I still sorta can’t believe I’m writing this but…here we are.
Mike & I texted on Sunday, I think, he died on Tuesday apparently, I found out on Wednesday (from the outpouring on Facebook). Ironically, I had a funeral to go to Thursday (for my awesome Aunt Connie, and which being with my very wonderful extended family for, also actually helped process a good part of the shock of the Mike news) but had figured I’d prob. be seeing him today, Saturday, since he was set to go back in-patient this past week to address complications from CAR-T, one of the newer myeloma treatments and I’d be there as well.
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I first met Mike DuClos on my first day at William Paterson. I was assigned an ensemble with him on bass, the astounding Bill Stewart on drums (his 1st day as well), a sax & trumpet player I can no longer remember and no piano, so all things chordal fell on my narrow shoulders. Oh, and the great Harold Mabern was running things. It became one of the longest 90 minutes of my life as my until-that-moment self-identity as a “good” guitar player (which in hindsight is sorta hilarious) was scraped down to the baseboards like an old house getting a flip-prepping tv makeover. About halfway through that 90 minutes (picture the opening of Saving Private Ryan but where everyone ripped apart by shells & machine gun fire is metaphorically me), someone came into the room, mumbled, Office Space-stapler-style “umm..that’s my amp”, unplugged me and took it away.
Mike then very kindly leaned in, telling me that I could plug in to the other input on his bass amp. A year or two ago, I told him about this and he had no memory of it whereas for me, the whole thing, moment-by-grueling-moment, is scorched into my memory like a violent crime.
After that first day I didn’t really hang out with anyone for most of the rest of my time in college, including Mike. Maybe especially Mike because he was so funny, so magnetic - the sort of personality that celebrities and comedians pretend to, but few have for real - that it was frankly, intimidating. Later, esp. after I got to really know him (and look beyond my own narrow...whatever), I realized that he’d been stuck in his own corner at Paterson as well: a great, great player but one who dared play electric bass in a dept. that insisted that jazz bass was by def., a large and acoustic instrument, held upright & standing, preferably the color of wood.
But by the end of the ‘80s, Mike and I were both teaching at a summer guitar workshop in CT, and then a few years after that, at Woodside Music (in Park Ridge, NJ). Then for a while, we'd run into each other a couple times here & there as I pursued my band and he continued playing with like, everyone you’ve ever heard of from Blood, Sweat & Tears to Cracker to Joan Baez to..I can’t even remember. He seemed to have played with and/or had a related hilarious story for any musician you could ever name or think of. And in that time I realized, or only finally realized, that while he'd always possessed that room-commanding sorta comedic star power, he was also super generous socially, letting everyone in a group talk (that sounds dumb but that’s how it struck me), laughing at everyone else’s jokes as well. He was just great.
Then much later, so only about four years ago, when I got diagnosed w/ multiple myeloma, he reached out because, unbeknownst to me at the time, myeloma was what he’d already had for some 10 years at that point (I’d known he had ‘cancer’ in some vague sense but assumed, like a lot of people do (we've talked about this a few times over the years) that hearing nothing more about it, everything must all be ok or whatever). He became like our own personal Virgil guiding us through the levels of the whole MM thing, steering us to Mt. Sinai & Dr. Jagannath who runs what was at least then, the only dedicated myeloma dept. in NYC. That I’m lucky & in remission now, in no small part, I attribute to him. He also became a good friend.
I’m writing this having cancelled my own treatment appointment today, and although that sounds sorta again, ‘more about me’, it’s just that those appointments, the myeloma & related news stuff, Sinai gossip, etc., was always sorta at the center of anything we prattled on about, even as we prattled on about plenty - he was super knowledgeable on tons of different types of music, was always working to improve his playing (I just realized I still have the book on orchestration he ordered but had delivered here ‘cause he was stuck in the hospital. Fuck. And actually last time I saw him in there, fall maybe?, he had his bass with him so as not to waste the downtime). Looking back at our years-long text thread, I’d forgotten how much music we sent back & forth - our own, Miles clips, whatever. He was also a giant poetry geek (Simic in particular came up a bunch). and as mentioned, hilarious. The notion of a Renaissance person w/ far-ranging interests is a cliche` but he was one.
But most important to him, I think, was the effort he made to be a great father - and he was. I’d seen that in action once or twice but we’d also talk about the parenting stuff more than a little, as one does.
That son he leaves behind, Gus, is only 15 or 16 now, and who I can only picture the one time we met a few years ago, walking out from Sinai: they’re both a few steps ahead of me, Mike’s arm is around him, casually but lovingly, like that's the only thing that matters, which it is. And I’m not sure where things are at for him, for Gus, but a least-I-can-do that I may pursue is try to put together some sort of benefit show for him, if that’s needed. I’ll keep you posted, thanks.
And thanks, Mike, for everything. It was honestly, an honor.