walter oller
walter oller
Birth: 2-6-54
Raised: Connecticut USA
Plays: Reeds, others
Profession: Librarian
Resides: Dobbs Ferry, NY
Morals: Scabrous
Walter Oller (1954-2003)
This message was posted to the Miles-L by Walter's good friend Steve Asetta:
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.
And this one from Rick Saylor, also posted to the list, might be considered an apt eulogy:
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.
On a more formal note, the following obituary was posted at http://www.newstimes.com/news/today/obit.htm on 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.