00:00:00.840 - 00:00:11.400

Unknown: What do you neighbors think about your plane? They ever come in another? Windows broken three different No kidding, they get that violent. Well, I don't know why

00:00:11.400 - 00:00:27.140

I had the front one day. Is your weapons? Random violence? What happened three different times and twice? It was connected. I had dinner with Bob Theo and Pauline Ravello. First thing

00:00:27.140 - 00:00:55.780

I've ever gotten from either one of them. They tried to understand the way I was looking at things, and I just couldn't make it. They couldn't transcend that business. I a little Norton understand its limitations. Let's see. Okay.

00:00:56.620 - 00:01:06.420

Everybody has different feelings, you know, like kind of where they all where they are. Physicians have different feelings, and people who write about

00:01:08.640 - 00:01:21.980

when you review that. Archie Shep, what was it the new wave of Newport, yeah, he said he didn't like his poetry. Was that because he thought he had no business writing that kind of poetry to go with music or because he thought it was bad

00:01:22.220 - 00:01:34.880

poetry. I said what it wasn't. I guess I wasn't astute enough to understand it. Pretty simply, I just didn't like that particular thing. I don't think there's any reason why you shouldn't.

00:01:36.200 - 00:02:04.080

What about social protest poetry to be more concrete. You think that like as Malcolm x1 do you think social matters in general have any place in the music? Sure, it's legitimate. I was I know that thing is ships. I was, I'm sorry that I

00:02:04.080 - 00:02:25.760

said that I didn't, because I know you weren't joining because I changed my mind, not what I said, you know, but I just, my whole feeling is about about writing. I don't like the idea of writing because about the music, because if you write

00:02:25.760 - 00:02:42.400

about it, you have to say what you feel, or else there's no point in doing. I just feel that certain things are better left unsafe. I regret having said because I'm sure it offended ship quite a bit. I

00:02:49.180 - 00:03:11.700

wouldn't want him to be mad at me. Talk to him. I mean, whether or not I agree with that is one thing. And it's like, I like I said in there, he's, he's doing that because he feels strong about it. He's got a right to do

00:03:13.980 - 00:03:27.920

it. Yeah, I see now that you mentioned it, I recall reading that too. I said some pretty nasty things. That isn't why

00:03:30.080 - 00:03:47.020

I wanted to say that, because I came out. What I was really trying to get at is your philosophy of art, and whether you thought that it was legitimate to use art, as Shep does, as a vehicle for social ideas.

00:03:50.560 - 00:04:03.780

What? I don't have a feeling for that kind of terminology like philosophy of art. Okay, well, maybe I can make it simpler. I know. I know exactly. That's my first

00:04:03.780 - 00:04:22.280

response to it. That's the way I feel about it. That kind of terminology I don't respond to. But I think everybody should do what they want to do. I'm interested in playing music. No, I like to write too, but I don't have any desire to connect the

00:04:22.280 - 00:04:32.960

two things up too much. That was what I was going to ask you. What about what do you find among music musicians in general, that they are interested in, the kinds of questions that Archie is

00:04:32.960 - 00:04:48.700

interested in, and that they want to use their music to express their position or not? Or is there any generalization? Well, I feel that whole question is very complicated. I wouldn't I don't

00:04:48.700 - 00:05:06.260

really know how to begin to talk about that. It's really hard saying that, like all that, black nationalism and socialism, all in business, I. My feelings about that whole thing, my way of putting it

00:05:11.780 - 00:05:37.100

would be that the generally accepted beliefs about what life's all about, I don't think have too much to do with what life is all about. I think most people go around with the kind of beliefs in something like a mass psychosis, but that's no

00:05:37.100 - 00:05:52.120

that seems to be because that's necessary for them to live with it, and it has to do with money and all of this, you know. And think specifically, if you're black, you have to go through a lot of really nasty stuff, and you're forced to be conscious of

00:05:52.120 - 00:06:03.960

this continually. Now, I'm not forced to be conscious of it continually. Being a white musician black society, I'm forced to be conscious of someone I don't like it. I like being conscious of it. You know, some people like, some people

00:06:03.960 - 00:06:20.420

like, would like to make me conscious of it, because it's their problem. Well, my answer to that is, it's not going to become my problem, you know. I mean, it will to a certain extent. But the thing that I feel most positively about that

00:06:20.420 - 00:06:36.020

whole question that Shep seems to try to say, a lot of Hans and Lew Roy Jones does too, and the few white people in general don't want to hear, is that I think the hope of the real spark and life force in this country is going to come from the black

00:06:36.020 - 00:06:49.240

people. I feel that myself being white, it's not something I go around thinking about that has particular significance, you know, to me all the time, I think it's something great does to them because they're black. I'm not black, you know? I mean,

00:06:49.240 - 00:07:02.640

it's something that's a fact that I can recognize, because it's mostly as far as I'm concerned, for the music. I think that the people in this country who produced the best music have been black people, and it's a music that I respond

00:07:02.640 - 00:07:15.720

to myself. And it's not because it's black, because the music, in a lot of ways, it has a foreign element to me, because I'm white, I'm not black. I didn't grow up like Archie Shep did or Roy Jones. I come from from a poor economic background,

00:07:15.720 - 00:07:29.960

a poor neighborhood, which, as far as the economic status, is similar to us in lots of ways, but the culture is still completely different. It's like Leroy Jones was saying in that panel discussion you had up at that school that I thought was a

00:07:29.960 - 00:07:48.280

beautiful thing, that there's a certain way of feeling that's first time I recite you, I see that, and it seems to me to be the most obvious thing, because the thing the thing that I'm most conscious of as a musician is just the quality of the way

00:07:48.280 - 00:08:05.820

people's feelings are. Unconscious of that in everyday life, too. And I can't help noticing that, like, if I hear state music or I play play what's big hats myself, I can't help feeling that there's a very different quality you I don't

00:08:08.640 - 00:08:21.680

think I could play with, say, a band composed of spade musicians continually over a long period of time. I don't know. I might be wrong. I've never done it, because it seems to me, the quality of the feeling is somewhat different. I have one

00:08:21.920 - 00:08:36.680

spade guy in my band, and I don't, I don't feel that he's firing or anything like that. But if I have a whole band composed of spade guys, I think the music would tend to take a direction that would be different from where I would

00:08:36.680 - 00:08:51.700

want to go. Not that that would be bad, but it would be a different direction. People are always complaining about segregation jazz. Don't seem to realize that there is there's always segregation. It has to be true.

00:08:58.780 - 00:09:08.100

I asked Russell rut the same question. Well, I'm trying to standardize this thing because I figured that's the only way it can be meaningful, is if you ask more or less the same questions, even though you have to phrase them

00:09:08.460 - 00:09:27.140

differently. Well, it's easier to do that way. And he too comes, no, actually, the easiest thing to just meander, but I'm trying to avoid it. He comes from a lower class, white background. He says that jazz is a music of music comes

00:09:27.140 - 00:09:44.560

out of poverty and music comes out of deprivation and suffering. And he kind of implies that this gives it a universal quality. Would you think any of that is morning? I wouldn't, I don't follow that connection, you know, between

00:09:44.560 - 00:09:58.900

suffering and universe, because joy is also universal. Good things are universal. Well, I think what, in the sense of he says, is true, that doesn't come come out of poverty, okay?

00:09:58.900 - 00:10:20.960

Weldon, universal. Happen with it. I gather there's no idea in art about, you know, art, that the quality of art is connected with its universality. And I, I don't think that's true at all. It doesn't make any sense.

00:10:20.960 - 00:10:32.900

It can at best be a half truth, because men aren't universal. Men live in certain time and place. I think everything's, it's it's universal. You know, everything is also not universal, but that has nothing to do with

00:10:32.900 - 00:10:47.740

politics. We all die, but we all done in different ways, depending on who we happen to be, yeah, right, and where we happen to be, and kind of a culture movement, I wanted to say something else about that thing, that the black, black

00:10:47.740 - 00:11:04.200

music and equality of it, because I feel very strongly. I want to say it partly because I because I am white, and if I say maybe some other people don't think it is something racist, because white people are very paranoid. You know, including

00:11:04.200 - 00:11:18.360

myself. I get somewhat paranoid if I state guy tells me, in effect, in one way or another, that someday they're going to have the power and we're going to have a subservient position. I don't like the idea of anybody having it, but if somebody, if

00:11:18.360 - 00:11:33.980

somebody's got to have it, I don't want it to be me, least of all, Suzy. And you know that that makes me uncomfortable. I read that kind of thing. But I think with most white people, it goes much deeper, because they, most white people don't really

00:11:33.980 - 00:11:45.100

don't like spade people. I mean, that's what it comes down to. They don't like spades, and that's what's hardest to I think, probably harder, on a human level, to accept, like spake people, say, people who have Morton, Archie and the Roy,

00:11:45.100 - 00:11:59.200

they talk a lot of times about power and economics. I'm sure that that has a lot to do with it, but, but there's a there's a love thing. There's much effort in that. I mean, there are people who primarily, at least, at least Archie. I feel this. I

00:11:59.200 - 00:12:09.960

don't, I don't know that much about the Roy that I've ever gotten that feeling from reading his poetry. I've never gotten into it to get that kind of feeling out, but for watching, I know, like, basically, what the guy gives off is a love thing,

00:12:09.960 - 00:12:23.420

and wants to give him himself, what's best in himself. And when he feels he's getting up on a stage and doing this, and then he walks down the street and he knows he's treated a certain way immediately, just because of the way he looks at people or calls

00:12:23.420 - 00:12:39.260

him or hostile or nasty? Well, it hurts. It hurts an awful lot, and it's something that that it has to make you ride. Absolutely must make you ride. Can't get around it. There's no other way. It must. It must hurt. Hurt you very badly, and it's got to make

00:12:39.260 - 00:12:52.840

the defensive. That's what I don't like to keep picking Archie, but I'm sure he won't mind. Well, yeah, I guess he won't mind. But the thing is, you know, he's he says a lot of things. You know,

00:12:54.700 - 00:13:09.540

actually, he and Mary Brown, for example, believe almost the same way, but Mary Brown is very reticent about coming under, what circumstances will come out so it doesn't, it isn't just talking about, really talking about a whole milieu. Yeah, I

00:13:09.660 - 00:13:29.660

think we all still didn't say what I was about the quality of music. I think that the greatest thing that Hans to me in music is a certain kind of feeling of liberation. A couple weeks ago, there was some music

00:13:29.720 - 00:13:49.240

in the park over here by Mort, and he plays Tanner bass clarinet in Santa, and it was his band, mostly Brian Right, Mr. Linley, one Alto and bass clarinet. Dave Weldon that night on piano, and a French guy, I think that Don Charles just

00:13:49.240 - 00:14:03.060

brought over here, tenor player or bass player, and the drummer, Bobby caps, I think his name is, and that the music that night, I felt that it was some of the most beautiful music

00:14:03.060 - 00:14:18.540

I ever heard in my life. And it was because it was so liberating. And whenever I really did music, I always get that feeling from it, and I think that this has happened a lot more with the music produced by black people like Louis

00:14:18.540 - 00:14:45.820

Armstrong, Lead Belly, Billie Holiday. Rachel Sally Parker, or net, I think more than anybody else. Sometimes I feel not sometimes, but I feel about our net that Suzy has more inequality of liberation than just about anybody else's I've

00:14:45.880 - 00:14:57.100

ever heard. Fact, I sort of lean direction. I think Werner is probably the greatest musician he's ever live. Just because of that. I mean, that's what great means to me. Doesn't mean anything else, but that.

00:14:58.600 - 00:15:12.120

Yeah, I think I agree. I don't. I don't think there nearly as many people in classical music who have that quality to any extent, like all those people that I just met, they're schooled out of it. Beethoven has it, or has some of

00:15:12.120 - 00:15:30.080

it to a lesser degree. But I don't, I don't know of anybody else as much of it, or I don't think Bach has much of it. I don't think Mozart has much, but I think they're both beautiful, and I like both of them a lot these things. But I I really

00:15:30.080 - 00:15:43.960

don't think their music has as much value to me from where I am and what's emotionally meaningful to me as this other thing. And I also think there's something there's something objective in it too. I don't want to just say it's to me,

00:15:44.020 - 00:16:00.280

because I believe it's something beyond me. The reason I want to say all that is because it's generally believed that classical music is much greater thing, and jazz. You know this guy who wrote this book, this French guy a few years ago?

00:16:00.700 - 00:16:13.260

Yeah, he liked to make a point over and over, as much as he liked jazz, that he he didn't think it could be compared to the to the masters. He

00:16:13.320 - 00:16:28.460

wasn't that word masters. He had some other word referring to varieties, classical music, varieties, different kinds of things, and I strongly disagree with that. I think jazz has produced something much greater. Hans produce a lot of people who

00:16:28.460 - 00:16:44.200

far surpass most of what's happening. But that's another indication of the racial prejudice, sure, just another indication white people can't possibly believe like that. I mean, Kenneth, you know, say to themselves, What do you mean

00:16:44.200 - 00:16:58.000

this? This guy is actually, he's, he's as great as Henze. These people have produced, like a half a dozen people in the span of about 40 years or 50 years, that are equal or greater than the best thing that we produce. When I know Matt Hans

00:16:58.000 - 00:17:12.660

said one time a few years ago he didn't think jazz had produced anything as great as Beethoven. He was using a word like complex in there. He had an idea like complex, because there was nothing was as rich as Beethoven. That might have been

00:17:13.260 - 00:17:29.000

the word the emotional richness and complexity with Beethoven, all I know this for myself. I think the only meaningful indication is not what people say, but what they do. I mean, what I do is I put on jazz to express my moods. So I have to

00:17:29.000 - 00:17:41.560

agree, yeah, that's you say the full thought, right? I mean, I could say that, oh yeah. I could say the other thing, you know, there's a certain intellectual snobbery.

00:17:41.560 - 00:17:57.640

Oh yes. Well, possible music. But in point of fact, when I want something that's going to express my emotions, which means when I want to listen to music, almost every time, even though there are things in scarlet, but there aren't as many. Maybe it's

00:17:57.640 - 00:18:09.900

because this is our society. I don't believe that. Saying that thing, that it's society. That's partly it. That's true. You know, of course, it's got to be true that that's partly it. But like, I like Beethoven as

00:18:09.900 - 00:18:22.100

much as I like anybody. I think Beethoven is really out of sight. I just think it's magnificent. I really like almost all this stuff very, very much. Or at least I like his supreme court, Henze and his symphonies very much. And I can

00:18:22.100 - 00:18:35.720

listen to those things over and over again. He played a long time ago, but most of the other cats, including people, much closer to our day. I I just can't get interested in them all the way through, like this idea about the great compositional

00:18:35.720 - 00:18:48.100

aspects of classical music, I think that's bullshit. That's really what. I think it's so much insane babbling. It's a psychotic babbling to cover something up. And people hear that if they read that. But I just said, you know, really put

00:18:48.100 - 00:19:00.540

them up tight. I know that, but I feel I have to put it that way, because I feel that that's where the truth of the matter lies. I'm not saying it because I'm angry or uptight. I really believe that about about people who say the classical music has

00:19:00.540 - 00:19:12.600

made a much greater contribution, and they point to the fact that it's much more complex, and all this formal development and all that, I think that's insanity. That's my belief, and it's belief I've come to over a long period of

00:19:12.600 - 00:19:28.580

time based on a lot of Stroud and experience. What if I argue that the reason why European music after Beethoven strikes us as less interesting is because it seems to be folk music. It seems to be connected with a folk it has

00:19:28.880 - 00:19:41.440

become an art music, and it exists in another kind of milieu, and this drains it of its vitality. I didn't feel that the first thing you said was true, European music after baby

00:19:41.440 - 00:19:55.660

someplace, you said people much closer to our time. Take some arbitrary cut off date or take, take some people who did you have in mind as being fantastically complex? And the thing I said would would go in the other direction. I

00:19:55.660 - 00:20:07.560

don't think you follow the point. I was referring to the fact that. Relate to things closer to your time? Yeah, so that would relate to things in classical music that are more recent, except that, do you relate to things

00:20:07.560 - 00:20:27.440

that are closer to your time? Is it just that simple? Listen, no, but I never said it. Well, that's simple. You're saying something that I never said, you seem to be time trying to throw some kind of implication out. What I

00:20:27.440 - 00:20:38.420

said, No, I'm trying to figure out if I understand what you said. Basically, yeah, well, I guess, I guess you didn't. What you did say is that there are Europeans who are now confused. We're supposed

00:20:39.140 - 00:20:50.440

to be trying going through. Let me try and summarize what I understood. You said that there are many people in European music whose artistic gives, or whatever you want to call it, have been fantastically overrated compared to jail

00:20:50.440 - 00:21:04.980

positions. Is that the essence of what? Yeah, right. Okay. Do these come from any particular time or place, or are they just interspersed kind of at random throughout all of European music, but the people who are overrated. Is there any

00:21:04.980 - 00:21:18.060

particular time when you Oh, all of it, except Beethoven? Yeah, but there's always individuals. You know, I like box things of box on the thing, because I don't care for I don't care for Brahms, Charles,

00:21:19.620 - 00:21:34.160

but I have a couple violin solo pieces. I like a lot. I like Mozart stuff quite a bit. After Beethoven. You like Bart on, yeah, I like but I like people right after Beethoven too.

00:21:34.520 - 00:21:49.600

That's just an accident of whom I was talking about. So there's no particular time Beethoven and Bartok has has nothing to do with the time Marian. I just like them very much as individuals, those two guys. I probably like them better than

00:21:49.600 - 00:21:56.860

anybody else. I like Stravinsky, some of his things. I like very much his earlier stuff. The reason I got off on that tangent is because what you said about

00:21:56.920 - 00:22:07.740

jazz, I like some I like different things by other people. In fact, one of the songs that I've played for years is the avenue Maria by Frans Schubert, this version of that, although I'm not overly fond of his music. No, I like it.

00:22:07.740 - 00:22:21.540

Sometimes I enjoy it. No, I'm a musician. I love music. I love to listen to all kinds of different music, and I really enjoy listening to it. But the people who really touch me in my heart, you know, are few and far between Beethoven's lamb and bar

00:22:21.540 - 00:22:28.400

times one you got off on that tangent the first place is because you said that, yeah, I know you were black. At another point, yeah,

00:22:28.400 - 00:22:43.960

black people have a way of feeling the music that white people don't. And you seem to be saying that the music could therefore represent certain social realities. And I wanted to explore. I wanted to see if I rephrase the thing for you in

00:22:43.960 - 00:22:59.260

those words, would you still agree with us the social realities? I would put it in terms of, it's this thing of being suppressed and held down all the time. A lot of black people who go along with the social thing in this

00:22:59.260 - 00:23:17.640

country achieve economic and social success, and they they become emotionally very much like what most of the white people are like very much. Yeah, why? I don't want to use words that harsh, just Okay, getting into it, but I got along with

00:23:17.640 - 00:23:34.880

that, you know, indoctrinated, maybe as a better, as a lesson? Yeah, I gotta get my suit. Yeah, I think in order to be happy, your emotional sustenance has to come from something basically

00:23:34.880 - 00:23:46.840

inside yourself. The culture our country is set up in such a way to get away from that. And he Miller talks about, he says, it's gotten worse over the years. I don't know. I'm not as old as he is. I don't doubt that what he says is true. It

00:23:46.840 - 00:24:00.360

probably has. It's gotten worse and worse. You know, that seems to be it, this very simple idea that so many people said, that people in this country are connected to all these, these physical things around and they become so important, and they

00:24:00.360 - 00:24:11.220

get compulsive about them. They devote their whole life to it. They go to a job they don't like because of it, and they act a certain way, they judge a certain way. And just the idea of a beard, like you have a beard yourself, you can't help

00:24:11.220 - 00:24:23.420

being very conscious of this simple little thing like this, because I never thought anything about people wearing beards, like real beard about four months ago, and it's just incredible to me, how conscious people are, what thing it

00:24:23.720 - 00:24:35.120

is to them. Next Best Thing to think Negro well, you're living in New York, some people don't pay much attention to them, but in Pittsburgh or even Los Angeles,

00:24:35.300 - 00:24:46.660

that's true, because I went to Philly a couple months ago and I really felt much stronger. But then the thing I was going to say, when I wanted to make Negro people have been forced to rely on their own

00:24:46.660 - 00:24:59.740

emotional sustenance, and in a lot of ways, this has been good. I mean, you know, I'm not trying to say this, like some people would that they should be glad you don't tend to make a virtue of necessity. But there are some

00:24:59.740 - 00:25:14.100

higher. Of angles, right? But I I'm just trying to point out what, you know, what I think the mechanism is behind it, at least the way I can see it. They've been forced to to fall back on themselves, and this is what

00:25:14.100 - 00:25:25.040

people should do, you know, but I shouldn't say they've been forced to fall back on themselves, because I don't know what Negro people are like to begin with. You know, that may be just an just another white insult to them, to put it that

00:25:25.040 - 00:25:36.500

way, because they, they may, they may, well, listen, they lived a much simpler life when they were in Africa, and they live here so that, you know that indicates something about them knowing a little bit more about how to be happy, as far as I'm

00:25:36.500 - 00:25:44.860

concerned, about how to go about living life. And Europeans do. It. They were less divorced in their roots like I think the fact that the Chinese had that culture

00:25:44.860 - 00:26:00.180

they had for 2000 years indicates something about the quality of the feeling in it. It must have been pretty good to be that stable this culture we got in my last 2000 years. Well, what Archie says then that jazz is opposed to suffering and

00:26:00.180 - 00:26:18.000

as opposed to oppression, and therefore it's opposed to the United States and Vietnam. You think that that's a defensible statement. When he says that, it's really not clear to me, what do you

00:26:18.000 - 00:26:30.620

mean? But basically, of course, I agree with I really I'm opposed to it. I agree with all that, but I don't know what it means to say what. I don't know what he means there

00:26:30.620 - 00:26:41.540

when he thinks, yeah, well, he says some music of my people comes out of their suffering and oppression, and it's opposed to their suffering and oppression. That's opposed to all suffering and depression.

00:26:41.600 - 00:26:58.960

So therefore he says that, by the way, in that boundary panel in the yearbook, have you seen that it was kind of tragic understanding. Are these things that I'll ask? Go back and ask us again, the

00:26:58.960 - 00:27:29.600

musicians in your group or in your circle, ever spend much time talking about these questions? Let me say this, I've never been intimate with a lot of musicians at any point in my life, except the people never, you know, for

00:27:29.600 - 00:27:45.640

one reason, I've never gotten in with them socially. So I so there are no musicians really in my circle. You know, aren't really that many cats, and I'm intimate, except guys I play with. Well, we metals in that's fine. We, we don't talk about

00:27:45.640 - 00:27:56.980

this too well, let me put it this way. Of course, everybody talks about this all the time, but the reason I'm, I was almost ready to say that we don't talk about is because we talk about it in very different terms, like when I read the whale, Archie

00:27:56.980 - 00:28:21.860

Shep talks about it down beat or chance, or whatever it might be, or Roy Jones, it's in very different terms than the way I talk and feel about it, for all kinds of obvious reasons. The thing I was saying is the thing I think that gives music

00:28:21.860 - 00:28:37.940

its value, it's just the sheer emotional quality it has. And this, there's a certain thing that our bodies want to feel, and our society is building such a way to stop us totally it has to. How could you and when

00:28:37.940 - 00:28:49.420

it when, when this thing comes out, it's just a quality. So you can't talk that much about it, except to say it is something that comes out, and this thing of liberation goes with it. But the thing of liberation is really kind of an accidental

00:28:49.420 - 00:28:59.920

quality, because the liberation thing confronts you so strong because it's been repressed. That's what you arguing in society,

00:29:00.940 - 00:29:14.400

because you're forced to do too much violence to you, or the way you think and the way you feel. It's natural if you see a man in the street suffering that you'd want to go out and Henze. But in this society, you know, you just, you're trained out of

00:29:14.400 - 00:29:27.200

that. You train that if a liner comes up to you, or a guy who's sick or something, you just kind of can't get like me, but don't bother me. That sort of you're trying to bring out all of the inhuman qualities that you can possibly possess. Yeah, that's

00:29:27.200 - 00:29:40.300

what you're arguing, that liberation effect in your articles on or Nick Holman. That's why, because you said before, that's why you think he's so great. Yeah. Well, really, if I really want to say in so many words, why he

00:29:40.360 - 00:29:51.520

said great. Everybody said, Great. The ultimate thing I have to say is it's because of the way it makes me feel. I don't care about anything else at all, except that that's the only thing I really care about. It's just like sex, you know, the way

00:29:51.520 - 00:30:06.300

it makes me feel. It's a kind of intimacy you can get into with somebody. This is something that we talk about often the musicians I play, well, there's. Kind of intimacy the music for us that's very similar to to a sexual claim. This is common. I

00:30:06.300 - 00:30:20.220

don't think it's just in my group, you know how often they say them what terms they do. And, in fact, many musicians it's almost a kind of a secretive thing, you know that they don't like to get out too much. But a lot of musicians

00:30:20.220 - 00:30:35.660

feel that the many ways that the communication that exists between them and the music is a much deeper, more intimate thing than exist in sex, where they have been putting it often is that it's better than sex. Even playing is better than sex. A

00:30:35.660 - 00:30:53.860

lot of guys will say that. I think that's what they really feel behind it. At least I do, anyway, feel that there is a kind of intimacy, but you can't, you can't get at sex. I don't know. I don't, I don't really care that much. You know? I'm

00:30:54.400 - 00:31:01.480

just stating the fact because it's kind of intimacy and sex, you can't get it. That's right, that's right. Maybe it's because, maybe it's different, right?

00:31:01.480 - 00:31:12.120

Yes, to do with one has to do with me. With muscles, right? Also thinking one is kind of semi public, really, or public, especially if you're playing for an audience, because

00:31:12.120 - 00:31:26.540

then it's, yeah, that's what's considered a big disadvantage. That's why people are so hesitant to escape them, to get away from the music. They like to say that it's the that it's violent and it's frustrated and aggressive and it's shrill and

00:31:26.540 - 00:31:43.240

it's harsh, and really, I think a lot of shrinking people do from it is just because there's too much liberation in it. It's just too intimate for them. They don't like to be made to feel that way. Somebody might when I, when they, when they first heard

00:31:43.240 - 00:31:54.160

me play one time next year, said that they couldn't stand listening to it because it was too much like two people. Do you play the way you were practicing in the other room when I came in,

00:31:59.860 - 00:32:11.880

practicing general sounds. I mean, you weren't doing things practically. You don't do it right? It was basically what's wrong with two people fucking in public, except that

00:32:11.880 - 00:32:27.440

we've been conditioned to think that it's what I mean. That's the corollary of that country. I think there's a natural there isn't a natural and healthy reaction in people

00:32:27.440 - 00:32:39.020

against doing that, yeah, probably wouldn't animals, you, you, I don't think you, you see animals being too comfortable doing doing it in front of people, you know? I think that shows that there. It proves that there's something natural,

00:32:40.040 - 00:32:56.560

yeah, what I meant was not specifically the act, but just that we were embarrassed by motion. Yeah right, that's much extreme form. Yeah right, that's right. So naturally, we're most extremely

00:32:56.560 - 00:33:14.280

embarrassed. Do Would you ever think? You ever think of dedicating the composition to anybody who's alive today, or any figure out in the recent past? I'm not

00:33:18.840 - 00:33:31.160

sure what you're getting at with that. I did that all the time, any figure in public life who would be known to other people. What I'm getting at is, well, did you ever consider dedicating a piece to Malcolm X? Let's start with that. Yeah, I'll tell

00:33:33.560 - 00:33:46.300

you an interesting story about that. When Malcolm X was murdered, I was going to name one of my tunes after him, but I didn't want to do it because I felt safe people. Type, if they might think I have no right to do that and rightfully.

00:33:49.540 - 00:34:04.620

Okay, that's really what I wanted to know. Is there anybody else you think about doing, dedicating somebody else in public life, mountains? Anybody another? Which one I'm really saying is, is there anyone who is is a no one

00:34:06.960 - 00:34:26.780

else impresses. No One Else is in Bookcafe. Malcolm got to you with name some people maybe on my Of course,

00:34:28.700 - 00:34:53.980

it isn't the same thing. Yeah, he's a good example. It's this way, I don't read the newspapers that much, and I don't respond to politics that much. I mean, my feelings about it are pretty simple. You know, I just, I think that people, if something

00:34:53.980 - 00:35:05.340

really good is going to happen for people, it's going to come from their hearts. And I've always believed that. So Paul. Takes just doesn't turn me on the kind of politics we have. Castro's thing seems to be

00:35:05.400 - 00:35:18.540

something special from the heart, like something special. That's why I mentioned it. I don't know what I can what can I read about Castro? It's not that much I can read. I can't I can't read the New York Times,

00:35:21.840 - 00:35:37.160

maybe the National Guard things like that. Do you think of yourself as a radical in political, social terms? I don't think of myself. Do you want to say anything about working conditions for

00:35:37.160 - 00:35:50.740

jazz musicians? Yeah, well, to me, that's, you know, it's a problem that concerns me most of all, like we've done all this talking about the racial problem and all I have strong feelings about

00:35:50.740 - 00:36:06.360

that, but that, to me, is not as big a problem just because I'm not black as the other thing is, the thing's been a problem to me is, I'm I'll be 30 years old, so I'm just about 30 years old, everybody I've talked to 2930 or 31 including myself going out.

00:36:08.400 - 00:36:27.080

And I the amount of money I've made on playing music. It's cost me more actually, than I've made a couple weeks ago. I played this job. I paid pretty well for the village theater, but

00:36:27.500 - 00:36:43.180

it cost. It cost me more to join the union in order to play the job so I wouldn't get stopped. Then I got paid. What do you think of that? Because we in fact, I'm playing two concerts there. Of course it cost me. Mort John union. I'm being paid

00:36:43.180 - 00:36:54.460

for both. What can I think it's appalling. There's anybody making the money. You know, that's what concerned me. Does anybody make any money on these concerts? What do you mean anybody make?

00:36:54.460 - 00:37:07.140

Well, apparently, what's the cost of joining you? First question, well, I don't want to discuss, okay. Well, what I'm trying to get at is, is this a case of there not being any

00:37:07.140 - 00:37:21.600

money for people we're not then we're not really talking about working conditions, we're just talking about the fact that there doesn't seem to be an audience for the kind of music you want to play do.

00:37:21.600 - 00:37:34.400

To play. Well, I think that has more to do with the people who are in control of the money. Spell that one out, the record people, people in the record companies, because they're opposed to this music.

00:37:34.460 - 00:37:44.980

Yeah. Well, look, I've been on this scene over a year now, playing with my own group, and I've had music that's been together for over a year now, you know, some people would say that's a loop matter, but it's not to me.

00:37:44.980 - 00:37:55.420

Yeah, you have to be, as far as I'm concerned. My music has been together for over a year now, and I don't have a record. I haven't been able to get a record. Who you talk to, or you don't have to. Well, I called different record companies, you

00:37:55.420 - 00:38:06.180

know, lots of times, trying to get through them on the phone, and I can't get through them on the phone. I've written them letters different times, requesting that they come to concerts. And you know, they probably, their feeling is they

00:38:06.180 - 00:38:17.160

don't, they don't like that, you know, they don't want me to ask them to come to a concert. They would. They would probably rather have me take my group up and audition for them, which I don't want to do it anyway, which I'm probably going to do

00:38:17.160 - 00:38:30.200

in the near future, try and get a record. Why are you supposed and the people, people belong to clubs, you know, they see, they themselves don't like music that much. The basic premise the

00:38:30.200 - 00:38:42.940

people going to record companies in the clubs, they don't respond that much to it. Because I think if the music was, in fact, put on records, and if it was put on clubs and concerts, Mort, that people would accept it. Maybe there's

00:38:43.000 - 00:38:56.440

something about being in that position where you have to make a living out of somebody else's playing the music that deadens you to the value of the music and makes you only aware of the thing as an item in a profit and loss statement. Yeah, whatever

00:38:56.440 - 00:39:07.440

you may have gone into it because you love the music, but you become so nervous about whether you're going. You become a businessman. Businessmen are not totally nervous. I'm not putting these guys down. They have to do with what they

00:39:07.440 - 00:39:21.380

feel. They want to do. If a guy's got $10 million and he's got it to throw away, even if it's not a matter of money, you can't go up and say, You have to love this because it's good, because it's not the way life works. Get money, it's his. You

00:39:21.380 - 00:39:32.600

may get to feel a lot of hostility and all that towards them, you know, because he's just like, I don't, I don't have to feel this, you know. But naturally, that kind of thing can develop. But if somebody's getting money, it's theirs, you

00:39:32.600 - 00:39:43.480

can't tell them what to do with it, and you might feel what he's doing is unfair with it. And in fact, you know, there's no doubt my mind that it's unfair to me that these guys live uptown, $400 apartments, and I have to live down here, and I have

00:39:43.480 - 00:39:54.160

trouble making a rent month after month, you know, and I don't make any money from my music. That's that's not what I would call fair. But, you know, that's the reality of the matter, and there's nothing that I can do about it except stick

00:39:54.160 - 00:40:06.600

it out and keep plugging away until they accept it, even with all of us. But see, the point I'm trying to get at is I like to be as UN neurotic as possible, because no matter what circumstances I live in, I want

00:40:06.600 - 00:40:19.200

to get my emotional Suzy and myself. But it's not easy to do. It's impossible. If, as long as you have to eat, if you suffer beyond a certain point, you just you can't stay healthy. I don't always stay healthy, and none of the musicians do. I get very

00:40:19.200 - 00:40:29.000

neurotic, a lot of times very depressed, and a lot of guys do it happens all this. It isn't just that you want to tell people what to do with the money, but there are cases, for example, that musician I talked

00:40:29.000 - 00:40:39.080

to, I want some of it. Yeah, that's right, but it's even worse here, you haven't been recorded, so you can't say that anybody, at least, is profiteering off of you, that they're taking something that you produce, making a lot of

00:40:39.080 - 00:40:50.740

money off them, for themselves, but not for you. Well, I care if somebody's profiteering as long as I can, if I can make a living, you know, make some money. I'm interested in that you may not make a living. Like, for

00:40:50.800 - 00:41:01.540

example, all that happens to take Coltrane's early career, you know, he recorded all that stuff with Prestige. Prestige did nothing with it for years and years. Everyone got big. They put all that stuff out. That's what I mean. See the time

00:41:01.540 - 00:41:11.520

when it would have helped Coltrane to have it out, would have been earlier. Now he doesn't need the time. That's something actually is a liability, because it isn't, wasn't his best stuff. That's what I mean, that kind of, yeah,

00:41:12.540 - 00:41:24.320

but on the other hand, you know, culture, and I understand, has a nice home now. Now, yeah, prestige did nothing to help them when he needed that help? No, that's true. They only cashed in later

00:41:24.320 - 00:41:37.040

when there was a Coltrane bonanza. Certainly nobody, I don't think anybody. People are just Coltrane at home. It's just about everybody can't have a kind of a nice home. So what do you think about proposals to improve the working conditions

00:41:37.040 - 00:41:52.120

for jazz musicians like, for example, Cecil Tara was called for a boycott. Or the jazz artists, the jazz composers, gallix. Do you think there's any you think that these things were needed, and you think they offer any hope for improvement

00:41:52.120 - 00:42:06.240

conditions? I don't have the type of personality that will allow me ever to get involved in any type of thing like that myself. You know, I think they do some good. They got the jazz enclosures.

00:42:06.240 - 00:42:20.060

Gulch got a lot of lot of publicity and a lot of attention for people who deserve this. We haven't gotten it, and it got them. It got them some jobs. Unfortunately, Bill Nixon, who provided one of the

00:42:22.460 - 00:42:41.680

most positive things in it, then, you know, he still hasn't seemed to have gotten nowhere, which is unfortunate. He still seems to be building, still living. You know, Carl weld said one time at a meeting that I happen to be at the jazz

00:42:41.680 - 00:42:56.800

composers guild that that's to her, that was the main, the main idea of doing something like that is that she was sick of seeing guys, you know, just waste away into alcohol or become junkies and just disappear. I mean, I've seen

00:42:56.800 - 00:43:06.840

plenty of guys. I've seen them walk in the streets. I know them. I know they can't. There's so much stuff they can't keep themselves together, you know, on one thing or another. And then, you know, people say, Well, look at them. Why? Why

00:43:06.840 - 00:43:17.700

should we give them a break? They don't have any character anyway. It's not true that these people don't have any character. So there's so much character you can have under these kind of circumstances, right? I don't know.

00:43:27.380 - 00:43:40.360

So another Tara, what do you think accounts for? Well, do you think there's a trend towards collective improvisation in this new music? And if you do think that, what do you think accounts for? Why should that be a big thing when it wasn't say, 10

00:43:40.360 - 00:43:58.540

years ago, collective and proudest nation? Yeah, well, there seems to be more of it. There's no doubt about that. The thing I say, I think that happens in my group a lot. It's

00:43:58.540 - 00:44:21.680

different. Was it the our group? I think the Kees is a determined by by emotional, emotional high points, emotional climaxes, instead of depending on a 1234, pulse and a chord that changes. You know, the emotional cadence has to go along with that music.

00:44:21.680 - 00:44:36.740

It has to replace, well, the only thing that we feed is that, just the way I see it, is where the where the cadence occurs, because I think I play pretty much in one key. In fact, I use almost the same keel. I'm playing one note is a tonic.

00:44:36.740 - 00:44:51.580

Over and over again. I use all the 12 notes pretty frequently, but I use very strong dynamic, which means very traditional type. Yeah, Werner does the same thing. Yeah. My plan used to be a lot, a lot more far out than that, but I've come around to

00:44:51.580 - 00:45:03.700

that, because to get across the emotional thing I need, I find simpler to use simpler ideas. It's almost like Avenue ladies themes. There the exact thing. That's what Stroud I mean, that's

00:45:03.940 - 00:45:18.640

why I couldn't understand, why all these people said, oh, he can't understand him. It's obvious he's working on a very simple framework, which then lets him do everything he wants. Because the framework itself. Why do you think? Do you have

00:45:18.640 - 00:45:28.460

any idea why this has occurred. This change has occurred now. Why Mort groups are going in the direction of collective improvisation? It has to do with the thing we're talking about originally. It's that liberation

00:45:28.580 - 00:45:39.680

thing. That's what's happening in the music. When people use the word freedom, they're talking about allowing certain kinds of emotions to come out that they didn't before. That's, that's, you know, that's what freedom means to me, is that

00:45:40.040 - 00:45:51.400

there's something natural in yourself that's very old. It's been there for centuries, and people and hasn't been allowed to come out, and people are now trying to get more and more of this out. That's the only meaning that freedom has, to me,

00:45:51.400 - 00:46:03.060

it doesn't, it doesn't mean you're trying to break down this barrier or that barrier, or destroy something. You know, I don't regard it as being destructive. There was a, there was a time when I had to go through something like that. I'm

00:46:03.060 - 00:46:12.780

sure everybody did, you know, because you you learn certain things. I mean, you learn to hear a certain way. You've never learned to play it. I never learned to master the old way of playing, you know, playing on chords and all that. I mean, I

00:46:12.780 - 00:46:24.020

can, I can take any record and play with it, you know, because I know my instrument well. Now I'm a polished musician. I can find it. I shouldn't use that word. It sounds okay. Say it. I mean, you can't to be as honest about yourself

00:46:24.020 - 00:46:35.360

you are about anything else. If you're a Polish music, you're a Polish musician. But I, I least learned to hear it here that way, just like everybody else did. If I, if I never got really into playing, I never really got into playing it, because I never

00:46:35.360 - 00:46:48.940

felt comfortable in it. I always felt hemp then. And there was a time when I, when I felt a kind of a thing that might be called destructive, because I was, I was conscious of having to break down certain things that were in my way, that were holding me

00:46:48.940 - 00:46:59.440

back, that I was in short, I was falling into certain patterns that I didn't, didn't, didn't want to be in. I was trying to get to something more, what I felt was more natural breathe with with my own feelings, like the way we play, I think, has

00:46:59.440 - 00:47:13.200

much more to do with breathing than Bob did. I think a lot of these qualities are present. Some Lou Armstrong's records, some of those old things he did. It's very similar as a kind of freedom. It's very similar to freedom in armies. I can say

00:47:13.200 - 00:47:29.480

it's interesting to make the critics who hear it criticize like the rest of the group. A lot of times say Armstrong is magnificent, but the rest of the group is pretty weak, and I think that comes from not recognizing that these guys

00:47:29.480 - 00:47:41.420

aren't playing the pulse in such a rigid way. They're playing much more freer, much more in harmony with our own breathing. I think it's similar to what we do, because it has that quality too. I don't, I don't think those groups that I hear on that

00:47:41.420 - 00:47:55.120

record are inferior at all. In fact, I think they're far superior to many groups that are rated a lot higher than that. Well, the one thing I'm in particular, I think, is 12 street drag

00:47:55.120 - 00:48:13.560

on it. That one Columbia with 12, also one with Earl, Hans Werner, beautiful. I used to have that a few years ago, like this, I always thought that was one of the greatest pieces of music ever heard. Has that quality of liberation almost as

00:48:13.560 - 00:48:27.140

much as anybody's ever had. Almost every time I play that record, it practically puts me in tears almost every time I play it affects me very strong. Now I don't have too many records that affect me that way. Birds records have strong

00:48:27.140 - 00:48:37.640

effect. Like, that's Billy Hans led by those people, Bob Dylan's another cattle to mention, somebody I think it's really beautiful, which Bob Dylan, the old man? Dylan,

00:48:37.640 - 00:48:56.500

they're all Bob Dylan. I prefer this newer stuff better, you know, but, but there's things in the older stuff that I like. Anything he does is made me poetic person, you know? He didn't suddenly become beautiful one day. He wasn't

00:48:56.500 - 00:49:04.080

ugly. All his life, he suddenly became beautiful. He was always beautiful. That's why I said that the real thing is not what you think, what you say you're going to do, or what you believe that you

00:49:04.080 - 00:49:23.840

believe in, but what you do. Let's see. I think there's a good place to turn the team over. Yeah. Well, I want to ask you about 500 want to ask you about finding improvisation and

00:49:23.840 - 00:49:38.720

freedom is, is there more freedom when more people are improvising, even if they have to? Well, improvising, it's a matter of intensity. I think mostly does. It's emotional stimulation you get for playing. In other words,

00:49:38.720 - 00:49:51.040

it's not a restriction on your individuality when they're playing. It's actually a story to more liberation. Well, I thought it was I feel playing with Morton, I only

00:49:51.040 - 00:50:08.580

play. There's only one horn in my group, yeah, three bass players and two dramas right now, I'm not interested in playing with other horn players. I. And it's just because the reason for that is that I don't feel I've heard anyone play that

00:50:09.300 - 00:50:20.100

any other horn player that I feel that much harmony with, I'd like there are plenty of people I like their playing very much, and I get a very strong emotional thing from it. But as far as blending together with the way I play, the progression

00:50:20.460 - 00:50:36.920

of the unfolding of feeling I don't hear anyone else that's similar. You have one, but you have what is your rhythms, if I can call it, what are your rooms? What happens when you don't play today? Is there

00:50:36.920 - 00:50:50.500

ever time that's another reason why I don't want other horns, because I feel in the past that the drummers and bass players especially have have been relegated to a secondary position in the music, and they're regarded as a company

00:50:50.500 - 00:51:03.360

is. And I like, I know when we play, most of time, when I play, I definitely have a lead. I mean, just automatic, right? It's right. It's because the quality of the Mort pierces through the rest of the other stuff.

00:51:08.760 - 00:51:22.220

But I want the other people, the other guys in the group, to feel that they get all their feelings out. You know that they can really get to get to what they want. In order for that to happen, there has to be a lot of time for them to play when I lay

00:51:22.220 - 00:51:33.980

out, there's no horn playing. That's also one of the main reasons I don't use another because I want, I want these guys to be able to get, really get into their own thing, and they haven't been able to do that in the past. And see

00:51:33.980 - 00:51:46.480

another thing is I feel that the foundation of the reason I use three bass players, I feel the whole foundation of the pitch and feeling comes out of what the basis provide. I don't think the foundation of the music comes from me. I think I provide

00:51:46.480 - 00:52:02.460

the lead and the direction. You know, like all, all the main decisions that occur come from me, but but the actual emotional Wellspring, the basic life source of the music, I think it comes more from them. And I feel very dependent on them when I

00:52:02.460 - 00:52:15.360

play, I try, I try to tune into them as much as I can. And it's really a matter of getting the pitches vibrating together. It's something that happens. And, you know, it's a completely different concept about how to play. Because I used to play

00:52:16.500 - 00:52:30.620

what could be described as lines much more, but I don't do that now. I played almost entirely sounds all the time, sounds that blend and sort of grow out of what the bass players are doing and then fade back into it again. The music. Can't always

00:52:30.620 - 00:52:40.240

hear everything I play the music and phone companies were playing last night. Would you scrub that sounds or lines or something scrambling? I I said,

00:52:43.420 - 00:52:54.520

Yeah, I'd say the idea is pretty similar to the one I'm using my impression too. I see you don't have a piano in your group, and I noticed this is true of many of the newer groups, and even some of the new groups who do have a piano don't

00:52:54.520 - 00:53:09.540

use the piano as a accompanying device, but use it just as another like another horn. Do you think that this is a trend, and why do you think that trend is coming about now? I think it has to do with the same thing I was just talking

00:53:09.540 - 00:53:30.620

about, about the pitches. The pitches on piano are pretty fixed. You can't bend them too much. You can bend it is by striking it very hard, and then it bend. It bends in both directions. Sort of, it doesn't go up or down, you know, it just

00:53:30.620 - 00:53:46.120

sort of spreads the whole pitch in both directions. That's about the only way you can do it. And Cecil is a master of doing what can be done with to change the pitch of the piano. But most pianos have that rigid pitch quality when they use the

00:53:46.120 - 00:54:01.800

sustaining pedal. It also has a quality that I've always found kind of harsh on my ear. I don't like the piano that much. I never had, I mean, to be completely frank, I really don't. There's some piano players I love very much. I

00:54:01.800 - 00:54:14.700

think, yeah, I think Cecil is, as far as being a master of instrument, I think he's probably can play his instrument better than anyone can play any other instrument. I don't mean just pianist, I'm talking about all instruments. And if you

00:54:14.700 - 00:54:25.940

know, the feeling he generates with it is marvelous too. It's just beautiful. Is it because you're trying to make your instruments sound like the human voice that you want to get away

00:54:25.940 - 00:54:39.740

from something that's something to do with it, yeah, like, I know the instruments that I like best are the read instruments, because it's easy to bend and pitch quite a bit on them. And it's not just been the pitch, it's been the whole tonal

00:54:39.740 - 00:54:53.620

volley, which that's really the saxophone is you can do best with it. You can bend the whole quality of sound around, but you can sing along with it as you play. You can you can growl. You can tongue and spit into the mouthpiece and make the sound

00:54:53.680 - 00:55:06.300

change completely by doing that. Do. The ground, you growl in your throat as you reply. There are all kinds of things that can be done with that, like final song

00:55:06.300 - 00:55:20.180

that does it all the time, too. And he has a completely different thing. And Werner, at his last concert, unveiled a new thing. He played whole phrases through his horn without completely with his throat. The reed didn't vibrate. The whole

00:55:20.180 - 00:55:34.580

thing was, it was, it was generated through the horn. Went through the horn, the sound came out. Really beautiful. Yeah, right. And when I first heard it, I was coming from backstage, because I just finished time I was going down to sit in the

00:55:34.580 - 00:55:46.480

audience, I could hear it better, and I thought it was somebody in the audience yelling. At first I realized it was him, because I couldn't, I couldn't locate it, you know, so weird. It confused me, but it was beautiful and like, that's a

00:55:46.480 - 00:55:58.240

completely different thing. And with Archie and with Faro Dodie, with Farah Dodie, with with the ground thing is a completely different thing. Each one of them has. And now with our Nixon is different.

00:56:01.720 - 00:56:15.180

Certain writers are charged with the new music lacks form, lacks structure, lacks logic. What do you think about the validity of those charges? And if you don't agree with them, what do you think inspires? We talked about this in part before.

00:56:17.940 - 00:56:34.520

I've always thought that did anything in life as form. So to say something doesn't have form really means that it doesn't have a certain type of form. That's right, it gives you the form in general, with form in

00:56:34.520 - 00:56:50.560

particular, yeah? If it isn't that form, yeah, this is, you know, this is not my way of trying to say that all the new music is good. I don't think it is. There's something else I want to say, too, that you haven't brought up that's

00:56:50.560 - 00:57:02.980

related to this whole question, something I feel very strongly about. I don't, I don't like all the new music. That doesn't mean that I dislike a lot of it, but a lot, you know, a lot of it does. I don't particularly relate to it, just like I don't

00:57:02.980 - 00:57:14.340

just like I don't relate to a lot of Bebop. I don't relate to our folk music. Relate to a lot of classical music, naturally, since it's a music that I play, I relate to more of it than I do anything else. But there are people in other musics that I

00:57:14.340 - 00:57:28.520

relate to far more than I do all the new music, like the people I mentioned before, the people who really have always affected me very, very strongly. And there's several other people to affected me very strongly, but those people have a quality

00:57:28.520 - 00:57:49.420

liberation. I was talking about Bob Dylan and Billy holidays people especially have it from there. And Eric Dodie had quite a bit of that too, equally. And some of the other people I like a lot are Coleman Hawkins and Lee Kenneth Ben

00:57:49.420 - 00:58:02.580

Webster. Always like those people an awful lot. And for some of his things that I like Duke Ellington, although I think that he's something that people don't like to recognize in the jazz world, an awful lot of his stuff is really in the area of

00:58:03.480 - 00:58:13.560

Rochelle business. Think a lot of his stuff is very weak. This is recognized by a lot of people. You better not ever get in a conversation with rodeo.

00:58:14.700 - 00:58:26.420

Listen, let me say this. I have about dozen records by Dugan, so that should be the ultimate criteria. How much I do, you know, I've always liked him very much. I mean, I've always had a lot of his records since I first got interested in buying records

00:58:26.420 - 00:58:38.720

about 15 years ago. I've always had a lot of them. What about this hostility to the new music? You think we talked about one thing, we said, that people want to be embarrassed by and they get displayable motions in public. You think there's a

00:58:38.720 - 00:58:49.000

social thing going on here that some critics are opposed to what they consider the attitudes of new musicians like Archie, and they're loving this shape, their attitudes, their reaction to the music too.

00:58:50.260 - 00:59:00.220

Yeah, that's part of it, but the reaction to the music occurred before Archie came out of the restaurant of outspoken way. As a matter of fact, Archie's had much more acceptance since he's coming that is one of the ironic things. I don't think it's

00:59:00.220 - 00:59:14.520

ironic. I think it has to do with the fact that he's, he's obviously well educated, and he's very articulated, and this is what impresses these people. In fact, I think that's, I think it's, it's, it's tragic, to some extent, that it has to go down

00:59:14.520 - 00:59:24.440

that way. Yeah, you think that the music, yeah, well, no, it's not that. Today, the music came out on so much I'm talking about it's tragic that that's where these

00:59:24.440 - 00:59:35.900

people are. Obviously really turned on. They won't be turned on so much by Archie's music they are now, but they wouldn't have they would have noticed it before. That's what it comes down to. Yeah,

00:59:35.900 - 00:59:48.460

right. I wouldn't think it was worth listening to, but now they do. Do you try and educate your audience in any non musical way when you play for them

00:59:49.840 - 01:00:02.100

a few times, I've made I've made comments, and I'll probably do it again in the future, but I always have mixed feelings about about the sense, the soundness of doing it, because often it's not I feel has a. Bad effect. But sometimes I try to say

01:00:02.100 - 01:00:15.540

things like the music is more complicated than what you're used to hearing. They go from one kind of feeling to another kind more quickly, and it's much more intense, meaning it's more loud. But if you just sit back and sort of go along with it,

01:00:15.540 - 01:00:32.060

you'll see it makes the kind of sense it was really into its own sense. It has its own sense drawn into it, if you let yourself go with it. But it's very hard to say that without sounding condescending. Yeah, but that's it. I usually say it

01:00:32.060 - 01:00:42.580

in so many words. Whenever I say it, what do you think are the most influential artists following the music, if there was such a thing, and how do you go about determining it?

01:00:45.100 - 01:01:03.870

Well, you know, that's pretty well known. Cecil Coltrane, those three guys, okay, three trivial questions. Where were you born and raised? And that's one trivial question, I guess. Guys, I've already

01:01:03.870 - 01:01:17.790

asked you the other trivial question of how old you are. And lastly, I want to know what your educational background, how extensive it was, what the nature of it was, yeah, well, I'd rather not have any of those things known. I

01:01:19.410 - 01:01:29.780

want to give that impression. That stuff is already known, things in jazz, and I'll explain why I asked that. It's not because I'm trying to write a fan magazine.

01:01:30.320 - 01:01:40.100

It doesn't put me up tight. That wasn't why I didn't want to answer you. But I think it turns out that educate seems so far that education in particular is a key variable to the way.

01:01:40.940 - 01:01:56.620

Well, let me say something I, you know, it's pretty well known. I have a lot of education. It's obvious. It's obvious from the way I talk to, you know, but I feel, if anything, for the most part, that that's been a drawback to

01:01:56.620 - 01:02:05.460

me. That's what rosmos feels the same thing. But I don't think it's simple. I think, I don't think it's simple at all. I just meant it all, all in all,

01:02:06.180 - 01:02:15.540

I now have the feeling that all things considered is probably on a whole, as you are back. That's not to say that it doesn't do me a lot of good. It won't do me a lot of good in the future. See, there's one

01:02:15.540 - 01:02:25.640

thing that you have. You say you don't want to be neurotic, and you have a rational understanding of the way the world works by and large, even though you don't like major preferences for thinking and things in political and social

01:02:25.640 - 01:02:38.180

terms, still you can do it when it becomes necessary for you to do it. Some of these issues that I've talked to who really are at a loss with what to do outside of the music itself, and this is mostly because you have no conception of how the world

01:02:38.180 - 01:02:47.980

works. All they know is their music is take the music away from them. I won't name any names. Well, I think that's beautiful. It is beautiful day, and I envy that I am today, yes,

01:02:48.100 - 01:03:00.540

but this isn't it's the same thing as saying, See, I know that, like what I was saying, my education is a problem to me. In many ways. It's like I say that I was making criticisms of our society. Well, part of it is to

01:03:00.540 - 01:03:20.600

me that there's too too much is put into words. And this is a big difference between white, white people and spades. I think white and black people, that white people, including myself, put, put far more, have far more reliance on the efficacy of

01:03:20.600 - 01:03:35.180

words that black people do, you know, like, not too many black people would use the word, like efficacy. The thing is this, and I think that's very healthy. I think there's a lot and I think it's basically healthy. I mean, you know, all things considered,

01:03:35.180 - 01:03:45.940

I think that that's something that makes them more healthy than me, and I envy it. And I really wish that I was less that way. I really mean that sincerely. I wish that I was much less that way. And as I get older, I try to get less that

01:03:45.940 - 01:03:56.020

way, because I want to get in contact with the emotional well springs and come out of my insides, out my intestines. Do they have the advantage of being in contact with those things in many ways that I know and I recognize it, and I

01:03:56.020 - 01:04:07.740

envy you. I'm not so sure about that, you know, well, I just, I think that the reason you say that it's another part of that white superiority? Why? No, you don't. It seems to me

01:04:07.740 - 01:04:18.480

that Archie, for example, is in a much better position to understand his emotions than somebody who doesn't have Archie's educational background. Do you talk about

01:04:18.480 - 01:04:33.020

being it's important to understand your motion. If you can't deal with them, you're overwhelmed by your emotions. I just don't listen all these people, psychiatrists all the time. What do they do? It's all talk. It's words, right? It's

01:04:33.680 - 01:04:50.920

understand. Many, many people who've gotten a psychiatrist over the years, and all in all, I've never, I've never been given any evidence to believe that any psychiatrist has has done anything significantly good for people you said, I've gotten

01:04:50.920 - 01:05:01.980

this feeling reading some people like Freud and will Homer will home, right? People, they have from what I read, but not from friends of mine. Who kind of psychiatrist? They're acquaintances I've had. Only thing that impresses me is you

01:05:01.980 - 01:05:14.700

said, Really, that's what I think talk guys up to. You know, you try not to become ironic about certain things just because they won't be happy. That's all you do. It become neurotic by thinking things theologically and

01:05:14.700 - 01:05:27.140

perceiving what the reality is that doesn't have much to do. It's getting in contact with your own emotional well springs to try to try to follow the thing that's healthy. You know, there's certain kinds of things that want to come out. You like

01:05:27.200 - 01:05:38.840

eating and sex and just playing music. Those things are basic, simple things that make you feel good. Now, what the hell the words have to do with that? What does education have to do with when you're in bed with a woman or you're sitting down eating?

01:05:38.840 - 01:05:48.580

The only thing education has to do with eating is learning more different varieties of food and how to cook it and when to eat it, and knowing what's good for you. But that's getting in contact with something you feel in your stomach, like, what

01:05:48.580 - 01:06:01.140

should I eat today? Will make me feel better? What should I stay away from? That kind of thing? That's what I'm talking about. I think a lot more of that is needed. And I think that's the real, the real type of progress that takes place in human

01:06:01.140 - 01:06:14.160

growth. I agree same thing about music. Like as I get older and older, I have, I have less and less confidence and faith in talking about it, and I believe more and more. I've always believed for many years, that the basic thing is some kind of

01:06:14.160 - 01:06:30.440

emotional thing, and it's not, doesn't have very much to do with ideas at all. It doesn't matter too much the shape that it takes, but, but I come to feel even more strongly in the recent past that did almost any kind of intellectualizing about

01:06:30.440 - 01:06:41.920

it. It's bad, and that's one of the reasons I know I write about music anymore. I want to get away from that just, just for that reason. You know, you said something about love by putting the love in this society when it

01:06:41.920 - 01:06:53.860

wasn't possible. Then finally, come back to what you said. Now, everything you say, I agree with, except that in this society, practices means, in effect, to disarm yourself in front of an enemy that won't let you really do it. A person who

01:06:53.860 - 01:07:07.620

only knows eating and sex in this society is basically a prisoner. He really can't that's really all he knows. He's unable to deal with the society, and he's Linley. Will be Linley lamb in another kind of society, this would be fine. This would be

01:07:07.620 - 01:07:18.780

perfect. You might not want to know anything, but in this society to survive, we need a certain amount of animal cunning, and we need our actual understanding of the way it goes down. So it appears to me you have to be able to deal with

01:07:18.780 - 01:07:32.120

businessmen and hustlers and racketeers and union officials and governments. What else? A guy just knows the music and knows nothing more than music because then he made a tremendous disadvantage compared to Archie shell. Yeah, that's

01:07:32.120 - 01:07:44.740

true. That's that's all I'm getting at certain circumstances. You have to have a rational view of the world, and the more details about it, you know, anything you want to add that I haven't gotten to, because that's the end of my

01:07:52.660 - 01:08:07.440

question. Yeah, well, I just want to reinforce that thing I said about words, you know, like, after all this talking we've done, I don't, I don't, I don't feel it adds up to very much. I don't think it's bad, you know, I don't think it's

01:08:07.440 - 01:08:19.380

bad, but like, what I have to say as a person, I have much more confidence in what happens when I play. But unfortunately, I'm not a musician, and most of the people you'll be playing for are musicians. And if you're ever

01:08:19.380 - 01:08:32.540

knowing, if the communication is never going to be too late. There has to be something set up for them to it is, I think what you just said, Frank, if you don't mind my putting it so strongly is really totally

01:08:32.540 - 01:08:44.860

absurd. I mean, I know most people believe that. You know I'm not trying to say it because you just said it. I mean, I know most people feel that way, and that's exactly what I'm saying. I think is wrong. And I know I have a lot of that kind of thing

01:08:44.860 - 01:08:57.400

in myself, too. I have plenty of it, but what people should do is just try to get in contact with what's happening in the music. Yeah. But how would I ever communicate with you? It's true. I agree with this, that I go to one of your concerts and I

01:08:57.580 - 01:09:09.180

could react to the concert, you know? I could walk up and hug me after I played or clap something like that. Yeah, okay, that's true. Well, to me, I rely on words, and you rely on use.

01:09:09.300 - 01:09:19.320

I rely on words a lot like, obviously, I'm a talker. I love to talk, you know. And the thing is, I Well, I'm convinced that I can understand what you were saying to me over in Tara Mont so convinced that I

01:09:19.320 - 01:09:41.860

can make myself understood to you and know you rather than talking. You mean last night, even if I hell the time articulating. But the only thing I have to leverage, let me say something that represents a good comment to me.

01:09:41.860 - 01:09:54.880

I hope you don't take offense when I read, when I read your things and jazz my feeling was, No, I didn't agree with too much of it. And my feeling in general was that I didn't like you very much,

01:09:55.000 - 01:10:06.000

that I wouldn't like you if I met you last night, as soon as, as soon as soon as I saw. Saw you before I talked to you. I liked you immediately, because you give, you know, you give off something emotional, that that's

01:10:06.000 - 01:10:16.080

nice, that that you don't get in in the writing. I know that I don't see, I know. I think his writing would be a lot better if you got it in everybody's much too stiff.

01:10:16.500 - 01:10:25.520

I just got Andre out there. One of the nice things, you know, the direction he took in his writing. He said he wanted to get into that more. I don't think he did it too much, you know, but he said he

01:10:26.540 - 01:10:40.660

wanted to anyway. You remember, we considered all the things. Well, you always have to see, that's what's so troublesome to about words like the thing I told you I did, I said about Archie. Like, I really feel bad about that, yeah, because after

01:10:40.720 - 01:10:54.880

you committed, yeah. I mean, you know, I was the thing that comes down, obviously, that I didn't want to come out as I heard that thing and I was obviously irritated by it. Why? It's not even too clear to me now, I didn't like it. I still don't

01:10:54.880 - 01:11:07.980

like it. I don't know if I'd be irritated by it if I heard it again, but the fact that that I felt some hostility towards him because of that thing came out. And I think that's unfortunate, you know, because I don't even know him and I and I think

01:11:07.980 - 01:11:18.660

there's a certain bond that no matter what we might feel towards each other personally, there's a certain bond exists between us just because we're in this music and we basically agree on our whole attitude towards life. Many very

01:11:18.660 - 01:11:34.160

fundamental ways we have to be doing what we're doing. And so then I come on, you know, making an enemy out of somebody that should be my friend. You know, not necessarily that he and I should hang out together, but, you know, it would be nice if we

01:11:34.160 - 01:11:45.400

could at least pass each other on the street and feel we could smile and say hello, which is not situation that exists right now. Why did my mom tell you know, do you really feel that you can,

01:11:46.300 - 01:11:54.400

you had to work out your own ideas, and you're sorry about the way it came out, and if you had to do it over again, yeah, well, I'll have an opportunity, you know, to do that.

01:11:57.460 - 01:12:15.480

Yeah. God knows. You know, I make plenty of mistakes, rather than that particular style, things are really inferior. It has its good side too, because, you know, there's no bullshit there. Honesty is a good thing. I mean, I like that

01:12:15.480 - 01:12:24.920

thing about you, right? Even when I completely disagree with you, I like the idea. And it's the same thing about my chance, the same thing about Leroy Jones, you know, I like that thing about the writing very much. And that's not to say that

01:12:24.920 - 01:12:46.780

doesn't put me up tight when I read it. It does puts everybody up tight. But that's good. That's healthy. You know, the first one be simple, and that irritated me. But you But analogies of the dog peeing on the fire hydrant or

01:12:46.780 - 01:13:02.800

whatever it was sarcasm, but I recognized what it was that you were trying to do that, and I thought it was noble, and I thought certainly there was a lesson for me I

01:13:02.800 - 01:13:18.420

could there too. Yeah, that's a good example of the way you feel about writing the I read that when it came out in the magazine, never comes out the same way. And I hadn't. I had, you know, I wrote that four

01:13:18.420 - 01:13:30.500

years. Everything was old, naturally, my Yeah, my feelings are very different about a lot of those things. I could never write anything like that now at all, in a way, that's good thing. I mean, finding is a good

01:13:30.500 - 01:13:43.660

thing, but, but, but the point is, it just shows you how much you change. Like I was embarrassed when I read it, I said, Wow, I really sound like a very intellectual type of cat if I read this, if I read this myself and I didn't know this

01:13:43.660 - 01:13:57.520

guy, I have a feeling that I wouldn't like the guy at all. You know, I definitely would feel that way. I'd be turned off. I'd be ready to dislike him if I met him. You know, we're all ready to dislike everybody else. I was

01:13:57.520 - 01:14:13.740

ready to dislike you, but I was sure, you know, okay. Well, I hope we've eliminated the mutual misunderstandings, because neither one has turned out to be at all like being anticipated. The other one would be that's interesting, isn't it? Well,

01:14:13.740 - 01:14:18.360

we're all like Marina, the brain of our misconceptions. Yeah, I guess we're talking do.