"Magna-Tism:" Pete Christlieb and Warne Marsh in "Conversation" [From the Archives]

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“By far the most loyal and literal of the Tristano disciples, Warne Marsh sedulously avoided the 'jazz life', cleaving to an improvisatory philosophy that was almost chilling in its purity. Anthony Braxton called him the 'greatest vertical improviser' in the music, and a typical Marsh solo was discursive and rhythmically subtle, full of coded tonalities and oblique resolutions. He cultivated a glacial tone (somewhat derived from Lester Young) that splintered awkwardly in the higher register and which can be off-putting for listeners conditioned by Bird and Coltrane. Marsh's slightly dry, almost papery tone is instantly recognizable.”

- Richard Cook and Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Ed.

“Influenced by Sonny Rollins and Zoot Sims, Christlieb plays with power even at the fastest tempos, yet his delivery of ballads invariably shows fine feeling; he is also a convincing interpreter of the blues. His proficiency on a number of reed and woodwind instruments and his strength as a tenor saxophone soloist explains his popularity with the leaders of studio bands.”

- Mark Gardner, Barry Kernfeld, ed., The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz

I’ve always been a great fan of two tenor saxophone front lines backed by a piano/guitar, bass and drums rhythm section.

This fondness dates back to the great “chases” between Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray, to the duels between Gene Ammons/Sonny Stitt Eddie "Lockjaw" David/Johnny Griffin and to the less fractious more melodic versions headed up by Zoot Sims and Al Cohn and by Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott.

If you were going out looking for two saxophonists who would play well together it’s a safe bet that you wouldn’t come up with the pairing of Warne Marsh and Pete Christlieb.  Marsh is one of the genuine mavericks of the tenor saxophone. He perfected his art under the influence of Lennie Tristano’s cool, rigorous discipline, but very early on he managed to develop a style of his own that was [and remains to this day] wholly unpredictable.

He will play double time, half-time and apparently out of time in the course of a single phrase; just when he seems to be lagging lethargically behind the beat, you blink your eyes and find him right on top of it.

Pete Christlieb, whose father is a concert classical bassoonist, now at work recording the complete works of Hindemith, is a big toned, technically awesome, straight-ahead swinger. He was a member of The Tonight Show Band for several years, and while those who have been lucky enough to hear him play small group Jazz have come away mightily impressed, it is unlikely that any of them came away thinking about pairing him with Warne Marsh.

Pete and Warne actually came up with the idea of playing together.

They made a recording of tenor duets, backed by bass and drums, that eventually found its way to Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, who are better known as the multi-platinum winning rock group Steely Dan. Again the combination is not the kind of thing that spontaneously comes easily to mind.

Fagen and Becker are adroit masters of traditional Jazz harmonies, and more than that, they are interested in and perhaps obsessed by the iconology of Jazz, They’ve written a song about Charlie Parker [“Parker’s Band”], rearranged Duke Ellington’s “East St. Louis Toodle - Oo” for a rock band and pedal steel guitar and conducted a particularly knowing examination of what can only be termed the impulse of Jazz in their song “Deacon Blues.” That song features a tenor sax solo by Pete Christlieb.

And so, circuitously, but inevitably, we come to Apogee [Warner Brothers BSK 3236; CD version 8122-73723-2], the first Jazz album produced by Fagen and Becker, Christlieb’s first record on a major label, and Marsh’s first record on a major label in years, And, it should be added before we go any further, a spectacular record by anybody’s standards. For it turns out that the two principals make a spectacular team. Their very different styles offer a refreshing contrast, and they play together with impressive savvy, projecting a deceptive but extremely invigorating impression of total abandon. This is winging, exceptionally inventive Jazz of a kind that isn’t even found on obscure collector record labels very much anymore. Despite Fagen’s remark that the album is “basically for tenor freaks,” it’s got enough spirit to appeal to just about anybody.

It’s evident that a lot of care went into the making of Apogee. To begin with, the right rhythm section had to be found. Lou Levy, the pianist turned in an astonishing performance of Warne Marsh’s album All Music [Nessa Records]. His rich, deftly placed, chording frames the tenor solos brilliantly and his own improvisations are fresh and consistently inventive. Bassist Jim Hughart and drummer Nick Ceroli kick things along without getting in the way of the soloists. They are a living embodiment of that “good and forward propelling directionality” as Gunther Schuller once called swing, but not once are they overbearing about it.

The Warner Brothers LP version of Apogee was released in 1978 but tapes with more music from the September 15, 1978 sessions on which bassist Jim Hughart also served as recording engineer eventually found their way to Gerry Teekens who in 1991, released them as two CD’s on his Criss Cross Jazz label: Conversations with Warne: Pete Christlieb Quartet Vol. 1 [Criss 1043] and Conversations with Warne: Pete Christlieb Quartet Vol. 2 [Criss 1103].

The three discs contain 25 tracks of some of the most astonishing two tenor saxophone ever produced in the context of modern Jazz, especially for its harmonic content and approach which is what distinguishes Warne and Pete from previous tenor saxophone duos.

Yet, for all their harmonic density, a lightness of touch and agility shines through each of these performances which serves to demonstrate some rather capricious intelligence at work here.

Very few musicians have the talent and ability to create Jazz on this level: “Magna-tism,” indeed.

Pete Christlieb explains how it all came about in the following insert notes to

Conversations with Warne:

“During the 1970's in Los Angeles, I met Warne Marsh at a rehearsal with Clare Fischer's Big Band. The tenors sat together so we shook hands while Clare counted off Lenny's Pennies. Playing Tristano's line for the first time was like trying to change the fan belt on a car while it's running. We traded choruses and eights, which provided our formal introduction as I remember. Aware of Warne's reputation I was thrilled when he mentioned that one of his students had brought in my first album. I thought he was going to be critical about it, and rightfully so but to my surprise, he said that by analyzing the solos, he was able to teach with it.

After the rehearsal, we talked for awhile and he told me things about my playing I didn't know I was doing.

[Alto sax/flutist] Gary Foster was there when our meeting took place ten years ago, and just the other day he reminded me that I mistakenly addressed Warne as ‘Warno' during that conversation. We all knew a saxophone player by the name of Arno Marsh. Consequently, his great sense of humor kept me from looking even dumber. He asked for some extra copies of my album; and I told him this would be no problem because most of them were still in my garage.

Months later I received an invitation from my friend Jim Hughart to come by and listen to a trio recording session he was producing for Warne. Hearing this group with Jim on bass and Nick Ceroli on drums, I noticed that the absence of piano made Warne sound more abstract and complex white creating a melodically defined harmonic atmosphere.

Warne and Jim were creating enough of the harmonic image to make me realize that they actually didn't need piano. I asked Warne if he had any plans to add piano later and his reply swiftly nailed the question to the wall. 'I like to work this way because it gives me more freedom and avoids any harmonic conflict with an unfamiliar player. Do you realize that every time he puts his hands on the keyboard he's telling you what to do? Lenny was my piano player, and if I can't get him, I would just as soon work alone.' Then jokingly he added, 'Besides we're splitting his bread.'

Limping back to the booth, I began to ponder my first lesson about asking questions and during the next take, my ears told me everything I wanted to know anyway.

Playing together, this trio sounded as if they were controlled by one mind. Utilizing complete control of a seemingly endless source of melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic options, Warne Marsh created, without sounding mechanical, and his music was an inspiration.

After the session, we listened to the tape several times, allowing Warne the opportunity to making a decision. He was very critical of himself and that decision was made after several hours of 'Well, I don't know, play the first one again.'

When they decided to end this incredibly artistic evening, I couldn't hide my feelings toward being left out. I asked Warne if he would consider making an

album with me. His reply to my question was 'Yes!’ We decided to use the same rhythm section and start a month later.

It is important to mention that all of the material for the trio album was improvised over the chord changes from standard tunes and our quartet album was planned the same way. I learned here that having this artistic freedom placed enormous responsibility upon all of us during take-offs and landings. Needless to say, we crashed a few before attaining that synchronization.

With high expectations, we began our first album by recording several tunes in a row without repeating. This helped to avoid boredom and the inevitable case of 'the claw.’

The intensity within our combined efforts drove us to the point of mental and physical exhaustion. As a result, none of us felt that Jazz history had been made that night, however we all agreed to the fact that something good was going to happen. Considering this first session as an opportunity for group familiarization and direction, we decided to quit for the night.

A few days later with fresh ears, Jim and I got together and listened to the tape. We then realized that our efforts had in fact measured up to those high expectations. Warne and I traded thoughts during improvisation throughout the entire session, making me believe that this was no fluke. I can attribute this uncanny rapport to the fact that we had mutual intentions for the creation of music, rather than ‘note-atomic war'.

Considering all of the great players Warne had worked with, it would be presumptuous of me to say that this was a first for him. To me, however, this meant that many of those records in my collection featuring two well known tenor players, now represented the sword fight in a pirate picture. These records did provide many hours of inspiration, and besides, it was a chance to get two great players for the price of one. Having this melodic form of conversation as another creative option, we made it a point to have Jim and Nick lay out periodically during our second session. At one point we began to improvise together in harmony and after hearing this back, we all got goose bumps.

Over the next few months, we were able to develop a telepathic relationship and our communication remained constant even during 180 MPH tempos.

While our working relationship grew stronger over these months so did my curiosity of his unique approach to improvising. One day he played something very melodic and dissonant at the same time while offsetting or displacing the phrase in double time feel. 'How did you do that?' I asked him. He said, 'You don't want to get involved, it will only confuse you.' He did however agree to write out a lesson plan for me to look at later.

The plan called for a phrase to be composed four bars long and memorized. You start the metronome at a reasonable tempo and begin playing your phrase an eighth of a beat later. Now start your phrase on the quarter and so on. Be sure to take plenty of change along with you to call home [when you get lost].

Designed to develop your mental dexterity, this exercise was set aside because it was, in fact, confusing to me at the time, I needed to be fluent and uninhibited.

Another option I learned from him, was to build on a phrase by imitating or inverting the previous one. Connecting them will improve your melodic flow and even more important, make you think.

There were many other things Warne did that became an influence on my playing as a result of our association, I am reminded of that fact every time I get the opportunity to play.

My influence on his playing, I feel, after listening to the tape was a combination of two things. His tone became brighter and my time feel persuaded him to play with more intensity. This subtle influence comes as an enormous compliment and those who knew him can tell you that Warne Marsh was a dedicated innovator.

Warne's early influences were probably the same great players we all listened to for inspiration, but he never let them dictate his thoughts. My tribute to this kind and dedicated man lies in the fact that Warne Marsh was to the Jazz tenor saxophone, truly an original.”

Forever his student,

Pete Christlieb

Pete Christlieb - The Gordon Jack Interview [From the Archives]

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“It was thanks to Bob Cooper that I became one of the Lighthouse All-Stars. … I played with Sonny Criss there, and going toe-to-toe with him was like standing in front of a wheat-eater. I mean, he was geared to play with guys like Sonny Stitt, which I wasn't at the time, and I got beat-up pretty good. He was impressed that I was willing to get up on the stand with him, so we became buddies and he was like a father figure to me.”

- Pete Christlieb

“In the early seventies I met Warne Marsh for the first time at a rehearsal with Clare Fischer's big band. The tenors sat next to each other, and we shook hands as Clare counted off "Lennie's Pennies." Playing Tristano’s line for the first time was like trying to change the fan belt on a car while it is still running.”

- Pete Christlieb

I did get to play with Basie in 1983, when Eric Schneider telephoned and asked me to dep for him during the band's week-long appearance at Disneyworld. Danny Turner and Eric Dixon were in the section, and the first tune every night was "Corner Pocket," featuring me. I had been listening to that arrangement for years, so I didn't have to read it; I just walked up to the microphone and blew the shit out of the solo. On the first night, after I sat down, Basie leaned over to me and said, "What did you say your name was?"

- Pete Christlieb

One of the great benefits of residing in Southern California has been the opportunity to listen to Pete Christlieb perform on many occasions in a variety of Jazz settings.

He is a tower of power on the instrument and plays it with great command, singularity and inventiveness. A few notes and you know its Pete. The kind of original voice all Jazz players strive to achieve seems to flow effortlessly from the bell of his horn.

While playing in a big band, all of his sax section mates pay him the ultimate compliment of looking up at him when he stands to solo and nodding their heads in approval at his creations.

When soloing in a small group, you hate to be the one taking your solo after his. He is such a forceful and singular improviser whether he’s devastating the changes to Cherokee or enhancing the melodic beauty and lyrical poignancy of If You Could See Me Now that it takes the audience a bit of time to deal with the “after shock!”

Sadly, although he’s played with the big bands of Woody Herman, Louie Bellson and Bill Holman, as well as, being a fixture for two decades on Doc Severinson’s “Tonight Show” Band, he has never had a recording contract with a major label.

Not surprisingly for someone who is such a dominant and overriding soloist, Pete holds strong opinions and views about Jazz music and Jazz makers.  He has also had a variety of mentors whom he recalls fondly including, Russ Cheaver of the Hollywood Saxophone Quartet, Bob Cooper whose place he took with the Lighthouse All-Stars, and indirectly, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, who had a great influence on Pete’s style, and Warne Marsh, with whom Pete recorded three wonderful albums.

His time on all of these major bands, his influences and his gigs with everyone from Chet Baker to Frank Rosolino are all recounted in the following interview as given to Gordon Jack, Fifties Jazz Talk: An Oral Retrospective [Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, 2004, pp. 53-60; paragraphing modified].

Gordon’s interview with Pete also appeared in JazzJournal magazine in March, 2000. You can locate more information on the latter by going here.

© -Gordon Jack, used with the author’s permission; copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Despite his nearly forty years in the business, it is still one of the very best kept secrets in jazz that Pete Christlieb is one of the music's most exciting and inventive tenor players. He has worked with Count Basie, Louie Bellson, Bob Florence, and Woody Herman. When we met in 1999, he was a featured soloist with the Bill Holman band at a party to celebrate Vic Lewis's eightieth birthday.

“I was born on March 16, 1945, in Los Angeles. My father was a professional bassoon player at Twentieth Century Fox, and as a youngster I listened with him to Boulez, Schoenberg, Stockhausen, Stravinsky, and Villa-Lobos, because our house was full of classical music. Stravinsky often came over to rehearse with my dad, so it is not surprising that I took up the bassoon and, a little later, the violin.

It wasn't until I was about thirteen years old that I first heard some jazz. We had a few Gerry Mulligan Quartet albums lying around the house, and that's when I decided to learn the saxophone, which turned out to be a lot easier than the violin; you press a button and you get a note.

When I was about sixteen, I played in a Saturday morning rehearsal band with some other kids my age, and occasionally somebody good would sit in, to show us how the charts should really sound. The great Joe Maini once visited and played the lead alto chair, and he was so good, it was frightening. He more or less said, "You follow me, kid, and try to stick close to my ass, because we're going down the road and we're going fast!" Man, what authority. It was just fantastic to play in the section with him.

The first road band I played with was Sy Zentner, who gave me a call when I was about eighteen and flew me to Chicago. Although it was a dance band, they had a lot of nice arrangements, and being the solo tenor, I had the opportunity to play a little bit. Of course I wanted to be like Gerry Mulligan and play in a small group, but before you can do that, you have to pay your dues and go to "boot camp" on the road in a bus, just like everyone else.

Sy told me there were also some clarinet parts, so before I left town, I had to take lessons real quick with Russ Cheaver, who was wonderful. He was at Fox with my father and had played many fine clarinet solos in motion pictures over the years, and he was also the lead soprano with the Hollywood Saxophone Quartet. In just three lessons he taught me enough for my chair, which was really "industrial strength" clarinet, where you don't play any lead or any jazz, just a lot of whole notes. Gene Goe, who was the lead trumpet with Basie for a long time, was in the band. The bass player was Jeff Castleman, who had recommended me to Sy. Jeff eventually went with Duke Ellington and married the singer Trish Turner.

When we were playing opposite Harry James at Lake Tahoe, I used to sit in with his band when Sy's gig finished, because Harry's last set was a jam session. We stood next to each other, and he was just outstanding. Even though he was a hell of a drinker, he could always function, and he was such a great instrumentalist, he could play every part in the book. Harry was wonderful, and there was a camaraderie in his band rather like a bunch of guys fighting a war.

I was still too young to get into most of the jazz clubs, where you had to be twenty-one because of the drinking laws, but the Lighthouse served food, which gave them a loophole. Teenagers could go and listen, and that's where I asked Bob Cooper for some lessons. It turned out that he lived a block from our house and knew my father by reputation, and although he was not a regular teacher, I went to him for a couple of years for fine-tuning. If Lester Young had lived that long, I think he might have sounded like Coop, because Bob was such a fluent player.

He started me thinking about new possibilities and other avenues for improvisation, and we studied the old Nicolas Slonimsky book on scales and melodic patterns that everybody has [Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns]. If you really listen, you will hear people quoting from that book all the time. You know, the more I listen to Al Cohn and Zoot Sims from those days, the more I realize how much they influenced me, because they were both highly lyrical "Song in My Heart" type players, just like Bob.

When I was in New York in the early sixties, I used to visit the Half Note and watch Zoot go through his routine of looking away from the bartender and dropping his empty glass fifteen feet from the bandstand. The guy would catch it, fill it up, and pass it right back up to him. Zoot was a clever guy; he was like the Will Rogers of the tenor. Al was also clever and very funny, and together they were pretty wild. I got to know Al well a few years later at the Dick Gibson Jazz Parties in Colorado, and I told him what a pleasure it was playing with someone I idolized as a child. I used flattery as my opening approach, and it worked!

It was thanks to Bob Cooper that I became one of the Lighthouse All-Stars. He was playing on the Dean Martin Show at NBC, so he used to send me to me club as his substitute. I played with Sonny Criss there, and going toe-to-toe with him was like standing in front of a wheat-eater. I mean, he was geared to play with guys like Sonny Stitt, which I wasn't at the time, and I got beat-up pretty good. He was impressed that I was willing to get up on the stand with him, so we became buddies and he was like a father figure to me. I also played a few weeks with Hampton Hawes, who was a sweetheart. And Frank Butler, another genius, was the drummer. This was around 1965, but it wasn't too long before they changed the format and the Lighthouse All-Star era sort of "uglied" away into the sunset, collapsing in a heap of dust.

Soon afterwards, Chet Baker called me for a gig with Terry Trotter, Ray Brown, and Colin Bailey at one of those unattractive little bars near L.A. airport, the Boom-Boom room or some such name. It was a strange part of town, but people were flocking there to hear the great Chet. There was nothing written; he just called tunes and we played. After that, he had another date in Pueblo, Colorado, and he asked me to go with him. If I had been a little older and wiser, I would have asked for the money up front, because at the end of the week I didn't get enough from him to pay my hotel bill, let alone get home. This is what happens when you work for a junkie, so you really have to watch out for yourself.

Musically it was the best because he was playing beautifully, but everything else was a tragedy! I did some tunes alone with the rhythm section that I wanted him to play, and after a couple of times he had them down - he had great ears. Anyway, my wife and I had only been married a couple of months, and here we were in this little hotel in Colorado Springs; eventually I had to wire for money to get home, and that was the end of my career with Chet Baker. I think Phil Urso took my place.

I went back to L.A. and got a call from trumpeter Bobby Bryant, who was in town and making a big impression with Gerald Wilson's band. He wanted me for his steady gig at Marty's down on 58th and Broadway, which featured a hot organ and two-tenor group, along with Bobby.

This was around the time of the big riot in Watts, and the club was located at ground zero there. I waltzed on over, and the first thing they told me to do was to take the battery out and put it in the trunk so I could start my car after the job.

I was replacing Herman Riley for six weeks while he went on the road with Louie Bellson and Pearl Bailey, and the other tenor was Hadley Caliman, who was quite an exponent of the John Coltrane approach. Now I was from the tough "Lockjaw" Davis school, with some Gene Ammons, Coleman Hawkins, and Zoot Sims thrown in, so we went at it like a sword fight in a pirate picture every night! Bobby was on staff at NBC, so he would come in later and get in the middle, saying something like, "O.K., you guys-cool down!"

It was a wonderful experience. I learned the technique of how to really work a rhythm section on the bandstand - what to do and what not to do, and if you are going to play more than two choruses on anything, you had better have a good reason. That job lasted a couple of years, because when Herman got back, Hadley took off.

In 1966 I was at the Flamingo in Las Vegas, backing Della Reese with another two-tenor and trumpet group. Buddy Childers was the leader, and the other tenor was Jimmy "Night Train" Forrest. Della was a big star, but she was a real sweetheart, and it was fun working for her because she didn't act big time at all  - just a great gal and one of the guys.

Woody Herman was at the Tropicana, and Buddy used to hang out there all the time, and when our job with Della finished, it was Buddy who recommended me to Woody, because Joe Farrell was leaving. Bill Byrne, who played trumpet and was the band manager, called and asked me to join them at the Chez Club in West Hollywood. I had all the records with Sal Nistico and the '63-64 band, so I was already familiar with the music, and I was like a young lion ready to take on the world - let me have at it! I really roared through the stuff, and Woody was pretty cool.

At the end of the first week, we had a party at his house in the Hollywood Hills, which used to be Humphrey Bogart's old place, and he gave us the "Cook's Tour." We got to this beautiful bathroom, which looked like the municipal plunge. It was like a big swimming pool about eight feet deep, and it would have taken about two hours to fill it up. I said something like, "Hell, Woody, what do you need that for?" and he said "To soak a sore ass, kid. Now keep moving and don't loiter!"

The word was that we were going to Europe, and two days before we were due to split, Woody said he wanted to talk to me. I thought that I had been doing pretty well and he wanted to give me a raise, but he told me that I was not going, which was like a harpoon to the old ego.

Apparently Sal Nistico wanted to come back, and Woody needed him for his big name and crowd appeal, because he would be a big draw in Europe. The deal in those days with big bands was that if they let you go, they had to give two weeks notice or two weeks pay, and as they were leaving straight away, I was supposed to get the money, which was $300.  At the time, everyone was making $150 a week unless you were on Basie's band, for instance, where some of those guys were on about $500, and Sonny Payne was probably getting $2,500 a week. Woody said to go and see his personal manager, Abe Turchen, and you can guess exactly what happened; I got nothing but a promise. About a week later, Byrne phoned from Switzerland and told me that, as soon as the plane landed Sal disappeared and wasn't seen again.

They had been using some other guy, but Woody wanted me back. No. had just had a call from one of the trombone players who was booking for Buddy Rich's band, and he offered me $175, so I told Bill I would come back for $225 clear. In other words, they could pay the tax. He replied, "$225 clear? I'll have to ask Woody." I could hear Woody in the room with Bill saying, "Christlieb that S.O.B.! Stan Getz didn't get $225 clear." Then Bill says, "Well, that'll be fine with Woody!"

I rejoined the band in Oklahoma City, and by this time it was a completely different band; everyone had left. Cecil Payne was on baritone, and the other tenors were Steve Lederer and Steve Marcus. With Woody, if you played first tenor, you had all the hip lead parts and the third chair had all the jazz. I was playing second, which was known as "The Bermuda Triangle," where you got nothing. It was the lackluster position in the band, with no fun and no glory. I had no jazz to play except on the last set every night, when I had a couple of choruses of the blues in A-flat on "Woodchoppers Ball." Eventually I told Woody that it was ridiculous, because I had come on the band to blow, so I quit and I never did get my $300!

Around 1970 1 had a call from Louie Bellson, who was rehearsing a band down at the union prior to going on the road with Pearl Bailey. He is the nicest man in the world, and I am still working with him thirty years later.

Just before joining Louie, I had been working at a club owned by Fletcher Henderson's brother, Horace. He had known Pearl for years, and he gave me a note for her. She always did have an ego like a blowtorch, and when I gave it to her, she just exploded and started shouting at me about taking up her time with something she considered trivial. Louie told her to give me a break, and the next day, she bought me an expensive sweater as an apology. During the tour, every time we had a scene, she bought me another one, and I still have about twenty-five beautiful sweaters from getting beat-up by Pearl Bailey!

One night I fell asleep onstage, and she hit me so hard that I fell over and took the rest of the sax section with me, music stands and all! The audience loved it and thought it was part of the act because it looked like the Keystone Cops. Louie told me that when Joe Louis was guesting with them in the fifties, she kept picking on Joe and throwing punches at him. Eventually he said to Louie, "Please tell your old lady to cut it out, because it really hurts when she hits, man. She's got a helluva punch!"

I made the first few rehearsals with Supersax, but I quit very soon because it was so arduous and repetitive. The concept of playing Charlie's solos was beautiful, and when I heard their first record, I was a little envious of the guys who stuck with it, because it took a long time to get it right. It needed a certain personality who would sit down and work hard, but I was not willing to spend that much time. If there had been opportunities to blow, I might have remained, but the guys were so tired from playing about 23,000 notes that, when it reached the point of someone taking a chorus, the saxes needed a rest. That's why Frank Rosolino or Conte Candoli were hired.

In the early seventies I met Warne Marsh for the first time at a rehearsal with Clare Fischer's big band. The tenors sat next to each other, and we shook hands as Clare counted off "Lennie's Pennies." Playing Tristano’s line for the first time was like trying to change the fan belt on a car while it is still running. Afterwards, Warne told me that he was using an album of mine as a teaching device for one of his students, demonstrating which series of notes I used moving from chord to chord. He actually told me things about my playing I didn't know I was doing. He was totally unique, and you will never in your life hear anyone play with quite that same chromatic approach. The Tristano method could be tedious and involved, but Warne made it more palatable and less cumbersome by swinging a little harder. I learned different ways of improvising from him, especially with regard to economy and selectivity.'

I was on the Tonight Show from 1970 to 1990, and it was a great gig with steady money. We made scale, which was $175 per night, plus doubles, although everyone thought we made a lot more because they saw us on T.V. every night. These days, on the Star Trek show, for instance, I play clarinet, bass clarinet, flute, and a little tenor, and in one four-hour call, I take home what I used to make in an entire week on the Tonight Show. All through those years, I had regular offers to tour with people like Count Basie and Harry James, but I always sent one of my students. I kick myself now for turning down some good offers, but why go on the road when I had a steady gig in town?

I did get to play with Basie in 1983, when Eric Schneider telephoned and asked me to dep for him during the band's weeklong appearance at Disneyworld. Danny Turner and Eric Dixon were in the section, and the first tune every night was "Corner Pocket," featuring me. I had been listening to that arrangement for years, so I didn't have to read it; I just walked up to the microphone and blew the shit out of the solo. On the first night, after I sat down, Basie leaned over to me and said, "What did you say your name was?" I told him again, but he wasn't too good on long names, so he announced every number with, "Ladies and gentleman, Pete's on tenor" or "Now we are going to turn Pete loose on . . . " etc., etc. He gave me features on everything and, man, I played high, fast, and loud all week and got to hang out with all those great guys. I have a tape of one of the shows, so now I can tell my grandchildren I played with Count Basie.

Over the years I worked a lot with Frank Rosolino, who had a real gift, and we had a wonderful relationship. He was a great trombone player and scat singer, and he swung so hard, it was like playing with another saxophone, because he had such facility. He was also extremely funny, and on the bandstand he could create total, hilarious bedlam. Sometimes the band couldn't play because we were too busy laughing. I knew nothing about his domestic problems, but they were enough to set him off, turning the whole thing into a tragic Italian opera, where everybody dies in the end, leaving everything in a minor key.

I had been working with Bob Florence, but when Bob Cooper passed away in 1993, 1 took his place on Bill Holman's band, and I have been there ever since. You know, people ask me about "free" jazz, which I have never liked, because there is enough freedom in the legitimate avenues of expression which hasn't been exhausted. Suppose you have eighteen guys together and, after the downbeat, you let them play free. It sounds like they are warming up. Someone has to come in and say, "Stop. Let's get down to business," and that someone would be Bill Holman, who is the leader of the intelligent big band movement.

When Warne Marsh improvised, he could put a phrase anywhere between beats one and four and have it resolve twenty bars later in exactly the same place -displacement, in other words. As a writer, nobody can do that better than Bill Holman, and he is also a master of tension and release. He has a wonderful way of building tension and then more tension until you wonder if it is ever going to release, and when it does, the band is like a juggernaut coming out of the pipe with a momentum that is totally elevating. We have a lot of fun playing his music, but I don't know if every little detail is always right, because if concentration is lost for a second, you can slip out of the cog. I always tell anyone new who sits next to me that if he is playing with me, he is almost certainly lost; we all have our own part. There is nobody in the world who can shine Bill Holman's shoes when it comes to writing for a big band.

I have already mentioned some other influences, but Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis was also very important to me because he was so different to everyone else. Nobody could ever copy his incredibly ornate false fingerings, and he had about fifteen for any note you can think of. He was like a trombone with a plunger, only he was doing it on a saxophone. He could get the timbre, the slant, and the growl, swinging and ricocheting off this note and that note, and when he put it all together, he created a sense of excitement that had you on the edge of your seat. I had known him for years, and when we spoke before he died, I gave him a hug and a big kiss and told him how much I loved him and what his playing meant to me. I also listened a lot to the "Tasmanian Devil" of the tenor, the wonderful Johnny Griffin, who plays fast and furious. Sonny Rollins was important too, for his sound and tremendous command of the horn.

I have several tenors, but my favorite is an old 1949 Selmer with a balanced action, and I use a two and a half Rico plastic reed with a wide-open Berg Larsen mouthpiece, which gives me a lot of flexibility and lets me play. A closer lay with a three or four reed needs too much pressure, because it is like trying to get a diving board to vibrate. You have to blow so hard that you run out of air halfway between an idea and completing the phrase. Why work so hard? Phil Woods has a similar set-up to me, as did Al Cohn and Zoot Sims, but there are exceptions like that good old Washington boy, Corky Corcoran. He had a sound like a tree trunk because he used a five reed on his Link mouthpiece, which had a very narrow lay.

You know, you need other interests in life besides playing and rehearsing with bands every day, which is why I have been involved in drag racing for thirty years. They are the cars that do zero to two hundred miles an hour in seven seconds and need a parachute to stop. I used to drive, but now I just build them for my kids to race. Mechanically they need the same preventative maintenance program that an aircraft has, so with the cars and the music, I manage to keep pretty busy.”

Rob Pronk and The Metropole Orkest [Orchestra]

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Sometimes using words to describe Jazz becomes a heavy burden.  It is an impossible task to begin with, fraught with limitations and can become a distraction to the point where the music is objectified and no longer something to be subjectively enjoyed.

So every so often, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles makes it a point to stop, look and listen to the music.

In this regard, we have put together three video slide montages that feature performances that were part of Rob Pronk’s 75 birthday celebration.

Rob had a long career as a brilliant arranger, composer and director of The Metropole Orchestra of The Netherlands.

The birthday broadcast took place on June 1, 2003 at the Broadcast Music Center in Hilversum, The Netherlands. It was re-broadcast on February 11, 2008 on NPS Radio 6 [The Netherlands] as part of the program - “In Concert: The Bands.”

Bassist, composer, arranger John Clayton was flown in from the United States to direct The Metropole Orchestra as were tenor saxophonist Pete Christlieb and trombonist Andy Martin as principal soloists

A total of seventeen of Rob’s charts [arrangements] were performed that evening, three of which are used as soundtracks to the accompanying videos so that you will have the opportunity to stop, look and listen to a portion of the excellent orchestral Jazz from this once-in-a-lifetime concert.

The first tune is Peace by Horace Silver which features the superb trombonist and bass trumpeter, Bart van Lier.

The second tune highlights Pete Christlieb on tenor sax performing Billy Strayhorn’s Raincheck.

The third song is a stunning arrangement of Bill Evans’ Waltz for Debby with Arlia de Ruiter as the violin soloist.

Pete Christlieb - The Gordon Jack Interview

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

The editorial staff at JazzProfiles is hard at work on a number of features including lengthy book, DVD and CD reviews which it plans to post to the blog in the coming weeks.

This Gordon Jack interview with tenor saxophonist Pete Christlieb commences a Gordon-Jack-Meets-The-Sax-Section week that will allow us additional time to develop these planned features. Succeeding days will offer interviews that Gordon conducted with Gene Quill, Bobby Militello, Allen Eager, Brew Moore, Charlie Ventura and Billy Root.

As always, we are very grateful to Gordon for guesting on these pages and for allowing us permission to use his copyrighted materials.

More about the sources for Gordon's excellent interviews is located below our introduction to this piece.

“It was thanks to Bob Cooper that I became one of the Lighthouse All-Stars. … I played with Sonny Criss there, and going toe-to-toe with him was like standing in front of a wheat-eater. I mean, he was geared to play with guys like Sonny Stitt, which I wasn't at the time, and I got beat-up pretty good. He was impressed that I was willing to get up on the stand with him, so we became buddies and he was like a father figure to me.”

- Pete Christlieb

“In the early seventies I met Warne Marsh for the first time at a rehearsal with Clare Fischer's big band. The tenors sat next to each other, and we shook hands as Clare counted off "Lennie's Pennies." Playing Tristano’s line for the first time was like trying to change the fan belt on a car while it is still running.”

- Pete Christlieb

I did get to play with Basie in 1983, when Eric Schneider telephoned and asked me to dep for him during the band's week-long appearance at Disneyworld. Danny Turner and Eric Dixon were in the section, and the first tune every night was "Corner Pocket," featuring me. I had been listening to that arrangement for years, so I didn't have to read it; I just walked up to the microphone and blew the shit out of the solo. On the first night, after I sat down, Basie leaned over to me and said, "What did you say your name was?"

- Pete Christlieb

One of the great benefits of residing in Southern California has been the opportunity to listen to Pete Christlieb perform on many occasions in a variety of Jazz settings.

He is a tower of power on the instrument and plays it with great command, singularity and inventiveness. A few notes and you know its Pete. The kind of original voice all Jazz players strive to achieve seems to flow effortlessly from the bell of his horn.

While playing in a big band, all of his sax section mates pay him the ultimate compliment of looking up at him when he stands to solo and nodding their heads in approval at his creations.

When soloing in a small group, you hate to be the one taking your solo after his. He is such a forceful and singular improviser whether he’s devastating the changes to Cherokee or enhancing the melodic beauty and lyrical poignancy of If You Could See Me Now that it takes the audience a bit of time to deal with the “after shock!”

Sadly, although he’s played with the big bands of Woody Herman, Louie Bellson and Bill Holman, as well as, being a fixture for two decades on Doc Severinson’s “Tonight Show” Band, he has never had a recording contract with a major label.

Not surprisingly for someone who is such a dominant and overriding soloist, Pete holds strong opinions and views about Jazz music and Jazz makers.  He has also had a variety of mentors whom he recalls fondly including, Russ Cheaver of the Hollywood Saxophone Quartet, Bob Cooper whose place he took with the Lighthouse All-Stars, and indirectly, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, who had a great influence on Pete’s style, and Warne Marsh, with whom Pete recorded three wonderful albums.

His time on all of these major bands, his influences and his gigs with everyone from Chet Baker to Frank Rosolino are all recounted in the following interview as given to Gordon Jack, Fifties Jazz Talk: An Oral Retrospective [Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, 2004, pp. 53-60; paragraphing modified].

Gordon’s interview with Pete also appeared in JazzJournal magazine in March, 2000. You can locate more information on the latter by going here.

© -Gordon Jack, used with the author’s permission; copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Despite his nearly forty years in the business, it is still one of the very best kept secrets in jazz that Pete Christlieb is one of the music's most exciting and inventive tenor players. He has worked with Count Basie, Louie Bellson, Bob Florence, and Woody Herman. When we met in 1999, he was a featured soloist with the Bill Holman band at a party to celebrate Vic Lewis's eightieth birthday.

“I was born on March 16, 1945, in Los Angeles. My father was a professional bassoon player at Twentieth Century Fox, and as a youngster I listened with him to Boulez, Schoenberg, Stockhausen, Stravinsky, and Villa-Lobos, because our house was full of classical music. Stravinsky often came over to rehearse with my dad, so it is not surprising that I took up the bassoon and, a little later, the violin.

It wasn't until I was about thirteen years old that I first heard some jazz. We had a few Gerry Mulligan Quartet albums lying around the house, and that's when I decided to learn the saxophone, which turned out to be a lot easier than the violin; you press a button and you get a note.

When I was about sixteen, I played in a Saturday morning rehearsal band with some other kids my age, and occasionally somebody good would sit in, to show us how the charts should really sound. The great Joe Maini once visited and played the lead alto chair, and he was so good, it was frightening. He more or less said, "You follow me, kid, and try to stick close to my ass, because we're going down the road and we're going fast!" Man, what authority. It was just fantastic to play in the section with him.

The first road band I played with was Sy Zentner, who gave me a call when I was about eighteen and flew me to Chicago. Although it was a dance band, they had a lot of nice arrangements, and being the solo tenor, I had the opportunity to play a little bit. Of course I wanted to be like Gerry Mulligan and play in a small group, but before you can do that, you have to pay your dues and go to "boot camp" on the road in a bus, just like everyone else.

Sy told me there were also some clarinet parts, so before I left town, I had to take lessons real quick with Russ Cheaver, who was wonderful. He was at Fox with my father and had played many fine clarinet solos in motion pictures over the years, and he was also the lead soprano with the Hollywood Saxophone Quartet. In just three lessons he taught me enough for my chair, which was really "industrial strength" clarinet, where you don't play any lead or any jazz, just a lot of whole notes. Gene Goe, who was the lead trumpet with Basie for a long time, was in the band. The bass player was Jeff Castleman, who had recommended me to Sy. Jeff eventually went with Duke Ellington and married the singer Trish Turner.

When we were playing opposite Harry James at Lake Tahoe, I used to sit in with his band when Sy's gig finished, because Harry's last set was a jam session. We stood next to each other, and he was just outstanding. Even though he was a hell of a drinker, he could always function, and he was such a great instrumentalist, he could play every part in the book. Harry was wonderful, and there was a camaraderie in his band rather like a bunch of guys fighting a war.

I was still too young to get into most of the jazz clubs, where you had to be twenty-one because of the drinking laws, but the Lighthouse served food, which gave them a loophole. Teenagers could go and listen, and that's where I asked Bob Cooper for some lessons. It turned out that he lived a block from our house and knew my father by reputation, and although he was not a regular teacher, I went to him for a couple of years for fine-tuning. If Lester Young had lived that long, I think he might have sounded like Coop, because Bob was such a fluent player.

He started me thinking about new possibilities and other avenues for improvisation, and we studied the old Nicolas Slonimsky book on scales and melodic patterns that everybody has [Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns]. If you really listen, you will hear people quoting from that book all the time. You know, the more I listen to Al Cohn and Zoot Sims from those days, the more I realize how much they influenced me, because they were both highly lyrical "Song in My Heart" type players, just like Bob.

When I was in New York in the early sixties, I used to visit the Half Note and watch Zoot go through his routine of looking away from the bartender and dropping his empty glass fifteen feet from the bandstand. The guy would catch it, fill it up, and pass it right back up to him. Zoot was a clever guy; he was like the Will Rogers of the tenor. Al was also clever and very funny, and together they were pretty wild. I got to know Al well a few years later at the Dick Gibson Jazz Parties in Colorado, and I told him what a pleasure it was playing with someone I idolized as a child. I used flattery as my opening approach, and it worked!

It was thanks to Bob Cooper that I became one of the Lighthouse All-Stars. He was playing on the Dean Martin Show at NBC, so he used to send me to me club as his substitute. I played with Sonny Criss there, and going toe-to-toe with him was like standing in front of a wheat-eater. I mean, he was geared to play with guys like Sonny Stitt, which I wasn't at the time, and I got beat-up pretty good. He was impressed that I was willing to get up on the stand with him, so we became buddies and he was like a father figure to me. I also played a few weeks with Hampton Hawes, who was a sweetheart. And Frank Butler, another genius, was the drummer. This was around 1965, but it wasn't too long before they changed the format and the Lighthouse All-Star era sort of "uglied" away into the sunset, collapsing in a heap of dust.

Soon afterwards, Chet Baker called me for a gig with Terry Trotter, Ray Brown, and Colin Bailey at one of those unattractive little bars near L.A. airport, the Boom-Boom room or some such name. It was a strange part of town, but people were flocking there to hear the great Chet. There was nothing written; he just called tunes and we played. After that, he had another date in Pueblo, Colorado, and he asked me to go with him. If I had been a little older and wiser, I would have asked for the money up front, because at the end of the week I didn't get enough from him to pay my hotel bill, let alone get home. This is what happens when you work for a junkie, so you really have to watch out for yourself.

Musically it was the best because he was playing beautifully, but everything else was a tragedy! I did some tunes alone with the rhythm section that I wanted him to play, and after a couple of times he had them down - he had great ears. Anyway, my wife and I had only been married a couple of months, and here we were in this little hotel in Colorado Springs; eventually I had to wire for money to get home, and that was the end of my career with Chet Baker. I think Phil Urso took my place.

I went back to L.A. and got a call from trumpeter Bobby Bryant, who was in town and making a big impression with Gerald Wilson's band. He wanted me for his steady gig at Marty's down on 58th and Broadway, which featured a hot organ and two-tenor group, along with Bobby.

This was around the time of the big riot in Watts, and the club was located at ground zero there. I waltzed on over, and the first thing they told me to do was to take the battery out and put it in the trunk so I could start my car after the job.

I was replacing Herman Riley for six weeks while he went on the road with Louie Bellson and Pearl Bailey, and the other tenor was Hadley Caliman, who was quite an exponent of the John Coltrane approach. Now I was from the tough "Lockjaw" Davis school, with some Gene Ammons, Coleman Hawkins, and Zoot Sims thrown in, so we went at it like a sword fight in a pirate picture every night! Bobby was on staff at NBC, so he would come in later and get in the middle, saying something like, "O.K., you guys-cool down!"

It was a wonderful experience. I learned the technique of how to really work a rhythm section on the bandstand - what to do and what not to do, and if you are going to play more than two choruses on anything, you had better have a good reason. That job lasted a couple of years, because when Herman got back, Hadley took off.

In 1966 I was at the Flamingo in Las Vegas, backing Della Reese with another two-tenor and trumpet group. Buddy Childers was the leader, and the other tenor was Jimmy "Night Train" Forrest. Della was a big star, but she was a real sweetheart, and it was fun working for her because she didn't act big time at all  - just a great gal and one of the guys.

Woody Herman was at the Tropicana, and Buddy used to hang out there all the time, and when our job with Della finished, it was Buddy who recommended me to Woody, because Joe Farrell was leaving. Bill Byrne, who played trumpet and was the band manager, called and asked me to join them at the Chez Club in West Hollywood. I had all the records with Sal Nistico and the '63-64 band, so I was already familiar with the music, and I was like a young lion ready to take on the world - let me have at it! I really roared through the stuff, and Woody was pretty cool.

At the end of the first week, we had a party at his house in the Hollywood Hills, which used to be Humphrey Bogart's old place, and he gave us the "Cook's Tour." We got to this beautiful bathroom, which looked like the municipal plunge. It was like a big swimming pool about eight feet deep, and it would have taken about two hours to fill it up. I said something like, "Hell, Woody, what do you need that for?" and he said "To soak a sore ass, kid. Now keep moving and don't loiter!"

The word was that we were going to Europe, and two days before we were due to split, Woody said he wanted to talk to me. I thought that I had been doing pretty well and he wanted to give me a raise, but he told me that I was not going, which was like a harpoon to the old ego.

Apparently Sal Nistico wanted to come back, and Woody needed him for his big name and crowd appeal, because he would be a big draw in Europe. The deal in those days with big bands was that if they let you go, they had to give two weeks notice or two weeks pay, and as they were leaving straight away, I was supposed to get the money, which was $300.  At the time, everyone was making $150 a week unless you were on Basie's band, for instance, where some of those guys were on about $500, and Sonny Payne was probably getting $2,500 a week. Woody said to go and see his personal manager, Abe Turchen, and you can guess exactly what happened; I got nothing but a promise. About a week later, Byrne phoned from Switzerland and told me that, as soon as the plane landed Sal disappeared and wasn't seen again.

They had been using some other guy, but Woody wanted me back. No. had just had a call from one of the trombone players who was booking for Buddy Rich's band, and he offered me $175, so I told Bill I would come back for $225 clear. In other words, they could pay the tax. He replied, "$225 clear? I'll have to ask Woody." I could hear Woody in the room with Bill saying, "Christlieb that S.O.B.! Stan Getz didn't get $225 clear." Then Bill says, "Well, that'll be fine with Woody!"

I rejoined the band in Oklahoma City, and by this time it was a completely different band; everyone had left. Cecil Payne was on baritone, and the other tenors were Steve Lederer and Steve Marcus. With Woody, if you played first tenor, you had all the hip lead parts and the third chair had all the jazz. I was playing second, which was known as "The Bermuda Triangle," where you got nothing. It was the lackluster position in the band, with no fun and no glory. I had no jazz to play except on the last set every night, when I had a couple of choruses of the blues in A-flat on "Woodchoppers Ball." Eventually I told Woody that it was ridiculous, because I had come on the band to blow, so I quit and I never did get my $300!

Around 1970 1 had a call from Louie Bellson, who was rehearsing a band down at the union prior to going on the road with Pearl Bailey. He is the nicest man in the world, and I am still working with him thirty years later.

Just before joining Louie, I had been working at a club owned by Fletcher Henderson's brother, Horace. He had known Pearl for years, and he gave me a note for her. She always did have an ego like a blowtorch, and when I gave it to her, she just exploded and started shouting at me about taking up her time with something she considered trivial. Louie told her to give me a break, and the next day, she bought me an expensive sweater as an apology. During the tour, every time we had a scene, she bought me another one, and I still have about twenty-five beautiful sweaters from getting beat-up by Pearl Bailey!

One night I fell asleep onstage, and she hit me so hard that I fell over and took the rest of the sax section with me, music stands and all! The audience loved it and thought it was part of the act because it looked like the Keystone Cops. Louie told me that when Joe Louis was guesting with them in the fifties, she kept picking on Joe and throwing punches at him. Eventually he said to Louie, "Please tell your old lady to cut it out, because it really hurts when she hits, man. She's got a helluva punch!"

I made the first few rehearsals with Supersax, but I quit very soon because it was so arduous and repetitive. The concept of playing Charlie's solos was beautiful, and when I heard their first record, I was a little envious of the guys who stuck with it, because it took a long time to get it right. It needed a certain personality who would sit down and work hard, but I was not willing to spend that much time. If there had been opportunities to blow, I might have remained, but the guys were so tired from playing about 23,000 notes that, when it reached the point of someone taking a chorus, the saxes needed a rest. That's why Frank Rosolino or Conte Candoli were hired.

In the early seventies I met Warne Marsh for the first time at a rehearsal with Clare Fischer's big band. The tenors sat next to each other, and we shook hands as Clare counted off "Lennie's Pennies." Playing Tristano’s line for the first time was like trying to change the fan belt on a car while it is still running. Afterwards, Warne told me that he was using an album of mine as a teaching device for one of his students, demonstrating which series of notes I used moving from chord to chord. He actually told me things about my playing I didn't know I was doing. He was totally unique, and you will never in your life hear anyone play with quite that same chromatic approach. The Tristano method could be tedious and involved, but Warne made it more palatable and less cumbersome by swinging a little harder. I learned different ways of improvising from him, especially with regard to economy and selectivity.'

I was on the Tonight Show from 1970 to 1990, and it was a great gig with steady money. We made scale, which was $175 per night, plus doubles, although everyone thought we made a lot more because they saw us on T.V. every night. These days, on the Star Trek show, for instance, I play clarinet, bass clarinet, flute, and a little tenor, and in one four-hour call, I take home what I used to make in an entire week on the Tonight Show. All through those years, I had regular offers to tour with people like Count Basie and Harry James, but I always sent one of my students. I kick myself now for turning down some good offers, but why go on the road when I had a steady gig in town?

I did get to play with Basie in 1983, when Eric Schneider telephoned and asked me to dep for him during the band's weeklong appearance at Disneyworld. Danny Turner and Eric Dixon were in the section, and the first tune every night was "Corner Pocket," featuring me. I had been listening to that arrangement for years, so I didn't have to read it; I just walked up to the microphone and blew the shit out of the solo. On the first night, after I sat down, Basie leaned over to me and said, "What did you say your name was?" I told him again, but he wasn't too good on long names, so he announced every number with, "Ladies and gentleman, Pete's on tenor" or "Now we are going to turn Pete loose on . . . " etc., etc. He gave me features on everything and, man, I played high, fast, and loud all week and got to hang out with all those great guys. I have a tape of one of the shows, so now I can tell my grandchildren I played with Count Basie.

Over the years I worked a lot with Frank Rosolino, who had a real gift, and we had a wonderful relationship. He was a great trombone player and scat singer, and he swung so hard, it was like playing with another saxophone, because he had such facility. He was also extremely funny, and on the bandstand he could create total, hilarious bedlam. Sometimes the band couldn't play because we were too busy laughing. I knew nothing about his domestic problems, but they were enough to set him off, turning the whole thing into a tragic Italian opera, where everybody dies in the end, leaving everything in a minor key.

I had been working with Bob Florence, but when Bob Cooper passed away in 1993, 1 took his place on Bill Holman's band, and I have been there ever since. You know, people ask me about "free" jazz, which I have never liked, because there is enough freedom in the legitimate avenues of expression which hasn't been exhausted. Suppose you have eighteen guys together and, after the downbeat, you let them play free. It sounds like they are warming up. Someone has to come in and say, "Stop. Let's get down to business," and that someone would be Bill Holman, who is the leader of the intelligent big band movement.

When Warne Marsh improvised, he could put a phrase anywhere between beats one and four and have it resolve twenty bars later in exactly the same place -displacement, in other words. As a writer, nobody can do that better than Bill Holman, and he is also a master of tension and release. He has a wonderful way of building tension and then more tension until you wonder if it is ever going to release, and when it does, the band is like a juggernaut coming out of the pipe with a momentum that is totally elevating. We have a lot of fun playing his music, but I don't know if every little detail is always right, because if concentration is lost for a second, you can slip out of the cog. I always tell anyone new who sits next to me that if he is playing with me, he is almost certainly lost; we all have our own part. There is nobody in the world who can shine Bill Holman's shoes when it comes to writing for a big band.

I have already mentioned some other influences, but Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis was also very important to me because he was so different to everyone else. Nobody could ever copy his incredibly ornate false fingerings, and he had about fifteen for any note you can think of. He was like a trombone with a plunger, only he was doing it on a saxophone. He could get the timbre, the slant, and the growl, swinging and ricocheting off this note and that note, and when he put it all together, he created a sense of excitement that had you on the edge of your seat. I had known him for years, and when we spoke before he died, I gave him a hug and a big kiss and told him how much I loved him and what his playing meant to me. I also listened a lot to the "Tasmanian Devil" of the tenor, the wonderful Johnny Griffin, who plays fast and furious. Sonny Rollins was important too, for his sound and tremendous command of the horn.

I have several tenors, but my favorite is an old 1949 Selmer with a balanced action, and I use a two and a half Rico plastic reed with a wide-open Berg Larsen mouthpiece, which gives me a lot of flexibility and lets me play. A closer lay with a three or four reed needs too much pressure, because it is like trying to get a diving board to vibrate. You have to blow so hard that you run out of air halfway between an idea and completing the phrase. Why work so hard? Phil Woods has a similar set-up to me, as did Al Cohn and Zoot Sims, but there are exceptions like that good old Washington boy, Corky Corcoran. He had a sound like a tree trunk because he used a five reed on his Link mouthpiece, which had a very narrow lay.

You know, you need other interests in life besides playing and rehearsing with bands every day, which is why I have been involved in drag racing for thirty years. They are the cars that do zero to two hundred miles an hour in seven seconds and need a parachute to stop. I used to drive, but now I just build them for my kids to race. Mechanically they need the same preventative maintenance program that an aircraft has, so with the cars and the music, I manage to keep pretty busy.”

Pete is joined by his close buddy, the late Warne Marsh, on the following video. The tune is FishTale which is based on the changes to On Green Dolphin Street. Jim Hughart is the bassist and Nick Ceroli is on drums.