WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.940 OK, let's unpack this. Let's do it. Because when 00:00:02.940 --> 00:00:04.599 you think about the history of American jazz, 00:00:04.740 --> 00:00:07.240 especially in the 20th century, you probably 00:00:07.240 --> 00:00:09.679 have a very specific image in your head. Oh, 00:00:09.699 --> 00:00:11.599 definitely. You know, you're likely picturing 00:00:11.599 --> 00:00:15.900 these smoky basement clubs in New York City or 00:00:15.900 --> 00:00:19.120 maybe the bright marquees in Chicago. The classic 00:00:19.120 --> 00:00:21.640 scenes. You're thinking of the big names, Duke 00:00:21.640 --> 00:00:25.500 Ellington, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, the icons. 00:00:25.660 --> 00:00:28.019 The faces on the postage stamps, essentially. 00:00:28.320 --> 00:00:30.649 Exactly. And naturally, those are the figures 00:00:30.649 --> 00:00:32.729 that tend to dominate the narrative. It's the 00:00:32.729 --> 00:00:36.189 great man theory of jazz history. We look at 00:00:36.189 --> 00:00:38.289 the soloists, the front men, and we build the 00:00:38.289 --> 00:00:40.820 whole story around them. Right. But today, for 00:00:40.820 --> 00:00:43.079 this deep dive, we are going to look at a story 00:00:43.079 --> 00:00:46.060 that I think is arguably much more representative 00:00:46.060 --> 00:00:48.600 of what the actual life of a working musician 00:00:48.600 --> 00:00:51.280 looked like in America. A much grittier reality. 00:00:51.539 --> 00:00:53.719 Yeah. We're moving the spotlight away from center 00:00:53.719 --> 00:00:56.119 stage and aiming it at the guy in the back row. 00:00:56.259 --> 00:00:59.079 Or, actually, more accurately, the guy driving 00:00:59.079 --> 00:01:01.439 the bus. Literally driving the bus. Yeah. And 00:01:01.439 --> 00:01:03.479 cooking the food and writing the charts and teaching 00:01:03.479 --> 00:01:07.340 the classes. Yes. We're talking about a man who 00:01:07.340 --> 00:01:09.859 wasn't necessarily a household name, but he was 00:01:09.859 --> 00:01:13.299 the ultimate musician's musician. Stuart Dirk 00:01:13.299 --> 00:01:16.120 Fisher. Stuart Dirk Fisher. And looking at the 00:01:16.120 --> 00:01:18.379 source material we've gathered today, mostly 00:01:18.379 --> 00:01:20.780 biographical records and career overviews, his 00:01:20.780 --> 00:01:23.640 life is just wild. It really is. It touches on 00:01:23.640 --> 00:01:27.120 everything from World War II army kitchens to 00:01:27.120 --> 00:01:30.159 the reality of touring the Midwest and eventually 00:01:30.159 --> 00:01:33.739 building this huge jazz legacy in, of all places, 00:01:34.510 --> 00:01:36.489 A coffee shop. It's a fascinating trajectory 00:01:36.489 --> 00:01:39.469 because Fisher's biography, it reads almost like 00:01:39.469 --> 00:01:42.370 a map of the cultural and economic shifts in 00:01:42.370 --> 00:01:44.769 the U .S. from the 1940s straight through the 00:01:44.769 --> 00:01:47.150 early 2000s. He's the forest, not just the tree. 00:01:47.329 --> 00:01:49.129 Exactly. So just to give you a quick overview, 00:01:49.329 --> 00:01:51.989 Stuart Fisher, better known as Dirk, and later, 00:01:52.049 --> 00:01:54.870 hilariously, as Dirty Dirk, was born in September 00:01:54.870 --> 00:01:57.730 1924. In Duran, Michigan. Right. And he passed 00:01:57.730 --> 00:01:59.969 away in February 2013 in Valencia, California. 00:02:00.430 --> 00:02:02.109 That's a massive span of time. He lived through 00:02:02.109 --> 00:02:05.049 the entire evolution of modern music. So our 00:02:05.049 --> 00:02:07.709 mission today is to peel back the glamour. We 00:02:07.709 --> 00:02:09.969 really want to understand the unglamorous reality 00:02:09.969 --> 00:02:13.370 of the jazz profession. Right. How someone pivots 00:02:13.370 --> 00:02:15.969 from performance to pure survival and finally 00:02:15.969 --> 00:02:19.210 to education. Because Fisher isn't just a trumpet 00:02:19.210 --> 00:02:22.569 player. He's a case study in resilience. A case 00:02:22.569 --> 00:02:25.849 study who happened to be named Dirty Dirk. I 00:02:25.849 --> 00:02:27.590 love it. We'll get to the nickname later, but 00:02:27.590 --> 00:02:29.610 let's start at the very beginning. Because this 00:02:29.610 --> 00:02:31.509 guy didn't just, you know, stumble into music. 00:02:31.530 --> 00:02:33.289 It seems like he was almost genetically engineered 00:02:33.289 --> 00:02:35.389 for it. It was definitely the family business. 00:02:35.650 --> 00:02:38.110 Yeah. At least in a domestic sense. He was born 00:02:38.110 --> 00:02:40.789 into a household that was fundamentally musical. 00:02:40.949 --> 00:02:43.729 His mom played, right. Yeah. His mother, Luella, 00:02:43.870 --> 00:02:46.069 she was of French descent and played the piano. 00:02:46.469 --> 00:02:49.490 And his father, Cecil, who was of German descent, 00:02:49.729 --> 00:02:52.389 played the banjo. A banjo and a piano in the 00:02:52.389 --> 00:02:55.930 same house in the 1920s. I know. That is a loud 00:02:55.930 --> 00:02:57.930 living room. Oh, for sure. And it gets even more 00:02:57.930 --> 00:03:00.370 specific. His uncle played the C melody saxophone. 00:03:00.509 --> 00:03:03.169 Okay, I saw that in the notes, the C melody saxophone. 00:03:03.550 --> 00:03:06.169 That sounds like a trivia question answer. Why 00:03:06.169 --> 00:03:08.990 is that specific instrument a detail we should 00:03:08.990 --> 00:03:11.490 care about? Well, it's a really interesting relic 00:03:11.490 --> 00:03:14.810 of the era. The C melody sax was designed specifically 00:03:14.810 --> 00:03:18.150 for home use. Oh, really? Yeah. It was pitched 00:03:18.150 --> 00:03:20.469 in C, which meant you could look over the pianist's 00:03:20.469 --> 00:03:23.310 shoulder, read the exact same sheet music, and 00:03:23.310 --> 00:03:25.830 play the same notes without having to transpose 00:03:25.830 --> 00:03:28.009 the music in your head. Which you normally have 00:03:28.009 --> 00:03:30.169 to do with a professional alto or tenor sax. 00:03:30.550 --> 00:03:33.370 Exactly. So what that tells us is that music 00:03:33.370 --> 00:03:35.210 in the Fisher House wasn't just a performance. 00:03:35.430 --> 00:03:38.629 It was a highly participatory communal activity. 00:03:38.909 --> 00:03:41.389 They were all playing together. That paints such 00:03:41.389 --> 00:03:44.090 a cozy picture. Just the family gathered around 00:03:44.090 --> 00:03:46.789 reading sheet music. And he wasn't an only child. 00:03:46.969 --> 00:03:49.430 No, he was the oldest of four. And it's definitely 00:03:49.430 --> 00:03:51.289 worth noting that one of his younger brothers 00:03:51.289 --> 00:03:54.189 was Claire Fisher. Who became a huge deal. A 00:03:54.189 --> 00:03:57.949 very famous Grammy -winning musician and composer 00:03:57.949 --> 00:04:01.969 in his own right. But Stuart, or Dirk, he started 00:04:01.969 --> 00:04:04.490 his journey on the trumpet at age 13. Which is 00:04:04.490 --> 00:04:07.560 also when he got the nickname Dirk. Yes. From 00:04:07.560 --> 00:04:10.719 his mother. Do we know why? The sources are tantalizingly 00:04:10.719 --> 00:04:13.340 vague on why she started calling him that, but 00:04:13.340 --> 00:04:15.159 it completely stuck to the rest of his life. 00:04:15.360 --> 00:04:17.860 Dirk Fisher. It has a great ring to it. And then 00:04:17.860 --> 00:04:19.439 he picked up the saxophone just a year later 00:04:19.439 --> 00:04:22.439 at 14. Which is the first sign of that working 00:04:22.439 --> 00:04:24.740 musician mentality we were talking about. Right. 00:04:24.800 --> 00:04:26.600 He's not just picking an instrument to be the 00:04:26.600 --> 00:04:29.019 star. He's building a toolkit. It's called doubling 00:04:29.019 --> 00:04:31.540 in the industry. If you can play trumpet and 00:04:31.540 --> 00:04:34.759 sax, you are literally twice as employable. So 00:04:34.759 --> 00:04:37.180 he's a teenager in Grand Rapids, Michigan, doubling 00:04:37.180 --> 00:04:40.180 on brass and woodwinds. And he's not just practicing 00:04:40.180 --> 00:04:43.660 in his bedroom. He actually forms a group. The 00:04:43.660 --> 00:04:46.360 Aristocats. The Aristocats, which is just a perfect 00:04:46.360 --> 00:04:49.759 pre -war band name. It's classic. He formed it 00:04:49.759 --> 00:04:52.800 with three high school friends, Rich Henry, Hamilton 00:04:52.800 --> 00:04:55.379 Allen, and Mike Baelish. And they were actually 00:04:55.379 --> 00:04:57.680 gigging. They played at a place called Club Sherio 00:04:57.680 --> 00:05:00.620 in Muskegon. It sounds idyllic, just four kids 00:05:00.620 --> 00:05:03.290 playing swing music in Michigan. But looking 00:05:03.290 --> 00:05:07.730 at the timeline, 1924 birth year. By the time 00:05:07.730 --> 00:05:10.170 he's 18 or 19, the world is completely upside 00:05:10.170 --> 00:05:12.290 down. Precisely. World War II breaks out. And 00:05:12.290 --> 00:05:14.709 Dirk gets drafted. He gets drafted. And this 00:05:14.709 --> 00:05:16.949 is where the story takes a turn that just highlights 00:05:16.949 --> 00:05:20.050 the sheer bureaucratic absurdity of the military 00:05:20.050 --> 00:05:22.379 machine. This part made me laugh out loud when 00:05:22.379 --> 00:05:24.939 I read the sources, because the army looks at 00:05:24.939 --> 00:05:27.060 this talented multi -instrumentalist who can 00:05:27.060 --> 00:05:30.100 read music, play two instruments, gigging locally, 00:05:30.379 --> 00:05:32.660 and they say... They say, you know what you'd 00:05:32.660 --> 00:05:37.689 be good at? Baking bread. Cooks and Baker School. 00:05:38.050 --> 00:05:41.009 It is wildly ironic. He entered the army at Camp 00:05:41.009 --> 00:05:43.829 Barkley down in Texas and was initially enrolled 00:05:43.829 --> 00:05:46.269 in Cooks and Baker School. Can you imagine you've 00:05:46.269 --> 00:05:48.170 got these jazz chops, you're ready to swing, 00:05:48.370 --> 00:05:51.050 and you're peeling potatoes for a thousand guys? 00:05:51.410 --> 00:05:54.600 Well, he was working in a company kitchen. But 00:05:54.600 --> 00:05:56.620 this really speaks to that drive we mentioned. 00:05:56.740 --> 00:05:59.459 He didn't let the music stop. He simply wouldn't 00:05:59.459 --> 00:06:01.980 accept that his only role was cook. Right. So 00:06:01.980 --> 00:06:03.660 he hunted down the medical replacement training 00:06:03.660 --> 00:06:05.939 center band on the base. As you do. And he just 00:06:05.939 --> 00:06:07.480 started playing saxophone and trumpet with them 00:06:07.480 --> 00:06:09.899 on the side. So he's mixing dough by day and 00:06:09.899 --> 00:06:12.620 swing by night. That is serious dedication. It's 00:06:12.620 --> 00:06:15.899 survival for an artist. And eventually the talent 00:06:15.899 --> 00:06:18.500 won out. The army realized they were wasting 00:06:18.500 --> 00:06:20.480 an asset and they transferred him from the kitchen 00:06:20.480 --> 00:06:23.199 to the band full time. Thank goodness. But the 00:06:23.199 --> 00:06:26.600 real turning point, the moment where big picture 00:06:26.600 --> 00:06:29.360 jazz history really intersects with his life, 00:06:29.459 --> 00:06:31.259 happens when he gets transferred to Camp Lee 00:06:31.259 --> 00:06:34.439 in Virginia. Oh, this part blew my mind. So Camp 00:06:34.439 --> 00:06:37.500 Lee is the Armed Forces Band Training Unit. It's 00:06:37.500 --> 00:06:40.180 basically where the military sent all the music 00:06:40.180 --> 00:06:43.329 nerds. And who does he find there? He finds himself 00:06:43.329 --> 00:06:45.550 stationed with instructors like Gil Evans. Gil 00:06:45.550 --> 00:06:47.470 Evans. Let's just pause there for a second, because 00:06:47.470 --> 00:06:49.850 for the listener who knows the name Miles Davis, 00:06:50.029 --> 00:06:52.389 but maybe not Gil Evans, why is that such a big 00:06:52.389 --> 00:06:55.550 deal? Gil Evans is a titan of the genre. He's 00:06:55.550 --> 00:06:57.529 one of the primary architects of what became 00:06:57.529 --> 00:07:00.170 known as cool jazz. Right. He was an arranger 00:07:00.170 --> 00:07:03.209 who thought in terms of texture and color, not 00:07:03.209 --> 00:07:06.250 just rhythm and melody. He's the absolute genius 00:07:06.250 --> 00:07:08.649 behind the birth of the cool sessions with Miles 00:07:08.649 --> 00:07:11.350 Davis later on. So to study with Gil Evans is 00:07:11.350 --> 00:07:13.649 like studying physics with Einstein. Exactly. 00:07:13.750 --> 00:07:16.670 And at this time, Evans had been drafted just 00:07:16.670 --> 00:07:19.009 like everyone else. So you have this legend in 00:07:19.009 --> 00:07:20.930 the making teaching classes at an army camp. 00:07:21.350 --> 00:07:24.209 And Dirk takes his class. He takes an arranging 00:07:24.209 --> 00:07:27.250 course from Gil Evans. But here's the detail 00:07:27.250 --> 00:07:29.110 from the source material that tells you just 00:07:29.110 --> 00:07:31.269 how good Fisher actually was. Oh, it's incredible. 00:07:31.430 --> 00:07:34.189 The sources note that Fisher. already knew and 00:07:34.189 --> 00:07:36.670 practiced what Evans was teaching. That is a 00:07:36.670 --> 00:07:39.670 serious flex, to sit in a class taught by Gil 00:07:39.670 --> 00:07:41.329 Evans and think, yeah, I'm tracking, I already 00:07:41.329 --> 00:07:44.250 do this. It speaks to his level of sophistication 00:07:44.250 --> 00:07:46.329 even at that young age. She wasn't just a guy 00:07:46.329 --> 00:07:48.889 who could blow a horn. He understood the deep 00:07:48.889 --> 00:07:52.250 structure of the music. He really did. But there's 00:07:52.250 --> 00:07:54.290 another aspect of his service that I think is 00:07:54.290 --> 00:07:56.410 even more significant than the celebrity connection. 00:07:56.810 --> 00:08:00.100 The integration. Yes. It's a powerful part of 00:08:00.100 --> 00:08:02.519 the story, especially considering the time frame. 00:08:02.639 --> 00:08:06.000 We are talking about the early to mid 40s. The 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:09.279 military is still strictly segregated. Very strictly. 00:08:09.779 --> 00:08:13.240 Yet Fisher gets sent to Camp Reynolds in Pennsylvania. 00:08:13.899 --> 00:08:17.240 And he joins the 331st Army Service Forces Jazz 00:08:17.240 --> 00:08:19.879 Ensemble. Which was a black military big band. 00:08:20.100 --> 00:08:22.379 Exactly. So there's Dirk Fisher, a white guy 00:08:22.379 --> 00:08:24.720 from Michigan, sitting right there in the trumpet 00:08:24.720 --> 00:08:27.519 section of an all -black band. How did the military 00:08:27.519 --> 00:08:30.139 brass handle that? There is a specific anecdote 00:08:30.139 --> 00:08:34.299 preserved from a 1944 photo caption. Apparently, 00:08:34.379 --> 00:08:37.100 a black warrant officer came in, saw the band, 00:08:37.320 --> 00:08:39.799 and asked the band leader why there was a white 00:08:39.799 --> 00:08:41.840 guy sitting in the trumpet section. And the band 00:08:41.840 --> 00:08:44.509 leader says? He simply replied, Can't you tell? 00:08:44.610 --> 00:08:47.370 Can't you tell? Man, that gives me chills. It 00:08:47.370 --> 00:08:49.809 implies everything. Listen to him play. It's 00:08:49.809 --> 00:08:52.649 like the music was the passport. If you could 00:08:52.649 --> 00:08:56.029 play, you belonged. The sound justified the space, 00:08:56.230 --> 00:08:59.169 regardless of the laws outside the room. Precisely. 00:08:59.649 --> 00:09:02.669 Music was bridging the racial gap in a segregated 00:09:02.669 --> 00:09:05.929 institution well before the actual policies caught 00:09:05.929 --> 00:09:08.149 up. He was there because his sound was right. 00:09:08.509 --> 00:09:11.009 It's a testament to the absolute meritocracy 00:09:11.009 --> 00:09:13.990 of the bandstand. So the war ends. Dirk comes 00:09:13.990 --> 00:09:16.210 home. He's got these incredible skills. He's 00:09:16.210 --> 00:09:17.850 rubbed shoulders with Gil Evans. He's played 00:09:17.850 --> 00:09:19.889 in integrated bands. He's got the GI Bill in 00:09:19.889 --> 00:09:21.990 his pocket. What does he do? I mean, does he 00:09:21.990 --> 00:09:23.990 go straight to New York to chase the spotlight? 00:09:24.289 --> 00:09:26.549 No. And this is where we really plunge into that 00:09:26.549 --> 00:09:29.950 working musician reality. He heads to the Northern 00:09:29.950 --> 00:09:32.110 Plains. The Northern Plains. Not exactly the 00:09:32.110 --> 00:09:35.110 jazz capital of the world. No. But he used the 00:09:35.110 --> 00:09:37.950 GI Bill to study in Minnesota. And he went for 00:09:37.950 --> 00:09:40.690 rigorous classical training. He studied trumpet 00:09:40.690 --> 00:09:43.409 with Daniel Benner Tetzlaff and orchestration 00:09:43.409 --> 00:09:45.649 with William Muleby. Both of those guys were 00:09:45.649 --> 00:09:47.309 from the Minneapolis Symphony. That's a serious 00:09:47.309 --> 00:09:49.809 pivot. He also studied tonal materials with Jack 00:09:49.809 --> 00:09:53.450 Nowicki and 20th century counterpoint with Ernst 00:09:53.450 --> 00:09:55.389 Krennic. Counterpoint? I mean, that's pretty 00:09:55.389 --> 00:09:57.549 dense academic stuff for a guy who wants to play 00:09:57.549 --> 00:10:00.590 jazz on clubs, isn't it? It is dense, but it's 00:10:00.590 --> 00:10:03.049 absolutely crucial for a top -tier arranger. 00:10:04.049 --> 00:10:06.289 Counterpoint is the art of weaving independent 00:10:06.289 --> 00:10:09.210 melodic lines together. Right. If you want to 00:10:09.210 --> 00:10:11.690 write complex, interesting, big band charts where 00:10:11.690 --> 00:10:13.830 the saxophones are doing one thing and the trombones 00:10:13.830 --> 00:10:15.570 are doing something completely different, but 00:10:15.570 --> 00:10:18.330 it all sounds cohesive, you need to understand 00:10:18.330 --> 00:10:20.269 how voices interact. He was building a heavy 00:10:20.269 --> 00:10:22.769 -duty toolkit. He's not leaving anything to chance. 00:10:22.929 --> 00:10:25.289 Exactly. But his day job wasn't in a symphony 00:10:25.289 --> 00:10:28.990 hall. After his studies, he enters this era that 00:10:28.990 --> 00:10:31.750 I find so fascinating, the era of the territory 00:10:31.750 --> 00:10:35.409 bands. Yes. I feel like territory bands is a 00:10:35.409 --> 00:10:37.710 concept we've completely lost in modern music. 00:10:37.950 --> 00:10:40.669 Can you break that down for us? Because today 00:10:40.669 --> 00:10:43.610 we think of bands as either playing a local bar 00:10:43.610 --> 00:10:47.029 or touring globally. Right. Before national touring 00:10:47.029 --> 00:10:49.809 acts dominated everything, you know, before television 00:10:49.809 --> 00:10:51.769 and the interstate highway system really took 00:10:51.769 --> 00:10:54.529 over, you had these bands that owned a specific 00:10:54.529 --> 00:10:57.429 region or territory. OK. They traveled by bus 00:10:57.429 --> 00:11:00.950 to dance halls within. maybe a few hundred miles 00:11:00.950 --> 00:11:03.990 radius of a hub city. Fisher played in bands 00:11:03.990 --> 00:11:06.110 that were booked out of Omaha, Nebraska. Omaha 00:11:06.110 --> 00:11:09.009 is a jazz hub? Who knew? It was a major distribution 00:11:09.009 --> 00:11:11.769 point for live music in the Midwest. They were 00:11:11.769 --> 00:11:13.629 booked by an agency called the National Orchestra 00:11:13.629 --> 00:11:16.110 Service, and Fisher played with a ton of them. 00:11:16.269 --> 00:11:18.389 The Teddy Phillips Band, the Little John Beecher 00:11:18.389 --> 00:11:20.669 Orchestra, the Jovier Latin Ensemble, Walter 00:11:20.669 --> 00:11:23.070 Marty, John Paul Jones, Lee Williams. It sounds 00:11:23.070 --> 00:11:25.210 like he played everything, Latin, swing, dance 00:11:25.210 --> 00:11:27.720 music. He played whatever paid. Yeah. trumpet 00:11:27.720 --> 00:11:30.220 and valve trombone. Yeah. But if you look at 00:11:30.220 --> 00:11:32.259 the source material, his role went far beyond 00:11:32.259 --> 00:11:34.620 just playing the gig. And this is where the glamour 00:11:34.620 --> 00:11:36.879 completely evaporates. Oh, this is my favorite 00:11:36.879 --> 00:11:39.639 part. Detail what else this guy was doing on 00:11:39.639 --> 00:11:42.080 the road. Well, aside from writing most of these 00:11:42.080 --> 00:11:44.320 special arrangements for these bands, which, 00:11:44.340 --> 00:11:46.899 by the way, is a huge time consuming job in itself. 00:11:47.179 --> 00:11:49.940 Yeah. He was the road manager for John Beecher. 00:11:50.039 --> 00:11:53.700 So he's handling logistics, paying guys, dealing 00:11:53.700 --> 00:11:57.309 with promoters. Yep. And perhaps most tellingly, 00:11:57.309 --> 00:12:00.570 he drove the sleeper bus. He drove the bus. Just 00:12:00.570 --> 00:12:03.029 imagine that for a second. You finish a gig at 00:12:03.029 --> 00:12:05.789 1 .00 a .m., you've just played a killer solo, 00:12:05.929 --> 00:12:07.629 you've literally written the arrangement the 00:12:07.629 --> 00:12:09.350 band is playing, and then you have to pack up, 00:12:09.450 --> 00:12:12.149 get behind the wheel of a massive non -power 00:12:12.149 --> 00:12:14.830 steering bus, and drive across Nebraska in the 00:12:14.830 --> 00:12:17.289 dark to the next town. It creates such a vivid 00:12:17.289 --> 00:12:20.710 image of the grind. You are the talent, but you 00:12:20.710 --> 00:12:22.929 are also the infrastructure. And this, by the 00:12:22.929 --> 00:12:24.529 way, is where his friends started calling him 00:12:24.529 --> 00:12:27.259 dirty. Dirk. Dirty Dirk. See, when I first saw 00:12:27.259 --> 00:12:28.899 that in the notes, I thought it might be scandalous, 00:12:28.940 --> 00:12:31.500 but the source says it was endearing. I imagine 00:12:31.500 --> 00:12:33.220 it's because when you're fixing a bus engine 00:12:33.220 --> 00:12:36.220 on the side of a dirt road in 1954, you get a 00:12:36.220 --> 00:12:38.779 little dirty. Almost certainly. It's grease, 00:12:38.980 --> 00:12:42.539 road dust, and exhaust. And he did this for over 00:12:42.539 --> 00:12:45.860 a decade. The late 40s straight through the 50s. 00:12:45.879 --> 00:12:48.659 It was an incredibly hard life, but it was a 00:12:48.659 --> 00:12:51.840 life completely immersed in music. However, all 00:12:51.840 --> 00:12:54.620 things must come to an end. The National Orchestra 00:12:54.620 --> 00:12:57.639 Service went out of business in 1959. The end 00:12:57.639 --> 00:13:00.519 of an era. Rock and roll is coming in. TV is 00:13:00.519 --> 00:13:02.360 keeping people at home. The dance halls are closing. 00:13:02.559 --> 00:13:05.639 The territory bands just dry up. So Dirk is now, 00:13:05.740 --> 00:13:08.659 what, mid -30s? He could be about 35, yeah. Okay, 00:13:08.700 --> 00:13:11.759 35 years old. Unemployed in Omaha. That's a scary 00:13:11.759 --> 00:13:14.039 moment for anyone, let alone a niche musician. 00:13:14.519 --> 00:13:17.419 So he pivots again. He packs up and heads west. 00:13:17.480 --> 00:13:20.649 He heads to Los Angeles. The year is 1959. The 00:13:20.649 --> 00:13:23.570 promised land. But looking at the timeline, it 00:13:23.570 --> 00:13:25.830 wasn't exactly paved with gold right away, was 00:13:25.830 --> 00:13:28.210 it? Not immediately, no. He spent the next six 00:13:28.210 --> 00:13:30.649 years working in recording studios, but largely 00:13:30.649 --> 00:13:32.990 as a ghostwriter. Ghostwriting, let's clarify 00:13:32.990 --> 00:13:34.509 that for everyone listening. That means he's 00:13:34.509 --> 00:13:36.490 writing the music, doing the heavy lifting, but 00:13:36.490 --> 00:13:38.330 someone else is putting their name on the sheet 00:13:38.330 --> 00:13:41.029 music. Essentially, yes. He's composing and arranging 00:13:41.029 --> 00:13:43.950 music for other composers or band leaders who 00:13:43.950 --> 00:13:46.129 get the official credit and, more importantly, 00:13:46.389 --> 00:13:49.019 the royalties. He's doing the architectural work 00:13:49.019 --> 00:13:51.120 and someone else is signing the building. It's 00:13:51.120 --> 00:13:53.259 a very common story in Hollywood and the music 00:13:53.259 --> 00:13:56.100 industry, but it can be incredibly soul -crushing. 00:13:56.240 --> 00:13:58.059 You're doing the work of a genius but getting 00:13:58.059 --> 00:14:00.659 paid like a laborer. But this period in L .A. 00:14:00.679 --> 00:14:03.059 also introduces a new chapter in his personal 00:14:03.059 --> 00:14:05.679 life, and this leads to what I think is the most 00:14:05.679 --> 00:14:09.700 surprising pivot in his entire story. Yes. He 00:14:09.700 --> 00:14:12.320 met his second wife, Rosalind O'Satton, known 00:14:12.320 --> 00:14:15.480 as Roz. They met at Ram's Restaurant. Is he eating 00:14:15.480 --> 00:14:17.929 there? He was working there. Really? Yeah. The 00:14:17.929 --> 00:14:19.710 source doesn't specify if he was playing piano 00:14:19.710 --> 00:14:22.049 in the corner or waiting tables. Right. But considering 00:14:22.049 --> 00:14:23.409 the ghostwriting struggle, he might have been 00:14:23.409 --> 00:14:26.009 doing whatever paid the bills. He, quote unquote, 00:14:26.250 --> 00:14:30.129 hired Ross in 1965. And they got married in Las 00:14:30.129 --> 00:14:32.929 Vegas in 1966. Romance at the Rams restaurant. 00:14:33.320 --> 00:14:35.860 And that marriage lasted 40 years. But they do 00:14:35.860 --> 00:14:37.679 something together that I just love. It's so 00:14:37.679 --> 00:14:40.919 practical and yet so completely unexpected for 00:14:40.919 --> 00:14:43.580 a jazz musician. They don't just keep scraping 00:14:43.580 --> 00:14:46.379 by in the gig economy. They start a retail business. 00:14:46.659 --> 00:14:49.100 They opened a coffee shop, the Owl Coffee Shop 00:14:49.100 --> 00:14:51.799 in Van Nuys. A coffee shop. And we aren't talking 00:14:51.799 --> 00:14:54.480 about a modern hipster pour over place, right? 00:14:54.620 --> 00:14:58.220 This is the 60s and 70s in L .A. This is a diner. 00:14:58.559 --> 00:15:01.279 A standard working class coffee shop. They ran 00:15:01.279 --> 00:15:04.220 it together for 14 years. But I really want you 00:15:04.220 --> 00:15:06.580 to focus on the strategy here because this is 00:15:06.580 --> 00:15:08.779 the brilliance of Dirk Fisher. They didn't open 00:15:08.779 --> 00:15:10.759 a coffee shop just because they wanted to be 00:15:10.759 --> 00:15:13.340 restaurateurs. Right. The business specifically 00:15:13.340 --> 00:15:16.240 allowed Fisher to go back to music school and 00:15:16.240 --> 00:15:19.100 it allowed his wife, Roz, to enter nursing school. 00:15:19.370 --> 00:15:21.809 That is the ultimate hustle. You're running a 00:15:21.809 --> 00:15:24.009 small business, pouring coffee, managing the 00:15:24.009 --> 00:15:26.210 books, dealing with customers, just so you can 00:15:26.210 --> 00:15:28.330 afford to get the credentials you need to teach 00:15:28.330 --> 00:15:30.629 the thing you actually love. It's a remarkable 00:15:30.629 --> 00:15:33.750 pivot. He realized that the road warrior life 00:15:33.750 --> 00:15:36.269 wasn't sustainable as he got older. He needed 00:15:36.269 --> 00:15:38.909 stability. So he took his old GI Bill credits 00:15:38.909 --> 00:15:41.450 from Minnesota, transferred them out west, and 00:15:41.450 --> 00:15:43.809 earned credits from Cal State Los Angeles and 00:15:43.809 --> 00:15:46.210 Cal State Northridge. Putting in the hours. And 00:15:46.210 --> 00:15:47.929 he finally completed his California teaching 00:15:47.929 --> 00:15:50.120 credential. He's playing the long game. He's 00:15:50.120 --> 00:15:52.659 flipping burgers or pouring coffee to fund his 00:15:52.659 --> 00:15:55.460 future students. And it pays off in the 70s. 00:15:55.539 --> 00:15:58.899 But again, in true Dirk Fisher fashion, it happens 00:15:58.899 --> 00:16:02.240 almost by accident. It does. See, in the 1970s, 00:16:02.259 --> 00:16:05.039 jazz studies programs were just starting to become 00:16:05.039 --> 00:16:08.559 a real thing in academia. Before that, music 00:16:08.559 --> 00:16:12.220 schools were strictly classical. But now, community 00:16:12.220 --> 00:16:15.000 colleges and universities needed qualified jazz 00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:17.460 teachers. But they had a supply problem. Exactly. 00:16:17.500 --> 00:16:20.100 The problem was you couldn't find jazz guys in 00:16:20.100 --> 00:16:22.259 the Ph .D. programs. You had to find the guys 00:16:22.259 --> 00:16:23.879 who had actually been out on the road. The guys 00:16:23.879 --> 00:16:26.019 who drove the buses in Omaha. You needed someone 00:16:26.019 --> 00:16:28.379 with the academic theory which Dirk had from 00:16:28.379 --> 00:16:30.259 his rigorous counterpoint studies in Minnesota 00:16:30.259 --> 00:16:34.200 and the street smarts. College of the Canyons, 00:16:34.240 --> 00:16:37.919 or COC, was looking for exactly that. But Dirk 00:16:37.919 --> 00:16:39.879 didn't even apply for a job initially. Right. 00:16:39.940 --> 00:16:42.379 His wife, Roz, just suggested he visit the college 00:16:42.379 --> 00:16:44.340 to find people to play with. She basically said, 00:16:44.440 --> 00:16:46.960 go make some friends, Dirk. Pretty much. He went 00:16:46.960 --> 00:16:49.600 to the campus looking for a jam session and ended 00:16:49.600 --> 00:16:53.159 up being hired in 1977 as the very first instructor 00:16:53.159 --> 00:16:55.960 of jazz studies at College of the Canyons. That 00:16:55.960 --> 00:16:59.059 is fantastic. He goes from ghostwriting and pouring 00:16:59.059 --> 00:17:02.559 coffee to literally founding a college department. 00:17:02.940 --> 00:17:05.319 And he stayed there until 2005. That's nearly 00:17:05.319 --> 00:17:08.349 30 years. He served as the jazz band director 00:17:08.349 --> 00:17:11.049 and even established the annual R .K. Downs Jazz 00:17:11.049 --> 00:17:13.509 Festival, which he actually named after his mentor. 00:17:13.750 --> 00:17:16.450 He really put down roots. He stopped driving 00:17:16.450 --> 00:17:19.210 the bus and he built a station. But I want to 00:17:19.210 --> 00:17:21.349 make sure we touch on the music he left behind 00:17:21.349 --> 00:17:23.869 because even though he became an educator, he 00:17:23.869 --> 00:17:26.809 never stopped creating. The source material mentions 00:17:26.809 --> 00:17:30.049 a few key albums. Yes, his discography is really 00:17:30.049 --> 00:17:31.690 interesting because it highlights his collaborative 00:17:31.690 --> 00:17:35.259 nature. He wasn't an egomaniac. There's an album 00:17:35.259 --> 00:17:37.440 called Thesaurus, which he recorded with the 00:17:37.440 --> 00:17:40.980 Claire Fisher Big Band in 1968. That's his brother's 00:17:40.980 --> 00:17:43.019 band. Right. And then much later, there's George 00:17:43.019 --> 00:17:44.920 Stone and Friends performed the music of Stuart 00:17:44.920 --> 00:17:47.819 Dirk Fisher in 2004 and another called Coming 00:17:47.819 --> 00:17:51.059 of Age in 2011. And he did a lot of arranging 00:17:51.059 --> 00:17:53.759 for his brother, Claire, over the years. He did. 00:17:53.859 --> 00:17:56.240 He arranged some of Claire Fisher's best tunes, 00:17:56.359 --> 00:18:00.240 like Pensativa, Funchiato, and Gaviota. But Dirk 00:18:00.240 --> 00:18:03.000 also had his own original compositions. Songs 00:18:03.000 --> 00:18:06.460 with names like Mambo Estudio and Omaha Gathering. 00:18:06.500 --> 00:18:09.500 Omaha Gathering. I love that. A direct nod to 00:18:09.500 --> 00:18:12.720 his territory band days. Precisely. He was synthesizing 00:18:12.720 --> 00:18:15.740 his entire life experience into his music. He 00:18:15.740 --> 00:18:18.579 wrote a piece called Dawn Day back in 1958. It 00:18:18.579 --> 00:18:20.839 pops up in his publishing catalog decades later. 00:18:21.099 --> 00:18:23.640 Nothing was wasted. It's incredible to think 00:18:23.640 --> 00:18:25.839 about the breadth of this man's life. He passed 00:18:25.839 --> 00:18:29.230 away in 2013 at the age of 88. But when you look 00:18:29.230 --> 00:18:31.769 back at it, born in the 20s, goes to cooks and 00:18:31.769 --> 00:18:34.990 baker school, integrates army bands in the 40s, 00:18:34.990 --> 00:18:37.750 drives the bus through the Midwest in the 50s, 00:18:37.750 --> 00:18:40.630 ghost writes in L .A. in the 60s, runs a coffee 00:18:40.630 --> 00:18:42.829 shop in the 70s, and then mentors a generation 00:18:42.829 --> 00:18:45.869 of students for 30 years. He represents the absolute 00:18:45.869 --> 00:18:48.569 backbone of the jazz world. We so often focus 00:18:48.569 --> 00:18:50.750 on the soloists in the spotlight, but the genre 00:18:50.750 --> 00:18:52.930 was built and sustained by people exactly like 00:18:52.930 --> 00:18:55.049 Dirk Fisher. The workers. The arrangers, the 00:18:55.049 --> 00:18:57.359 road managers, the teachers. It really challenges 00:18:57.359 --> 00:18:59.599 the idea that a successful career in the arts 00:18:59.599 --> 00:19:02.779 is just about fame and fortune. Dirk Fischer 00:19:02.779 --> 00:19:05.700 seemed to define success as just keeping the 00:19:05.700 --> 00:19:07.960 music going, whatever it took. If it meant driving 00:19:07.960 --> 00:19:09.799 the bus, he drove the bus. If it meant selling 00:19:09.799 --> 00:19:12.579 coffee, he sold coffee. That's the real takeaway 00:19:12.579 --> 00:19:15.660 here for me. His life illustrates that a career 00:19:15.660 --> 00:19:17.859 in the arts is almost never a straight line. 00:19:17.980 --> 00:19:20.880 It requires diverse pivots. You have to be willing 00:19:20.880 --> 00:19:23.920 to reinvent yourself over and over to sustain 00:19:23.920 --> 00:19:26.710 your creative passion. He wasn't too proud to 00:19:26.710 --> 00:19:28.829 work in a kitchen or hide in a recording studio 00:19:28.829 --> 00:19:30.970 shadow if it meant he could keep playing his 00:19:30.970 --> 00:19:34.529 horn. Absolutely. It's deeply inspiring. It makes 00:19:34.529 --> 00:19:36.630 you realize that the legend isn't always the 00:19:36.630 --> 00:19:39.509 guy posing on the album cover. Sometimes it's 00:19:39.509 --> 00:19:41.369 the guy teaching the 8 a .m. class or writing 00:19:41.369 --> 00:19:43.490 the chart the star is reading. Or the guy who 00:19:43.490 --> 00:19:45.289 fixed the bus engine so the band could actually 00:19:45.289 --> 00:19:47.470 make it to the gig in the first place. Exactly. 00:19:48.150 --> 00:19:50.730 You know, we started this deep dive by talking 00:19:50.730 --> 00:19:54.779 about the great men of jazz, the icons. But after 00:19:54.779 --> 00:19:57.339 digging into Dirk's life, I'm left with a totally 00:19:57.339 --> 00:20:00.740 different thought. Dirk Fisher spent years ghostwriting 00:20:00.740 --> 00:20:03.119 for others and keeping the show on the road from 00:20:03.119 --> 00:20:05.480 the shadows before he finally got his name on 00:20:05.480 --> 00:20:07.880 the door of that jazz department. It really makes 00:20:07.880 --> 00:20:11.299 you wonder. What's that? How many other dirty 00:20:11.299 --> 00:20:13.890 Dirks are out there right now? When you're listening 00:20:13.890 --> 00:20:17.250 to a new track or at a local show, how many people 00:20:17.250 --> 00:20:19.369 are out there keeping the music alive in the 00:20:19.369 --> 00:20:22.650 shadows, doing the truly unglamorous work driving 00:20:22.650 --> 00:20:25.809 the vans, running the merchandise tables, teaching 00:20:25.809 --> 00:20:27.750 the middle school lessons whose names we might 00:20:27.750 --> 00:20:31.069 never ever know? That is the real question. They 00:20:31.069 --> 00:20:33.349 are the invisible infrastructure of our entire 00:20:33.349 --> 00:20:35.569 culture. It's something for you to think about 00:20:35.569 --> 00:20:37.589 the next time you put on your favorite record. 00:20:37.670 --> 00:20:39.910 There's probably a Dirk Fisher behind it somewhere 00:20:39.910 --> 00:20:42.009 making sure the whole thing doesn't fall apart. 00:20:43.279 --> 00:20:45.640 Thanks for joining us on this deep dive into 00:20:45.640 --> 00:20:48.880 the life of Stuart Dirk Fisher. It's been quite 00:20:48.880 --> 00:20:51.200 a ride. It was a pleasure to talk about it. We'll 00:20:51.200 --> 00:20:52.019 catch you on the next one.