<Begin Segment 33>

RS: But Frank had this amazing studio. And then that sort of overlapped at the time that I was having problems in graduate school with my work and so on. It was, I had various people on the faculty telling me that maybe I ought to drop out of school and just sort of try to come to terms with this problem. And I was having people like Bob Jones say, "You got your undergraduate degree here, don't get your graduate degree. Go someplace else." So, Frank got his Guggenheim, and he went to Paris. And he came up to me and said, "Do you want to rent my studio?" And he's got this two-thousand square foot studio and it's twenty-five dollars a month and it's right next door to Bill Ivey's studio. I said, "Absolutely." And so I took his studio over and rented out the back room to this writer for five bucks a month so it was twenty dollars a month and no utilities and the only downside of it was that there were no light switches. And in order to turn the lights on -- and there were dozens of lights in the studio -- you had to screw the fuse in. And every time you screwed the fuse in it'd throw sparks out like this. And I always remember being out drinking with Okada late at night and we'd always go to the studio for a late night drink or to look at his latest painting. He'd go in there just totally intoxicated and put his hand in this fuse box and it'd look like electricity was coming out of his fingertips, as he's, just deftly would turn the right fuse, just like this and [makes sound effects] like this. And all the lights on the floor would go on. And so that was the only downside of that studio. But here suddenly I had this studio that was right next door to Bill Ivey, whose work that I really respected and was certainly someone that Frank always talked about and probably respected more than anybody. And so, again, another very sort of rapid growing-up process. And there were other artists in the building as well that now have become sort of icons of Northwest painting.

So I had that studio for one year and decided at that point that I would get ready for that drawing show at Earl Ballard Gallery and I would just quit painting for a year. And my plan was to do this drawing show and then I would quit drawing. And that was the only way that I felt like I could deal with it, because the stuff that I was doing in between, trying to do this Rauschenberg stuff was just not working out. And so that was the plan. And so for one year, I was able to sort of live this wonderfully kind of bohemian life in Pioneer Square, eating at all these greasy places that Frank sort of introduced me to. And listening to music and painting and so on. And it was -- I took in a studio partner because the studio was too big and believe it or not, twenty dollars a month was a lot of money back then. And I took in this, this friend, graduate, Pete Madsen was his name. He was a really excellent painter. And we used to have these wild parties down there, too, on weekends. And I also started spending a lot of time at... what's the name of that jazz place? I can't remember. Same owner as Jazz Alley but -- I can't remember, but it was a very famous jazz place. A guy named Charlie Puzzo owned it. Do you remember the name of that place? It was on First Avenue.

MT: The Bank?

RS: No.

MT: Or The Vault?

RS: No.

MT: Not New Orleans?

RS: No. It was something like, it was Jazz something. But anyway, I used to go there on weekends because it was so close to the studio and I got to meet Cannonball Adderley, and would sit there with Cannonball and Nat during breaks and talk to them. And we actually were on a first-name basis. I would go every night that they would play. And sit on the side table that they would sit and take their breaks at. And I met Herbie Hancock, Charles Lloyd, all of these people. And it was just a really wonderful time.

And one story, I think it's sort of worth telling, was... and I became friends with Charlie Puzzo, that owned this place. And he told me that John Coltrane was coming. And this was just about the time that I decided to go back to graduate school and I'd given up the studio. I left -- I was going to give up the studio. I gave it to Bob Jones and Dick Dahn. And, so that was in the very near future, and I found out that John Coltrane was coming and of course he was the man as far as I was concerned. And I asked Charlie if there was any possibility that, since my studio was so close to, to this place, whether or not I could have a party and that he would show up. Charlie said, "Well, I can ask." And so I put the word, I invited three hundred people over to the studio with the possibility that John Coltrane may show up at two o'clock in the morning when he was through with his gig. And so I had this party and all these people showed up and everybody was rip-roaring drunk, dancing and having a good time, almost forgot that Coltrane might be showing up at two o'clock in the morning. Which he did not. And so, but at that point I think we had all sort of forgotten about that possibility and were just having a good time. And the party ended about five in the morning or something, which was typical. And the next day I had to leave to go to California because I enrolled in the summer program at Stanford. And was realizing, still exhaling alcohol fumes and driving my car by myself down to Palo Alto that, gee, John Coltrane never showed up. Well, when I got down to California, and I remember making it in twelve and a half hours, and crossed the bridge into San Francisco, I stopped and picked up a newspaper, because I was looking for a motel. And there on the front page it said, "John Coltrane dies." And he had...

MT: But that wasn't in Seattle, was it?

RS: No, he didn't die in Seattle.

MT: That he died?

RS: He missed his gig.

MT: Oh.

RS: And he died of some sort of kidney disorder. And I remember just being shattered. And, not because he missed my party, but because he had died. And I remember immediately looking for tributes or something in San Francisco that were going to be made to him, and found one at this place called Both/And, and going there -- and that's a whole 'nother story that I won't go into, but, anyway, that's my John Coltrane story. So you're going to have to reel me back in now. [Laughs]

<End Segment 33> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.