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Walter's Obituary (/www.newstimes.com/news/today/obit.htm,October
26, 2003)
Walter Oller, 49, of Providence, R.I., died Oct. 3 in
Providence after a long battle with cancer.
He was born in Norwalk Hospital, Feb. 6, 1954, the son
of Anne (Emmerson) Oller of Georgetown and the late Walter J. Oller.
He grew up in the Georgetown section of Redding. He
attended Wilbraham Academy in Massachusetts and graduated from Joel
Barlow High School in Redding in 1972. He attended Marlboro College in
Vermont and graduated from Transylvania University in Lexington, Ky.,
with a B.A. in French. He attended the Redwing Technical College in
Minnesota and received a degree in woodwind instrument repair.
Walter graduated from Hollins College in Virginia with a
master’s degree in English, from New York University with a master’s
degree in Arabic studies and from Queens College in New York with a
master’s degree in library science. He then earned his Ph.D. in Middle
Eastern studies from New York University with a dissertation on
pre-Islamic Arabic poetry.
During his time in New York, he worked at New York
University’s Bobst Library as a reference librarian.
Two years ago he moved to Providence to become a
bibliographer at Brown University’s newly opened Joukowsky Family
Middle Eastern Studies Library.
Walter began learning to play instruments while in high
school. A multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter, he mastered the
flute, guitar, bass clarinet and saxophone, just to name a few. He was
a founding member of the Walking the Dragon alternative band based in
Danbury and founded the improvisational jazz-influenced Dinosaur Dance
Band based in Bridgeport, both in the late 1980s and early ’90s. He also
had begun working with a band in Providence.
Besides his mother, he is survived by a son, Declan
Danesh Oller of Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.; four brothers, Matthew of
Danbury, Thomas and wife Mariana of Stow, Mass., Albert of Roslindale,
Mass., and Justin of Greenwich; three sisters, Carolanne Oller Chiang
of Needham, Mass., Kathleen Oller of Danbury and Felicia Oller of
Bloomfield; and two nieces and a nephew, Diana, Sophia and Thomas
Chiang of Needham.
Memorial services were held at the Quaker Society of
Friends Meeting House in Providence Oct. 23 and the Friends Meeting
House in Scarsdale, N.Y., Oct. 25. His ashes will be interred in
Umpawaug Cemetery in Redding Nov. 1 at 11 a.m., followed by a musical
tribute by friends at the Ridgefield Theatre Barn.
Contributions may be made to the Society of Friends or
the Arbor Day Foundation for the planting of trees in Yellowstone Park
dedicated in his memory.
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Walter's paints and brushes
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From Steve Asetta, posted on the Miles Davis
discussion list, http://www.plosin.com/milesAhead/mfs/mfs.html
Walter Oller, Ph.D scholar, poet, multi instrumentalist,
composer, world, traveler, translator, bon vivant and my friend of more
than 30 years passed on in the early morning hours of Friday, October
3, 2003.
Walter bravely battled cancer for more than a year,
continuing to work, study, exercise, practice his many woodwinds, and
organize another band "Mantis Cadre," never giving an inch until he
was released from his suffering this morning.
Some of you were fortunate enough to have met Walter in
the flesh at get-togethers of Miles listers. Some of you were even
more fortunate to share a libation or two with him.
He had an encyclopedic knowledge of jazz in general, Sun
Ra in particular, that we shared right up until my last visit on
Sunday. Though only intermittently conscious, and that clouded by
medication, he agreed with me that Julius Watkins was a hell of a
French horn player after we admired his solo on a Monk Prestige
"Friday the 13th" and probably rattled off any Sun Ra dates he might
have made.
He leaves behind a son, Declan Oller, 15, and a large
and caring family.
Walter requested that I host a party with music provided
by his many musician friends. I have been since last week involved in
the compilation and re-charting of his enormous musical output and my
band "Goose Lane" as well as the rehearsal band Walter and I attended
every Tuesday for 25 or so years recorded versions of his tunes and the
resulting CD was to be delivered to him tomorrow. He did get a chance
to hear our versions of "Kentucky Rasta Girls" and "Car Full of Old
Folks Going 10 mph" A CD might be planned with all proceeds benefiting
Declan Oller.
As per Walter's wishes, a party with music provided by
his friends ("no long boring jams") will be scheduled in the next few
weeks. I am thinking that aside from a few of Walter's favorites the
format will be various groups of players all playing Walter's charts.
This will be held in the Georgetown, CT area [near Danbury]. Any
qualified players that knew Walter from the list contact me. I will
list details here as I get more information.
Walter was my best friend, man and boy, since we were in
our earliest twenties. It was an instant party whenever we met. We
had some wild times. Besides our love of all things musical there was
a voracious appetite for literature we shared from the beginning.
We will never see his like again. He will be greatly
missed.
From Rick Saylor
One winter's eve, Walter, Saxguy [Steve Asetta] and I
agreed to go to a Jazz at Lincoln Center Pharoah Sanders show (an
oxymoron?). In that Steve had to come in from CT (to NYC) on one
train, Walter from Dobbs Ferry on another, they were gonna meet at
Grand Central Station and make it over to my place on the upper west
side, then we'd cab it to Lincoln Center. In that we didn't have time
for our pregame meal at some dirt cheap ethnic restaurant, I had
copped some appetizer grub and spread it out on the coffee table,
awaiting their arrival, whose appointed time came and went by way more
than an hour. Finally, not long before showtime, they arrived looking
like something out of Jack London's "To Build a Fire." It was snowing
pretty good and Walter, being too "thrifty" to split a cab with Steve,
had talked him into walking from Grand Central to my place, cutting
across Central Park. Not that he was unprepared; he was packing a
bottle of whiskey which, it turned out, hindered their progress
somewhat; Iditarod finalists they were not. Seeing that I had some
catching up to do, consciousness-wise, I fired up a bone and slammed
down a couple of glasses of Stoli so I could get on their wavelength
post-haste, join the party. Steve laid on the sofa, airlifting salsa
onto his shirt with tortilla chips as Walter pulled the Ellington
All-Star road band live CD off the shelf. That was the one where
Johnny Hodges showed up for the gig drunk and Duke was so pissed that
he called for Hodges to take virtually every solo on the gig while
terribly shitfaced in an effort to shame him. Not a bad record,
really. Eventually we jumped in a cab and made the show. I fell asleep
halfway through. Steve enjoys reminding me that I fucked up his live
minidisc recording, made with his stealth Clark Kent glasses containing
stereo mics; the right channel recorded just fine but all that was
audible in the left channel was snoring. I hope you all have friends
like these guys.
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A Christmas Card from Walter
My
name is Martin Powell and I would like to add my take on the Walter
Oller story.
I first met Walter in in the fall of 1975. Steve Johnson and Walter
crashed a party I was at on Linden Walk, given by a Mark Crisman.
I was upstairs out of it and staring at a fish tank when in walk these
two strange Dudes smoking unfiltered cigarettes. Walter had on these
purple Masonic Lodge shoes that were embroidered with "Olieka" on the
toes. He told me he was a "slide mandolin player" and Johnson was an
artist. We hit it off famously and Johnson ended up moving in with me
on Arlington. My brother Tom had a little dark room in a storage
area off our third floor kitchen and Walter tossed down three old couch
cushions and would stay there sometimes.
I seem to remember that someone had an old Desoto car and they would
pick up this old wino, Roger Baxter, "a mystic known from coast to
coast" and take him to a place called "Coyles" to feed him. Once
we had a house fire and I was woken up by firemen in long yellow rain
coats coming through my room to open the windows. Right behind them in
his ill fitting underwear was Walter who was smoking a cigarette and
looking at me said " Just think of it! We could have been charred
corpses!" At this time Walter would take a lace curtian and by
some Saracen magic twist it into a turban on his head, looking not
unlike Yassar Arrafat. He was also fond of the old fox scarves where
the foxes mouth now held a clamp and it would bite into itself to stay
around your neck. I was not in Kansas anymore. A couple of books
in Portuguese, knocking back a bottle of Nyquil, lighting up an
unfiltered Kool cigarette, and he was ready to go out partying. We had
a number of wonderful conversations about William Blake who at that time
he liked immensely. I always thought that his bad Nyquil habit had
come from a certain low character named Allen Douglas who Walter hung
around.
My brother Dan and Walter had a band called the "Oaxaca Hawk Men" and
their big number was "Secret Agent Man". Dan Played drums and a stack
of suitcases with his sticks. I had a poster of a gig they
played/booked on 3rd and Deweese for years. They would talk of going to
a black club called "Up Jump The Devil". With Walter it was like you
were living in a movie.
I left college to become one of Jehovah's Witnesses and I have this
powerful image of standing in a yard near the University of Kentucky
telling Walter. I thought he would mock, but rather he got this very
peaceful look and proceeded to tell me that he had seriously considered
becoming an Anglican minister before coming to what he called a "small
antibellum Southern college"(Transylvania). When I think of the scene
the light in my memory is not coming down from the noon sky by rather
from Walter Oller himself. He wished me the very best in my new chosen
path of life and I have every reason to believe he meant it.
As the years passed he would send word by my brothers when he made his
pilgrimage back to see the Hardscuffle Steeplechases ( a rare sport to
be a fan of). My brother Dan told me that Walter won a footrace in
Lexington that ran from bar to bar. You had to drink a round in each
one and Walter won running in hard shoes throwing up as he ran. Now
whether that is true I dont know but it is indeed another great Walter
story [It is true- He won the 'Bar None Suds Run' but the TV media
wouldn't show him breaking the ribbon as he was dressed in his 'Kill The
Oppressors T-shirt, and puking over his shoulder as he crossed the
finish line].
Walter kept in touch with me by letters that came at infrequent but
exceeding welcome times. I would get the Christmas cards with Jesus
crucified on a telephone pole with a transistor and grasshopper head
glued were Christ's face had been. I heard he had become a librarian.
The last time I saw Walter I was invited to a dinner party at Alida's
[Murray Herrick Schuyler] house and Walter was there with his family.
I remember he had a comrade named Ben and a guy who played in a local
blues band with him. I made mint pears in raspberry syrup from
Mastering the Art of French Cooking. He was kind and cordial and it was
perfect. I last wrote Walter when by chance I had lunch with Allen
Ginsberg through an unlikely connection. Kind of like my relationship
with Walter. I asked the great man about a certian beat writer named
Charles Plymel that Walter and I had read. He immediately took out a
piece of paper and gave me Plymel's phone number and address. I wrote
my former beat hero and told him about Walter. I got back a neat
packet of photocopied poems and magazine articles and a letter. I sent
some of this to Walter as Plymel lived in Cherry Hill, N.Y. and Walter
was up that way.
It was a sad day in my world when Alida sent me an email saying that
Walter had passed. He was a major figure in the 20 something world we
all created in Lexington in the late 70's. Walter and Johnson have been
the most consistant of all my old school friends in keeping up with me.
Johnson called unexpectedly on my wedding day and the symbolic irony
was complete and perfect. We talked of Walter and that was the last I
heard of this fine soul until earlier this year. I will indeed miss
this wonderful magical soul who was larger than life when this world
had not quite yet lost it's luster. That is my Walter Oller story. |
A recent photo of Steven Johnson with paintings made from Walter's
paintbox
Walter's Pagoda, Steven's composition
Walter as Hemingway
Walter's Hemingway Look-Alike Contest
If you have any thing you'd like to add to this little heap
of memories, please email WO at appal.org
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you all, this has been a wonderful task. wh |
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