Decades of Discord Lie Between a Man and His Music

"Just people dying all around me," he says. "I felt like I was going to die. I got scared. I came home to Washington and saw the president's body passing by the White House, and I checked myself into St. Elizabeths. They said I was paranoid schizophrenic. It just came over me; the drugs was part of it. Before that, I'd been fine."

Warren stayed at St. E's for a year. There were shock treatments, but there was also a bass at the hospital, and Warren met other musicians, who helped get him out. Back in circulation, Warren kept working as long as he stayed on his medication. He played at Cafe Lautrec in Adams Morgan and The Embers, a dinner spot on Connecticut Avenue. Some years, he got by on his music work; other times, he took on day jobs, repairing radios and TVs at a Northwest shop, doing mop-up at the Naval Ordnance Lab.

For three decades, Warren was a mystery to many in Washington's jazz scene. He'd drift in and out, play a club for a while, then vanish. "There's a whole mountain of issues," says Peter Edelman, a pianist who has taken in Warren for extended periods and is keeping his bass for him. "He's rather optimistic and upbeat, but he's delusional from time to time. He can be a very perceptive observer of current events. He sees through all the charlatans out there these days."

In the 1980s, Edelman would hire Warren to play society parties, "so he could get some real money."

He played steadily at Twins, a District jazz club, through most of the past few years, but then stopped taking his pills. He'd show up and play "hunched over, swaying his arms, even drooling a bit, scaring the audience a little," Edelman says. "When we gave him the choice between going back on his medication or losing the gig, Butch said, 'Peter, don't I have the right to be crazy if I want to be?' "

Warren lived in a subsidized complex for seniors in Silver Spring until he was evicted about two years ago. Edelman says the unkempt condition of Warren's kitchen was the problem; Warren says it was complaints about his late-night guests. In any event, the musician was on the street.

"My tuxedo is gone," he says. "I don't have anything. I miss my bass. I have no instrument here, so I've been singing. Never had much of a voice, but some people say I'm singing okay."

At the hospital in Sykesville, Warren looks uncharacteristically casual in a plaid flannel shirt and khakis, but one look at his hands summons the image of the lean, sad-eyed gent standing by his instrument, staring into the distance, his long, elegant fingers flying up and down the bass, his sounds inviting listeners into his private world.

He was in that solitary place one cold day this past winter, walking around in Greenbelt, when he passed a shop with an open door. The shop's alarm was ringing, he says, and no one was inside, so he walked in to warm up. When the police came, they arrested him and charged him with burglary. Maybe that's how it was, and maybe not. What is clear is that that's how he landed in the lockup.

Not many folks have patience left for Butch Warren. Edelman has done what he can for his friend. "I understand it's not possible to save every gift from the Creator, but nobody wants to be homeless," Edelman says. "Butch can't take care of himself. But he can still play."

Warren seems barely aware that there are still fans out there, people who cherish every measure of his recorded work.

Bertrand Uberall, a mathematician and jazz archivist who works at the Library of Congress, has dug up Warren's recordings and tracked down his compositions, recorded by artists such as Dexter Gordon and Jackie McLean. "Butch is a fantastic bassist," Uberall says. "Even in the latest years, he was still playing very well."

At Twins Lounge, "People ask me all the time, 'Is Butch playing?' " says co-owner Kelly Tesfaye. "The people all respected him and gave him food. I gave him food. He needs help so much."

The Rev. Brian Hamilton, pastor at the jazz church, used to see Warren almost every week. "He usually didn't say much, but if you caught him at the right moment, he'd fill your ear. One time, we had him come to church and talk about jazz. What he said was that this was a wonderful world."

E-mail:marcfisher@washpost.com