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Unknown: Say something I'm going to be on WABC tomorrow night. That's great. 1030 I gotta say this, these questions seem stupid or silly. It's not because I'm trying to embarrass

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you or make fool out of you, but I'll do all the answers in terms of how they you know, in terms of what they ask, because I think that there are things that musicians think of that the

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public doesn't know about, and that's why, that's what these interviews are. So okay with that first one? Do you think the phrase a new black music is an accurate description of some of the newer styles in jazz, or the music you

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play. Well, yes, I think it's accurate, because, as it has been in the past, it is music, you know, played by black people, a kind of music that they have always played in the past, which has been designated jazz, called Jazz, and so the

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term new black music is applicable simply because the music is new, and mostly black people are leading and, you know, innovating in it. So in essence, yes, do you see the music as having any political or social

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implications? Well, it depends on how you interpret this. If you are one who's able, you know, who's able to get from music a political or social meaning, then I would say yes, but if you're one who only

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gets for music a kind of entertainment, then I would say, No, what about but the music is definitely, Let me say this, that the music is definitely a part of what's going on in the black revolution in America. And in musical terms, it's just a

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musical expression of a general attitude. You see, the music, in terms of music, has many of the characteristics that, let's say, manifested by various other groups or groups of people who are trying to do things we, too, as musicians, are trying to

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arrive at something that we can as nearly as possible own. When you say groups, you mean like social groups, yes, any group that would get together in the aegis of some movement, any

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revolutionary group, any revolutionary group, whether bonafide or not. That leads me to a question that I have here regarding Malcolm X, you know, I read his autobiography, and I was struck

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by the fact that he grew up in a jazz environment, and he was very friendly with jazz musicians. And I wonder if you think this is just coincidental, or whether there's coincidental, or whether there's some larger

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significance. There no the idea the jazz musician you know is like the type of person who wants you know is known and designated a community. He's one that attracts almost all kinds of people to him because of the

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magnitude of his usually, of his personality and of his music. And so for any man who grows up, or any boy who grows up in any black situation, he's always exposed to jazz. This is why I think that the new jazz is so important, because you don't

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have to wait until you're a certain age in order to enjoy something that you know, you know exists, and so you know you don't have to go to the extremes that Malcolm had to go through to hear when he was a boy. That's right, either myself out,

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you know you don't have to wait until you're 18 to get into this place where liquor is so do you see any relationship between the ideas that Malcolm stood for and the new music?

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Of course, because he stood like, let's say, for final manhood. Well, the new musicians, as you know from your relation with some, also stand for this finer manhood, in the sense that many of us, most of us, are not known to use drugs,

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the kind of drugs that have destroyed so many people. And it is also true that many of us know the practice various kinds of physical exercises, such as yoga, weightlifting and concentration, things like that. All of this is toward the end

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of, you know, well, let's say spiritually, of uniting yourself with universe and physically being able, you know what I mean to do, like a job that requires a degree of physical strength. When you say drugs, you know, it occurred to me that not all the

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drugs are the kinds of drugs that you take physically, but there are spiritual or mental drugs, like Kant, if you look at the pictures of musicians, drugs, image drugs, visual drugs. Of course,

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they were drugging their minds to believe that if they strained their hair and so forth and so on. That's right. There's a book called The wig by Charles Wright, which I started to read, but I didn't quite complete it,

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but it's subject is built around such a theme. And. The end of the pretty League, it became a symbol. There's another book called racial awareness in young children, by a woman named Mary Ellen Gooden, who teaches in an

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integrated child care center. And she found out with four year old children black and white, she gave them two dolls, a black one, a white one, and they asked them to choose, and both the black and the white kids chose the white doll. And when they

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said, Well, I said, Well, it's clean, it's pretty, it's nice. And when they said, Well, what about the other way? Oh, well, it's black, it's dirty, and that's that kind of drug. What about audiences? Do you find that audiences respond

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differently according to their racial composition than a black audience responds differently than a white audience? And do you have any? Oh, yes, I'm sure of that. But it doesn't mean that, you know, it's

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necessary to prefer one over the other, because, let's say, you know, the average black audience responds, you know, tremendously. You know, a lot of Gulch, though, whenever they hear a feeling, regardless of whether it's rock and roll, pop

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or whatever. Because, you know, have experienced this, and like the only white audiences that would naturally appreciate a music, and you know, the way, in terms of way dance, appreciate music, would be the oriented white people and the white

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people. They say that less Lord than white middle class wouldn't be able to appreciate it. You see what I'm saying so but since it's like a thing you know that exists like in the black culture, you know to such a wide extent, you know almost all

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Negroes. You know big jazz in one way or another. You know what I mean. They show their appreciation for it when they hear a good performance by bringing the house down. As they say, I've

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noticed this, particularly with Coltrane, that he can generate an atmosphere that's like revival meaning, I guess, well, what it is, it's the idea, like, you know, the jazz musician has a

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symbol, and, you know, conveys, you know, he speaks for these people. So like, let's take, like, the greatest, I think the greatest you know, like symbol, you know, like in jazz, or perhaps been like the two instruments, the trumpet and the

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10 of saxophone, you see, and you know, like when you hit a guy that can really play these instruments, man and really swing, you know, as they say, a really wailing cat, You know that he speaks, you know, like for everybody. He's like the

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town crier at once. And then he's like the woman, I mean, the man that all the women would like to love. You know, he's so many things. And then to young black man listening to him, who you know, in his heart is thinking about, like equality

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and justice and things like that. He's the word that nobody understands this crying, you know, and saying like, you know, we going to do this and that and other so that he's many things to many people in the black community.

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I've noticed, you know, this should be me interviewing you, and you go to interviewing me, but I've noticed that when I've lectured on jazz and played records that I into predominantly white college audiences, it's very

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embarrassing to me, because I can't sit still and listen to the music, and they can. So I have to say, look, move around. It's okay, but you can't do a one lecture. I mean, it's something that has to be acquired

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over but that is a good that is a good characteristic of a beginner in music appreciation, however, but like to a point where you know that there's no kind of kinesthetic tendencies at all. I guess the king encourage you to want to say,

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well, you know, you move to move, yeah? Because I get nervous. I just can't sit there and listen. By the way, you can sit back. I can still more comfortable that way. Yeah. What about this? Some people who don't like the phrase

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new black music say that if you use it, you're a racist, and you're saying then that white people can't play jazz, or they can't play the new jazz. You think there's any validity to that, that you are a black supremacist? Does Morton

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Williams positive because you using phrases? Not necessarily. It's very simple. All you're doing is just using language. Can White people play jazz?

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Well, if you say backhand, have any ever played jazz reputability And well, I would say yes. But if you mean backhand, can they play it in a manner that they have not manifested heretofore? I would say

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that's an open question my own, you know, I mentioned I had an article to do, and my own thesis is, this is what you said. Black people grow up listening to jazz, and they absorb it almost like they the air they breathe.

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And there's their baseball. That's right, it's their baseball whereas a white guy, for example, Stan Getz, when Stan Getz grew up, well, when he was in his teens, then he began to sing the jazz and he picked

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up on Lester Young and he took a jump into Lester Young music and thoroughly identified with it beyond that he couldn't move. Whereas the kid, the black kid of the same age grew up, didn't need to identify with Lew. Two young kids. He already had them

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in him, and he could send them Charlie Parker's music because he was that much ahead of saying yes by virtue of having already heard it for the first 18 years away. That's right, see, that's the way I came into to it all, like through my mother and her

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associates. My mother was a quiet singer, and she enjoyed jazz, especially dance dance music. And when I was kid, she always went out on Monday night dances, and most of her friends were musicians. I was to even play in bands with some of them,

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you know, in college, and some actually taught me in school. So it was available to me there. And then when the next house for me, there was a jukebox on the front porch, you know, all that kind of stuff, just there all the time, and I didn't

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start listening till I was 14 or 15. So that's the difference. I mean, that's, that's why you can't expect white people to be innovators. They have to be imitators rather. Well, it's not a question of expect, but it's a

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question of, that's why they haven't been, yeah, I've been expecting a scientific sense, so you're not necessarily a black supremacist because you say the Jazz is black music. Do the musicians

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who play then, in this newer style, do they discuss political and social questions. It isn't the case that the on your musicians just say, As one writer said, well, all they want to do is play the music, and they don't want to be bothered

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with these social No, that's not true, even though, you know, musicians have necessarily to spend all of their time, you know, like, devoted to music. You know what I mean, that is in pursuance of

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and in actual practice of you, yeah, you know, like there's a lot of thinking, because myself, I still have time to think about the things that I would like to see happen in America in terms of relations, you know, between two particular races involved.

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And I still do a lot of thinking about things that I would like to see happen in the world at large, concerning two kinds of ideas like Western and Eastern. So you see, I'm a musician, and so therefore, I think it discussed these things with

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people at times, it's been said that jazz is a music that is born out of conditions of oppression, and therefore it is opposed to oppression, and therefore it is opposed to what the United

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States is doing in Vietnam. What do you think about that? Well, if you, if you, if you set it up like that, then I must say, yes. But if you take the approach that I take, this is the historical completely, and look at it chronologically

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speaking. Get your date set up, you know, and note the what was going on in jazz, or when jazz began to make its various turns. Then you juxtapose, compare this to what was happening in the country at large. And then you also juxtapose it compared with

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a third element, is what was happening, you know, like between the races. And so when you get your conclusions, you come out with a certain conclusion. And when the basis of that, say, yes, do musicians talk about the Vietnam

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situation? Oh, sure. Quotes is quite a, quite a thing. The papers in Occupy quite a bit of space. So what do you say when you talk us? We say that it's a terrible thing, of course, and that we wish is Lou

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are not even happening. You know, things to that effect, did you say the interview with the Chicago musician Richard Abrams in Muhammad speaks about two or three weeks ago? No idea. He said the same thing. Black

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people don't have any Dodie to go over there. And he, I don't think they have any duty to go anymore. That more in particular than anyone, you know, it's not a question, as it turned out,

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it's a question of obligation, the question of whether they can put you away under obligations you can't even though. Steve Kees convinced that what happened to miles Davies, outside Berlin a few years ago could have

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happened anyone. Was just a coincidence. Yeah. Well, I understand that it was a similar incident that began the head troubles and the headaches and the pains that led to mental the mental breakdown of Bud power, I understand that it was

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originally a blow on the head from a policeman's club in Philadelphia in the early 40s. What a beauty surprise. I mean, you know the the wondering away mentally, even

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if it didn't happen that way. The gruesome thing is that it could have happened that way, and that's as bad that it did happen, it got the same results. Anyhow. Yeah.

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What do you think about working conditions for jazz musicians? Do you think on the whole, they're treated the way an artist deserves to be treated? And if. You don't think that if you think they're not treated that way, why do you think this

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is the case? Well, first of all, I don't think they are treated the way an artist deserves to be treated. And I have various reasons as to why I think that this exists. First of all, I think it's true simply because jazz musicians as artists in

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America particular, which is where you know what I mean, our concern is, as I said earlier, being so many things this message so rarely understood, you know, and studied, usually from you know, psychological, sociological point of view, the

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idea of the real meaning never being definitely known. There's a kind of isolation between the jazz musician and those who understand we want to treat him as an artist, and at the same time, the music itself is such a has always been so strongly

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protested, until this has led a lot to the unacceptance of jazz musicians in terms of other great artists. Is there any differential treatment for whites and blacks in jazz, as far as you know?

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Oh sure. I would say so. I would say so. And it exists on several levels and in several different ways. For example, well, for examples, for example, against racial conditions that exist in jazz, against black musicians, might be the tendency to keep

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the figures of those employed and better paid musical engagements, musical areas limited to a few, like a few of those who like pass like a certain set of standards, like, usually age and endurance and other things that are true

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regardless. And then, on the other hand, you know, as you asked me before, the question about whether or not a jazz musician could innovate or could play, or can play, and such like that. Points out the fact that we know that there's, there are

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a lot of people who contend both black and white, who contend that white jazz musicians can't play. In other words, what they mean is that they haven't, you know, played or produced up to the standards that the black Davies musician hits in America,

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and that's very easy to understand when jazz has been like the only form of music that we have practiced, you know, continuously, it's all that we've been known to play. We've never been known to play in terms of black musicians in

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America concert until Necros started to go to all the colleges and stuff, and then sought, in some instances, to turn to the concert stage. In cases where they made it did very well.

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What are your ideas on improving these situations? For example, Cecil Taylor called for general icon of black musicians by black musicians of recording firms and concerts and nightclubs, and Bill Nixon tried to organize jazz composers guild. You think

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that this is the way to overcome the problem? Or do you have you think there's some other approaches? Well, a lot of these things are good, but there may be some other things that can be done that could possibly happen

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along the things that are doing now, you know, like a young men like Stokely and those guys are doing, I have that feeling that this party that they have will, like, expand and in many instances, have among its membership, musicians and

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everything. So once you into part in politics and stuff like that. Then when you start to have representatives in the government, then they represent for you. I think a governmental hand in jazz would make it much more lucrative and profitable on

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more equal basis to all jazz musicians. But at this point, nothing like that exists here. When I asked Charles Moore the same question, and he said, Well, you're not going to be able to change

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conditions inside the jazz world alone. You're going to change the society. Will I feel like that? Yeah, oh, sure. It's obvious that the jazz world really is just a kind of

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reflection of what's going on social sense elsewhere. Do new musicians look to Africa and Asia for musical inspiration? Well, I tell them they look to Europe. Say, I would say no, I wouldn't say that they looked any place

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except inside and inside as black. You know, people who had a lot of acculturation going on between various races and various groups throughout our scattering over the world. They look inside and inside, you know, the collective

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unconscious. You know. Lamb. Usually what you hear coming from a jazz musician that reminds you of some other culture, or something like that is really no more than something that perhaps might be something stored in collective unconscious

00:20:13.320 - 00:20:29.900

of the experiences of, let's say, like someone's relatives went back something that might not have happened, but it's there. You know, in unconscious, this collective unconscious, do you think it's responsible for

00:20:30.200 - 00:20:42.700

the growth of a kind of collective improvisation that we didn't see in V box so much, for example, the Ornette Coleman free jazz album, ascension. You think that? Well, what do you think jazz musicians are saying when they say that they want to

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play together all the time, rather than playing one at a time with the rhythm section? Is there some some social significance to this? Oh, yeah, definitely. Because you know together, it means that

00:20:54.460 - 00:21:09.900

you know together. This is more important than the old idea of playing separately. But it doesn't matter about how many pieces you have, what you do, whether there's a lot of musicians, but in this music, the idea of interplay between

00:21:10.680 - 00:21:25.580

all of the people involved, and togetherness is an idea that you know, is manifested in all of the groups that play. Now, in some way or another, I'm trying to do it my way, and various other people are trying to do it that way. That's a whole idea of

00:21:25.580 - 00:21:41.620

together. It's just going sweeping black communities. And I've commented on this, and what I've interpreted is to say that black musicians are saying that the music is not the music of one man or one genius, but it's the music of the people, and

00:21:41.620 - 00:21:55.480

this is the way, yeah, diversify more individuals. So sisters, more individual, more people have chance to express various kinds of individualities. So therefore all taken together is, you know,

00:21:55.600 - 00:22:09.240

a wide perspective of all the people. I remember when Charles Hawker died, there was a state of magazine articles on who would be the new bird. And it's the way you're trying to it seems to me, what I interpret trying to

00:22:09.240 - 00:22:21.540

get away from the idea that one man is going to be the leader and try and get to the idea that it is a group product that you're dealing with. You're not the product of one individual. I don't guess it's so intentional as it is evolution.

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No, I don't think that people start evolution, no, I don't think. Apparently third string music, for example, in competitions of John Lewis Hunter shore, this hasn't caught on among the young musicians, our generation of musicians. Why

00:22:37.820 - 00:22:53.680

do you think this is true? Because, like West Coast jazz, you know, it seems to be just a bit devoid of any real reaching, any real kind of meaning, you know, it's, it's not fraud enough to be really Avenue, you

00:22:53.680 - 00:23:10.260

know. And it's not so old as you can call it, Dixon. And so it's just, you know, it's just a very nice, academic approach to play, to bring it two things together. Do you think the fact that black and white are really not

00:23:10.260 - 00:23:26.060

together now is reflected by the failure of third string music? Or turn it around, if integration were meaningful and the reality rather than a myth? Do you think this might have caused third string music to develop and become a stronger

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musical expression? That's a question. I know, I know, but it's a question, and it's just, I don't know, you know, it's hard to say you know anything you know like that, because once you try, once you

00:23:47.020 - 00:24:04.560

try, to definitely say that music itself says and does all these things, and you lead yourself into a blind alley. And this is very hard to understand, simply because music is, as I said earlier, so many different things to so many people. I

00:24:04.560 - 00:24:20.280

think that the reason why Third Street means it failed to reach anybody is for the reason, I said, because it really didn't arrive at anything in particular, the question of integration. You know, it's an open question.

00:24:20.400 - 00:24:37.340

Did immigration arrive at anything in particular? But it doesn't look like it's going to. But interrelations, you see, there's a lot of terms and things that have to be gotten straight because unless there's

00:24:37.340 - 00:24:54.520

to be a complete annihilation of one group or the other by the other, then there will always be some kind of inter relation carrying on between people. But, you know, appearances which they're built on, you know, in the modern world, or in a world

00:24:54.520 - 00:25:12.240

that I think most people are striving for, would be built, you know, quite differently. You. And who have you know the actual power to say, what happens, you know, in America, what America's image to the world should be.

00:25:16.320 - 00:25:29.480

It's been said by some writers that the new music, last form, structure, and so on and so forth. What do you think of these charges? Well, form and structure defined in the terms that they have been

00:25:29.480 - 00:25:49.480

said simply means that the new music is devoid of ordinary progressions that can be, you know, labeled in in harmonic, you know, terminology, and then it's devoid of kind of structure that begins and ends and does various things at the places

00:25:49.480 - 00:26:03.780

that music known to do, even jazz and classic music. But it's devoid of one thing and completed something else. And the thing that it's complete of is the greatest thing about to do music is, you know, it's devoid of chords and stuff you

00:26:03.780 - 00:26:21.080

know forms like 12 bar blues and 12 this and 16 bar that. But what it does have, what it does have is a great amount of space, which makes it much more difficult and much more challenging, challenging in the improvisational sense, and it

00:26:21.080 - 00:26:43.180

makes the music naturally be much more natural, because it has to happen then it can't happen in any preconceived studies of going from C to F, G, minor to C, you know, in any progression in it starts to generate it. Once the glands

00:26:43.180 - 00:27:01.480

start to work, once all these things you start to happen, you use all your tools when you get this motion, like a car, get it started as goals. Do better it is. Why do you think it's so hard for some people to understand that? Why do you

00:27:01.480 - 00:27:14.280

think they've been so hostile when they write about the music? Well, you see, because, simply, you know, people in general have been taught that if you proceed toward some goal from nowhere and don't know which way you're going, supposedly that you know

00:27:14.280 - 00:27:29.300

you you don't know what you do. They can't believe that we know what we're doing, because, simply for the reason that they don't really understand it. But this is true every time somebody switch up on your ear, you don't know what they do it if you're

00:27:29.300 - 00:27:41.260

not a part of it. Do you think that social and political attitudes play a role in this misunderstanding? That is, you think that the fact that the people who are writing about the music so negatively, have

00:27:41.260 - 00:27:55.120

one set of social attitudes, and the musicians who are producing the music have a different set. And that this is partly responsible. Do you think that artists have a responsibility to educate their audience in ways other than musical?

00:27:56.740 - 00:28:08.340

In other words, I don't think they have this responsibility if they don't feel it themselves. I don't think that anybody could say you have this responsibility, because, as we both know, artists have always been through no designation of

00:28:08.340 - 00:28:21.620

ours. You know, peculiar brand. What about yourself? Your own personal decision. As far as I'm concerned, you know, I'm one who enjoys teaching, who would be a teacher, or who sees a lot of

00:28:21.620 - 00:28:34.880

value in teaching. So I'm different, perhaps, but they're not like me. But in other words, I'm different from someone who doesn't want to be bothered, but I think he doesn't want to be bothered, and he's not necessarily socially negative.

00:28:34.880 - 00:28:53.560

He just wants to put that energy solely into his life. He just want to be Who do you think are the most influential artists playing the new music? And how would you go about determining who they are?

00:28:55.180 - 00:29:07.140

Somebody asked you who they'd say that, you know, name five most important. How would you go about like, you can go back like, you know, if you're a musician myself, like myself, you know. But if you're not one who goes

00:29:07.140 - 00:29:20.160

through it, through music, you just simply go by, you know, you'll naturally be carried to who's best. By some means, you'll get there to that. You know what I mean. I know what you mean. I just know. I think we agree,

00:29:21.420 - 00:29:35.000

you know, but I would say, like in the new music, I wouldn't say, you know, like 84 or five, but there are a lot of men, and some have been in it longer than others. If you want to talk about who's been in it longer than others, then I could

00:29:35.300 - 00:29:50.560

perhaps go at it chronologically. If you want to talk about who's does this way or that way, like, you know, then I could go about it another way. Would you like to try? Let's try both. Okay, well, chronologically, let, let me say

00:29:50.560 - 00:30:10.620

that I think that some Secondly, you would have cease and tear their phrases all in between, you know. A little, little rings off of which people like Mort, various other people, hey. But from like Cecil Tara on it, and then from on it you go to people

00:30:10.620 - 00:30:30.620

like whoever else you put in that category. That's the first approach. What about the second approach? Oh, I prefer, I prefer all those I named, and in the order that they that I named center, because that's the way I learned

00:30:30.620 - 00:30:48.220

of it. And some of them I have played with. Others I have not. Some those I have not liked to but like, you know, like, I've done a lot of work with Pharaoh Santa, and he's very important generally now, as reflecting the new tenant style, John Gilmore

00:30:48.220 - 00:31:10.920

and Albert Avenue. You see, it's generally thought that Albert is, and I agree that he's the foremost, the forerunner that part of playing Archer shed. Chef. Archie chef has a singular kind of talent. Is very good after players I like pirate

00:31:11.580 - 00:31:30.740

Hans, when I say most of all, excluding all that, simply because, on it is on such a high level, you don't compare him to people like among my own contemporaries, I prefer Byron Allen, Charles Tyler. Yes, I prefer Charles. I like Charles

00:31:30.740 - 00:31:49.800

Tyler. Byron Allen, sonny, Simmons, Marcus, fantastic. And, you know, lot of guys around the younger men that you haven't heard of, that you will

00:31:49.800 - 00:32:04.920

be you're right here. Enough in the future. The music has now just about, you know, taking its shape, you know. And a lot of people would play it, you know, now, you know, that's a testimony. Now we have like at this point. Now you have a lot

00:32:04.920 - 00:32:21.860

of people who are coming on now who are imitating, some of these people that I need very well. Then you have some of some of us who are here to move in, neither imitators nor innovators. We are interpreters. It's good. Beautiful thing.

00:32:26.420 - 00:32:41.620

It's kind of amazing too, because 18 months ago, none of these names were known to me. Of course, not living in New York means I'm going to be behind the Hans. But then most people don't live in New York, so they're behind the times too. That's

00:32:41.800 - 00:33:01.200

exhaust my list of prepared questions. If i Is there anything you want to add that I omitted to ask you to talk, just up to you. These are, these are my preoccupations, because I feel

00:33:01.200 - 00:33:13.680

these are the questions that have come up inside jazz and have been argued on both sides, primarily by writers, without seeing what musicians themselves feel about. And that's why I think it's so important to get into musicians thinking and

00:33:13.680 - 00:33:27.260

hopefully prevent the kind of schism to develop in the 40s between the new black musicians of that period and an audience, largely white audience. I don't know whether this will be successful, but I think it's worth it trying to prevent that

00:33:27.260 - 00:33:42.520

again, from opening any water that it is already Yeah. Well, we don't have to talk about anything else. Maybe we can just go to some other things, and maybe I'll show you some things pertaining to myself, and you'll

00:33:42.520 - 00:34:10.260

understand what an enormous book I didn't even know this was that I Oh, yeah, what did

00:34:15.000 - 00:34:32.060

you Write on Marion? Supposed to be somewhat of an authority on that. What did you major in college? Well, let me tell you, it's what happened. I majored in music, and I completed a degree, you know, in

00:34:32.060 - 00:34:47.740

music education. After that, I moved to Washington, DC. I was married for a while, then I went to school in Washington at Howard, and I studied three years toward a degree in political science. Degree or no, no undergrad. I was going to go

00:34:47.740 - 00:35:02.840

into law school. I took another, in essence, I was taking another bachelor's to go into the law school. But, of course, you know musician too, but that happened. But anyway, I think it was certainly. Lot of things because, oh, you know, my

00:35:03.080 - 00:35:18.860

classmates in the department, so economics and history and political science, those guys are like, doing things affecting changes, both here and in Africa and places. Having been so close to some of these young men, you know, engaged in the work that

00:35:18.860 - 00:35:35.690

I'm doing now, I feel so close to the history the changes I would have quite a few people that you know have heard of when I was there always had it's like when I was there. I took classes with Claudia brown Tom was Eric Williams

00:35:39.770 - 00:36:03.960

still teaching me how you Charles, a brilliant master. Charles another Joe, James, the drama woman. So no wonder you feel you

00:36:04.020 - 00:36:18.780

refer to this, to jazz as the movement. It really is the movement. I mean, many of the same people are involved in that as we're involved in political and social movements for political and social change. I guess ours was a generation of

00:36:18.780 - 00:36:29.360

people who couldn't make up their mind what they wanted to do. The first time I went all the way up to working on my doctorate in biophysics, before I got out of that, decided I had to be an historian, historian.

00:36:31.040 - 00:36:44.560

So I went all the way, let's say, Excuse me, I went always through music, until the time when I got married and found myself in Washington, DC. And at that time, you know, I immediately took on, you know, the vibrations of Washington.

00:36:44.560 - 00:37:00.840

And I had thought about these things, about laws, but they ought to be, what they should really do. So I had a natural need to talk these things. You know, I met people in Atlanta, Georgia, Sierra

00:37:07.020 - 00:37:21.600

Blanca in his Philosophical Society at the time. I remember when we first met, heard any Muslim people speak. And I've seen, you know, I know so many people who are affecting, you know, changes.

00:37:22.380 - 00:37:35.240

This is completely foreign to the jazz audience. I think their view, as far as I can understand it, the jazz musician is just a guy who has a horn and gets up on the stand and knows the horn, and when he gets off the stand, he ceases to exist as a human

00:37:35.240 - 00:37:45.820

being. Let's make you buy him a drink at the end of the show, but otherwise he doesn't have any. So to some degree, it has been true, but as we said, funny things start happening. Black guys, you know those

00:37:48.040 - 00:38:01.500

guys, I'll be 31 in contemporary. I'll be 31 in November, right? I'll be 31 in central guys born right after the Depression, when people had, like, a lot of ideas and Avenue

00:38:01.500 - 00:38:18.180

cat like myself, you know, our people wanted us to go to school, you know, and we did. And in a lot of cases, like my own, my people didn't want me to be a musician, but they wouldn't keep me not be a musician. They had their preferences,

00:38:20.160 - 00:38:45.340

understandable great deal, to a great extent, because then there is a new generation of musicians, public, a better When they're gonna have to come to grips. You

00:38:47.200 - 00:38:58.840

see them doing more articulate and better educated than they are, but this is extremely, you know, like bothersome to people in the industry. Only got where they got because, you know, like they

00:38:58.840 - 00:39:22.220

were hard workers, quick deal. See, let's face it, and I had three years economics and political science, I have to be somewhat of a politician deep down inside. And I I can, you know, like I could, I can read newspaper and draw my own

00:39:22.220 - 00:39:40.840

conclusions. Or I could, you know, gather the various, you know, news from the various media. I can, you know, like, look into it and get, you know, indications of things, simply because I you know, know if need be, you know, if need be, you

00:39:40.840 - 00:40:05.880

know, document I qualified to do historical work. I don't do any other creative work other than music. The other work that I do this might thought be thought to be creative. It's usually a historical factual tools. I. Have the tools research Capitola

00:40:06.000 - 00:40:21.300

performing on the PhD guy, which is really what this is, you know, so that, like, I'm a musician, really. But see, in my case, I grew up in a place where, like, education and stuff like that was was so available. The only thing to do when I was

00:40:21.300 - 00:40:42.580

a kid, I spent, like most of my days in the wintertime, reading National Geographics, almanacs, sales, catalog, things like that. It's one of my characteristics that's a as I told that's a characteristic for gold

00:40:48.820 - 00:41:09.420

personality, that is my own characteristics, too. You always like to think these things when they continue to continue to, yeah, otherwise, you can forget about it. That looks like a fascinating book. You know, I

00:41:09.420 - 00:41:34.160

have some pretensions to teach Negro history, and this is what I Hans, you know, I'm proud because it, actually places me great scholars in this country, something. In fact, the thing I would tell the people who control the music

00:41:34.160 - 00:41:51.280

world don't want to know that would prefer not to know. I would say that like you know, for people you know, like yourself, to know it because it's important that you know it, because you might be documented. If it's important, it is

00:41:51.520 - 00:42:01.620

important. It's fantastically important because you can't you can no more divorce what you're doing in Europe and what you're playing. Then you can divorce anything else about yourself,

00:42:02.760 - 00:42:13.560

naturally, you have a different view of the world for being a scholar, researcher, and particularly in the historical field. Yeah, I got a part time job right now. I work at the Research Institute for the Study of men, Graduate

00:42:13.560 - 00:42:29.180

Institute of Caribbean Studies, you know. So I've always had, like, jobs and things that have always kept me, you know, into this thing you know, education, world of education, scholarship. And

00:42:32.600 - 00:42:46.180

then I think about that anecdote that Archie Shep told the panel discussion that Paul Avenue sponsored, where Archie is in the farm spot and Joe crumini has him thrown out. And before I get to an art he asks charmini, what do you think I'm an artist?

00:42:46.180 - 00:43:00.960

And termini says, hell no, I don't think you're an artist. It's humiliating under any circumstances, but twice as humiliating when you know that you're dealing with a man who compared you as an ignorant no academic or intellectual

00:43:00.960 - 00:43:12.480

credentials whatsoever, but yet, calls the tune, because he has the economic collaboration you want, you know, I'd like to get into, you know, like when I begin to make more engagements, you know, I would like to definitely get

00:43:12.480 - 00:43:25.460

into things and with colleges where I would give it afternoon talk to me. That was just what I was thinking. If I can act off, you know, I'm going to try to try to get some brochure stuff together and offer this to various schools. You know, I've

00:43:26.360 - 00:43:27.620

been browbeating students.