00:00:00.000 - 00:00:14.880

Unknown: You ready? Sure. Okay, some writers have talked about what they call the new black music, and referring to the newer styles in this music. Do you think that's an accurate description of some of the newer trends? That phrase gives an

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accurate description of the newer trends in the music. I don't know. That's a different difficult question for me. Next, do you think that this music has any reference to social or

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political questions? Well, for me, I don't. I don't look at it that way. Just for you, yeah, for you, I don't look at it that way, because I haven't studied like political sciences or social sciences. I'm

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not into that at all. What about this Malcolm X, when he was alive, was a friend of many jazz musicians and had been a lover of jazz since he was a young man. Do you think that there's any significance in

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that? What in the fact that Malcolm X was close to the music when he was a youth, and that he was friendly with many musicians? Sure, you like the music. Do you think that there's

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any connection between the music and and the man and his ideas? Sure, there must have been sugar. What do you think that connection is? I don't know. Would you ever consider dedicating a composition to Malcolm or to anybody in public

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life? Yeah, yes to Malcolm or Yes to anybody else, to anybody else that I might think of. Can you think of anybody that inspires you to dedicate a composition to

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them. My parents, any public figures? No, not offhand right now, because I'm because, at the moment, I'm not really doing anything. I'm not composing or writing any tunes.

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Some musicians have said that jazz is born out of conditions of poverty and oppression, and is opposed to those conditions. Do you think that there's any truth to that? Well, I grew up not in I didn't grow up in poverty or anything

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like that, so my my feeling for it, is different than your question. I came from I just wanted to play. I just left school. I guess my I grew out of just wanting to play and loving music.

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What about the other half of that oppression? When will you be necessarily poor to be oppressed? I Hmm, well, the only way I was impressed was not being able to play when I wanted to, when I was in school, and either I went

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to school or I, you know, if I, if I went to school, I couldn't play. If I did my studies, I couldn't play. And I wasn't really interested in school, because school studies were weren't interesting at all. There was no musical, musical

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courses in high school in the schools that I went to in Boston. So that's probably the sort of a question I went through. The same musician that I'm thinking of said, not only was

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jazz opposed to oppression, but because it was opposed to oppression, it was opposed to what the United States was doing in Vietnam. Think there's any truth to that. There again, I don't, I don't. I don't really want to associate

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what I do with things like that. Do you think it's wrong for musicians to make those kinds of associations? No, they do whatever they want to do. But

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do you have any opinions on working conditions for jazz musicians? Do you think that they're what they should be? No, no, because, no. Why do you think that they're poorer than they ought to be? Do

00:04:28.160 - 00:04:47.800

you think it might have anything to do with the fact that mostly the people who have played jazz have been Negroes, and the people who have controlled the business and the music have been white and

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have felt free to take advantage of the musicians. Yes, yes, I do. Some other musicians have called for various steps to. Remedy the conditions. For example, Cecil Taylor proposed a boycott, and

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Bill Nixon and Cecil cooperated in forming the jazz composers guild. Do you think that these are good ways of dealing with the problems that musicians face? And do you have any other ideas of your own about

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about how that's that's a good solution, that's one of the One good solution. And I don't have any ideas. Do you think that some of the younger musicians look to Asia and Africa for some of their musical inspiration? Yeah, do

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you think there's any particular reason why they are looking in those directions at this particular time? Well, because, one reason may be because, growing up in western civilization, you go to something that's different than

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that you might not have been exposed to. So you go to that to see what you can find. Do you think anything it has something to do with the fact that the African nations and Asian nations became independent in

00:06:07.860 - 00:06:19.920

the 1950s and Negro musicians in particular started looking at Africa and Asia in a different way around then, I don't know. I think it's been like that for a very long time, longer

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than I would be aware of, yeah, been the 50s Ellington. Okay, Duke Ellington has been but it seems to me that up until the 50s, Duke was the exception, rather than the rule. It seems

00:06:38.480 - 00:06:55.720

to me that in this new music group, improvisation plays a more important role than it did in the music of, say, 10 or 15 years ago. Do you think that that is a correct observation? No. Do you think there was as much group improvisation going

00:06:55.720 - 00:07:11.580

on? Then yes. Another thing that I think I see is that the role of the piano is changing. It seems, in many cases, the piano is ceasing to become an accompanying instrument. In some cases, the piano, well, many of the new groups seem just to be

00:07:11.580 - 00:07:27.380

without a piano entirely. In fact, I know that you've done some, most of the records under your name without a piano, and in other cases, the piano won't accompany it'll either lay out while the horn is playing, or we'll try and combine with the

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horn. Do you think that this is this is a correct observation, that the role of the piano is changing in the new music. Can you see any particular reason why it should be changing at this particular time?

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Well, it's changed in the past too. It has changed in the past. It's nothing really new. I have four short standard questions that I ask everybody, oh, you have to be yes, okay. Thank you very

00:08:10.260 - 00:08:24.200

much. Category for music, category, I categorically Dennis that statement. I don't think music is having color. You know, when you hear you don't hear you don't hear any color. So I don't call it anything.

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Does it have any relation to political or social issues? I've never spoken with anyone that plays it, so I don't know how they feel. People who are practicing this style. I haven't spoken with them to any great length to find out just how,

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just why they play the way they play. Do you ever talk about political or social questions, not information with how they put their horn? That's how they

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approach to it. That's okay with me. Or I may not like where they do it, but I can say it's wrong because I don't play the way they play, or they don't play. What about yourself? Do you think that anything that's going

00:08:54.940 - 00:09:04.980

on around you, in the society or in the world affects the way you play? And do you have any particular ideas that you try and bring out in your own plane? Well, that's always the case. I didn't watch a corny soap opera

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play at night. So it may not be a particular racial situation that you have a newspaper or someone not treating you YouTube properly. It could be someone being sick the day, you know, any small thing or any any event, no matter how minute it

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may seem, always affects how you play, whether you're conscious or wherever or not. I think you're not looking for these things to happen. You play worse because you're trying to mix. That's why you quoted some of the questions you same questions

00:09:40.340 - 00:09:59.320

that you asked me, they seemed so remote. Yeah, that really didn't get to me. You know, it's like, not really what I what I'd like to talk about, you know? Well, that's because those things like that question, everything affects you. Of

00:09:59.320 - 00:10:24.800

course, I can. Day, pinpoint things to affect them. Well, when the thing broke out, and once, for example, the data, fact, what you put in the music after that, you know, probably probably in the back of my mind. I

00:10:25.280 - 00:10:34.940

didn't say it doesn't necessarily have to be conscious, but it is there. Everything happens every day. Something happens differently every day. Of course, one reason or another.

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Let me ask you again the same question I put Tony. I pointed out that Malcolm X was a lover of Jazz at the time. He was a young man and a close friend of many jazz musicians, and I wanted to know whether he thought there was any

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connection, any significance there now, just could be anybody, right? He says. He may not be loved. He may go out religious and religious beliefs because he likes jazz. It's the same scene

00:11:14.100 - 00:11:28.160

people always say, just see them on television. Man, never. Somebody gets shout out some, some girls have me play a jazz phrase in Beethoven. Man, that's as dirty as anything else. Why must they always have the same flavor for something that's

00:11:28.160 - 00:11:39.380

supposed to be not according to not culture, anything wrong or negative happens on TV or the movie and some kind of jazz boy behind well, is Malcolm negative, love of life. They have our organs.

00:11:39.560 - 00:11:54.520

Malcolm Express. Expressed the love of life as far as he was concerned. Yeah, but it doesn't mean I must buy his program. No, I didn't say that, right? So yes and no, to you, it might have been that. To me, I could say no one feel perfectly

00:11:54.520 - 00:12:05.340

relaxed. What about his ideas? Do you see the young musicians, what they're trying to do in any way related to his ideas. Again, I've never spoken with anyone who played what you

00:12:05.340 - 00:12:16.260

termed new music. Well, I taught that, for lack of anything better, you can call it not knowing or not having had a discussion with them to integrate lamb, to find out why they played. Well, they played. I really couldn't. I have no

00:12:16.260 - 00:12:28.520

idea. But you know all these questions you're asking us, I don't see a recognition to music. I'm basically a musician, you know, now, if you don't have a political discussion and put in a political magazine, I'm all for that, but the questions

00:12:28.520 - 00:12:39.560

you're asking are questions from first base to home base, which is backwards. Well, I feel they aren't germane to my current message. You know what? People

00:12:41.420 - 00:12:58.720

train someone train. They may see some sort of exaggerated thing, some maybe something futuristic, pessimistic, you know, but you know, you know what they do. They don't pay any attention to it. Man, they fall asleep. No,

00:12:59.020 - 00:13:11.400

no, they're right away. They don't want to be involved. Okay, so it's just sort of a related independence. Well, some

00:13:11.400 - 00:13:21.440

people see it as related and some people don't see it as related as all. I've talked to musicians who say, No, I don't want to be bothered with any of those kind of things. I'm a musician. The only thing I know about his music, and I don't

00:13:21.440 - 00:13:36.320

care about what happens on the outside. And I there's nobody could say that that's wrong, but I'm on the other hand, I met musicians who say very, very they're very much concerned with what goes I have to concede, I don't know what the subject is

00:13:36.320 - 00:13:45.040

now. Well, we're talking about Malcolm X and the music, whether there was any relationship between what was going on in the music and what Malcolm music and what Malcolm was trying what

00:13:45.100 - 00:14:04.680

he was saying when he was alive. Let's pick somebody else, Hitler man, the nearest lamb, I must have been Malcolm and jazz. That's my whole point. Why talk about toscalini and Toscanini? Connection with jazz Malcolm

00:14:06.300 - 00:14:26.180

Hans Werner was as much as again, the question seems to be all about going backwards. I don't know. I have a feeling that the questions

00:14:26.180 - 00:14:45.160

that we are being asked, I feel, personally, are not demanding to my current employment, and the interest that, because Malcolm love Jazz. Jazz enthusiast affected the way he

00:14:45.160 - 00:15:03.960

spoke, or vice versa. And I object to this synopsis. Wagner just saying that Wagner was the cat that everybody checked. No one asked. Ask them. The next compulsory during that time I feel about hitting life and violence.

00:15:04.020 - 00:15:12.120

You know, I don't think you know, though, that I'm opposed to the comparison that you're making. But how can I find out if I don't ask, I just told you

00:15:13.260 - 00:15:30.320

I'm opposed to you making Malcolm and jazz The last thing on the thing I was telling you see connection. How can you find out, except by

00:15:30.320 - 00:15:40.280

asking people making a connection? I don't think there is one relevant enough to a lot of other musicians have made the connection to that's

00:15:41.180 - 00:15:58.660

I haven't I feel that it's a drag to have people say because like jazz. Dodie Linley, you know, so what he may not realize, skimming for the press while anyone else is concerned, they don't know, or I might not like Jazz at us. Just made my

00:15:58.660 - 00:16:13.680

current living. So again, again, having the two points that you're having on the same line, me don't have to be on the same line. Why must you use these two people, or this person and this music, hook them up and ask questions to me about them. I

00:16:13.680 - 00:16:27.380

just, you know, I don't buy the connection. Okay? You don't have the reason I asked the question is because it's been a topic of controversy in magazines that deal with the music, and because musicians themselves have written and

00:16:27.380 - 00:16:35.000

talked about Malcolm and what he meant to them. So I thought this was the way to find out whether all musicians felt this way, or whether it was only a select group of some musicians. You see,

00:16:35.060 - 00:16:55.000

well, I'm so unhappy at the connecting of the two, I don't care discuss it. It's really talking more current Johannes Brahms have to be associated with. You don't have Wait a minute. Wait a minute. It goes back. What said about

00:16:55.000 - 00:17:08.520

entertainment? See a bad scene on TV. There's jazz behind the background. You know? How do know Hans to be limited to the jazz, since jazz is supposed to be musical, Davies, everything is black

00:17:10.140 - 00:17:27.680

is supposed to be wrong, low and dirty. But I think Malcolm X was a great man, so it's certainly not what I'm saying when I tried to associate him with so then how am I lowering the reputation of the musician of the music, by

00:17:27.800 - 00:17:39.860

connecting Malcolm with the music? If I am connecting them, and then you are connecting because you said Malcolm likes jazz, and how does back to way? No. What I said is, do you see any significance in the fact? No, okay, that was

00:17:39.860 - 00:17:59.440

my question. No, and I post, you see any connection between jazz and the war in Vietnam? Which subject? How can you connect the two? Well, I don't see a

00:17:59.440 - 00:18:11.220

relationship. One musician has written, I'll tell you what one musician has written, what I got the question was, reading what this musician wrote. He said that jazz was born out of conditions of

00:18:11.220 - 00:18:22.400

poverty and oppression, and jazz was opposed to poverty and oppression, and was therefore opposed to what the United States was doing in Vietnam. So to see whether other musicians felt that way or not, I decided I would make up a question and

00:18:22.400 - 00:18:36.800

ask them, see if that was a general sentiment. You know what that is? That's like someone playing politically. It's like someone directing their music towards politics and saying, Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna play something

00:18:36.800 - 00:18:52.720

that's got to do with Vietnam, instead of letting it, let you know, instead of absorbing it themselves and letting it come out whatever way they want it to, like some jazz musicians, like you just said, playing like they like they want to protest

00:18:52.720 - 00:19:09.480

against Vietnam or anything else. And that's not, that's not the way. That's not, that's not the new thing in the name. That's nothing. Some guys do that, but that's not the name. Well, that's what I'm trying to find out, whether it is or it

00:19:09.480 - 00:19:24.080

isn't what I didn't see anyway. That's one thing. It's better. Yeah, sure. Things happen every day. You can't just pick out one thing like that and say that that's that's

00:19:24.080 - 00:19:42.100

connected with jazz, or things happen every day, you know, yeah, depending on what level you look at it, everything that influences, everything that every experience that we have, anything that influences us from the outside, comes out in our

00:19:42.100 - 00:19:59.260

music, one way or the other. But I want to know about the consciousness. What would be your subject? Now I wouldn't be here. I'm interested in seeing what jazz

00:19:59.260 - 00:20:11.640

musician says. Was something that you got, you would have left. Why are you talking about something we're just discussing now? Yeah, if I had mentioned

00:20:11.640 - 00:20:23.540

that instead of and then you said, I would have been gone, right? You said, what? I'm afraid I don't understand what you're talking about.

00:20:26.000 - 00:20:48.100

I would have talked about Vietnam anyhow, because I'm interested now too. Are you happy with working conditions and wherever you encounter them, wherever you

00:20:48.580 - 00:21:02.580

have to work, than that club. I don't object. No, I would like to be at home right now playing my little boy, but since I have to work in position, I just didn't work here. Anywhere else you'd rather play here than the concert set?

00:21:03.960 - 00:21:15.240

Oh, it's not mad at me having one passes over the other. They're both necessities that just stays during the living don't consider whether I'm a happy Welch. If they weren't necessities, would you prefer to play a night lunch?

00:21:15.240 - 00:21:22.640

They were not necessities? Yes, if you had your choice of playing any place you wanted for the money you wanted, where would you play? At home in our living room.

00:21:25.220 - 00:21:39.920

Do you think that jazz musicians need to take any steps to organize themselves, to improve working conditions? Organizations other than half the work because nobody owns a club owners, what

00:21:41.480 - 00:21:49.480

if they were organized, though, as a group like a union is supposed to be, that's the whole question supposed to be. But the union isn't.

00:21:49.660 - 00:22:03.420

Well, what about Bill Nixon's idea of a jazz composers guild? Do you think that there's any organizing something like that? Well, know anything about I don't. I don't know. I know it's long in existence, and why it isn't I don't know. And the

00:22:03.420 - 00:22:14.100

purpose behind it, I don't know. So again, I can't answer the purpose was behind it was to improve the conditions for musicians, at least as Bill explained it to me. Well, I have to hear him explain it, because you seem so vague on

00:22:14.100 - 00:22:26.660

it. Rather than that, my foot in my mouth and say yes or no, I'm not being familiar with the subject. I could be more specific. Well, go ahead and find other things, they proposed to boycott the nightclubs until pavement for

00:22:26.720 - 00:22:39.260

musicians was improved, until conditions were better, until you weren't hustled up on the stand and off the stand. Glasses wouldn't be dropped during your solos, cat registers wouldn't be rung up and so forth. That kind of thing that specific enough,

00:22:42.080 - 00:22:58.600

as you interpret it, I imagine so. But since he's the founder, I'd still rather not talk to the horse's mouth, you know, and check out the oats. Do you find that among instant do you find among younger

00:22:58.600 - 00:23:10.920

musicians, there's a tendency to look to Africa or Asia for musical inspiration. Well, the only younger listeners I generally associate with are these that I'm working with currently. We never bought the

00:23:10.920 - 00:23:28.700

subject up, so I don't know how they feel. We just, we just gonna, just come up to play. Well, I don't think they're constantly aware of after Australia or any other four or five comments that are left Atlanta, yeah, we can work the

00:23:28.700 - 00:23:46.540

play, and that's it for us. Consciously, anything else is happening inside or outside. Crush, do you think group improvisation is becoming more important in the music than it was, say, 10 or 15

00:23:48.880 - 00:24:05.940

years ago? Well, we're doing it right now. Group improvisation. We never have more than one person planned through improvisation. Always been group improvisation. Maybe have more than one cab plan there, that's group, right? Well, in the

00:24:05.940 - 00:24:15.960

50s, the idea was to use the bass, piano and the drums as accompanying instruments. Rather, they were still in private and improvising, the identity was still in private,

00:24:17.700 - 00:24:29.420

so you don't find any change. Then, in this regard, between the 50s and the 60s, no depends on what's coming this season. 60s, talking about what caliber musician you're dealing with. Well, they were all

00:24:29.540 - 00:24:41.320

improvising while accompanying the soloist on Well, that's the whole point of the music. You don't have a soloist anymore. You have several people soloing simultaneously. That's what I mean by group improvisation.

00:24:41.620 - 00:24:55.600

What about the albums you cut with Tony? With Tony, don't you think there was an element of that involved in those albums? Tony Weldon, yeah, we only made one track of a record with piano

00:24:55.600 - 00:25:13.200

and bass, so no, do. Music. Do you remember third string music? Well, what was called third string music? Very Do you think that that ever enjoyed much of a

00:25:13.200 - 00:25:23.000

following among the musicians? Did you yourself ever feel very motivated to play third string music? Well, I tell myself, a complete musician capable of playing whatever,

00:25:23.540 - 00:25:42.160

no, no, but what you desire to play, not what you're asking. There's a difference. Spontaneously, or do I have a preference? Yes, good music. Good eyes. Would you start categorized, would you like to

00:25:42.160 - 00:25:58.060

go, like, Mr. Bolden, like the music, be alert and be open for all the types of music that's available to you, to me, is ideal. And then you start limiting the types that you don't try to be involved in. You may miss some real inspiring

00:25:58.060 - 00:26:18.420

sounds. Do you sense that the role of the piano is changing from a strictly accompanying instrument to another kind of conception? Well, again, I'm not as current as perhaps a lot of people are,

00:26:18.420 - 00:26:41.200

so I haven't heard that many Avenue there are groups that get referred to. Well, I can, I can refer to the current message. I spent most of my time with them. Yeah, Okay, listen. I want to listen to next. I miss again. I miss some good things too. You

00:26:41.200 - 00:27:01.380

know, being biased to what I want to hear at a certain time. I say the role of piano is still unaccompanied, and I feel those who play, after listening to play that way, the piano making a feeling as a solo at that point to Hans players not

00:27:01.380 - 00:27:11.400

playing. Well, that's still called, that's right, and you don't find that's changing much in the music. As far as you're concerned, what do you

00:27:11.400 - 00:27:23.960

find yourself listening to the most good music? Well, you said, listen to some things you don't things you do. Listen to. Well, I've been listening to Mort for the past four or five

00:27:23.960 - 00:27:41.020

days and bought four Brandenburg four to six and Dr Soquel s which one and two. You didn't like my questions too much, so I wonder how you would approach the music yourself if you were devising a

00:27:41.020 - 00:28:03.300

questionnaire to talk to young musicians, what kind of questions you would put on, if any, that is very difficult for the tail on top of my head, because I'm Lou, I am involved. You are not involved. So I have to listen to questions I would

00:28:03.300 - 00:28:16.140

normally ask because I'm too close to the subject, and you have to have pick a different brand, since you are not close to the subject, I would have to, I'll have to sit down and figure out just what I would like to know, and make questions along

00:28:16.140 - 00:28:26.360

this line, which is what you should have done. Well, that's what I did do. I ask questions about what I would like to know. Do you have anything else of your own you'd like

00:28:28.580 - 00:29:01.540

to add me to go to work? Yeah, hey, this one, Weldon, you play something, and then you and me and him, and just get faster faster until it's all until it all spirals up into one point, and then we're all playing at

00:29:02.440 - 00:29:35.240

the same time. It like this, please. Yeah, well, if you fell a Weldon Kees, yeah, no piano. Lay,

00:29:45.820 - 00:29:46.240

yeah, Ron.