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Free Flight Rocks St. Elizabeth's
October 29, 1977
In 1977, I was a junior at East Jefferson High School in Metairie, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans. The first person I ever shared a musical bond with was the best friend I've ever had, named Joe Messina. At the time, Joe and I lived in an apartment complex in the section of Metairie known as "Fat City", which was Metairie's 20th Century answer to the French Quarter of New Orleans. Joe lived with his mom, Miss Julia, and his sister, Toni - and I lived with my brother Dave, who raised me from the time I was twelve until I graduated from school. I had an acoustic guitar with a cheapie Lawrence pickup in it, and Joe had a brand new set of Rogers drums. Together, Joe and I made what was music to us, and just a hell of a lot of racket to the rest of the poor folks who had the misfortune of living in that apartment complex on Hessmer Avenue at the same time that we did.
Like the majority of children living in the New Orleans area at the time, Joe and his sister went to a private parochial school. The school they attended was Redemptorist High School, located in the Irish Channel section of New Orleans. Joe marched in the band, and was friends with other aspiring musician types from Redemptorist. When he was invited to join a band that was being put together, he thought of me, and told them he'd play drums - if his guitar playing buddy from Metairie could join as well. Now, instead of Joe and I making "just a hell of a lot of racket" by ourselves, we had a full band with some great guys from the Irish Channel to do the job properly - Jerome Madison on bass and backing vocals, Tony Randall on guitar, and Mark "Rat" Alleman on lead vocals. I think the group might have actually been put together by Miguel Ortiz, who was a recent graduate of Redemptorist. Miguel was our manager, because every high school band that has never played in front of an audience in their lives needs a manager who has never managed anything or anybody in his life. We called ourselves "Free Flight". During the summer of 1977, Free Flight practiced in the backyard of Miguel's shotgun house in the Channel. Miguel and his dad poured a concrete slab, built a frame, and put a roof over it, and that's where we rehearsed - night after night....after night. No walls, just the band playing "Suite: Madame Blue" by Styx, full blast, over and over and over again. I remember the kids from the neighborhood sitting on the fences that divided the backyards behind the shotgun houses - enjoying the summer evenings, listening to the only band on the block. And I remember watching the clock closely, because if we had ever been foolish enough to continue that excruciating racket beyond 10:00pm, the neighbors who were being forced to endure it would have surely called the cops on us at exactly 10:01pm. I just knew I was going to make it big someday when in the middle of that summer, my brother bought me my first electric guitar - an Electra MPC.
Looking back, Miguel Ortiz probably had more management savvy than most of the "industry professionals" I've dealt with over the years since then. He did manage to get us some quality gigs, and considering how we must have sounded at the time, I really don't know how the heck he did it. We played the usual high school dances and Tulane frat houses. However, the greatest achievement of Miguel's Free Flight management career was the first gig he ever booked for us - which was the first time I ever played with a band in public. Man, was it fun.
On Saturday, October 29, 1977, Free Flight played our first show. It was a Halloween party in the ballroom of the St. Elizabeth's Orphanage for Girls, on Napoleon Avenue in New Orleans. St. Elizabeth's is a huge, three-building complex that takes up an entire city block. I was 16, and we were playing for an audience made up of 100% girls...it simply does not get any better than that - ever. We fashioned a drum riser from plywood and milk crates, turned everything up to "10", and let it rip. Our first song of the night was Jethro Tull's "Locomotive Breath". Just a few bars into the tune, the drums stopped, and everyone turned to see what the problem was. There was our drummer, Joe Messina, flat on his back, gasping for air. If you ever have the occasion to fashion a drum riser out of plywood and milk crates, remember this: you have to cut the plywood big enough to not only fit the drums on it - it has to be big enough to fit the drums and the drummer's throne on it! Just a few energetic licks on the kick drum, and the throne went off the back of the riser, with Joe Messina still on it. Oh, the life of a rawk-and-roll star! The evening improved from there, though. I sang the only song I ever sang with the group, which was "As the Raven Flies", by Dan Fogelberg. Given the opportunity to make a first impression with an audience of 100% girls, Rat Alleman chose "Locomotive Breath"... but I knew better. I knew that in the ballroom of the St. Elizabeth's Orphanage for Girls, there was simply no way you could go wrong with a Dan Fogelberg song. The response to that song had a lot to do with the fact that twenty-eight years later, I'm living my dream every single day - playing guitar and singing for a living.
St. Elizabeth's closed in 1989, and it was purchased and completely renovated into one of the nation's largest private residences by the author Anne Rice and her husband in 1993. It has recently been sold, and Anne Rice has moved away from New Orleans. I contacted Ms. Rice earlier today, and she graciously approved of the idea of publishing these pictures of St. Elizabeth's from her official website. I would like to thank Anne Rice and Unreal Productions for granting me the permission to publish them. Obviously, viewing these pictures has brought back many, many great memories.
Jeff Tucker
Christmas Eve, 2005
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