Ella Fitzgerald’s last concert at Carnegie Hall featured Joe Pass to play duets with her. I called the hotel earlier that afternoon to speak with Joe. The operator said he wasn’t in his room, but he might be rehearsing with Ella, should we connect you to Ella’s room? I couldn’t believe that she asked me that. I was thinking to myself, “what kind of idiot would refuse talking to Ella”, so I said sure. As it turned out Joe had already left, but Ella was so gracious and talked to me for quite a while about her trip to Europe and how she hoped they would still love her at tonight’s concert.

I wasn’t the only one that was surprised that I spoke to Ella; that night her manager saw me and came over and said “how did you do that?” I said “do what?” He said “talk to Ella for so long on the telephone. Because when her soap operas start she doesn’t talk to anyone and I mean anyone, she even kicks me out of the room, and I’m her manager!” I can only guess that she felt like talking that day and was thrilled to be performing there at Carnegie Hall.

That night I didn’t actually get a seat out front. Somehow Joe Pass seemed to get me the most memorable ways to see his shows. This night he brought me up to Ella’s room where they had two small sliding doors which when opened up, were right above the stage and I could look down and see the whole show.

After Ella’s performance all the celebrities paraded up to her room, like Carly Simon, Peter Allen and Tony Bennet and a long line of people. Joe asked if I wanted to join them for drinks. What an amazing night, not only was I with the finest solo jazz guitarist in the world, the First Lady of Song, but at this hotel lounge (I believe we were on 56th Street) Wes Montgomery’s brother, Buddy Montgomery was on the piano. Now how can you get a better night in seeing jazz than that!