Although more than fifty years have passed, Al Haig is remembered as an icon and a "young blood" during the bebop revolution. Joanne Haig, his fourth wife and widow, told me this was her favorite picture of her husband, hence, I felt that the preppy lad from Nutley,New Jersey, who hung out with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie when they were creating bebop havoc and mayhem, deserves to be seen with a smile and like the rest of us out here in the world. Certainly his dark side does not betray him.
His first wife: Donna,now 84 and having Alzheimer's, sadly is now in a nursing home in Arizona, but even to this day she thinks Al is down on Sunset Strip on a gig with Stan Getz. To her Al Haig is ever young.
Me, his second wife: Grange, now 71, he liked younger women... has finished Death of a Bebop Wife and can take a deep breath, knowing I did the best I could to document his contribution to the "music."
Bonnie, his third wife, would be 65 had she lived, is caught in a freeze-frame at the age of 25,ever young, ever beautiful and continues to "Walk in beauty like the night" Lord Byron.
Joanne, his fourth wife, and widow, has happily remarried and lives in Canada.
And the music stopped...but we kept on dancing.
1 comment:
I would like to make a toast to lying, stealing, cheating and drinking. If you're going to lie, lie for a friend. If you're going to steal, steal a heart. If your going to cheat, cheat death. And if you're going to drink, drink with me.
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