Kermit Driscoll, Jazz bassist (late stages of Lyme disease)
Ed Varner
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Kermit Driscoll Gravely Ill with Lyme Disease
1-26-07
Though he has never released an album under his own name, the bassist
Kermit Driscoll has had a considerable impact in adventurous jazz
circles over the last 20 years.
Mr. Driscoll first emerged as a close compatriot of the guitarist Bill
Frisell during an influential stretch from the mid-1980s through the
mid-'90s. (Live, a 1991 Gramavision album credited to Bill Frisell, is
especially worth seeking out for Mr. Driscoll's nimble rapport with
Mr. Frisell and Mr. Baron, a drummer.) Mr. Driscoll concurrently
tangled with an honor roll of downtown composer-improvisers like the
alto saxophonist John Zorn and the trumpeter Dave Douglas, with whom
he worked in a collective called New and Used.
Then at some point in the mid-'90s, Mr. Driscoll unknowingly
contracted Lyme disease from a deer tick bite. He spent years
contending with headaches, joint pain and deep fatigue before
receiving an accurate diagnosis in 2005, when the disease was already
in its difficult-to-treat third stage. Mr. Driscoll had stayed
somewhat active during his illness -- he appeared on several
noteworthy 2005 releases, including albums by the guitarist Ben Monder
and the drummer John Hollenbeck -- but he found it increasingly hard
to work.
Last month he managed to perform on a benefit in his honor with Mr.
Douglas and Mr. Monder, among others; this month he played a concert
with Mr. Hollenbeck's Large Ensemble. ("The next day he said that the
music healed him -- he felt a lot better," Mr. Hollenbeck said in an e-
mail message. "With this disease you go up and down.") On Monday Mr.
Driscoll will appear, but probably not perform, at the largest yet
benefit for his medical expenses. The lineup will include Mr. Frisell,
with his 858 String Quartet; Mr. Zorn, with an undisclosed ensemble;
Mr. Hollenbeck, with an ethereal group called the Refuge Trio; and the
bassist John Patitucci, with the saxophonist Jon Ellis and the drummer
Kendrick Scott. (Monday at 8 p.m., Tonic, 107 Norfolk Street, near
Delancey Street, Lower East Side, 212-358-7501, tonicnyc.com; cover,
$25.)
Tax-deductible donations can also be made payable to Emergency Relief
Fund (Kermit Driscoll) and mailed to Bill Dennison, Musicians Union
Local 802, 322 West 48th Street, New York, N.Y. 10036.