Big band era with your sweetheart. The music’s alive, and it’s hot or cool, but it is infectious with people dancing to this percolator of collective consciousness. Many stories live here.

When Ronnie tells a story, he stops somewhere, remembers another story; his mind and music fluid in this way, and it ‘s hard to know where one story ends, and another one begins. I write, edit, give up and go with the flow. I have come to realize this “going with the flow” is a big gift I’m learning in being Ronnie’s writer.

Ronnie has been in the music scene ever since he was a youngster hanging around Johnnie Jessen because It’s All in The Tone (The name of Johnnie’s Memoir) as Ronnie repeats what his foster parent, friend and mentor’s mantra was for himself and his students. Ronnie plays jazz and any other paying music gig because that’s the life of a performer. Pierce is the cat     (I mean fish with the golden trumpet) whose on the cover of Fish Album – Memories & Lots of Love. Pierce is Ronnie’s heart and soul, and he knows the stories and tunes even better than Ronnie. Harry is one of Ronnie’s sons who came out to play with them and curate core memories of a time long gone. This conjuring up of what once was is essential for older people remembering their memories but also vital in creating a pathway for new audiences to find and embark upon this spellbound journey. Listen to the music, and you’ll agree it creates something magical within you. Like the great Masters, the artists have left minor imperfections so as not to offend the Gods who gave them their gifts.

Ronnie is eighty-eight years old and has played with some of the great musicians all over the world. We’ll get these stories into more books, but for now, it’s about introducing you to Pierce and Ronnie and setting the tone of these captured stories.

Ronnie:     Oh yeah. I’ve played with great people.

Beth:           Name some of those people, will you?

Ronnie: Quincy Jones and I studied with the same saxophone teacher, Johnny Jessen. No Johnny didn’t know how to play trumpet, but Quincy never did get his embouchure (the way a musician puts his mouth to his brass or wind mouthpiece) and air stream right.

Johnnie was a famous saxophone player in Seattle during the 1920’s and had a band and private students. In his later years, he’d teach at the UW. He taught Quincy Jones and Kenny G.

I would go up to 14th and Yessler to his house. There would be Quincy having a lesson and Johnnie would say: “Quincy, okay play me a C7 cord.” And it was a curtain all full of flowers. So Quincy is playing whatever Johnnie asks, “Give me a D flat minor 7” and tasks like that so Quincy is being trained mathematically by Johnnie.

Ame:             Is Quincy from Seattle?

Ronnie:       He was born on the south side of Chicago and moved                          to Seattle when he was ten.

When I was with the Bumps Blackwell Band, I worked with Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, and Buddy Catlett. They all left Seattle at the same time. And everybody made it big, huge, worldwide in the music business. “ 

~ Memories & Lots of Love – Ronnie Pierce and Beth Lord