"My Groove, Your Move" - The Music of Hank Mobley 10.29.1990 - Part 1 - Program

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

"Hank was always special to me. His lyricism as a player and writer really attracted me. When I was trying to learn how to play, I spent a lot of time listening to Hank. Out there in Spokane I didn't have any music to look at, all I had were my records. His solos were so melodic. It wouldn't take too many listenings before I could start humming his lines along with him. He was always with the chord progression. Whenever I couldn't figure out the harmonies by just listening, I would transcribe Hank's solo. Then I would be able to figure out the harmonic progression."

- Don Sickler, trumpet, arranger, producer

As a memoriam to Hank Mobley and his music, on Monday, October 29, 1990, Don Sickler with the assistance of Kimberly Ewing produced "My Groove, Your Move" - The Music of Hank Mobley” which was performed at the Weill Recital Hall located in Carnegie Hall in New York City.

A special program and booklet was given to the audience in attendance that evening and thanks to the generosity of Grammy Award winning author and critic Bob Blumenthal, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles, as part of our quest to uncover and represent as much about Hank and his music as possible on these pages, is able to bring you a facsimile of these documents in the form of this blog posting .

This is rare memorabilia about Hank Mobley, an all-but-forgotten artist who was deserving of so much more recognition both as an original stylist on tenor saxophone and as one of the significant composer of many modern Jazz standards.

© -Don Sickler, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

PROGRAM

Hank Mobley - Composer

“Hank Mobley was a prolific and extremely talented composer. From an examination of the discography in the attached program, you'll see that Hank contributed many compositions to his own sessions. He also contributed compositions to albums when he was a sideman, as well as to sessions in which he did not perform. All in all, to date, I've found over 140 titles recorded.

Hank took full advantage of the opportunities he had to write for different artists. Each of the musicians he played with had an individual voice on his instrument, and Hank wrote music that would get the best out of each of them. He told me he always tried to tailor each piece to the musicians who would be playing it. His musical insight and the path of his career thus produced a remarkable body of work that conveys a joyful sense of swinging well-being.

So you can see that selecting the compositions for tonight's performance was not an easy task. I first decided to limit the concert to compositions that Hank either wrote for his own albums as a leader, or that he wrote for the Jazz Messengers. Next I re-listened to all of those albums, attempting to come up with a balance of material. It soon became exasperating: the more I listened, the longer my list got. After regretfully eliminating many great titles, yet finding still too many on my list, I decided to try a new approach.

I selected compositions I felt were essential to convey the depth and variety of Hank's creative composing talents. Obviously, if everyone soloed on each arrangement, we'd only have time for a few compositions. Therefore I decided to limit the number of soloists on each composition. This, coupled with a medley approach from time to time, should let us present many of your favorite Hank Mobley compositions.

Obviously, there are some drawbacks to this scheme, and Hank would have been the first to insist that each soloist must have sufficient space to express himself. Don't worry, that's still the plan. If there are some lengthy musical discussions, there won't be time to play all the compositions listed in the program. However, just in case, I've made the musicians rehearse all the material.

I hope this approach will be rewarding both for the performers and for you, the audience. Since I don't think anything like this has been tried before, we'll only know at the end of the concert how successful my plan was.

Whatever happens, I know I speak for all the musicians in saying that we've had a lot of fun playing Hank's music, and we hope you leave here humming his melodies. I also hope that hearing this presentation will encourage you, discography in hand, to seek out and listen to Hank perform his own compositions on the various records and CDs that are now available. Once you do, you'll not only have the pleasure of hearing his great melodies and harmonies, but you'll also be reminded of the power and cohesiveness of his solos and the lyric beauty of his sound.

Many of Hank's friends felt that his own opinion of himself didn't match reality. He didn't see himself as others saw him: a major composing talent and a unique and important voice on tenor. If he were here tonight, I hope he'd see himself through your eyes and ears and judge himself differently”.

—Don

Clifford Jordan, tenor saxophone

Clifford met Hank Mobley when both were working in New York in the 1950s. During the late fifties both Clifford and Hank worked frequently with the bands of Horace Silver and Max Roach. "Hank was playing with the Jazz Messengers, then Horace formed his group and Hank went with Horace. After Sonny Rollins quit Max he recommended me for the band. So I played with Max two or three or four weeks and then Max and Horace made a switch. Max took Hank because Kenny Dorham was playing trumpet, and I wasn't alt that experienced with playing ensembles. .. so to make the band sound better they said, 'Well, we'll put Hank in there and Cliff. . . with Art Farmer.’  So that's how I started playing with Art Farmer—in Horace's band."

During that time Jordan recorded the album Cliff Jordan for the Blue Note label. Curtis Fuller and Art Taylor were sidemen on that session. Clifford has worked and recorded with J.J. Johnson, Charles Mingus, Andrew Hill, Randy Weston, the other members of the "My Groove, Your Move" ensemble and many others, as well as leading and recording with his own groups.

Don Sickler, trumpet

Don spent his first 23 years in Spokane, Washington. Since coming to New York, he has developed a multi-faceted career, combining playing the trumpet (his recording credits include Philly Joe Jones’ DAMERONIA,  The Music of Kenny Dorham, SUPERBLUE and BiRDOLOGY), arranging (#1 in Downbeat's latest critics' poll for Arranger ), publication and record producing, and conducting. Don is also a music publisher specializing in jazz. His companies Second Floor Music (BMI) and Twenty-Eighth Street Music (ASCAP) together protect and develop the music of over 100 composers, including that of Hank Mobley.

Don met Hank in New York in the 1970s, and the two worked on several projects involving Hank's music. Hank's death in 1986 cut short the

realization of some of those dreams. Don hopes that this retrospective will focus attention on Hank and his music, and help create a climate where his music can flourish.

"Hank was always special to me. His lyricism as a player and writer really attracted me. When I was trying to learn how to play, I spent a lot of time listening to Hank. Out there in Spokane I didn't have any music to look at, all I had were my records. His solos were so melodic. It wouldn't take too many listenings before I could start humming his lines along with him. He was always with the chord progression. Whenever I couldn't figure out the harmonies by just listening, I would transcribe Hank's solo. Then I would be able to figure out the harmonic progression."

Curtis Fuller, trombone

Curtis first heard Hank Mobley in 1954, when Hank was with Dizzy Gillespie’s sextet, and Curtis, then barely twenty, was a private in the U.S. Army and playing with Cannonball Adderley's legendary Army Dance Band. It was Mobley's tone that made the strongest impression on the young trombonist. "He had that pretty, warm sound," Curtis recalls, "I mean, it was so fluid. He had good control, for a youngster. You wonder where a guy that young could have learned that kind of control," Having recognized in Mobley a kindred musical spirit, Fuller introduced himself, and the two became "instant friends."

Following his discharge in 1956, Fuller returned to his native Detroit, where he jammed with Mobley whenever Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers came to town. In 1957 Fuller left Detroit to come to New York, where he soon started recording regularly, both as a sideman and as a leader.

Curtis and Hank recorded a total of seven albums together, two under Curtis' name (The Opener for Blue Note and one for United Artists), a Sonny Clark date for Blue Note, the two Monday Night At Birdland LPs for Roulette, the two-drummer Elvin Jones/Philly Joe Jones date for Atlantic and Hank's

A Caddy For Daddy for Blue Note.

Cedar Walton, piano

Cedar came to New York in 1955. He met Hank Mobley that same year at a regular jam session at Ken Carp's loft in the East 20s. "Hank looked studious — with his glasses on," explains Walton, "although he seemed to have a mischievous nature, too. I always thought this mischievous side was especially revealed in his solos." Shortly after meeting Mobley, Cedar was drafted into the army. After his discharge. Cedar recorded with Kenny Dorham, then played in J.J. Johnson's group and the Jazztet. From 1961 64 he was a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.

Walton has performed and recorded frequently with the members of the "My Groove, Your Move" concert ensemble. He was a Jazz Messenger with Curtis Fuller. He recorded with Art Farmer in 1965, then again in the mid-seventies. He and Billy Higgins have been playing together for years, performing in the Magic Triangle band with Clifford Jordan and most recently, with Buster Williams and Curtis Fuller, touring and recording as members of the Timeless All Stars.

Cedar and Hank worked together many times in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In February 1972 they collaborated again, also with Billy Higgins, on what was to be Hank's last recording. "I love Hank's composing," says Cedar, "he mixes intellect with a very natural basic feel that gives the tunes a special flowing, sometimes daring, but always sensible character. He is one of the most ingenious composers in modern Jazz. I'm very proud to be a part of this tribute to his creativity."

Billy Higgins, drummer

Billy is one of the most widely recorded drummers in jazz. There is no way anyone who is alive can sit in front of Higgins while he is playing and not feel good.

During the 1960s Billy Higgins was one of the house drummers for Blue Note Records. Billy and Hank, who also had a close association with Blue Note during this time, often joined forces In the recording studio and on the bandstand. They recorded together on a total of fourteen LPs between 1965 and 1972. Between recordings, they could be heard live in various venues around New York's Greenwich Village:

Toward the end of 1963," Billy remembers "we worked at a few places on 1st Avenue, a few coffeehouses and one particular place called the White Whale on 10th Street near 4th Avenue. We worked in a band that also had Jackie McLean, Tommy Turrentine and Sonny Clark. When Slugs first opened up we worked there with Kenny Dorham in the band.

"While the Blue Note recordings were happening we were working in different combinations. Sometimes we had a band featuring Hank and Lee [Morgan], then we would have Hank and Kenny Dorham and sometimes Donald Byrd. We had a band at the Five Spot with Donald Byrd and Sonny Red. From night to night Hank was just— whew! Hank was incredible. But him and Kenny Dorham together— those cats were just IN-CRED-I-BLE! They were really special."

Buster Williams, bass

Buster is unquestionably one of the giants of the double bass. His 30 years of professional bass playing have included work with such jazz luminaries as Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, Art Blakey, Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock, Chet Baker, Woody Shaw and McCoy Tyner.

"When I first came to New York, Hank was one of my idols. We met around 1963 at a soul food spot called Cozy's on 125th Street & 8th, that was 12 seats long. Lee [Morgan] used to come in there with Hank and Bobby [Timmons]. Hank liked the way I played and I liked the way he played. A lot of times he would say 'Hey Bus, what are you doing next Wednesday? I got a record date.' I never got that call for his record date."

Art Farmer, trumpet

Art is a truly gifted musician who has worked with many prominent artists representing a variety of schools and styles of Jazz. In 1959 he formed a sextet with Benny Golson called the Jazztet which has also featured Curtis Fuller and Cedar Walton. Over the next few years Farmer gradually turned from the trumpet to the flugelhorn and today plays his new instrument, the flumpet.

Art was with Lionel Hampton's band when he first met Hank. "I met him one night when I came to New York with Lionel. I heard that Miles was playing at a place called the Downbeat. I went there, and Hank and Sonny Rollins were there."

In 1956 Art featured Hank on his LP Farmer's Market. They recorded together again in 1957 on two of Hank's albums, on another under Horace Silver's leadership, The Stylings of Silver, and on Sonny Clark's Dial S For Sonny.

"I enjoyed working with Hank. Hank was really a very nice guy, but I don't think he realized how good a player he was. Hank was a hell of a creative player and a damn good composer."

Arthur Taylor, Master of Ceremonies

Art started as a professional drummer nearly 40 years ago, beginning his career under the tutelage of Coleman Hawkins and Bud Powell. He has performed with bands that included Charlie Parker, Jackie McLean, Sonny Rollins, Kenny Dorham, Paul Chambers and Hank Mobley. He has recorded more than 200 albums including 14 with Hank Mobley, made under the leadership of Horace Silver, HanK, Hank and Lee Morgan, Doug Watkins, Kenny Burrell, Curtis Fuller and Dizzy Reece.

Also known as a true "keeper of the flame," Mr. Taylor has published his first volume of musician-to-musician Interviews entitled "Notes And Tones."

To be continued in Part 2 with The Booklet from the 10.29.1990 tribute -

"My Groove, Your Move" - The Music of Hank Mobley.

Part 2 - The John Williams Interview with Steve Voce

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

Here’s Part 2 of Steve Voce’s extended 1998 interview with pianist John Williams. As noted in Part 1, Steve is a British journalist and music critic who contributed regularly to The Independent and to Jazz Journal for over 40 years.

In this segment of Steve’s brilliant interview, John is extremely candid about why he left the Jazz scene in the early 1960s and I daresay that many Jazz fans from that era can relate to his reasons for doing so.  The music changed dramatically and not necessarily for the better.

Without going into a lot of technical detail, both Parts 1 and 2 of the original manuscript had to be modified to fit [work on] the blogging platform. It took a bit of doing and I think I corrected most of the errors caused by the transition, but should you find any mistakes the fault lies with me.

“'WHEN Stan disbanded in the fall of 1953, I went back to New York. I decided

to study at the Manhattan School of Music and worked there for six months. I

joined in the second semester but realised that I had gone in over my head.

Also they were still teaching heavy classical courses which didn't interest

me and I didn't really have the ears for it. After I got out of the school I

went back with Getz and I was with him for about a year.

' Stan was tough to work for because of his own problems. I usually felt

like I was the mediator on the band. God knows I had my own psychosis, but

not anything compared to what Stan had. I'd find myself saying to other

players on the band "When Stan said what he said to you he didn't really mean it. He said it because ...--Remember the old one-liner about the guy who says "Hey

man, how're you doing?" and the other guy says "What do you mean by that?"?

That was the Stan Getz group. It was then that I realised that you've got to

take people as they present themselves, and you mustn't keep looking for the real reasons as to why they are what they are. You can't keep looking for the excuses. Stan was tough to work for, but I was of course thrilled to be a part of the group. When we came back to New York and the band broke up a second time, I went through yet another personal fiasco.

' I have always had an intense interest in American history, and I thought

I'd get myself an education under the GI Bill Of Rights, which I was

entitled to do after my service in Korea. I went down to New York University

and I signed up with the intention of taking a major in American history and

a minor in music. That way I could take the music courses that I wanted to but I could also get something that really interested me for my future and to give me some stability. I'd gotten everything signed, sealed and accepted, when I discovered that if you interrupted your schooling for more than I2 months, all your benefits were cancelled. Since I had left the Manhattan School Of Music a year and three months earlier this applied to me. I really fouled up because right there I

cancelled all opportunities to get the higher education that I really needed and wanted to have. I've regretted it all my life.

'I stayed in New York, played some wonderful sessions, made a lot of records

and went out on the road a lot with Zoot Sims, which was the high point for

me musically. Zoot was always my favourite and, any of these records that

I'm on, if I had any good moments-and they're very rare and very few-that I

feel were OK, I can take you back to a few of the Zoot Sims records, because

that was the only time that I really felt that I began to open up and play with some potential. Zoot wouldn't have it any other way with his playing. Because of his incredible time, the whole thing in playing with him was to your wings out, get up there and soar. I loved Zoot Sims.

'But of course, the need to earn a living meant that I had to play music other than jazz. A lot of good musicians would from time to time get a chance to go on the Vincent Lopez Orchestra which worked at the Taft Grill for 25 years. It was in the Hotel Taft, a block from Charlie's Tavern. You played two hours at lunch time and another two hours at dinner time.

‘The salary was terrific and at both lunch a dinner there was a radio remote

which gave you extra money. But playing second piano to Vincent Lopez was

not terrific, but I stuck it out for three months from Christmas to spring. It was great because you'd get out of there by 8.30 so if you had a bebop gig you could do it afterwards. Also you could make the union floor in between your day and your evening shots.

'Vincent Lopez used to leave the stand to talk to the diners. We'd play all

this bad stuff, dance things that would have made Sammy Kaye sound good by

comparison There were two Baldwin grands on different  levels, one for me in the rhythm section  and one for him to play his solos on If he was talking to the people and didn't get over there I played the solo. Lots of times he'd let me do so whether he whether there or not. I remember one time when we were playing The Man I Love Vincent was late running over to the piano, sat down and came in two beats out of place. I just kept playing louder and louder at the right spot in the time until he shifted. From that moment on I was on his list!

'I was always the last one on stage. I'd run out of that subway station and run that block, into the building and onto the stage. Of course everyone else had had to be there to get their instruments out, and I used to try to arrive at the last minute.

'St Patrick's Day came and I came running in almost late as usual. The band was up on the bandstand wearing green hat,, green boots and green bow ties. I couldn't handle that. I got up on the bandstand and Vincent said "Go get your suit". I said " don't think I wanna do that and of course I got fired on the spot.'

'While I was working that gig I'd go on and play all the jazz I could. One night I had been out drinking and playing, and I'd been in bed probably an hour and a half when, at about four in the morning, Hank Jones called. My wife answered, woke me up and handed me the phone. "Al and Zoot are doing , recording gig down at Webster Hall tomorrow," said Hank. "I just got a chance to go out of town and I can't make it. Will you do it for me?" I said "Sure, Hank, of course. What time?"

'I got up the next morning with no recollection of this whatsoever. It hadn't registered at all. My wife remembered, but she didn't say anything to me. I went to the lunchtime gig at the Taft Grill and was given a message by the Maitre D. to call this number. I called in and it was the A & R man.

"Where the hell are you? You're supposed to be here!"

‘Where?’ I asked.

"Here! You're supposed to be doing this record date with Zoot and Al'

'I said "For Christsakes, I'm working at the Taft Grill! Don't you think that . . ."

“Hank Jones said that he'd called you and YOU were going to sub for him.”

‘Don't you think that if I had been given a chance to play for Zoot and AI I'd be there?’

"You mean he didn't call you'?"

‘No, he didn't call me.--’"

'The next day I'm sitting playing piano for Vincent Lopez and all of a sudden I looked down and saw Hank Jones and his big brother Elvin sat at a table near the stand. They're mad.

'I said "Hi. Hank."-

'He growled some extremely uncomplimentary things and said "What're you trying to do, set me up?"

'I couldn't believe what he was telling me. Before he and Elvin left he knew that I was innocent. He believed that I had no recollection. My wife said "Yeah, of course he called you.---I was mortified that I would screw up so badly, but most important, I missed a date with Al and Zoot together. It all resolved nicely and Hank and I got on speaking terms again. I guess he knew how much I would not have missed that date!

'I tried to book Hank for the Hollywood Festival a couple of years ago. When I got him on the phone I said "Is this Hank Jones?" He said "Yeah," and I said "Hank, this is the piano player that you and Elvin were going to beat the hell out of at the Taft Grill---. He remembered the whole thing and fell out laughing.

'I was on a 1956 album of AI Cohn's called The Saxophone Section (Epic

LN3278). The tracks were intermingled with me on some and Hank on the rest.

I had what I thought were for me two or three good spots, but Hank was fabulous.

'There was a loft down in West Broadway owned by a guy who had a decent grand piano there. In those days everyone wanted to play. The loft was a great place. It wasn't a drug hangout. It was just a guy's apartment. We'd be sitting round in Charlie's Tavern on 7th Avenue at four o'clock in the morning. You could call him up at four o'clock in the morning from Charlie's and ask "Can we come down and play?" and he'd say "Sure." We'd go down there and play for four or five hours and walk out at eight or nine in the morning.

'You know me well enough now to know the insecurities I felt at that time (and still do) about my playing. But when I played with those guys, particularly Zoot and Al, the doors would get opened. I can remember walking out in the morning sunlight and thinking ---”My God. That was O.K!" Of course there was always some serious drinking involved and maybe some other minor vices from time to time, but there were no serious drugs down there, which was important. I'd go home feeling like I was on top of the world. It always felt like it had been the best fun I'd ever had and seven or eight hours later I'd wake up and say "Boy, that was terrific last night!" Then I'd start with the doubts and say "Well, I think it was. I had a little to drink . . ." and the old insecurities would come rushing back!

'I've always envied the artists who paint. An artist who sits up all night and paints something on canvas can see what he's done the next morning. And of course today the kids have all this marvellous recording equipment. Back  then, if anyone had a wire recorder like Jimmy Knepper had, he was really something unique. So the next time we were down there at the loft three or four days later I'd do the same thing again and open that door and this door, and have the same good time. But I never had any verification when I needed to have my mental pump primed the next day.

'I made at least three quartet albums with Zoot, and I did one with Brookmeyer and Zoot [The Modern Art Of Jazz, under Zoot's name and currently available on Fresh Sound FSR-CI3 25] and I wrote a tune on that called Down At The Loft. I called it that because you used to go down to the Village to go up to the loft. Didn't turn out too badly.

'And I loved Al Cohn. And I loved the two of them together. The sun shined when I played with Stan, too. The difference between those two and Stan was that with Stan you were always on stage making an appearance, and that always helped me self-destruct a little bit extra. I don't want to sound unfair to Stan, but I think a lot of his contemporaries would say the same. Even with all his skills and his incredible ear, he was showbiz too much of the time. He would inflict that on himself. He had the same problem "I've got to impress, I've got to perform," night in, night out. The best times with Stan were like so many times with Al and Zoot. If you got Stan in a corner and were playing with him in a non-performing environment, the meat and potatoes would come out. He was a most wonderful player, but again I think Stan's

minor paranoia, as with so many players, hindered him a lot.

'You suggest that I influenced Bob Brookmeyer's piano playing? I would say it was vice versa! Bobby was such an excellent piano player and, as I've said, he went out on the road as Tex Beneke's piano player. I think a lot of his skills as an arranger and a writer stem from his ability to express himself on the piano. Time and time again when we were on the road if there was ever a piano available where we were with Stan, we'd sit down and play four-handed piano. I learned a lot from Bobby right there. I was always in awe of Bobby. His ear and his harmonic ability. He is an exceptional musician and in the bleak era in the sixties when my kind of jazz disappeared into the woodwork, Bob went through a rough time for I0 years when he nearly killed himself because he apparently couldn't get a handle on his genius. But he got over that and came back to New York from the West Coast and look what happened! Nobody in my view has ever written better swinging and modern big band arrangements than Bobby wrote for the Mel Lewis band.

'I'm not a member of the Flat Earth Society that you've referred to in some of your articles, but I have great difficulty when jazz leaves the time. Bobby is at the point now where his mind is so full of sound and music and harmony, that he's experimenting in ways that are worlds apart from true jazz, and I have to say that I felt personal disappointment when he started to write these things where time is no longer a major factor. But oh, those things that he wrote for that Village Vanguard band of Mel's in the mid-eighties! Anyone who wants to listen to those and tell me that those pieces aren't an advanced form of pure true jazz when the time is doing what it's doing and all of the things that he's written in there are doing what they're doing - that was a real peak in jazz to me. I have no doubt that he's one of the major figures in jazz today. And I know what a personal loss it was for Bobby when Al Cohn died. I know they had the highest regard and respect for each other and enjoyed each other's music as much as they did each other's friendship.

'I made two trio albums for Mercury, one with Bill Anthony on bass and Frank

Isola on drums was done in September 1954, a month or so before the Shrine

concert, and the other was done in two sessions  in June 1955 with Bill and Dick Edie on one and Chuck Andrus and Frank or the other.

'Bobby Shad hired Leonard Feather to write the album notes. I waited to Leonard to call me or whatever, and he never did. Finally I got through the mail from him a questionnaire. It was almost like a government form. I didn't like it because he was finding things out about me but not really asking me anything to do with my opinions about music or anything about playing. I filled out my name address and social security number, whatever it was he was asking, and then I wrote something about my feeling for him to review, not to put in quotes and put on the back of the album cover.

'I was badly embarrassed when the album came out and all he had done was to

take what I had said and print it verbatim. If I were going to write my own notes, I wouldn't have said what I'd written in notes for him. I was trying to tell him how thrilled I felt about the time, particularly about playing with Zoot and Al. They epitomised  what I felt and wanted to play like They were my heroes. When he printed those remarks I felt, who am I to say these things and have them on the album cover Of course they keep being quoted from time to time and each time it embarrasses me anew!'

'I never recorded with him, but I was the only pianist the Gerry Mulligan Sextet ever had! I was at a session in a New York apartment with Gerry one time and we were standing out on a rooftop drinking and talking. Finally I'd had enough to drink so that I could tell Gerry what I thought of rhythm sections without pianos in them. I really harangued him. "Everything sounds so flat without a piano. Go ahead with all your harmonic creativity, but for Pete's sake give me a rhythm section!"

'He had just expanded from a quartet to a sextet and was going out on a package tour. With himself he had Jon Eardley, Zoot and Bob Brookmeyer as his front line. Those are four incredible players. They had a lot of things written but they also had a lot of genuine creativity and they'd often have four intertwining lines going. But again, a two-piece rhythm section. Very flat. It didn't do anything for me.

'A few days later on a Friday Gerry called me and said "John, you wanna join the group? I've got a concert tour with Carmen McRae and others and we're opening in Columbus on Monday then on to Ann Arbor and so on".

'I said "Gerry, I'd love that, but this is Friday and you're going out on Monday". Besides that I was booked that Monday night at Birdland and another gig which was to be recorded, and also I had a booking to record with the Larry Sonn big band. I made the decision that I should go with Gerry, especially after having shot my mouth off to Gerry about the piano. So I cancelled all three.

"OK." he said, "You'll ride with Bobby and we'll meet in Columbus."

"But Gerry," I said. "This is a concert tour. I need something to work with.

You got any charts?"

"No," he said. "We'll work it out at the time."

'Well, it became very obvious that the minute Gerry had decided to add a piano he'd actually changed his own mind again.

'I got in the car with Bobby and we rode to Columbus. "Bobby," I said, "the guy's given me no charts, no lead sheets and no indication of what we're going to play. He hasn't used a piano before and as far as I can see he's made no preparation for one. What the hell's going on?"

'Bobby drove and from New York to Columbus he did his damnedest to try to sketch out the formats of some of the sextet's more famous numbers while I wrote them down. When we got to the concert I hit on Gerry again. "Don't worry about it," he said, and it was obvious that he was already regretting that he had taken me on.

'We got on the concert stage and, thanks to Bobby, I had some idea of what was going on. You know the word “stroll"? It means when the piano player lays out and lets the rest of the rhythm section carry on. We'd play something and I'd just begin to feel it was going to be all right, to begin to cook and feel that this was working when Gerry would turn round and say "Stroll!" and I'd have to drop out. Then he'd turn around and say "Come back!"

'You can't do that! You cannot build the time element of the machine, you can't put the wings up and put the buoyancy in the time and then let it all go phhhh! And then come back in and rise again from ground zero. It bothered me tremendously because I just was not prepared. And Gerry was apparently determined that I be not prepared.

'The next night was at Ann Arbor in the University Of Michigan where we had a massive big audience, then we went to Cincinnati. On the fourth night we were back in Philadelphia at the Academy Of Music and Gerry came to me and he said "John, I don't think I want to continue with the piano". So he paid me and sent me back to New York.

'Of course I was greatly relieved because, other than Bobby, I was getting zero help as to what was supposed to be happening. And I couldn't handle that stroll, come back in, stroll, come back in. That is no way to run a rhythm section! So I was Gerry Mulligan's only piano player. Besides that, don't ever forget this - Gerry Mulligan wants to be his own piano player. He doesn't want anyone else to play the piano anyway! He used to do that at sessions and frankly none of us ever cared too much for it because he wasn't working in the rhythm section, he was creating.

'My disappointment about piano players in rhythm sections goes back to the sixties. When I left New York and went to Miami I only turned around twice and all of a sudden Miles and those guys are going into this free thing. I'm sitting in Miami and I'm working with a nice group when we get to the bass solo and the bass player just drops the time altogether and starts to play a solo, totally out of left field. It was madness from my point of view! Why would you build this castle in the air and then just demolish it and forget it? To me that, and when, further down the road, they got into fusion and all that, call it what you will but don't call it jazz.

'We all evolved as jazz did. You can go back and listen to ragtime and it's happy music, right? Dixieland! Is there anything more joyful and happy than that? It's joy.

Zoot Sims, John Williams and Frank Isola in the loft joyful because the time is happy. The big bands, bebop, just the same. You can take a Charlie Parker solo and dissect it and everything in it is a gorgeous beat beautiful melody all worked right around the time. Nowadays, it seems to me, many of the players are playing meaningless "exercises" and sounding very angry. What happened to the fun?

'However, I am very relieved to see so many brilliant young players coming along now. Perhaps it's because of the schools. But whatever, some kind of return to reality has taken place and the young players today at least seem to be reaching back and trying to establish these roots before they do their things. There was none of that in the sixties and seventies. Then it was like taking Bach and Beethoven and saying "Forget that, that's nothing".

'I read an article, was it by one of the Harper Brothers or some young player where he asked "Who says that we should try and play our own music until we can understand Charlie Parker's music?" To me that was very eloquent. You listen to Bird today and nobody has been able to do what he had done. So much has beer wasted. And I have a personal animosity that I might as well tell you about. It's what seems to have happened to all the tenor players as a result of John Coltrane. They don't seem to go back to early John Coltrane when he was less involved with exercises, I will call them disrespectfully! In the big bands run by the young players many of the trumpets and trombones are superb, a lot of the piano players are outstanding-maybe I'm generalising, but all the tenor players coming out of the schools, they're all John Coltrane tenor players. You don't hear the Prez roots, the Al Cohn, Zoot Sims and Stan Getz roots that I think tell a much better story than

John Coltrane did, at least in his flamboyant playing.

'When I left New York in the late fifties to go to Florida it was because I was unhappy in my personal life. I had friends in Florida and when I got there I thought I was in heaven. I played Miami Beach with a jazz trio and a good singer. There was jazz all around and I played everywhere. Joe Mooney had a beautiful quartet there

'All the tenor players coming out of the schools, they're all John Coltrane tenor players. You don't bear the Prez roots, the Al Cohn, Zoot Sims and Stan Getz roots that I think tell a much better story than John Coltrane did, at least in his flamboyant playing.

'There were good players and clubs all over the place. But then came Elvis and the Beatles and jazz in Miami just did not survive. For me then music

had strictly become a way to make a living, and there's no poorer way to

make a living. I had one of the ---better---jobs in Miami Beach because I

worked at a night club that stayed open a] I the year round, not just during

the winter season. I played shows and a little dance music and was just

about ready to blow my brains out! If you can't have that intense pleasure

that jazz brings you, what the hell are you in that business for?

‘I've always had an intense interest in American history and politics, and

as a result of this I became involved with my city's political life and I

ran for office in I97 I. I was urged and pushed to do it. Nobody thought I

could win, least of all myself. Who's going to vote for a piano player

working in a club in Miami? But they did, I don't know why. After that I was

on the Commission three or four years-it was a part-time job, you know. I

was satisfied that I was able to do things which I felt had some lasting

importance.

'I took the opportunity to go to work for an advertising agency for two

years and then I went to work for the Home Savings Bank, where I've been

since I978. I can't tell you how fortunate I am. I love the people I work

with. I like what I'm doing and I'm happy that I feel like I'm contributing

and I'm making a good living.

'I suppose I was the environmentalist on the commission, very much an

advocate of controlled growth. I fought like the dickens to save some major

tracts of pristine land before they could be built on. It was a good major

accomplishment. It'll be there long after I've gone.

'Over the years I was much involved with the Hollywood Jazz Festival, both

organising and playing and indeed played with Bobby Brookmeyer, Buddy de

Franco, Terry Gibbs and Scott Hamilton at various concerts. In I989 I tried

to reassemble the original Stan Getz Quintet to play there-minus Teddy

Kotick, of course, who had died. Stan was keen to do it and I talked to him

many times on the phone to his home in Malibu to try to arrange it. Bobby

wanted to do it too, and I planned to bring Frank Isola down from Detroit.

'By then Stan had the quartet with Kenny Barron, Victor Lewis and Rufus

Reid. Phenomenal!

‘Kenny was wonderful on that Anniversary album with Stan (EmArcy 838 769 2).

On Stella By Starlight he's superb. There's a lot of Stan on there which is great too, but there an also a lot of times when he's throwing away stuff. So many times you hear Stan playing just for effect.

'I did my best to get Stan to the festival but he was already ill and he'd decided that he couldn't go anywhere without a big entourage - a Japanese cook, his manager, his acupuncturist and his lady friend, and it kept on building in cost.

Of course our budget was limited and I finally just had to tell him that we couldn't do it. So Bobby and I played with the quartet that year very enjoyable. I was sad about the quintet, but I felt good that I had come back, I really did.'

The recording career of John Williams resumes in October 1994 when he leads

a quartet date to be recorded in Hollywood for Mitsui Johfu. Apart from John

the lineup will include his old friends Spike Robinson on tenor and Frank

Isola on drums.”

"Azure" - Phil Woods Quintet