he "only" was a mathematician, he never became famous outside our borders > > And, even more impressive from my point of view, the > great NHOP, Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen. > It is NHØP in the original language. NHØP, aka. the Dane with the never ending name, was only 1 year older than me. It was a profound shock to me, when he died. As a young jazz fan I followed his career closely. Two of his closest friends have been my teachers in jazz. One of them, Ole Koch Hansen, was a year older than NHØP and lived in the village, where the father of NHØP ran a private school. NHØP entered his fathers office and demanded to be inscribed into the first grade one year ahead of time, because he would share the table with Ole. His father obliged, took the handwritten protocol, and wrote in NHØP as a student for the oncoming school year. Young as he was, NHØP still knew, that this was not totally kosher in respect of the law. So he made sure, that his father signed him up in INK. He very much feared, that if his father had used a pencil, then an eraser had been applied as soon he went out of the door. Another anecdote: Oscar Peterson hired a quite young NHØP for a trio tour. OP asked NHØP, if he knew the songs on the repertory list, which NHØP confirmed to do. The catch was, that he did not know some special passages in OPs personalised arrangements. He flunked a unisono run. The same happened the next night. And the next night again. So OP summoned NHØP and asked him, if he wanted to stay on the tour. If that was the case, he had to get that run right. What OP did not know, was that NHØP every night had placed a portable studio under the grand piano to make himself familiar with the special OP versions. So NHØP pulled out the recordings and asked OP: What do you want tonight? Version #1, #2, or #3? OP had changed his own playing to bully the young NHØP. Case closed. While we are at Danes making OP mute: Jazzhouse Montmartre was run by a funny guy, who knew nothing about music, but who certainly was a shrewd businessman. Before a solo concert there OP had cut his left index badly, but insisted on doing the concert despite the handicap. No musical complaints at all, but the owner only would pay OP 90% of the contract sum. OP went furious, but he could not counter this argument: I signed a contract with a 10 fingered piano player, but I only got a 9 fingered player. Ergo the salary must be lowered 10%. Silentio! Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre, having problems with avoiding the anecdotes of days bygone __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org