Warren I. Smith Reflects on Barbra Streisand in his soon-to-be-released memoir by GSP, Crossing Borders & Playing with Pioneers: My Life in Music

When the chemistry is right, people remember. In 1964 I subbed now and then on Funny Girl, a Broadway show starring Barbra Streisand as Fanny Brice. It was her first big break, and she tore the house down night after night. When she quit the show a year later, she called me to play percussion on a national tour. Three years later, she broke into her acting career, winning a Best Actress Oscar for the film version of Funny Girl. I watched her skyrocket. That three-octave range—she had it all. And the chutzpah to cross borders and break new ground. 

A few months later, I got a call. I said yes to the tour. Her limousine driver picked me up and dropped me off at a small airport in New Jersey where her private jet awaited her and the band. Two seats to an aisle and a private bar. Just six musicians. She used local orchestras in each city. 

Along for the tour was her husband, actor Elliot Gould. Show business couples can go through a lot of changes, and I had the feeling they had played all the changes in their wedding song. Maybe his jet was in the repair shop, but he was not handling her success so well. I think he was used to getting a lot more attention. Actors have it tough. He couldn’t give up the jackass role he had cast himself in. 

We arrived in Florida, played a concert with a standing ovation and repaired to a first-class hotel. Barbra knew how to travel. Next day we’re back in her private jet headed for New Orleans. It was my first time in the city that started it all. Touring can be a grind and a half with missed transportation connections and accommodations or troubles with the venue. All that was nowhere to be seen. I had never been in a situation that was so luxurious in my life. 

Audiences loved Barbra. She was a fantastic musician and a model of dependable leadership. She was always on time, took everything seriously and it showed. It did not surprise me that she went in to garner awards for her film acting, writing and directing. Nor that she would succeed in film with such ballsy topics. As for her music, she outgrew the cabaret and show tunes of her early years and crossed over into rock and pop. She kept stretching. She brought that same intensity to her philanthropy work. Like the other greats I have worked with, Barbra always found a way to get it done. 

AFH. The Andrew Freedman Home, 2020, https://andrewfreedmanhome.org/events/.

Eng, Matthew. "The Greatest Star: How Barbra Streisand Broke Out Her Own Way in FUNNY GIRL." Tribeca, 4 Nov. 2020, https://tribecafilm.com/news/the-greatest-star-barbra-streisand-funny-girl-star-persona 

Warren I. Smith Reflects on Duke Ellington in his soon-to-be-released memoir by GSP, Crossing Borders & Playing with Pioneers: My Life in Music

 

Being on the road with a show was a benefit I had not even imagined. Some of the most inspiring experiences of my life came during these times, sometimes not even related to the show. For example, I was coming down one morning to the lobby of my hotel in Boston. I noticed the entrance in the lower lobby of a night club called Storyville. When I came back later, I saw a group of people downstairs so I went down to check it out. On the way I recognized Russell Procope and Jimmy Hamilton. It’s Duke’s band! I told them I was with the show next door. They invited me to come into the club. “We’re getting ready to rehearse. Would you like to come in and check it out?” What an opportunity!

Duke hadn’t arrived yet. All the cats were standing around the bar, smoking, drinking, never thinking of rehearsal, nonchalant. Then Duke entered and sat next to the piano, got comfortable and started playing a nice easy blues. The bassist Ernie Shephard reacted first, put down his drink and had his bass out of its cover before Duke finished his first chorus. When Ernie started, my idol Sam Woodyard, sharp as a switchblade, looked up. He was holding his cigarette and his drink both in his left hand while gesturing to make his point with the mighty right. I still can’t do that! As soon as Sam heard that bass line underneath Duke’s piano, he broke off immediately, got right up there and started laying down that impeccable time, and the shit was on now!

Everyone was focused on getting up there to get a piece of this groove. A sweet trumpet solo was followed by a clarinet chorus or three. Then I noticed a lone figure come striding across the stage, his tenor out ready to hit the downbeat at the top of the next chorus. Paul Gonsalves, the last to arrive, was ready. But the downbeat never came. Right on the one, Duke stood up and cut the band off with an emphatic sweep of his right hand. Absolute silence swept the room and Ellington said in a mellow tone, “Now, gentlemen, let’s look at the passage we kind of fumbled through last evening.”

How elegant, how cool could a bandleader possible be! It was a lesson in psychology as well as musicianship and discipline. After the show that night I got back in time to catch most of the last set. The effect of the rehearsal was evident in the performance. One of the trumpet players played a rhythm on the cowbell I had heard in the rehearsal, but this time some others picked up claves and maracas in the section and transported the audience to a Caribbean island. The band swung right on through the night as usual and left us dancing out of the club and back upstairs into the night.