My dear friend Jeffrey Fortner passed away several months ago from kidney failure. His death came as a shock to me, and as death tends to do, his passing has triggered lots of memories.
One stands out among countless others. Though, dear reader, this story means little if you don’t know a few things about Fortner, or the Jazz Man, as we called him.
For one, he was a quiet, soft-spoken man. Fucking hilarious at times, but in a muted way. Even the funniest or most irreverent things that would come from his mouth were said in soft monotone.
He was a musician—an artist—and therefore I’m sure he was filled with emotions, like all creatives. Those emotions rarely showed though.
On occasion, however, they’d break through. Like the time he and I were playing nine holes of golf, and things weren’t going well for him. Just like you’ve seen in countless comedy films, that day, I witnessed a grown man break a 3-wood over his knee. Another story, for another time.
Fortner and I are both jazz fans, though he was also a jazz composer and guitarist. Simply put, he was the best musician I knew personally.
Sometime around 1999, Fortner and I took a road trip from Colorado Springs to the Los Angeles area. We did Disneyland and some other touristy things, but the purpose of the trip was to see legendary jazz guitarist Allan Holdsworth, Fortner’s idol. As a bonus, Gary Husband, one of my favorite jazz drummers, accompanied Holdsworth.
We rented a car—a tiny Dodge Neon—and drove the 1,000 miles from the Springs to Garden Grove where we crashed in a shitty Motel by a noisy road.
We set out on our journey in the evening, driving through Utah and Nevada to reach our desired destination. It was a 30-hour drive, roundtrip, so we brought plenty of music. Of course, lots of that music was jazz, including a tribute album to the Peanuts and the music of Vince Guaraldi. Entitled “Happy Anniversary, Charlie Brown!”, the album contained top songs from Peanuts’ cartoons performed by top-name artists, some traditional jazz, others “smooth jazz.”
As jazz purists, Fortner and I weren’t much into smooth jazz. The record featured guys like David Benoit and Kenny G, and those tracks were bad. Like, truly terrible. But the record also featured greats like B.B. King and Dave Brubeck, and those tracks were great.
Somewhere around 3 a.m., we found ourselves in Middle-of-Fucking-Nowhere-Utah, in a small car that was fighting with all it had to climb the Utah mountains. I’d taken over the driving, and at some point, this compilation album made it into the tape deck.
The car chugged along, fighting to crest the hills laid out before it. My eyes focused on the darkened road ahead of me, the window down, mountain air filled my lungs as bad smooth jazz blared from the car’s tiny speakers. Kenny G, David Benoit, I wasn’t sure which. It was 3 in the morning and all the tracks had formed a tonal mélange in my brain.
The music stopped suddenly.
Seconds later, something briefly interrupted my already difficult view of the road. I wasn’t sure what it was, but something had definitely passed by my face, inches from my nose. I’d felt it as much as I’d seen it.
I turned to look at Fortner. He was sitting straight, hands in his lap, like he was in church.
I looked out the window, then back at Fortner. “Was that the tape?”
He nodded. Then in his trademark monotone voice said, “Sorry. I couldn’t take it anymore.”
Then we laughed. Raucously.
We stopped in Vegas at 6 or 7 in the morning. We parked and began our walk into the Excalibur to get some breakfast. Before we made it to the door, a hooker propositioned us. We politely declined and went inside.
We left Vegas later that day and made it to Hollywood by that evening. Holdsworth was playing the Baked Potato, a famed jazz club that serves, you guessed it, baked potatoes. Huge ones topped with just about anything. The show was amazing, and we were seated right in front, inches from the band.
We stopped at a Hollywood McDonald’s afterward for an early morning snack. There, my second favorite Fortner moment happened, but that’s a story for another time as well.
Leaving the restaurant, we were stopped at a light when a small riot broke out in the intersection. It started with one man punching another several times, right in the roadway, and then a dozen or more guys swarmed, all throwing punches wildly.
The melee formed a single mass of bodies that moved as one from the corner of the road where it had begun to the center of the intersection.
We looked at each other.
He said, “I wish this light would change.”
I agreed.
It did, and we went on as several cop cars raced by us.
The next day, we went to Disneyland. A day or so later, we began the trip home. It was uneventful, comparatively.
Nonetheless, somewhere along a stretch of Interstate 70, high in the mountains of Utah, a Peanuts’ tribute album spent years rotting in the sun, its ribbon wrapped around shrubs, its shell crushed by passing vehicles. My apologies to the environment, but I thank you for the memories.
Holdsworth died in 2017; Fortner followed in 2020. I can see why people like to imagine heaven. The thought of those two sitting down and shredding jazz together for eternity is a nice image.