This classic story, told by Danish bassist Nils Henning Oerstedt-Pedersen was passed along to me by a long time subscriber and customer from Sweden. I have little doubt that the story is true. Here it is….(thanks Eddie!)

The story happened when he was Nils Henning was just a teenager, in the beginning of his career. A danish jazz group was playing a gig at one of the jazz clubs in Copenhagen.

A young Swedish woman came up to the stage and asked the leader, “My husband was wondering if he can sit in with you guys on a couple of songs”.

The first thing the leader asked, “Can he play? We don’t want to play with someone who drags us down.”

“Well”, the woman replied “they say he’s pretty good”.

“What instrument does he play”? asked the leader.

“Tenor sax” she answered. “I’m sorry, we already have one of Denmark’s best tenor players with the group. We wouldn’t want your husband feeling bad. But if he can get some musicians to back him up, he is welcome to play a few songs during our break. We usually take about 20 minutes”.

“Okay”, she said, “I’ll tell him that”. So she asked some musicians who were sitting there, Billy Taylor said yes, a Danish drummer and Nils Henning who was about 16 years old at the time.

The band’s break came and the group left the stage and were about to go to the bar, when they heard a tenor warming up.

“Shit”, said the leader, “I know that sound anywhere”.

Then the NEW group started to play. Needless to say the tenor player blew the group away and the audience didn’t want them back on stage.

So what was the woman’s name?

Monica Getz.