Random Access

Every once in a while, you talk to someone who is a perfect stranger, but it feels like they have been a lifelong friend.
That's probably why I remember my first conversation with Rick Malkiewicz so vividly.
When you call up a fiddle and trumpet player with a Grammy-nominated polka band for an interview, you don't expect to find yourself embarking on a wonderfully nostalgic tour of the back-history of your own personal interest in music.
But that's what happened when Rick came on the line to talk one evening four years ago. We were supposed to be chatting about how the band he played for, John Gora and Gorale was heading to Los Angeles for the Grammy awards after they participated in a "Polka Cruise" that saw them heading around the Caribbean.
After we covered the traditional biographical stuff (Rick grew up in a Polish family where he picked up the fiddle at four and played in his first polka band at age eight), the conversation shifted to other kinds of music.
And that's where we found fertile common ground.
Rick had eclectic tastes. He enjoyed jazz (Weather Report and Chick Corea were favourites) traditional C & W (Hank Williams), new country (he and wife Lori had a particular weakness for Keith Urban) bluegrass (we discussed the career of superb mandolin picker Ricky Skaggs back to his Emmylou Harris days) and found a common interest in such diverse artists as Steely Dan, Frank Zappa, Gram Parsons and Todd Rundgren.
Rundgren, the boy genius of the pop world for a couple of seconds in the 1970s (Runt and Something/Anything) was a mutual obsession. He produced the album on the Bearsville label titled Great Speckled Bird with Ian and Sylvia, Amos Garrett and Buddy Cage on steel guitar. That album just happens to be an all-time favourite.
"Sounds like we love a lot of the same music," Rick said, as we finished our alleged interview. "We'll have to get together and check out our music collections."
When it was announced recently that Gora and Gorale were nominated for another Grammy try (their fourth, no wins so far,) against their (friendly) St. Catharines-based arch-rival Walter Ostanek, I went to their website to check it out. This was a chance to touch base again with Rick and all our mutual musical friends.
There, on the bottom of the about-the-band section, was a tribute to Rick Malkiewicz, who died Nov. 23 of brain cancer, aged 51.
His widow Lori, now raising their sons Paul 15 and Andrew, 12 (both trumpeters by the way) in their Streetsville-area home, chuckles when she hears about good intentions gone astray. "Everybody's busy," she says, as we concur how that sentiment is a poor alibi for escaping so many things we know we really ought to do.
Rick went fast at the end, which was a blessing because he was only in bed for two weeks at home before he died.
Before he went, there was a big party last June on the small court where the family lives to mark Rick and Lori's 25th anniversary.
"We rented a tent and had 20 musicians in three bands on a stage in our backyard," says Lori, her broad grin visible right through the telephone wire. "We had it catered. It was the best party we ever had. We warned all the neighbours (most of whom were there) that there would be live music."
John Gora is hoping for better luck at the Grammy awards Sunday for his nominated album Bulletproof Polkas. It's dedicated to Rick.
Last Sunday, Lori and the kids were there along with 400 other people when the group held a fundraising dance for the Canadian Cancer Society in Rick's name.
Gorale hoped that Rick could play some fiddle on the album. They were going to do it in a studio here instead of in Ohio where they usually record to accommodate him.
But he was too weak to play when the time came to record.
"Everybody's always asking, 'Where's the fiddler?' now," says Gora. They tried somebody else but it didn't work out so there's a hole in the sound where Malkiewicz used to be.
"He was a character, always acting on stage," says Gora. "But the feeling he had for music was just incredible."
Lori will remember Rick's slightly off-kilter sense of humour most. "He was always kind of off-the-cuff and goofy on stage," she says of her husband, who she met at a party when she was 18 and married five years later. "He was quirky. He'd give you all these whacky one-liners and break everybody up. He was a funny guy."
Next time you run across one of those special people — strangers who seem like lifelong friends — find the time to pore over their record collections or discover your favourite authors or explore the other common ground you may share.
You may not get another chance.