tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68537725691256147982024-03-18T15:20:17.183-07:00JazzProfilesFocused Profiles on Jazz and its Creators while also Featuring the Work of Guest Writers and Critics on the Subject of Jazz.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3819125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-75794708125786306452024-03-18T07:00:00.000-07:002024-03-18T07:00:00.134-07:00Rob Madna: The Wizard of Dutch Jazz [From the Archives with Additions]<p> <span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 700; white-space-collapse: preserve;">© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s04aT-196Y0/Vi_LAIz2zlI/AAAAAAABxPo/bFzAmat--_A/s1600/Rob%2BMadna%2B004.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s04aT-196Y0/Vi_LAIz2zlI/AAAAAAABxPo/bFzAmat--_A/s640/Rob%2BMadna%2B004.jpg" width="274" /></a></div><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Rob was also a teacher of mathematics and maybe that had also something to do with the fact that he became a wizard in harmony. He was a very straight ahead and honest person and he only wanted to play the music he liked. That was one of the reasons he gave up his job as a professional musician and became a teacher in mathematics. That way he had a steady income in order to give his family financial support and he could still play the music he loved on a very high level. Later on he got an offer for a teaching position at the conservatory in Amsterdam, which he accepted and he became a great inspiration for young upcoming pianists.’</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><i>- </i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Eric Ineke, drummer, bandleader and educator</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Thanks to the efforts Jazz buddies and Jazz musicians based in The Netherlands, I’ve have been able to piece together a modicum of awareness of the Dutch Jazz scene.</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Each in their own way has been a regular source of information, education and awareness about “Jazz Behind the Dikes.” [the phrase comes from the title of one of the earliest compilations of the music of Dutch Jazz groups which was released on Philips Records in 1955.]</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">For a country with a population of 16.8 million people - about the same number of people are in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties; four of the five counties that make up the greater part of southern California - the Dutch have produced quite a respectable number of distinguished Jazz musicians, many of whom have been previously featured on these pages.</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Because of my “inside connections,” I have been made especially privy to knowledge about many of the talented composer-arrangers who write charts for big bands, but who don’t lead their own orchestras.</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Occasionally, individual or retrospectives performances of the work of these less well-known big band arrangers is the focus of concerts by publicly and/or privately supported resident Dutch orchestras such at The Metropole Orchestra [which includes a string section], The Metropole Big Band [sans strings], the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw, the Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra, and the Dutch Jazz Orchestra.</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Metropole, although based in Hilversum about 35 kilometers SE of Amsterdam frequently gives concerts at the Bimhuis, the musicians union concert hall based in Amsterdam, the country’s capital city. The Concertgebouw’s Jazz Orchestra is resident in that great concert hall which is located in Den Hague while the Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra is resident in the North Sea port city that bears its name. Rotterdam also hosts the annual North Sea Jazz Festival at which the Dutch jazz Orchestra has made frequent appearance.</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">One of these appearance by the DJO at the NSJF has particular meaning for me because it was at that festival in 2008 that the big band paid tribute to the music of Rob Madna who was the DJO’s musical director for a short time when it was first organized in 1983.</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The title of this piece derives from the fact that Rob was a very analytical individual who solved problems of technique and perception in a very deliberate manner. He taught himself to play piano, how to arrange music for a big band and established himself as both a professor of music at a conservatory level and as a university professor in mathematics. “Wizard,” perhaps is an understatement. Mathematics has been described as “the bridge to infinity” and is no doubt a suitable training ground for the infinite variation that is Jazz improvisation. It was Rob’s genius to be able to function and create in both universes, thus bridging the worlds of Mathematics with the world of Jazz.</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I first became familiar with Rob when I heard him as a pianist in a trio with Dick Bezemer on bass and Wessel Ilcken on drums. Later in his career, Rob could often be heard in the company of Marius Beets on bass and Eric Ineke on drums as a trio or as a rhythm section for Ferdinand Povel, an excellent tenor saxophonist. </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-n-paVsDXvuM/Vi6404ZTRpI/AAAAAAABxPQ/ZzgkLgZxs9A/s1600/Rob%2BMadna%2B005.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="346" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-n-paVsDXvuM/Vi6404ZTRpI/AAAAAAABxPQ/ZzgkLgZxs9A/s640/Rob%2BMadna%2B005.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">That rhythm section was joined by Ferdinand Povel, the dynamic Dutch soprano and tenor saxophonist, for a club date at Cafe Nick Vollebregt, Laren, The Netherlands and the July 4, 1976 performances by the group were recorded by Ruud Kleyn of Dutch NPS Radio and subsequently issued on CD in 2003 as </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Broadcast Business ‘76: The Rob Madna Trio featuring Ferdinand Povel </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">[Daybreak DB CHR 75162].</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Harm Mobach provided these descriptive insert notes which will give you some background information about Rob Madna’s career in music and a brief discography of his recordings.</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Rob Madna (1931-2003)</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Rob Madna, one of the founders of modern jazz in postwar Holland, died on April 5th, 2003. He'd been active for many years as a pianist, trumpet player, composer, arranger, bandleader and teacher. His death came as something of a shock, in and out of Holland; only the month before, Madna had been conducting workshops for members of German bandleader Peter Herbolzheimer's Orchestra. Foreign and domestic students at the Amsterdam Conservatory counted on him to tweak their emerging concepts. And he still had plenty of ideas and plans he never got to execute.</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Rob Madna was born in The Hague on June 8, 1931, the son of an Indonesian father and Dutch mother. His interest in music was kindled during World War II. As he'd tell it later, his parents had two records that fascinated him, one by Mildred Bailey with Teddy Wilson and a recording of "My Man's Gone Now" from Porgy and Bess. He taught himself to play piano by ear, and after the war, while still in high school, he quickly ripened into a respected modern pianist, initially inspired (like many Dutch colleagues at the time) by West Coast jazz musicians.</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In 1950 he started playing professionally in the Amsterdam jazz club Sheherazade, with a small group led by the American drummer Wally Bishop; by the following year he was a member of the Rob Pronk Boptet. In 1953, he was reunited with Bishop for a club gig in Dusseldorf, where by chance Lionel Hampton's band was also playing. Hamp's trumpeter Art Farmer came down to check them out and wound up sitting in for five hours. (Madna met Hampton trumpeter Quincy Jones then too.)</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">After an engagement in Sweden in 1954, he entered military service—"the greatest disappointment in my life" he called it later. But he was granted leave to participate in the first studio recording of Dutch modernists, anthologies issued as Jazz from Holland and Jazz Behind the Dikes. Subsequently he backed American stars like Phil Woods, Dexter Gordon, Don Byas and Lucky Thompson, played in a Freddie Hubbard quartet, and has worked with valve trombonist and arranger Bob Brookmeyer and trumpeter-bandleader Thad Jones. (More on Jones in a minute.)</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">During the 1970s, Madna had started and written for a rehearsal band which more or less spun off from Frans Elsen's so-called Hobby Orchestra. Madna also arranged and composed for Jerry van Rooijen's Dutch Jazz Orchestra, in which he played piano and trumpet. This connection ultimately led to the recording of the 1996 double-CD </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Update, Music from Rob Madna</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. (He'd picked up trumpet only at age forty, but ultimately preferred flugelhorn.) Madna had also investigated the potential of synthesizers; there's a live recording of the Rob Madna Fusion Group, from 2001, which has yet to be issued.</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Inspirations</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">When Madna mentioned his influences in interviews, he seldom brought up pianists first. He's always valued Bud Powell, Horace Silver and Herbie Hancock but his greatest model was a horn player: Miles Davis. Madna had been transfixed by his 1949-50</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Birth of the Cool</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> recordings, before he caught Miles (with John Coltrane) in 1956. Hearing them play "Stablemates" and "How Am I To Know" really hooked him. Madna once said, "Miles Davis has been enormously important to me. His playing was as natural as speech — you could hear the human voice coming through. (Miles once said: 'I'd like to play the way Orson Welles speaks'.) And he also had that tremendous feeling for 'time.' To me he's the great role model."</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">And then there's Thad Jones. Back when Rob Madna's 'big-band period' started, his friend and mentor Jerry van Rooijen had pressed him to start writing orchestral arrangements. When Madna protested he didn't have the training, Van Rooijen said, "Use your imagination; you've heard enough." When he hunkered down to it, Madna took particular inspiration from Jones, then co-leading his own fine big band with drummer Mel Lewis. (It had also started as a rehearsal band.) Madna had met Jones in Hilversum, Holland, when the trumpeter was recording with the Metropole Orchestra. Later when Jones heard Madna with the radio band the Skymasters, he invited him to join his orchestra for a European tour — an invitation Madna alas had to reject, as he was busy with his other career as a mathematics master at the time.</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">With typical modesty, Madna disparaged his writing as too much like Jones's. He went too far, but there are similarities: his writing is traditional and modern at the same time, rhythmically dynamic, with simple melodies beautifully harmonized. From Jones he also learned to respect other musicians. In 2000 he said, "When we in Europe judged someone's playing, we'd say it was 'OK, but...'. When Jones talked about members of his band, like trumpeter Snooky Young, he emphasized only the good things.'</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Conservatory Teacher</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Rob Madna also made his mark as an educator. Even into his 70s, he continued to mentor and teach piano students in the Jazz Department of the Amsterdam Conservatory. Colleagues and students esteemed him for his skill and musicality, his conviction and empathy, and the joy he brought to teaching. The thoughtful quality that characterized his playing revealed itself in the criticism he offered, always based on broad experience.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Nf5fF_yVrmU/Vi649NbYU3I/AAAAAAABxPY/bV6QtDpGhvw/s1600/images%2B%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="398" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Nf5fF_yVrmU/Vi649NbYU3I/AAAAAAABxPY/bV6QtDpGhvw/s400/images%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Broadcast Business '76</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The CD </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Broadcast Business '76</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> is no memorial album, having been in the works for some time, and the quality of this 1976 live recording of Madna's trio with guest Ferdinand Povel speaks for itself. For one thing, the opener is a seldom-heard Thad Jones tune, "Quietude," recorded by Thad and Mel in 1969. The album also features a rare appearance by Povel on soprano sax, and '70s Madna staple, Billy Strayhorn's "U.M.M.G. (Upper Manhattan Medical Group)."</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Everyone's in excellent form. Madna's playing has his characteristic harmonic richness, and he audibly inspires the swinging bassist Koos Serierse and drummer Eric Ineke. And Ferdinand Povel's playing flows here in a way I've never heard elsewhere. On Coltrane's "Like Sonny" and "Satellite," he rips through the harmonies sometimes, maintaining tightrope control. Another player Povel admires, Joe Henderson, wrote the ballad "I Know You Care," inspiring a particularly emotive tenor solo.</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Comparing this live recording from a cafe in Laren with the 2000 Madna CD </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">'en blanc et noir' #6 </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Daybreak DRCHR75095) may lead you to conclude that </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Broadcast Business '76</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> is in fact Povel's date. There are two of his tunes, "In An Aquarian Mood" (for the astrologically-minded, he was born on February 13), and "Pori." (Povel had appeared at Finland's Pori festival in 1974). The level of interplay between Rob Madna and Ferdinand Povel was always very high, and this impressive CD is a key part of Rob Madna's musical legacy.”</span></div><span><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dEnrs7qOmbo" width="320" youtube-src-id="dEnrs7qOmbo"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/t5eqtfDMfUk" width="320" youtube-src-id="t5eqtfDMfUk"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2iN4Ds2t10U" width="320" youtube-src-id="2iN4Ds2t10U"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-76599702985166295852024-03-15T12:27:00.000-07:002024-03-15T12:27:25.127-07:00The Great Wide World of Quincy Jones - Gene Lees [From the Archives with Additions]<p> <span style="color: red; font-family: verdana; font-weight: 700; white-space-collapse: preserve;">© - Steven A. Cerra - copyright protected; all rights reserved.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8Hul3Cstb_c/VpU8VwhdiOI/AAAAAAABzsc/WMrRSHzEtK4/s1600/Q%2B-%2Bdb%2B1960%2B003.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8Hul3Cstb_c/VpU8VwhdiOI/AAAAAAABzsc/WMrRSHzEtK4/s640/Q%2B-%2Bdb%2B1960%2B003.jpg" width="482" /></span></a></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">“One evening in the early summer of 1958 I went to an amusement park called Grona Lund, on the outskirts of Stockholm, to hear the excellent altoist Arne Domnerus, one of Sweden's best. His orchestra was billed as a dance band, but they were playing jazz, very good jazz.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I chatted with the musicians between sets, and with one in particular, the friendly and loquacious trumpeter Bengt-Arne Wallin.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">When the evening was over, and all the blond girls and their escorts were gone from the outdoor dance pavilion, and the musicians had packed their instruments away, Bengt-Arne and I walked out past the carousel and the games with some of the others, whose names he told me but whose Swedish sound defied my memory. They were talking about Quincy Jones. They said he would be in town tomorrow, and they were obviously excited about it. Bengt-Arne asked if I knew him; he seemed to assume I knew every musician in America. I said I did not.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">"Then come with us tomorrow and meet him," he said.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">"No thank you," I said.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">"Why not?" he said.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I thought for a moment and said: "I hate to meet people for the mere sake of meeting them." Then I added: "We would probably have nothing to say to each other."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">It was for me sufficient that I knew and liked Quincy's music. I had no need or particular desire to know the man.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">We left the park and I drove downtown, to my hotel. It was after midnight, but there was still light in the sky. There is only about an hour or so of darkness in Stockholm at that time of the year, and it is never a deep darkness.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">In the morning, Olle Helander, director of jazz for Swedish radio, with whom I had struck up a friendship in a surprisingly short time, said that there was a band he wanted me to hear, both as an ensemble and because it contained virtually all the top jazz soloists in Sweden. It was the Swedish Radio Studio Orchestra, directed by Harry Arnold, and it was Olle's baby. He watched over it like a mother hen. The band was recording that day, and he arranged to pick me up and take me to the studio.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">When we arrived at the studio — actually a movie studio, used occasionally for recording — the session was already under way. When we entered, the blasting sound of a superb big band struck us. They were playing Horace Silver's Doodlin'. </span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Suddenly the music stopped. "No, no, not like that, like this," someone said, and sang the part. "All right, let's do it again. Just one more time and we'll do it right."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Olle and I made our way over the tangle of cables on the floor. We sat down discreetly. The conductor, a slight, almost fragile-looking, and exceptionally handsome young Negro in a white cardigan sweater, was discussing something with one of the musicians. Then the band started again. It swung like mad. I saw Bengt-Arne in the trumpet section and he winked.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">But I was intrigued mostly by the conductor. An unlit cigarette in his mouth, he conducted with his fingertips, his hips, his head, everything: he threw himself into the music with a strange combination of intense concentration and utter relaxation. </span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">He seemed to know exactly what he wanted.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">"Who's that?" I asked Olle when the music ended.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">"That's Quincy Jones," Olle said.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">When the band took a break and we were listening to the stereo playbacks, Olle introduced me to Quincy. I asked him why he was doing so many retakes when a couple of simple splicings would eliminate the faults.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">"I don't like to splice," he said. "I don't think it gives you the feel of live performance. I'll tolerate faults if the feeling is right." Later, I realized that remark was a clue to his character.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Then the band went back to work, doing retake after retake until the performance was up to the standard he was seeking. Quincy had been brought to Stockholm to do this one disc with the Swedish Radio Studio Orchestra. They weren't even going to use his name on the disc, a single which, two days after it was released, was to become a hit in Sweden. They just wanted his musicianship.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In the next couple of days, Quincy and I found ourselves in the same company fairly often. He said he had got his real start as an arranger in Sweden — at a now-historic record date done with Art Farmer and the late Clifford Brown. They had been touring Sweden with Lionel Hampton's band, and one night Farmer and he and Clifford, who was one of his closest friends, did the disc in company with some of the Swedish jazz musicians. One of the charts Quincy had written for it was </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Stockholm Sweetnin'.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif"><span style="color: black; font-family: verdana; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">That disc, released in America on Prestige LP 167, was to be the turning point in Quincy's career as an arranger and composer. Indeed, Quincy is one of those American artists — Ernestine Anderson is another — who had to go to Sweden to be discovered. As a result, he had an enormous gratitude toward and liking for the Swedes. He considered Stockholm a sort of third home, since New York was his first home now, and Paris was his second. He had an immense respect for Swedish musicianship. "Outside America, the Swedes are the world's best jazz musicians," he said. "And I don't understand what it is that makes them that way. But there it is."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Quincy had been living in Paris for some time. What was he doing there? Writing and acting as music director for Barclay Records, one of the bigger labels in France, particularly for jazz. He was also studying. With whom? I asked. With Nadia Boulanger, he said.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">That evening, Quincy flew back to Paris, suggesting that I call when I got back to Paris, where I too was living. The Stockholm papers carried stories on his visit. One of them had half a page of pictures on him. Did American papers give jazz artists that kind of attention? someone asked me. I had to admit that they did not.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Some weeks later, I had an audience with Nadia Boulanger, arranged by a representative of the French government. I was in Europe to study and I was intensely curious about this remarkable woman, who has had perhaps more</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">influence on American classical music than any other living individual. </span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">It is hard to find an American contemporary composer of importance who has not studied with her. Aaron Copland was her first famous American protégé, and since then the stream of young Americans going to Fontainebleau to study with her has been unending. Roger Sessions studied with her. So did Leonard Bernstein.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">She held court in her apartment, a strange yet charming place dominated by photos and sculptures of her dead sister. Considered one of the finest of all composition teachers, Mlle Boulanger has never been a composer herself. She is an enigma, one I didn't succeed in solving.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Yet if she was a puzzle, she was a delightful one. And if her devotion to her late sister had seemed morbid at a distance, it did not seem so from close range. She simply thought her sister had had the makings of one of the great composers of our time, and was determined that what music she had written before her premature death would not go unrecognized.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I did not have the courage to ask Mlle Boulanger why she did not compose. Someone my age simply did not ask such questions of a woman her age, particularly when he had just met her, and particularly in Europe. I was content to sit with the others, in a half circle of chairs facing her, and hear her talk, sometimes in French and sometimes in excellent English.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">She looked to be about 70 — with delicately lined skin the texture of an exquisite paper— but she had the manner of a young girl, and the enthusiasm. I asked her about it. "I do not feel old," she said. "I feel like a young woman in an old woman's body. I do not feel old inside."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">When I left, I was a little awed. Rarely have I met a human being who impressed me as much. I could see why she would wield such an enormous influence over budding composers. And yet, I had learned nothing about how she worked. And then I remembered Quincy Jones, and that he was studying with her, and I telephoned him.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">In the living room in the apartment on Boulevard Victor Hugo, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, the Paris suburb where Quincy was living, we sat and talked about Nadia Boulanger, while Quincy's wife, Jerri, remained quiet in a chair - knitting, as I recall.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">"Some people have a great gift for communicating what they know," he said. "They're natural-born teachers. Nadia Boulanger is like that. And she inspires you. Maybe that's the most important thing. I think she loves teaching. And, man, what could be more creative than what she's done? Think of all the careers she's helped build."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Was Quincy himself planning to go into classical composition? "No," he said. "At least, not yet. I'm not ready for that."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">What had he learned most from studying in Europe?</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">He thought for a moment. "The use of restraint in writing. That's what the French really have."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">The conversation drifted after that. Quincy talked with that bubbling enthusiasm that was to become so familiar. He talked about Lambert-Hendricks-Ross and played me their first record, which I had never heard, then played some Clifford Brown and some Ray Charles records. He was enormously impressed by Charles, and went about his efforts to proselytize me with great vigor. Later, I understood that this was not only indicative of Quincy's concern with the roots of jazz, but that Charles was a definite influence on his writing. Ernie Wilkins, too, was one of his idols. He referred to him as "my uncle."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">His little girl came in. Her name was Jolie — French for pretty. She was charming, and shy, and spoke more French than English from playing with French children. Charming? She was and is one of the most beautiful children I have ever seen. There was a picture of Quincy and Jolie together, in the water at Cannes, on the cover of a French magazine lying on a coffee table.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I looked over some of his arrangements, and saw where he worked: at an upright piano of ghastly modern French design in one corner of the big, modern living room. I knew what rents were in Paris, and reflected that this place must have a heavy rent. It was just up the street from the American Hospital, in a district where many French movie stars live.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Quincy and his wife still maintained their apartment in New York, because he needed both to carry on his work on both sides of the Atlantic. He had to make about $700 a month just to pay the rents.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I didn't see Quincy for a while. I went to Switzerland to the Zurich music festival, and when I got back I learned that he was in Monte Carlo for a few days, conducting an orchestra playing Nelson Riddle charts for Frank Sinatra. Kenny Clarke, a permanent resident of Paris, was playing drums on the date. The occasion was the world premiere of the film </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Kings Go Forth.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">When he came back, he was full of enthusiasm for Sinatra — whom he found temperamental, at times difficult, but an artist of great stature. "I used to hear about him conducting, and I thought it was all baloney," Quincy said. "But I saw him doing it at rehearsal. And it's for real. He knows exactly what he wants from an orchestra. And he's a natural conductor. And when he went out on that stage, I loved him."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I saw Quincy a lot after that. I don't know why. Maybe it was because a friend of mine, a screenplay writer who is an arch-hypochondriac, was perpetually conning me into driving him over to the American Hospital. I found Quincy's a convenient place to wait for him. Besides, the company of Quincy and Jerri was quietly stimulating. Once the three of us made an informal pact to give up cigarettes. We didn't make it.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I learned that Quincy was born in Chicago and reared in Seattle and that he had been on the verge of going on the road in the Lionel Hampton trumpet section when he was about 15. But Gladys Hampton — Hamp's wife — said he was only a baby and shouldn't go. Later he won a scholarship to the Berklee School of Music in Boston. Before he finished, he had a second chance to go with Hamp. He took it, and married a home-town girl he had known for years. They were still in their teens.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Quincy wrote for the Hampton band. Some time after the Stockholm disc, he went out on his own. His reputation grew, and finally he made an LP for ABC-Paramount, called </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">This Is How I Feel About Jazz.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Quincy told a funny story connected with the album: the picture on the back of the liner, showing him amid Greek ruins and looking disconsolate, was taken in Athens when he was with Dizzy Gillespie's big band (for which he had written and which he had rehearsed for Dizzy) on its Middle Eastern tour for the State Department. Quincy had fallen asleep in an outdoor barber's chair while getting a haircut. When he awoke, the man had also shaved him—but thoroughly. And so there he sat in the photo, sans mustache and looking inconsolable and more than a little disgusted.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Quincy played a lot of vocal discs during those months in Paris. He had a sympathy for singers. He was at that time writing a lot of charts for French singer Henri Salvador, whose work gassed him. He played a tape by a singer I'd never heard. The guy was marvellous — rather like Nat Cole, but with an even softer, mistier voice, and with a superb musicality. The approach was rather like that of certain jazz trumpeters, and the singer did tricks with intonation and time that reflected an unbelievable assurance and skill.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">"Who in the world is that?" I demanded.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Quincy laughed. "Me. Henri had to learn a tune in English and I did it to show him how the words should be pronounced."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">"Man, you should do a vocal album with your own charts," I said.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">"Maybe I will, some day," he said.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">But he never has. And the public doesn't know what it is missing.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">The summer passed. We talked of many things, from Andre Hodeir, to whom he introduced me, to Brigitte Bardot. How did she get into the conversations? Sacha Distel, the French guitarist, was going with her at the time, and Distel was a friend of Quincy's, and Bardot was perpetually in the club where he was playing. Quincy thought she was "kind of a nice chick, not at all what you'd expect."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">We talked too on the seemingly irresolvable subject of whether the Negro musician swings more than the white. Quincy was of the view that generally, there was this tendency. But he thought it was an environmental thing. "When you go to those church meetings and hear that handclapping, you get the beat drummed into you before you're 5 years old," he said.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">But he was by no means dogmatic about it, or even very firm on it, and there were many white musicians for whom he had deep respect and admiration, including Zoot Sims.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Zoot was in town that week, and was going to work on a recording date with Quincy and Sarah Vaughan. Quincy was using the strings of the Paris Opera for the album, issued in America by Mercury under the title </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Vaughan and Violins</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Two of the tunes they were to record were </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Misty</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> and </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Midnight Sun Never Sets</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. The latter had been written by Quincy and Henri Salvador (Salvador contributed the music for the bridge). It had first been recorded by the Swedish Radio Studio Orchestra with Arne Domnerus featured as soloist. (This version is available in this country on a Mercury LP titled </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Quincy Jones plus Harry Arnold Equals Jazz</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">-) Olle Helander had suggested the tune's title, and someone had added lyrics.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Quincy suggested I go to the Vaughan recording session, but I said I couldn't: I had to go to London that weekend to see Robert Farnon, the arranger and composer. Quincy exploded in enthusiasm.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">This seemed odd. Farnon is a screen and symphonic composer, best known to the public for a series of mood music albums on the London label. I have always loved them, finding much more than mere mood in them. But I had met too many jazz musicians whose range of interests is narrow, and I had forgotten for the moment that Quincy was no ordinary jazz musician, and so I expressed my surprise that he should be interested in Farnon's music.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">"Are you kidding?" he said. "The arrangers in New York call him 'the Guv'nor.' Man, he came to New York a while ago and they threw a party in his honor. It was a huge apartment, but it was packed with people. Every arranger in New York was there. Somebody said that if you'd fired a bomb in the place that night, there wouldn't have been another note of music written in New York for five years. Everybody was there."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I was glad to find a fellow member of the Farnon fan club — though later I was to learn that it is by no means a small group. It includes such men as Andre Previn and Oscar Peterson, and there is in New York a group of Farnonesque arrangers that is sometimes known as the "Farnon disciples."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Anyway, I had to go to London to see Farnon and couldn't make the Vaughan date.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I drove Quincy toward central Paris. He said he was getting ready to go back to America soon, that there was a lot he had to do there. He was thinking about forming a band. He said Jolie and Jerri were going on ahead of him.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">He was on his way to mail some letters, and I let him out of the car at a post office. It was fall, and the first chill was in the air. Fall is the most beautiful time in Paris. I shook hands with him, because we had both acquired the French habit, and said good-bye. I said I'd call when I got back from England, but I stayed there longer than I had expected, and when I got back, Quincy had left for New York.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">In January of 1959, after a year's study on leave from the Louisville Times, I came home. On the boat I thought about Quincy, and the improbability that our paths would ever cross again. I was saddened by the reflection.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In mid-March of 1959, I was named managing editor of </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Down Beat</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. Two days after I arrived in Chicago, Mercury Records told me that Quincy Jones had done an album for them, (</span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Birth of a Band</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">), that he was forming a big band, and that he was in town that day to do a series of interviews with disc jockeys and others. Did I want to see him?</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">"Do I?" I said. "Where is he staying?"</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">They gave me the hotel number. I called, anticipating how I'd put him on the telephone, not telling him who it was. He didn't even know I was back in America. But I hadn't said five words before he recognized the voice, gave a chuckle, and said "What're you doing at Down Beat?"</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">With my surprise completely deflated, I demanded, "But how did you find out? I know rumor travels fast in the music business, but this is ridiculous!"</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">"Ralph Gleason told me last night in San Francisco."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">The occasion called for a drink. For a dinner. We had both.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Quincy made me aware in the next few weeks of the incredible casualness with which people in the music business use the long distance telephone. He'd call just to chat, or talk about the band he was forming. Sometimes he'd start the conversation in French, as a gag. But he speaks French with a horrendous accent, and it's unmistakable, and I could spot his voice faster in French than in English.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Gradually, I began to count on his phone calls, to look forward to them. I was becoming aware of many, many things, and not all of them were pleasant, and I found myself looking to Quincy for information and explanation. On the one hand, I felt the warmth and honest camaraderie of the jazz world. On the other, I felt the Florentine subsurface of danger — of put-downs, and cliques, and special interests, and twisted thinking.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">But worst of all, I was becoming hypersensitive to the race situation. I had once thought it simple: jazz was the one field of honest fellowship. I was finding out that this was not true, and I was staring Jim Crow in its vicious face.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I was learning about segregated locals of the American Federation of Musicians — more than 40 of them in the United States. I was getting to know Chicago musicians on both the north and south side, and found that not only was there little cross-pollination of ideas going on, but the two groups hardly knew each other. I was learning how hard it is for the Negro musician to get studio work, and how mixed groups have broken up because of trouble with bookings. I found it terribly depressing. One night, when Quincy called, I told him I thought I'd had it: it was more than I could take.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">"Don't be ridiculous, man," he said. "If people like you chicken out, who's going to fight it?"</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">In subsequent weeks, Quincy became a tremendous source not only of fact and sensible opinion about jazz and those who create it, but of strength as well.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I saw him next at Newport, with Milt Jackson and Jerri. He had shaved off his mustache. He had decided that when he took his band out, he wanted to look young, so the young audiences could more readily find an identification with the band. This was typical of his attention to subtle detail. Under his warmth and gentleness, there was a flinty shrewdness.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Jerri was teasing him about the removal of the mustache. She said it made him look so young — which it did; he looked 18 — that she was embarrassed to walk down the street with him. People would think she was robbing the cradle.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Shortly after Newport, the three of us spent an evening together in New York. He introduced me to a number of things of real beauty, not the least of which was Jerri's cooking. And Jolie — Jolie had grown if anything even prettier. But she had forgotten all her French already.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">That night we sprawled on the floor of Quincy's study in the 92nd St. apartment, listening to Ravel's </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Daphnis and Chloe</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, the orchestration spread out on the floor, and Quincy shaking his head in appreciation. I asked him to play the </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Vaughan and Violins</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> album, which I had never heard. At one passage in the woodwinds, I said, </span></span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="line-height: 1.38; white-space-collapse: preserve;">"Hey! You got that from Farnon!"</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">"I did like hell," he said, laughing. "We both got it from Ravel."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">The next time I talked to Quincy in a state of depression, it was not Jim Crow but Crow Jim that had me down. I had just come back from Monterey, where I thought I felt a distinct draft. Certain white musicians told me that they had felt it too.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Felt what? An indefinable and very subtle condescension of some Negro musicians toward the white musicians, a vaguely patronizing air.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I told Quincy that Crow Jim disgusted me as much as its converse. I said that it seemed to me that there was a certain element in jazz that professed to want equality, but really wanted revenge. And these few dangerous individuals were trying to downgrade the white, not lift the status of the Negro. It seemed to me that they were like that type of woman who tries to prove her intellectual and social equality by the constant belittling of her man. And all that such women succeeded in doing, as a rule, was to build bigger barriers.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">But the most distasteful thing about Crow Jim, I said, was that in a certain sense it was insulting to the Negro. And finally, the idea was downright dangerous.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">To argue that the Negro musician had a natural edge over the white was to help perpetuate the idea that Negroes and whites are basically different. And that idea could be twisted to evil ends, and it opened the way for white bigots to compare the allegedly superior talent of the Negro for jazz to the ability of a trained seal to balance balls on his nose, and to argue that in other areas the Negro was an inferior breed of man. This in turn paved the way for everything from segregation to gas ovens and extermination camps. Maybe I was hypersensitive, but one of the things I did in Europe was to make a pilgrimage to the ruins of the Belsen concentration camp. The massive graves, each containing a thousand bodies, left a permanent scar in me. And when I felt the draft of Crow Jim, I sometimes remembered the lonely song of the wind in the pines at Belsen.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">And even if that interpretation were exaggerated, the Crow Jim idea seemed to me still to be dangerous. Even if you made your point that you thought this was due to sociological, environmental factors, it could still backfire. If the Negro, because of a greater lack of inhibition and reticence in his playing, were capable of a stronger and more earthy jazz, could it not be argued that he lacked the refinement and restraint for classical music? And what would that do to the argument of those who are annoyed that there are few Negroes in American symphony orchestras?</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">This was not to deny a difference between jazz as it is usually played by Negro groups and jazz as it is usually played by white groups, or to deny that there was an identifiable Negro tradition and continuing core to jazz. But it was to decry a tendency to make the breach wider, and to make impossible the mutual musical fertilization that de-emphasis on the differences could produce, and, above all, it was to decry a tendency of certain opportunists in jazz to exploit the difference for their own ends — whether those ends were economic or neurotic.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Thus, no matter how you looked at it, a constant drumming on the racial idea in music was treacherous. And I was very disturbed by it that night on the phone. I do not know how clearly I expressed my feelings on it. But I said that it seemed to me the friction was getting worse, not better.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">"It's not getting worse," Quincy said. "This problem is something we're all going to have to live with, but the situation is getting better, not worse. I hear a lot of talk about it, too, but that's all to the good. The whole thing is out in the open now, where we can all see it, and deal with it."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">We talked about it for quite a while. Quincy convinced me that the situation was indeed getting better. Still, even now, my optimism is cautious.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">We talked about Quincy's new band then. He was lining up some remarkable talent for it. It was to be a name orchestra, almost completely. Quincy planned to use such musicians as Clark Terry, Jerome Richardson, Phil Woods, Melba Liston, and a pianist from Seattle named Patricia Bown. I told Quincy no one could ever accuse him of racial bias: he was using two women in the band.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I looked forward to the band's opening date with eager interest. It was scheduled to start its national tour in Chicago, and Jerri was coming with him. Then, shortly before the opening, he called again. There had been a change of plans.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Quincy was to write the charts for the Johnny Mercer-Harold Arlen musical </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Free and Easy</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. What's more, his band was to play the score, and on top of that, the musicians would actually appear onstage, as part of the cast, in costume. Some of them would even have lines. And most fabulous of all, the show was to open in Europe. The company would tour the continent for six months, ironing out whatever wrinkles there were in the show, and then return to America for a further tour before opening on Broadway.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Things seemed to move very quickly after that. As Quincy got more and more involved in the show, our chats became less frequent. As word got around the business that this band was to get the most remarkable kickoff any new band ever had — a year's guaranteed work and a tour of Europe in the bargain — musicians all over the country manifested interest. One of the members of the Count Basie band told me he'd love to go, but he understood Quincy wouldn't take anybody from Basie's band. That seemed strange. I told Quincy about it. I asked him if he wanted the man.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">"No, sir!" he said emphatically. "I won't touch anybody from the Basie band! Basie's been good to me, man, and I don't forget those things."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Not long after that, plans for the show were completed, and the band left. The show opened to rave reviews for the band, somewhat less enthusiastic reviews for the show. But that's what Europe was intended to be: the place to iron out the show.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">What Quincy's future plans are, I can't say. He never talks about his plans until they are well on the way to fruition. He wants to write a Broadway musical, as well as just scoring one. And he once said something that is perhaps significant. "All the musicians moan about the level of American popular music, but all they do is moan about it. They wouldn't think of going into it to improve it. Well I'm going into it. I don't want my band advertised as a jazz band, even though it is. I don't want to scare the kids off. I want to try to do something about popular music."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">He probably will. Everything seems to come easily to Quincy. The legendary struggles and heartaches of show business and music have never been his. He has achieved a position of remarkable eminence — and he's only 26!</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I once asked him why there had been so few hassles in his life. He said he didn't know. And then, after thinking about it a moment, he added: "It is probably because I never do anything, never make a move or an advance in my career, until I am sure I am ready and prepared for it."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Yet there is one slight storm cloud on the horizon: I smell a put-down coming. I strongly suspect that Quincy is going to have the experience of every jazz musician who commits the cardinal sin of becoming successful and making money: there are those who will find excuses to belittle his music.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I said something about it to one musician. "Don't worry," he said, "they won't get at him. He's become too big for them to hurt."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I saw the put-down tendency satirized beautifully by Harry (Sweets) Edison. It was shortly after Quincy and the band left for Europe. Barbara Gardner, who contributes articles periodically to Down Beat, introduced me to Sweets, who later told me she had mentioned my relationship with Quincy beforehand. "I'm gonna put him on," Sweets told her. And he did.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">He mentioned Quincy to me. "Quincy," he said with a tone of enormous contempt, "ain't nothin'."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Instantly there was fire in my eye. "What do you mean by that?" I demanded. And then I caught the mischief in his expression, and I knew there was something afoot.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">"Say," I said, "hasn't Quincy had you on a lot of his record dates? And there's something else I remember too. Didn't you teach him trumpet or something like that?"</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Sweets grinned then. "I wouldn't say that, exactly. I showed him a few little things on the horn. He was only a little kid then. That was in Seattle."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Sweets reminisced about Quincy, for whom he had an affection that was almost grandfatherly. "When that boy puts something on paper, you know it's gonna sound right," he said. "And what's more, he's one of the cleanest, nicest people in the business."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I told Sweets about the time I said I had no desire to meet Quincy because we would probably have nothing to say to each other. He chuckled.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Later, as I was leaving, he held me back for a moment and the mischief returned to his expression. "Are you gonna be in touch with Quincy?" he said.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">"Probably."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">"All right," he said, "next time you talk or write to him, you tell him I said he ain't nothin' since he got rich."”</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Source: February 4, 1960 edition of </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Downbeat</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Postscript of the fate of </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Free and Easy</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> as described by Quincy in this Les Tomkins 1963 Interview:</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Source: Jazz Professional </span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"> </span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">My band originated with the tour of </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Free And Easy</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. We were signed up by a production company which was putting on a Broadway show. They had a contract with Sammy Davis to join the show when we got to England, which was three months after the European tour started. This was the show that Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer and Arne Bontemps wrote. It was originally called </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">St. Louis Woman, </span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">then they revamped it and called it </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Free and Easy</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, but it was basically the same story.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">The show lasted about three months, then it was in financial trouble and everything, because of the problem of having 70 people and 35 tons of equipment to move around Europe — which isn’t very practical.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">And I had very high salaried musicians, because I had probably the best musicians in New York. We had a two–year contract, but it ended up being only three months. So we decided: “Well, we’re in Europe. Let’s stay here and see what we can do.” I think I became 20 years older during this time — it was really rough. But it was interesting. I can’t say it was all rough, because I don’t regret one minute of it. I’ve said many times that I’d never try it again, but that’s a lie, I think. I wouldn’t do that again — but I would try it again.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I would have liked to have experimented more than I did with various tone colours. The band was designed with that in mind—a custom–made vehicle for all the colours in the world. With a guitar player that plays flute and we had, I think, something like 35 woodwind doubles in the reed section alone. Jerome Richardson alone played 11 different instruments.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">We wanted to do it — but it was the thing of survival. So we had to stay mostly with the book that we had from records and so forth. We didn’t have time to experiment with it like I really wanted to. </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">But this is the way you grow up, by making mistakes. You take a giant step and jump in the water — and you learn </span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">[Emphasis Mine]</span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. </span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Now we know that much more planning would be necessary to make a thing like that get off the ground."</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VPRFLIgHC98" width="320" youtube-src-id="VPRFLIgHC98"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/L88bQpa-AeA" width="320" youtube-src-id="L88bQpa-AeA"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QmWmglW_jJQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="QmWmglW_jJQ"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3r-qBdmt6uo" width="320" youtube-src-id="3r-qBdmt6uo"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-91378914779839086652024-03-14T11:52:00.000-07:002024-03-14T11:52:53.090-07:00"Naima" performed by Jessica Williams<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://youtube.com/embed/F_yglpCoLm8?si=0FfBHoTsb4mHRcQA" width="480"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-67736279173207613662024-03-11T10:55:00.000-07:002024-03-11T10:55:16.147-07:00Dizzy, Duke, The Count and Me: The Story of the Monterey Jazz Festival [Revised with Video Additions]<p> <span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space-collapse: preserve;">© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-73d1555a-7fff-0b75-9013-63a459634301"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 433px; overflow: hidden; width: 334px;"><img height="433" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/c042bBTHjR8pfwmx00bzKgeNSLeUnuevsXIblP_yLYfvilHGMOD9eblMewLp5M5ZnCzjPFzr8wy0rsrA8oniMH2KChga4K1AtphBblLtUEd7L2V7ERGms9QVdq8iyMVvXDF2RIMc" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="334" /></span></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Covering the festival from its inception in 1958 to 1977 the date of its publication,</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Dizzy, Duke, The Count and Me: The Story of the Monterey Jazz Festival </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">by Jimmy Lyons and Ira Kamin is a wonderful collection of articles, vignettes and remembrances about one of of the great cultural events in the USA - the annual celebration of American Contemporary Music in one of the country’s most beautiful settings.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Accompanying the writings are a collection of drawings by the renown illustrator David Stone Martin who designed many of the iconic album covers for the Clef Norgan and Verve LPs in the 1950s, as we as, many photographs by Tom Copi, Jim Marshall, Veryl Oakland and a host of others.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Foreword is by Dizzy Gillespie, the Preface is by co-author Ira Kamin and the lead-in articles is by Ralph J. Gleason, the San Francisco based columnist and critic and one of the founders of the Festival.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 427px; overflow: hidden; width: 289px;"><img height="427" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/B81-TVydfU9HcoDGZwah6-aTfLMp67bGjes5xZM2wVQkijgYLif67QFMw7HRG-m3bqPBlVwBybtxD3hHAA_s-GqbdQ-VcwRpIgb5zyPX2QYYJ7UzHuOwI0H_Z0s78WXmW2BFnDal" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="289" /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Foreword</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“One of the great shining examples of the kind of association I have with Jimmy Lyons is the fact that contract-wise, our contracts never seem to catch up. I just assume that I'm playing the Monterey Jazz Festival. It's assumed that I'm going to be at Monterey every year.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Now sometimes that gets a little out of hand, such as last year, when I had the chance to play a theatre with Sarah Vaughan.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Now, I love Jimmy Lyons, but oh my God, Sarah Vaughan!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Monterey has a special meaning for me, because I understand that the people expect to see me there. My face is a part of the Monterey Jazz Festival just like that chair that they have. And at the end of the concert every year I start wondering what they are going to do next year? Because you can't top yourself all the time.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">But over the years, the Monterey Jazz Festival has overextended itself—musically, I mean. Each year seems to be getting a little better. Sometimes it drops. Well, it can't be the same thing all the time. But it is the one festival where the musicians really feel a part of the festival itself.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">At other festivals, you have a spot, you play the spot, you go wherever your spot is. But the Monterey Jazz Festival is unique in that the musicians feel they're part of what's happening, and that lends itself to a very high degree of creativity.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">And the coup de grace was the hiring of John Lewis as musical director.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John Birks (Dizzy) Gillespie - October, 1977</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 380px; overflow: hidden; width: 277px;"><img height="380" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Wn5bHL5dKv0lcgh5YlaiHr_P0gn0jCyu1M4N-CFtT41c885JCoDk4uGQEbqXUdcsSF9QuXTTJtFihImONWmtEB3TKUcd5BZgqxrqx799jLh8N33pkTQSEAgITFZHbLBhS3I7t_Nl" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="277" /></span></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Preface</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“There have been twenty Monterey Jazz Festivals, held every late September, in Monterey, California, since 1958.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">It's Jimmy Lyons' Festival. He founded it and every year, with the help of his musical director, John Lewis, he puts the shows together.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I spent a few dozen hours with Jimmy Lyons over a couple of warm summer months, putting together this book about Lyons and the Festival.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">He lives on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco in a small apartment with his wife, Laurel. He sits at a table by a window, smokes Camel cigarettes, bites the backs of both thumbnails and talks in the most listenable voice — he used to be a deejay, the first GI voice in Berlin — about the people who've passed his way the sixty years he's been on this earth.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The first part of this book is Jimmy Lyons' account of the Festival and parts of his life that led to the Festival. The second part is a more specific, chronological overview of the Festival's first twenty years.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I would like to express my special thanks to Dizzy Gillespie for doing the Foreword. When I talked to him about the book he was in the middle of a long road trip. He had an abscessed tooth and the insides of his face were hurting from that crazy way he has of playing the trumpet. He was incredibly gracious to all of us who wanted some of his time.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I would also like to thank Hal Silverman, Laurel Lyons, Tim Ware, Elaine Ratner, Ernie Beyl, Jean (Mrs. Ralph) Gleason, The Monterey Jazz Festival staff and Board of Directors, and of course Jimmy Lyons, for their great help and patience in putting this book together.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Ira Kamin - Mill Valley, May 1978</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 428px; overflow: hidden; width: 334px;"><img height="428" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ARHziJ3GqjYj9v-ZLJu50rICiS-EF2BjRHU-NNtfsUG10sMxYyvN81rGLslljXYG-VDpjEUpAyhqGSRxZnvZz_3OUbjtpN4joJBzbjazUUUJWaLiIZ0Mx8Q-9KtC3X9G0fXSuiqH" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="334" /></span></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Why a Jazz Festival?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">by Ralph Gleason</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“The Monterey Jazz Festival — or any real festival, jazz or otherwise — can't be just a collection of concerts. It must be a thing unto itself, an entity beyond the individual performances, beyond the individual programs and greater than the sum of these.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The point of a festival is to be festive. To give and to receive joy and to present — in a jazz festival, at any rate — a wide diversification of styles and types of this music in as festive and benign a surrounding as possible.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">To be successful as a festival, the grounds, the concerts, the musicians, the patrons and the atmosphere all have to jell together to be something more than one can find elsewhere. And this, of course, is what has happened these years at Monterey.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">To be a true festival, there must be something for those who are not hard core jazz fans and who make this their sole jazz experience for the year. This, too, Monterey has provided.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The unusual combinations of music, the special events, the virtuoso performances, but above all, the opportunity to see and to hear great artists in a great setting — that is the festival.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Seeing musicians as people has always been an attraction. "People out front don't know of the battle you wage backstage," Jon Hendricks wrote in his lyrics to Count Basie's "Blues Back Stage." At Monterey and at any true festival of music, the concert hall setting is avoided and the musicians make up part of the audience, walking through the grounds, rehearsing in the mornings and early evenings, themselves digging the festival. Charles Mingus was rehearsing well into the evening concert the night before his historic appearance in 1964 and latecomers lingered by the doors to hear him.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Nor all the great music has always been on stage. There have been those delicious moments observed only by the people who came early or who stayed late and wandered around, such as the afternoon pianist Ralph Sutton rehearsed with Jimmy Rushing, the year that Ben Webster sat in on piano until Earl Hines arrived or the time Ben Webster was shooting pictures of the festival orchestra's saxophone section playing an arrangement of Ben's own solo on "Cottontail." These are the bonuses that make the festival worth more than anyone could dream of.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Of course, there's the opportunity to learn by listening to great artists from great eras in their own styles and settings. But that is only part of it. There are the once-in-a-lifetime performances.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Who could ever forget—who saw and heard ir—the "Evolution of the Blues" with Jon Hendricks preaching and Jimmy Witherspoon and Big Miller singing and Miriam Makeba and Odetta and Pony Poindexter and the children gathered onstage in a semi-circle around Jon?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Who could ever forget — who saw and heard it— Lambert-Hendricks-Bavan, dressed in monk's hoods and robes, singing in the cold night air behind Carmen McRae and Louis Armstrong in Dave and Iola Brubeck's "The Real Ambassadors." Or Lawrence Brown stepping forward to play "Poor Butterfly" or Duke Ellington's "Rockin in Rhythm" or Bunny Briggs dancing "David Danced Before the Lord with All His Might" or Dizzy and Big Mama Willie Mae Thornton or Annie Ross, Jon Hendricks, Dave Lambert and Joe Williams ending the show singing with Count Basie?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Right from the very first night, when the unknown trumpet player sat in with Dizzy, Monterey has been this way and that's what makes a festival and that's why a festival is almost a necessity in this era of restraint and inhibition. For one weekend, anything goes and the results have been some of the greatest moments in jazz history.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The festival is for the musicians and the festival is for the patrons — both. Each one digs the other and they both dig the digging. A festival is to have fun, to be festive, to give and receive love. And love, like jazz, is a four letter word and surrounded these days with Inhibitions and taboos. But at Monterey, for this one weekend, we are all free to love and jazz is free to be our music.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">A festival is to have fun. You aren't</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> supposed</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> to like or dislike anything. You don't </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">have</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> to listen and you can come and go as you please. It's nor a posh concert hall where silence must be preserved and it is only a tribute to the quality of the music and the musicians that silence has been granted (not preserved or enforced) during some of the great performances.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Nowhere in this country is there such a homogeneous gathering of people as at these festivals. Pass through those gates and leave behind all the traumas and the psychodramas that inhibit the rest of the year. Glory in the music, in the people, in the place. Jazz is what you call it, everyone's his own expert (as is really true in every art form when you get down to it) and you pick your own likes and dislikes.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">A jazz festival should be the best possible combination of enjoyments one can devise. Organization and improvisation, lyricism, strength, euphoria and the blues, individuals and groups, the scream, the cry and the whisper. It should all be there for you.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">A festival, like music, is to be experienced. It is interesting, but not essential, to know things about the music and about the musicians. The music is enough by itself; so is the setting; so, too, are the people there. All together they make up one of the best things about living around here, even if it only happens once a year.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Reprinted from Monterey Jazz Festival Program, 1966</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nJnF8uCKOj4" width="320" youtube-src-id="nJnF8uCKOj4"></iframe></div><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qGfmNiJt8uI" width="320" youtube-src-id="qGfmNiJt8uI"></iframe></div><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ogbjuIXXDeM" width="320" youtube-src-id="ogbjuIXXDeM"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8DjLv0SXecw" width="320" youtube-src-id="8DjLv0SXecw"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8PEvQVC1G3k" width="320" youtube-src-id="8PEvQVC1G3k"></iframe></div><br /><span><br /></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-79838604102920645232024-03-09T07:00:00.000-08:002024-03-10T15:49:48.072-07:00John von Ohlen and "Maximum Resonance" - The Modern Drummer Interview [From the Archives with Additions]<p><span style="font-family: verdana;"> <img alt="John von Ohlen" height="759" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/DS6YHCewTifsADHFgn5U8HI2H-RxShU9hNyY1gzamG7Z9Vj_x9yNBot5MCEDwbdvXRvPVETkdnxmdW8Xa29ocmnBvN2MZUUs8unQPJoUs1odnIXmf8Wf44c2DRBItVjoHK8M9T_-" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; white-space-collapse: preserve;" width="584" /></span></p><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><i><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline;">"At first, you usually emulate the master drummers. They’re usually older than you, but not always. You imitate them because you haven’t found your own way yet. Then one day you’ll hear, for the first time, your </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline;">own natural style. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline;">Every drummer has a different style that couldn’t be conjured up. It’s just there naturally and always has been. The day that you first begin to become aware of it is your day of liberation. From that point on, instead of trying to sound like Steve Gadd, Buddy Rich, Mel Lewis or Elvin Jones, you begin the real work of mastering your own natural style, your own way. It’s a lifelong study and I love it."</span></span></i></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><i><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: verdana; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline;">- John von Ohlen</span></i></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Modern Drummer</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">March 1985</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Scott K. Fish.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">"Since World War II, music lovers have been asking if big bands will ever come back. But big bands never really went away. Their ranks just thinned out—survival of the fittest. There was a time when the big band drummer was </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">role model for aspiring drummers. Swing music was the popular music at a time in history when kids and their parents both liked the same music.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John Von Ohlen, like all of the best big band drummers, is a special character. He can swing hard and fast; soft and fast; hard and slow; or soft and slow. John has that special ability to lead an average of 18 or 19 musicians by keeping time, catching accents, playing fills, lighting the fire under a soloist, holding back an overzealous soloist, coloring an arrangement, playing with dynamics and playing musical drum solos. And these are only the requirements for big band drumming. Add to that his ability to play shows, rock ‘n’ roll, funk, and Latin, along with his expertise on both trombone and piano, and you’ve got one accomplished musician.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John’s most visible years were spent with Woody Herman and, more notably, Stan Kenton. After initially developing himself for a career as a studio musician, Von Ohlen scrapped that idea. After leaving Kenton in the mid- ’70s, it seemed that John Von Ohlen had disappeared and, in a sense, he had. He disappeared from the road into the “sticks” of Indiana, and formed one of the best big bands on today’s scene, The Blue Wisp Big Band. Blue Wisp is an amalgamation of some of the best musicians in and around Cincinnati. Beginning their sixth year together, Blue Wisp and John have been visible mostly at The Blue Wisp Jazz Club in Cincinnati on Wednesday nights. But Von Ohlen is extremely grateful to two entrepreneurs—Helen and Fred Morr—who believed in the band enough to sign them to their record label, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MoPro </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Records.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Blue Wisp has recorded four super albums. The first is currently out of print, but will be re-released soon on the MoPro label. In 1982, MoPro released </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Butterfly. The Smooth </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">One followed in ’83, and in ’84, Blue Wisp came out with a live recording called </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Live At Carmelo’s. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Von Ohlen, like everyone in the band, plays wonderfully, through standards like “Love For Sale,” to bebop tunes like “Nica’s Dream” and “Evidence, ” to show tunes and the excellent arrangements of otherwise campy tunes like ” Yes Sir, That’s My Baby.”</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John Von Ohlen is a sincere, dedicated and gregarious musician. He takes his work very seriously, but never loses his sense of humor. Be forewarned that John is as straight-ahead in answering questions as he is in his playing. Even in discussing his work or sound on records, John is the first one to tell you when he’s not happy with the results. I hope everyone learns as much from reading this interview as I did in conducting it.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Why did you get into the music business in the first place?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In 1945 or ’46, my dad and his friend used to always go to see big bands in Indianapolis, where I grew up. When I was four years old, I distinctly remember my dad and his friend giving me a bunch of 78 rpm records, and saying, “Listen to these.” Among other people, Basie and Ellington were on those records.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I also started on a little accordion when I was about four, switched to piano when I was five, and took piano lessons every week for about 10 years, playing recitals, Chopin and all that. In the midst of all </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">that, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">when I was about 10 years old, I took up trombone in grade school and played it until I was 17 or 18. When I was about 17, I started playing drums in a high school big band. It was just a bunch of pretty talented guys who got together and copied charts off records. At the time, I was playing trombone, but one week the drummer couldn’t make it to rehearsal. I always had a fancy for the drums, especially the ride cymbal, so I just sat down and played time. Our drummer wasn’t very good, so I was probably making the band feel better than he did. I never took any drum lessons. I just kept fooling with it. I started with the ride cymbal, then went on to the hi-hat, got a little kick here and there on the bass drum, moved a little with my left hand, and kept working at it. I basically learned from records.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I always had an affinity for drums, but I never really got </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">turned on </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">to drums until I saw Stan Kenton’s band in 1955. Mel Lewis was the drummer. The first thing that really hit me right between the eyes was that ride cymbal. That was the first thing I heard, and I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">kept </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">hearing that burning ride cymbal. I just couldn’t get it out of my mind.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I’ll tell you about the guy who really taught me music. His name is Bob Phillips. To Indianapolis musicians he’s like the guru/sage/teacher. He taught all of us just about everything we know. You can graduate from Indiana University </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">or </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">from Bob Phillips. He’s into everything. I believe he had the world’s foremost collection of chamber music.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">When I was in the eighth grade, I was in a contest playing trombone. I was supposed to play the simplified version of “Ave Maria” in Bb , but my accompanist didn’t show up. This old guy—Bob Phillips—was sitting in this classroom, looking for new, young talent. When they called my name to perform, I said, “Well, my accompanist is not here. I can’t play.” Bob asked, “What are you playing?” I showed him the sheet music, and he said, “Well, I’ll play for you.” We went up there and faked it. He played a little jazz lick in there, real quick, and I responded with a little jazz slur on the trombone. Here we were doing this in “Ave Maria.” Anyhow, I won second prize.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Bob invited me to play trombone in his “B” band on Saturday mornings. He taught all of us how to play in the ensemble, and he had a beautiful way of teaching figures. First of all, it was the real thing. There was no time for mistakes in reading. He made you play as if you were on a national television show, even when you were just a little kid. He wanted it out there and he wanted it right </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">now.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> What was his reaction when someone did make a mistake?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">He’d stop the band, single you out and make you feel terrible, right in front of everybody. And he’d never compliment you, week after week. Then, when you were just about fed up with him, he’d compliment you highly in front of everybody. Boy, you’d feel like a million bucks.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">He never had drums at rehearsals. He didn’t believe in it. He’d say, “The band ought to swing by itself.” I’m very grateful for everything I’ve learned from him. In addition to the jazz ensemble, we’d play all kinds of classical literature, like trombone trios and quintets. He’d take us to perform in brass choirs at different churches and things, and we always played great material. Bob wasn’t playing this music just because a congregation wanted it. He was doing it to further good music.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> When your father took you to see big bands, did you ever have the opportunity to speak to any of the musicians?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">No. I’m forty-three years old now. I always liked Duke and the bands from the actual big band </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">era, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">but I didn’t really get lit up until I heard Kenton’s band, and the bands that were on the radio in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">the post-big </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">band era in the ’50s. What lit me up about what we called “modern” big bands was that they didn’t use much vibrato in their horns, and their voicings were different. Their voicings and harmonies were more daring, especially Stan Kenton. Those big bands played their tones real straight, whereas all the big bands in the ’40s used a lot of vibrato. So, I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">really </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">got turned on when I heard that clean, straight modern sound.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Did any of the small jazz groups in the ’60s have an effect on you?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Yeah. The real groundwork is small-group playing. Then you get into the big band itself. But I was still a big band nut. When I was 16 or 17, I was into big bands and classical music. I had friends—really good musicians—who were always trying to turn me on to small groups. And if a small group was really swinging hard with a bebopper in there, I loved that. Most jazz musicians are into small groups more than big bands. I really started getting into small groups like Miles’ on the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">‘Round Midnight </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">album, and especially </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Kind Of Blue </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">with Jimmy Cobb on it. That was a great album—a classic. But the person who really lit me up in small group playing was Coltrane. I like that harmonic thing he was into. I have as much of a harmonic interest as I do an interest in rhythm and melody. Coltrane made me smile.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> After you graduated high school, you went to study at North Texas State.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Yeah. I went to North Texas State because I was coming out of 12 years of school, and I thought I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">should </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">go to college. Prior to going, Bob Phillips had said to me, “Think about your favorite players. How many of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">them </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">went to school?” I couldn’t think of any—not </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">one. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Bob said, “You don’t need to go to school. Just start working. You already know what you want to do.” That was back when all kinds of work was available. Now, with very little work around, school is at least a place to play.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">But I went down to North Texas State, and right away, I found out that I didn’t want to go to class. I just hung out down there, got into a couple of bands, and met a lot of really great players, like Marvin Stamm, who later on got me jobs. Then I got a call to play trombone in a road band that was starting up in Shreveport, Louisiana. Once again, the drummer had to leave, so I took over on drums.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> And the first name band you were with was Ralph Marterie?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I came home to Indianapolis first and played nightclub shows. Then I joined his band and went to Chicago for rehearsals. Marterie was a tyrant. He was from that old school, but he had a good swinging dance band. The whole book was great. All the charts were by Bill Potts and Manny Albam. Ralph wasn’t afraid to play fast tempos or anything. So, you lose on one end and gain on the other.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> When and how did you learn to read drum charts?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I always had drum charts in the band. I could probably read better than the drummers, because I spent all that time playing piano and trombone. But I still believe that the drum part is the part that composers feel they need to put the least amount of effort into, especially on jazz tunes. They either give you nothing or so much that you don’t know what’s up. All you want is a road map. You basically want a miniature score on punctuation— </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">especially </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">who’s doing the punctuating.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Around here, the composers know I don’t like standard drum charts. I ask them to write me the actual line. For instance, if it’s a tutti section where the whole band is playing, give me the leadline of whoever is playing the melody. Write the actual notes down, so I know the shape of the melodic line. In a standard drum part, all you’ve got are static notes, written straight across like they were done by a typewriter, and you don’t know the shape of the melodic line.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">If the lead player had a series of eight 8th notes that start on a D in the staff, and in the middle of the line it goes up to high B, then you can figure that it’s going to get stronger. Then, maybe the melodic line will come back down. That’s how you’d shape it. But if it’s written like a standard drum part, you don’t know where it’s going. Give me everything the melody player has. Now, that’s best for me, but it may not be for another drummer. Since I’ve played horn all my life, I can feel what the band is going to get into just by the shape of that line. Sure, if you’re on a road band, it doesn’t matter. In seven days, you’ve got the chart down anyway. But I like to get a chart the first time.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> How do you feel about charts that have parts written for all four limbs?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">That’s totally out of it in jazz swing. You can’t play that way. First of all, you know that you’re going to be playing a lot of time. So describe what you want the drummer to do in English words like “swing.” That’s better than trying to write everything in. Bill Holman’s drum parts are real good. He uses a lot of English words like “bust in.” That makes more sense to me than writing out the fills and cymbal crashes. Just tell me what the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">band’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">doing. Then it’s up to my taste and expertise to do what can’t be written down in a practical manner anyway.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> In a 1972 interview, you said that you once had aspirations to be a studio musician. Did you want to be a studio drummer, or were you considering breaking into the studios on piano or trombone?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In 1963 I made a decision. I‘d played piano, trombone and drums. I felt that I should stick with one. I did not feel that I should give up the others, but </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">professionally </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I should stick with one. So I made a decision to stay with drums.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I grew up in an era when the studio scene was all jazz, particularly what was coming out of New York and L.A. So my aspiration was to be a studio </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">jazz </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">drummer. By 1968, the studio scene had switched over to rock so much that I wasn’t interested anymore.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Did rock ‘n’ roll influence you at all?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Rock ‘n’ roll started when I was in high school. I liked some of it. I thought Fats Domino was real. But most of it— especially the white rock ‘n’ roll—as musicians, we just thought it was a funny little fad. We didn’t really put it up or down. We went about our business playing what we considered </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">real </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">music, and let the kids get into the rock ‘n’ roll.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Back then, rock ‘n’ roll was just </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">part </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">of what you would hear on the radio. Disc jockeys had their own programs and could do their own thing—even the AM disc jockeys. It was great. They would play what was current in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">all </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">areas of music, not just rock.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> What about the Beatles and the rock music that emerged in the ’60s?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">It didn’t phase me a bit. To this day, I still consider most of it—not all—pretty naive and lacking in depth. I kept an open mind to it, though. When I was a professional drummer in the early to mid-’60s, I always had to keep up on the latest thing. It was true that jazz was our base, but if a new thing came out, we learned it. When rock really started hitting with hard rock, acid rock and everything else, I kept an open mind to it. I lived in San Francisco during the acid days. I lived with the hippies out there. I played in a couple of acid bands. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">They </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">were actually on acid. I wasn’t. I was just slugging away a beat for them. They were freaking out, and I was just putting in my time.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Then one day I said, “I’ve been at this rock thing for seven years. I still don’t really hear anything happening in this music for what I’m looking for.” I wasn’t judging it for anybody else but myself. I said, “It’s just not in that music for me.” So I gently closed the door, and I’ve never opened it again.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I have always liked harmony and chords. That’s why I liked Coltrane and Kenton so much. A harmonic sensitivity separates the pros from the amateurs. In rock bands, all they know is triads, if that. The bass is pile driving the root, and that’s about it. They don’t have any voicings; they’re not into harmony. Harmony is the color of music, and it’s highly sophisticated. The way many rock cats get their color is through new gadgets on the amplifiers. Most refined musicians—if they’re looking for color—will do it within the harmony structure.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> John, you’re sounding like Mel Lewis.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I’m calling it like I see it. I will say that, in the rock world, Frank Zappa is a fine, complete musician whom I respect highly. He’s a man who understands the intricate workings of harmony. Crosby, Stills & Nash had wonderful harmony. It was simple, but it was so smooth.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I liked some of the hard rockers. But the very thing I like about hard rock bored me after a while, because that’s all it was—just that one, slamming thing. I like it strong, too, but if that’s all you do, it can be deadening rather than enlightening. The cats I liked more than the rockers were the funk cats, like Harvey Mason, and I really love the original James Brown music. I can listen to good funk all day. I also love the true blues cats like B.B. King. Their harmonies really make you feel the blues. They know how to keep it simple and what to leave out. That’s not the same as playing simplistic harmonies because you don’t know harmony in the first place. I can hardly regard many of the big names in rock as musicians because of that, although it’s kind of nice that that type of music came along, because it’s a type of music that non-musicians can play. You </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">can’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">play classical music or real jazz without some genuine talent. But even the nice farmer boys across the road started a heavy metal rock band and worked a lot. They aren’t musicians in any sense of the word. So it’s nice that they got to play their instruments.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">My only gripe is that this form of music has pulled the wool over the public’s ears to higher forms of music in this country, and the wonderful types of folk music the world over. I’m not trying to abolish rock at all. I’m just saying that there are vistas of music beyond rock that are never heard or even thought about.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><img alt="John Von Ohlen" height="401" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/zTRPD6DenP6flKLijtIkac_NoItIe1Y2FXEKjb0kkj62qc_AoyUA1hgMq3JSZR6pEAS1Ni6ESttWRGHaLcfHLLP9ymjlvOVuIIGOEbPbbR3HkD6dlY5prexjWUb2ZyLY3cX0uPyL" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="579" /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> You took a year off from playing to go on a world-study tour. What was that all about?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Some people I knew in San Francisco and I had an opportunity to visit all the cultural places in the world—especially the Orient. We went to India, Japan, Russia and a little bit of Europe, and saw the folk music of those countries. I was an American who’d only been exposed to American music, and when I heard these folk musicians, it was so real and ancient — generations and generations of people playing this </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">pure </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">folk music. I’m not talking about Appalachian-style folk music, although that music is great. I’m talking about some really </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">mystical </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">stuff—so soulful and coming from such a deep place that I couldn’t believe it. I had a different feeling about music in general when I got back. After that, I didn’t want to be a studio musician anymore. I was just interested in traveling around and playing good music for an audience that wants to hear it. I wasn’t so interested in name and fame anymore. All young drummers probably want to—and should—make their mark. If they can play the drums, they probably want everybody to know it. But, for me, there came a time when that feeling fell away, and I just wanted to play.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> You joined Woody Herman’s Herd in ’67 and left about one year </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">before </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">your world-study trip. Did you feel comfortable in Woody’s band?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I loved it for the first three days, but then they got a new bass player, and he and I weren’t compatible when it came to playing. We were </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">very </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">compatible personally. I loved the guy. His name was Carl Pruitt. He died recently.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">So I didn’t enjoy my tenure with Woody too much. I didn’t realize back </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">then </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">what I know </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">now. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">If a drummer isn’t compatible with the bass player, there’s got to be a change, because everything the drummer does comes off the bass player.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">When I was with Kenton, the band was huge. He used to spread all 19 musicians across the bandstand from one end to the other, no matter how big the concert hall was. He loved that stereophonic crap, but we couldn’t hear anything. Out front it sounded great. But the baritone player and the bass trombone player </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">never </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">heard each other. I had to sit in the middle and hold all that together. I didn’t waste too much time trying to get a nice, subtle feel with the bass player. I was just trying to hold it together. When Kenton’s band set up in a block formation, as we did at dances—and that’s the way a band should be set up—then the band would swing; then we’d get into playing some jazz.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Did you make any recordings with Woody Herman?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I did one record called </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Live At Monterey: Concerto For Herd </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">on the Verve label. The concerto was written by Bill Holman. It’s a great work—a testimony to Bill Holman’s genius. Somebody ought to re-release it.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Did you ever speak to Woody about any of the other great drummers who played with him?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">He loved Dave Tough. He wouldn’t down trod anybody else, because he had some great drummers, but Dave Tough was always the magic in his eyes. I know Woody loved Don Lamond and Jake Hanna. He loved </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">all </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">those guys. Jake Hanna was probably </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">my </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">favorite.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I always felt that my scene with Woody was a training ground—like I never really did him justice. It’s almost like I should have come back later on. Then I would’ve played the hell out of the band. I was really cutting my teeth, and my head was in a funny place because I wanted to be a studio drummer. The only reason I was in Woody’s band—although I loved big bands—was to get credits to go to L.A. and be a studio drummer. See, being a studio drummer is the big dream. Nobody wants to play in front of people anymore. They all want what they call the “romance” of studio life. I found out that it isn’t all that romantic.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> How did you get the drum chair in Kenton’s band?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">When I came back from India I was loose, didn’t have any attachments, didn’t care about anything, and didn’t have the ambition to be a studio drummer. I was back in Indianapolis, playing some gigs, hanging out with my friends, and having a good time, I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">wasn’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">depressed. For the first time in my life, probably, I felt real loose, relaxed, and I was playing better. Then somebody told me that Kenton was going on the road again. I knew Stan, very slightly, from years ago. He was going to have me on the band in ’63. I told Kenton’s friend to let Stan know that I would be angry if he didn’t ask me to go on the road with him. I got the call.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Did you feel comfortable right away in Stan’s band?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Oh yeah. Jake Hanna said something that was very true: The last thing a drummer gets is confidence. You pay your dues, you try your best, but it’s not coming out right; then the last thing you acquire is confidence. Once you’ve got confidence, even if you’re screwing up a little bit, you’ll make something out of it. If you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">don’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">have confidence, every time something goes wrong, the bottom drops out. By the time I went on Stan’s band, I had my confidence. I’d paid my dues.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I used to get really depressed on Woody’s band, because I just couldn’t play good. It’s the same thing that any young player will say. You know you’ve got it inside you, but you can’t get it out. And I’d been playing constantly—some bad gigs, some good gigs—almost every night for about eight years. I was going through something that Elvin Jones mentioned one time. He said something that made me feel a lot better, which was that as a young drummer, you’ll go through a period where you can’t play too well, but don’t let it bother you. It happens to all of us. Hell, I felt like I played better in high school than I did with Woody. I was just starting to get it and I quit Woody’s band. I couldn’t make the road anymore. I just wanted to go home and relax. You might as well play the way you play, because you’re going to get criticism anyway. When I am criticized now it doesn’t shake my foundation out from under me, but it used to.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Would you agree that Mel Lewis is your main influence in big band drumming?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Oh, by all means. I love the rest of them too. I’ve been listening to Mel since ’55. I took up the drums because of Mel. I don’t understand a guy like him. He’s like perfect, yet he plays loose, relaxed and natural. All of us have natural qualities, but Mel is a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">stone </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">natural. He’s always been real good to me. I call Mel about once a year, and always learn a lot when I do.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Mel’s always had a fantastic, deep sound to his drums. You do too.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The way I tune my drums is pretty natural. On my tom-toms, first I tune the bottom head to about medium. It should be a new head with no dents in it. Next, I tighten the top head tight. Then, as I’m tapping on the head, I start bringing it down. As you bring it down, you’ll start hearing that drum open up. Keep tapping it as you’re loosening it, and finally, it will get to where it’s booming as much as it can. If you loosen past that, you’ll start getting a duller sound, so tighten it back up until it’s booming the most. Usually it’s tightened medium-low at that point. So when you get the bottom head tuned medium, and the top head tuned medium-low, that’s when you reach the point of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">maximum resonance. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">A good drummer named Jack Gilfoy, from Indianapolis, came up with that term. Tune the drum for maximum resonance where it’s wide open.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I use regular coated </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Ambassador </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">heads, top and bottom, on my drums. I would love to use calf, but I’m not going to mess with them. And I apply that same tuning principle to my bass drum. Sometimes, if I’m playing a bop gig, I’ll tighten the back head up a little, just a little higher than maximum resonance. I like a boom sound. With a big band, sometimes I’ll lower it a little more than the natural boom of maximum resonance.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> When drums are tuned for that low sound, don’t you have to sacrifice something?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Yeah. You may sacrifice some speed and technique. But even so, you’re getting a great sound. You’re really getting those drums to boom and rumble. Personally, I can play as fast as anyone, with natural low tuning. I’ll take one shot on the tom-tom that far surpasses a single-stroke roll on a drum that doesn’t have the sound. I use Gretsch, and Gretsch is one of the best drums for getting that extra little crack on it that I don’t hear in other drums. My drumset is about seven years old, but I’ve played newer Gretsch sets and they’re still good. If you hit a Gretsch tom-tom softly, it gets a nice sound. But if you whip it just a little bit, it’ll put a cracking sound on it. I don’t know any other drum that does that.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Did your drumset change from Billy Maxted through Woody Herman, Stan Kenton, and now the Blue Wisp Big Band?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I’ve always used just four drums—a bass drum, two tom-toms and a snare—but I did change the sizes. With Maxted, Woody and Kenton’s bands, I used a 22″ bass drum, 9 x 13 and 16 x 16 tom-toms, and a 5 1/2 x 14 snare. And I had a couple of cymbals. Now I’m using a 14 x 18 bass drum, 8 x 12 and 14 x 14 tom-toms. There’s nothing like an 18″ Gretsch bass drum. It’s real fat sounding and real wide sounding; it resonates like crazy, and it’s easier for me to tune than a 20″ bass drum. Kenton’s band was like playing football seven nights a week—an athletic event. The 18″ would have sounded foolish in that. The Blue Wisp Band is a nice, strong band, but the 18″ is just right. One gun is all you need if you know how to use it.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Can you give me a listing, and your assessment of the recordings you did with Stan Kenton?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Well, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Stan Kenton Today: Recorded Live In London </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">was the last record I made, just before I left the band. The recording job was all messed up. They didn’t bring any baffling for the drums, and they just couldn’t control the sound of the drums in that ringing hall. So I had to play with a cramped touch to cool out the sound of the drums. The drums sound too strong on that record anyway, but you can imagine what it would have been like if I’d been going full tilt.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> But, in general, that album was well received.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I know. I’ve never understood it. When I don’t like what I’ve done, everybody likes it, and vice versa. The first record we made was </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Live At Redlands. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">That was pretty good. The recording job was so-so. The album </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Live At Brigham Young </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">is the best one for the sound of the band and the sound of the drums. Bill Putnam recorded it. He’s a master.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Redlands </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Brigham Young </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">were issued on Kenton’s Creative World records. Didn’t Creative World also release a small-group recording under your own name?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">That was an electronic group I had in Indianapolis. After I left Kenton, I wanted to live in Indianapolis and we needed to work, so I started a group. Indianapolis isn’t New York. You wind up working the Hilton and Holiday Inn lounges, and we had to do some Top-40 things that we didn’t really want to do. But our vocalist, Mary Ann Moss, had a way of picking tunes that we could live with as musicians, and we also played jazz.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">But I found out that it didn’t work to do </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">both </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">rock and jazz like that. You have a group of jazz musicians who are just trying to work. They figure that they’ll play some pop stuff so that they can get gigs, and then they’ll play some jazz along with it so they can get their jollies. What happens is that you don’t get either one. You don’t attract the people who want to hear pop, because they don’t want to hear jazz. And the jazz people sure as hell aren’t going to sit there and listen to the pop. It just didn’t work. Now, maybe somebody else can prove me wrong, but I haven’t seen it work yet. It was a wonderful group, but the electronics got to my ears and I had to disband it. I think we did that bag about as well as you’re going to hear it.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Many jazz musicians—myself included—after much experience with electronic sound production have made a decision to keep the acoustic sound as a home base. We prefer that electronic technology, as impressive and current as it may be, take a backseat to our love of playing acoustically. This is classic and timeless. Titillating gadgetry will have its say, but it can only go so far. In the end, acoustic sound dives far deeper—right to the soul.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> I’ve heard many favorable comments about the Kenton clinics. What were you expected to do there, and how did you feel about doing them?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Well, they were wonderful experiences. There was only one thing that might have been a detriment. Teaching should be done by someone who knows. We were going into all these clinics, and a lot of guys in the band were just learning themselves, but we were put in teaching positions. The kids looked up to us because we were with a nationwide touring band. So you’re spouting out all this crap that is probably erroneous. I was guilty of that sometimes, but there were guys in the band who were in a lot worse shape than I was, and they were giving dissertations that were wrong. They were into how to play loud and nothing else. What the hell kind of clinic is that?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I always stressed that drummers shouldn’t take it too seriously and should relax. Keep your physical body as relaxed as possible while you’re playing. Right away, you get a better sound, and your time will probably be better because you are relaxed and free in your mind. Every time you get a bunch of drummers together, they’re so </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">serious. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">They’re thinking about all of this crap they’ve got to do because of all these heavy drummers around the country. Man, some of the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">best </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">moments in drumming have been the simplest little things. Don’t worry about trying to be complicated. Bob Phillips used to tell me, “John, if you never remember anything else I ever said, don’t be afraid to play simple. Don’t be </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">ashamed to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">play simple.” I like to play as complicated as the next guy, but you don’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">have </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">to do that. Your base should be a simple perspective. Harvey Mason can play complicated, but he lays down some pretty simple things. It’s got </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">that feel on </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">it, so what the hell. You don’t need to do much when you’ve got the feel. Why blow the feel for some brainy idea?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> The word technique gets thrown around quite a bit. Define good technique, and do you feel that good technique is all that’s necessary to become a good drummer?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">It’s pretty hard to disassociate the two. Technique is simply how you do what you hear. But let’s not put the cart before the horse. You don’t work on technique first, in hopes that technique will bring you ideas. I worked on a fast single-stroke roll for a while. It bound me in such a knot on the gig that I couldn’t play. I had to give up on it. It should come from your natural ability, and each person has a different physical body. I try to do what’s natural for </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">my </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">physical body. If it’s too unnatural, I’m not going to force it. I’m about six feet tall and I’ve got real long arms, real long legs and a short torso. I used to say, “Boy, I’m built strange. I’m built weird. I wish I was built more like Buddy Rich or Tony Williams.” Many times the shorter musicians have </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">great </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">technique. But you make your physical body work for you by simply doing what’s natural for you.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I like a nice </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">long </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">stroke with my right hand on the ride cymbal. A lot of people tell me I should have a short stroke. I tried that. It isn’t natural, so I don’t do it.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">All of us are born with different amounts of genius or without genius—different amounts of talent. There will always be somebody who is better than you are and somebody who is not. You have to live with that. Know your limits and then you’ll be happy. Go beyond your natural limits and you’ll suffer. Inside of me, my time feel has basically never been any different. I listen to something I did in high school and it’s the same old thing. But today I have a different perspective on it. I’m more conscious of it. I dig as deep as 1 can now.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Are you aware of any means—outside of normal drum teaching methods—that could teach a technically good student how to feel?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">There are a lot of players, but there are only a few </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">great </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">players. Teachers are the same way. There are some teachers—and Bob Phillips is one of them—who can see through you. They can see what’s inside you, no matter what you’ve done. You might be a student who’s built a wall of technique that’s actually inhibiting your feeling, because you have built up a grid work of technique that’s unnatural for you. A really great teacher will strip all that down and make you start over with things that are more natural for you—more in tune with nature. I had to do that with a couple of my students.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">It takes a long time and a willing student. The student has to understand what’s happening. I had students from universities who had worked on books and other ways of technique that had nothing to do with what they had to say. And they were very frustrated. I’d start them at the beginning with a simple beat, and they’d throw in a lick that they’d been programmed with. I’d stop them right there and tell them to leave the lick out, because it wasn’t natural for them. It’s a difficult task, but it can be done.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> I gather that you don’t feel too favorably about drum method books?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I’ll tell you a story that’s reportedly true about a wise old Indian sage. A German came to this sage’s village to find the truth. The German was in a bookstore one day when the sage walked by and saw him. The sage picked the guy up by the collar, threw him out of the bookstore and said, “It’s not in books, you fool.” That’s the way I feel about drumming.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I know it’s nice to have a book. These teachers who put out books are well meaning. But it’s not really </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">books. What book did Mel Lewis study out of? What book did Elvin Jones study out of? You might study rudiments. Okay, that’s a good foundation. Formal classical study is always good. But once you’re past the rudiments, don’t become too steeped in the book knowledge of drumset playing. You need to go out and work. That’s where you get it—on the job. If you are working, and you are right in there pitching, these things will come to you anyway. Experiment at home with your natural style of chops. My </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">main </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">concern is developing muscle-bound chops from practicing things that aren’t natural for you anyway in the name </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">of speed. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">You’ve got your own natural licks. If you just keep playing, man, you’ll come up with some bomb licks that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">nobody </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">can play. It may not be a big thing, but there will be nobody else who can play it. It’s your lick. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">That’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">the kind of chops you should have. You should have licks come out of you and not even know how you did them. Real licks, when they come out of you, will have dynamics and shading that you could </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">never </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">practice out of a book.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Should drummers study harmony and melody as well as rhythm?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Sure. Get as many tones in your subconscious as you can. Drummers like Jack DeJohnette seem to play different when they’ve been brought up with a horn or piano. A lot of these really hot drummers have tones in their heads too, not just beats. I don’t mean that they’re just singing the melody. They’re into harmony and everything else. I think of the total spectrum of sound vibration—harmonies, colors and everything—all at once. The only reason I do that is because I grew up with tonal instruments. When I play drums, I enter the tonal world, instead of just rhythm and chops.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><img alt="John Von Ohlen" height="465" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/czjuj_ik2MJcv5Lu0BMwYGWRLDYlImm5HheX4z7HmKoVS3O93-3IqEpsBTNv5F-tWUpLKghpFLPrGOdyiqa4dBftJk4hd9ZZ4vcrKcZU3AnQxbgmCDqBbv5ucLzH2fLQFKHmOHKj" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="376" /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> You’re also an excellent brush player, and you’ve done some nice work on the drumset with mallets. How did you develop the ability to express yourself with brushes and mallets?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Brushes are beautiful. I never really tapped into brushwork until I played them for quite a while on the job. Then one day, I opened up into the real world of brushes. I softened my hands a bit, and let the brushes drag across the drum </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">by their own weight, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">rather than trying to scrape them across. The most important thing with brushes is to come in from the side, instead of coming down on the drum like you do with a stick. Brushes have more of a horizontal motion than vertical. Right away you get that sweep.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I don’t think of the mallets as demanding any specific technique. I use matched grip with the mallets. Basically, with sticks I use the traditional grip. I get much more subtle nuances with the traditional grip. If I’m doing a big concert drum solo where I have some time, and I’m not worrying about trading fours or song form, when I want to create a sound solo, I almost always go to the mallets first. Man, what you can do with mallets, especially with sounds and cymbals.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Stan Kenton always had to have huge, oversized cymbals in his band. If you used regular cymbals, it just didn’t make it. Kenton loved an ocean of cymbals all the time, coming through everything. To him—and I adopt the same philosophy in bebop—the cymbals set up an atmosphere around the bandstand of jazz heat, like you’re in a jazz furnace. Stan’s thing was to have the cymbals roaring, and he liked them loud too.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> On the Blue Wisp recordings, you sound as if you’re playing lighter than you did with Kenton.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Well, playing with Kenton was not a light drumming experience. I like the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">strong </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">concept of drumming. I know that there are different ways to go on the bandstand, and I sure am in love and sympathy with all types of music. But when I play with a big band, I don’t like to get too cerebral or esoteric, even though I love that kind of music. When I play, I love to hear the drums go right out there. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Only, I like it relaxed. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">That might be the difference. I know that some young drummers are into power and they want to really put it out there, but they do it with their muscles. I very seldom hit the drum with my muscle. I do what Ed Soph suggested in one of his articles. If you want to hit the drum softly, lift your hand up a little ways and drop it. If you want to play louder, lift your hand farther back and drop it. But you’re always dropping it. It’s a law of gravity. There </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">are </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">times when you have to mash it, but I try to keep the groundwork of my drumming based on dropping the sticks. It really relaxes your body, you get a great sound, and you can play loud without bothering the other band members. When a drummer starts hammering, the other musicians will get bugged. But if you want to play strong the way I like to, then it’s an all-embracing sound, rather than a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">hurting </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">sound. I like to get a nice, enveloping sound all over the bandstand.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> After you left Kenton, you gave up life on the road?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">A lot of things changed when I left Kenton. First of all, he was such a great influence on everyone around him. Half the time I liked his music; half the time I didn’t. When it was right, it was some of the greatest big band music that ever came down the pike. When it was wrong, it could be most pretentious. But he had an element of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">drama </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">in his music that I miss in other big bands. He was into composers.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">When I left Stan, I had to drop that concept, because it was his and not mine. I spent a long time thinking about how I felt about music. You get a lot of time to do that, living out here in the country in the Midwest.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> From living in the Midwest, and from letters I used to get at </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">my experience was that many musicians living there had a mystique about New York City. Many of them didn’t feel that they were good enough to compete there.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">That’s too bad. Urbie Green told me that, in the old days, you could go to Louisville, Kentucky, and those cats had a definite way of playing jazz. There was no mistaking it. In Indianapolis, they had a totally different way of playing jazz. And in Columbus, Ohio, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">those </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">cats had a jazz concept that was totally different. Today, everybody’s so homogenized into New York and L.A. That’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">bullshit. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">New York is still the most active jazz town, but I don’t have to sound like a New Yorker. We’ve got a Midwestern way of doing things. The feel is different. The rhythms and harmonics reflect that feel.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I fell in love with country living. As long as I can play good music in the Midwest and live in the country, I’m happy. I don’t need to make a splash out on the road. As long as you’re playing music, why hit the road? Usually you do that because there’s nothing going on in your area.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> How did the Blue Wisp Big Band get started?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Well, we’ve got fine players in Cincinnati. All these guys were doing was playing shows, which is a drag if that’s all you’re doing. I came up with the idea of starting a band in which we would play what we like to play, and then interest a club owner. You can usually interest a club owner very easily by playing for the door. So, we got the best players in town and started Wednesday nights at the Blue Wisp Jazz Club. We’ve been together, with the same guys, for about five years. This band is real natural and fun to play with.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">MD:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Would you encourage musicians in other areas to organize big bands?</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">John: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Try it. And get rid of this idea about New York and L.A. They’ve </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">got </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">all the music they need. There are good musicians everywhere. Don’t think about having to go to New York to make it big. It’s just super dues, and you can live a fairly nice life-style out in the fields here. Just get the good musicians, and keep it on a simple level. The Blue Wisp Band is marvelous. Different guys take care of different aspects of the band. We keep it very simple; therefore, it’s fun. And if you’re lucky enough to get a good band, you might even make a statement in jazz. It’s not a question of our band being better than anybody. Just get your own thing going in your own area.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The most important thing for people to do is to dig what they do naturally. Young drummers think that they’ve got to do it all. Some drummers can do that naturally, like Shelly Manne. Well, maybe some drummers </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">can’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">do everything. But spend as much time as you can playing what you do naturally, and then you can dig deep. It’s like Thelonious Monk. You didn’t see him doing studio dates. He dug into his own world.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">If you play rock and have an especially good feel for rock, but you don’t do everything else, don’t worry about it. Just dig into your rock playing. That’s why I’m playing jazz almost exclusively. I don’t take rock jobs anymore. I don’t mind going out and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">visiting </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">rock, but you’ve got to know where your </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">home </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">is. I try to play my home music, jazz, as much as possible, and I find that I can go deep that way. You can’t really go deep if you’re just skimming around doing everything. Someone once said, “Do what you do naturally, everyday, for the rest of your life.” That’s how you can advance.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">At first, you usually emulate the master drummers. They’re usually older than you, but not always. You imitate them because you haven’t found your own way yet. Then one day you’ll hear, for the first time, your </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">own natural style. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Every drummer has a different style that couldn’t be conjured up. It’s just there naturally and always has been. The day that you first begin to become aware of it is your day of liberation. From that point on, instead of trying to sound like Steve Gadd, Buddy Rich, Mel Lewis or Elvin Jones, you begin the real work of mastering your own natural style, your own way. It’s a lifelong study and I love it."</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6g5BZrHeUhI" width="320" youtube-src-id="6g5BZrHeUhI"></iframe></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9pw2PGY7kBU" width="320" youtube-src-id="9pw2PGY7kBU"></iframe></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GHK8ic_jJoI" width="320" youtube-src-id="GHK8ic_jJoI"></iframe></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EM6HacD_5hU" width="320" youtube-src-id="EM6HacD_5hU"></iframe></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LEuNAa1daxw" width="320" youtube-src-id="LEuNAa1daxw"></iframe></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 18pt; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-59309538639605335202024-03-07T12:40:00.000-08:002024-03-07T12:53:08.061-08:00Lou Levy - An Interview with Steve Voce [From the Archives with Additions]<p> <b style="font-family: verdana; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="color: red;">© - Steven A. Cerra - copyright protected; all rights rese</span><span style="color: orange;">rved.</span></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6hIhzlVP1FQ/XEYoFR8QsiI/AAAAAAACSYk/g2b5WJ1w0l4xSlse8GXe0x1Fog-ic97XQCLcBGAs/s1600/Lou%2BLevy%2B-%2BJohn%2BReeves%2B%2B001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1236" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6hIhzlVP1FQ/XEYoFR8QsiI/AAAAAAACSYk/g2b5WJ1w0l4xSlse8GXe0x1Fog-ic97XQCLcBGAs/s640/Lou%2BLevy%2B-%2BJohn%2BReeves%2B%2B001.jpg" width="494" /></span></a></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">The following interview appeared in Vol. 35, 1982 of Jazz Journal International under the title of “Lou Levy Talks to Steve Voce” and Steve had kindly consented to allow its posting to these pages. Steve is a British journalist and music critic who has been broadcasting on the BBC for more than 50 years and contributing regularly to The Independent and to Jazz Journal for over 60 years.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Based in the UK, Steve uses English spelling.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="color: red; font-family: verdana;"><b>© - Steve Voce/JazzJournal - used with the author’s permission; copyright protected; all rights reserved.</b></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">“The Stan Getz Quartet that took the honours at last year's Nice festival was full of both distinction and fine distinctions. Marc Johnson, its eloquent bassist, said of pianist Lou Levy "he is a genius with melody, and his main concern is to present the qualities of the melody to the audience, whilst I'm more concerned to use the melody as a basis for improvisation."</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">A quiet and modest man, Levy is content to take a subordinate role away from the limelight, preferring to support rather than lead, but with the Getz quartet Stan has subtly engineered a setting which makes Lou a prime mover and with this band Levy is playing with an authority that has probably not been apparent before.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">"Stan and I have been together on and off with long periods of being apart, for more than 30 years, going right back to the time with Woody Herman in the forties. Off the stand we've been the closest friends for many years, so it's natural that we have a musical rapport. We understand each other's playing, agree on the format of tunes, on the length — just about everything musically. You'll notice with Stan that whenever anyone else is playing he listens. That's so rare in most of the bands I've worked with. Things will happen on the stand when a guy's soloing — the other musicians will talk to each other, maybe even go to the bar for a drink — I won't put up with that. I'll either tell them off right on the band stand or I'll just get up and walk. To me that's really an insult to the music, and also the audience doesn't go for it either. Those are usually the guys that don't play the best.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Stan always did play great, but now better than ever. I can feel him opening up from day to day, from set to set, from tune to tune. When you get guys like this who play so well, it's not easy to get them to play their best. It takes a while for every-body to really open up, and it's starting to happen now, on this festival especially.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Although we go back a quarter of a century in the quartet setting, this is new — has to be, because of our experiences in that time. Stan came from a totally different kind of band that he's had for some years, so his outlook is quite fresh. I brought in all the music, and I think that the standards we</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: super; white-space-collapse: preserve;">'</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">re using are as good material as you can find. I think it's assuming an awful lot when you come</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: sub; white-space-collapse: preserve;">.</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> across bands that use nothing but originals. All originals are not necessarily good. Once in a while you do come up with a good one, but a lot of the time it's ego trip stuff. Particularly when there are Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, the Gershwins, Harold Arlen, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk! There's so much great material and you can do one tune in so many different ways. You got a lot of opportunity out there. And then if you write a great original, that's fine.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Stan</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: super; white-space-collapse: preserve;">'</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">s earlier groups used electric keyboards and electric bass, and oddly enough it's fresh to get back to acoustic instruments. Naturally I'm pleased. I don't mind playing an electric instrument once in a while, but I think it totally cancels out any-one's identity. You have no touch control, no personal contact with the thing other than your fingers are pushing down the keys and getting electrical impulses out of it. The only way you can possibly have any identity on an electric instrument is the way Chick Corea does where the composition is the identity. They have, or have had their place, but I see them going very fast, I really do. We used to use a celeste on dates with Frank Sinatra or Peggy Lee, but just as a tender thing on the verse of a ballad. It's okay, but it should be short and sweet.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Peggy? I think I accompanied Peggy Lee half of my life. It really was over a period of 18 years off and on. I left her for three years to go with Ella Fitzgerald, a year or so with Nancy Wilson — it was back and forth. But over the 18 years it was well over half of them, and it was a great lesson in music, showmanship and stage presentation. She's a marvellous interpreter of songs and I learned a lot about the other side of a song, the lyrics as opposed to the purely musical part. Lyrics play a very important part in my playing. I always follow the lyrics when I'm playing and always think of the melody. No matter how far into improvising I am the lyric is going through my head. That makes a great difference to how you play. As you know, Lester Young was a great believer in lyrics, and Bill Evans sounded like he knew lyrics to a great degree. All the good players, Miles Davis and Charlie Parker made a point of knowing lyrics and it shows in their playing.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I teach a class in accompanying at the Dick Grove Music Workshop in Los Angeles and I stress that the strongest point is to know the melody, but really know the lyrics as well. The kids are really getting it and after six or seven weeks I see how it affects their playing. They play less, but they play deeper. It's nice. I've been doing those classes for some months now. It's a great school. Dick Grove is a very fine arranger who started it and he brings in lots of fine tutors like Mancini and Nelson Riddle for film writing, and he brings in great musicians like Dave Grusin, Herbie Ellis, Monty Budwig. He asked me to teach an accompanying class because I've done so much of it that they figured I'd be able to get the point across. And that's strictly what I'm doing now. I might branch out a little bit, but I think that accompanying is vitally important for all jazz players to know about and not just for vocalists. When I accompany Stan Getz I</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: super; white-space-collapse: preserve;">'</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">m accompanying a voice, a very fine voice, and it's just as important to know what to do for a guy with a horn in his mouth as it is for somebody who opens his mouth and sings lyrics.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif">At the school the students are prepared for about six months to make sure they understand all the chord symbols and things that we usually encounter when accompanying. You know, they throw a chord sheet at us — it's not written out like a classical piano part usually, it's just chord symbols. So what they do is they get the students that do play the piano but may not have much knowledge of harmony, so they make sure, and then at the end of the six months they hand them over to me and I don't have to worry about the language of chords. I don't have to struggle with that and so we can go straight ahead into the next phase, which is interpretation.</span></span><br /><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Gtv1Q4iSz8U/XEfxBHy0ewI/AAAAAAACSZk/uD3MWvQZ_dE5doMWnwzc5JWh30n9s77mACLcBGAs/s1600/Lou%2B1%2Bby%2BTom%2BRanier.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1106" data-original-width="1600" height="442" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Gtv1Q4iSz8U/XEfxBHy0ewI/AAAAAAACSZk/uD3MWvQZ_dE5doMWnwzc5JWh30n9s77mACLcBGAs/s640/Lou%2B1%2Bby%2BTom%2BRanier.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">You ask whether I can anticipate what someone like Stan or Ella is going to do next. Well that's a bit like the question of how do you teach improvising? It's instinctive and it happens instantaneously. There are logical paths to follow which you can anticipate, and then sometimes when you hear something different you adjust along that way very fast. Luckily it comes very naturally to me. I've heard a lot of great piano players who play better than me, but who can't accompany, and it always makes me wonder. A guy can play fantastically, but maybe he's not interested, never been interested in accompanying, and so it doesn't work, he can't do it.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">My first accompanying job was for Sarah Vaughan in 1947. It was in Chicago and I'm not sure if I'd even left high school. She'd just made the record Mean to Me with Charlie Parker and hadn't become popular yet. We worked in Roger's Park in Chicago, which happened to be in my neighbourhood, and she used to pick me up from home each night and then bring me back again after the job. She taught me so much, because she plays piano, and it was from her I first learned about accompaniment. Then I worked a couple of weeks with June Christy in Milwaukee, but the first big accompanying job I had, other than playing for Mary Ann McCall with Woody's band was the job with Peggy when I moved to California in 1955. Max Bennett and Larry Bunker who were with her got me the job when Marty Paich left.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Pretty much around the same time I worked with Sarah I had my first full-time professional gig. Georgie Auld had a little band that included Red Rodney, Serge Chaloff, Curley Russell and the late Tiny Kahn on drums. I met Tiny in Chicago when they came to work there and they had George Wallington on piano. We had some local jam sessions and Tiny heard me play and I guess he thought 'well, for a local kid he doesn't play too bad.' All of a sudden George Wallington got sick and they needed a piano player immediately, so Tiny suggested to Georgie 'let's try the kid'. It didn't turn out too badly, they liked me, and every night Tiny would teach me things. He was my real mentor. He was the biggest influence on me in the music business. He showed me what to listen to — other than Charlie Parker, everyone knew about Parker. But Tiny was fantastic. You never expect a drummer to be a teacher, no insult to drummers, but he knew the keyboard, he knew the harmony, he was just a total natural, the most beautiful musician you could ever want to be. He was a wonderful arranger, but unfortunately he died too young to leave a lot of music, but he left his impression on every-one. In fact his influence is still there.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Tiny taught me some things about arranging, but I'm not really that big an arranger. I'm an accompanist, pianist and jazz player. I wish I could arrange, but if I could my standard would be too high because t have friends like Johnny Mandel (who I think is the epitome of arranging), Al Cohn and Nelson Riddle. I worked with all these guys, and they're so great that I'm way behind them in arranging, so I'll stick to what I do.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Ira Sullivan and I grew up together in Chicago. A lot of guys would come through and I'd play with them, do local jobs, Minneapolis and so on. The first thing that took me out of town was when Tiny Kahn got me the job to go to Europe on Chubby Jackson's Fifth Dimensional Jazz Group. We went to Sweden in 1947 and Sweden had never really had a band like that up to that time, so it was a great trip. We had Denzil Best on drums, Frank Socolow on tenor plus Conte Candoli and Terry Gibbs, and I met all these guys for the first time. When we got back we worked a little around Washington DC. Chubby went back with Woody, and a month or two later he got me in Woody's band. It was the Four Brothers band, of course, and there I met Stan Getz and Al Cohn, and that was the start of the whole ball of wax. I replaced Ralph Burns, but Ralph didn't leave the band, he stayed on the road with us but strictly as an arranger. He wanted time to write. I stayed with that band for two years until it broke up, and then I went on the road with a little band of Louis Bellson's, along with Charlie Shavers and Terry Gibbs. Then that whole little band joined Tommy Dorsey's band and I spent about three months with him. He was a great bandleader and I respected him very much, although musically it wasn't my cup of tea. I've never been fired by anybody but Tommy Dorsey, but what he said to me was classic: `Kid, you play real good, but not for my band.' I thought that was about as honest as you could get. I'm not offended when someone says you played rotten or you did something wrong, because constructive criticism is the best thing for anyone.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Tommy was a wonderful trombone player as well as a great bandleader, and it's always a lesson to see how someone handles a band, handles men. He had it all together. At first glance Tommy was stricter than Woody, but Woody commands a lot of respect. It's a quieter thing. He just stands there, he doesn't say too much. He'll look and listen and let the guys do their craziness off the band stand, but on the stand the guys always seem to respect him, and he</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: super; white-space-collapse: preserve;">'</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">s still a great leader after more than 40 years.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Bill Harris came back into the Herd after I joined, but I'd worked with him before in a three-trombone band with Shelly Manne on drums. I worked often with Shelly in the late forties and still play with him now. In the Herd I was very heavily influenced by Al Cohn, because I'd never heard anyone play that way. Al is really a gem, as Stan Getz will tell you. I'm pretty sure that, along with Zoot, Al is his favourite player. Those two guys! The band was so vital and sounded so clean, and it had so much energy. I've heard bands with as much energy, but I've never heard one with so much polish to go with it and still sound natural. </span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">There was a lot of different music came into the band, with charts by Jimmy Giuffre, Shorty Rogers, a couple of real bebop arrangements by Gil Fuller and all the Ralph Burns arrangements, which go anywhere from jazz to semi-classical but always very original. I don't remember off the top of my head every chart that came in, but there were a hell of a lot. Gil arranged Bud Powell's Tempus Fugit for the band, and we</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: super; white-space-collapse: preserve;">'</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">re playing pretty much the same routine on that number now with Stan's quartet. We didn't play Gil's charts that often because I think Woody felt that they weren't quite in the style that he was used to. One arrangement that came into the band that we used to play a lot was Johnny Mandel's Not Really The Blues. Sometimes Woody would leave the stand for the last set in a ballroom and boy, as soon as he left we'd wail into that one and maybe again at the end of the set. We recorded a long version of it for Capitol, but unfortunately they cut it down to get it onto the 78 record length, which was still going at the time. It was a classic arrangement, like another that Johnny wrote at that time on What's New? as a Terry Gibbs feature. But I'm totally mad about anything that Johnny Mandel writes, because he's one of my idols, and I don't have too many idols.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I was never a New Yorker, although when I came back from Europe with Chubby I spent time living at his house and working out on Long Island, but I never had a Local 802 card. After I left Tommy Dorsey I went with a little band Bill Harris and Flip Philips had. While I was with the band I got married to a girl from Minneapolis. Her family had a business publishing medical journals and her father suggested that I should join the business. It was a very successful one, so I left the music business for three years and moved to Minneapolis. I kept in touch, though, played around the town, played with Conte and guys who came through. But the marriage didn't work out and after four years we split up so naturally I wasn't going to stay in the family business. I came back to music in Chicago, playing solo piano for the wonderful man that ran the Blue Note, the late Frank Holzfeind. I was still pretty young, and I went back with my folks and stayed there awhile, saved some money. I'd work opposite all the bands that came through to the Blue Note — Woody, Shorty Rogers and the Giants, and one day Shorty suggested that I moved out to California and said he'd give me his piano work. So I did, and I worked a lot with him and made quite a few of the Giants albums. Then he gave me my first movie call, for `The Man With The Golden Arm', and the next year the job with Peggy came up.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">The only times I worked in the studios were when Shorty called me. They have guys in that job that can do anything, play anything at sight. I never was that kind of player. They'd call me if it was a jazz type of job, like `The Golden Arm' thing where we had two piano players — Ray Turner, who could do absolutely anything off the paper, and me, who could do very little off the paper, but I could make up something, and so that much studio work I did! Through the people I worked with and was friendly with like Shorty, Nelson Riddle and Billy May, who would do a movie score occasionally, I got to do some movie work, but I was never a movie studio musician.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"> On the other hand, I did a lot of record studio dates. 1 recorded with Nat Cole, and played piano through a whole album of his `Wild Is Love'. It was a good album, but then everything he did was fantastic. I knew him very well, and he was one of my all-time favourite piano players. When I was with Woody he did a tour with us with his trio, and I spent all my time with him and would sit and listen to him for hours. He got married at that time and his wife was with him on the tour, and we'd all go shopping together. Just being around him was a real pleasure, but he was a magnificent player in such a low-keyed way. Then when he got his own TV show in Los Angeles I appeared on it in the orchestra quite often. He was a great man, a perfect musician and a beautiful guy.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In the earlier days the first of my favourites was Al Haig, because he was on most of the records that I heard first. I played with Charlie Parker when I was very young. The first time I sat in with him he</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: sub; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">called me over afterwards and he said 'Kid, you ever heard Bud Powell?' I said that I'd heard about him, and Charlie blew a kiss to the heavens and said `You go check him out.' And he was so right!</span></span><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></span><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fou3xe5DjNM/XEfxMIsZQNI/AAAAAAACSZo/QapkhPWLANUSRshPEKgAfu9gLplWinI4ACLcBGAs/s1600/LOU%2B2%2Bby%2BTom%2BRanier.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1092" data-original-width="1600" height="436" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fou3xe5DjNM/XEfxMIsZQNI/AAAAAAACSZo/QapkhPWLANUSRshPEKgAfu9gLplWinI4ACLcBGAs/s640/LOU%2B2%2Bby%2BTom%2BRanier.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></span></div></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">If I sort of double back I can give you the order of my favourite piano players. Before those guys I heard records of Teddy Wilson with Benny Goodman, but I would say that my favourite players in order would be Fats Waller, Art Tatum, Nat Cole, Al Haig, Bud Powell and of course Bill Evans, probably the biggest influence of the last ten years on piano players. I like Chick Corea very much. He brought something startling into jazz. I don't know if he plays anything that's so much new. He doesn't play memorable, everlasting things like Lester Young played on the tenor — little phrases you could make songs out of. It's not so much that, it's just something sparkling and electrifying. I love the first record I heard of his, with Roy Haynes and Miroslav Vitous, a trio record from 1969. That floored me. I think a lot of people don't realise how brilliant Fats Waller really was. He was like Nat Cole to me but maybe even more facile on the piano. He had this independent voice, and three things going at once — he was great to watch, great to listen to and he wrote wonderful songs. </span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">If Nat Cole was missing anything it was that he was not a composer himself, otherwise he'd be a duplicate. Art Tatum still amazes me, and he still amazes anyone who knows anything about the piano. He did it all, and he was exquisite in so many ways. Harmonically he was so complex and logical at the same time, and his technique was so ridiculous. He was just something that came along and nobody can explain it and it will never be equalled. He's an influence on me harmonically, but I can't do it technically! Bud Powell is much more of an element in my playing as far as single line and melodic lines are concerned. In fact J S Bach is a bigger influence on me than Art Tatum as far as that's concerned. Nat had a wonderful loose way of playing that Tatum sometimes showed, as indeed Fats Waller. Two of my other favourites of course are Tommy Flanagan and Hank Jones.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I'm an admirer of Oscar Peterson. It's a touchy subject to say something critical, but if you want me to be really honest, I've always liked Oscar least for the creative part of his playing. Maybe that sounds harsh, and I hope Oscar doesn't take it the wrong way, but I look at Oscar as being strong in all other departments. Here's a sort of left-handed thing: Thelonious Monk, who sounds as if he's playing with his knuckles, is very intensely creative at times. He plays a lot of memorable things. I worked opposite Oscar a lot when I was with Ella, and he's just brilliant, amazing, you know — beautiful touch, brilliant dynamics and that time feel he has! He's a giant, but he's not an influence on me.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I worked for Sinatra when his piano player had a bad accident. I'd do concerts and benefits with him, and I did some record dates with him — it's inconsequential, but I played piano on I Did It My Way. I've played a lot of private parties at his house and I played solo a lot on those occasions. I remember one time I played at a dinner party he gave for about ten people. He had Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Fred Astaire, Jack Benny and his wife, James Stewart and Cary Grant. I spent a lot of time around Jack Benny because my ex-wife was hairdresser for Mary Benny, and I used to go over to their home with her. Jack would be in his robe, walking round the pool playing the violin, and I used to talk to him a lot. He was a fantastic guy as you know, funny in any language.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">We always looked forward to Frank singing at the parties, because he sings so great when it's informal. He'd come over to me and say `What'll we do?' and I'd say All Of Me and he'd just start right in, not tell me the key or anything, and he was wonderful. It's a thrill to play for him.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">As an all-round singer I like Ella, but Peggy's interpretation of a song is unbeatable. She lives that thing. She actually cries — I've seen tears many times. Lena Horne? Probably I was never more impressed with all-round stage presence than when I worked with Lena. When I first got a call from her she had just moved to a place about 70 miles away from where I live in Studio City, California. So I drove up there, and met her out in the garden — she was gracious and beautiful in her blue jeans. She took me into the house, sat me down at the piano, put some music in front of me and said `okay, go ahead and play.' Then she'd put more music in front of me, and each time she'd say`that's right', and that's all the rehearsal we ever had. Then we went to Las Vegas where we were working and she listened to the band, still didn't sing, and she</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> said `That's right'. Then when she hit the stage at the show that night my hair stood on end. I couldn't believe what I was hearing and seeing. I actually got goosebumps. I was conducting and trying to look round at her, and it paralysed me for a minute. I didn't blow the cues, but what a revelation! There's nothing in the world like Lena Horne on stage. I went to see her one-woman show in New York just recently and I just sat open-mouthed and watched her. Boy, it's even better from out front! I don't think there'll ever be anything like Lena Horne again. I don't think there could be.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Ella is probably the most wonderful natural person you could ever want to work with. There's no pretence about her. She's really beautiful, and as far as her singing goes, no one can swing like her, no one can sing more in tune than her, and nobody knows more tunes than she does. I learned a lot of new songs from her. I had to learn verses to things like I Got Rhythm. I didn't even know there was a verse to I Got Rhythm. Most of the material I play now, I learned the majority of it from working with Ella. We'd go out there and do 40 tunes. And then the next night do 40 different tunes. She'd give you a list of numbers at the beginning of a concert and by the second tune you're already off the list! She'll turn around on the spot and give you something different or, for example, if there's a kid in the audience she'll sing Three Little Pigs or nursery rhymes, Jingle Bells if it's Christmas time — you never knew what was going to happen. But it was always in tune and it always swung. I think my favourite album I ever made with any singer is the Ella Fitzgerald Gershwin — the five records in the box of Nelson Riddle's arrangements. That was a fantastic music lesson for me. The different ways that they did the songs — Lady Be Good so slow and beautiful. That was a great influence on me, and as a result I do a lot of fast ones slow now. It was like going to school.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">With Peggy we rehearsed everything down to the footwork and the lights. But that's alright, too, it works out fine. I did it night after night, the same thing, and it never got boring. There was always room for creating and you still had the feeling conducting the orchestra that you were inspired. She was quite an inspirationalist — a great entertainer and a great musician.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I worked a lot in jazz clubs in Los Angeles but these days a lot of my work is out of the city. Recently I've been doing tours with Zoot and Benny Goodman as well as with Stan. A couple of times a year I have a duo gig at a place in New York called The Knickerbocker, which I love, so I'm actually going out of town a lot.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">There are lots of great jazz musicians in LA, but unfortunately jazz is not as important there as it should be.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Stan lives in San Francisco, a place I love, and it's only 55 minutes by plane from LA. As long as Stan wants me, I'm sure I'll be around. I've never had the ambition so far of being Oscar Peterson and conquering the world. I like what I'm doing and I like playing with another instrument as in the quartet. I do take trio jobs and I make trio albums, of course, and they're fine. But I've always been an accompanist and I don't see me changing. I don't feel there's anything that relegates it to a lower station in life at all, especially if you get to play with the kind of people I'm playing with. Working with Ella is a pure jazz job, like being with Stan, and then I love to work with Al Cohn because he's such a great player. There are differences between Al and Stan when you play for them. You don't have the variety of material with Al. Mainly it's just a question of listening to Al and playing simpler things. The standards Stan uses are more challenging, and I enjoy those. He's a great teacher, too. We agree on most things, but there's lots of little things that we pick up on the way, like the format of the tune, that I mentioned earlier. He plays short solos — sometimes he'll play the first chorus on a ballad and let me play the second chorus and finish the number without him. I never worked with anyone else who did that before, but it makes a lot of sense — why go any farther? You've done two choruses of the ballad: it's lovely, so why spin it out? Stan knows just where to put the bass solo, the drums, you know. I don't like a guy who stands up there and plays chorus after chorus and if it doesn't work out tries another chorus. That's very boring. The good guys make their statements and get out fast.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I like to think there is fire in my playing as you suggest, but I hope it's the kind of fire that Bud Powell had. I like dynamics and I don't put the fire in there on purpose, and it's not the kind of bombastic fire that you get with McCoy Tyner. If the tune is Johnny Mandel's Time For Love, well naturally it's going to be tender and beautiful, but if it's The Night Has A Thousand Eyes, that's fun because you can just throw caution to the winds and sort of throw your hands at the piano and maybe punch it once in a while. It can take it, it's a darned strong instrument really.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">We found we had too many endings that sounded the same, so the other day we sat down and said let's do this on the end of this and that on the end of that and sorted it out between us. I'm very proud of this quartet. That little guy Marc Johnson, young compared to me, every day I marvel at him. And Victor Lewis with that touch of his is one of the all-time best drummers I know. Stan's got everything you could want. I call him the Jascha Heifetz of the saxophone. Flawless. I'm not a saxophone player, but people who are that I talk to tell me that what he does nobody else can do. Technically some of the stuff he does is so hard that I can't describe it because I'm a piano player. We made that Concord album with Monte Budwig in for Marc when we first got together in our first week, and naturally we all feel that the quartet's better now, but the album's good. Incidentally, we use Marc when we're on the East Coast and Monte when we're in California.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">If we're winding up now, I'd like to talk about the songs again. I see marvellous standards coming back into use again, and with them sane-ness and good taste are coming back, too. All that ego that was so apparent with some of the younger musicians is beginning to disappear, too, and the good is rising to the surface again. I'm not putting down everybody that's young and wants to play all their own tunes, but they've got to learn to do something out there besides them, you know. It's working out well for me, too. The music's come back. Thank God!"”</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gOBtY3-35YE" width="320" youtube-src-id="gOBtY3-35YE"></iframe></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZJMy1uYNN3s" width="320" youtube-src-id="ZJMy1uYNN3s"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rcAXal4f5JI" width="320" youtube-src-id="rcAXal4f5JI"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-50551409581812031532024-03-06T12:29:00.000-08:002024-03-06T12:29:05.243-08:00Chitlins Con Carne<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://youtube.com/embed/ylGjvwXV3HA?si=NHbVqLpJCR98hOOY" width="480"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-75524464628826044722024-03-06T07:00:00.000-08:002024-03-06T07:00:00.246-08:00Scott LaFaro and the LA Bassists [From the Archives with Additions]<p> <span style="color: red; font-family: verdana; font-weight: 700; white-space-collapse: preserve;">© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i8ztEJBz5Z0/XbCbuHcQ1kI/AAAAAAACVEQ/FmiYDTGOaKckL7URp2gisd7KePSPWkJSgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/scotty%2Blafaro001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1112" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-i8ztEJBz5Z0/XbCbuHcQ1kI/AAAAAAACVEQ/FmiYDTGOaKckL7URp2gisd7KePSPWkJSgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/scotty%2Blafaro001.jpg" width="444" /></span></a></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">The late Scott LaFaro’s claim to fame as a bassist centers on his two year association with pianist Bill Evans and the handful of recordings he made for Riverside Records before his tragic death July 6, 1961 at the age of 25.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">While in New York, Scotty also worked with Stan Getz, Ornette Coleman and pianist Don Friedman, but what isn’t generally known or acknowledged is his earlier involvement with musicians in California, particularly his associations with other bassists, principally in Los Angeles.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">This was a defining time in LaFaro’s career and is as important as his New York years because it was the germination period in his stylistic development.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">This backstory is eloquently told in Scotty’s sister, Helene LaFaro - Fernandez’s biography: </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Jade Visions: The Life and Music of Scott LaFaro </span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">[University of North Texas Press].</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">The comments of the other bassists who knew Scotty during his stay in Los Angeles from 1955-1959 contain insights in helping us understand how Scotty’s approach to playing Jazz evolved, what it entailed and the nature of the impact it had on Jazz bass playing.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">“Scotty was living in the spare bedroom of a house owned by Herb and Lorraine Geller. Scotty had met alto saxophonist Herb Geller through Lorraine, who was the house pianist at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, where Scotty occasionally sat in. Herb and Lorraine had recently bought a house nestled in the Hollywood Hills. They invited Scotty to move into their spare bedroom, solving his housing problem until I arrived in early October. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">He loved the solitude of the place and being surrounded by the scrub, natural state of the vegetation. He sent home photos with comments and started setting out the advantages of the family's impending move. In the pictures he looked happy.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Herb had a great record collection of jazz recordings. Scotty said he heard a lot of people for the first time listening to Herb's records. And he practiced, practiced, practiced. Scotty, in an interview with Nat Hentoff for liner notes for the 1958 </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Arrival of Victor Feldman</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> album, said about this period," I couldn't find enough work and besides, I definitely needed the practice." In Los Angeles it took six months to get a union card. Until you had it, you couldn't take studio work or a steady job. Pretty much all you could do was casuals and sit in whenever possible.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Not only was the house in a peaceful and beautiful location, but there were jam sessions at the Gellers' as well. Jack Sheldon, Don Friedman, Terry Trotter, Clare Fischer, and Joe Maini were some of those who would drop in. Scotty would make the rounds with Herb, Don, and other friends to the many clubs that were featuring jazz. He did some fill-in work with the band for singer Marigold Hill at the Stardust Room in Long Beach. Another casual gig Scotty had was a garden wedding with Joanne Grauer, jazz pianist and teacher, who was then just seventeen. She told me she was thrilled to play with such an outstanding player. She had also been working with Gary Peacock and, looking back, she remarks she felt really blessed. She said she believed then that all bass players played that well, but soon thereafter had a rude awakening.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Drummer Freddie Gruber also met Scotty and played with him on casuals — first in a couple of clubs in the El Monte area then later at the Hillcrest with Paul Bley and Dave Pike. Although Scotty worked in Paul Bley's group for just a limited period of time, Paul remembers that when he hired Scotty, he put him in the front. When asked why he was putting the bass player blocking the view of the vibraphone player Paul replied, "because he was the best player in the band. He was a star; he ‘paid the rent' because he was a virtuoso player. The only other person who played across all areas like that was Charlie Mingus. Scotty took bass playing to another level. He went to the top of the heap career wise. Nobody could move their fingers around the bass as fast as he could."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Charles Lloyd, composer and saxophonist, has had an incredible personal journey as well as an accomplished career spanning many years in jazz with excursions into many other genres of music. There is a depth to his voice over the phone that is a reflection of the richness of his soul. I was fortunate to be able to talk to Charles about his close friendship with Scotty.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Originally from Memphis, Tennessee, Charles had come to Los Angeles in 1956 to attend the University of Southern California. Scotty met Charles at some jam sessions with Don Cherry late that year and they made an immediate, deep connection. Now that Scotty had returned to Los Angeles, they began to play together, gigging around town with Don, Harold Land, Billy Higgins, Elmo Hope, and Terry Trotter. Charles said he was "still high from those days ... we just got together and played. We just loved to play. It was like the holy grail with us. We had our mission. We were just growing, learning. There was such a rich group of people."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Their youthful exuberance — to share the joy they found in their music — brought to mind one particular gig:" We played this wedding in Glendale (a Los Angeles suburb) . It was like a community center or something. The bandstand was behind a white picket fence. There was Billy Higgins, Don Cherry and Scott La-Faro. The pianist was Terry Trotter. Imagine Higgins alone ... and Scotty playing together, and Terry ... punching out those Bud Powell, Tommy Flanigan chords and stuff. We were so excited to play. We were just making this music ... it was very un-picket fence. We were sound Brahmans, we had gone beyond the Concord and the space barriers. We knew we were going to send this couple into infinity with the richness of this indigenous art form ... off in bliss in hope—the whole thing. That was our impetus. We didn't get that far. The father ran up, waving his hands.' Please, please stop. Stop ... Please, no more ... please just leave. I'll pay you now, just leave.' That union would have been cemented by that music. I'm convinced of it to this day."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Scotty and Charles became very close friends, best friends— sharing stories, dreams and aspirations as well as food and fun. As for music, Charles said, "Scotty had it ... he had the magic. He had wonderful integrity, an excellent musician. He had this awesome, adventurous technique. An innovator. He and Ornette were like astronauts. Scotty liked freshness, he was always pushing himself. He was and is enormously important to music." ...</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Scotty made other lasting friends during this time. Pianist Don Friedman recalls: "I first heard Scott when he was playing with Buddy Morrow at the Palladium late in '56. Then I was on the road with Buddy DeFranco from November, '56 till July of '57. Buddy asked me to drive a new car he had bought in St. Louis back to LA while he flew, which I did, taking Vic Feldman along. Not long after that I met Scott up at Herb s place and we became good friends. A little later Scotty and I worked a gig with Chet Baker at Peacock Lane on the corner of Hollywood and Western. The gig was for a week. Larance Marable was the drummer and Richie Kamuca the saxophonist. As I recall, Chet didn't finish the week. The cops were looking for him and he literally escaped from the club and never came back. I don't remember if we finished the week without him."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Scotty also met pianist, composer, and arranger Clare Fischer. Clare relates, "Scotty and I became good friends. We had an immediate musical rapport that was sensational. We did a lot of listening and talking. Besides technique, he had governing, control. I think he was the first bass player who was fleet footed in the musical sense." Clare remembers he was in San Jose traveling with Cal Tjader when he heard about Scotty s accident. "What a trauma, it struck me right down—that someone I was developing such a relationship with would suddenly not be there."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Besides jamming at the Gellers', pianist Terry Trotter recalls he and Scotty played pool, went to the movies, and smoked a bit of weed together. "Scotty and I connected in music and as people. He was humorous, funny. With his work he could be difficult and temperamental. He had a wonderful musical gift."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">This was the time when a lot of talented musicians were in Los Angeles and would become part of what was known as the West Coast Jazz scene. It was in Los Angeles that Scotty first heard Ray Brown. The swing and perfection in his style really impressed Scotty. Cecelia Brown, Ray’s widow, recently recalled that when Ray was teaching clinics he said that Scotty was one of the top five bassists and innovators, putting him in the company of Jimmy Blanton, Oscar Pettiford, Milt Hinton, and Paul Chambers. Scott would love knowing that!</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Scotty became friends with other bass players who were in Los Angeles during this time as well. Don Payne, who grew up in nearby Santa Ana, and had just returned from a stint in the U.S. Army. Don was renting a furnished guest house on Glen Green just off Beachwood Drive in the Hollywood Hills. Johnny Mandel lived next door in an identical pad. Scotty would take his bass up and the two of them would practice for hours. Don said that he had been getting help from Percy Heath and wanted to share that with Scott. He added that "Scott was working on the high register—16th note scale partials that became part of his soloing later with Bill Evans. I really like the way he played on recordings with Hampton Hawes and Victor Feldman made there in LA." Neighbors on the same street were Red Mitchell and Leroy Vinnegar. The older two bass players took Don, twenty-five, and Scotty, twenty-two, under their wing, as it were. Scotty came to consider Red Mitchell one of his mentors.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Hal Gaylor, a Canadian who has since worked with performers as disparate as Tony Bennett and Ornette Coleman, was another bass player who was in Los Angeles at the time. He recalls that he and Scotty talked of the coincidence that they both played the clarinet before starting on the bass and that both of their fathers were violinists. They would rehearse together, spend a couple of hours playing, exchanging stuff. Hal said, "No matter what you had, someone else had something else. We'd play for each other. The music was just so exciting, there was just so much going on then. Scotty was a bit isolated, but if you knew him, he had a warm side. He had drive, not a lot of patience. Often he'd be a little cool, but when he got inspired, he got very excited and it showed. Scotty was one of the greatest exponents of jazz of that era. He is important like Jimmy Blanton, Oscar Pettiford and Charlie Mingus." Later in 1958, Don Payne and Hal would drive across the country to New York and when Scotty later returned to New York, he would renew these friendships. Scotty and Don remained friends throughout the rest of Scott's life.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Gary Peacock, who later also played bass with Bill Evans, first met Scotty and heard him play at the Lighthouse. He said:</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">“I think it was with Stan Levey, Vic Feldman and Richie Kamuca. It was scary. I mean he - whew. I was listening to him and I thought JC, he was something. A wonderful thing that he gave me at that time, without giving me anything, was that he showed me what was possible; there was the potential; there was potential technically and potential musically that hadn't even been tapped yet. In that sense he was so far ahead of everybody else at that time. It was just scary. But also encouraging and enlightening. Inspirational, like - Wow! And he had only been playing for a year and a half or two years! That was the other part that was scary. In two years he did this? What did he do? Play twenty-four hours a day? But apparently before that he had some training with the clarinet or something. Scotty kicked everybody's ass.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Also when we met, we talked briefly about always striving, moving forward constantly ... we kinda put the kibosh on that. Brings you more in the moment. What we were doing ... had a tendency to be crowded with all this thinking that's going on, kinda has a tendency to stop to think of what the possibilities are of the moment. But in spite of all that, there was very little of that in his playing.”</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">There was a lot happening in jazz in Los Angeles. Many clubs booked groups a week or a month at a time. Miles Davis and John Coltrane played at Jazz City in Hollywood. Charlie Haden was playing regularly with Paul Bley at the Hillcrest on Washington Boulevard. The IT Club was down the street. The Haig on Wilshire booked Gerry Mulligan. The Slate Brothers on La Cienega. The Renaissance, Crescendo, and Interlude all along Sunset. Cosmo's Alley on Yucca. The guys who weren't working would drop by and sit in during the sets and after hours. The strip clubs, The Pink Pussycat and Largo Strip Club on Sunset Boulevard, booked some cool talent like Herb Geller as well. Duffy's Gaiety at Cahuenga and Franklin, a club run for a time by Sally Marr, Lenny Bruce's mother, booked Joe Maini and Don Payne when Lenny was also on the bill.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Howard Rumsey’s Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach was ground zero. There was jazz nightly and, on Sunday, twelve-hour jam sessions. Shorty Rogers, Victor Feldman, Lorraine Geller, Herb Geller, Maynard Ferguson, Bud Shank, Hampton Hawes, Marty Paich, Shelly Manne, Stan Levey, as well as bigger luminaries of the time — Miles Davis and Chet Baker — all played there.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">When I spoke with Howard Rumsey in the fall of 2005, be said that "few show progress like Scotty did. I was amazed at the progress I saw in his playing. I saw him for at least four years total. I was so happy every time he came to the Lighthouse because I knew the musicians wanted to play with him and I wanted to hear him. What was evident about Scotty ... he had his life organized ... he always knew what he was going to do next. He was just outstanding. He had a falsetto sound that was unique and a walking sound that was big, different. I think that coming from a string family he knew what a string bass should sound like. What he accomplished in seven years no other bass player has done. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Scotty was very intelligent. In my mind the history of the development of bass playing went from Blanton to Scotty. He and Blanton were bright stars — shooting stars that fell from the skies. His work with Bill was an even greater achievement than that as a soloist. No bass player with Bill has the same empathy as he and Scott had. With all the musicians I've met few have made the impact that Scotty did on me. He had an unlimited capacity."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Summer brought Scotty an opportunity to work with Pat Moran in Lake Tahoe. She recalls: "When we were working. Gene Gammage (the drummer) and I would get frustrated with Scotty—he didn't want to come out and have some fun. It was so beautiful in Tahoe in those days, but he would stay in the cabin and practice two or three hours every day with a metronome, playing exercises from a clarinet exercise book, then go to work and play all night." ….</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-I4jQt7AAdM" width="320" youtube-src-id="-I4jQt7AAdM"></iframe></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></div></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8uvux3d60dA" width="320" youtube-src-id="8uvux3d60dA"></iframe></div><br /></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-40239856381677604382024-03-05T16:05:00.000-08:002024-03-05T16:05:00.227-08:00Shaw 'Nuff<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://youtube.com/embed/s5ACQeU3Qu0?si=t5zmCaTgjCI0MXHn" style="background-image: url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/s5ACQeU3Qu0/hqdefault.jpg);" width="480"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-79239335223698162282024-03-02T07:00:00.000-08:002024-03-04T10:31:54.432-08:00Stan Levey - The Alun Morgan Interview [From the Archives with Additions]<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: red; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">© - Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: red; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UZzuQ5q3oEE/W5Gg_ioq8PI/AAAAAAACRdo/1thkPSr6v-0Sls6PopCKPoWs5jcECBCsgCLcBGAs/s1600/stan%2Blevey%2B-%2Bnew%2Bbeat%2Bcymbals%2Badvert%2Bfor%2Bzildjian%2B001.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1550" data-original-width="1114" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UZzuQ5q3oEE/W5Gg_ioq8PI/AAAAAAACRdo/1thkPSr6v-0Sls6PopCKPoWs5jcECBCsgCLcBGAs/s640/stan%2Blevey%2B-%2Bnew%2Bbeat%2Bcymbals%2Badvert%2Bfor%2Bzildjian%2B001.jpg" width="458" /></span></a></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Like Max Roach, Levey was an essential figure in the progression and development of bebop. Unlike the swing music of the 1930s and ’40s, bebop was designed for listeners instead of dancers. The tempos were often extremely fast, the harmonic progressions were more sophisticated, and the rhythmic feel was more “broken up” and less predictable. Listening to Levey on recordings, you hear a drummer who played for the musicians he accompanied. His approach to timekeeping was straight-ahead and uncluttered. His strengths were his articulate sound, his purposeful ideas, and the unique pulse that he provided in small and large ensemble settings.” </span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">- Steve Fidyk, Modern Drummer</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I’ve been looking for this interview for some time and thanks to a friend in England, I now have a copy to share with you.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Alun Morgan conducted it with Stan Levey during the drummer’s 1961 stay in</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">London as part of a quartet backing singer Peggy Lee appearance at The Pigalle Club, a supper club and music venue in Piccadilly, St. James’ in the West End.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">It was first published in the September 1961 edition of </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Jazz Monthly.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Born in Wales in 1928, Alun Morgan became a Jazz fan as a teenage and was an early devotee of the bebop movement. In the 1950s he began contributing articles to </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Melody Maker, Jazz Journal, Jazz Monthly, and Gramophone </span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">and for twenty years, beginning in 1969, he wrote a regular column for a local newspaper in Kent. From 1954 onward he contributed to BBC programs on Jazz, authored and co-authored books on modern Jazz and Jazz in England and wrote over 2,500 liner notes for Jazz recordings.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">His writing style is succinct, accurate and easy to read and understand. It’s an honor to have Alun Morgan featured on these pages.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pmSukCIMBFo/W5GhNYtMneI/AAAAAAACRds/az8XDBhqX-cLOLKJ0i1mf6O2Icte7qujwCLcBGAs/s1600/stan%2Blevey%2B-%2Bnew%2Bbeat%2Bcymbals%2Badvert%2Bfor%2Bzildjian%2B002.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1550" data-original-width="1114" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pmSukCIMBFo/W5GhNYtMneI/AAAAAAACRds/az8XDBhqX-cLOLKJ0i1mf6O2Icte7qujwCLcBGAs/s640/stan%2Blevey%2B-%2Bnew%2Bbeat%2Bcymbals%2Badvert%2Bfor%2Bzildjian%2B002.jpg" width="458" /></span></a></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: red; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">© - Alun Morgan, copyright protected; all rights reserved.</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">“All too infrequently, Britain is visited by a jazz musician who has played an important part in our music's history. Consequently, when I heard that Stan Levey was coming to London for four weeks, as part of the quartet backing Peggy Lee during her "Pigalle" engagement, I took steps to secure an interview with him. Stan, as I soon discovered, is as articulate a conversationalist as he is a drummer, although it was necessary to demolish some of his natural modesty before he would talk of his own achievement in jazz.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">At the age of thirty-five, he can now look back on nearly nineteen years service with jazz commencing in his home city of Philadelphia during 1942. "There were quite a few young musicians playing in Philadelphia at the time. Buddy De Franco, drummer Jerry Gilgor (he was here in Britain recently with Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme) pianist Johnny Acea and, of course, Dizzy Gillespie. I was Dizzy's drummer in the quartet he led and it was Dizzy who told me how he wanted me to play. My first big inspiration, so far as taking up the drums is concerned, was Chick Webb whose band I heard in 1938, but when I started working with Dizzy I'd not heard Kenny Clarke or Max Roach. So Dizzy told me how to play, and he used to talk about this drummer I'd never heard of before, Shadow Wilson. You can say that Dizzy was my first teacher". </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Towards the end of 1942, Gillespie gave up his quartet in Philadelphia and moved to New York: Levey was not long in following him. "In New York, I heard Max Roach for the first time. It was unbelievable. I wanted to pack rip my drums and go back to Philadelphia, he scared me so much. Stan was reluctant to acknowledge that he was one of the earliest of the so-called bop drummers. "There were others,” he insists. "Denzil Best and Eddie Nicholson are just two of the names I can recall now. Some of the new drummers seemed to drop out of circulation or prominence later but there were others who were making contributions at that time.” He spoke warmly of Fifty-Second Street: "You would find all the big names in jazz playing there. Dizzy, Hawkins, Bird It’s sad to see the street now though. Do you know what they’ve done to it? It’s just a big hole in the ground. They're putting up a lot of new buildings in that area". </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In 1944 he played on a record date for the Black and White label with Art Tatum and Barney Bigard. "Leonard Feather set up the session. Those tracks have been reissued in America on the Tops label.” (The Top LP featuring Bigard, Tatum and Cliff Jackson, is available on Gala Records in Britain). "There was this sharp division of musicians into categories in those days. You could say there were only two classes, the boppers and the rest. But it wasn’t unusual to find musicians of differing styles and tastes working together.” The clubs along Fifty-Second Street kept Levey busy and he worked regularly with Gillespie and Charlie Parker, then, in the spring of 1945, he joined a big band. "Not many people seem to remember this but I was the drummer with Woody Herman’s First Herd for nearly six months. I took over when Davey Tough left and I played drums with that band until that November, or December when Don Lamond came in. I left Woody to rejoin Dizzy and Bird when Max Roach had to leave. That was shortly after the Savoy session when they cut </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Billie’s Bounce, Ko-ko </span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">and </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Now’s The Time.” </span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I've been kicking myself ever since because I wasn't on that date! I wasn’t on the Musicraft sessions which produced </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Shaw ‘Nuff </span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">and </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Lover Man </span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">although I’d been with Dizzy until up to a few weeks before. And I never recorded with Woody. The Herd didn’t make any records while I was with them.</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NAfsYKIKxvg/W5GhUz5v7UI/AAAAAAACRd0/u2nlSJlhlj8_vClqkZSxyZDzdzWrnVxMwCLcBGAs/s1600/stan%2Blevey%2B-%2Bnew%2Bbeat%2Bcymbals%2Badvert%2Bfor%2Bzildjian%2B003.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1550" data-original-width="1114" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NAfsYKIKxvg/W5GhUz5v7UI/AAAAAAACRd0/u2nlSJlhlj8_vClqkZSxyZDzdzWrnVxMwCLcBGAs/s640/stan%2Blevey%2B-%2Bnew%2Bbeat%2Bcymbals%2Badvert%2Bfor%2Bzildjian%2B003.jpg" width="458" /></span></a></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Alter rejoining Gillespie at the end of 1945 Levey came to Los Angeles with the sextet. "Dizzy said, ‘Let's go to Hollywood' so we packed and took off for BilK Berg’s Club. We were there for ten weeks. Bird, Milt Jackson, Al Haig, Rav Brown and myself Bird was getting to be pretty unreliable at that time and to maintain a three-piece front line Billy Berg suggested to Dizzy tha he hire Lucky Thompson as a kind of permanent standby. While we were out on the coast we did the first session for Dial Records. The first track we cut was </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Diggin’ for Diz </span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">you know the tune based on </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Lover </span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">chord changes. That first take was more or less a trial run-through that Bird played on. It was George Handy’s tune (he was working with Boyd Raeburn at the time) so George played piano on the take. After that Al Haig took over and we made the rest of the session with the regular group except that Bird wasn't well enough to play. As you probably know we did </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Confirmation, Diggin’ for Diz </span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(this time with Bird) </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Dynamo A.</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">,</span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Dynamo B.</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> and </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">When I Grow Too Old To Dream. </span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I asked Stan about a mysterious acetate in a friend’s possession. “This is </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Dynamo </span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">or </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Dizzy Atmosphere </span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(to give it the alternative title) played by Parker, Gillespie, Jackson and Haig and what sounds like Brown and Levey. There is no audience applause and the overall balance (which is excellent) and sound gives the impression that it was recorded in a studio I suggested that it might have been made at that first Dial session, although the quality of Parker’s playing implies that he was enjoying a peak form which was absent when he made the first </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Diggin’ for Diz</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> take. "No, we didn't make that at the session, for Ross Russell" replied Stan. "I'm certain that Bird played on only one take, the one with Handy on piano. I would say that your friend's acetate of </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Dizzy Atmosphere</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> comes from a radio broadcast we did in Hollywood at that time. Also, there was a guy [Dean Benedetti] who used to come to Billy Berg's and tape everything we played on the stand.” I explained that information of this kind was of tremendous interest to the many Parker enthusiasts in Britain who jealously hoarded every scrap of music ever placed on record by this singular musician. "There are people back home too who collect everything by Bird they can lay hands on" he replied. "Why not? He was a very great man.”</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">At the end of the engagement at Billy Berg's the band was due to fly back east, but as most Parker enthusiasts know, Bird stayed in Los Angeles and finally collapsed after playing on the infamous Lover man session a few months later. "There was no mysterious reason why Bird didn't come back to New York with the rest of us" explained Levey. "He missed the plane. I had all the tickets and I spent twenty-five dollars in cab fares trying to find Charlie the morning we were due to leave. I couldn't find him anywhere and in the end I had to leave his ticket at the Burbank Airport in case he showed up after we'd gone". Back in New York, Stan spent some time with Gillespie's group and several other jazz units. "Those were great days" he recalls. "There were some fine bands around at that time including the group Coleman Hawkins had at the 'Spotlite' club which had Thelonious Monk on piano".</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The next time we in Britain became aware of Stan's playing was with the new band Stan Kenton formed in 1952. "There were a great number of really fine jazz soloists in that band" explained Levey. "Lee Konitz, Conte Candoli, Frank Rosolino, Zoot Sims (he took over from Richie Kamuca) and guys like that. Then at the end of 1954 the band was playing a concert at the Shrine Auditorium with Stan Getz, Dave Brubeck and several other big attractions. Right after the concert Max Roach rang me and asked if I'd like to take over from him at the Lighthouse. Now I never intended settling in Southern California but Max's telephone call came at a time when I felt tired of travelling and in need of a change. That was how I came to settle in Los Angeles. Max went back east, picked up Clifford Brown and came back to the coast where they formed their own group. They had trouble with finding a suitable pianist and bass player capable of fitting in with the type of music they wanted to play. Carl Perkins was their first choice on piano but Carl was never happy with the kind of tempos Max was setting and Max eventually brought in Richie Powell. </span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-weViaG3FGM4/W5GhfARW6eI/AAAAAAACRd8/QypX3qqm66wTfq8bxr1QouCFeo0gueQAQCLcBGAs/s1600/stan%2Blevey%2B-%2Bnew%2Bbeat%2Bcymbals%2Badvert%2Bfor%2Bzildjian%2B004.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1550" data-original-width="1114" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-weViaG3FGM4/W5GhfARW6eI/AAAAAAACRd8/QypX3qqm66wTfq8bxr1QouCFeo0gueQAQCLcBGAs/s640/stan%2Blevey%2B-%2Bnew%2Bbeat%2Bcymbals%2Badvert%2Bfor%2Bzildjian%2B004.jpg" width="458" /></span></a></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I stayed at the Lighthouse for quite some time. We had some good musicians there, men like Conte Candoli, Frank Rosolino and Bob Cooper. Playing at the Lighthouse gave me financial stability and the opportunity to make contacts with the people who fix the film, radio and television sessions. Since I've left the Lighthouse I'm sorry to say that I don't get as many opportunities to play jazz as I would like. I work two nights a week at Shelly Manne’s club with Frank Rosolino but there aren't more than a handful of places where you can play jazz in L.A. now. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Why has there been a recession of interest in jazz out there? Well, it could be due to a number of reasons I suppose. For one thing most people have to travel about forty miles to hear jazz in the evenings. Then again a guy has only just so much money to spend and after he's bought a television, radio, record-player and records he figures that he might as well enjoy these things at home. I don't know why there is this recession, I only know it exists. I'm still surprised that I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm just grateful for the opportunities I get to do all kinds of studio work. In a way I suppose it makes me appreciate those two nights a week at a jazz club even more, in</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">the sense that I look forward to playing for myself the kind of music I still love. As far as work in the studios is concerned it's nearly always interesting. And you get these jobs on ability you know, not on name value. You get booked to play on the soundtrack of, say, </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Pepe</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> not because you are Stan Levey or Rosolino or Bud Shank but because you have proved that you can do the job. The people in the studios usually know nothing of any reputation you may have as a jazz musician. To them you are simply musicians who turn up on time and do the job reliably and efficiently. But Hollywood is a funny place in some respects, and I find it difficult to explain the tempo of work to anyone who's never experienced it. For, say, ten days my date book will be filled up; I couldn't take another job if I wanted to because there are only twenty-fours hours in each day. And during those ten days it will be the same for other musicians, studio technicians, everyone connected with the industry. Then the next ten days I may not have a single date, and the same will go for everyone else too. There doesn't seem to be any reason for it at the time but over a period of, say, twelve months the number of jobs work out to everyone's advantage financially".</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><span style="color: black; font-family: verdana; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tm6XoV6Ekyc/W5Ghm3zvL2I/AAAAAAACReA/K-oseQYQFHUgN87T7a5hWe9dpd2xw4-JQCLcBGAs/s1600/stan%2Blevey%2B-%2Bnew%2Bbeat%2Bcymbals%2Badvert%2Bfor%2Bzildjian%2B005.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1550" data-original-width="1114" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tm6XoV6Ekyc/W5Ghm3zvL2I/AAAAAAACReA/K-oseQYQFHUgN87T7a5hWe9dpd2xw4-JQCLcBGAs/s640/stan%2Blevey%2B-%2Bnew%2Bbeat%2Bcymbals%2Badvert%2Bfor%2Bzildjian%2B005.jpg" width="458" /></span></a></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Having seen a number of Stan's photographs on LP sleeves (there is a remarkable study of a tapestry gracing the front of the Bud Shank-Laurindo Almeida ''Holiday In Brazil" album on World Pacific/Vogue which is credited to him) I asked how long this second career had been in existence. "I've been doing photography on a commercial basis for nine or ten years. It's not a hobby with me, it's a business. Taking photos for jazz sleeves is only a small part of it. I do industrial photography, fashion photography; you name it, I've probably done it! Quite a lot of my photographs appear in advertisements in all kinds of magazines. You've probably seen quite a lot of my work without realising it because not all of my pictures are captioned with my credit. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Does it interfere with music? WelL it hasn't done so far. It's just a matter of fitting the two things together. I play on sessions on certain dates and at certain times and I have to get photographic assignments done by certain deadlines. It's simply a matter of organization". On the subject of jazz records Stan remarked that he had nine or ten LPs out under his own name. "That second album I did for Bethlehem turned out quite well. I chose the guys for the date, Conte, Rosolino, Lou Levy, Leroy Vinnegar and Dexter Gordon. I’ve always admired - Dexter as a musician. He has such a fine sound. You read about 'soul' and 'funky' and other kinds of jazz these days and as far as I can see all the tenor players try to sound like Dexter. But Dexter has never changed his style since he was working wkh Wardell Gray (there's another musician I had the greatest admiration for) so in that respect you can say that Dexter has been an influence. On my session he came along to the studio and said he had this tune, so I said "okay, go ahead, we’ll do it". That's how we cut </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Stanley The Steamer</span><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. It was done in one take and everyone was very relaxed and happy with it. Dexter gives the impression that he's going to play just that much." Levey held the palms of his hands apart, like an angler tefling a fishing story "not a note too many, just a solo of perfect length. Most of those Bethlehem sessions I was on were done in a matter of hours, and the "Kenton Presents" things I was on with Claude Williamson and Frank Rosolino were done in a hurry too. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Nowadays there are a great number of records being made in the shortest possible time. So many different record companies! A lot of these labels come onto the market and, in a matter of months sometimes, they're out of business. I was on a session with Warne Marsh and Ronnie Ball for Mode but until I saw your piece on Warne in the June Jazz Monthly, I had no idea that the LP was ever issued. I was never paid for that date incidentally.”</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">For Peggy Lee's "Pigalle" engagement during July and August this year he was working with guitarist Dennis Budimir (late of the Chico Hamilton Quintet), bass player Max Bennett and Vic Feldman. "You'll know about Victor of course" he said. "I just want to say he's one of the best things to have happened to American jazz for some time. You have every reason to feel proud of him over here. Since I've been in London I've been impressed by Tubby Hayes too and I'd like to hear Phil Seamen. He sounds so good on records". </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">But visiting jazz clubs was not Levey's only occupation during his London trip. Anyone who has ever seen Stan will know that he is perhaps the most athletic-looking musician in jazz today. "People tell me I don't look like a drummer". He smiled and looked at his hands. “I’m a boxer you know. At least I was; I don't do any actual fighting nowadays but since I've been here I spend most afternoons at Joe Bloom's Cambridge Gymnasium in Earlham Street. Joe's about sixty now but he knows how to keep me on my toes. My father was a fight promoter in Philadelphia and I fought there semi-professional before I went to New York. I took a couple of years off from jazz and fought professionally, full time, some years ago. I like to keep fairly fit and make a point of spending some time Umbering up wherever I can".</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_5UdrLaYr1M/W5Ghv_8m2II/AAAAAAACReI/aEps7Pz2j-c7UYJ042ApZ-HVIjwtFTPxACLcBGAs/s1600/stan%2Blevey%2B-%2Bnew%2Bbeat%2Bcymbals%2Badvert%2Bfor%2Bzildjian%2B006.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1550" data-original-width="1114" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_5UdrLaYr1M/W5Ghv_8m2II/AAAAAAACReI/aEps7Pz2j-c7UYJ042ApZ-HVIjwtFTPxACLcBGAs/s640/stan%2Blevey%2B-%2Bnew%2Bbeat%2Bcymbals%2Badvert%2Bfor%2Bzildjian%2B006.jpg" width="458" /></span></a></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">I said I hoped that his careers as a boxer and photographer would not mean that jazz would soon be the poorer by one of its best-known drummers. "No" he replied. "I don't want to leave music because I still enjoy playing. I'm going to carry on hitting those drums until the drums start hitting back at me."</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">[During a telephone interview I had with Stan while I was living in San Francisco in the 1990s and researching what was to eventually become a blog feature on Victor Feldman, Stan told me that he phased out his playing career in the early 1970s.]</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nXOjuWKDhuo" width="320" youtube-src-id="nXOjuWKDhuo"></iframe></div><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><span><span><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><div><span><span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nXOjuWKDhuo" width="320" youtube-src-id="nXOjuWKDhuo"></iframe></div><br /><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><br /></span></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/U6P1RtbuNWs" width="320" youtube-src-id="U6P1RtbuNWs"></iframe></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></span></span></span><p> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-13573228808985514742024-02-29T07:00:00.000-08:002024-02-29T07:00:00.136-08:00Lori Bell - Recorda Me Remembering Joe Henderson <p> <span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space-collapse: preserve;">© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-be58c50e-7fff-7826-e635-53148cd53279"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 440px; overflow: hidden; width: 490px;"><img height="440" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/QJI1ixOSzjNqH3heaGme22aVyPt5upZFEkFx3teyubT8U9rvkm3Es8JrGjxVdr1DHBJ6ziRjsbcqOG_G_LhTIWA9DyeClxdn81skgLNJgvEg0C7OZgqG9LiVAshDFj5-L9vba9Fwtmwi58ZuQFhMvg4" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="490" /></span></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">For nearly thirty years, Henderson has possessed his own sound and has developed his own angles on swing, melody, timbre and harmony, while constantly expanding his own skill at playing in uncommon meters and rhythms. In his playing you hear an imposing variety of harmonic, rhythmic and melodic choices; you also hear his personal appropriation of the technical victories for his instrument achieved by men such as Sonny Stitt, Stan Getz, Sonny Rollins, Warne Marsh, Paul Gonsalves, Johnny Griffin and John Coltrane.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">His, then, is a style informed by enormous sophistication, not limited by insufficient study or dependence on eccentric clichés brought into action for the purpose of masking the lack of detailed authority. In this tenor playing there's a relaxation in face of options that stretch from Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young and Charlie Parker to all of the substantial innovations since. So the music of Joe Henderson contains all of the components that make jazz so unique and so influential woven together with the sort of feeling, imagination, soul and technical authority that do the art proud.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">- Stanley Crouch, Jazz author and critic</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">"Joe Henderson is the essence of jazz ….He embodies musically all the different elements that came together in his generation: hard-bop masterfulness plus the avant-garde. He's a great bopper like Hank Mobley or Sonny Stitt, but he also plays out. He can take it far harmonically, but still with roots. He's a great blues player, a great ballads player. He has one of the most beautiful tones and can set as pretty as Pres or Stan Getz. He's got unbelievable time. He can float, but he can also dig in. He can put the music wherever he wants it. He's got his own vocabulary, his own phrases he plays all different ways, like all the great jazz players. He plays songs in his improvisations. He'll play a blues shout like something that would come from Joe Turner, next to some of the fastest, outest, most angular, atonal music you've ever heard. Who's playing better on any instrument, more interestingly, more cutting edge yet completely with roots than Joe Henderson? He's my role model in jazz."</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><i>- </i>John Scofield, guitarist</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">"Joe Henderson and Wayne Shorter emerged at the same time with their own sounds and rhythms and tunes. They inspired me as a young player …. He's always had his own voice. He's developed his own concepts with the inspirations of the people he dug but without copying them. I hear Joe in other tenor players. I hear not only phrases copped from Joe, but lately I hear younger cats trying to cop his sound. That's who you are as a player: your sound. It's one thing to learn from someone, but to copy his sound is strange. Joe's solo development live is a real journey — and you can't cop that! He's on an adventure whenever he plays."</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">- Joe Lovano, tenor saxophonist</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">"Joe Henderson is one of the most influential saxophone players of the 20th century …. I learned all the solos on</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Mode for Joe</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> and the records he did with McCoy Tyner, a lot of the stuff he's on, like </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Prisoner.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> He was one of the few saxophone players who could really play what I call the modern music, that really came from the bebop tradition but extended the harmonic tradition further. There's a small group of guys in that pantheon: Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Warne Marsh, Lucky Thompson, Sonny and Ornette, and Joe Hen. He's an amazing musician. I'm really jaded. I don't really go to the clubs anymore. There's not really anything I want to hear — except when Joe's in town. And when Joe's in town, I'm there every night!"</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> – Branford Marsalis, soprano and tenor saxophonist</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 470px; overflow: hidden; width: 463px;"><img height="470" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/KiUeJ8W_9K4sK5AIGn7330s-hiUa7AJO2oSJqXsYlFRGyQ_CaURESNsVu0OwbQlkYh2QdsWJkb9q0BkMOHiJCgZfGR0qHYbHiNhSCcJyfVlzIu5dmtUH3WO78UqOkAvDMskCdjT2Fnb3To2ByUxkDp4" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="463" /></span></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I got to know Joe Henderson a bit when I lived in San Francisco in the 1990s. He had just finished the </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Lush Life</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> [Verve/Polygram 314 511 779-2] tribute to Billy Strayhorn and was working on the charts that would appear a few years later on the </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Joe Henderson Big Band </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">CD [Verve/Polygram 314 533 451-2].</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">He and I lived on either side of Divisadero Street in central San Francisco. Divisadero is a north-south traffic throughway that cuts through several neighborhoods, including Lower Haight, Alamo Square, Pacific Heights, the Marina and the Western Addition. The street offers a kaleidoscopic mix of dining, grocery, and merchant fronts that serve each neighborhood.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The first time we met, Joe was sitting in a barbecue ribs place on Divisadero called The Brothers and while I waited for my take-out order I spotted him sitting quietly in a window seat reading some music scoring sheets.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">For years, Joe wore a straw-hat version of Lester Young’s pork-pie hat and big suspenders that adorned shirts with thick, colorful stripes. This garb along with his salt and pepper beard was a dead give-away so I sauntered up to him and said: “You’re Kenny Dorham aren’t you?" [Joe was close friends with trumpeter and composer Dorham and made his recording debut on Kenny’s</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Una Mas</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Blue Note LP.]</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">He looked up from his scores with a momentary, puzzled look that quickly turned into a smile once he saw that I was wearing one, too.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Motioning me to sit down at the table next to him he asked: “And what would you know about Kenny Dorham?”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">That conversation in various forms took on a life of its own for a number of years in a variety of Divisadero locations ranging from coffee shops to pizzerias.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">On one occasion, Joe invited me to his house and when I got there, I was surprised to hear him playing the flute. When I asked him why he didn’t play it more often in public he explained that the instrument required a “whole new orientation” than playing his tenor sax “and I’m not there yet with doing too much on it in public.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I noted, too, that he hadn’t played it on either the </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Lush Life</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> or his </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Big Band </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">albums.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">During this period, Joe often talked about his big band disc which was issued on Verve in 1996 [314 533 451-2]. I didn’t see him very much after the </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Joe Henderson Big Band</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> CD was released as by then I had moved to the West Portal area of the city.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Joe died in 2001 at the much-too-young-age of sixty-four [64].</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Imagine my surprise then when flutist Lori Bell, who is based near San Diego, CA, recently sent me a copy of her homage to Joe entitled </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Recorda Me: Remembering Joe Henderson </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">which is due to drop on April 19th.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 438px; overflow: hidden; width: 489px;"><img height="438" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/XWALFNlDkTTU2w_g8DECYoTqz65tPsfdJ0plHOBRn4TxAmkVFEluktq8sieTkRznkpkaOo8YQUjdykU0F2azfyq3AcrXIGZ9xvNKXEhvZDq7sW8Zf42SceVJHOPIEbrs7fMKsB_0Q7BCTHNG0FJWq70" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="489" /></span></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Rob Evanoff at 1888media.com, who is handling the promotional support for the new recording, sent me this press release which offers detailed information about Lori and the new recording which received four stars in </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Downbeat, Jazz Journal, the Los Angeles Times</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> and the </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Jazz Times.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">"Bell's playing is lithe and energetic, her lines unspooling with ease. But she's also an improvisational shapeshifter."</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><i>- </i>Downbeat 'Editors Pick'</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">"Bell flaunts prodigious chops on both C flute and alto flute though her pen might be mightier than her sword. Her originals all reveal a wide harmonic palette, a sophisticated rhythmic sensibility and a refined sense of dynamics, along with an urge to swing."</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;">- Downbeat</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Bell’s playing on C and alto flute is gorgeous, filled with light and air on the ballads, briskly inventive on her bop-tinged improvisations."</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><i>- </i>Los Angeles Times</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">"One of the finest virtuoso flutists of our time.'</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><i>- </i>Latin Jazz Network</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Virtuoso LORI BELL Pays Homage to Musical Titan JOE HENDERSON</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Releasing April 19, 'Recorda Me' Reimagines 8 Henderson Classics Including 60s Era Groundbreakers "Isotope," "Serenity," "Inner Urge," "Punjab," and "A Shade of Jade"</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Features Josh Nelson (Piano), David Robaire (Bass), Dan Schnelle (Drums) </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“San Diego, CA: Accomplished arranger, virtuoso musician and esteemed educator, Lori Bell returns April 19th with </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Recorda Me: Remembering Joe Henderson, </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">an extraordinary new collection paying homage to one of the all-time greats, hard bop, jazz icon, Joe Henderson.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Portuguese for "Remember Me," the 9-song, </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Recorda Me: Remembering Joe Henderson </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">showcases Bell at her enchanting best, one that the LA Times has dubbed "briskly inventive...gorgeous playing" while Downbeat describes her as "an improvisational shapeshifter."</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">"Joe was an exceptional jazz saxophonist and to my heart and mind, a persuasive composer besides. I've always admired his artistry and the way he crafted his songs. His unique chord progressions, and use of the major 7th #11 on several tunes are compelling to me," offered Bell.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Of the eight compositions Bell chose to honor, all but one are from Henderson's mid 60s output, including the title track and "Out of the Night," both from Henderson's debut album, </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Page One</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> (1963). Also included are two songs from Henderson's bewitching third album </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In 'n Out</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> ("Punjab," "Serenity"), a pair of spellbinders from his 1966 </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Inner Urge</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> opus ("Inner Urge," "Isotope"), "A Shade of Jade," the beguiling lead cut from his universally acclaimed release, </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Mode for Joe</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> and "Black Narcissus," from the 1977 album of the same name.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">"On this recording I have tried to pay homage to his musical acumen and articulate imagination. Each arrangement is tailored for the timbre and range of the flute, an unusual instrument to represent Joe Henderson as, unlike the majority of sax players, he rarely played it in public and was not known as a doubter," said Bell.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Transposing saxophone to flute provided a welcome challenge while allowing Bell to imbue the arrangements with her own sense of artistry. "The process of working with his material began with</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Serenity,</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> a 4/4 swing time that I couldn't get out of head as a 6/4 afro groove, so I went with the idea. While spending hours at the piano and flute studying his various pieces, I realized I might want to record an entire album of Henderson compositions."</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The lone original on Recorda Me is Bell's "Outer Urge," a knowing nod and apt complement to Henderson's 12-minute astral projection on "Inner Urge." On "Outer Urge," Bell flavors the excursion with her love of Latin modalities. It's an exhilarating journey and one she's explored before with her </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Music of Djavan</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> on the Resonance Records label.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">With a father that was a big band lead trumpeter in NYC for 30 years and a mother that played accordion with a great ear for both jazz and classical music, the Brooklyn native was exposed to the alchemy of improvisation by pillars of the golden era of jazz at places throughout Greenwich Village and lower Manhattan. Over the past several decades, she's carried the torch forward, establishing herself as an in-demand, world-class performer regularly touring the Western U.S. while also leading seminars and Masterclasses in NYC and beyond.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Accompanying her on her musical journey navigating the majesty of Henderson are pianist Josh Nelson, known for his work with John Pizzarelli, Peter Erskine and Natalie Cole, bassist David Robaire (Larry Goldings, Billy Childs, Jane Monheit), and drummer Dan Schnelle (David Benoit, Karrin Allyson, Billy Childs).</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Bell will honor Joe's lasting legacy throughout the spring with shows throughout California including four hometown shows in San Diego, February 8th - June 28, an April 25th date at Sam First in Los Angeles and a very special concert at The Joe Henderson Lab at SF Jazz in San Francisco on Saturday, April 20. The 4/20 show is a part of the annual Joe Henderson Festival to celebrate Henderson's April 24th date of birth and his love of the city where he resided after leaving NYC in the early 70s, even teaching at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music for a stretch.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 438px; overflow: hidden; width: 489px;"><img height="438" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/aLtPEbT5Qnk9t5FnGuFAOw8y0DqNjliRhl4vmqFW-Z9_MN1HawBIqeA1z7Axg0TVReXDwfQCye7tLHAxdZ0qh8QbU4ZzbhKnMjO9vcmrVtFYxgcjsaN8Ay9WqounFpj9e9cpVBI6qIMPQc7jwvfRRGY" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="489" /></span></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">About the songs:</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Isotope </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">- Deconstructed blues. Very conversational between the flute and the piano, full of interplay.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">A Shade of Jade </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">- Originally composed as a swing tune reimagined as a samba/swing idea.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Out of the Night</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> - Minor blues which features an arranged piano intro with a featured bass solo.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Serenity</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> - Originally a swing tune reimagined as an afro-groove in 6/4.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Inner Urge </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">- Beings with flute and drums with a knowing nod to hip hop.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Black Narcissus</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> - Original intro for piano and features the alto flute.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Outer Urge </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(L. Bell) - Unique 4/4, 7/4, then in 5. Solo section in 5/4, Latin flavoring.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Punjab</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> - Freestyle introduction adding reharmonizing using major 7#5 chords.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Recorda Me</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> - Re-harmonized concept using original bass line. Features a moving chord progression with the solos featuring Joe's original chord changes.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Here’s an itinerary of Lori’s upcoming gigs promoting the new CD and you can locate the list of musicians accompanying her by going to her </span><a href="http://www.loribellflute.com/appearances.html." style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">website</span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">3/15 – San Diego, CA – Golden Island</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">4/20 – San Francisco, CA – The Joe Henderson Lab (SF Jazz) [LP Release]</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">4/25 – Los Angeles, CA – Sam First</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">4/28 – San Diego, CA – Tio Leo’s</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">5/23 – Temecula, CA – The Merc</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">6/28 – La Jolla, CA – La Jolla Community Center (Fourth Friday Jazz Series)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">7/06 – Paso Robles, CA – Libretto</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Recordings which exhibit this level of musicianship don’t come along very often so you might want to do yourself a favor and snap up a copy and if you are in the neighborhood for any of the above concerts, go out and support Jazz in performance and share with Lori how much you enjoyed listening to it.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-28618830491878969512024-02-28T15:55:00.000-08:002024-02-28T15:55:45.037-08:00T And S (Live)<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://youtube.com/embed/yCdFKyzr5wE?si=fNY4y-eJ0alaF-TN" style="background-image: url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/yCdFKyzr5wE/hqdefault.jpg);" width="480"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-74514637850780721252024-02-27T15:54:00.000-08:002024-02-27T15:54:33.909-08:00Rain Check - Joe Henderson, Christian Mc Bride and Gregory Hutcherson<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://youtube.com/embed/VJPccDQQy4g?si=SAJ5RndJQwqnOayo" width="480"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-78689280051804926862024-02-27T10:47:00.000-08:002024-02-27T10:47:55.910-08:00No New York - No Bebop, by Buddy DeFranco [Video Additions Buddy DeFranco-Sonny Clark Quartet]<p> <span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space-collapse: preserve;">© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-b1f9a668-7fff-4953-3b88-089dd34c639f"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 480px; overflow: hidden; width: 317px;"><img height="480" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/QgfUpaAcqh-WqBG3E2USc6hGGBpbFZDZeMm2a2MTWk5vwHy3ZWla7BTjZ4x52OvHuvyQk3hJ5I0hHg3RMqAhXWhbrg8mJUCnqNTSOug2vjhD3lxpIYQikH_GrbqCKp7KNwXI68UC" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="317" /></span></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">It’s very rare that socio-cultural change can be attributed to one cause. Usually many influences come together to produce significant alterations in</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement - literature, music, painting, philosophy - known collectively as “culture.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">So while it would be difficult to affirm that New York City </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">caused</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Bebop to happen, as the late clarinetist Buddy DeFranco asserts in the following excerpts from </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">A Life in the Golden Age of Jazz: A Biography of Buddy DeFranco </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">by Fabrice Zammarchi and Sylvie Mas [2002], it would have been very challenging for this music to have come into existence elsewhere.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The forces and factors at work during and immediately following World War II came together in a unique way to produce a style of music reflective of the energy and dynamism of that city during those times.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Interestingly, if one were to extend this argument, it might also explain why what came to be known as the Birth of the Cool music by Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan and Miles Davis took root, not in New York, the place of its “Birth,” but rather, 3,000 miles away in California where socio-cultural conditions there made it an almost natural fit.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">"Bebop is, in my opinion, the jazz of New York. It is really a product of this city. Two of its characteristics - the speed of execution and the rapid rhythm - accurately reflect the tension and agitation which reigns in New York. This style couldn't have been born in California, for example, because the mode of life is a lot more tranquil and one takes one's time to do things - but bebop is born of urgency. On the other hand, the earlier styles of jazz have diverse origins, although New York was always a catalyst. The important musicians are not especially </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">from</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> this town.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">"Count Basie was born in Red Bank, New Jersey, but he organized his band in Kansas City. Duke Ellington and his first group of musicians came from Washington.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Tommy Dorsey was born in up-State Pennsylvania. Actually his kind of music was formed from Chicago Jazz and his band reflected Midwest and Chicago Jazz, even at the time when I joined his band. It was a Chicago and Kansas City influence originally - it was not New York.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">"Then, of course, there is something about New York that attracts everybody in the arts. There is sort of a love/hate relationship you develop with this City - in fact, in many ways I hate New York, but I realize you cannot do without it - it is the focal point of the arts. Without New York, we would never have jazz or any of the arts. Jazz originated in the South, but none of the great jazz artists really matured and made it until they hit New York. Charlie Parker came out of Kansas City, but then he got to New York and began to absorb the flavor of that terrible thing in New York, and that made him great. In the 50's, I loved it, even though I had a closet for a room. You had to fight the elements in those days. Even now, New Yorkers brag about the marvelous apartment they have: three rooms and a kitchen that comes out of the wall - and a bed that comes out of the wall - and even that costs a fortune.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">"There is a strange thing about New York that rubs off on everyone. I lived there for eleven years and the love/hate dichotomy is so evident that everybody gets used to yelling at each other. If you go into the average restaurant in New York and calmly say to the waitress 'I'd like a tuna on rye,' she'll yell to the chef in the back: 'Hey! Tuna on rye!' You ask the cab driver, 'Say, are you available?' and he might yell, 'I'm not going that way,' before you even have a chance to say any more. Nelson Riddle and I were at Lindy's, a famous restaurant, years ago. We were having coffee after finishing dinner and dessert, and the waiter came over and said: 'Are you going to sit there all day?' That's it - if you are finished, get out! There's no intentional hatred really; it's just a way of life. And that's sort of like what bebop is to jazz - it's fast and quick and it's a lot of notes and it swings and it's hot - hot and heavy at a fast pace!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">"When you go to Los Angeles and sit by a pool in a sunny setting it's a completely different style. That is why a lot of jazz players said that the cool jazz didn't have any soul. That is cruel because a lot of the cool jazz did, but I can understand what they meant, because cool jazz has a lot of the tension taken out of it.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">"If you went into a club in New York City to listen to a jazz performance, it was a fast-paced, hard-driving thing - almost hyper. One of the reasons for the tragic demise in jazz in the United States was that musicians just became so frantic they couldn't help it! But that sort of thing happens in all the arts. There hasn't been a phase of the arts that didn't rise and collapse.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">"Swing was designed for dancing, even though it was jazz-oriented, but then New York introduced the style called bebop which was ushered in by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie - mostly Charlie Parker -where it was tense, frantic, and fast-paced intellectually - a lot of notes - and there was no way you could hang any kind of a dance on it. Well, they started along with that pace, they started getting the more intellectual chords and much more highly developed structured triads, cadences etc. - and all of a sudden it is no longer the same earthy dancing music because you are playing something that is well-structured. This music no longer had its place in the popular dance halls, which, in New York, were the Savoy Ballroom or Roseland. They couldn't dance to it, so they started jazz clubs. But then the dancers, who had been left high and dry by the beboppers, embraced this infantile music called 'Rock and Roll' out of frustration. Actually it wasn't called 'Rock and Roll' at first - it was called 'Rhythm and Blues' and 'House Rocking Music.'</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">"It started with some musicians who bordered on dementia but had some degree of talent. But they had the acumen to know that their music was basic and rhythmic and they decided then that the drummers would lay down a hard, strong, simple rhythmic pattern that got to the dancers. Unfortunately, young audiences don't like to sit back and absorb an intellectual experience or even an emotional experience from the stage.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">"Those were the worst years for jazz and for me economically, because all the clubs where I had played regularly either closed or turned to Rock and Roll. Everyone was concerned - even stars like Dizzy Gillespie and George Shearing. After eleven years in New York, my favorite town, I went to California to work for the movie studios."</span></p><div><span><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UQB1rZ5moD0" width="320" youtube-src-id="UQB1rZ5moD0"></iframe></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-50821490370140731072024-02-26T07:00:00.000-08:002024-02-26T07:00:00.274-08:00The Three Sounds [From the Archives]<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gMk7dpOQxik/U0G60XpidvI/AAAAAAABSmQ/fmO6QueX7hs/s1600/29442280.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gMk7dpOQxik/U0G60XpidvI/AAAAAAABSmQ/fmO6QueX7hs/s1600/29442280.jpg" width="398" /></a></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-8bad2644-38c0-c730-c37c-6591cae9723d"><span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“AT this writing it has been just a little over two years since the Three Sounds, a group formed in South Bend in 1956 and later based in Washington, D. C., arrived in New York City for its first gig. Not long afterward, Alfred Lion had corralled the trio into the studios for an initial LP date, Introducing The 3 Sounds, (Blue Note 1600).</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is common knowledge by now that the Sounds have established themselves firmly on the jazz scene from coast to coast (currently they are playing to enthusiastic audiences at the Zebra Lounge in Los Angeles). Their progress is remarkable; first, because a piano-bass-drums group, having the commonest of all trio instrumentations, is the hardest kind to lift out of the musical and economic rut; second, because the Sounds managed to accomplish this with precious little help from the critics.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In a sense it might be said that the critics did help, but inadvertently. A negative review of their first LP, published in Down Beat, was cast in such clearly exaggerated terms that a wave of sympathy reaction resulted. Their second album, </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bottoms Up</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Blue Note 4014), received a four-star (very good) rating in the same publication; but by that time the Sounds had already been solidly established with a substantial following of fans. It is entirely possible that had the first LP been assigned to the same reviewer who covered the second, it too would have been rated four stars, since the two albums were virtually identical in musical concept and execution.”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Leonard Feather, insert notes to </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Moods </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Blue Note 4044]</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">DURING the mid-to-late 50's, jazz piano trios sprung up across the nation. Perhaps it was the popularity of Oscar Peterson or Errol Garner or the stylization of the intimate image a piano trio can evoke, but for whatever reason, the piano trio explosion was in full gear. There was The Ahmad Jama! Trio, The Red Garland Trio, The Ray Bryant Trio, The Bill Evans Trio, The Ramsey Lewis Trio just to name a few. They were all modern jazz units. Some trios served as the core group backing up a singer. Ella Fitzgerald had The Tommy Flanagan Trio, Joe Zawinul's Trio backed up Dinah Washington (after Wynton Kelly's trio had done the same).</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Art of the Trio is taken by jazz musicians as seriously as the Art of the Fugue is studied by organists. Even though the basic instrumentation is the same (piano, bass and drums), an avid listener could easily discern the differences between the Hampton Hawes Trio and The Sonny Clark Trio. Each trio had its own signature, a way of weaving various influences into a cohesive statement and direction.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The THREE SOUNDS were part of the trio explosion. …</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The THREE SOUNDS had a natural chemistry and beautiful rapport with the audience. The national audience began to build for the group, and soon the THREE SOUNDS were playing clubs across the country. The group did very well in the booming jukebox business evidenced by the large number of singles that Blue Note released on 45-rpm vinyl.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Alfred Lion's strategy for the group was simple; record them as often as possible, playing material rehearsed in clubs and fine tuned for the recording session. Sometimes a single session would yield not one, but two LP's worth of material. Over the course of 5 years (1958-62, the 'classic' trio years), the "Sounds" released 9 LP's.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Bob Belden, insert notes to </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Standards </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Blue Note CDP-21281]</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"This is the trio I've been waiting for!"</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"The Lighthouse is the best jazz club in the country!'</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"You're presented respectfully like you're playing on a concert stage...like you're the star tonight, baby — you can't do anything wrong! And you never</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">lose the closeness of the audience there. The people are up tight and right next to you...it feels like they're breathing down your throat digging everything every minute. The Lighthouse is beautiful, and I'm delighted we recorded there."</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Pianist Gene Harris to Herb Wong, insert notes to </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Three Sounds: Live at The Lighthouse </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Blue Note CDP 7243 5 23995 2 9]</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“This is the second of only three occasions that this group was captured live, the last being at the It Club in 1970 with Henry Franklin on bass and Carl Burnett on drums. It's a pity they didn't do more. In a club setting, their range, groove and interaction with the audience made for exciting music.”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Michael Cuscuna, Producer, </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Three Sounds: Live at The Lighthouse </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[Blue Note CDP 7243 5 23995 2 9]</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jDKJlUkS0cw/U0G7A-YE8PI/AAAAAAABSmY/llnLbDADf6g/s1600/29442973.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jDKJlUkS0cw/U0G7A-YE8PI/AAAAAAABSmY/llnLbDADf6g/s1600/29442973.jpg" width="398" /></a></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Loa Jazz Club was located on Pico Boulevard in Santa Monica, CA and for about two years in 1987-1988, it was my hangout.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was at a phase in my professional career during which working long hours was the rule rather than the exception. Since The Loa was located not too far from my office, I’d grab a bite to eat and then go over to the club to catch the early set.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The cozy club was divided into three listening areas: a front room, where a handful of tables and booths surrounded the bandstand; a middle room with about two dozen tables, and the bar area, with stools at the bar and along a wall. The sound system was first-rate, so everyone could hear the music equally well.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Loa Jazz Club was owned by Mariko Omura who had a long involvement with Jazz including working as a disc jockey for Tokyo Broadcasting System in Japan from 1960 to 1973 and producing LPs with greats such as Sonny Stitt and Art Pepper for the Atlas label. </span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As Omura explained in an interview with Zan Stewart of </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Los Angeles Times</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, “I’ve always had a desire to run a Jazz club and, when I was able to line up some investors in Japan, I opened the Loa, which means "eternal" in Hawaiian.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The club books both "name" artists such as Oscar Peterson, Dudley Moore, Benny Carter, J.J. Johnson and Tommy Flanagan, and lesser-known though excellent musicians such as guitarist Bruce Forman and pianist George Cables.”</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thursday was my favorite night at The Loa because that’s when bassist Ray Brown’s trio often performed and the atmosphere was pretty much the way Zan describes it in this excerpt from his review of the group at the club:</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“On a recent Thursday night on the bandstand of the Loa jazz club, Ray Brown smiled and swayed as he played his upright bass.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He wasn't the only one who was happy. In the crowded, intimate Santa Monica nightspot, the audience appeared to be having a great time. As Brown's trio - sparked by earthy pianist Gene Harris and drummer Jeff Hamilton - got down , people smiled, rocked back and forth in their chairs, clapped their hands and tapped their feet in time to the music. More than occasionally, they shouted, ‘Yeah!’ and ‘All right!’</span><img height="1px;" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/V4onxcP7ZRLQi-kmZq_Aue6VpPk-RJjCEbxJuiehPQCn4dLBzdE9eojhMl8z5ndXEGXNoFp8VzcP897R5Hhe9noin14F4kXE3IPfE1SXj-gJM1dmIoeG1hsP3Y7APg" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="1px;" /><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Three times during the group's performance, there was a rare sight in a jazz club: a standing ovation.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After the set, as Harris mingled with members of the audience, one patron grabbed him by the arm and exclaimed: “That was wonderful!’ Nearby, another customer was heard to say: ‘That was worth missing a little sleep for!’”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I first heard pianist Gene Harris about thirty years earlier when he came to prominence as a member of The Three Sounds, a piano, bass and drums trio that made its recording debut on Blue Note Records.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-h7Z6N0iuBSA/U0G7knt5exI/AAAAAAABSmo/px4By_fveHU/s1600/29443284.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-h7Z6N0iuBSA/U0G7knt5exI/AAAAAAABSmo/px4By_fveHU/s1600/29443284.jpg" width="397" /></a></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Richard Cook</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in his definitive</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blue Note Records: The Biography</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, [London: Secker and Warburg, 2001 provides this background into how this association came about.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Tirelessly, Alfred Lion and Frank Wolff went on recording and releasing. Blue Note recorded sixty-eight sessions during 1958-9, not all of them producing results which Lion deemed worthy of release, but still setting an extraordinarily high standard for the label. There were several new names to add to the leadership roster: saxophonists Tina Brooks and Jackie McLean, trombonist Bennie Green, trumpeters Dizzy Reece and Donald Byrd, and pianists Walter Davis and Duke Pearson. But the most important additions to the ranks were two groups.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One was the Three Sounds [the other was the return of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers].</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The piano trio was becoming one of the most popular of jazz units. Small enough to offer the kind of closely focused sound which wouldn't deter listeners who didn't want to try too hard with their jazz, it was still able to carry all the sophistications which a more committed follower expected. At least two figures outside the hard-bop arena - Oscar Peterson and Erroll Garner - had won huge audiences with the format, often made up of people who rarely listened to any other kind of jazz (which is why Garner's Concert By the Sea album can still be found in old LP accumulations as a lone example of a jazz album). But besides Garner and Peterson, many younger pianists were following the format to considerable success, and soon every jazz label had at least one such trio on its books, playing what was often a kind of hip cocktail music: Red Garland at Prestige, Ahmad Jamal at Argo, Bill Evans at Riverside (though Evans was perhaps more self-consciously 'artistic', he probably appealed to much the same people who bought the other records).</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blue Note hadn't gone too far in that direction, but when he heard the trio from Washington DC called the Three Sounds, Lion went after that market in a serious way. The group had made a single set for Riverside with Nat Adderley, and when they arrived in New York, Lion signed them and cut some initial sessions on 16 and 28 September 1958, eventually released as</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Introducing The Three Sounds</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (BLP 1600). The trio was Gene Harris (piano), Andrew Simpkins (bass) and Bill Dowdy (drums), and that is the group which eventually cut sixteen albums for Blue Note over a ten-year period (only later on were Dowdy and then Simpkins replaced). </span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Although they had originally featured a saxophonist, it was when Harris took centre stage and began making the most benign and good-hearted improvisations on popular material that the Sounds began to click. Light, bluesy, discreetly swinging - Dowdy was a drummer who believed in gentle persuasion, not bullying or bravado - their music was almost a definition of jazz formula. Harris would state the melody, maybe out of tempo, maybe with his partners there; then take a chorus or two where he gradually built the genteel intensity and fashioned a modest improvisation, probably with some locked-hands touches along the way; then a return to the tune, with a tag at the close. The steady mid-tempo lope was the normal setting, but ballads -where Harris would really arpeggiate the melody line - might follow a funereal beat and double the duration.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a result, all their records were the same. If you liked one of them, you'd like any one of them, and in one of those curious situations where the law of diminishing returns doesn't seem to apply, the Three Sounds sold consistently well over their Blue Note life. It didn't hurt that Lion released more than twenty singles off the various albums. As smart background music, the Three Sounds were as fine as anybody could wish.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Long after the trio ended, Harris continued as an old-school jazz entertainer, having spent most of his adult life pleasing crowds of one sort or another. The Scottish guitarist Jim Mullen, who toured with him in later years, recalled how it worked:</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Gene used to say that these people have come out to see us, and it's our job to give them a fantastic time. He used to say at the end of the evening, 'If you leave here with a smile on your face, remember that Gene Harris put it there.' I've never seen anyone turn a room of strangers into family that way. We never rehearsed. He'd do this big rubato solo piano introduction with no clue as to what's coming up. Then he'd just start playing and you had to be ready to jump in there. That's how he wanted it.”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- The Jazz Review, Issue 11, 2000.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This video features The Three Sounds performing </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On Green Dolphin Street </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">from their </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Moods </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">CD. Leonard Feather offered these comments about the tune’s background and the trio’s arrangement.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On Green Dolphin Street </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is a Hollywood movie melody by Bronislaw Kaper, whose previous peripheral association with jazz came through part-authorship of </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All God's Children Got Rhythm. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here again Harris uses the extended-introduction technique, built here around the tonic chord, with the melody gently moving in against an E Flat pedal point and the second chorus swinging loosely in exuberant contrast. A return to the pedal point leads to a discreet fade at the end.” With Andy Simpkins on bass and Bill Dowdy on drums.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/U6QwnIioNzA" width="320" youtube-src-id="U6QwnIioNzA"></iframe></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-45872037124264498922024-02-24T13:56:00.000-08:002024-02-24T13:56:04.842-08:00The Three Sounds - On Green Dolphin Street<div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">This video features The Three Sounds performing </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">On Green Dolphin Street </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">from their </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Moods </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">CD. Leonard Feather offered these comments about the tune’s background and the trio’s arrangement.</span></div><br /><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“</span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">On Green Dolphin Street </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">is a Hollywood movie melody by Bronislaw Kaper, whose previous peripheral association with jazz came through part-authorship of </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">All God's Children Got Rhythm. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Here again Harris uses the extended-introduction technique, built here around the tonic chord, with the melody gently moving in against an E Flat pedal point and the second chorus swinging loosely in exuberant contrast. A return to the pedal point leads to a discreet fade at the end.” </span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">With Andy Simpkins on bass and Bill Dowdy on drums</span></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/U6QwnIioNzA?si=ZclhmS_AARS47FGt" style="background-image: url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/U6QwnIioNzA/hqdefault.jpg);" width="480"></iframe></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-84542467002004267622024-02-24T11:17:00.000-08:002024-02-24T11:17:05.709-08:00Oscar Peterson at the London House, Summer of 1961 [From the Archives]<p> <span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space-collapse: preserve;">© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-d2e96a4f-7fff-0184-fc0b-d3b5feddef2e"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 400px; overflow: hidden; width: 400px;"><img height="400" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/KDLb2y-FGh5Iadafxy9xe_I4dz33sE_ymudLd8AyaL4REbqF0UxnubfTJ41FfXljqktBNmIVftt1pgLUXvZw7zF5YFnaLibI0PNRphGGg5sPs9ffjxta3KvRGoYLqQ09vIRlV8cvoOfPYPjhcIs" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="400" /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“There was a time when a cohesive, relatively long standing jazz band was recorded live for the sake of the music, pure and simple. Miles Davis at the Blackhawk and Plugged Nickel, Shelly Manne at the Blackhawk, Coltrane at the Village Vanguard, all manner of groups at Carnegie Hall (e.g., Dave Brubeck, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, you name it). Nothing contrived. The notion of a "concept" for recording was obvious: Here was a great band in a great locale, playing what they always play. Guest stars were great, but it was the band that mattered most.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In fact, the idea of recording live seems like a dated way to present a working band. One of the great on-site recording dates that's come and gone was the Oscar Peterson Trio (featuring Ray Brown and Ed Thigpen, clearly the pianist's best group) live at Chicago's London House (also come and gone).” </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><i>- </i>John Ephland excerpt from insert notes to </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Trio</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Verve 539 063</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“Peterson's Best</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">It's amazing how the clink of cocktail glasses, the cash register's jingle, and the voice of some loudmouth can be so annoying when you're actually at a jazz club, and so endearing when you're listening to a recording of a live performance. Listening to Verve's new five-CD set Oscar Peterson Trio: The London House Sessions ($80) won't solve this mystery, but every sound on this set is joy, whether it comes from Peterson and his trio or not. Peterson was a great entertainer who spun radiant, crystalline sounds out of the piano seemingly without effort. And while he usually locks into a bouncy groove, he can, with a seamless flourish, turn a tune on a</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">dime, shifting from something that makes you smile to something that stirs your soul. From his upbeat "I've Never Been in Love Before" to a contemplative version of "Confirmation," Peterson hits two extremes and makes every stop in between. Recorded at Chicago's London House in 1961, this is Peterson at his best. It just might be one of those rare occasions when listening to the recordings is better than being there.” </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">— Ed Brown</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“And yet, in the late 1960s, I had a number of piano playing friends who assured me that Oscar was really a different pianist than the one who was making LP’s by the fistful for Norman Granz and that what he really had to offer was being put on display in a series of six recordings that he made for the MPS label which was based in Germany one of which was entitled - </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Way I Really Play!</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> [The exclamation point is mine.]</span></p><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I sought out these LP’s and after listening to them, it didn’t take me long to agree that there was indeed another Oscar Peterson, one who seemed to perform differently when he was doing so -</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Exclusively For My Friends - </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">which is the title of the 4 CD set of the MPS albums that was issued by Verve in 1992 [314 513 830-2]</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Oscar had told me on several occasions that his best playing had been done in private. I had heard him play with a wonderful muted pensiveness, and nothing on record - even the London House records themselves - equaled what I used to hear in the late-night sets at the London House.</span></p><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">So when Oscar told me that he believed these German recordings were the best he had ever made, my eyebrows rose. He said he wanted me to write liner notes for at least two of the albums, both containing only solo performances. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><i>- </i>Excerpt from the JazzProfiles feature </span><a href="https://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com/2022/06/oscar-peterson-in-black-forest-from.html" style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; text-decoration-line: none; white-space: pre;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; text-wrap: wrap; vertical-align: baseline;">Oscar Peterson - In The Black Forest</span></a></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I rarely take exception to Gene Lees’ opinions, but after re-posting the feature on Oscar Peterson’s recordings on MPS [aka “Black Forest recordings”], which Gene believes are superior to the 1961 London House recordings, I decided to revisit the London House sides, the result of which is the following feature. Actually, before he heard the MPS sides, Gene, too, held a different opinion as is reflected in the following quotation excerpted from his </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Oscar Peterson: The Will to Swing </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">[1988]:</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Richard Palmer, in his eighty-page 1984 monograph titled </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Oscar Peterson, </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">[Jazz Master Series] wrote: "I have the highest regard for Granz; and over the 35 years of his close association with Oscar, there is no doubt that he has been a wise and creative influence on the pianist. But I don't think it can be denied that nearly all the '50s studio dates fail to present Peterson and his groups at their absolute best. Oscar more or less admitted this when he remarked that many people felt that 'the delicate and communicative rapport that they sensed in our in-person appearances was usually lost in the mechanical and cold confines of the studio' and 'I am inclined to agree to the extent that our group performs much better ... [when] a live audience is present.'" And the London House recordings, despite the unfortunate piano, attest to this.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">As to the “unfortunate piano,” when I asked pianist Tom Ranier if the piano on the Oscar Peterson London House recordings was out of tune he responded: WAY out! And gets worse as the sets go on. Nevertheless some of the greatest ever IMHO.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">From 1955 when it first welcomed Jazz [it opened its doors in 1946] until its closing in the early 1970s when the interest in Jazz began to wane nationally, the London House at the corner of Wacker Drive and Michigan Avenue was a stalwart venue for both domestic and touring Jazz groups.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Those who were familiar with the club talk about it with the same reverence usually associated with Birdland in New York, the Black Hawk in San Francisco and Shelly’s Manne Hole in Los Angeles [Hollywood].</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Over the years, “live” [in performance] recordings were made at the London House by a host of Jazz artists including Johnny Pate, Billy Taylor, Marian McPartland, Gene Krupa, Sarah Vaughan, Bobby Hackett, Teddy Wilson and Earl “Fatha” Hines, Tyree Glenn, Dorothy Donegan, Henry “red” Allen, Charlie Shavers, Coleman Hawkins, The Three Sounds, Barbara Carroll and “Brother” Jack McDuff.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Perhaps one of the most artistically satisfying of all the performances recorded at the club were those made with the Oscar Peterson Trio over a span of time from July 11 - August 6, 1961.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Although it became commonplace in later years with advancements in on-location recording equipment and techniques, it should be kept in mind that 1961 was definitely “early days” as far as on site recordings were concerned.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">But despite its technical and acoustic drawbacks [tinkling glasses, loud blenders, ringing telephones, talking audiences, AND out-of-tune pianos]] the movement to record Jazz in this format was whole-heartedly supported by Jazz musicians who had long maintained that they sounded better in performance before an audience than in the “controlled environment” of a sterile and often cavernous recording studio.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Michael Ullman’s booklet notes to the London House boxed set offers a number of these salient observations including an excellent comparison between the similarities and differences of the styles of Oscar and Art Tatum; why Oscar departed from the piano-guitar-bass trio format and opted to include a drummer instead of a guitar and why that drummer was Ed Thigpen; why the inspiration of an audience produces a different Oscar Peterson performance as compared to those recorded in a studio.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 420px; overflow: hidden; width: 350px;"><img height="420" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/WTu3z9EQFlHFVjKGKyjePHvifkHPuDB4N7dOmDZtfF61pVDGOtTEQOh8fnRvop5F2oXQTznaPqQPSoCQ1wQJ4MEwO10xSGFOaWhg_G2JVzAx1GySPBM0kDP3xJs0afisazMeiQzf-dpPbQEP2hA" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="350" /></span></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> “Oscar Peterson has been playing piano professionally for about fifty years and for much of that time he has been compared to Art Tatum. It's a comparison he has done nothing to discourage. Peterson meant his version of </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Ill Wind </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">in this collection to be a tribute to his early idol: ‘It's a musical reminder of the way he would handle this type of thing', Peterson told critic Dom Cerulli in the Sixties-: ‘We used to discuss this it great length,’ he added.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Probably they were discussing the way each pianist introduces a tune freely, ranging over the piano in out-of-tempo swirls and glittering scales while offering the wary listener only an occasional glimpse of the melody. Both pianists like to approach a ballad obliquely, fluffing their feathers and flaunting their colors like jungle birds trying to impress an impassive potential mate. Both artists are technical marvels, tirelessly inventive players with astonishingly broad repertoires. Peterson likes to talk about his debt to Tatum, whom he calls one of his two best friends, the other being his father. Why, then, is Tatum, who is the favorite of dozens of celebrated pianists, including Tommy Flanagan and Hank Jones, still an acquired taste for many listeners where Peterson is one of the music's most popular figures? And why was Tatum most effective playing solo and Peterson at his best playing with a trio? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">'For all of their similarities, and despite Peterson's admiration of his elder, they use their techniques differently. Listening to Tatum can be mind-boggling, even scary. In the middle of a ballad or mid-tempo piece, Tatum will pull the rug out from under you, seeming to abandon the beat while transforming the harmonies of a popular piece in unsettling ways, only to return to both the beat and more predictable chords when all hope seems lost. He plays cat-and-mouse with every aspect of a song; sometimes the listener feels like the mouse. With Peterson, you always know where you are, that you're in safe hands. Even at his most impressive, he's reassuring. His rhythms are insistent, his devices more decorative or engaging than disorienting. In a place where Tatum would follow a series of brilliantly executed runs with a chorus of manic, celebratory stride [piano], Peterson would offer repeated riffs that owe more to Basie's big band than to James P. Johnson or Fats Waller. The results are more predictable but also more comfortable.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 470px; overflow: hidden; width: 527px;"><img height="470" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/RSyclykNhZd05g_CNkATeSL043qv5chKHRRsDN7kNCs0jyp_uZDKh_m6yELOW3v38M7QOGQ6ruHLbj3Tcj2RwYfXVacSnCxM56N56--CM49qTh3xZC5bxahG94sD-OrZxTOJ5J_F1HqbYPZoBg8" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="527" /></span></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The two pianists were, after all, raised in different eras. Tatum grew up with the stride players, who provided their own </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">oom-pah</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> or walking bass lines, and he dipped into the repertoire of Waller and others until the end of his life. Peterson came to the music towards the end of the Swing Era, when bop was first being heard: His early hero may have been Tarum, but he heard the big bands as well. ("My roots go back to people like Coleman Hawkins, harmonically speaking,' he told interviewer Len Lyons in the Seventies.) Peterson has such a wealth of technical devices and capabilities that one tends to forget that he rarely does more than flirt with stride's </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">oom-pah</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> bass or its repertoire. (An exception is his 1975 "Honeysuckle Rose", which he recorded in a duet with Joe Pass.) Even when he is playing more modern tunes, such as Bobby Timmons's </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Moanin'</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> his models are Swing Era or early bop players. He uses the sweeping scales we hear in Tatum but also block chords like those of Nat Cole or Milt Buckner. His chomping left-hand chords and passages in tenths are in the tradition of Teddy Wilson; his percussiveness is a link to Bud Powell. At his best, Peterson is a lyrical player as well as a powerhouse.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The bebop numbers he chose to play here are all especially tuneful, among them </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Scrapple From the Apple</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Daahoud</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, and </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Confirmation</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. He cares about touch: His favorite pianists, including Tatum, Cole and, a near contemporary, Hank Jones, all have light, pearly sounds and clean as well as dashing techniques. It's a sound we hear on the early choruses of Peterson's two takes of </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">On Green Dolphin Street.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Tatum’s flights of fancy were sometimes so unexpected that they could freeze any accompanists he had. No wonder he usually played alone. Peterson is a blusier player and, when he wants to be, as in the ballad </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning, </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">a more intimate, restful player. In certain situations, Peterson may play as many notes as Tatum did, but he naturally leaves room for a bass line - and he isn’t so unpredictable that an alert rhythm section can’t follow him. The rhythm section anchors Peterson’s playing. When that rhythm section consisted of Ray Brown and Ed Thigpen, it also inspired him.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">"The Trio" as Peterson, Brown, and Thigpen were known, came together in 1959, two years before these live recordings took place at London House in Chicago. Brown had been playing with Peterson since 1950. (Their first recording session together, in March, began with the appropriately named "Debut", a series of duet records followed.) Then Peterson, perhaps with the famous King Cole Trio in mind, added a guitarist - first Barney Kessel, then Irving Ashby, and finally Herb Ellis. Peterson replaced Ellis in 1959 with drummer Ed Thigpen, he said, for reasons of "ego" In the same conversation with Lyons, he elaborated:</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“There was a lot of talk about my virtuosity on the instrument, and some people were saying, "Oh, he can play that way with a guitar because it's got that light, fast sound, but he couldn't pull off those lines with a drummer burnin' up back there" . . We chose Ed Thigpen because of his brushwork and sensitivity in general.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Peterson first heard his drummer-to-be while the latter was in the army. But Thigpen was a veteran in another sense as well, having worked with Cootie Williams and Bud Powell, among others. When he became available to Peterson, the Trio was formed.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 461px; overflow: hidden; width: 465px;"><img height="461" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/BaVtuwiPc6KKYCL8aujPkJHhQGrz2a6qhudil_IRk1gDuDUjFFU3-QyKpMzxLF5Bx3Gt1mGppNwCPstyvprcIJmexX1tC4eujGnXlSlMXAbl9daG2sCiKy5PPJI71UAbkpjFfPnkkFVwKNnq16s" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="465" /></span></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">It was an instant, and one suspects inevitable success. There should have been no doubt - about Peterson's ability to play with a drummer - he had taken part in countless live sessions with drummers and played as a sideman on dozens of studio recordings. His bassist was a star in his own right, and his drummer would soon become one. Thigpen may have been chosen for his sensitivity with brushes, but he also had - and has - a bright, swinging style on mid- and up-tempo pieces. He has a cheerful as well as propulsive sound: Listen to the joyous bounce of his cymbals on 'Scrapple From the Apple.' Brown had already been featured with the Dizzy Gillespie big band and had toured with Ella Fitzgerald. One of the greatest jazz bassists, he was also the first bassist in the Modern Jazz Quartet. He plays the fastest lines with a huge, rich sound. He's steady as a rock and he's an inventive, witty soloist, as we can hear on </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Tricrotism.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> This trio recorded almost incessantly from their onset in 1959, making albums of Cole Porter, Ellington, and Gershwin material, as well as a half dozen assorted records, all in their first year. There's a lot of Peterson to choose from.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Still, the London House sessions stand out. Peterson is a tough self-critic; he had the final say on which of his recordings would be released during his tenure with Verve (ending in 1962). Eventually there was enough material selected from the London House engagement to make four LPs.They're all included here: </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Trio</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> (V6-8420), </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Sound of the Trio</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> (V6-848D), </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Put on a Happy Face </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(V6-8660), and</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Something Warm </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(V6-8BB1). With this collection, the available music from those sets is almost doubled. When Lyons asked the pianist what his favorite albums were amongst all he had recorded, Peterrson started a short list with </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Trio.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">One can hear why Like most jazz musicians, Peterson tends to be inspired by nightclub audiences. He lets go, playing longer versions of standards than he might otherwise, wowing the crowd with buoyant, powerful riffing. He's more showy here than in the studio and more dramatic. At times he sounds sportive, even satirical. (At least that's how I hear the exotic splashes of color at the beginning of</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> On Green Dolphin Street</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. The melody is virtually lost in waves of decoration until suddenly Peterson plinks it out with the glassy spareness of Ahmad Jamal. The contrast is comical as is his later quotation of </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Tenderly</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">.)</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">There are of course disadvantages to a live recording: The ballads sometimes take place over the audible shuffling of silverware, and the microphones also pick up a ringing telephone and an occasional nonmusical conversation. At the end of one set, Peterson praises his fans: "We would like to thank most of you for being a wonderful audience. There's one in every crowd” But usually the audience brings out the best in the trio.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">There are plenty of highlights, moods ranging from the ripping exuberance of the up-tempo </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Swamp Fire</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> to the easygoing bluesiness of </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Better Luck Next Time</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> to the comparative sobriety of quieter numbers, such as Peterson's own </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Lonesome One</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> with its hints of "Here's That Rainy Day".</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Few listeners think of Peterson as a ballad player, but his most touching performances are frequently his most modest renditions of sophisticated tunes, such as the version of 'In the Wee Small Hours' included here. (He follows it up with a jaunty </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Chicago</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> that sounds glib by contrast. We can excuse him because of his need to pay tribute to his host city.) He's equally affecting on</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Jim,</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> which he begins with an expansive solo introduction. It's a performance that shows the sensitivity of his band members. At one point in his improvisation, the pianist is strumming with his left hand while playing thirds with his right. He plays an ascending arpeggio, followed by a bluesy descent. Meanwhile Brown is dancing about lightly and Thigpen swishing with brushes. With a repeated passage, Peterson gives the subtlest hint that he wants more energy, and Thigpen responds instantly, providing a more buoyant, rocking beat for the next few choruses until Peterson suggests that he wants to return to the original mood.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 470px; overflow: hidden; width: 510px;"><img height="470" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/1z4TL9dNWhdp9zuKNm2Sggq2MEqWzNqVmt5LWHOWnDXGvOTT6A0Ggcar562DUIq9FRjJeUNqdCdB7wjNE7RXIQ9jTalYlO3wKBSXA5eM4dJFw21SbUx_rbUgaNc3nb_7z-5cNuLJwk3Kiri5TqU" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="510" /></span></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Peterson features Thigpen on </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Thag's Dance</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, a piece he wrote to display his drummer's brushes. Brown gets his feature too: Oscar Pettiford's knotty bebop line, "Tricrotism" (Evidently Peterson used to tease Brown by saying that Pettiford, a great bebop bassist whom Brown idolized, was in the audience - even when he wasn't. Brown paid his boss back by telling him at various gigs that Tatum was sitting at the bar. One night Tatum actually was, and Peterson froze, ending his set abruptly.) Peterson can play ballads, but he is rarely wistful for long. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I Remember Clifford </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">is Benny Golson's touching tribute to his friend, the late Cliiiord Brown. Peterson evokes something of its tender spirit - for a while. Then launches into double-time choruses that prove exciting ii not particularly germane to the composer's intentions. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Peterson for the most part is irrepressible even if controlled. He may surprise his audience, but he never seems to surprise himself, working up steadily to his most excited moments, churning through choruses that lead him seemingly inevitably to the riffing of his climaxes. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Peterson likes to play the blues as well as standards; he plays them cheerfully. On the other hand, he can turn virtually any song into a crypto-blues, including the unlikely </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Sometimes I'm Happy</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, to which he adds crushed notes and thumping, repeated phrases. Bluesy, exciting, full of singable lines, the issued version of "Sometimes I'm Happy' is one of Peterson's most successful performances. Now we have a second version.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">There's a bonanza of previously unissued material, including a magisterial performance oi</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Sophisticated Lady</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, Clifford Brown's "Daahoud" and, for a change in meter,</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> The Gravy Waltz</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, to say nothing of a bunch of new versions of </span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Billy Boy</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, which Peterson uses as background music while he thanks the audience. The LPs from London House have been among the most treasured collector's items of generations of Oscar Peterson fans. There's twice as much to treasure here, and a lot to celebrate.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Michael Ullman, April, 1996</span></p><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ky6s7uNTZWo" width="320" youtube-src-id="ky6s7uNTZWo"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xHtdA-h4HkE" width="320" youtube-src-id="xHtdA-h4HkE"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span></div></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5LZqCFgPWJU" width="320" youtube-src-id="5LZqCFgPWJU"></iframe></div><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-69758843424885705382024-02-22T13:39:00.000-08:002024-02-22T13:40:14.392-08:00Johnny Richards: Big, Brash and Bold Sounds [With Video Additions]<p> </p><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b><span style="color: red;">© -</span></b><st1:personname><b><span style="color: red;">Steven Cerra</span></b></st1:personname><b><span style="color: red;">, copyright protected; all rights reserved.</span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e5qjFele6qE/UGzBnqTXTCI/AAAAAAAASHA/wdv65HF2QNM/s1600/Johnny+Richard+-+tryptich+Stitched-05.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e5qjFele6qE/UGzBnqTXTCI/AAAAAAAASHA/wdv65HF2QNM/s640/Johnny+Richard+-+tryptich+Stitched-05.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">“There has been much talk in recent years about the close relationship between jazz and what is usually called classical music (or sometimes, "serious" music, as if jazz musicians were kidding). They're coming closer and closer together, this talk usually goes. It's getting so you can't tell where one leaves off and the other begins, somebody says — wistfully, as if it were sinful or something to be ashamed of. And then somebody else — me, if I'm part of this familiar conversation — asks what all the sad words are about; why such viewing with alarm; why the dissatisfaction; it's music, isn't it?<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Johnny Richards doesn't do much talking about the relationship, close or distant, between jazz and the classical traditions in music. He just does. He composes and arranges, and when he can, conducts. The strongest arguments, one way or the other, are on music paper or in performance.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">- Barry Ulanov, Jazz author and critic<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">“The two characteristics of Johnny Richards that usually come first to my mind when his name is mentioned or his music is played is fervor and tenacity. … Johnny Richards is a writer who likes to challenge his men and himself through a wide range of sounds and colors and he usually finds the sidemen who can fulfill his designs.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: navy;">- Nat Hentoff, liner notes to </span><st1:place><st1:placename><b><i><span style="color: navy;">Wide</span></i></b></st1:placename><b><i><span style="color: navy;"> </span></i></b><st1:placetype><b><i><span style="color: navy;">Range</span></i></b></st1:placetype></st1:place><b><i><span style="color: navy;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">“Richards always painted with bold strokes, applying his considerable training and knowledge to create a variety of orchestral pictures.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">- Burt Korall, liner notes to <b><i>My Fair Lady</i></b> [paraphrased]<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Johnny Richards was one of the more progressive-minded arranger of the 1950s and '60s, turning out big, heavily orchestrated scores with a sometimes unabashed use of dissonance and a good feel for Latin rhythms.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: navy;">Richards was born in Toluca, Mexico in 1911, as Juan Manuel Cascales, to a Spanish father (Juan Cascales y Valero) and a Mexican mother (Maria Celia Arrue AKA Marie Cascales), whose parents were Spanish immigrants to Mexico. He came to the </span><st1:country -region="-region"><st1:place><span style="color: navy;">United States</span></st1:place></st1:country><span style="color: navy;"> with his parents and his three brothers in 1919.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: navy;">The family lived first in </span><st1:place><st1:city><span style="color: navy;">Los Angeles</span></st1:city><span style="color: navy;">, </span><st1:state><span style="color: navy;">California</span></st1:state></st1:place><span style="color: navy;"> and later in </span><st1:place><st1:city><span style="color: navy;">San Fernando</span></st1:city><span style="color: navy;">, </span><st1:state><span style="color: navy;">California</span></st1:state></st1:place><span style="color: navy;"> where Johnny, and his brothers attended and graduated from </span><st1:place><st1:placename><span style="color: navy;">San Fernando</span></st1:placename><span style="color: navy;"> </span><st1:placetype><span style="color: navy;">High School</span></st1:placetype></st1:place><span style="color: navy;">. In 1930 Richards enrolled at </span><st1:place><st1:placename><span style="color: navy;">Fullerton</span></st1:placename><span style="color: navy;"> </span><st1:placetype><span style="color: navy;">College</span></st1:placetype></st1:place><span style="color: navy;"> where he received formal training in music.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: navy;">He started writing film scores, first in </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="color: navy;">London</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="color: navy;"> in 1932-1933, and then in </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="color: navy;">Hollywood</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="color: navy;"> for the remainder of the decade, as Victor Young’s assistant at </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="color: navy;">Paramount</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="color: navy;"> while studying composition with Arnold Schoenberg.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Forming a big band in the 40s, he had trouble finding musicians who could cope with his involved scores, so he gave it up to write for Charlie Barnet and Boyd Raeburn's forward-looking band.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Oddly enough, considering the reputations of both men, Richards' contributions to the Raeburn library were pretty, romantic, woodwind scores such as "Prelude To The Dawn", "Love Tales" and "Man With The Horn".<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: navy;">Hardly a commercial success, Richards was nevertheless a musical, if sometimes misused asset to any employer.<br /></span><br /><span style="color: navy;">He also arranged a string album for Dizzy Gillespie in 1950, along with recording dates with Sarah Vaughan, Helen Merrill, and Sonny Stitt. His most famous association was with Kenton, with whom he started arranging in 1952. His collaborations with Kenton on the albums <b><i>Cuban Fire!</i></b> and <b><i>West Side Story </i></b>are outstanding examples of Richards’ work. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: navy;">Richards continued to lead his own orchestras in 1956-1960 and 1964-1965, recording for Capitol, Coral, Roulette, and </span><st1:city><st1:place><span style="color: navy;">Bethlehem</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="color: navy;">, and co-wrote one of Frank Sinatra’s signature songs, "Young at Heart."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">He died in 1968 from complications arising from a brain tumor.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Of his time with Stan Kenton’s orchestra, Michael Sparke has written in his <b><i>Stan Kenton: This Is An Orchestra!</i></b>:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">"<i>Rendezvous at Sunset</i> (originally titled <i>Evening</i>) reflects the romantic face of Johnny Richards, and is one of the loveliest original ballads in all of jazz. Whatever the mood, Richards' music post-<b><i>Cuban Fire</i></b> has substance and symmetry, and nobody wrote more effectively for the French horns within a jazz framework. Towards the end of Richards’ arrangement of I <i>Concentrate on You</i> the horns rise out of the orchestral timbre in a truly gorgeous surge of sound. (A talent not lost on Kenton when it came time to forming the mellophonium orchestra in 1960.)”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Michael’s book also contains the following observations about Johnny’s writing by three members of the Kenton orchestra.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">[Trombonist] Don Reed noted that "Stan liked Johnny Richards. I think he was Stan's favorite arranger, but those scores were so demanding physically on the band, because the trumpets were constantly screeching. Everybody was playing loud all the time, long sustained notes that blared, and the arrangements didn't swing.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">And Phil Gilbert [trumpet] is typically blunt: "Richards was a highly educated musician with great orchestrating skills, but he was also very disturbed and drank heavily. Cuban Fire was his best, and he wrote some nice ballads like The Nearness of You' and The Way You Look Tonight' with no explosions or head-on collisions. We did not enjoy his Back to Balboa charts at all. I hated them. Too hard, and to what end? Uniting those tunes with Latin rhythms was no help at all."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">On the other hand, Jim Amlotte [trombone] was unexpectedly positive: "I really liked those Latin charts on 'Begin the Beguine,’ 'Out of this World,' and so forth. Johnny Richards is one of my favorite composers, but his music taxed you to the end. To Johnny, nothing was unplayable, and his music was challenging: very, very challenging. Richards put his arrangements together so well. Some guys will say there's too much tension, but this is what I like. Some things are going to swing, and some things aren't, but as long as there's a pulsation, that's enough for me. They don't all have to be Basie-type swing."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">There is a published biography on Johnny by Jack Hartley entitled <b><i>Johnny Richards: The Definitive Bio-Discography </i></b>[Balboa Books, 1998], although copies of it may be difficult to locate.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: navy;">Thankfully, </span><st1:personname><span style="color: navy;">Michael Cuscuna</span></st1:personname><span style="color: navy;"> and his team have made Johnny’s long-out-of-print recordings available on a three disc Mosaic Select set [MS-017].<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The booklet that accompanies the Mosaic Select set has a good detail of information about Johnny and descriptions of his writing some of which is excerpted below.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pWTLNd82aZQ/UGzBwSkig7I/AAAAAAAASHI/qmMyLcDy3S8/s1600/Johnny+Richards+-+Mosaic+borders-06.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pWTLNd82aZQ/UGzBwSkig7I/AAAAAAAASHI/qmMyLcDy3S8/s400/Johnny+Richards+-+Mosaic+borders-06.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b><span style="color: red;">© -</span></b><st1:personname><b><span style="color: red;">Michael Cuscuna</span></b></st1:personname><b><span style="color: red;">/</span></b><st1:personname><b><span style="color: red;">Mosaic Records</span></b></st1:personname><b><span style="color: red;">, copyright protected; all rights reserved.<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: navy;">Recorded from 1955-1966, the Mosaic set is comprised of music from six albums recorded under Johnny’s name: <b><i>Annotations of the Muses, </i></b></span><st1:place><st1:placename><b><i><span style="color: navy;">Wide</span></i></b></st1:placename><b><i><span style="color: navy;"> </span></i></b><st1:placetype><b><i><span style="color: navy;">Range</span></i></b></st1:placetype></st1:place><b><i><span style="color: navy;">, Experiments in Sound, The Rites of Diablo, My Fair Lady - My Way</span></i></b><span style="color: navy;">, and <b><i>Aqui Se Habla Espanol/English Spoken Here.<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">In his notes to <b><i>Annotations of the Muses,</i></b> John S. Wilson wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">“It might seem to be belaboring the obvious to say that what you hear on this record is music.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Yet an essential point of this composition by Johnny Richards is that it is just that — music, without qualifications: not jazz nor what is sometimes called "serious" music (as though this music were always unbearably solemn or no other music could be considered to have any intellectual merit) nor a violation of one by the other.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><i><span style="color: navy;">Annotations of the Muses</span></i><span style="color: navy;"> is a composition which draws on several musical roots. There are jazz elements in it but they appear as natural developments, not the graftings of a desperate plastic surgeon. There is even more evidence of "serious" music but it is used purposefully, gracefully, to make a point rather than an impression.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The unique flavor of this work derives from the skill with which Richards has made use of both jazz and "serious" elements without seeming awkward or ostentatious in his treatment of either one. There is a homogeneity of conception whether the means by which it is expressed are tightly grouped, accented woodwinds with a flavor of Hindemith, or canons and rounds, or a solo trumpet with a steady 4/4 beat.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">What Richards has achieved by this blending is a lighthearted vitality, a form of lyricism with guts which could scarcely be brought about by any other integration of instruments or styles. He has, to begin with, a woodwind quintet for which he has written with that mixture of merriment and brooding which seems inherent in woodwinds. But the quintet is simply a starting point for it soon expands into a nonet which plays with a pulsing beat.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">That the quintet should provide a foundation and that the nonet should have a moving beat are factors which reflect, as any honest musical composition must, something of the composer. Johnny Richards has run a musical gamut from serious composition to movie music to jazz writing of the wildest stripe. If his past has any connection with his present, it must be assumed that Annotations of the Muses is a synthesis of the more vital elements of all the areas in which he has worked. In this suite he has stripped himself of any extreme attitudes which he may have felt forced or drawn to use in the past — the form for the sake of form which crops up in much serious composition, the emptiness that keeps movie music from intruding on plot-centered sensibilities, or the hair-raising appeal for attention with which he ventured into the jazz world.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">But Richards has put this experience to advantageous use. For, in this case, there is certainly form but it is judiciously selected form, useful only insofar as it has pertinent meaning. There is flexibility, that sinewy feeling for modulation which is the essential tool of the composer of film music. And there is the organic appeal of the subtle jazz musician's attack.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cfeUVsPjI3s/UGzB4HH6urI/AAAAAAAASHQ/MeO7-ccB80E/s1600/Johnny+Richards+-+Experiments.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cfeUVsPjI3s/UGzB4HH6urI/AAAAAAAASHQ/MeO7-ccB80E/s400/Johnny+Richards+-+Experiments.jpg" width="398" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">This is quietly convincing music which is — in the best sense — unpretentious. It sets out, with directness and honesty, to charm the listener. Because it is counting on charm, any false note, any obvious reaching for effect, would be its undoing. And so it introduces itself politely but in familiar vein with genial five-art counterpoint and, in hostly fashion, settles the listener comfortably before leading him on into some animated, varied and occasionally adventurous musical exposition. There is revealed in this process warmth, logic and a notable absence of condescension in any direction. The charm shines resolutely through.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Burt Korall wrote the insert notes to <b><i>Aqui Se Habla Espanol/English Spoken Here </i></b>and offered the following comments about Johnny and his approach to music.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">“Today, many streams of musical thought pour into the main flow. The world is smaller; a trip from the familiar to anywhere on the globe, a matter of hours. Because of this, our existence has become far less closeted than in times past. We are increasingly exposed in mass media to the people, pulse and melodies of other lands. The result is the mixing and mingling of diverse heritages, increasingly reflected in music composed and performed, here and abroad.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">The maker of music, Johnny Richards feels, should bring into play <i>expressive</i> structures, regardless of source. With jazz as his base, he has given this concept life, having created a library for his orchestra that is a true reflection of his stance, "...there are so many wonderful sounds and multiple rhythms elsewhere in the world that we...can make use of," he has said. "We can learn from them all. People in other areas swing in so many different ways. Swinging, after all, is not unique to jazz. I've been delighted, for example, to see jazz musicians in the past few years finally trying to swing in 3/4 and 6/8. So many meters, so many tone colors have been in existence for hundreds of years, and it's about time we got around to them."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">For Richards, composing and arranging are continuing exploratory and illuminating processes; he moves more deeply into himself and the multiple materials available to him. An optimistic man, he retains great enthusiasm for his work. It remains at the center of his life. He writes as he feels he must, sometimes at great cost. This form of integrity has inspired his musicians; they stay with him, answering his call, whenever he can field an orchestra. Richards' music challenges, sometimes wilts them, but never bores them. Moreover, they are provided freedom to add something of themselves to his compositions.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">In his <b><i>Postscript </i></b>to the Mosaic set, Todd Selbert observed:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: navy;">“Of the five genius big band composers and arrangers who emerged in full bloom in the 1950s — Gil Evans, Shorty </span><st1:personname><span style="color: navy;">Roger</span></st1:personname><span style="color: navy;">s, Gerry Mulligan, Bill Holman and Johnny Richards — Richards is the forgotten one. When Richards<i> is</i> remembered, it is for his works for Stan Kenton and not for the recordings of his own bands. So it is hoped that the recordings at hand — the earliest of which were recorded 50 years ago — help to remedy this neglect. It is inconceivable that music so brilliant has been out of circulation for so long. …<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: navy;">Richards formed a new band in spring 1957 and the recordings herein cover the last and most fertile decade of his abbreviated career. They are a treasure. The music is at turns passionate and fiery, romantic and melancholic and, above all, majestic. One of its characteristics is its wonderfully deep and visceral bottom, achieved not only through the French horn, tuba and baritone saxophone that had been utilized by Evans and </span><st1:personname><span style="color: navy;">Roger</span></st1:personname><span style="color: navy;">s but extended by bass saxophone. Tympani and piccolo are rarely heard in the jazz orchestra, but Richards incorporated them and they added texture and color to his music. He introduced unusual time signatures and authentic Latin and African rhythms to big band jazz. But the key ingredients in Richards' orchestrations are his gorgeous voicings and development of melody through harmonically-sophisticated and sublime counter lines.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><iframe allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/D69GQIZTzDU" width="560"></iframe></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y7Otinu1JH4" width="320" youtube-src-id="Y7Otinu1JH4"></iframe></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qNXjJd8OtbY" width="320" youtube-src-id="qNXjJd8OtbY"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-48108485276660553482024-02-20T07:00:00.000-08:002024-02-20T07:00:00.287-08:00The Passionate Conviction: An Interview with Jimmy Giuffre by Lorin Stephens [From the Archives with Additions]<p> <span style="color: red; font-family: verdana; font-weight: 700; white-space-collapse: preserve;">© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VEycYUfvto0/V8yXOrsw5SI/AAAAAAAB3vA/aqqZGjy8BEMjaj3qxKNoCbu42_x-vB6QwCLcB/s1600/Jimmy%2BGiuffre%2B-%2BTangents%2Bin%2BJazz%2B002.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VEycYUfvto0/V8yXOrsw5SI/AAAAAAAB3vA/aqqZGjy8BEMjaj3qxKNoCbu42_x-vB6QwCLcB/s640/Jimmy%2BGiuffre%2B-%2BTangents%2Bin%2BJazz%2B002.jpg" width="638" /></span></a></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Candid self-assessment was as much a characteristic of Jimmy Giuffre’s personality as was the constantly innovative approach he took to making Jazz.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Francis Davis explained it this way:</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">“Given a long history of animosity between musicians and those who write about music (or merely write about it, as some musicians would say), I hope that Jimmy Giuffre won’t take my suggestion that he would have made an excellent jazz critic the wrong way.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I simply mean that during his most prolific period as a recording artist, beginning with the release of his first 10” LP for Capitol in 1954, Giuffre in interviews and liner notes provided his listeners with a running commentary on his motives and methods, revealing in the process a great deal of knowledge of such other disciplines as philosophy and psychoanalysis.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Reading Giuffre on Giuffre, a critic might despair, because this is one of the rare instances in which a performer has already been as fair and impartial a judge of his own successes and failures as anyone could hope to be.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">(Especially for an artist as committed to public trial and error as Giuffre was during the period in which he recorded most frequently. There is also a sense in which a new piece of music can be heard as a critique of the work that came before it – yet another way in which Giuffre beat after-the-fact commentators like myself to the punch).</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Best of all, despite seeming to rebuke the jazz rank-in-file of the 1950s for their conformist tendencies, Giuffre never lapsed into what I call the existential fallacy, that leap of hubris by which an artist (or for that matter, any individual) presumes that his new direction is one that everybody should follow.</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In one of his earliest pronouncement – a Down Beat [November 30, 1955] article published under his byline in 1955, in which he explained his decision to limit the bass and drums on his controversial new album </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Tangents in Jazz</span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> [Capitol T-634] – he was careful to point out in his lead that he wasn’t trying to “preach a sermon” in order to bring the rest of Jazz into line. “It’s just one way,” he reiterated at the end, “and every man must go his own way.”</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-style: italic; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">- Francis Davis, [</span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Jimmy Giuffre - The Complete Capitol and Atlantic Recordings</span><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-style: italic; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Mosaic Records, MD6-176].</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">And Lorin Stephens further explored Jimmy’s proclivities toward truth and honesty in the following interview from THE JAZZ REVIEW VOLUME 3 NUMBER 2 FEBRUARY 1960. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">This interview is intended as a beginning in exploring the impact of hipness on jazz. Jimmy Giuffre is regarded by many as one of the major composers in modern jazz, but his position has been controversial. His admirers feel that his music has great validity. Even his strongest detractors, who consider his work of peripheral concern, are struck with his deep sincerity. It is fitting to explore this question with him, particularly because of his recent marked interest (along with hip legions) in the music of Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins. The interview was graciously granted in November 1959. I believe that a reader cannot help but be moved by Jimmy Giuffre's willingness to expose himself honestly in the interest of furthering understanding of jazz and the jazz artist. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Why do jazz players change styles in an almost wholesale fashion with the arrival of a Parker, a Monk or a Rollins? </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">The thing that's hard for a non-performer to understand is how things keep changing inside. A listener often analyzes changes as being arbitrary, but they're not. In other words he thinks that when you play a certain phrase, you've planned it out and played it, when actually a big percentage of the music comes out almost like a stone rolling down a hill, especially in improvisation. And it depends on the rhythm section, the acoustics, your frame of mind, your reed (if you play a reed instrument), and your lip. Also on your maturity at the time, and your experience—all these things. And if one little thing is out of line, you're distracted from being most natural, perhaps. For instance, a stiff reed if you're playing a reed instrument (you're always torn between reeds; you never have a perfect one). </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">You must go through different stages. I've been playing the clarinet since I was nine and I'm thirty-eight now— so that's twenty-nine years of playing the clarinet! I started on the E flat clarinet, and it took a lot of blowing; a little bitty thing—but it took a lot of blowing. And I don't know if the mouthpiece was right or not. I was just a baby. But you have to start with something, so you just start blowing in this tube and years later you might start to think about whether you have the right mouthpiece, and then years after that you find out the choice you made when you were fifteen was wrong, and so you just keep going with these mechanical things. You have certain ideas in your mind that shadow your choice of reed, your choice of instrument, your choice of mouthpiece—and the choice of musicians you play with. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">In high school we got a dance band together and played dances. And I started into an area of sound; I was interested in getting a beautiful sound from the saxophone, and I was complimented on my sound. In college I went further with this. We played a lot. We had this eight room house in college, and I lived with Gene Roland, the arranger and trumpet and valve trombone player, Herb Ellis the guitarist, Harry Babison the bass player, and Tommy Reeves the trumpet player and arranger. We had big bands, we had a small band and we jammed a lot. We learned a lot—we listened to a lot of records then. I liked Sam Donahue; he got a beautiful mellow sound when he was with Gene Krupa. And we got a sax section that used no vibrato; we got a perfect blend. And the sound thing was very dominant in my thinking, and it continued on that way—sound superseding anything else. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Then I went into the Army and played with a quintet, xylophone, snare drum, electric guitar, bass, and I played tenor. (I didn't start improvising on the clarinet actually, until about six years ago or so.) This little group played for the different mess halls at lunch hour and it was a groovy little group—light and straight, but still the sound predominated. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">After jobs with Boyd Raeburn and Jimmy Dorsey, I came back to Los Angeles and I started studying. (I don't mean to make this a history—I'm trying to work it into the thinking inside about the instrument.) I went to U.S.C. to get a master's degree, having changed my major from teaching music in public schools to composition. Well, there were so many prerequisites at U.S.C. that it threw me back quite a bit. After a semester of that, I decided it wasn't the answer. I had heard about Dr. Wesley La Viollette and his approach. Before this, my concept had been totally vertical. I had in my mind a chart of voicings, for instance if I used five saxes and there was C-7th and G was in the lead, I could spell you out immediately, the ideal voicing vertically, right down the saxes; I knew just how to space them. This was a crazy sound if you could just play it by itself. You didn't consider where it came from or where it was going, you just thought vertically each note, and this was pretty standardized for dance band writing, and a lot of writing is still done that way. There's nothing actually wrong with it: there probably is no right or wrong. I will say this about it. it can be done by anyone; it is mathematical, and difficult to do creatively. I had no awareness of counterpoint. In my work it didn't occur to me for a very good reason. At college I had only one semester of counterpoint because the degree plan which I followed was to prepare a man to stand up in front of high school or junior high students, and you had to know a little bit about everything—how to play a trumpet, bass fiddle and all those things. They didn't have time to go into the depth of counterpoint. So that's all I got. I had studied harmony with my clarinet teacher when I was about fifteen and in college I got harmony, but my thinking was all derived from listening to records; Basie and Benny Goodman. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">In college we had a pretty radical attitude, I'll admit that. We wore long hair, zoot suits and we pretty much thought we knew what things should be. A pianist friend, Bill Campbell, said to me. "Well, it doesn't matter what the voicing is, how many parts, it's how each one of them leads." It didn't strike me; I didn't understand what he was talking about. Years later Scott Seeley, who was studying with Dr. La Viollette. gave me a similar answer when I asked him a question about his writing—his writing sounded strange. I asked him. "How do you voice your brass?" He replied that he did not voice, he just wrote each part separately. I just sort of shook my head; I didn't understand. At that time, believe it or not, I had a college education and I'd been writing music for ten years and playing for fifteen years, and I just didn't know the counterpoint approach to music. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Then later on when I went to Los Angeles, I met Frank Patchen. We played together down at the Lighthouse and he'd been studying with Dr. La Viollette. They both told me this was the answer. So I started studying with him, and it turned out to be one of the most important things I've ever done in my life. His influence personally and musically has been profound on me. Studying with him began to shadow my jazz thinking. For instance, when you write counterpoint, you write a duet for a clarinet and trumpet. That's all there is to it, there's no rhythm section, a complete composition for these two instruments. If you happen to use a drum with them, you write a complete composition for clarinet, a trumpet and drum. If you happen to write for a piano too, you do the same thing. There isn't a function for any one of the instruments as there is in conventional jazz; in jazz there's a fairly set part for drums. They more or less have been called upon to keep time. Now I've come through several different outlooks on this thing. I started studying in '46 when I first came out here. At that time I didn't conceive the possibility of using counterpoint in jazz. I was studying it to become a 'composer', but found out that a 'composer' includes jazz composing. Anything that can be used any place can be used in jazz. I remember one time Barney Kessel talking to me about that. I told him I was writing fugues and canons and counterpoint inventions, and he said, "Why do you want to study writing fugues?" He wasn't negative, he just didn't understand it, didn't see the point of it. It took me about five years studying with La Viollette to shake off all the prisons I had locked myself in—the vertical prisons. This is my own opinion; there are many harmonists in the world who will take exception to what I'm saying. I felt as though I were in a prison, whether it was vertical or not I don't know, but I have that conviction in my own mind. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">After about five years of studying with La Viollette I began to be able to write counterpoint in jazz—with the jazz feeling. Before, all the study was what you might call straight music; it didn't have too much syncopation, and it didn't have too much of me in it. I was writing lines of music, straight, learning how to write lines together, and to be able to put myself into each one of those lines is another thing that came later, but it took me five years to start it. After I got to writing jazz, I began to think of each man's role in the music and it just began to be inconceivable that a certain man had to sit back and play time all the while, and that another guy had to play quarter notes all night. I just didn't understand the point of it. A man is in music all these years, then why should he just have to play one portion? Why couldn't he just express himself along with the other musicians? Right away, I put this to work in the music and began writing things where the rhythm section didn't play in a conventional manner. The first one I can remember was the fugue I wrote for Shelly Manne. And also, I went overboard and wrote in the so-called atonal approach. But we got it across, and I wrote another piece for his second album. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Then I did my first album for Capitol. I incorporated the rhythm section in different ways. I remember I took out the top cymbal in the drums and had him just play the sock cymbals, the two and the four, and the bass walked. Then there were other compositions where I used no rhythm whatsoever. Then, I made a point in the next album, in </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Tangents in Jazz, </span><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">of not having a pulsating rhythm section, I mean no definite beating out of time, any place in this album. The idea was valid and is valid. The point I'm trying to make is that I began thinking, as a result of studying composition, of the individual in the music—of each one of the musicians rather than in toto. And I began thinking of what you might call 'interesting ideas', counterpoint, and using the rhythm section in different ways, different forms and different kinds of tone — all these things that weren't conventional in jazz. And so, these things became the object of my attention. But all this time my mind in playing had still required this sound, this subtle, soft, mellow, deep sound. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Why was sound so important to you? </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Perhaps it comes from my childhood. It was sort of like not wanting to go out unless I was dressed properly. I couldn't release this music inside of me unless it sounded perfect—that was the first consideration—to have a beautiful sound quality. I've run into hundreds of people who felt exactly the same way, Bill Perkins was one of them. He had the same kind of thing gnawing at him. The sound had to be beautiful and smooth. And I've known so many people like this. Lester Young, he had this smoothness. He said he idolized Frankie Trumbauer who had this kind of sound too. In other words, it dominated me—that had to be fixed up before anything else could happen. It went to such a point with me that when I got the clarinet going, this was number one. There was nothing else considered about it at all—sound was it. The ideas in the whole thing were secondary to sound. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">But why so important? </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Well, it goes with my personality, I'm sure. I won't accept the thing that I am an introverted personality, which some have tried to make me out. I have gone through periods, and I won't say I have shaken that off completely, but I have gone through periods where I was quiet; I like the pastoral—the country; I like Debussy and Delius—I like peaceful moods. This all came into the trio sound as I've discovered now. I don't know why I wanted it to be pretty. I can't figure it out except that I just didn't want to look ugly, didn't want to offend anybody. I've always been afraid of offending someone, and I don't argue with people for that reason—I mean I'm not a vehement person, nor forceful—and I'm not too frank for that reason; maybe I should be, but I avoid those things because I don't like them. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">If this is natural for you, doesn't current hipness force you and others like you into unnatural strictures? </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">All I can say is for myself .. . it traces like a snail what began to happen to me. Well, I don't know what effect comments have had. I'm sure they must have had some. For instance, one time I played a performance that seemed to be very successful and a critic said it was successful, but that my playing clarinet was like mowing a lawn with an electric razor. When it was announced that I was going to be a clarinet teacher at the School of Jazz another critic passed the remark, "Who will teach the upper register?" Then another time a critic said he liked the way I played, but that he wouldn't vote for me because I didn't play the whole instrument. I don't know if these things had some effect on me. Then, another area—I couldn't go out and play with sticks and drums. The only way I could play the clarinet was the way I was playing it—very quietly. They had to play with brushes and practically no piano. That's one of the ways we got to playing some of the unaccompanied stuff, and counterpoint with two horns and all those things we played with Shorty's group. I found that to be the only way I could hear the sound of my instrument; my ears got so sensitive that I went through a period where I just wanted to play the instrument by itself and hear the sound. To have a drummer playing a cymbal next to me was grating. I couldn't hear myself, and I began to wonder what was going on. I wanted to hear </span><span style="color: black; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">clearly</span><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">—something in me just demanded this clarity. So I brought the drums down or took them out a lot of times, and I worked for a blend of the instruments so that I could hear hear everything that went on in the group. This is one concept of the thing. But we sometimes change our concept—if we're not afraid to. I've changed my concept, and that doesn't make a lot of things that I did invalid. This business of the rhythm section using the drums and the bass constantly—I finally realized why this is and why it has to be perhaps. The improvisor, as he is improvising, if he is too naked as I was with my group, he's out there and he has to think of too many things. It's thrown right in front of his face so quickly. Getting a sound on his instrument and thinking of ideas, that's just taken for granted in all situations. But not just being free to think up ideas: I had to cover certain functions. I had to make something happen, to provide form, composition, and this was a very good thing, but not as a constant diet. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">What then has made you change your concepts? </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I went down to hear Thelonious Monk. I heard an element in his music that I didn't seem to have in my music. I don't mean ideas, style or anything like that, but it was a certain way of stating things with conviction so that he spoke clearly and surely, and he played this idea without any restraint—he played it immediately, right in front of you. I didn't know exactly what it was that was hitting me, there were many things in his music that aren't in my music, but there was one that was hitting me and that was it. Then I also noticed it in Sonny Rollins' music. I had not liked Sonny Rollins too much because of his sound. I couldn't bring myself to listen to the music because I didn't like the sound on his earlier records, but now I heard this same kind of statement. It was definite, with conviction behind it. It sounded as though he was sure of himself, and there was not any holding back, and he was ready to go ahead and say this right now. He didn't have to qualify it; he could stand behind it. I got interested in this point. And it wasn't a new idea at all—it is something inspired musicians have been doing for years, but I was gradually becoming aware of it. I heard some folk songs by Cisco Houston who accompanies himself on the guitar. He sang with this same thing, and as I look back on it, I see that he did that too. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">There was another event which was very important. I was riding along in the car listening to the radio one day and I heard a violin playing Bach—all by itself—and I stopped and I listened. It was Nathan Milstein, but I came in on the middle of it, unbiased, I didn't know who it was or anything. I knew though, that he played it with this same conviction, this definite sureness. There's another thing that enters in there besides this. This conviction originates with this person. It comes out "This is my way of saying this." Milstein didn't improvise, and it didn't have anything to do with improvisation. It was like the way Marlon Brando says something in his acting. He takes a written line, and says it his way, puts his stamp on it. He doesn't change the words, and Milstein didn't change that Bach, he played it just like the thing was marked but he put his kind of vitality underneath, his kind of spark. And this is what Monk and Rollins do. But I saw there is a level of playing music, whether it's jazz or classical, where it all comes together. It's just music, and it's spontaneous sounding—it sounds like the player—it' s his personality with such a stamp that it reaches the listener immediately . . . "this man knows exactly what he is talking about—he's not afraid to say it, and he said it." That's the way Art Tatum was. It is something, that, whether you like what he said or not, you know he says these things, and that's what he believes. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">And this began to be interesting. I was tired of being soft, as valid as softness is. (And a funny thing is that you can have this definiteness and still be soft—it isn't a matter of volume). So I got interested in this thing and started to work on it. Back to the reed, then. I found that I couldn't get these ideas out immediately with the set-up I had. It just wouldn't come out. I was hung up with sound. I wanted it to sound right, and in order for it to sound right it had to come out slower, not quite so quickly. Well, I knew that if I got a soft reed it would come right out. But then I also knew that I would get a thin, weak sound. But, I forced myself to try it. I had tried it before, actually, down through the years every once in awhile I'd try getting a softer reed because I knew I could play faster with it, but I could never bring myself to stick with it because of the sound. Well this time something happened, either in my experience, my success, my maturity or something, I reached the point where I'm not afraid to sound ugly for a little bit. And that is what had to happen, I had to soften that reed up so that the music would come out right now. But it sounded sort of thin and I lost some of the quality of the sound, but it didn't bother me this time. All these things had been inside of me, but I didn't let them come out because of the sound. Once I started doing this, then I discovered a lot of things. I discovered how full of fear I was before—I was holding back a lot of things because I was afraid of sounding ugly—so I was cringing and tightening up my brow and pinching my eyes and hunching my shoulders. I was afraid of hitting certain notes because they would be too brassy. That didn't keep what I was playing from being valid, but I held some things in me back. But I got the thing going, and once I got it going, I noticed these fears, this cringing, leaving. Then I put a stopper on it, I made myself practice in front of the mirror and watching carefully to remain calm, unafraid, while I played, and I made myself play anything that would come in my mind. I worked on this thing, and threw out all that other stuff; and finally got up enough nerve to throw the rock off the cliff and just play anything I wanted to play when I wanted to play it. It was a revelation. I began thawing a year ago, and recently I finally got up enough nerve to where I felt I could really handle a blowing album by myself as a soloist. It may seem funny, with so many years of experience behind me, I hadn't made one. But the other albums were well-planned in composition and all the different elements for a planned listening experience. In a blowing album, one man is up front there and has to have something to say and he's got to be sure of what he's going to say. And I wanted to make sure before that happened that I felt that I could do it. I went into the studio last July with Red Mitchell, Lawrence Marable and Jimmy Rowles and there was no planning. The only thing planned was that I wrote three tunes, just the melodies and I thought of three standards to play. (I didn't even write any music, I taught the originals to the men by ear, which is not a new idea. First time I know of it, Monk came to a record date with Art Blakey and he had all the arrangements locked up in a brief case, and he wouldn't show them to anyone. He made them learn them which has a good point to it.) But, having to do this blowing album was necessity mothering invention. A lot happened to me as a result of that—just doing that album at this particular time with the frame of mind I had of shaking off these sound prisons, and having to do it on record. It worked to shoot me out over the cliff. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: black; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Red Mitchell says it's the best he's ever heard you play. What effect did playing with Ornette Coleman at the School of Jazz have on you?</span><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I had heard a lot about him, but then I heard him play. He was doing the same thing that I was after, in his own way. The wonderful thing about this point is that it has nothing to do with the ideas or the musical content, it has to do with the statement—and when somebody gets to this point where he can be this free and this sure in his statement, then its just a matter of his speaking. It's not competition with anyone else. You could take two men who played this way, and they could be playing completely different ideas, but they would both be projecting the maximum in immediacy and quality. So, I found that this was what Ornette was doing. He was doing a lot of other things too, but this appealed to me more than anything. Even if he said hardly anything at all, the way he said it would have come across, because he speaks directly. He has thrown out the bugaboos about being afraid of what he's going to sound like. That's what it is, it's a matter of being unafraid to stand up and be yourself—right there in public—and it's very difficult to do, but I've got on the trail of it now. Ornette's gone further with it, because he's thrown out the preoccupation with trying to fit in musically with any given situation. That's what I'd like to do. It means like almost playing flow of consciousness, playing without any regard to channeling what you're doing into a given tradition of any kind. And that means in sound, in tone, key, and all the different ways. In other words, you're so free that you're out in space, and you do what occurs to you at that instant without thinking it over. I'm not saying this is the answer to everybody's problems, but I can see a wonderful release in it for me. Ornette and I had a jam session with George Russell on the piano and some students, and Connie Kay and Percy Heath. We just cut the strings, jumped out of the airplane, and a lot of wild things happened. We didn't know what it would sound like, but it was a release anyway. But the point I'm trying to get at is that it's a matter of really not being afraid to do anything—I don't care how different from whatever else has been done. It's not just doing something because it's different, it's doing something because it occurs to you right now. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Does scale orientation (as opposed to chromatic harmonization) free the improvisor? </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">The first time I heard about that kind of thing was with George Russell. He's got a complete system, an analysis of music that places everything in scales. In all of his music, he can break it down as to what scale it is. As for myself. I don't know if I can really say, that clearly, what I'm doing when I improvise. I'm not sure I've ever been able to think about anything when I play. (Of course, playing I Got Rhythm when I come to the bridge I know it's E 7th. If anybody can avoid thinking about that, they'd be pretty, miraculous. It's E 7th—and it's like written on the wall.) But there are different things. For instance, the first eight bars of I Got Rhythm can be thought about as just being in B flat. There are all kinds of changes in there, perhaps, according to who you play with. But you can just think in B flat for the whole thing. I think more in keys than in scale—it might be the same thing the others, Miles and Bill Evans, are thinking about. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">But does scale orientation further free or is it just a different set of rules?</span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I think it is another kind of limitation perhaps. But actually it doesn't matter if it's a limitation or not, all that matters is that something comes out that somebody can enjoy. They say that certain people analyze themselves way past where they are. I've heard this about Hindemith, that he's very analytical, but his music comes out. There's the musical experience; what does it matter how much he or anybody else talks about it? If it's there, it's there, and if you get something from it, you get something from it. As I say, I don't have a way of thinking about playing, I just play. And when I start trying to follow a route—harmonically or scales or anything like that—it limits me, as you say. Of course, I'm just one person, and I work in a way that's most natural for me. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Is freedom what the scale-orientation improvisors are after? </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Yes. But I'll tell you what they're concerned with more than that. This scale approach requires a certain kind of composition that can be approached in a certain way arid they're more interested in playing that kind of a piece, and that's the way I am too. The piece must have longer harmony—pedal-point harmony. You stretch out on the same chord for a while instead of changing every two beats or every four beats. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Then pedal-point orientation does free the improvisor? </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">Yes. This kind of a piece lends itself much better to freedom than a musical comedy type of piece. Because of having to adjust to the vertical requirements, it's distracting—it's abrupt. That's why I suppose I've written contrapuntally, I can't see adjusting vertically all the time. There's going to be harmony there. This is the technique Dr. La Violette taught me a long time ago. I remember the words. 'Stretch the harmonies out, and the music will flow more smoothly.' How do you stretch the harmonies out? Well, the way you do when you write counterpoint, you don't think of the harmony vertically, but in the back you put the harmony of pedals. To explain; a pedal-point is having a certain note in tenure for several bars. A figure pedal is when you have the same figure over and over. Actually there are many kinds of pedals: it denotes a sameness over several bars. It can be one note, one chord or one figure. A sound that becomes permanent in the background—as in a painting where you would have a white background. If you stretch this pattern out over a period of time then the improvisor can just let himself go free, he can play so many things against a pedal point. He can play any note of the scale against a pedal note and it's correct and it moves on and on. This is one of the basic things in counterpoint. This is what they are discovering frees them in improvisation. Ornette, from the way I understand it, is attempting to circumvent the whole thing. In fact he and I did it this night we had this session. The rhythm section played the blues—we weren't even playing the same tempo they were. We were playing any tempo—we weren't playing any chords, any tunes, any key. We were playing anything that came in our minds. And you can plainly ask, "Well, what bearing does that have on the rhythm section playing the blues?" All I can say is that if we did it by ourselves, we wouldn't have had the way to do it. They provide a background; just like a background for a painted rose. You see that rose, and the background becomes a color. The blues is a pedal type tune you can stretch out; there are so few changes and the changes are not abrupt. </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">But do most musicians who pattern their ways of playing after, say Sonny Rollins do so to achieve freedom or to serve the hip ritual? </span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;">I'm fortunate to have waited until this time to look in on this thing—because if I didn't have my experience behind me, I might have done this same kind of thing—I might have done this superficially. But superficially you can't emulate you only imitate."</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1XD8dZi6Mns" width="320" youtube-src-id="1XD8dZi6Mns"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gdg6PgLvpqE" width="320" youtube-src-id="gdg6PgLvpqE"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EcGdvduH1io" width="320" youtube-src-id="EcGdvduH1io"></iframe></div><br /><span face="Verdana, sans-serif" style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-76927668653375121432024-02-18T14:46:00.000-08:002024-02-18T14:46:25.106-08:00Don't Mention the Blues<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://youtube.com/embed/qdmZYETm8lk?si=nHV02WEKDWdpN2jT" width="480"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-38258435163850810892024-02-18T11:56:00.000-08:002024-02-18T11:56:54.348-08:00The Gil Evans Orchestra (Usa, 1961) - Out of the cool<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://youtube.com/embed/ht55OL1vemo?si=A6lxk6tJhkT2nQid" style="background-image: url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ht55OL1vemo/hqdefault.jpg);" width="480"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-68148408212271005182024-02-17T16:06:00.000-08:002024-02-17T16:06:53.491-08:00Miles Davis - Freedom Jazz Dance<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://youtube.com/embed/yJ11cArknek?si=VOwgHbFl-PlGcBOY" style="background-image: url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/yJ11cArknek/hqdefault.jpg);" width="480"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-34231221093325584902024-02-17T16:03:00.000-08:002024-02-17T16:03:05.754-08:00Eddie Harris - Freedom Jazz Dance (VINYL: Music From The HBO® Original S...<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/dHNC4DDY5QU?si=fETBpyKMsCJ3bhrA" width="480"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-13781644601320148802024-02-17T11:47:00.000-08:002024-02-17T11:47:56.738-08:00Love For Sale - Buddy Rich<div><span id="docs-internal-guid-ed82c5f8-7fff-3a33-3d94-46ccef210209"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“It is an extraordinary experience to see and hear Rich at work, doing what he loves to do and does so phenomenally well. There are other great Jazz drummers, to be sure, but there is only one Buddy Rich.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><i>- </i>Dan Morgenstern</span></p></span></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/0gx62loIieY?si=xXnc5M-QzYj9UI03" width="480"></iframe></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6853772569125614798.post-82930477377517806772024-02-17T07:00:00.000-08:002024-02-17T07:00:00.135-08:00Don Ellis - Blindfold Test Parts 1 & 2<p> <span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; white-space-collapse: preserve;">© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-95d4fa3f-7fff-2255-53b5-37d3568f378a"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; height: 480px; overflow: hidden; width: 455px;"><img height="480" src="https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/9p_TArf9bX2P0oWVGawb21LR0OO87uT78t64ZEjZ9eSj_RTfnmUq3_yTpj-0frFIa734jBa9cED5Qjz5d4xuVNF2Qa3w0cL_Mi8snIQpeQRataBg5cjqdCLWNOSM7w-k-vbCclNt2CqO2gIkrbLFAg4" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="455" /></span></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The blog archives contain an 8-part series on trumpeter and bandleader Don Ellis which was published individually and collectively on these pages and the following is intended to add to this repository of information about one of the most original musicians in Jazz History.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The esteemed author and critic Leonard Feather, who originated the Blindfold Test and made it exclusive to </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Downbeat, </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">offered the following background information for these visits with Don which appeared in the January 9 and January 26, 1967 edition of the magazine.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“When Don Ellis first took the Blindfold Test (</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">DB,</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Nov. 8 and 22, 1962), he was introduced as a leading figure in the New Wave.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">After a few years of name-band sideman work, notably with Maynard Ferguson, he branched out on his own for a while with various groups and worked with George Russell.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Not until 1964, when he returned to his native Los Angeles, did a significant pattern emerge. It was then that he displayed the fruits of his studies with Indian percussionist Hari Har Rao, who played with him in the Hindustani Jazz Sextet. About the same time, Ellis' big band started as a workshop group, began playing one night a week publicly in a club, and established itself beyond cavil as the hit of the '66 Monterey and Pacific festivals.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In Ellis' latest </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Blindfold Tes</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">t, as I expected, he was characteristically articulate.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">[I would say that Don was “articulate” in the extreme in the following interviews. Don knew what he was talking about and could explain it cogently and coherently.]</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">1. STAN KENTON.<i> Septuor from Antares</i> (from</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Adventures in Time,</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Capitol). Marv Stamm, trumpet; Johnny Richards, composer.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Well, that was Stan Kenton and his mellophoniums, and it's from the album that he did where they were experimenting with different time pieces, this piece being 7/4. The 7/4 pattern, when you do it in 4 rather than 7/8, is much easier to feel, as far as being able to play a solo over it, but it is much harder to keep your place when you are soloing, because it's similar to two bars of 4/4.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">That's why I noticed the trumpet soloist was mostly floating over the time, and would usually come out a beat late in his phrase. He would come out to end on 1 but would end on 2, because the measure was only seven beats long. I think it was probably Marv Stamm; he's a good player, but you could tell he wasn't exactly sure where 1 was.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I was talking to some of the guys that made this album, and they were saying how much they scuffled with it to learn these times [time signatures], because I don't think they had much of a chance when they made this album to go out on the road and play it; they just came in the studio and recorded it.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">From experience, I know it has taken my band about a year to get comfortable in these different times. Now I can bring in any time signature, and once they learn the pattern, they've got it. They can sight-read it almost immediately.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I know at first when a guy comes into the band and tries to sit in with us, he has a terrible time. It shouldn't be that hard; we should be used to it, but the sad fact is that jazz has been boxed up in 4/4 and 3/4 time for so long that it just seems very unnatural.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In other cultures 7/4, 9/4, and 5/4, those are the basic patterns. There is nothing really intrinsically hard about this— it's just that learning it is a slightly different feeling. I think Stan is to be congratulated for being one of the first to really explore the time-signature thing in terms of big band.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I get sort of oppressed. I like — and I find it very exciting to have — heavy brass and screaming trumpets; I like that a lot, but when you hear it from beginning to end of the track, with no variation in dynamics particularly, it gets very oppressive.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">That's one slight criticism I've always had for a lot of Stan's work. When you have a big band, especially with as many brass as there is on this record, it's very easy to get that oppressive heaviness going with the brass. It is much more of a challenge to get something light happening.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">From playing in a section, I know when you have five trumpets and five trombones, and other horns, just to be heard, there's a tendency to play out as loud as you can and forget the dynamics.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">All and all, I thought it was a step in the right direction. It rates four stars.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">2. BOBBY HUTCHERSON. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Juba Dance</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> (from </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Component,</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Blue Note). Hutcherson, vibraharp, marimba; Joe Chambers, drums, composer; James Spaulding, flute.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The overall concept of this reminds me of a couple of very effective things I have heard recently, one by Yusef Lateef. I don't know what the name of it was; he had a very simple background and over a sort of a drone, and the rest of the group was playing very pointillistic things over it. It was very charming, very effective, and just recently I heard Charles Lloyd doing very much the same thing. They set up a sort of a drone and do all sorts of things above it. This seems to be the same type of conception.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In this case, I didn't have a feeling that the piece got anywhere. It didn't develop one particular mood to any great length. There was no real unity between the piece and the solos, aside from the background, which just kept on and on.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">It reminds me of a sort of stream-of-consciousness writing; this is the analogue in music, and to me this is the least interesting type of jazz improvisation, because that is the easiest thing to do — just to sit up there and let your thoughts come out. The hardest thing to do is to sit there and organize your thoughts on the spur of the moment and come up with a beautifully constructed, well-organized solo or group improvisation.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">It happens so rarely; only a handful of jazz masterpieces ever achieved this.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Also, the head, the form of the piece — where everybody blows the head, then everybody solos and then you take the head out again — is ancient bebop. In this context, you would hope to hear something a little more imaginative than that.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">All in all, I wasn't too impressed with it — it was fair. I kept thinking something was going to happen; it's too bad.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I won't hazard a guess who it was, because a lot of guys now are doing this type of thing. It's like when bebop got all its imitators, everybody sounded alike. Now all the guys that are doing this type of thing sound alike, with the exceptions of the ones that are really developing a personal style, like Charles Lloyd and John Handy and people like that.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">3. GIL EVANS.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> El Toreador</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> (from</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> The Individualism of Gil Evans,</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Verve). Johnny Coles, trumpet; Evans, piano, composer.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Well, it was Gil and Johnny. I was talking with a well-known arranger about Gil a few months ago; he had been back in New York and had heard him, and he thought that Gil sounded like be was rewriting</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Sketches of Spain </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">in as many different ways as possible and that what he heard was all these long, drawn-out sounds but not too much happening. I think that is what is going on in this particular track.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Gil is one of the great masters of jazz orchestration. But this particular period that he seems to be in right now is one of his least interesting from the standpoint of listening, because, well, I'm not particularly interested in hearing long, sustained sounds forever and ever.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">My main interest in jazz and in any music is rhythmic interest, and, of course, there is practically none in tracks like this. The mood that it gets could be very effective as part of a larger piece. But even then I didn't feel that it had the intensity that it should have had.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">It should have been much more dramatic, much more gripping than it was; it started to get into something, but it couldn't quite make it. I would like to hear Gil, instead of getting bogged down in all these drones and this particular thing that he is in now, get into more rhythmic things, using his beautiful sensitivities for orchestration but put it to a more exciting use than he has in the last few months — I guess ... I don't know how long this has been going on.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">As far as rating goes, here again it was good—I would say three stars.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(Continued in next issue)</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">1. ANDREW HILL.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Spectrum</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> (from </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Point of Departure</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, Blue Note). Eric Dolphy, bass clarinet; Hill, piano, composer; Anthony Williams, drums.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">One thing that Eric Dolphy always had was a sense of the dramatic, a sense of form. In the </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Blindfold Test</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> we did three or four years back, I commented that I liked what Eric did, but I felt his choice of notes was sometimes open to question; he tends to repeat licks that you have heard him do a hundred times before. In this particular track he seemed to be very creative, and seemed to stay away from those.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">One very valuable lesson that the avant-gardist can learn from Eric is that the sense of urgency — the sense of drama that he has in his playing, the violent contrast that he would sometimes use — this immediately gives it more direction.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The piece in itself was rather interesting, sort of a small suite.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I would like to comment on the drummer, who could have been Tony Williams. This particular style of drumming, breaking up the time into different fragments, can be very effective, but it also can be very deadly, particularly behind the piano solo, the first solo on the record — I felt that the time lost its intensity. The interest was there, the imagination was there, what he was doing was interesting, but he got into this sort of floating feeling, where the time is there, but it is not really played. This feeling is not one of which I am particularly fond, because I like to hear, for the most part, a very definite driving type of beat, and I don't like to hear just that — I like to hear all the variations and the imaginations.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The tendency for the younger drummers of today is to try and break things up, which is all well and good, very imaginative, but they lose the intensity of the great masters of jazz drums in the past.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">That's a shame, because once you lose that you lose 90 percent of what jazz time is all about, and I think it is possible to break up the time and still keep the swinging feeling. In fact, one of the most effective devices — I've heard Tony do this at times with Miles — he'll break up the time so that you think it is gone, but all of a sudden come right in on 1, and really be cooking. This can really lift an audience right off their chairs if it is done right, but it wasn't that way in this track.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">For me, the most interesting section was the 5/4 section that they got into. But just to repeat an abbreviated form of the beginning at the end was sort of a cop-out, compositionally. The piece, to be really effective, should have built someplace and should have gone to a climax or tied things together in some sort of way; it really didn't end successfully for me. There were some good moments, especially Eric's playing. I give it 3 1/2 stars.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">2. THAD JONES-MEL LEWIS. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Don't Ever Leave Me.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">(from </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The Jazz Orchestra, </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Solid State). Jones, fluegelhorn, composer, arranger; Joe Farrell, flute; Lewis, drums.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Play it once more. ... It is nice to hear a big band using all different kinds of colors. When I first heard it with the woodwinds and everything, I thought it was Gary McFarland, but then when I heard Thad Jones, I surmised that it might be the new band that he and Mel have. That being the case, I was rather surprised — I haven't heard the band yet — but from reading reviews, that wasn't what I expected to hear.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The piece was utterly charming, and Thad sounded gorgeous. Especially at the end, he played a couple of phrases that just knocked me out.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Although I haven't heard him play for several years, the flutist sounded to me like it might be ... what I would imagine Joe Farrell would be sounding like now; especially at the end, he got in some good things too. Sounded very nice—4 1/2 stars.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">3. DAVE BRUBECK. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">World's Fair</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> (from </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Time Changes</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">, Columbia). Paul Desmond, alto saxophone; Brubeck, piano, composer; Eugene Wright, bass; Joe Morello, drums.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">There is nothing like a nice relaxed 13!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I liked the pattern very much 3-3-2-2-3 or 6 plus 7 or 13. Dave Brubeck has been playing these time things as a group longer than anyone else, but they don't seem to be very free within the time yet. For example, on this one they just kept playing the same basic beat. In other words they haven't got to the point yet where they can really mess with the time. I am a little surprised — I mean after playing these things for so many years. It seems they should be much further into it, given the amount of time they have been doing it.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I'm delighted to hear them doing this. This is the first time I have heard them playing in 13, and they played in it all the way through. Some of their original things they did, like the Rondo a la Turk, where they did the Turkish 9, they sort of copped out and went into 4/4 for blowing, but they stayed with this all the time.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">I noticed Dave was having a little trouble there keeping his left hand right on the rhythm, but he came out okay. This is the type of thing I find most exciting — I'm just sorry that Dave and his group haven't been able to develop a more flowing thing, to get a little more imaginative. But the piece is nice; let's give them four stars.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">4. YUSEF LATEEF. Kyoto Blues (from A Flat, C Flat and C, Impulse). Lateef, composer, bamboo flute; Hugh Lawson, piano; Reggie Workman, bass; Roy Brooks, drums.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">There are some amazing slides on the flute there at the beginning and — that leads me to believe that it was probably played on a wood flute, where all the finger holes are open, and you can control the air more than on a normal flute.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">That also leads me to surmise that it might be somebody like Yusef Lateef, who has a fantastic command of unusual flutes. Last year I saw him in Buffalo, and his pockets were bulging with all kinds of flutes; he is quite an amazing musician.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">One thing that didn't make too much sense in this context was to have the drums playing in a fast 7 and the piano playing in a slow 4/4 against that and the bass somewhere in between. To have all different meters going at once can be exciting in certain cases, but in this case nobody really played in any one of them; everybody just played in their own meter, and it never came together; consequently, it lost the effectiveness it could have had had the things come together occasionally or had one of the soloists, for instance, gone with the drums in 7 or something.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">But the original idea I thought was excellent. The rest of the record didn't come up to the level of the original conception.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">The solos weren't as imaginative as the piece, so for the original conception I'll give it four stars, but an over-all rating would be somewhat less than that.”</span></p><br /><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0