Goodbye Mr. Bat.

Whenever I hear a radio station play an extended block of a jazz musician's music it always scares the hell out of me. I just assume the guy died. This happened to me up in Canada a few years ago when CBC radio did a P.J. Perry retrospective. I drove around listening to the car radio in a dead funk for half an hour until the announcer came on and started rattling off a few of P.J.'s upcoming gigs. So, this last Sunday when I went across the street to visit with my neighbor Miss Vera (out selling jazzfest parking in her driveway for $20 a pop, as many do in this neighborhood at jazzfest time) I was caught totally offguard by the sound of Mr. Bat playing on her boom box. "Say, that's Alvin Batiste," I said. "Yes, he died last night. The lady down the street told me." Wow. I just spoke to Alvin two weeks ago. We were going to try to get together for lunch. Here's his obit in the Times-Picayune. http://www.nola.com/newsflash/national/index.ssf?/base/news-31/1178479217162420.xml&storylist=Obituaries I first hooked up with Alvin back in 1999. My friend Alan Matheson had given me his number. I was in New Orleans to do an article on jazzfest for Planet Jazz magazine, and Alvin was one of a number of people I spoke to. Just interviewing him was an educational experience in itself (it mainly taught me that doing a good interview is not nearly as easy as it looks) and knowing him has been a life changing experience for many, many people. I've watched him get incredibly complex, nuanced performances out of concert bands staffed with hardscrabble, inner-city kids. I've seen him do things on the clarinet that I didn't think were possible. And in conversation, he's taken huge, longstanding systemic issues in my life and music and broken them down into just a few sentences, tight and clear as a diamond. He never stopped learning, and he never stopped teaching. When people like Alvin pass, it leaves a very big hole.