Friday, January 27, 2023
/public-file/810/Ultra/b51040bd-29a0-4277-b5b2-1e7d9390f337.jpeg
I was greatly saddened to learn that my wonderful friend, Brian, a friend of more than 50 years, had died.
Brian and I became friends at Notre Dame I guess about 1963 or 4. We were both jazz fans which was uncommon at the time when the Beatles were first storming the country.
Because Brian had such an expert ear, when I bought a new jazz record I would challenge him to a “blindfold” test to name the musicians. More often than not, he could name them. We played this “blindfold” game often over the years, testing his musical knowledge. I bought an album just to stump him by an obscure trumpeter, Red Rodney. He nailed it.
On vacations, he and I would attend jazz clubs in New York. We usually stayed until the club closed, often getting to his home in Queens just as the sun was coming up.
I was always impressed with Brian’s musicianship which I did not have and envied. He could play multiple instruments. I remember in a dorm at Notre Dame, he played a rhythm solo on a taut string. He could make music with anything available.
Because I loved Coltrane’s music, I bought a used soprano sax. Since I am not a musician, I just blew into the horn and made “music” up. Brian sympathized with my musical passion and he and I would jam in empty classrooms at Notre Dame. No other musician would put up with my random blowing.
After Notre Dame we parted ways-both of us married. He was in the Army and went to the Viet Nam war; I was in the Air Force in Virginia. Brian was bitter about his war experience. He said he threw his medals away which shocked me but I know many veterans returned angry and hostile.
After Viet Nam we kept in touch-first by letter and then email.
They were usually about politics, movies, religion-good and bad- and of course music.
We discussed our favorite movies and actors. We argued about the movie “Gunga Din” and whether it was a great classic or a racist film. We both loved Jimmy Cagney in films like “The Fighting 69th” and “White Heat.” Brian loved the scene where Cagney, in prison, learns of his mother’s death and goes berserk in the dining hall.
We both tried to write film scripts. He wrote a script about the jazz musician, Charlie Parker(Bird). Unfortunately, none of them were produced.
But Brian loved to write poetry and sent me many of them. I wrote to him a silly poem of mine called “Sleeping Giants” which became a running gag between us for years.
Since both of us grew up Catholic and went to Notre Dame, we used to discuss the Catholic Church and how to “fix it.” But I sense in his later years he lost interest in this project as he had many other theological and philosophical interests.
Occasionally we would reunite when Judi would visit her children in nearby Columbia, Maryland. At that time, I gave him another instrument to master, my 5 string banjo.
The last time I saw him was when he and Judi drove me and my wife, Jean, to Lake George for a wonderful lake cruise in 2014. Little did I know, it would be the last time.
I will miss him greatly
He used the word “kypo” meaning someone was great. So I use it for him. Brian was a kypo.
Michael Hoyt
