A Profile of Bill Evans by Neil Tesser

 © Introduction Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

Jazz fans who remembered the music from its halcyon days during the quarter century following the end of World War II in 1945, were thrilled with the advent of audio CDs in the 1980s and 1990s.

Not only was the compact disc more convenient than the more cumbersome LP, there was room for more music on a single disc which also allowed for individual and multi-disc sets to make available a huge sampling of a particular Jazz artist’s recorded output.

The agreeable miniaturization that followed was a boon to record companies which got to make a “second profit” from the release of music they already owned in this new, digital format. This dynamic of smaller format yet enlarged capacity could also include the release of tracks that were recorded but not placed on LPs due to a lack of space and also recording rarities from the vaults that had not seen the light-of-day for decades.

The record producers also spent some of the money back in the form of sleeve inserts and booklets that featured artwork, photographs, the original liner notes and, most especially, new commentaries about the music by many distinguished Jazz authors and critics.

However, in some cases, the art direction and design folks got carried away and placed these precious narratives in formats using miniscule fonts, printed in pale colors on even lighter backgrounds to the point where they became unreadable without a magnifying glass. 

In other instances, the text was bastardized by spreading it over special pages, sometimes in a vertical format which caused the readers to crane their necks and strain their eyes trying to make sense of it all.

So, the good news was that it was all there in a conveniently collected series of compact discs; the bad news was that all this brilliant elucidation was virtually lost to the naked eye.

A case in point are the following booklet notes by the esteemed Jazz critic Neil Tesser which were part of the booklet that accompanied the 1997 release of The Complete Evans on Verve. [Don’t get me started on the atrocious metal box that houses the set.]

I wrote to Neil and asked his permission to transcribe the notes and present them as a READABLE blog feature and he graciously replied as follows: “Absolutely, Steve. I always thought that was a good piece of work, but I also felt that it wasn't read by many: between the production delays behind the box (separate story), the cost of the thing, and the brilliant decision to use a flyspeck font and print it in muted shades of gray and green — including, on page 51, mute green type ON muted green background — I wonder if a dozen people ever took the time decipher it. Which is to say, I'd be happy and thankful to see it reused in a readable form.”

This piece contains three footnotes. I’ve retained the numbers in the body of the text and you can locate the footnote annotations at the conclusion of Neil’s essay. There's also a sidebar reference following the footnotes which I have left "as is."

© Copyright ® Neil Tesser, copyright protected; all rights reserved, used with the permission of the author.

“Ultimately, for Bill Evans, it all came down to sound.

Every musician pays attention to the sound his instrument produces, from its intonation (correctness in pitch), to the mechanics of its production, to the qualities — tender, clipped, bluff,  translucent — that can color it.  Jazz pianists, however, quickly learn to concentrate on other musical issues — such as the athleticism of pure technique, or the infinite puzzle of alternate harmonies — because of the instrument they play: unable to carry their own pianos with them, they often find themselves shackled to keyboard clattertraps in the clubs where they perform, making the fine points of sound a luxury indeed. 

But Bill Evans didn’t just “pay attention” to sound; it became an overriding preoccupation, and that alone might have been enough to set him apart from most of his piano-playing contemporaries.  In fact, his concerns with sonority would have proved remarkable no matter what instrument he played.

Consider his approach to melody.  In his exquisite improvisations, Evans focused not just on their elegant contours and breathtaking leaps; in the gradations of his touch, and in the subtle, constant ebb and flow of dynamics, he clearly considered the actual sound that each note gained from and imparted to its neighbors.  Rhythm: for Evans, the octave-placement and internal chording — in other words, the sound — of his distinctive rhythms held an importance separate from (and nearly equal to) the propulsive kick of those rhythms themselves.  But the most obvious evidence lies in the voicings of his innovative and influential harmonies.  Even when others happened upon the same chords, their music didn’t resemble Evans’s — not unless they also happened to copy the heretical way in which he structured those chords.  Evans almost always omitted the root note of his harmonies, something they teach you not to do in music school. By so doing, he opened up the possible directions in which any one chord might lead.  At the same time, though, this technique gave his harmonies an unmistakable signature—light, airy, yet surprisingly textured — which Evans made into an unmistakable trademark.

Enrico Pieranunzi, the respected Italian pianist who reveals so much of Evans’s influence in his own work, offered this description: “If you play the root before [the chord] and not at the same time, this sets up vibrations that give life to the chord.  This is just a question of ears.  No one before Bill Evans was able to conceive of this.” 

It may seem a little odd to focus on such an elusive concept as the “sound” of Bill Evans’s music.  Those who know the science behind his art will readily understand why.  By dint of both training and inclination, Evans was a master theoretician, fascinated by the intricate clockwork of chords and the precise micromanagement of subtle rhythms; and a musician who masters such matters might easily look down on the less “scientific” subject of individual sonority.  Lennie Tristano, whose school of cerebral improvisation left its strong influence on Evans, provides an appropriate example: in his own piano playing, he sought a balanced and nearly monotonous attack, downplaying such elements as dynamics and voicing in order to highlight the relentless, eventually seductive logic of his melodies.  

But Evans had also absorbed the easy-riding, emotionally gratifying funk of Horace Silver.  (Listen to some of his early recordings and you simply can’t miss it.)  Armed with that model, and with his control of attack, dynamics, balance, and voicing, Evans could send his most theoretical concepts into the world on a cool, inviting breeze.  Logic and sound worked hand-in-hand to produce music that challenged the mind and satisfied the soul.

Others heard this; in fact, remarks about this facet of Evans’s style constitute something of a leitmotif within the substantial commentary about his work (which at the time of this writing includes several postgraduate dissertations).  In an interview given shortly after hiring him to play in his remarkable late-50s sextet, Miles Davis placed Evans among the handful of pianists who, “when they play a chord, play a sound more than a chord.”  Chuck Israels, who took over the bass chair in Evans’s first important trio, feels that “few pianists in the entire world of music have developed the range and nuance that was an integral part of his playing,” and finds a single shortcoming in the work of another notable pianist and good friend: “He has listened to Bill Evans and not heard the sound of the piano.”  And pianist Richie Beirach—who produced one of the first posthumous recorded tributes to Evans—explained Evans’s trademark piano posture like this:

“. . . to be aware of the sound—that’s why he hunches down, just to get this shit straight.  He doesn’t hunch down ‘cause he’s tired or he’s high.  When your head is like this, you hear the stuff; your ear is lower.”    

Evans’s approach to the piano—in which neither right-hand melodies nor left-hand rhythms predominated, but rather engaged in a musical conversation with each other—extended beyond the keyboard. It became the template for his philosophy of the piano trio, and that philosophy remains, along with his extraordinary lyricism, one of the two most enduring aspects of his music.

Until this time, piano trios existed primarily to support the pianist, forming a rhythmic framework for the keyboard solos and pointing attention almost entirely to the ivories.  Evans, however, wanted a trio in which no one element dominated completely, and in which each man could push the music in the direction of his choice at any given time—a musical unit that could “grow in the direction of simultaneous improvisation, rather than just one guy blowing followed by another guy blowing.  If the bass player hears an idea that he wants to answer, why should he just keep playing a 4/4 background?” he asked.  He wanted a group that matched his own demand of himself: to be able to “change directions at any moment” in the creation of music.  But he also wanted a trio that would express his lyricism: “Especially, I want my work—and the trio’s if possible—to sing.”

Given his own subtle iconoclasm, Bill Evans could hardly have missed hearing it in other artists, no matter how different a form it might take.  In the early 60s, he wrote the brief liner note for an album by Thelonious Monk, the long misunderstood genius who had carved a keyboard style at least as striking as Evans’s own:   

“This man knows exactly what he is doing in a theoretical way—organized, more than likely, in a personal terminology, but strongly organized nevertheless.  We can be further grateful to him for combining aptitude, insight, drive, compassion, fantasy, and whatever else makes the `total’ artist, and we should also be grateful for such direct speech in an age of insurmountable conformist pressures.”  Evans also used Monk as an example of how “any man can be great if he works true to his talents, neither over- nor under-estimating them and, most important, functions within his limitations.”

It doesn’t take any great leap of analysis to imagine Evans’s words applying to Evans himself.

*****

William John Evans, of Welsh and Russian stock, came into the world on August 16, 1929 in Plainfield, New Jersey.  He began playing the piano at the age of 6, tackling the violin at 7; as a teenager, he played piano in the semi-professional dance band led by his older brother Harry, who also played piano.  But he spent his truly formative years in Louisiana: Harry had settled in Baton Rouge, where he eventually became the city’s Supervisor of Music, and Bill followed by attending Southeastern Louisiana University.  He attended on scholarship, which may come as no surprise; the scholarship, however, was for flute, which he had begun studying at 13 and which he played in the university’s marching band.

(Once you get the image of a marching flutist to jibe with your impressions of Evans and his music, then try this one: as quarterback, he led his intramural football team to the league championship.)

Evans played first-chair flute in the concert band, but he majored in piano, graduating with high honors in 1950.  He hated to practice, and an incident from his senior performance exam illustrates his ability, even then, to dig beneath mere technique in search of the underlying musical essence.  Each of the three professors serving as his jurors found fault with Evans’s technique on etudes and exercises; yet each of them praised his work on the actual pieces he performed, which supposedly required mastery of said exercises.  

After college, Evans was drafted into the army, which sent him to play in the Fifth Army Band at Fort Sheridan—an hour or so north of Chicago, where throughout his military hitch he spent his nights gigging. With his discharge papers in hand, he went to New York in 1955, where he performed in a quartet led by the clarinetist Tony Scott and did post-graduate studies in composition at Mannes College.  There he encountered George Russell, one of the pioneering theorists of “third stream,” the movement that hoped to synthesize a new direction from the fusion of jazz and modern classical composition.  When Russell secured a recording date for a commissioned work called All About Rosie in 1957, he made sure to include Evans; and the pianist’s startling, fully-formed solo pricked up the ears of critics throughout the country, as did his contributions to a subsequent Russell project, New York, N.Y.

By that time, Evans had already released one album under his own name.  Recommended to the young Riverside label by the guitarist Mundell Lowe, Evans in 1956 had recorded his first trio date, New Jazz Conceptions, which featured the debut of his most famous composition, “Waltz For Debby.” It took more than two years for his second album to arrive, but by then, the jazz world was hungry for it—because Evans had just come off an eight-month stint with the most important band of the period, the Miles Davis Sextet.  

With the Sextet, Evans had done more than back the soloists; he had played an intricate role in developing the modal harmonies, open-ended structures, and coolly measured approach to improvisation unveiled by the Davis Sextet on the groundbreaking album Kind Of Blue.  At the time, Davis was seeking a way out of the harmonic prison drawn by the hard-bop movement of the 1950s; Evans’s still-developing mastery of chord voicing suggested new escape routes, some of which paralleled Davis’s own.  Evans and Davis collaborated on all but one of the album’s compositions, and although both their names appear beneath the title of the indelible ballad “Blue In Green,” most historians and music analysts peg it as the work of Evans alone.  The pianist was even enlisted to write the still-famous liner notes to the album, in which he compared jazz improvisation to the meditational state and flowing strokes of Japanese sumi-e painting.

By 1959, his star had risen; nonetheless, when his second album arrived bearing the title Everybody Digs Bill Evans, some found reason to argue with that assessment.  He lacked the jaw-dropping, shout-inducing technical fireworks of the beboppers and their direct descendants; and, as some musicians and many more critics were quick to point out, he didn’t swing in the obvious, even bombastic manner used by most of his predecessors.  But Evans, exemplifying his own later comments about Monk, operated from a different paradigm; he had located these so-called flaws at the heart of a new sense of jazz swing.  His understated beat had become a deceptively light but irresistible forward drive; his supposedly “limited” technique became the basis of a lyrical profile rarely before heard in jazz.  And his decentralized concept of the piano trio engendered a format of unexpected strength and compelling influence.

 

* * * * *

Evans had left Miles Davis’s group in a state of fatigue and depression, brought on by the demands of the road and his own lofty self-expectations.  “At the time I thought I was inadequate,” he would recall years later.  “I felt exhausted in every way—physically, mentally, and spiritually.”  In addition, he wanted to spend some time with his father, who was ill at the time.  After resting up at his parents’ home in Florida, the pianist spent some time visiting his brother.  He later recalled that “somehow I had reached a new inner level of expression in my playing.  It had come almost automatically, and I was very anxious about it, afraid I might lose it. . . . But when I got back to New York and the piano in my own apartment, it was consistently there.”  As a result, he eagerly set about forming the first of the trios that would ensure his place in music history. Bill Evans did not choose his bandmates lightly.  He believed that the kind of music he wished to make could grow only out of long relationships with the right associates, and in 1959, he established just such a balance with two young and similarly dedicated musicians.  The drummer, Paul Motian, had worked with Evans in Tony Scott’s quartet and had remained in that band in the intervening years; the bassist, Scott LaFaro, had joined Tony Scott’s group after Evans’s tenure, but the pianist had played with him briefly in 1956.  Each brought a large measure of independence to his role in the new kind of trio that Evans wanted to lead.  In his timekeeping duties, Motian had learned to swing in a manner quite different from the heated rhythms and sharp angles of hard-bop.  Motian pushed the music along as much by inference as by direct statement—as much with percussive color as with downbeats.  LaFaro also offered something different: with his prodigious technique, he could take his music anywhere that his agile mind suggested, seemingly unrestricted by the instrument’s physical boundaries.  This made him the perfect candidate for the trialogue that Evans wished to create. 

As Paul Motian would later describe it, “we became a three-person voice — one voice, and that was the groundbreaking point.”

But this “first trio,” as it has come to be known, lasted only until the summer of 1961, when Scott LaFaro died in a fiery auto crash in upstate New York.  The loss of LaFaro devastated Evans; he did not play again in public for almost a year, and apparently played little in private for the first six months after the crash.3   When he returned to recording, Chuck Israels had come on board.  Israels lacked LaFaro’s mercurial technique and played a much more conservative style of jazz bass, and in the minds of many observers, the Bill Evans Trio suffered a setback during Israels’ tenure.  Certainly, one can’t dispute that the trio lost some of its tripartite sparkle while turning more of the spotlight over to Evans himself.  

But a careful listening to this version of the trio paradoxically reveals the durability of Evans’s concept.  Israels quite obviously understood the democratic ideal at the heart of Evans’s trio: you can hear the evidence in his asymmetrical lines, his melodic counterpoint, and his ability to walk away from the traditional four-stroke bass accompaniment.  His playing proved that even though a virtuoso had created the role, one didn’t have to be a virtuoso to play that role — and, by extension, that Evans had charted a direction for the jazz trio that would outlive his own bands.  Nonetheless, all of Israels’ successors — Gary Peacock in 1962, Eddie Gomez in 1966, and Marc Johnson in 1978 — employed a technically complex and contrapuntally challenging style, squarely in the mold of Scott LaFaro.

* * * * *

Evans began his association with Verve Records in 1962 while still recording for Riverside.  At Verve, throughout the 60s, he continued to make the trio his main laboratory.  But this did not preclude other projects, such as his duo recordings with guitarist Jim Hall—in which the two artists set high-water marks for an intimate, almost telepathic communication—or the overdubbed solo project that earned Evans the first of his six Grammy Awards.  He performed in orchestral settings supplied by the arranger Claus Ogerman, and he resumed his association with George Russell on a 1972 album called Living Time, a somewhat experimental work that employed composed sections of undetermined length, as opposed to a finite number of measures.  Nonetheless, the intricate creative possibilities of piano/bass/drums remained both the prime vehicle for his musical development and the beneficiary of his inspiration.  The various drummers — and their styles were indeed varied, from the mainstream fireworks of Philly Joe Jones to the off-kilter fulminations of Jack DeJohnette to the diffident cushion laid down by Marty Morell — all had a distinctive impact on the music’s thrust.  Finally, when drummer Joe LaBarbera joined Evans and Marc Johnson in 1978, Evans had assembled his last great trio — and, to the ear of many observers, his best trio since the very first one.

But Evans had already entered the precipitous decline that would result in his death on September 15, 1980.  (That date is preserved as the title of a Pat Metheny song, one of the several tribute compositions that began to appear shortly after Evans’s passing.)  Without doubt, the unexpected death of his older brother Harry acted as a catalyst: it seemed to shatter the support that music had provided for his life.  The trio performed a spectacular concert in November of 1979, in Paris, but its opalescence may well have been that of a supernova: in Joe LaBarbara’s estimation, “he was coming to a point in his life when he was peaking, musically, and he probably also realized that he was dying.”  And when the trio played in San Francisco, eight days before Evans’s death, “The guy was toward the end,” recalls Marc Johnson.  “I remember him telling me he was performing on sheer professionalism.  The sound he was making was harder.”   

That should have provided the only clue that anyone needed.  

Before then, though, Evans had created a piano style and a musical cosmos that continue to work their magic, 15 years after his death, through the most famous of his legatees: Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Gary Burton, and Pat Metheny.  Evans filled his playing with spontaneous (but rarely impulsive) asides and illustrations, yet his music didn’t insist that you follow any one of them.  These elements opened themselves up to those listeners who sought them.  Evans once stated that “I don’t want to rob anybody of the joy of discovery,” and his music—in the best tradition of the greatest art—fulfilled that creed.

NEIL TESSER

1995-96

This essay owes much to the research conducted and presented by the indefatigable Win Hinkle in LETTER FROM EVANS, published on a bimonthly or quarterly basis from 1990-1994 and now available on the Internet’s World Wide Web.

FOOTNOTES

1. He was certainly aware of perhaps his greatest limitation, his problems with chemical dependency.  Like many of his contemporaries, he found himself caught up in heroin, a habit that almost certainly contributed to the chronic liver problems of his later life; this condition would cause his hands to swell, sometimes to the point of affecting his ability to perform.  And years after ditching heroin, he took up with cocaine, which several of his friends and observers blame for his death.  

2. Of some interest: Bill Evans was not the only Bill Evans to play with Miles Davis.  In 1980, Davis hired a then 22-year-old saxist named Bill Evans from the Chicago suburbs to play in his fusion band.  And for that matter Bill Evans (the pianist) was not the first Bill Evans to establish himself in jazz.  A Detroit saxophonist born nine years earlier holds that distinction, although by the time he began recording, he had changed his name to Yusef Lateef.

3. To bring things full circle, compare Evans’s reaction to that of Marc Johnson, the bassist in the Bill Evans trio at the time of the pianist’s death.  “Right after he died, I spent a couple of months just immersed in his music.  And then, suddenly I found that I couldn’t listen to it; it was just too devastating to me.  For a number of years there, I didn’t put a Bill Evans record on the turntable.  I didn’t want to hear anything that I did with him.  It made me sad.  Then suddenly this year [1990 — a decade after Evans’s death] it’s like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders and I feel I can listen to this music again, with enjoyment, as I used to.”” 

SIDEBAR

(This will be set off in a separate box in the program-book layout.)

Evans was a naturally shy and even self-deprecating man: announcements of just completed songs, let alone banter with the audience, did not fall from his lips, and for much of his adult life, he wore a full and often shaggy beard, which further shielded him from his public.  So did his addictions, first with heroin and then with cocaine.  Whether he used drugs to gain acceptance as the only white man in Miles Davis’s band, or to relieve the pressure of the musician’s life, or simply because it allowed him to shed his inherent discomfort in public settings, the fact remains that he used drugs, and that this shaped his life in ways similar to most addicts’ experience. Orrin Keepnews, Evans’s first producer (at Riverside Records), recalls at least one recording session that he authorized, at least in part, to justify the cash advances Evans had extracted from the label to supply his habit.  Evans contrasted his personal demons with not only his sunny, inviting music, but also with a quick, dry, and often dark sense of humor.  (For instance, when he learned of the financial disorder left behind by a recently deceased record-company executive, he opined that the man “must have died in self-defense.” )

Evans may have succumbed to addiction — as did so many of his peers — but it didn’t reflect allegiance to the fashion of the day.  Unlike many, he never made his addiction a motivating factor for his music, and he never engaged in hand-wringing or self-pity over this aspect of his lifestyle.  Evans simply didn’t follow the crowd.  He didn’t splurge on the latest clothes, as did his former colleague, Miles Davis.  He wouldn’t pepper his conversation with hip constructions, and once told Downbeat Magazine that such commentary represented an excuse for not thinking.  And he refused to simply settle into the niche his fame had carved.  Instead, he worked restlessly to peel back layer after layer of his music; in his music, Evans had no fear of revealing the man behind the beard.

Chances Are It Swings - Shorty Rogers & His Orchestra 1959 Mono (RCA Vic...

A masterpiece of brilliant arranging executed to perfection by some of Hollywood's best studio musicians. Check out the trumpet section! My favorite is the second track - No Such Luck.

A1 Chances Are A2 No Such Luck A3 It's Not For Me To Say A4 Lilac Chiffon A5 I Just Don't Know A6 Who Needs You B1 Everybody Loves A Lover B2 Come To Me B3 My Very Good Friend In The Looking Glass B4 You Know How It Is B5 A Verry Special Love B6 Teacher, Teacher

• Arranged By, Conductor, Trumpet – Shorty Rogers
• Baritone Saxophone – Chuck Gentry
• Bass – Joe Mondragon
• Clarinet, Flute, Alto Saxophone – Bud Shank, Paul Horn
• Drums – Mel Lewis
• Guitar – Barney Kessel, Howard Roberts
• Liner Notes [Original On Back Cover] – John Tynan
• Liner Notes [Reissue On Inside Sleeve] – Jordi Pujol
• Orchestra – Shorty Rogers And His Orchestra Featuring The Giants*
• Piano – Pete Jolly
• Producer – Dick Peirce
• Tenor Saxophone – Bill Holman, Richie Kamuca
• Trombone – Dick Nash, Harry Betts, Ken Shroyer*
• Trumpet – Al Porcino, Conte Candoli, Don Fagerquist, Ollie Mitchell, Pete Candoli, Ray Triscari
• Valve Trombone – Bob Enevoldsen
• Vibraphone – Gene Estes
• Written-By – Al Stillman (tracks: A1 to A3, A6, B3, B4, B6), Joseph Stone (3), Peter Lind Hayes (tracks: A4, B2), Richard Adler, Robert Allen (3)

Art Pepper - Tickle Toe

Art Pepper (Alto Saxophone) Harry Babasin (Bass, Cello) Bobby White (Drums) Sonny Clark (Piano) -- Live recording on Lighthouse, Hermosa Beach, ,California, USA on May 31, 1953

Part 3 -The Terry Gibbs Dream Band from "Terry Gibbs Good Vibes - A Life in Jazz"

 © Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“I know this band and its music very well, having spent many happy hours listening at the Seville. The music embodies the quality that means the most to me in a big band: unrestrained joy, and the ability to lift you off your chair with its power.

Mel Lewis was and still is the state-of-the-art big-band drummer.”

— Bob Florence, composer, arranger, bandleader

The band, perhaps the best of its time, obviously was caught at its zenith....

"Forceful, flowing, full of fire, playing in tune, admirably handling dynamics and shading within each arrangement, it literally blows you away."

—Burt Korall (International Musician)

"Unrestrained joy is exactly what the listener gets on...."

—Jim Bisco (Buffalo Evening News)

"Dream Band has all the right stuff: tight ensemble passages, vigorous solos and sharp arrangements."

— Eric Shepard (Journal-News, Nyack, NY)

“Terry's band is timeless. The best of the hot!”

— Buddy Rich, drummer, bandleader

"I really believe this band should go down as one of the great ensemble bands," Gibbs says. "I think it rates with Basic's band of the Fifties, Woody's Second Herd, Benny Goodman's band with Gene Krupa and Artie Shaw's with Buddy [Rich]."

The reference to Goodman is significant because Gibbs adopted Benny's strategy of having the arrangers weave his vibes in and out of numbers as Goodman's did for his clarinet. "I didn't want to just play a vibes solo and then step back and let the band play," Gibbs explains.

If a direct comparison is to be made of Gibb's exciting band, the inevitable one is to Woody Herman's Second Herd, the celebrated Four Brothers band. And, perhaps, it's not mere coincidence that most of the Gibbs musicians (including the leader) once played for Herman.

"I think you have to give Chubby Jackson a lot of credit for the spirit of the band," Gibbs says. "He always had enthusiasm, and I probably picked up some of that from him." Gibbs wasn't the only cheerleader, though. Not in a band where Frank Rosolino, Joe Maini, and Conte Candoli were constantly shouting encouragement.

- As quoted in the insert notes by Jay Roebuck, a DJ with an LA-based FM Jazz radio station, to Terry Gibbs Dream Band Main Stem Volume Four 

Here’s the conclusion of Terry reminiscences about the Dream Band from his autobiography - Good Vibes: A Life in Jazz [2003]

“In 1985, there were some big bands making some noise: Rob McConnell, Frank Capp and the Juggernaut, Bob Florence, and Bill Holman to name a few, had some albums out and were getting a lot of airplay. I still wasn't sure if I wanted to put them out, even though I had something on tape that was already a winner.

Gene Norman heard that I had some unreleased tapes of my big band. He called me and asked if I was interested in putting them out with his record company. I still wasn't sure if I wanted to sell the tapes to anybody but I agreed to meet with him at his office on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood. He really flipped out over the sound and the performance of the band and made me a very decent offer for the tapes. I thought about it and told him that if he put out the tapes as a four-record set that I'd be interested.

The reason that I wanted a four-record set was that those were the days of albums and cassettes. If he put out one album at a time, there would only be one or two songs on each side because some of the songs were twelve minutes long. He told me that he could edit and cut the songs so that he could get about twenty minutes of music on each side, which meant cutting a lot of the solos out. Once again, I insisted on a four-record set. I saw his point when he told me that he couldn't make any money by putting them all out at one time. He was right, because he was going to pay me a good amount of money for the tapes but I passed on the deal.

In 1986, Dick Bock, who once owned Pacific Jazz Records, heard about the tapes from Buddy Rich. Dick was now producing for Fantasy Records. One of Dick's fortes was editing tapes. He had a great feel for splicing the tape in the right place so that you'd never know that a four-minute song was once a twelve-minute song. He was a very successful record producer and was very interested in getting me with Fantasy Records. Dick and I had a meeting and I told him the same thing I told Gene Norman about cutting the tapes. He asked me to lend him the tapes so that he could show me what kind of an editing job he could do without ruining the feel of the arrangements and the solos. I made him a cassette of "Opus One." He also asked me not to listen to the original take of "Opus One" for about a month so that I could get the original out of my head.

After a month went by, I met with him again at his office in Hollywood. He played me the edited version and even though he took a lot of the solos out, it sounded good. All of the band ensembles were there and that was the highlight of the band. It almost sounded like the original version we recorded in the studio when the band first started, except that this was live and all the fire of all the guys yelling and carrying on was still there.

We took the cassette that Dick put together up to Fantasy Records in Berkeley, California, where we met with Ralph Kaffel, the president of Fantasy. I was surprised when Ralph told me that he had been a big fan of mine for years. Ralph loved what he heard and wanted to buy the master tapes. The money he offered me was not as much as Gene Norman offered, but he gave me some other things that were even more important to me than the money. To start with, Fantasy Records was a major jazz label, so I knew their distribution would be good. I wanted to make sure that every disc jockey in the country was supplied with an album, so I asked Ralph for the use of Fantasy's phone number. Then I called every disc jockey and made sure that they had the album. If they didn't, then one would be sent to them immediately. There was a good feeling between Ralph, Dick, and I, so I made the deal. That turned out to be one of the smartest moves I ever made, because the Dream Band records are now known all over the world.

When the Dream Band albums first came out, it was the biggest success I ever had in my life. There were two jazz radio stations in Los Angeles then: KKGO and KLON. I turned on one station and heard four or five songs in a row from the albums. Then I'd go to the other station to see what was happening, and THEY were playing four or five in a row. This happened all over the country.

When we were at the Seville, Wally Heider worked from his big truck, which was built like a small studio. There was no room to park the truck at the Sundown, so he ad-libbed a studio in the back room.

What Wally did was something I've never seen any recording engineer do. He taped wires on the floor in front of the saxophone section, the trumpet section, and the trombone section. Then he put mikes all over the place. In the back room where he was with his equipment, he had light bulbs set up on the wall. There were four light bulbs on top for the trumpets, three light bulbs underneath for the trombones, and five light bulbs for the saxes. If you looked at the wall it looked just like a band set-up. When somebody had a solo, the moment they stood up. their foot hit a wire and the light bulb went on in the back room where Wally was. He knew exactly who and when somebody was going to play a solo. This was genius to me. That's why the solos sounded right up front. Berrel helped out a lot because he knew the arrangements and every once in a while, he could alert Wally when he thought there was a solo coming up.

Indirectly. I helped make Wally a millionaire. In 1968, I got him a job on the Operation: Entertainment show that I conducted. Wally didn't belong to the union so all he could do was get a balance for the band. Then all the engineer at ABC had to do was make the whole band louder or softer. If he thought the bass was too loud, it was none of his business; he couldn't touch anything. As it turned out, the sound of the show was so good that the president of Filmways came to Wally and offered him a million dollars for his company. Wally traveled with us to all of the shows and on the last show, when we came back to Los Angeles, there was either a Mercedes or a Rolls Royce waiting for him at the airport. Filmways bought that for him to go along with the new job that he had as president of the Wally Heider Studios.

When you recorded those days, everything was two-track. If you were watching the band play and heard the trumpet solo, you'd hear it on the left side. When you heard the tapes, the trumpet was on the left side because that's where Conte sat. When I took the tapes to Fantasy in 1986, I brought them to their young hotshot engineers and they said, "What do you want us to do with it?" I said, "What can you do to make it better?" They said, "Nothing. It's perfect. All we can do is make it a little brighter." It was that good.

Sometimes the band almost looked like a comedy act. When I'd go make an announcement, everybody was talking and carrying on. Once in a while, if anybody had something silly to say, I would play straight man for them. All the guys had their own personalities and I would try to bring it out of them. Even with all the ad-lib talking and carrying on, they knew that when it came to playing the music, they "took care of business," which meant, don't fool with the music. Play the music like it's written and like we rehearsed it. When we were not playing music, if anyone had something stupid to say, they got up and said it. All of that added more spirit and more fun to the band.

Everybody loved Frank Rosolino. Before I counted off the first song I would say, "Here it is . . ." and snap my fingers. After two or three minutes of this, the audience became part of our act and they'd start saying, "Here it is" also. Then I'd say, "One, two, three . . ." stop, and say, "FRANK! How's your foot? How's your car?" Any question at all. Frank would jump up immediately and start rambling about whatever was going on in his brain. You never knew what he was going to do on stage. I liked that because it added a lot of spirit to the band.

Frank had these little silly things he would do. I'd be ready to tap off the tune, "One, two, three . . ." and before I could get to four he'd stop me. "Hey, T . . .T . . .Terry! Terry!" He did a great imitation of Wally Heider stuttering. I said, "What happened?" and he said, "You know who likes your playing?" I said "No, who?" and he said, "That's what I'm asking YOU! Do you know who likes your playing?"

One time he stood up, threw his music on the floor, and started running on top of it. I said, "Frank, what are you doing?" Frank said, "I'm running over my music." What this did was add more energy to the band. The guys would laugh and the audience would break up too.

Frank was a great yodeler. He would talk for about five minutes, and by the time he got done telling me about what was wrong with his car or his foot, he wound up yodeling. By that time, the band and the audience were in hysterics. That's when I would tap off the band and hit them in the head with our opening song.

Bill Putnam, who owned a recording studio and who was a great engineer, always came into every club the band played. When we got done with our set, Bill came over to me and said, "You know, Terry. I know why your band is so good. You never start out with a first set. You always start out with your third set."

Al Porcino could be the worst and the best for a band; it was all according to what mood he was in. When he was in a good mood, he'd just sit there and play the hell out of his part. But sometimes he could be a big pain in the ass. He always wanted to be a bandleader so he was always trying to tell me how to run my band. He was one of the best lead trumpet players I ever played with. Al and Ray Triscari both played lead and they were both equally as good. But Al was a little more aggressive than Ray, so he sort of took charge of the trumpet section.

Most of the music we played was written for record dates so it was all very high powered. When we recorded, I wanted every tune to be a home run. The club was always packed with celebrities and I wanted to really knock them out. So I picked this set out where every song was like a closing song and we really tore up the place. One home run after another. The next night we had a gang of celebrities again, so I figured I'd play the same set. As I was calling out the numbers, Porcino said, "What are we doing? Playing all FLAG WAVERS?" Then the guys in the trumpet section all said, "What are we playing? All flag wavers? How about our chops?" I'd have to say something silly to get everybody back into the fun we were having.

Vic Schoen wrote a suite for two bands that was recorded with Les Brown and a band that Vic put together for the date. Les was the musical director of The Steve Allen Show at the time that my band was at the Seville. Steve asked me if I would do the suite with my band and Les' band. All the guys in Les' band heard my band play at the club a lot of times and were really afraid to play opposite us. It was almost like we were Mike Tyson in his prime. The only person who wasn't afraid was [trumpeter] John Audino, who later joined my band. They all knew that our band was something else. I never saw and didn't know the music at all, so Les came to me and said, "Terry, do you want me to conduct it for you and show you how it goes?" Al Porcino, who talked very slowly, said. "L-e-s! W-e h-a-v-e o-u-r O-W-N b-a-n-d l-e-a-d-e-r!" And that was it. Even though Al and I used to argue a lot, he had enough respect for me to let Les know that the band was our little family and that we didn't need any help from anybody. It was a great piece of music and it came off great. I think that was the first time that Les ever heard our band, and he was very impressed.

I believed in hitting a home run immediately. In fact, I may have picked that up from Woody Herman. I always started out with a closing tune so that the whole band is standing up at the end of the song. That is, whoever COULD stand up would stand up.

Even though the band knew that Wally was there, they didn't act like it was a record date, which it actually wasn't. Wally was just experimenting with different microphones. He was in the back room and didn't know if Joe Maini was lying on the floor or Frank Rosolino was standing on somebody's shoulders. He never knew if they were near their mikes. Luckily, on the takes I picked, they were all sitting in their seats. I have some takes where, all of a sudden, you don't hear the lead alto. Joe Maini may have been lying on the floor or going out to dance with one of the girls. He'd break up a couple and start dancing with both of them, and for laughs, he'd wind up dancing with the guy. You never knew what these guys were going to do. Everybody had a good time.

On volumes 4 and 5, everybody knew they were record dates, and so everybody sat in their seats. They still carried on, making all kinds of noise, cheering every soloist, or just having fun.

If you listen closely to the Dream Band CDs, there are a lot of times when I'm soloing that you can hear Frank Rosolino yelling, "Hammer, baby! Hammer, baby!" Conte's schtick was when I'd call out the number of the song instead of its name. I'd say, "All right guys, let's play number thirty-four," and then Conte would ask, "What number is that?" That's also on some of the CDs. On "Flying Home," which is on volume 3, when I'm soloing and really getting into it, Joe Maini yells out, "Ohhhhhhhhh, SHIT!" In the same chorus he yells, "JEEEESUS CHRIST!" We couldn't edit that out because Wally recorded those albums on two tracks and if you tried to make those few bars softer, then it would ruin the continuity of the solo. So "Ohhhhhhhhh, SHIT!" And "JEEESUS CHRIST!" are on "Flying Home." So when you listen to the records, you hear a lot of yelling, which really is just a bunch of guys having fun.

I conducted the band on a telethon for the blind, which had Florence Henderson singing. We had an intermission and some of the guys in the band went outside and smoked some pot. They must have gotten something completely different than regular pot. Florence was singing "Some Enchanted Evening." It was more of a concert arrangement than a jazz arrangement. In the middle of the song, Med Flory stood up and started to play bebop behind her. I didn't believe it because there was nothing written for him to play. This was all live and I didn't know what to do, so I said, "Sit down!" And he said, "I CANT!" I kept telling him to sit down and he kept playing through her song. Every time I'd tell him to sit down, he'd stop long enough to say, "I CANT!" She didn't know what was happening at all because she never heard the arrangement played like that. I couldn't stop Med and Med couldn't sit down, he was so stoned out.

We weren't working steady with the band, so when I got a call for a job on the road for the quartet that paid a decent amount of money, I took it. Joe Glaser's office booked us in Las Vegas for a few weeks and then we went on to San Francisco. ….

When we got back to Los Angeles, I put the band together again and we played at Shelly's Manne Hole for a few weeks. Those days, they allowed you to smoke in nightclubs in California. I never allowed smoking on the bandstand because I thought that it looked cheap. Drinking was different because the guys could put their drinks underneath their stands and they could sip on them. Ray Triscari was in the band longer than anybody was and one time, I caught him smoking on the bandstand. When the set was over, we went into the band room and I said. "Ray, of all guys, you know that I don't like smoking on the bandstand. I don't mind you drinking, but smoking really looks terrible." I was really bugged with him.

Now, like I said, you never knew what my band was going to do. Shelly wanted us to close at ten to two so he could get everybody out of the place. We always closed the night with "Billie's Bounce" at about twenty to two. I had it timed so that at whatever bar or letter it was, I'd play six choruses, the band would come in with a background, and then we'd play the ensemble on out, and it always came out perfect. Because the club was always packed and the band was swinging. I brought a bottle of cognac in on the first night and Conte, Ray, John Audino. and I would drink most of it. Then the next night, John would bring one in and I'd bring one in also. Then Conte and Ray would bring one in, and little by little, we'd have four or five bottles of cognac going around. The good thing about the band was that even though I allowed drinking on the bandstand, it never got to the point where they couldn't play their part.

On the night that I caught Ray smoking, we were playing our last song and, like every night, when I got to my sixth chorus, the band was supposed to come in and play a background. Nobody came in. I figured they were a little juiced and having fun, so I kept playing. I played my seventh chorus and my eighth chorus and still nobody came in. Now I was getting bugged because they were ruining my timing on finishing the song by ten to two when I got to my next chorus, nobody came in. but everybody in the audience started applauding. I figured they all loved me. Wonderful, I'll play another chorus. They still didn't come in and now I'm really bugged so I turned around, ready to give them hell, and EVERYBODY, all fifteen musicians, were puffing on cigarettes. There was so much smoke you couldn't see the band. All I saw was a cloud of smoke. They were bugged with me because half of them didn't smoke and they had to keep puffing on their cigarettes until I turned around.

I wrote a song called "It Might as Well Be Swing" which starts out with the band playing the melody and then I come in with a bell note on the fourth beat. We were only working one or two nights a week at the Sundown and I was playing at Jimmy Maddin's other club called the Sanbah five nights a week with a different rhythm section. When you play with a big band, it's a completely different feel than playing with a quartet, especially with Mel Lewis playing drums, because he sat on it rather than giving it a little edge, like you would play with a little band. With a little band, the rhythm section gives you that little edge and you play more on top. Now, after playing five nights a week with a little band, when I came to work with the big band, sometimes I would feel uncomfortable playing, because there was a difference in the time.

On the first set, I played "It Might as Well Be Swing" and was getting ready to hit my bell note on the fourth beat, but heard the band still holding their note. I thought, "This is going to be a weird night for me." because I was already having trouble with the time. After the next eight bars, I was ready to play the fourth beat again and the band was still holding their note. The third time this happened, I said to myself, "Wait a minute. I can't be THAT screwed up. There's something wrong here." What they did was, they were holding their note for four beats instead of three. So they were playing a 5/4 bar while I was playing in four, so I never came down with the note.

To me, Richie Kamuca was the most unheralded saxophone player of all time. I felt like he was in the same class as Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, and Al Cohn; he was as good as any of those guys. He could have been one of the Four Brothers and the sound wouldn't have changed. Everything he played was so melodic and beautiful. Richie and Bill Perkins were two introverted guys who became completely nuts on my band. Nobody could play in the band and be introverted. They couldn't help it.

Richie was also very handsome. I was standing in front of the band when I noticed this gorgeous blonde staring right at me. It looked like she was really hitting on me. She started to walk towards me, came to within three inches of me, and walked right PAST me to Richie and gave him the biggest kiss in the world. Fluffed me off completely. It was Richie she was looking at, not me.

Richie wasn't a big band lover. Even though he played a lot of solos, it was really never enough because we had so many great soloists and I had to let everybody play. What made the band so good was that it was an ensemble band. He loved little bands more than anything, but he loved our big band.

Every once in a while, it got so loose that I would get bugged and say, "I'm breaking up the band." What I meant by loose is that the guys had to be on time for every set. I didn't care if they showed up naked, just so long as they showed up on time.

In 1961, we were finally getting a chance to do a record date and get paid for it. After the first break, I sent Berrel out to find the guys so we could get ready to record again. He came back alone and said, "They're not here." I said, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THEY'RE NOT HERE? WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A RECORD DATE!" He told me that they had all gone down to the Hollywood Palladium, a few blocks away, to hear Harry James' band. Richie and I were alone in the dressing room and I said to him, "You know, Richie, after we do this record date, I'm definitely breaking up the band." He said, "Oh, Terry, you can't break up the band. Don't do it. It's too good." Everybody finally came back and we got back up on the bandstand. On the song, "The Big Cat," at the end, the trombones just vamp and I noodle around for a while and then I cut off the band. While the vamping was going on — and this lasted about a minute — Richie knew I was serious about breaking up the band and he didn't want it to happen. So he started yelling behind me while I was playing the vamp: "GO GET 'EM TERRY! GO AHEAD, TERRY!" which wasn't his bag because he was such an introvert. But he was egging me on. He was having a great time and didn't want me to break up the band. You can hear him saying that on the CD.

Bill Perkins, who everybody called "Perk," was also very introverted but not on this band. He was just starting to listen to John Coltrane and was getting a little bit influenced by him. Perk's style came out of the Lester Young school. When we recorded at the Summit, he had a solo on a song called "Soft Eyes." Being that we were a straight-ahead swing band, he came to me and said, "Terry, do you mind if I get a little out on my solo on 'Soft Eyes'? I've been listening to Trane and I love some of the things he's been doing." I never tell anybody how to play their solo, plus it wasn't really out, but it was a little different for Perk.

Charlie Kennedy was quiet and shy and had a funny sense of humor. In his younger days, Charlie worked with Gene Krupa and recorded a song called "Disc Jockey Jump" with Gene and played a solo on it that became very famous. Charlie's sound was closer to Charlie Parker than anybody in the band, even more than Joe Maini's. On Volume 2, called The Sundown Sessions, Charlie played a solo on "It Could Happen to You" and you'd swear it was Bird.

Charlie was also a very humble human being and a very nice person, but he had to give up the music business because he couldn't be around it without getting in trouble with dope. In 1986, after the CD came out, I started up the Dream Band again and called Charlie to play lead alto because by then, Joe Maini had died. We were going to play at the Playboy Jazz Festival, and when I called Charlie he said, "Let me think about it." He called me later and said, "I don't want to do it. I can't play again; I haven't played in years." We had a few months to get prepared but he just wouldn't do it. I think he didn't feel that he could be around the jazz scene without getting in trouble.

Jack Nimitz took Jack Schwartz' place and he was nicknamed "The Admiral," I suppose, after Admiral Nimitz. Jack Nimitz was more of a soloist than Jack Schwartz was and got to be very much in demand doing studio work. The only guy in the original band who really did any studio work was Ray Triscari, but Ray would take off record dates to do our fifteen-dollar job. When Porcino left, John Audino took his place. John was doing the Hollywood Palace show and so was Ray. They loved the band so much that when we had a job to play, they both would take off that show. It wasn't just giving up the 200 and some-odd dollars that the show paid; they were giving up the pension fund money and the money that goes for their health and welfare benefits. They gave up a whole lot when they gave up those shows. The money wasn't important to them because they felt just like I did. It probably was the happiest part of their lives too.

I didn't name it the Dream Band. When the first CD came out, Ralph Kaffel. the president of Fantasy, named it that. The album was just titled The Dream Band. I was against it because I hated names put on bands. Originally, we were called "The Exciting Terry Gibbs Big Band," but the name "Dream Band" stuck so much that every album was called "The Terry Gibbs Dream Band." When people talk to me about the band, they always address it as the Dream Band and leave my name out completely.

Joe Maini was, as the cliché goes, "one of a kind." Joe was also a street person. He'd use four-letter words even if he were talking to his mother. That was part of his vocabulary and he couldn't help it. When Bob Gefaell bought the Sundown from Jimmy Maddin. he renamed it the Summit. He loved the band so much, he decided he wanted to broadcast from there. Since it was his club, Bob decided he was going to be the announcer. The first broadcast was aired coast-to-coast on a show called Monitor. That day happened to be Joe Maini's birthday. I told Berrel to bring the whole band except Joe to the band room and I told them, "When we get to 'Cotton Tail,' and all the saxophones stand up on the saxophone chorus, go right into 'Happy Birthday.'" We played a few tunes and Bob Gefaell was announcing his heart away. We started "Cotton Tail," and when the saxophones stood up to play that great chorus that Al Cohn wrote, we went right into "Happy Birthday." Everybody in the band sang, and the audience did too. Everybody applauded, and Joe was really touched because he was a very warm guy. Then everybody stopped playing and were applauding him when all of a sudden Joe reached for the mike. Bob Gefaell, not knowing much about Joe. made the mistake of handing it to him. I thought, "Oh, NOOOO, not on the air!"

Joe's timing was perfect. He took the microphone and said, "Terry, this makes me feel so good . . ." then he paused a while and then said, " .. .that MY DICK IS TURNING PURPLE!" and handed the mike right back to Bob. Bob stammered and stuttered and didn't know what to say after that. He looked dumbfounded. I immediately said to the guys, "Take it from the sax chorus" and we went out swinging with Bob Gefaell looking like he was in shock.

One night, Harold Land played tenor sax with the band. For the first three sets we were playing mostly ensemble arrangements, but on the last set I let him stretch out on one of the blues things and he played about thirty some-odd choruses. When he got done, Joe Maini had to follow him. Joe didn't own a clarinet but there was one right next to him that Med used to play on two of the arrangements. After Harold played his thirty choruses and tore up the house, Joe didn't know what to play to follow him, so he picked up Med's clarinet and played Jimmy Dorsey's chorus from "Fingerbustin'," which had nothing to do with the blues. It was just a clarinet chorus that Jimmy made famous and it broke up the whole band. Joe was so talented. The title "Fingerbustin"' perfectly describes the type of a song it was. and it wasn't easy to play, especially when you played it on a strange clarinet.

I think that Conte Candoli was the favorite soloist of everyone in the band. When Conte played a solo, all the other trumpet players looked at him with admiration. Conte, who was married at that time, was seeing a Swedish girl named Kris who he eventually married after he got his divorce.

We were playing at a club called King Arthur's in Canoga Park and Kris came in with Conte. Conte was so in love with her that he was flipping out. Every once in a while, he would stand up in the middle of a number and throw kisses to Kris in the audience. Some of the people in the audience knew Conte's wife, so John Audino, who loved Conte, didn't want anybody to know what Conte was doing. So whenever Conte stood up to throw kisses to Kris, John stood up and also threw kisses to Kris. It looked weird to see two guys standing up throwing kisses to the same girl.

I was working in Toronto when I got a call from Jerry Lewis. Jerry liked to pantomime to big band records. I think that when Jerry started in show business, that was his act. He did it to a Count Basie record in one of his movies called "The Errand Boy" in a scene where he was sitting at a conference table. Jerry was a big fan of my band and loved a song we recorded called "Nose Cone" and wanted to do pantomime to it for another movie that he was now doing. I couldn't fly in so he asked me if I minded if somebody else played my solo. I said, "No, go ahead." They had my part written out and Larry Bunker played it. Playing somebody else's solo is the hardest thing in the world to do, especially mine, because I play four billion notes. Plus, I never know which mallet I'm going to use. In classical music, everything is usually right-left-right-left. But when you're playing jazz, who knows where your hands are going? Larry told me it was the hardest thing he ever had to read and he was one of the big studio players who could read anything. He did it but they never used it in the picture ….

I was back east when I got a call from Ray Linn, who was contracting the Monterey Jazz Festival. He asked me to put the Dream Band together again to play at the festival. Cannonball Adderley, Oscar Peterson. Dave Brubeck, and Dizzy Gillespie were some of the people also playing on the festival. I gave Ray names of who I wanted to play in the band. I also wanted to make sure that they were all paid a decent amount of money so I told him that if he could work the money situation out for the musicians, he should call me back and we'd arrange a fee for me. About a week later, Ray called me back and said, "I got all the guys you asked for." He agreed to what I wanted and I said great. This was a hard job for the guys in the band. Not only did they have to play our music, but they had to be the house band also. This meant that they had to play Johnny Richards' arrangements and play music for other people, music that they really didn't enjoy playing. They were getting paid well and I suppose that's why they accepted the job.

I flew in and they called a rehearsal for three o'clock, the afternoon of the night of the show. Duke Ellington was the emcee and he was going to introduce the band, so I figured we'd open up with something he wrote, "Main Stem." I hadn't seen the guys in six months. Everybody came to our rehearsal: Dizzy, Oscar, Cannonball . . . They all came because they had heard about the band.

I tapped off "Main Stem" and the band played the heck out of the chart. You could have sworn that we had been playing together for the last six months. It was so perfect, that I said, "No rehearsal. See you guys in the dressing room tonight."

I put two bottles of cognac and gin in the dressing room. It was like old times and we were all glad to be together again. When we got on the stage, the curtain was closed. Duke Ellington was in front of the curtain introducing the band while Lou Levy, Mel Lewis, and Buddy Clark were playing the blues, which was the chord changes to "Main Stem." Duke had an eloquent way of speaking, and when he finished introducing the band, we could have played one chord and we would have been a winner. I had it planned so that when Duke said, "Terry Gibbs" and the curtain opened, I was going to go right into the ensemble of "Main Stem."

We were all on the stage with the curtain closed while Duke was introducing us and here is what was going on backstage. This was October and the World Series was going on. All four trumpet players had portable radios with their earphones in their ears, listening to the ballgame. They were just standing around, not even sitting in their chairs. Frank Rosolino was sitting on somebody's shoulders, just carrying on. Joe Maini was lying on the floor, kicking his feet, and the rest of the saxes were in hysterics because of what Joe was doing. The rhythm section was still swinging and Duke was still talking. It looked so disorganized that it didn't make any sense. The curtain was closed, so I didn't care, because nobody could see us anyway. When Duke said. "Terry Gibbs!" you'd think that everyone would sit back in their seats. The curtain opened up and everybody was still doing what they were doing. Joe was on the floor kicking his feet, Frank was still on somebody's shoulders, and the four trumpet players were yelling, "Hey! It's a home run!" It almost looked like Spike Jones' band.

With my dumb sense of humor, I let it go on for a while. Why not? They were all having fun. I knew the music was going to be good no matter what, so when the band finally came in, it was like a powerhouse. Not only did we break it up and get a standing ovation, they made us come back at the end of the show after Dizzy, Oscar, and everybody else had played. We had to play another half-hour. The only person in the whole place who wasn't shocked to see the band so disorganized was Duke Ellington, who was used to seeing a loose band. His band was loose, but this was ridiculous….

People always ask me why the Dream Band wasn't much more successful. Actually, it was as successful as I wanted it to be. I was happy playing the Sundown and the Summit, making my eleven dollars a night. I didn't want the band just playing anywhere. That's why I left the Cloister. I just wanted to have fun. We were a complete winner. We played to a packed house full of celebrities every night. The club owner made money, and we had the times of our lives. Just listening to the band was the greatest thrill I ever had, and I had the best seat in the house. Sometimes when I was in front of the band, I would turn my back to them and cup my hands so I could hear them louder, if that was possible. As loud as they played, it was never loud enough for me. It was a great feeling. We were accepted by everybody in Hollywood. Even though every movie star came in to see us, WE were the stars. What could be better?””