00:00:04.400 - 00:00:19.820

Unknown: To do, actually, compared to get into this thing right now. How are we doing, as far as the level goes? Looks like it's moving occasionally. Yeah, okay, interview with Joe Henderson, New York City, 13, August, 1966 reason I'm asking

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some of the questions I am asking is, as I said before, to try and overcome what I think is a gap between the way musicians think and the way the audience thinks about musicians. So if some of the questions seem silly or naive or something, bear with

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me. You can answer them any way you want, or you don't have to answer them, or you can answer them and say you don't want to be quoted. You have complete choice about what you want to do. Well, first of all, is it done? Is it necessary for

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the audience to understand what goes on behind the scenes instead of, like, listening and what is happening right at the moment, right at present? I mean, is it necessary to fill them in on how this thing came about before they can, like,

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reach full enjoyment of music? Well, the more you know about the life of the artist, the more you're able to appreciate what it is he's trying to do. And it goes as well for Shakespeare as it goes for jazz musicians, I

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think, yeah, Jazz in the 40s, when Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie were creating a new music of that day, lot of listeners didn't really understand what motivated these men, and therefore, didn't understand the music, which they

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thought was just different for the sake of being different, or was some kind of a put on. And what I am saying, or what my opinion is, is that if there's something besides the music that goes into the music, if there is a thinking in the musicians in

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the music, and that's what I hope to find out from these interviews. Then, if you're going to understand the music, you also have to understand the thinking of musicians that made it, or it will be will help you to understand the music. If you

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do understand what the musicians are thinking of I know, for example, on a much different level. There was a story that I read on the back of a Sonny Rollins album some time ago, when Sonny plays ballad, he reads the words of the ballot to

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the musicians. Well, it helps to know that. It helps musicians. Apparently, Sonny Rollins probably helped them if he read the words and the guy who wrote the notes felt that it would help the listener to understand if he knew that Sonny Rollins

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actually was thinking of the words of the ballad when he was playing ballot ones. So that's very commonplace example. But what do you think? Do you think that I think that I really don't think that is of any great importance. I

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mean, to have a person stripped naked, in a sense, for you to understand what's happening with the music like you come down and hear me one night, and I don't think it is necessary for me to

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fill anyone in, fill my audience in on what brought this tune about. I mean, there might not be anything profound, you know, which sometimes audiences look for some kind of profound reason for giving to him. So I got to call the JFJ, which has been

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very nice response. But nobody's ever asked me where the tune came from, and if they did, I don't know what. I could tell them it just happened to sit down at the piano or I have to hear two or three notes that eventually developed into four

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or five notes to measure, five measures, eight measures to a complete song. Well, that's one individual tune. But what if you look at a man's life's work? Maybe there it is important to

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know who the man is, to understand why he plays the way he does. Compare John Coltrane and Stan Getz because they're two different men, and they've been shaped by two different experiences. True, that's what I'm talking about. I don't want

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to know. I don't think anybody really wants to know what each individual two stands for, because maybe it doesn't stand for anything like shave, it did. But overall, you do have a body of work that you will leave behind you, or that you're

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leaving right now, and I think there to understand that body of work, it helps the audience know who you are, not not your personal life, necessarily, but your social life. I'll kind of explain what I mean by that difference later on. Let's take

00:04:13.320 - 00:04:26.480

Archie, for example, certainly because he's a classic example, certainly it's easier to understand his music, I think because you know the ideas that shape it, that it would be without knowing about those ideas. Or don't you

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feel like, well, did the music come before his ideas? Or does his ideas come before him? I think that they came together. I think that Archie, in Archie's particular case, he tries to do the same

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thing in the music as he tries to do with his prose writing. I think that Archie is, I think he's more or less using the music as a vehicle to express and explain his thinking. In so far as our

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Soquel. Social system affects him and other people that here in the society, especially specifically the black people in the society and the music is this means probably for him to like, feed his wife and his children and to express

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verbally, because he's as much of a writer as a musician. Don't all musicians, though, express ideas, even if they don't really realize what those ideas are, musically or verbally? No, musically. I mean, there may be certain ideas

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inherent in the music, but even the man who creates music may not even realize that's why, that's why that's the the Stan Getz versus John Coltrane. Instance that I spoke of, it seems to me that John Coltrane and Stan Getz have two different

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views of the world, and just not I'm not talking to either one of them, but just listening to their music, Stan getz's world is fairly calm, easy, going coal trades. World is chaotic, bubbling, seething, furious. It is necessary that all of this to

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understand this. It isn't necessary to be spelled out explicitly, as Archie has done. That's why I say that there are ideas, I think, in all reason, right, yeah. Well, if I would speak, I really wouldn't know

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how to analyze myself. But, you know, I know myself better, I think, than anybody else. I'd like to think of myself as having the capacity to recreate and to create music like on a large scale, on a large scale. I mean as far as emotional

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employment is concerned. I mean, one time you might hear me like these things I did with Andrew Dodie, which the critics say are avante garde I don't say, I just say, it's Joe Henderson, right?

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So they put a name on it. So I use this avante garde, knowing that, do you understand what you might say? Avante garde, or anybody else? Okay? Another setting, say, for example, with Lew Morton, you find me playing in a different, completely

00:07:06.940 - 00:07:23.060

different bag. And when I play myself, you might find four or five shades of Joe. And I've made a record with Freddie Roach, the earthy, woozy, that typical organ bang, but good.

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Now, how could it classify me my feelings in terms of you say obviously Stan Getz must live a comparatively complacent life, as opposed to Jon Coltrane, opposed to John coltrane, I mean his music,

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he's out of one direction, of a chaotic direction, whereas Sam Kees come On very cool, calm and collected, collected, caressing, arresting. I mean, with his sound, he has a way of arresting you with his sound. Me, I'm trying to relate that to my own

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experiences. Well, even Coltrane doesn't feel any given way all the time. There's Coltrane who plays the ballad, Coltrane who plays some of the things he's playing now,

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more recently, it seems like it's, it's in one area, Henze. I was thinking about nature for sounds completely different from some of the earlier ballots. I didn't think of that as a ballad, because the tempo wasn't, wasn't usually,

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wasn't usual. Valid tempo. No, it wasn't, wasn't usual. But, well, take A Love Supreme. There are four tries on that record. It seems to me that there is a great deal of diversity among

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those four tribes, right? I'm not that familiar with the album. Won't try. Track on there. How about Weldon? What's the last one you've heard? You know, ascension, ascension, right?

00:09:13.040 - 00:09:31.160

April, May in California, and which is typical of John Coltrane to me today, even when he plays ballad, he didn't play ballads. That I remember him playing on crescent. Crescent. He plays in

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a variety of moves. And love supreme, he has really four distinct moves for the four distinct tracks. Well, in your own work, do you feel your work is shaped by social pressures of any kind? Let's talk about two different things. Do you think

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that jazz as a whole responds to social forces as a response to social force? Do you think the social system as a whole exerts an effect on jazz? House. And do you think this applies to your music?

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Well, to some people, it exerts pressures, to some people, to myself. I don't think so. I really don't know why I say that. Is that I'm not as involved in this social movement as much as city people like Archie. I don't think train is

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either really, no, I don't even know why I say this, but maybe I say Archie is involved because, like, he's very verbal and articulate in his dislike for this structure, and I guess he's wishes a change would come about so they could make it I wonder

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if a change did come about, with his music change, because He's establishing himself in one direction. I've heard him for about three days in California, and it's the same thing, you know, if a change would happen to, like, five years now, with

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his music change, you know? Because, like, I look at the question you asked me earlier, I think jazz, in a sense, to some people, like underlines the tension of the times we're living in, very tense times, and Archie is a good example of how

00:11:10.500 - 00:11:29.840

tense These times are when you hear his music. But for myself, I can't really say it, because I don't think the social structure affects me consciously that much to the place where, like I'd be bothered with then I take it from it, you know, running to

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it, but it seems like I'm involved in other kind of things that this seems to be of less importance. Then I take it. These aren't you don't discuss these things than with the other musicians playing. Ordinarily, I

00:11:43.660 - 00:12:02.580

find I don't discuss too many things with musicians, not now, very slowly in music, musicians are people that, to me, I can't really, I can't communicate with them on verbal level or music level. Yes, this, I find, is frequently the case, sometimes

00:12:02.580 - 00:12:15.240

they have their ideas. I have mine. And so why should we argue about I don't try to defend mine, and I don't try to impose mine on other people, other musicians.

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So you're willing to let the Archie shops of this world do what they want to you don't feel that it's wrong for them to do that. It's just that you don't want to be forced to do that anymore. You would force RJ to do right?

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Yeah, whatever my approach is or isn't right. Yeah, I don't even know myself, but Archie seems to have a clear, concise idea of what he has in mind in terms of the social structure and his music as it relates to

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do you think the phrase the new black music is an accurate description of some of these avant garde styles and jails? It's been called that, for example, I wonder if you think that's a good descriptive phrase for it.

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Well, I don't want to run the risk of stereotyping now. Or any particular concept of music, because music covers a vast area of emotional involvement, and what see Archie ship this phrase. I don't know why I say this, but this phrase seemed

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like would be connected closely with Archie Shep, maybe Albert iler, because, like, I don't I don't hear too many Caucasian musicians playing in this concept, I mean, using any of the vehicles that Archie uses, or the people who play this

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violent type music use, course, like again, they've been conditioned differently, and they probably couldn't feel this. Archie probably has an innate feeling for this, because he obviously has is disappointed with this system, and this is

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the best way that he can express this disappointment. I feel this better through his music than I do through his words. I feel that he's disappointed at something. You know, it doesn't like don't misunderstand me now doesn't mean that I dislike his

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music. I don't get that idea at all, yeah, but there's, there's some kind of inner urgency or inner turmoil that is very much different from any other

00:14:11.460 - 00:14:24.620

musicians concept of playing jazz. So this music and this forefront of the avenue guard, you would agree that it could justify but we call it the new black music. I don't want to put a name. I don't want to put a tag. Okay.

00:14:25.640 - 00:14:38.540

Where did this come from? This Lew, right, Johannes Brahms is the first time ever it is. I must be living in Dark Ages. Well, you just probably don't read down me very much, for which I don't blame you, in

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the least, because that's where he's used it mostly so Leroy is he's very much aligned with Archie. I think Marion brown might be closely associated with his views, but Leroy is a writer, and these people actually and.

00:15:00.000 - 00:15:14.400

Well, where Leroy can say it verbally, Archie can say it verbally and musically, whereas Marion probably is not so verbal or is more musically. But their feelings are parallel, probably because they're very closely associated. And I know where

00:15:14.400 - 00:15:27.740

Leroy stands as far as the black music is concerned. Actually, there's great an identity between the views of Archie and rodeo run as there is between Archie and Leroy. I heard this panel that I was on in December jazz magazine

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sponsored I heard Archie contradict Levi openly and say that many of the things that Levi was accounting for in terms of racial differences were actually a matter of economic differences. That is, it wasn't just that black people were

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black, but they were black people and poor and jobless. So this is what Roswell once said to me when I interviewed him Thursday too. We were talking about poverty and deprivation and how that goes to make up the music. So there's a stereotype

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view which Archie resents, by the way, that he is Lew rodeo. Point of fact, he isn't in that group. Roswell comes as close to Archie as Archie comes, right? So that's nothing. Roswell fits very good in Archie's group, but

00:16:09.120 - 00:16:24.320

he's Caucasian. But is it a paradox of what he seems lamb musically, I'm speaking on musical, not anything behind the scenes. What I hear is what I find myself being most interested what goes on behind the scenes is something

00:16:25.460 - 00:16:44.440

completely unimportant or completely inconsequential to what is happening right at front at the present, as far as my thinking is concerned, and rodeo fit very good. My idea on this is that, by and large, major innovators in music

00:16:44.440 - 00:16:56.440

have always been black. Always come from the ghetto. But that doesn't mean that now and then an occasional White comes along who can adjust his thinking in such a way to fit in with the kind of thinking that the ghetto produces. And rodeo's Weldon is

00:16:56.440 - 00:17:09.840

such a white that I would use a new blind use. If I were to use the phrase, and I have used the phrase, I would use it in a general sense, but keeping in mind that there are exceptions to every generality, Russell wrote as well, to me, it seems

00:17:10.380 - 00:17:23.840

impossible to deny that the music is black and not even just the new music. If you look in Danby poll and classified musician, you find out in the critical for example, that 70% of them are black and only 1/10 of them in the population, I can

00:17:23.840 - 00:17:40.600

get around that fact that jazz, by and large, is like music, like music. But that doesn't mean that there can't be any exceptions. There are exceptions. Clearly, do you ever find the reaction of an audience your music varies with the race.

00:17:40.900 - 00:17:56.980

What does you find the white audiences are different than black audiences? Well, different in responding, oh, in responding, yeah, not, not that much. I find legally that black audiences have a tendency to disappoint me,

00:17:58.000 - 00:18:16.080

because, like, they don't seem to keep up the pace with the new music they seem to want to they seem to tend to like, cling to something that they're already familiar with. And in a sense, this is mental laziness. I don't know how they can overcome this,

00:18:16.140 - 00:18:33.380

but like the Caucasian audiences seem to be like right up there with you, in so far as accepting or being open to accept or appreciate whatever you're saying, and insofar as being able to support it, I find the black audiences not only don't

00:18:33.380 - 00:18:48.040

appreciate the new music, but they also refuse, or for some reason or other, to support Music, even financially. Financially, of course, there's a good reason for that. Black people really only support any kind of music,

00:18:48.040 - 00:18:56.440

compared to Weldon Kees. So like, if we go uptown and we play uptown in Harlem. Have you played any dates in Harlem recently? Right? I played

00:18:56.440 - 00:19:13.380

there about six, about six or seven weeks ago, about six weeks ago, with Freddie, Freddie Hubbard, and they, I could see it. You know, a musician has a way of sensing out when an audience is really with him, or if they want you to play

00:19:13.380 - 00:19:29.480

something else. And uptown in Harlem, they seem to always want to hear, hear something like that. They're familiar with the organ and tenor back Well, not necessarily the organ and tenor. If you can play it like with vibes, play some music, it's got

00:19:29.540 - 00:19:45.280

to have the heavy beat. You know, the pulsation definitely has to be there. It can't be missed. And I don't find that's that necessary. I think I know where 123, and four is in music, and I don't think you have to keep underlining this all the

00:19:45.280 - 00:19:52.540

time. Everything you play Bieber and Archie's group does that very little. You just, you just have to feel it and know where it is. But he doesn't have to count

00:19:52.540 - 00:20:01.680

it out for you. So he's not that greatly accepted up there. And he's black musician. He's playing with black audiences. Does the series of concerts that Leroy Jones handle the black. Hearts thing was still alive. Does that

00:20:01.680 - 00:20:14.040

contradict that? That right? Yeah, see now that's another thing Lew Jones is talking about, from what you just said earlier, about black music, this black movement of music, which, to me, like

00:20:15.360 - 00:20:28.760

artistic kind of personifies, maybe training Mary Brown, now these people couldn't make it in Harlem because, like, actually, I would always come up there and play one year, those those concerts that they had at the black Art Society, and they

00:20:28.760 - 00:20:37.760

threw cans and bottles. I think they did. I never read that anymore. I wasn't there. I heard about it. Some of that, you know, they had

00:20:37.760 - 00:20:47.620

three or four bands there, you know, like, right? And so the other people were there. They said, man, what are these people down here doing? You know? Because you're playing right under the windows, you know, you write down right on the ground

00:20:47.620 - 00:21:02.820

upstairs. It's like five or six rows apartments above you. People just like, stick their heads out to women, kind of listen, they want to hear something familiar to them, you know. And this is definitely 1966 music, maybe 1986 and

00:21:02.820 - 00:21:19.560

they're not quite ready for it, but they can come downtown. It's when you have like audiences. The audience probably is 60% Caucasian on a very well integrated team. You know, which right is

00:21:19.560 - 00:21:36.800

the scene. I don't like any Kees, none. I don't like any one group. You know, I like a mixture Linley cross section, right, right, right. So probably, this is probably what I have, or try to have a

00:21:36.800 - 00:21:50.500

nice cross section of conception, you know, in music like one place, when you hear me one minute, you might hear me play one way in an extremely wozy type feeling, and next minute, you might hear me like

00:21:51.820 - 00:22:05.280

approaching an avant garde, you know. And it all feels equally as comfortable to me as you know. Each one is equally as comfortable as the other. Now I can play uptown because I know, I know where they're and I know they are. I don't know what they

00:22:05.280 - 00:22:14.100

want to hear, but if I'm not in the mood to play this, it's a drag. It's a drag the other way around too, right? But like places like, say, like downtown, where the Caucasian audiences, I can

00:22:14.100 - 00:22:32.780

play anything, and they can, they can dig it, if they dig it, you know, if they like what's going on, which they generally do, but I know the black audience is very much more critical. If they can't use it, they really say they can't use

00:22:32.780 - 00:22:47.920

it. They won't spend any time walk out of clubs. What are these cats? On the other hand, if they do like what you're doing, I think they're very responsible. That's what I noticed with Coltrane's audiences, especially when he

00:22:47.920 - 00:23:06.480

gets the right kind of audience. It's hysterical. Trains audiences, black audience, and with him, for example, which is primarily, I mean, it's black people come out to out to the club and, well, they can't use

00:23:06.480 - 00:23:13.140

John there. I know they can, because they took his inclining numbers of picking up the chicks or, well, even if they were playing numbers and picking, of course, it's like a

00:23:13.140 - 00:23:23.960

gaming giant. I mean, all the hustlers coming underground on the world activity goes on. Those kind of people are not customers, right? It's background, you know, John isn't going to be back,

00:23:24.020 - 00:23:43.360

right, right? So that it's a it's a paradox. It is a paradox, a genuine paradox. That's really man. Now, what can you say? You can't put either group down? You know, you can't. It seems like that black people would respond to

00:23:43.360 - 00:24:01.300

black music. But even though somehow it's not right either, I don't really want to say that either, because music blanket is colorless, you know who produces it, there's a color there and like, there's a certain identity from conditioning, often even

00:24:01.300 - 00:24:30.060

years. But I find that I get better. I get the kind of response generally from a mixed audience. I say, like on a 5050, 50% 50% or whichever races there are within a one sided thing. Comfortable, not that it matters anymore, because I can just make

00:24:30.300 - 00:24:40.020

gig. That's not much fun, right? I remember Pittsburgh. It was fun to play your way. It's fun to be able to pay your rent. Yeah, it's better to make the gig and not have the gig at all, but

00:24:40.020 - 00:24:52.000

it's better to make the gig and have an attendant, Mort against them. All but it's better than make the gig and have an attendant, Morgan, right, right music,

00:24:53.260 - 00:25:09.000

even though we kind of Stroud, I'm strong. Would you I think was good for him? I think so. This. Them out of sources, great respect for

00:25:10.920 - 00:25:28.940

it hasn't changed. It didn't change until the new band. This is the band that consists of Cabrillo Jones, Teddy Smith, myself, and Roger Humphries, and then when Woody Shaw came into the band and

00:25:28.940 - 00:25:40.780

Laurie Ridley, it came a little further out, because Teddy is still pretty much the base. He's still pretty much clings to, like basic ideas as far as baseball is concerned. Very good basis,

00:25:41.860 - 00:26:00.660

but I mentioned for 20 years because there would never be the impetus there. You get the idea that junior Cook is interested in changing. I want to talk a minute about Malcolm. X. Do you think there's any significance in the fact that Malcolm was a

00:26:00.660 - 00:26:14.880

lover of jazz and a close friend of many jazz musicians, as comes out, for example, to read his autobiography, I don't think there was any particular significance. I think it's coincidental, because he was a black man, and like you

00:26:14.880 - 00:26:30.440

say, 7% of all the great jazz artists are black people. And there's an association that has grown through the years, and identification on his part and on the part of the people who see Malcolm Henze, you say he was very good friends of quite a

00:26:30.440 - 00:26:50.140

few jazz musicians. Do you think there's no time and jazz has been associated with clandestine Tara? Destined type, type of activity for a long time. And Malcolm came out of a clandestine existence. I think he went to prison as a result of

00:26:50.140 - 00:27:03.930

his clandestine activities. And this association, there is no, I think, was associated with no particular consequential significance. Then you don't see any connection between his ideas and the music,

00:27:03.930 - 00:27:24.320

the ideas that he stood for later in his life, the last 10 years, these were socio political ideas primarily. They were right. So I'm a person who likes to think jazz and music in general. I like to think of it as transcending all of this and

00:27:24.320 - 00:27:43.480

staying pure. But what you pointed out to me the other day, it isn't always the case, because the ghettos produce a certain amount of very good and creative jazz personalities, personalities specifically in the jazz hands. I want to put

00:27:43.480 - 00:28:00.600

too much importance on his being black and me being black in jazz, being primarily black music. What if he had been a Caucasian and speaking the same way? Because most of the things that he said in his the latter part of his life, I mean, the

00:28:00.600 - 00:28:19.200

last in the last six months, he really cleaned up. I was surprised. I saw my left brain show, and I was stunned. I said, What is this? Malcolm X, he was so serene, calm and violent and belligerent, you know, but like he usually is, I mean, like,

00:28:19.380 - 00:28:36.440

like the way I had seen him all the years before then writing this down with this devil and castle, and gave us our own black state and let us isolate ourselves, you know. And then later on, he, I think he went to Nairobi. I think he must have

00:28:36.680 - 00:28:51.580

discovered, exactly what he discovered was that there were sincere white revolutionaries black revolutionaries, right? And it's surprising that Elijah Muhammad was able to conceal this from such an obviously very

00:28:51.580 - 00:29:02.940

brilliant, intelligent, articulate man such as Malcolm was it came out later. You know, I've been hearing about Malcolm for a long time, but I didn't really realizing that he was as perceptive as he was. I

00:29:02.940 - 00:29:15.360

think it was because he felt so much gratitude to Elijah. If you read the autobiography, that's what emerges. He really worshiped the man. He ascribed his own growth to Elijah. And I think in retrospect, we can see this as long that Elijah just

00:29:15.360 - 00:29:24.080

happened to be there at the right time in the right place, Malcolm would have saved himself from being a criminal the rest of his life under any circumstances. So that's brilliant. Circumstances, but he thought he

00:29:24.080 - 00:29:33.200

were at that point, at the beginning of his career as a Muslim minister, he thought he was indebted to Elijah. Later on, after he broke he began to see that really his growth was due to his own thinking, and

00:29:33.200 - 00:29:45.820

that he had handcuffed himself by allowing, by allowing Elijah to dictate to him, as he had so much. But at the end of his life, he was making speeches in Canada and at Columbia University where he would say, Well, yes, I believe there will

00:29:45.820 - 00:30:02.820

be a showdown, but it will be between blacks and white. It will be between the oppressed and the oppressor. So that's how much he changed over from Yes. One other thing would you ever consider. Dedicating a composition to him or to any

00:30:02.880 - 00:30:23.480

figure in public life, right? Yes, it would either be Malcolm or Johannes Kennedy, who are two people that I really I'm not a hero worshiper, but I'm not sorry for having worshiped Malcolm in his later. I mean,

00:30:23.480 - 00:30:47.540

it's the, I mean, the last phase, phase of his, his life. I mean to me, he's still kind of alive now. And it's the same way with Johannes, Joe Kenneth, the same way I felt an equal, equally about two of them, I had really understand. I didn't know

00:30:47.540 - 00:31:15.840

Johannes, but I knew what he represented, and same way with Malcolm X, their lives at the end. It's amazing at the end of the same way, some you should some musicians have said that jazz is a music

00:31:15.900 - 00:31:30.680

born out of oppression and suffering, and that it is opposed to oppression and suffering, therefore it is opposed to what the United States is doing today in Vietnam. Would you like to comment on that idea? Wow,

00:31:30.860 - 00:31:45.640

that's very involved. Is just one out of oppression and suffering. Do you think, in your opinion, not necessarily, for the most part, I think it's born out of an own,

00:31:47.080 - 00:32:09.060

an innate quality in a person or group of persons to express and have a means of expressing something that, like Sister, like folk music. Folk music expresses the feelings and sentiments, the values of just a given group or

00:32:09.060 - 00:32:25.700

community of people. And jazz, in a sense, does the same thing only. Like folk music has had a large acceptance, right? Like it originally was just a community affair, a family, almost a family type affair. And probably jazz started out like this, with

00:32:25.700 - 00:32:42.440

just five or six musicians being together and having some kind of a means to express themselves. And it took on, you know, somebody, somebody over here, could synchronize the feeling with what was happening with the jazz musicians, just an outsider

00:32:42.440 - 00:32:57.380

could appreciate what they were doing, and then he could, like, transform his feelings into what they're saying. They're idiot, right? And folk music the same way, because everybody can't sing, quite a large number of people can appreciate everybody

00:32:57.380 - 00:33:12.060

can play jazz, but quite a large number who can't appreciate seeing somewhat express themselves. And in turn, they can express that. They can find a sense, feel a sense of relief in this. And I don't think that there's anything that, like

00:33:12.060 - 00:33:30.140

poverty, has anything to do with this. I think this is an inborn thing. Everybody has to have some kind of a means to express themselves. And some people are able to feel this, the feel. Let me get this together. Some people can feel the same kind of

00:33:30.140 - 00:33:41.140

relief that the artist himself feels just by listening like you listen to a preacher. Why does the artist need to feel relief? Why does anybody I mean, I don't like to answer a question with a

00:33:41.140 - 00:34:02.160

question, but everybody has to have a sense of relief one way or another. My best way is through jazz. I agree with what you said. I don't think it's necessarily inconsistent with what I asked. I mean, it's true. I've never known well, I have my

00:34:02.220 - 00:34:12.840

student day, but not really serious poverty India. There certainly is something in jazz that appeals to me. So there's something universal in jazz, but, but all the poverty is universal too. I mean, for most of the world's

00:34:12.900 - 00:34:23.480

population, right? What are the people in India? Those people in power? What are they doing on a creative level? They are doing Ravi Shankar, these are the poor people of India. You mean the rich people of India can't

00:34:23.840 - 00:34:35.300

understand I'm not saying that poverty makes it possible. There are poor people who will never understand jazz, and there are rich people who will. But on the whole, the circumstances out of which the music is born are these circumstances of poverty

00:34:35.300 - 00:34:55.300

and deprivation. I think that it takes a little intelligence to understand appreciate you. Good music. Well, I can say, so maybe if I'm poor, then maybe I want to be poor, you know, but

00:34:55.300 - 00:35:09.540

I'm not necessarily dumb, without brains or anything like this. Maybe I'm poor because. The way I want to be. I mean, money probably doesn't even phase me one way, as long as I can eat, sleep and take care of all the other necessary things,

00:35:10.020 - 00:35:22.580

medicine, all this, this is everything. Of course, then you say, used to be poor. You're not poor anymore, because most of the poor can't eat and sleep and dress well and get medical Tara just, just to achieve that takes

00:35:22.580 - 00:35:47.800

you out of the realm of right? So let's go on the second half by question between jazz and Vietnam. The only connection that I can possibly visualize between jazz and Vietnam. Possibly some musicians who are subjected to these draft

00:35:47.800 - 00:36:02.700

laws might get sent over there. I don't think there's any connection at all between jazz and Vietnam. That's pretty clear cut. Okay. What do you think of working conditions for jazz musicians. On the whole you feel that jazz

00:36:02.700 - 00:36:15.360

musicians are treated as artists deserve to be treated, and if you don't think they are treated that way, would you venture your opinion on why you think this is the case? Well, now jazz musicians, to me,

00:36:16.320 - 00:36:38.120

in a sense, are very much of the jazz musicians. That I know well put it this way, artists in general are very sensitive people. Jazz musicians of a group of artists, to me, what I know best seem to have like an overabundance of sensitivity,

00:36:38.360 - 00:37:01.920

which is necessary for them to produce good music, but in other areas, at other times, it is not that necessary. Now, now I'm not that sensitive to the surroundings that I work in. I'm speaking as an individual. That's all I want. I'm not. I

00:37:02.640 - 00:37:25.400

don't care. Well, slugs is a far cry from Batista East. I know what those places are like anyway. Like Like, they're not like Mallea Lane. They're fairly plush,

00:37:25.520 - 00:37:39.740

right? Like, bass treaties, yeah, okay. Slugs is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a plush club, but it serves my purpose. I'm not interested in. Plus, if I was working in Batista, the audience was a good

00:37:39.740 - 00:37:51.400

audience, fine. Exactly what I meant. What I meant was you satisfied with the way you were treated by, say, the guys who own the nightclubs or the recording companies or the concert promoters and so on

00:37:51.400 - 00:38:03.300

and so forth. That's what I meant by working conditions, as long as they give me the money that I think I'm worth, solid so how can I determine what I'm worth? How can anybody to know what I'm worth? If I would determine what

00:38:03.300 - 00:38:22.760

I'm worth in terms of what I need, they probably give me very little. You understand what I say, because I find that I don't need a lot. You know, as long as I keep myself oppressed with current events, right? Look at a nice program on TV, go kiss a

00:38:22.760 - 00:38:37.400

nice movie. I see a nice baby, nice book. Here's some nice music, which is, in a sense, it's very expensive then, and like I say, keep my clothes clean, supply myself with medical needs whenever necessary. Then this is all I

00:38:37.400 - 00:38:49.900

need, and this does not take a lot of money, so, but is it? Will I be doing myself right? But just if I would sign myself with a company, I make this company all kinds of money. Shouldn't I get a nice taste of this money?

00:38:51.640 - 00:39:07.080

I'm whole. You're satisfied with working conditions as you you have experienced them as I have experienced. But like, I don't know this right for me, business wise. I'm not aware of my beneficially

00:39:07.080 - 00:39:25.100

exploitable talents, but insofar as well as as opposed to what I need to sustain myself, I don't know if this is a good business move for you to say this. You understand how to publish that. Okay? To cut yourself now,

00:39:26.300 - 00:39:40.600

when I go to work for somebody, you know, I'm going to demand a nice taste, right, right? But like in so far as actually needing that money, I don't really, I don't really think that I need that if I can

00:39:40.600 - 00:39:49.900

go to Paris whenever I feel like going to Paris, if I can go to Brazil when I feel like going to Brazil, I won't do it. If somebody else wants to pay the trip down, then it's good. No, you have what strikes me as a very

00:39:49.900 - 00:40:01.020

desirable kind of like because things go wrong, so simple and mostly pretty easily satisfied. And that's what I believe in yourself tied Avenue, my most expensive. As much as that camera, you

00:40:05.280 - 00:40:19.080

know, that's I have. I'd like to try to become as well known as as I deserve to be as an artist. Well, this involves making a lot of money. I know what you mean, because this book is the same with me. I

00:40:19.080 - 00:40:29.960

want, I want a lot of people to read it, but if I never make a penny on but that really goes it, that really doesn't bother me. It's just that I want to satisfy presenting certain things that I think are important and having people

00:40:29.960 - 00:40:40.960

react to them. That's what I think, what any artist wants, or any teacher for that matter. Because some similarity I used to hear people say, like, bird never made the money that he should

00:40:40.960 - 00:40:50.500

have made. I don't know. Maybe he was happy living where he lived. Who knows, doesn't seem very likely. Now. I mean, birds life doesn't like a very happy one, regardless. I'm trying

00:40:50.500 - 00:41:03.060

to wonder what bird would have been like, or how effective his music, if it did at all, if he had lived on, fit them away when he was when he was alive, when he was like, producing good music. So I think it would

00:41:03.060 - 00:41:14.160

have been important for bird to live there, not after he became famous, but before he became famous, to have a kind of, kind of settled, calm, rational existence. I think by the time bird was 15 years old, his pattern of his life had already

00:41:14.160 - 00:41:30.680

been shaped so much so that no matter how much money he was given by then, he was going to use it to destroy himself. I don't know. It's my hunch. I think bird could always get money. The point is, what did he do with the money after he got

00:41:30.680 - 00:41:43.060

it? By the time he could get it, those patterns were set in motion. But I think bird was a creature of a society where did he grow up, and under what circumstances did he grow up? Didn't this affect what he did with money that he ultimately

00:41:43.060 - 00:41:58.300

did get. And so anyway, with any great artist that doesn't, doesn't have the opportunity to enjoy money that comes after his, you know, after his death, after he dies, well, they saw me in

00:41:58.300 - 00:42:09.900

records, and I couldn't have done the whole of his life. What would he What would he What would he have done with this one? You said, Well, you said, Burt probably would have ended up destroying himself even after his life, pretty much, his

00:42:09.900 - 00:42:21.680

values pretty much shaped by the time he was 15 years old, going downhill. You say he went downhill, it would have been a downhill thing. Well, what I'm saying is that he destroyed himself with narcotics, and those narcotics would have been

00:42:21.680 - 00:42:33.260

available to him in lodging if he had less money, or if he had more money. If you wanted to destroy yourself on narcotics, I think you can do it. There are ways to do it. Well, what really is responsible for Burton's destruction is not that, I

00:42:33.260 - 00:42:46.060

think, not that he didn't have enough money when he was famous, but the fact that he was only conditioned by the time he was famous to use that money. Million destructive camels. You see what I mean. And then that I regard a society's crime against

00:42:46.060 - 00:42:57.520

bury that a man of such talent and genius should have been forced to grow up in circumstances where he would acquire these destructive Hans right. And then there are other people that will say that

00:42:57.700 - 00:43:07.920

if he had been living better than his music, probably his music would have been calm and might have been different. I don't think it would have been inferior that one has to suffer

00:43:08.700 - 00:43:26.480

Well, right? Like he was saying, like those, like good artists, I didn't come out of a particularly childhood, even though I can remember that our walls were not paper for a while, but then my father got a raise after a while, there were

00:43:26.480 - 00:43:42.640

15 Kees in my family, and I can remember it being not that hygienically conducive to good Health. You have the family stability as which

00:43:44.500 - 00:44:00.720

is one of the things, I think, very blind reasons why suffering and heart. If you've ever heard any of the Soviet violinists, you know that you can be a great artist, because these guys are getting three square meals a day, and they

00:44:00.720 - 00:44:17.940

know that they have so much work available to them. They are geniuses, and nobody would nobody, nobody questions that Henze put it all the way up all through their studies. Does make them any worse for it. And if you're individual,

00:44:19.080 - 00:44:36.920

which is, well, I try to establish individuality. You know, everywhere I wish that everybody could be an individual. I'm just, I mean, without affecting, jeopardizing one person's way of existence or

00:44:38.060 - 00:44:50.500

another. I mean, you can do, do what, do, what you want to do, and let everybody else do what they want, but don't try to bring harm or physical harm or harm to anybody else's way of thinking, what way of living,

00:44:51.280 - 00:45:01.680

speaking of which. What do you think about the war in Vietnam? I should have thrown that in earlier, but I forgot to you don't have plans. Well, actually I don't do. Don't really think that much about the

00:45:01.680 - 00:45:22.460

war in Vietnam. Is that, like, I don't think too much about any war. I don't like the idea of people killing each other, you know, especially, especially ideological wars, like, which all the wars like, I think, move from different ideas onto the

00:45:22.460 - 00:45:41.380

battlefield, and people start killing each other just over ideas. And Vietnam, to me, seems to be a war that America wants to put that sleeping Tiger over there in check. You know, a sleeping Tiger over there is not about to be put in check,

00:45:41.560 - 00:45:55.300

because, like the sleeping Tiger rodeo is to that hemisphere, what the United States is to this Henze, and what France is quite largely to a large part of Europe. What France wants to do all wants to be to a large part of Europe, and what Russia is to

00:45:55.300 - 00:46:14.160

the communist bloc, until China started to rebut a little bit and to lock the boat in the sense and in Vietnam, I really don't know what the ultimate solution would be to that world, but like killing lines innocent people, it's not going to make

00:46:14.220 - 00:46:31.040

the South Vietnamese love us anymore. I think eventually what they have to do is realize the fact that North Vietnam and South Vietnam is not going to be like North Korea, South Korea two separate states, but that is officially going to be

00:46:31.100 - 00:46:48.460

controlled by both of them, whether we will have to have a say so, whether we like it or not in the way that country is running and China probably can stay on our own ground, and we stay on our ground with those people over there, with the with

00:46:48.520 - 00:47:07.080

a but then there you go. I wish I could get that together. I really do. I don't like the idea, like I said to me, it seems like what you're saying is that Vietnam should be

00:47:07.080 - 00:47:18.660

left for the Vietnamese Americans, let them solve it. It's like a Revolutionary War. It's like we have over here, definitely, and we solved it over here. Nobody came over and helped the South. Nobody came

00:47:18.660 - 00:47:39.380

over North. This was like an intra state war, and we finally got it together, even though there's still some of the old ideas still lingered on. Now the reason, but not as many people are getting killed as they were during the

00:47:39.380 - 00:47:52.960

actual war itself. Now, what did accomplish something. After all, did do away with the institution of slavery. So it wasn't complete. Did away with one kind of slavery. I didn't mean that it

00:47:53.020 - 00:48:06.120

created highly a condition, because that's speaking as an historian, I realized I was stupid with me to say that I know one thing, I know that do some of these music talked about as avant garde musicians? Do you think that they look to Africa

00:48:06.120 - 00:48:23.600

and Asia or any of their musical inspiration? A little bit of it, probably, but not, not too much. Not the avant garde. No sense. Yes, because, like, to me, a lot of the African music over to Africa and listen to this in the jungle

00:48:23.600 - 00:48:44.680

music, I'd probably be able to relate to it a lot of the avant garde, but I can't imagine, like, say, for example, Harrison sounding like one of the drummers Over there jungle and like their harmonic structure. So I don't find any. I think all

00:48:44.680 - 00:48:57.580

that stuff is right here in United States, because this is what retention is. And we want to have a lot of the black physicians want to have a sense of identity. And like they can see this, they find it through some means, through Africa. I

00:48:57.580 - 00:49:09.240

mean, this is supposedly a black continent, so you anticipated my next question, which was that, if musicians were doing this, this was as much for political or social reasons than it was for

00:49:10.560 - 00:49:28.400

musical reasons, right? Exactly, I think that, which is very important, and it's a paradox in a way, because, like, they probably don't have the frustrations over there that we have, the frustrations that which the jazz. They probably

00:49:28.400 - 00:49:47.320

have their own frustrations. What does it produce? People, I think, have their own art music. The thing is that the art is going to be conditioned by the circumstances in which

00:49:47.320 - 00:50:01.200

the people look. That's all I was really saying before. If the people are contented and happy and on the whole, got enough to eat and so forth, going to have one kind of music. They don't, and they're angry about it. And then. We have, excuse me, this

00:50:01.200 - 00:50:22.640

is elementary logic, and really, you don't have to say much more about that, but my opinion is group improvisation varying in importance in the new music. And if so, why? Because every going back to that, I try to beat individuals

00:50:22.640 - 00:50:36.920

which is possible, I realized that other people, whereas a safer say, for example, you mentioned horses earlier, Junior Cook, okay, this was, this was really horses group, with the exception of probably maybe blue, he seemed to be a little

00:50:36.920 - 00:50:53.980

more individual than the rest of now, with this new group, he had five individuals in that group, which made it better for him, for him because, like, It eliminated the chance for him to, like, get deeper into a rut, because he had five people in

00:50:53.980 - 00:51:10.800

there pushing him, pulling him out of that rut. You know, it was a good rut for some people musically, because people liked it, you know, so he benefited, but it wasn't good for him as an artist in the theater, right? But like

00:51:10.860 - 00:51:26.120

now today, I find that most groups that most groups that I'm familiar with and I'm closely associated with, most music I appreciate, like it's a series of individual concepts and individual means of

00:51:26.120 - 00:51:41.120

expression. I mean, the fact that they're on a stand at the same time is coincidental to each individual being into his own thing. I mean, the fact that they can, like, get together is good, you know, for the sake of the whole thing, and for the

00:51:41.120 - 00:51:56.200

sake of people who listen to it, and for the SA and for the sake of group therapy. So group participation, and it's very good, it's good thing. But like I find some of

00:51:56.200 - 00:52:11.700

the some of the older groups, have a tendency to like they have a tendency to depend on each other too much, for example, well, for a good example, cannonball, he had five very good musicians with this group, but like his music is

00:52:11.700 - 00:52:28.160

designed where individual participation is, there's not so much emphasis on individual participation as group participation. And take my group. For instance, there is a, I think it's as equal, equally important for the individual

00:52:28.400 - 00:52:37.160

speak out as it is for the group to speak out when it comes time for the group to speak out. In other words, you don't see a growth in importance of collective improvisation.

00:52:39.380 - 00:52:54.400

Well, I looked, I don't think it's that important. It's important that the musicians can still relate. They can relate as a group. But I eventually like to, like play some conscious by myself, or maybe with just a bass or with just a drum. Sonny

00:52:54.400 - 00:53:11.280

Rollins, you know, he's got complete freedom there. In fact, he doesn't need anybody, really. He just make it by himself, and if he gets a drummer that can do the same thing, he's gonna really find optimum compatibility. If I know

00:53:11.280 - 00:53:30.260

something wrong, he's had a tremendous bearing on my music, apparently, weeks before, apparently, third string music, as illustrated by some of John Lewis's or Gulch there Schuler compositions, has failed to catch on among the younger

00:53:30.260 - 00:53:43.780

musicians who are very well qualified to play that music. What do you think is the cause of this? Well, number one, I don't other than two examples that you decided there.

00:53:43.780 - 00:53:56.020

John Wilson, I'm not that familiar with third string music. I don't think I might be. But when you put that, when you put that name onto it, it made me not familiar with it. Yeah,

00:53:56.020 - 00:54:10.620

I am. Well, that's what it was called. You use a name when you're talking with somebody else to let them know what it is, if you can think of anything else, what about her? I'm not that familiar with Gunther shoe. Yeah, right,

00:54:10.620 - 00:54:25.160

you know, I think I've heard maybe one of his compositions. I think, did he do thing with the metropolis? Yeah, that was I heard that maybe 10 years ago, or five, eight years ago, when it first came out. I think JJ was on it, but I don't remember.

00:54:25.160 - 00:54:38.420

I don't have the total recall on how that sounded. In fact, I don't have any recall. Let me rephrase a question like this. Apparently, there doesn't seem to be much effort made this these days to try and blend

00:54:38.540 - 00:54:53.440

European music jazz. Why do you think that? You say that there is no that's my observation, which you may or may not agree with. If you don't agree with that, say so, but if you do agree with it, how would you account for this? Well, the

00:54:53.440 - 00:55:09.180

young musicians of today are very well qualified in terms of their reading ability and plan ability to make those. Hans if they wanted to. Well, I think that number one, I don't quite agree with you, that they are using, I

00:55:09.180 - 00:55:30.620

think today they're using more European harmonies, even in a looser sense, in an individual sense, because, like the harmonies that were connected with jazz over the years, has been a systematic and organized, an organized group of sounds.

00:55:30.620 - 00:55:49.720

It's been organized organization in the construction, say, for example, of course, and the pattern of a composition generally have like another form, the A, A, B, A form, which is a 32 measure form. This is a form. And today, music, the

00:55:49.720 - 00:56:09.540

avenue music, I think what you said, I think the third string music possibly might have had too much form. It didn't remove itself far enough from that form. And this music day is almost formless. Everybody just brings their own music, creates

00:56:09.540 - 00:56:23.600

their own music, but they're able to, like do it together with other musicians, on the same at precisely the same time, on a pretty much a spontaneous level. Does that mean the music is formless, or that it has a

00:56:23.600 - 00:56:38.720

different kind of form than what we've been accustomed to? It has a different kind of form. If a form at all, it's, I don't want to say that it's all formless, formless, but it has a different kind of form. And when I say

00:56:38.720 - 00:56:49.480

that word form, I keep putting it into a form. I mean, it just makes it. The song Never really leaves, of course, because you're playing it and you have a conception of what it is you want to play. And that whether

00:56:49.480 - 00:56:59.380

you whether you're going to play the 11 bars or 13 bars or x bars, where you have figured out how many bars x is going to be, it still means as a form, if you're organizing the music yourself to accomplish what you want to

00:56:59.380 - 00:57:10.620

accomplish, right at the moment, right? Yeah, and where at the next moment, if you'd asked me to play that same conversation again, I could approach the feeling in that conversation, but I wouldn't be able to play that same form. Or, I mean,

00:57:10.620 - 00:57:18.600

after it's played and recorded once, then it is a form, right? You get once you play the record again, well, it's the same form. Then you can identify a certain phrase coming after a phrase, and you can

00:57:21.360 - 00:57:43.360

put it in a form, if this is necessary. But take, for example, some of RG Sheps music. I heard him a couple nights in a row in California. His music had the same deep and intense qualities,

00:57:43.480 - 00:57:56.080

qualities. And like, he was obviously concentrating on these qualities, more on the emotion of the music than he was on the kind of establishment, kind of form. But like, I'd hear it on next night, and I'd be able to relate that there was a similar

00:57:57.100 - 00:58:10.140

feeling, feeling in the music. But it was a different, different night. So to say it was different, new tomb, in a sense, this question, this charge of formlessness, has been made by a

00:58:10.140 - 00:58:27.200

number of writers who are opposed to the new music, who are opposed to the music. Yeah. Do you think that all of their opposition is musical, or, in some cases, it's social and political opposition as well.

00:58:27.500 - 00:58:46.120

Well, it probably a little bit both, probably a little bit and more so music than political or social. I'd say it was more so music, because some of the avant garde, I can understand and I can sympathize with the layman, it would be hard to relate and

00:58:46.420 - 00:59:01.800

identify this music with anything they've ever heard. For example, where black people up in Harlem, they can't how can they relate this music, like, say, for example, strange music. But then the black people up in Harlem don't profess to be music

00:59:01.800 - 00:59:22.640

critics and don't clinch. These people were born out of black communities and black social struggles which were imposing these ghetto scenes were like Lou someone else. The

00:59:22.700 - 00:59:38.840

Caucasian concepts, and it's, well, it's black music, and it's not that far removed. You know, five or six years is not that well, it's not a long ways back. And this avant garde thing, to me, jazz

00:59:38.840 - 00:59:54.760

wise, is just a very recent thing at the moose. A lot can happen in five years and artists can get out of phase with their public is true. What happens with that artist, as well as my partners? In fact, the history of European art is

00:59:54.760 - 01:00:07.440

one continual succession of this crisis occurring the artists want something different. It, and the art public isn't able to keep pace with it. The reason being that the artists actually have to create right, and they should leave. They don't want to

01:00:07.440 - 01:00:17.820

create in last generation styles. They run out and absorb those last generation style with the food they eat, in the air they breathe. And so those things they regard as commonplace, even boring, they want

01:00:17.820 - 01:00:28.220

something right, and the critics have a tendency to be last generation. That's right. The critics, who should be playing the role of interceding between the artists and the public, frequently go

01:00:28.220 - 01:00:45.700

over to the wrong side and stand in the way of these new developments, as we're seeing now. But like I think that the urban musicians are leaning more towards Europe than they are. I mean harmonically, rhythmically,

01:00:45.700 - 01:00:58.900

they're here United States, and which came up with America. Yeah. So that's if anything. Well, in fact, some numbers like, I think Rashid probably Milford graves too, seem to be making conscious

01:00:58.900 - 01:01:13.680

efforts to try and our blade. He always did well, right to to integrate African music or to strengthen the African component. Many of the new groups are panelists. Do you think this is a coming trend? And if so, why?

01:01:13.680 - 01:01:30.740

Well, I don't think it's a upcoming trend. I think that it's a that you I like to use the piano as an instrument like a saxophone. A saxophone player doesn't play all the time, and a piano player is not necessary to play all the time, and he plays

01:01:30.740 - 01:01:43.840

his part, and that's it. It's not necessary for him to like lock and like be the nucleus. So in other words, piano can be in a nuclear group, if it is on same level as every other instrument, right? But the older

01:01:43.840 - 01:01:55.720

idea of using piano as a constant comp behind the soloist that seems to be going out of style among the new groups, right? This is a tradition. I don't know when it was set up. The piano player was always in there. Everybody else needs his

01:01:55.720 - 01:02:12.000

own thing. I think this like stemmed from laziness on part of the horn, man and other people not able to keep their own place. So like they had a piano player always, they knew they could always depend on him playing the right change at the

01:02:12.000 - 01:02:24.200

right time, see. But now today, the union musicians know they know exactly where they are, just like the piano players have known like through the years. So it's not necessary for him to keep someone this is what it is. Now you're at this point in this

01:02:24.200 - 01:02:35.420

competition. Now I know this, and it's not necessary to keep saying that to me. What about the fact, too, that many of the horn men don't want to play in a strict 12 tone scale? That is, they want to

01:02:35.420 - 01:02:44.680

play in the cracks. They want to play with a modulated pitch. They don't necessarily want to play just those 12 notes. You think this is influential in making them want to take out piano rather playing

01:02:44.860 - 01:02:58.600

right exactly, because the piano has is like a tempered instrument, that's it, and it's always going to be C, is always gonna be C. It's not gonna be a quarter ton of sharp or anything like this. So like it, you can have like a clash in so far as

01:02:58.600 - 01:03:12.960

like, the exactness of the harmonies are concerned there, and the piano player, the piano being in there, would just make this class come out. Now, some people might want this. They might want this distance, this distant effect in there, but at

01:03:12.960 - 01:03:28.940

the same time, they don't want the other Weldon to, like, restrict, restrict and be so precise. But the piano players, like the Davies, recently are the ones who can somehow play between the cracks. Cecil Taylor can do it. Cecil can do

01:03:29.240 - 01:03:47.140

by organizing clusters of tone so that you really almost blot out the conventional tonality. And Marion's piano player is Dave, Dave Brown, I think, but I'm not certain. I know his first name is Dave, but I never did learn his last name. And

01:03:47.140 - 01:03:56.980

apparently Burton green, too, but I haven't heard Burton green, so I really don't know what he's into. Yeah, I'm getting to feel very antique. You call a lot of names, probably I should know

01:03:56.980 - 01:04:13.800

about I have much more time to listen than you do. You play music that takes a while your time, I can listen to it. Thanks. That's my job. You know? I mean, I don't like the word critic anyhow, but if I'm going to do anything about writing or

01:04:13.800 - 01:04:36.860

music, then first elementary responsibility, I have to educate myself that's trying to teach myself how to play. So not doing too well. My amateur is a little weak. I wanted a tenant beggars. So try and get as much. Get as much

01:04:36.860 - 01:04:51.220

of this going down. You like barrio, that scale, that scales, lots of fun. Yeah, that was a that was impromptu right there on the

01:04:51.220 - 01:05:10.440

spot, which, in a sense, is really, really creative, right there. Yeah. I think everything else, in a way, hers, but elbow, we got to the date we. Didn't rehearse it, C major center, and that was it. It just went on from there,

01:05:10.440 - 01:05:20.400

you know, with a Spanish feeling six against four. Thing that one knows, whatever that meter is, that was something that would just happen right then and there. You know, that's the way he heard it. And it was

01:05:20.400 - 01:05:37.400

a one take. He took it down one time, and it was, in a way, it's the most exciting, most exciting track on the on the album that and, Oh yeah, right, yeah. He literally throws in some of

01:05:37.400 - 01:06:23.660

monk's 10th chords. Well, that was written like, oh restricted to those he chose to put them in Oh, I wanted to hear that. And there are about three or four courses where he does bring them

01:06:23.660 - 01:06:32.480

back. Yeah, yeah. So I think he has an affinity for Marcus music like myself, and this is one thing that makes us very compatible. And Andrew Dodie, yeah,

01:06:32.480 - 01:06:55.360

especially Andrew and Cecil, Andrew, that's that's not to mention this for people who could play an indefinite pitch style on the piano. And rodeo traces, Duke and monk, of course, and then, like get

01:06:55.420 - 01:07:14.940

the monk developed into his own definitely identifiable style to you, who are the most influential artists playing new music, and how would you go about determining who they were? Last

01:07:18.060 - 01:07:36.320

major question, I that is very hard question, because, like, I'm not out on the scene because I don't hear the music like you do. You know, I have fantasy to be into my own thing. I definitely don't think

01:07:36.320 - 01:07:48.040

the train is influential. Now, even though he's a he's definitely got a new thing going. I don't think he's influencing anybody now, because his thing is too complex. RJ is not influencing anybody. He's got his own personalized stuff

01:07:48.040 - 01:07:55.480

playing. Was training influential before? Oh, before, definitely. Oh, wow. But this was like, I think training start being an

01:07:55.480 - 01:08:18.360

influence around 19. 1960 or possibly 61 but no farther than, no further than 61 this music, at that point, like departed to more complex, even to listen to listen to mass influential in terms of appealing to the other

01:08:18.360 - 01:08:35.840

musicians. I'm just deducing Horace. You know, in fact, I, you know, the only person that I have really been able to hear as a person who has been influencing a lot of people lately is a trumpet

01:08:35.900 - 01:08:53.500

player, Freddie Hubbard. He has been, he's been a tremendous have, a tremendous influence a lot of younger people, the younger musicians and the old music, not only he's Henze Freddie, greatly, and I was just been Mort like, a poetic

01:08:53.500 - 01:09:03.840

exchange Sonny Weldon and John colfain went through that thing too, I think, right, right, yeah. But it wasn't as great because, like, I think the Sonny had the edge,

01:09:04.440 - 01:09:25.760

because he really influenced training, much more of a training. I think Charles thing eventually became so strong that it was just natural, like it was so contagious. So is it hardly by being an influence. I don't hear I don't hear any saxophone

01:09:25.760 - 01:09:39.800

players. Now, I feel that myself, that I am exerting a little influence. I don't know how well. I mean, because I know that I play things that are uncommon to I know that I create like you create something. You know exactly that you create.

01:09:39.800 - 01:09:53.080

It's possible for two people to create this exact same thing? Now I've noticed that, like, there's about five Saxon players here in the city, some people that have studied me so nationally, I think they were

01:09:54.100 - 01:10:09.780

nationally influenced. You had one of them in your band. My that was my guess in. A in the big band. All right, yeah, right. Fourth one over from the left, I think. All right, yes. What's his name? His name is Vinnie Morton, yeah,

01:10:09.900 - 01:10:22.580

because that's good. I've never heard it before. I've seen the name, right? And if I had heard that solo, that's a Joan Henze and solo, yeah, and Judy cook recently,

01:10:22.580 - 01:10:34.760

right for another one, this is for the last five years, because, like, he studied over here. I was showing him something we were kind of studying, you know. And this was about three years ago.

01:10:34.760 - 01:10:51.880

You really changed. You probably noticed a change in him yourself over records, like, for example, when he left horse, you had to Yeah, he explained more in the upper register, and he's doing

01:10:52.660 - 01:11:03.300

more confident. Yeah, he doesn't think he's doesn't feel like he has to be an old lady. Mort, right? Yeah, and

01:11:05.160 - 01:11:27.740

that's it. Piano wise, I'm just right, right. There is definitely McCoy. Probably is being more influential than any other Capitola base wise, I really wouldn't anybody who can play the drums wants to play Lego

01:11:30.260 - 01:11:47.920

and alto saxophone scene, I hear quite a bit of not well, it's not that prevalent, but more so than any other. Eric, everybody talks about a play,

01:11:49.240 - 01:12:02.400

right, right? Oh, of course I want to. Is that important? Is that any kind of remarkably, yes and no monk would be great if nobody ever imitated money. There aren't really very many people who do, but one way,

01:12:02.400 - 01:12:17.040

after all, it is the musicians who are the final judge of each other's contribution. And if a musician is a great musician, then what he does is probably going to be taken over to some degree, by other musicians and transmitted but that's how it

01:12:17.040 - 01:12:27.800

becomes part of the jazz tradition. That's how we know that Charles Parker was important, because all Saxon were to one degree or another, influenced by what he was doing, and incorporated bits and pieces from his music and passed it

01:12:27.800 - 01:12:42.940

down. And now jazz tradition, part of the jazz tradition is directly festival back to Charles Morton. So in that sense, I think it is important from an historical approach, so that he's the only people that I can think of any kind

01:12:42.940 - 01:12:57.400

influencing as far as composition. No, I was interested in playing as well, because writing always seems to be secondary. Well, I like to put equal importance on that personal

01:12:57.400 - 01:13:13.080

command. So okay, I would like to, usually become recognized if I deserve so as a composer, as much as a soul sex wise, because I'm still learning

01:13:14.760 - 01:13:28.820

Thursday, yeah, I really did like it. I'm not much of a big band follower, because I think the most interesting and exciting things that are being done today having done by small groups, but that band seemed to have the potential to break out

01:13:28.820 - 01:13:42.100

of the stereotype mold of big bands. In a way, Gerald Wilson's band also can break out of the cut and dry approach. But there aren't very many bands I really would like to go here. I mean, Jones, everybody raves about

01:13:44.680 - 01:13:55.060

them, but this happened much. And they all know, you know, they all read, and they have good book and, I mean, yeah, and yet And yet And yet. There's not any, there's not too much depth. That's precisely it. And I would

01:13:55.120 - 01:14:10.740

my for my own self, I'd go here McCoy county or the bass and Brahms didn't go here that big band. Well, your band doesn't fall now. There was a crackling intensity in the air there. But even you know, for rehearsal, rehearsals are very interesting

01:14:10.860 - 01:14:23.060

sometimes, because musicians have difficulty persuading themselves to take it seriously. But I didn't get that impression everybody was. In fact, I noticed that most of the tunes, you just barely mentioned them. And guys got out the charts and

01:14:23.060 - 01:14:32.420

started running them down themselves, and started playing themselves and really waiting for you to give them the signal, which means, yeah, right, yeah. They like to get into it on their own, right? Yeah. Which makes

01:14:32.480 - 01:14:41.540

it different. Yeah, they're very interesting. I didn't know that because I would have done it. I made a big attempt to I was wasting time yesterday trying to track down these little tailor Have I

01:14:41.540 - 01:14:57.220

not moved? Down an evening or the afternoon it was, it was like six o'clock, between six and eight. More trivial questions that I put on every interview. Where were you born and where were you raised?

01:14:58.300 - 01:15:20.100

I from the i. The Weldon Cleveland, and you were raised there too well, I until I was about 17 years yeah, in a sense, I was raised

01:15:20.100 - 01:15:33.260

there. But like a lot of a lot of the knowledge that I got came from people who were not from there, people who, like I knew I might have a tendency to not constantly disassociate myself with people I grew up with. But like, a lot of the knowledge

01:15:33.260 - 01:15:47.980

that I came from people who just passed like I was working in the show band, and I learned things from musicians who come in like me there for a couple weeks we'd split, you know, dancers, they would be there for Ron. Thanks for transit people. So was I

01:15:47.980 - 01:15:58.480

really raised there? Yeah, that's an interesting point. Well, part of me was raised there, yeah, yeah. I was physically born there. Until 17 years old I was and

01:16:00.820 - 01:16:19.860

what was the other question? How old are you now? I'm 29 years old. Okay, and finally, what's your educational background? Well, I left the Linley when I was 17. I went to Kentucky State College for one year. I left there and came to Detroit at

01:16:19.860 - 01:16:35.960

Wayne State University for about two and a half years. I stayed around four years, and then I got drafted into the army, became a professional killer for two years. You sound very happy? No, actually,

01:16:35.960 - 01:16:54.400

it was, nope, it was one of the most profitable two years, as far as learning spent, you know, until I came to New York, because, like I went there, I went to Georgia. I've never been down south. I was

01:16:54.400 - 01:17:05.220

there for a year. I worked. I had a nice room, pretty much on the same order, nice, big rug, big, huge fan. You know, my own private bathroom was a band, that's what I was gonna ask you, if you were

01:17:05.220 - 01:17:18.240

special services, right? Yeah, well, it was in the band. Later I went to special services, and so, like, I could give me a chance, like to to peep the soft land and the temperamental feeling Southland

01:17:18.840 - 01:17:32.480

close range, because my folks were from Georgia. And then I traveled throughout the south pretty much, especially on Alabama. I never got, never in the Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, North part of Florida, and Georgia, all over Georgia.

01:17:32.480 - 01:17:47.570

And then from there I was, went to special services with the army, and I made it to around the world, which I had a chance to taste, touch. Or other cultures. I got into about 1516, other different countries, not just on a minute

01:17:47.570 - 01:17:56.150

left. Yeah, that one day in the next day, for example, we were in France for a month. We travel all over, and you mix with people too.

01:17:57.110 - 01:18:11.400

In fact, my roommate at Kentucky State College for the second semester, he was Japanese, and little did I know that I would eventually go to Japan, and he was teaching me Japanese, so I didn't get a chance to use it, and I forgot quite a bit of it,

01:18:11.700 - 01:18:27.740

until I got over into Japan and started hearing this all familiar language. Once I found and I had language, is the thing doesn't change. So I got a chance to, like, enjoy myself on a level that most people who go to countries don't, you know,

01:18:27.740 - 01:18:42.640

when they don't bother to learn a bit of the language and familiarize their stuff with the customers, of course, like I had the opportunity from this roommate that I had, and whenever we went to Korea, was over there for 21 days, all over

01:18:42.880 - 01:19:10.920

all these software at North Ohta into the DMZ. I got a chance to look at Joe chain close up right next. Talk to him, you know, not anything that wasn't a consequence, but just talk to him and see his actions, not provoke these people smile and

01:19:12.060 - 01:19:33.440

keep on another war to Okinawa, place, where we had army bases and some, maybe some air force, mostly Air Force. And we came, went to Panama and Puerto Rico. And I have a knowledge of Spanish, because I said Spanish. So I got into some of the

01:19:33.440 - 01:19:46.420

journals of Panama level that most of the other people that was with this show didn't, yeah, I was going to ask you most of the other musicians and so forth laid in some effort to sample the culture that you did not

01:19:47.440 - 01:20:02.580

on a tourist level, they were people that came from, for the most part, nice background. My background is nice too, but financially, they were able to do things that. A on a surface level, they didn't identify at all the

01:20:02.580 - 01:20:20.780

people. So we left there, went to Italy, and the Italian language is not far from Spanish. So I got a chance to roam around there at Mallea, speak with the broken Spanish and Italian which I

01:20:20.780 - 01:20:36.620

could make myself understood. And I found that people love you one day when you bother yourself trying to learn a few words in the language. And when I was in Italy, I started going down to the PX and getting records I made to the library and getting

01:20:36.620 - 01:20:52.060

French records. When I got to France, nice collection of French words. And all through Germany, I studied for about just on my own, for about a month and a half, listening to records and reading and checking out phrases. I was too much

01:20:52.060 - 01:21:07.020

interested in grammar. I just wanted to be able to speak on that level. So by the time I got to France, we wanted some parts of France, there was no English spoken at all when you're not Paris border. I mean, you find no, it's not doing other parts

01:21:07.020 - 01:21:19.740

of France. And it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, traveling around, very broadening, you know, I couldn't have done it otherwise, of course. Thanks, Uncle Sam, that's why I made

01:21:21.540 - 01:21:42.280

that joke. I and when you got back to this country, did you ever go back to school? Well, every day is a matter from school. I've been in the formal learning just from my own statistical

01:21:44.560 - 01:22:02.280

because most my students have learned a goddamn thing. But like, for example, this band, I have three arrangements in this big branch, and this is to me going school, I've learned much more writing wise for this band, and I learned all the time

01:22:02.280 - 01:22:15.540

I was in school. I mean, these conventional things takes around your Weldon, the form was like this and so forth, which is good, because you have to have a place to depart, and you can be able to relate to something at first. Just can't be out there

01:22:15.540 - 01:22:33.920

and have a series of unconnected ideas about music. And like for this band, I'm learning to write just from writing, you know, I have an idea how it goes. So I come, I write 36 measures, and I stop, check it out when it comes up good, sometimes not so good,

01:22:33.980 - 01:22:48.340

but not that bad. So this is formal to me. This is as formal to me as like, registering and becoming accredited, going, I agree we're all self educated in the last analysis, because even kids

01:22:48.340 - 01:23:01.680

are going to four years of college, don't come out educated. They just come out and dominated. The only way you become educated is like how to do things for yourself, right? And I've learned more about verbalizing. I used to I wasn't

01:23:01.680 - 01:23:17.220

always quite able to like, verbalize exactly what I want people to know, you know, I could give them an idea. This came from, I think, using these short phrases that you say two or three words, and you could like, develop. This could be

01:23:17.220 - 01:23:32.840

taken into a file. And I wanted to, like, be able to verbalize that 1000 words, you know. So if I say, Do you dig this? That's four words. But like, in that four words, if you don't, if you're not understanding, if you're not in tune with my

01:23:32.840 - 01:23:51.460

thinking, then if I said, You did, what does that mean? I've learned this since my formal education school. I mean, like, not as a result of but just since I stopped going to school, just on the level of mixing with people and talking to

01:23:53.020 - 01:24:07.800

people and reading, I read only what was required of me. That's the average college student. They don't know me better. They don't understand why it's important. All I know is we end up four years four years they're almost a crime. It

01:24:07.800 - 01:24:23.480

is a crime. It's crime against themselves. Later on, when some of them will feel the need to know more than their surroundings can tell them, yeah, I noticed your vocabulary is very

01:24:25.640 - 01:24:44.380

expensive, as I would like it to be, and it's better. I find that I'm consciously trying to be able to explain to some I don't know why. Just explain to somebody exactly, precisely, just with words. No, no hand gesture is not just sit there

01:24:44.380 - 01:24:55.540

and use words exactly what you mean. You know, musicians don't put my observation is, don't put a great deal of emphasis on being able to explain things explicitly and precisely, and

01:24:55.600 - 01:25:09.840

that can sometimes be a bother when you're trying to learn exactly what it is that they're talking about. Ah. Yeah, so that's why he was a pleasure. Is there anything you want to add that we haven't covered or covered that you feel we didn't

01:25:10.380 - 01:25:35.480

get right the first time around? I just off the top, I pretty much said to festival or try to answer questions. Okay, good. Do.