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Ray Taliaferro: One thing that I'd like to say about that I did a program recently with Duke Ellington and Count Basie and Ahmad Jamal and Dizzy Gillespie when they were in through town. And the thing that we thought is that a lot of music that

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originates in this country, good old America, originates from black people, obviously. And yet, in fact, I think it is the only unique musical form that this country has ever produced, has been the music that has come out of the black community, and

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yet we find that black people do not benefit economically anywhere near the amount that white people do who imitate the same kind of form. And this was borne out most recently with an in depth interview of the Beatles, who very honestly said

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and Tom Jones Frank Kofsky: and The Rolling Stones and ad infinitum, that white groups, whether American or British, have taken black music, made some relatively superficial changes in it and

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then sold it back to an American audience, a white audience who find it easier to accept someone like Elvis Presley in the 50s or the Beatles in the 60s on a TV show, because it is not a menacing figure for them in a political or sexual or any other

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kind of way, but to anyone who listens to the music, or, for that matter, you don't have to listen to the note of music. If you go and interview the musicians, if you interview Eric Clapton, as I've done, for example, he'll tell you about BB

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King. Yes, right. So the whole point is that there is this kind of strange phenomenon where a where black people will invent kinds of music will not benefit economically from it, and we'll then find that 10 or 20 or 30 years later, that people who

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have heard these original records are reaching audiences of millions or hundreds of millions of people and making immense, enormous fortunes off of it. I'm delighted to see BB King receive this recognition from Eric Clapton and Mike

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Bloomfield. But BB King's been playing for over 20 years, Ray Taliaferro: I should say so. He is certainly hardly an overnight success, precisely, Frank Kofsky: and whereas Eric Clapton is an overnight success,

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which is not to deny him his talent, but it is to say that we should have some way of reordering our priorities so that the people who invent the music should at least be among those who benefit from it.

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Ray Taliaferro: Now, before I go on with my guest Frank, Kofsy, I know that we have a number of people who are very interested in the whole business of the revolution in music, jazz. And if you'd like to call in to ask him anything, by all means do

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so. From San Francisco. You may call 98295869829586, and from Oakland and the East Bay, dial, 8939, 608 939, 600 now if we look, if we go back to the roots, say, of jazz and the roots of gospel and spiritual music coming out of the

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plantation and the trials and tribulations and so forth of the black people through the early part of this country, yes, the early Part of America as we've known it since 1776 I would imagine then that jazz as we know it today, as it is played

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by both black and white people, really contains a very deep kind of social, not social. Well, yes, right, socially oriented type. What am I trying to say? Not just message, but history. Frank Kofsky: Precisely the music, in all of its varied

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forms, distills the history of black people, what they have been, what they are and what they want to be. And this is the point that seems to be so difficult for the bulk of the white writers who do deal with the music to understand and so

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one of the continual battles that I've been involved in, and not only myself, of course, in the 1960s is to try and work for a reinterpretation of the music, so that it is seen as something which reflects a reality and a reality that for the most Part,

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only black people in this country have known, and that point of view is coming to be accepted now among some writers, such as Gunther Schuller and a few others, but for the most part, it's still a very much the point of view of a minority and

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the bulk of the people who write on it, like Leonard feather, will have very little to say about this. I thinking of thing that London feather wrote in a downbeat yearbook a couple of years ago that nowhere in bebop, for example, was there anything

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that indicated the suffering of or in torment of black people. Well, of course, you know anything about bebop, if you can even hear what that music is saying you there's no way you could possibly arrive at that interpretation.

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Ray Taliaferro: You know there was. Even a theory propounded a few years ago by a number of my musical colleagues, that when you looked at the socially oriented history of jazz, that is the black history contained within each piece, then you also

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see that the instrumentation, for example, the saxophone, it is a wailing instrument, you know, it's an instrument that connotes more so than any other instrument, almost, unless you can just kind of squeeze a blue note out of that horn, you know,

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out of a trumpet or something, the kind of feeling that black people have had And the kinds of things that they've had to suffer. And out of it, of course, out of the wailing, comes the beauty of what we might call old jazz, New Jazz,

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or medium type jazz. And I think that just in the instrumentation that you find in a jazz group, that speaks a lot towards the kinds of historic feelings that black people have had, Frank Kofsky: right? Absolutely, I agree with you, especially

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about the saxophone, which is my favorite instrument too, because it does sound like the human voice, particularly when you get somebody like John Coltrane, who actually makes you feel as though he's crying, speaking and laughing. And this is why it's

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so important have some kind of historical perspective on the music when you write, and not just come out fresh and wet behind the ears and not know anything and say, Well, I like this guy and I like that guy, but not really know anything

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more than that. And that is that speech in Africa is musical to begin with, and there is an interaction between speech and music. That is, music is seen as a form of Sung speech, and speech is seen as a form of stated music. There isn't that

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absolute separation that we know in the West. And obviously, when black people who are Africans in this country who try and play music, they are going to carry over the same cultural values that Africans have. They're going to try and make their

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song, their music, reflect the kinds of cadences that you can find in the speech of black people. But to say that, one then has to know something about Africa, and one has to know something about African music, and so forth and so on. One

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can't just be an enthusiast and run around and say, Well, I just think Stan Getz is the greatest tenor player in the whole world, that kind of thing. In other words, you have to have to have something more than enthusiasm. And one of the things that

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really has obscured the history and the meaning of this music is that most of the people who have written, the white critics in particular, have been just enthusiasts. They have not been scholars. And what is needed here is this is as important to

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me as nuclear physics. So why don't we expend the same amount of scholarly energy on it, as we do on going to the moon or some nonsense like that. Ray Taliaferro: I should state here that you dedicated the book

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to John Coltrane and to Malcolm X. And people, just on the face of it, would say, My God, what a strange combination of men. Why Frank Kofsky: Well, some people would say that, and some people so?

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wouldn't. And more and more, I'm beginning to say, you know, I didn't understand that linkage completely myself, though I made a stab at trying to explain it in the book. I think that too goes back to really, it goes back to African roots. That is

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to say that Coltrane expresses in his music, the same thing that Malcolm X expressed in his rhetoric, in his writing and in his speeches, this desire for liberation, desire for an end to oppression. And moreover, both of them are extremely potent

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figures. They would be in a traditional African society. They would be priest like figures, because they know how to perform the kinds of rituals that call forth the forces that will accomplish this liberation. In the interview with Coltrane,

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that's in the book, he says, I want to be a force for good. I want my music to be a force for good. So he sees his music as having political connotations, and I was aware of that even when I was hearing the music, but I couldn't articulate it

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completely. The people who've helped me clear it up are two of my colleagues where I teach Oliver Jackson and Eugene Redmond, who are both Africanists, and they know something about Africa. And I find that even though I thought

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I knew something, it turns out that I was relatively an ignoramus, too. And thanks to these two men, I'm learning all the time. So the next book, I do hope I'll have that better under control.

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Ray Taliaferro: How far back does Jazz go in our American society? Where did you find that the first piece which could be turned jazz, it was played? Frank Kofsky: Well, there's really no clear cut dividing

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line there. And mostly, I think that's due to the fact that it was a played rather than written music, and to know to be able to answer that question, we would have to have phonograph records. The general consensus seems to be that it emerged sometime

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around the turn of the century or shortly thereafter, and it came out of a fusion of blues singing, blues piano playing. So. Ride and stomp piano playing and street bands in New Orleans. Beyond that, it's very difficult to go because, in general, the

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history of people are not written. Is not written. That is to say, what is written is a history of leading politicians, of generals and so forth. But what the common, ordinary man is doing for his livelihood or for his amusement. These are things

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that historians are largely unaware of, and in many cases not don't even care particularly about. So that's why it's hard to pinpoint that with it with any more accuracy than I have. Ray Taliaferro: Well, you said that, and it's a very

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interesting observation, and let me preface it in my remark by saying that I think it's absolutely true. You stated in the book that people, by and large, or the white community, by and large nationally, feel that, well, one of the reasons

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why they couldn't really accept the whole business of a people such as a black people developing a music such as jazz is is because of the and I'm adding this word the overall racist view that black people as people can't really develop

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anything worthwhile, and that the black people we do see as musicians are simply isolated geniuses in their particular community. Frank Kofsky: And yeah, I would agree with the word racist. I

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mean, you don't have to say it's your word. I'll certainly subscribe to that. And not only just isolated geniuses, but even Ray Taliaferro: The implication always is there are 162 IQ though they're geniuses, they're inferior geniuses.

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points 160 something? Frank Kofsky: Well, no, because the real, the real genius in this country becomes a businessman and makes a fortune, or he becomes a president, but this country has very little use

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as a whole for artists, and it's always implied an artist is somewhat effeminate. So it is possible, to a degree, to say that a black man is a genius in an area, but then say that that entire area is basically irrelevant because it's art and

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it's not commerce or making money. It's clear to my mind, of course, that there's that white people have always been fascinated by black music. You have every European or white American traveler through the south taking copious notes and

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writing endlessly about the music they hear. You have in the 1830s and 40s, white men dressing up in black faces and pretending to be minstrels, a tradition that's carried right through down to the whatever club still is doing that, and Al

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Jolson and the jazz singer and so forth and so on. So obviously, white people do admit in their actions that this music is profound. It's just when it comes to conferring the recognition on the innovators who created the music, then they

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boggle because the general tenor of American life has been to say that anything non white is inferior. The Indians are inferior, the blacks are inferior, the Chinese are inferior, the Japanese are inferior. And having said that

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so consistently, it's very difficult to reverse it momentarily and say except, except. They're not but for 10 minutes out of every 24 hours, they're not inferior. Well, of course, people aren't like that. If black people are inferior,

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then everything they do is inferior, and their music is inferior, even though we love to sing it and dance Ray Taliaferro: it right. My guest is the superior author of black nationalism and the revolution in music. Frank

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Kofsky we'll be back in a moment. okay, we have returned to KABL's Opinion 70. And my guest is Frank Kofsky, the author of black nationalism and the revolution in music. I'm wondering why it is you chose

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the title black nationalism and the revolution in music. Well, first of all, what revolution in music are you referring to? Frank Kofsky: The one in the 1960s the one that replaced what used to be called bebop, I guess, as the predominant form

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of jazz, with a new music, a more free music. I have to say, I use the word jazz in quotation marks because most of the musicians themselves now don't like to be referred to as jazz musicians. They feel that. I mean, this is what Coltrane told

00:14:06.960 - 00:14:20.180

me, This is what McCoy Tyner told me, and numerous others that to call the music jazz allows an inferior connotation to be placed on in a way I think I understand what they're saying. It's the same as the word negro. It is not a word

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that black people picked out for themselves, to name themselves, name that somebody else bestowed on them, and people should have the right to name their own creation. But in any case I was talking about, I was trying to explain this revolution in jazz

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that took place in the 1960s and the figures I see are being most important are Coltrane and some of the other people I talk about in that book. And now, yes, you asked me about the name. Do you really want me to answer that? Yeah,

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Ray Taliaferro: well, the business of black nationalism. Of course, that's where you bring the Malcolm X in. Frank Kofsky: Well, it's also in the musicians themselves. The point I was trying to get across, I guess, is that these

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musicians. Do not conceive of the revolution as being strictly musical, but they see it as being a political and social revolution as well, and in that, they see themselves as the more or less conscious vehicle to express the feelings and the

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aspirations and desires and frustrations of black people. So what I was trying to do is to do something that is rarely done, and that is to relate the music, not just to the musicians, but to relate it to an entire people. And it seemed to me that

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the reason this change was taking place at this time in music was related to the fact that another change was taking place in the minds of black people with respect to how they viewed themselves, their place in the world, their relation to

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the United States, their relation to the people of color, the third world, throughout the rest of the globe. So that's and the title tries to express something of this combination. But Henze, it's an awkward title.

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Ray Taliaferro: Before I ask my next question, let me give the telephone number so that those of you out there who would like to talk with Frank Kofsky. You may do so. Call from San Francisco, 98295869829586, and from Oakland and the East Bay,

00:16:10.600 - 00:16:31.280

8939, 608 939, 600 Frank. What would you imagine that or not? Imagine? What have they told you would be, say the message that they would a musician, a saxophone player would, would be given, giving his audience and through the creation, maybe some

00:16:31.280 - 00:16:45.250

of the music that he's written. What kind of message do we find, or should we find if we truly understood what we were listening to, if we listen to the music that is played by a number of black artists.

00:16:45.720 - 00:16:59.160

Frank Kofsky: Well, I think Archie Shepp really explains that as well as anybody does for and those of you don't know who Archie Shepp is, he's a poet, playwright, extremely articulate young man, also very great tenor saxophone player. And he says

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that this music is opposed to oppression. It's exposed to opposed to exploitation. It's opposed to the war in Vietnam, and it's for revolutionary Cuba, it's for the National Liberation Front and so forth and so on. And I think that there's a large

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degree of truth in that. And this music is saying that black people are not willing to be taken as slaves or semi slaves in the society any longer they want to achieve a liberation, and this liberation is going to be an esthetic as well as

00:17:30.410 - 00:17:46.110

political and social one. In the music, it is possible to say these things, and in fact, it was possible to say these things in the music through instruments, even before it was possible to say them out loud, politically in the community, in

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speeches and in writing. After all, look what happened to Malcolm X. So the message there again, I mean, one could join Malcolm X and John Coltrane. I see those two men as saying much the same thing, that black people are no longer going to

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allow themselves to be relegated to the inferior position that they have been forced to occupy, not since 1776 if I may be so presumptuous to take issue with you, but since 1619. Ray Taliaferro: Right. The only reason I mentioned 1776 is we

00:18:18.620 - 00:18:28.340

really didn't call ourselves America until about that, I had mentioned America. Well, Frank Kofsky: besides, if you say 1619 and I'm not too sure that everybody in the audience will know what we're talking

00:18:28.340 - 00:18:36.800

about, Ray Taliaferro: well, 1619 is the date on which the first black man presumably came to this to this great nation of ours

00:18:38.120 - 00:18:53.980

in chapter three, I'd like to boy you Sorry about that. You snicker. Black Music, a Cold War secret weapon. What did you mean by that? Frank Kofsky: Well, comes out of the title. Comes comes out of a

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quote that I took from the New York Times in which the author says, I'm going to do what my publisher's representative says I shouldn't do, and that is, read what's in the book. Says that he's writing an article from Geneva in 1955 America's

00:19:12.340 - 00:19:27.090

secret weapon is a blue note and a minor key right now. Its most effective ambassador is Louis Armstrong. The telling propaganda line is the hopped up tempo of a Dixieland band heard on the Voice of America in far off Tangier. The rest of the

00:19:27.090 - 00:19:41.950

article goes on to say what a great weapon jazz is to fight the communists, the Russians and the Chinese. Because all it turns out that people behind the so called Iron Curtain like black music, and they get a good impression of what the United

00:19:41.950 - 00:19:56.950

States stands for by saturating their airways with black music over the Voice of America. At the same time, though Black people, again, are not given the rewards, either in prestige or in monetary terms, for creating music, there's an incident in

00:19:56.950 - 00:20:11.400

the chapter that I refer to in which Duke Ellington has sent to. The first festival Negro arts in Dakar Senegal, as representative of the United States of America, and the writer for the New York Times who covers the event, says he

00:20:11.400 - 00:20:27.940

had a tremendous propaganda triumph. He totally out shadowed outclassed the Soviet poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko. But he doesn't add that the previous year, when Duke was up for a Pulitzer Prize, he was turned down. So that's that

00:20:27.940 - 00:20:42.460

juxtaposition. I think I mean that sets in focus exactly what I mean you can play black music all day until it's coming out of your ears over the Voice of America, because that's going to win friends for you in the Cold War and make people forget about

00:20:42.940 - 00:20:56.730

dropping napalm on civilians in Southeast Asia for a while. But when it comes to giving black people some of the tangible benefits Cecil Taylor and those other cats who they play on the Voice of America, those guys are living in walk up one room

00:20:56.730 - 00:21:10.940

apartments in New York that, frankly, I think I wouldn't incarcerate a prisoner of war in I don't think they're fit for human habitation in any stranger. Ray Taliaferro: Should point out about people liking black music

00:21:11.010 - 00:21:26.250

over behind the quote, unquote Iron Curtain and so forth. Because I was reading a piece the other day put out by an outfit like the John Birch Society that was claiming that a lot of the music, like jazz and hard rock and so forth, it's

00:21:26.320 - 00:21:41.570

really a communist plot over here because of the kind of immoral dances and immoral suggestions that it makes, and it's totally undermining the moral fiber of our society. And they were going to have to do something about, well, curbing

00:21:41.630 - 00:21:57.330

it, if not outright banning it. So it was just kind of amazing, amusing, rather that you say that it's used, and you put quotes in there, a secret weapon in quotes during this great Cold War of ours, I wonder if an analogy has been made by you

00:21:57.400 - 00:22:12.060

about the movement, say, of, of say, if we were to talk about black people gaining equality, then we would begin, for example, with a Frederick Douglas or or W. E. B. Dubois, who created the NAACP. And then they moved into more

00:22:12.130 - 00:22:26.860

demonstrative action through Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). And now, of course, after the riots beginning with Watts and

00:22:26.930 - 00:22:43.400

Detroit and Newark and what have you, we now have groups like the Black Panthers, who are becoming more demonstrative in asking for an even greater stake of this society and arming themselves to ward off as as they feel they must ward off the police power

00:22:43.470 - 00:22:58.330

and so forth. Malcolm X came on the scene. He isn't has now been assassinated, but his philosophy, of course, is even more alive today than ever before. Now I'm asking whether or not the movement and the revolution in jazz in your

00:22:58.390 - 00:23:14.220

mind's eye correlates the more. And I'm going to use the term radical for lack of a better one, the more radical approach now, or dramatic approach by elements of the black community to gain equality. I wonder if you can pinpoint a revolution in

00:23:14.290 - 00:23:26.360

music, or a revolutionary cycle in music that has built up to the same kind of intensity today. Frank Kofsky: Well, I think so. I mean, this is what I try and bring out in the course of the book, if you remember, in the

00:23:26.360 - 00:23:40.820

late 50s and early 60s, because every revolution has its antecedents, and this revolution has its antecedents, just like any other in the late 50s and early 60s, black musicians in particular were talking about soul, and they were saying only

00:23:40.820 - 00:23:55.720

certain musicians have soul and can play. And that corresponded to a very, very early phase of what was then called the civil rights movement. In other words, black people were beginning to reevaluate themselves, reevaluate their roots. They

00:23:55.720 - 00:24:08.460

were beginning to say, well, the black church is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, it's where much of our culture comes from and so they were putting the kind of music one would hear on a black church into into their jazz playing, as Mingus is

00:24:08.460 - 00:24:14.940

better get it in your soul, right? Wednesday night prayer meeting, Ray Taliaferro: certainly in the early 60s, with Aretha Franklin coming right out of church, right?

00:24:15.000 - 00:24:31.340

Frank Kofsky: Yeah, definitely. So there was that move in that period to a sort of pride in what we as black people, that is, I'm paraphrasing the musicians here, what we as black people, what our culture has produced now, when it turned out

00:24:31.340 - 00:24:45.040

that civil rights was not much of an answer and that civil rights did not enable you to buy a suit of clothing or a meal or rent a house if you didn't have a Job, when it turned out that civil rights did not really change the status quo in any

00:24:45.040 - 00:25:01.380

major way, the music naturally reflected the new radicalism of the black people and black musicians. That is to say, black people saw they had to move beyond civil rights. They had to tackle the whole structural question. Question of the nature

00:25:01.380 - 00:25:16.620

of American society. Why is it that black people have had such an enormous unemployment rate since the Korean War? And how can we move to deal with that problem? How can we move to deal with the problem of inadequate jobs for people, inadequate

00:25:16.620 - 00:25:29.720

places to live, and so forth and so on. And these raise more profound issues in the civil rights movement was able to raise, in a way, and the music took a turn at that point as well. In the playing of Coltrane and Coleman and Cecil Taylor and

00:25:29.720 - 00:25:45.040

so forth. It became more radical too. It wasn't just it was no longer saying, Well, we're black, we've got soul, we've got roots. It was, we are totally opposed to the status quo, and we have to make major structural changes in it so that every

00:25:45.040 - 00:25:55.420

human being can have a as Coltrane says, Every there should be no war with brotherhood. There should be no war, there should be no oppression, there should be exploitation. And it is realized, it was realized that

00:25:55.420 - 00:26:13.020

to create a society built on brotherhood rather than on exploitation, this was going to require a major effort. Ray Taliaferro: So then you do see a direct correlation between the movement to a more radical approach on the part of civil

00:26:13.020 - 00:26:30.260

rights and other political organizations in the black community. There's a direct correlation with the more well, the greater amount of intensity on the black of on the part of black musicians to become quote, unquote, blacker, in a sense

00:26:30.260 - 00:26:44.440

that they began to more directly identify with the whole business of soul and the problems of the community and as opposed to simply being entertainers And and and musicians look like. Frank Kofsky: Well, it seems to me that the music has always

00:26:44.440 - 00:27:00.100

reflected what black people happen to be thinking at that particular time and place. It did in the 50s. And it isn't that that the Malcolm X appeared in the 50s or 60s. It isn't that the Panthers appeared in the 50s or 60s. What it is is that black

00:27:00.100 - 00:27:13.080

people and mass moved to take a different position than they had taken before. And when that happened, of course, the artists were swept up in that current, and they expressed it through their music. But this isn't anything that I would limit to

00:27:13.080 - 00:27:28.700

the 50s or 60s. It seems to me, I would say that if one is a conscientious historian and tries to interpret what happens in jazz in particular in the 20th century. One has to start off with, what is the mood and what is the psyche of black

00:27:28.700 - 00:27:37.340

people at that given instant of time that goes through the 20s, 30s or whatever decades. Ray Taliaferro: We're going to have to pause here for station identification, but I'll be back with my guest Frank cough ski in

00:27:37.340 - 00:28:00.440

just a moment. I My guest is Frank Kofsky, the author of black nationalism and the revolution in music, and we'll be here for the next, oh, about 28 minutes or so until 10 o'clock. Those of you who would

00:28:00.440 - 00:28:21.190

like to call up and ask Mr. Kofsky a question. You may do so by calling from San Francisco, 98295869829586, and from Oakland in the East Bay, 8939, 608 939, 600 we have some calls, but before we take them, let me ask this one question about the

00:28:21.190 - 00:28:36.110

respectability of jazz, and the fact that a number of people have thought for a number of years that jazz ought to be concertized, and that perhaps it ought to appear in the Opera House and in the Masonic Auditorium in places of of that

00:28:36.110 - 00:28:53.020

may you, as opposed to say, and as you put it in your Your book, The cockroach club. I wonder if you could speak to whether or not jazz with the jazz festivals that we see on every hand now that came up over the last decade, if, in fact, jazz is

00:28:53.020 - 00:29:05.100

becoming more respectable. Frank Kofsky: Well, defining respectability is a political matter. That is to say, the definition of respectability always depends on who is in power to make the definition.

00:29:05.400 - 00:29:16.770

Jazz wasn't respectable 10 years ago because there weren't very many black students in places or black people in places where they had any power to make the definitions. And so when you took music appreciation courses in college, you never took

00:29:16.770 - 00:29:27.770

anything that had anything to do with jazz, because black people weren't respectable, and ipso facto, the music wasn't respectable. Now the black students are moving on to college campuses. You're getting black music on the campus, and

00:29:27.770 - 00:29:41.690

it's become respectable simply because black people have the political power to make it that way. I have some reservations about concertizing jazz, simply because what has happened in Western art music is that the audience and the performers have

00:29:41.730 - 00:29:56.190

become completely divorced, and mostly the reason people, I think, go to those concerts is as conspicuous consumption. I'm not very comfortable say at the Music Center in Los Angeles, because the people who inhabit that place are enormously

00:29:56.190 - 00:30:11.960

wealthy, and I'm not but, but I do know that. I do know that the club does not the club is not the precise locale for presenting jazz, because it is just not conducive as far as the performers go, or as far as music as the audience goes, it

00:30:11.960 - 00:30:25.340

puts everybody up tight and Ray Taliaferro: Well, I think one of the reasons why people spoke towards concertizing it is because in a number of clubs, it was used more as background music than it was something that

00:30:25.340 - 00:30:37.440

you should sit and pay attention Frank Kofsky: right, right? And that's, of course, is terrible. I mean, as Coltrane said, who needs to have somebody drop a glass in the middle of Jimmy Garrison's bass solo? But the

00:30:37.440 - 00:30:49.140

university isn't an ideal environment either. It's it has its own institutionalized racism. But one thing, universities do have a certain amount of money. And what I'd like to see happen is for universities in this area, for

00:30:49.140 - 00:31:00.890

example, San Francisco State and UC and all of the junior colleges and Hayward state, Sonoma State, each one of those places could hire a musician for a year, and that way you could have, you could bring out, say, two groups, Pharaoh Sanders

00:31:00.890 - 00:31:12.390

group and Cecil Tara's group from New York for a year. It's pointless to hire an individual musician, but if you can hire an entire group, then you really have brought some kind of cultural enrichment to a community. I mean, the white

00:31:12.390 - 00:31:20.840

community that really is culturally retarded in this area and needs that enrichment. They Ray Taliaferro: certainly do need some soul. Hey, let's take a call. Good evening. You're on KABL.

00:31:20.000 - 00:31:43.640

Caller: Oh, Hi, there. Hi, just have a few questions Ray Taliaferro: Well, I wish you'd stay on the line, yeah, Caller: but the music and rhythm of the colored people, you know, Ray Taliaferro: no one spoke of colored people.

00:31:44.060 - 00:32:01.860

Caller: Well, he was talking about black people, if that's exactly what he was talking about, well, black people, then thank you. I spent some time down in Nairobi and Dakar, and I see rhythm down there that was born

00:32:01.860 - 00:32:27.590

in them people, and they didn't need somebody to get up in front of a mic, you know, guitar, and try to out follow the guitar question I wanted to ask, but you keep hearing about the minority all the time, and the minority of the people in the

00:32:27.590 - 00:32:32.660

United States is the ones that control the capital of the United States. Ray Taliaferro: That's the smallest minority. That's true, smallest

00:32:32.660 - 00:32:45.100

Caller: minority which controls capital. Ray Taliaferro: And what is your question in that regard? Yeah, or is that simply a statement? Caller: Well, that's actually a statement, because,

00:32:45.100 - 00:33:03.150

Ray Taliaferro: okay, well, whatever you said, it was going to be a question and I was just waiting Caller: polls taken and published in the paper, they never stayed in there. Who the polls were taken from what party

00:33:03.150 - 00:33:15.900

or who paid for them, or anything else you know. So general public, then would have no reason to believe in those polls, would they? Ray Taliaferro: I don't even know what polls you have

00:33:15.900 - 00:33:23.540

reference to. We're talking about black nationalism and the music Caller: revolution, three or four different questions. I told you I didn't. Oh, I see.

00:33:23.600 - 00:33:34.940

Ray Taliaferro: Oh, you're making three or four different statements. Yeah, yeah, right, okay, you've made three. You have a fourth one, yeah? Unknown: Now they talk about militant group in the United

00:33:34.940 - 00:33:52.120

States, yes, and Stalin before they done away with him, he made the statement that if they couldn't whip United States with armament, they'd whip with him, you know. Ray Taliaferro: Okay, well, thank you so very much. Do call

00:33:52.120 - 00:34:03.460

again. Good evening. You're on cable. Caller2: All right, yes, you still talking to this other man? Ray Taliaferro: No, no, we're on a seven second delay in case you say something nasty, but go ahead and say something to Frank

00:34:03.460 - 00:34:18.520

Kofsky, well, no, I wanted to talk to you. Well, what do you want to say? Caller2: Well, in listening to Frank Kofsky, yes, I think I have a problem. I'm black, but I don't like black music. I

00:34:18.520 - 00:34:40.160

don't like jazz. And since you have such a wonderful vocabulary and all this stuff, maybe you could tell me what I am. I like concert music. So what does that make me? Frank Kofsky: Is that for me? Well, nobody passes any laws

00:34:40.640 - 00:34:56.980

that say all black music, all black people have to like black music, or, for that matter, that all white people have to like white music. So in that sense, I mean, there's nothing really to be said, but it but what beyond that? I'd say, historically, one

00:34:56.980 - 00:35:08.700

of the things that has happened in the black community is. Especially among the black middle class, or people of Frazier called the Black bourgeoisie, is that that segment of the black community has been educated to believe

00:35:08.700 - 00:35:19.720

that white music is better the concert music is better than jazz or blues, whereas, in fact, no music is better than any other music. It's just a question of Ray Taliaferro: well, of course, I even have some information

00:35:19.720 - 00:35:33.040

about that too. I'm not so sure that we've been told the truth about all that white music, especially as far as brother Ludwig is concerned. There's grave doubts as to whether or not he can certainly be called a white musician, because he

00:35:33.040 - 00:35:48.160

certainly was a black composer. But at any rate, ma'am, as Mr. Kofsky says, there certainly is no law that says that you've got to like one form of music. Caller: Well, I don't think there's anything wrong with,

00:35:49.780 - 00:36:04.860

Caller2: Oh, more or less a lone wolf, and it's everyone I know. Ray Taliaferro: Well, not everyone you know. I happen to play classical music. Oh, you do. I certainly do. Well, Henry Lewis happens to conduct it as well as Dean Nixon, yeah. Well,

00:36:04.860 - 00:36:14.000

maybe Dennis di capito conducts it. And we're having Charles Darden, who is Ozawa's apprentice. He's going to be on the show tonight after Mr. Kofsky, and he's the black conductor the Berkeley symphony.

00:36:14.700 - 00:36:34.580

Caller2: Oh, well, I have been out of school quite a number of years, but I took music appreciation in school, and of course, this high brow is all we had at that time. We didn't have this black music. And I guess I just Well,

00:36:34.580 - 00:36:48.460

Ray Taliaferro: see that's what was wrong, because you come out calling it high brow as opposed to that old black music, and Frank Kofsky: it's not a question, yeah, it's not a question of bios. And the thing is, I mean, to be educated, one

00:36:48.460 - 00:37:05.820

should know, one should know something about reality in all of its departments. And therefore, I would say that your education short changed you. Let me make an analogy here that up until relatively recently, many black people did not wear their

00:37:05.820 - 00:37:23.180

hair in what's now called Afro or natural style. Well, it is possible to process a mind as well as it is possible to process a head of hair. Well, now Caller2: let me say this, and maybe that will let

00:37:23.000 - 00:37:36.380

Frank Kofsky: me put it in my own frame of reference. Maybe, if that was offensive, I'll say this offensive. I grew up in a Jewish community. My parents were Jewish. I had several of my classmates who had large noses, and they spent 600 or $1,000 to

00:37:36.380 - 00:37:50.710

have their noses altered because they couldn't live with themselves with a large nose. They were ashamed of it and ashamed of being visibly Jewish. And I say that anytime that this has happened in every community that is not white, Anglo Saxon,

00:37:50.710 - 00:38:00.300

Protestant and wealthy in this country, and to that degree, that community has been stripped of its heritage. And this Caller2: is well in talking to both of you, neither one of you have

00:38:01.320 - 00:38:11.940

said what I wanted to hear. Well, what I would also say. Ray Taliaferro: I'm not so sure that we we've been schooled the way that you would like for us to be schooled so that we can say what you want to hear. It

00:38:11.940 - 00:38:21.620

isn't a matter of being schooled. It's just an opinion, you know. Yeah, right. Well, you want us to you called up and asked whether or not something was wrong with you because you are black and you

00:38:21.620 - 00:38:38.480

like classical music, as opposed to jazz and gospel and spiritual music. Well, well, and all I can say to you, Ma'am, is that I wish you wouldn't have possessed such a myopic opinion of music and taste, because you're missing an awful lot.

00:38:39.620 - 00:38:52.120

Caller2: Jazz is so loud, so is Beethoven not on my stereo? Frank Kofsky: No, but I mean, but that new Beethoven's music is very sensuous and very sensual. It's meant to be

00:38:52.120 - 00:39:06.360

experienced. Any music that that has anything to do with feeling is going to be loud. It is if it is loud, may it may be loud because it's unfamiliar. Many people equate unfamiliarity with loudness, and it may be loud because certain things that have

00:39:06.420 - 00:39:21.200

happened to black people in this country require a certain volume to be expressed. You cannot talk about genocide in a polite and quiet tone of voice. It's very difficult to be restrained and Caller2: thank you for your time. Well, thank you so very

00:39:21.200 - 00:39:34.400

much for calling okay and happy listening. Frank Kofsky: Thank you. Lost two out of two there. Unknown: I think so. My guest is Frank Kofsky who keeps losing, but he wrote a very good book called Black Nationalism and the

00:39:34.400 - 00:39:57.740

Revolution in music, and it's put out by Pathfinder press. We'll be back after this break. Ray Taliaferro: OK we return to KABL's opinion 70. I'm Ray Taliaferro, and I'll be here until one o'clock in the morning

00:39:57.740 - 00:40:15.250

for the next few minutes, my guest. Is Mr. Frank coughs key who, as I said before, wrote a very good book. He has a lot of insight for man of his youth and and background into black nationalism and the revolution in music. Those of you who would

00:40:15.250 - 00:40:34.430

like to say something to him while he is still here, you may do so by calling from San Francisco, 98295869829586, and from Oakland and the East Bay, dial, 8939, 608 939, 600 Frank, you have a chapter that deals with jazz critics, and I'm

00:40:34.430 - 00:40:50.800

wondering if we could talk about that for just a moment, because it seems to me, if you're saying that black music indeed reflects a lot of the history of black people. Then wouldn't it be difficult for a white critic who has been reared in this society

00:40:50.800 - 00:41:01.440

through white schools and so forth, with little, if any at all exposure to black history and black culture, to truly be a jazz critic? Well, Frank Kofsky: of course, that's the point I'm trying to

00:41:01.440 - 00:41:15.840

establish in that chapter. I think it's possible for one person to know a different people. I have to think that, because I'm a historian, and as a matter of routine, I deal with people who are dead and gone. They lived in a bygone time.

00:41:15.960 - 00:41:28.580

They lived in a way different than I'll ever live. But the point is, you can't do it without a certain amount of effort. You have consciously to try to put yourself in their place. And most white critics have never risen to the level of

00:41:28.580 - 00:41:41.620

consciousness where they are even aware that what they're dealing with is one aspect of black history or black culture. And if they do, most of them generally feel so insecure and threatened as whites that they go out of their way to deny that

00:41:41.620 - 00:41:52.900

black people had any particular role in formulating the music so that doubly disqualifies the bulk of them, in my opinion, as very perceptive critics, which is unfortunate but not unexpected.

00:41:53.680 - 00:42:07.340

Ray Taliaferro: Are there any critics that you think perhaps possess the kind of insight necessary to render a fair criticism. Frank Kofsky: Oh, sure. Leroy Jones, for one, I'm very

00:42:07.340 - 00:42:16.490

indebted to Leroy Jones. Leroy Jones helped me to get a lot of my mental Ray Taliaferro: I meant to preface that same white critics, Frank Kofsky: yeah, there are also white critics. I'll just

00:42:16.550 - 00:42:31.840

run through the critics I think are pretty good. Basically, Leroy Jones and A. B. Spellman, who are both black, are good. But Robert Levin, who is white, is very good. Nat Hentoff can, at times, be perceptive. I owe a lot myself to Ralph Gleason, who

00:42:31.900 - 00:42:40.360

showed me a lot about how jazz is administered as an economic operation. So there are, Ray Taliaferro: aha, you mentioned Gleason. I just wondered if our local fellow was,

00:42:40.420 - 00:42:52.120

Frank Kofsky: yeah, oh yeah, he's in the day, if you'll notice, in the forward I mentioned him, Yes, I regard myself as having served some apprenticeship under Ralph. But the point is, I don't think he would necessarily agree with

00:42:52.120 - 00:43:03.600

everything I said, and I don't want to pin the book on him, because he may have his disagreements, but I learned from him, and he is a conscientious and honest man who, who does understand that this is black music, and who

00:43:03.600 - 00:43:19.620

tries to interpret it in that light? When Ray Taliaferro: I interview a number of people, symphonic conductors as well as a concert pianist and opera singers as well as jazz musicians, they all have a different opinion as to

00:43:19.680 - 00:43:35.660

the role of the critic. And I just wonder very briefly if you could say you did have a very relevant quote, unquote person, or rather, the word relevant should be in the quotes a person who renders a criticism, what, what do you feel his criticism

00:43:35.900 - 00:43:51.460

ought to ought to say? What should a grant a jazz critic tell the people who who read his reviews, Frank Kofsky: what I have tried to do in my own writing is to explain what is happening in the music. I figured that I have

00:43:51.760 - 00:44:05.680

perhaps more mobility than the average listener. I get to talk to more musicians, and I see the critic as being a conduit trying to explain what the musicians are doing to their public because I think that the most important task of the critic is

00:44:05.680 - 00:44:20.070

to make life easier for the musician. But there are many critics, and the critics that I dislike or am critical of, they are the ones who attempt to tell jazz musicians or musicians How To Play. This is one of the things I bring up vis a vis

00:44:20.070 - 00:44:31.690

Leonard Feather, for example, who tried to tell John Coltrane how to play music. Well, if you've listened to John Coltrane, you know that it's not Leonard feather or anyone else who can tell him how to play music. So I don't see the role

00:44:31.690 - 00:44:45.010

of the critic as saying play this way or play that way. Rather, I see when you get a genuinely gifted innovator like Coltrane coming along, and he confuses a lot of people. It should be the critics role to mediate there and explain what

00:44:45.010 - 00:45:00.000

it is that Coltrane is about. I have been very critical of some musicians on occasion, such as Charles Lloyd, who I feel is largely posture and without content. But in the main, I think it is my task, or the critics task, to try and in.

00:45:00.000 - 00:45:14.100

Increase the comprehension of the audience and not to make life any more difficult for the musicians. Ray Taliaferro: Do you feel that critics, by and large, jazz critics, created this service for the jazz musician, or have

00:45:14.100 - 00:45:24.500

they done a pretty fair job in explaining what the music is all about? Frank Kofsky: I'd say that on the whole, I'd say it's about six of one and half a dozen of

00:45:24.000 - 00:45:34.500

the other like, Ray Taliaferro: Thank you for your specificity. Frank Kofsky: Well, no, I can be more explicit. Leonard feather, for example, during the 1940s was relatively good in, at least

00:45:34.500 - 00:45:46.080

from a technical standpoint, explaining what the music was about. But in the 1960s he starts talking with Johannes Tynan and some of the other people at Downbeat where, incidentally, both Ralph and I were forced to resign. That's

00:45:46.080 - 00:45:59.570

another story. Those Downbeat people start talking about Coltrane and Eric Dolphy playing anti jazz, as if to say that the people who are going to define what jazz is is not the musicians, but a handful of writers. To me, that is absurd

00:45:59.570 - 00:46:12.950

and ridiculous. That's why I say that critics have done a great deal to publicize and popularize the music, on the one hand, at the same time, they have also made life more difficult for those genuinely gifted and once in a lifetime, figures like

00:46:12.950 - 00:46:27.270

Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and I regard that as a grave disservice to mankind. Ray Taliaferro: Let me go into a couple of personalities. What is your opinion of Miles Davis?

00:46:30.480 - 00:46:43.980

Unknown: Miles Davis musically, I confess that I'm not too taken with what he's doing at the moment. Doesn't seem to be a significant innovation, but I've been told I'm wrong, and so I'll withhold judgment. Miles Davis is a personality I try and make

00:46:43.980 - 00:46:59.750

it a rule not to dabble in what I consider sort of silver screen type gossip. There's a book called Jazz masters of the 50s, written by Joe Goldberg, and it contains every rumor that you could possibly want, rumors about Thelonious Monk, rumors

00:46:59.750 - 00:47:06.580

about Art Blakey, rumors about Cecil Taylor, Ray Taliaferro: is there any reason why jazz musicians don't show? Frank Kofsky: Well, it has nothing to do with jazz

00:47:06.580 - 00:47:21.640

musicians. Every there's Maria Callas. Are there rock bands that are notorious for not showing? Basically, you're dealing first of all the society. This society is totally crazy to begin with. I mean, we have to start at the root. In

00:47:21.640 - 00:47:33.870

this society is really irrational to the core. Artists who are more sensitive than other people are going to reflect these irrationalities, and some of them are going to be unstable. I think it's as simple as that. Plus the fact is that,

00:47:33.870 - 00:47:48.090

and for the black performer, there are years of writing and Downbeat about why miles, about how miles Davis would turn his back on the audience. Well, of course, miles Davis is black, and about the only chance he gets to show what he feels to a

00:47:48.090 - 00:48:01.810

white audience is up on that stage and Thelonious Monk and so forth and so on. Many of the stage mannerisms, much of the calculated insolence, stems as a kind of personality defense from trying to be a black man in a society where, if you're black,

00:48:01.810 - 00:48:18.340

you're not supposed to be a man at all. In my opinion, Ray Taliaferro: Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding and Janis Joplin have been lumped together as the three people in the trilogy, the trilogy tragedy of Hollywood. You know, they say if one famous

00:48:18.340 - 00:48:41.430

person dies and you can expect two others to go as well. Do you feel that moving away from the jazz idiom, that with the demise of these three, that we're going to see a kind of a cessation of the kind of rock, psychedelic drug music form that we've had

00:48:41.430 - 00:48:50.700

here in this country, Frank Kofsky: Not as long as Columbia Records stays in business. I mean, there's a market out there and somebody's going to try and move into the void to sell records to that

00:48:50.700 - 00:49:05.100

market, just like the Beatles, breaking up doesn't mean the end of the Beatles. It doesn't mean the end of pop music or rock music Money talks, and as long as people of that age bracket have money to spend on records, they're going to be record

00:49:05.100 - 00:49:17.990

manufacturers trying to lure the money out of their pockets. What form the music takes, of course, is going to vary, but I don't see that it's possible to go back into the 1950s in rock any more than it is in jazz. I mean, the present is or is already

00:49:17.990 - 00:49:29.010

here, and the things that have happened have happened and can't be erased. So you can't go back to Elvis Presley any more than you can go back to Cannonball Adderley. It's just too late in the day for that,

00:49:29.120 - 00:49:42.580

Ray Taliaferro: you know. But when we've had jazz, and we've had jazz for many years, you know, right? And it has sustained itself, say, as opposed to the Tommy Dorsey kind of swing, we don't have that any longer, except in old 1940

00:49:43.180 - 00:49:56.280

oriented middle of the road type music stations, the Frank Kofsky: musicians are still there. What has happened is that what I call the cockroach capitalist set up of the club has finally proven to be so detrimental that it has

00:49:56.280 - 00:50:09.710

collapsed on itself, and clubs no longer exist. But I've talked to Bob Thiele, who was head of production for ABCs impulse subsidiary, and a good friend of mine, now has his own record company, and he tells me that records by by John Coltrane

00:50:09.710 - 00:50:22.730

always sold, records by Archie Shepp always sold, and by all of the new black performers that they continue to sell. So there is a market, and somebody is buying those records, and that's why I can't believe that the music doesn't exist, and

00:50:22.730 - 00:50:34.770

musicians don't exist. What's happened is that they've generally moved now onto the campus. Shepp is teaching at State University of New York, at Buffalo and Cecil Taylor, someplace in the Midwest. Every college that is worth its salt

00:50:34.770 - 00:50:44.730

is now hiring one or two black musicians so that they're alive and the music is still being performed. But clubs which are totally unfit as a vehicle, that they are being liquidated. And I would say that it's about time.

00:50:45.220 - 00:51:00.460

Ray Taliaferro: Would you say that the rock music as we know it, through the Beatles and through others, is a bastardization of a pure form of jazz that people have just generally accepted? Or is it an entirely new, a different form?

00:51:00.520 - 00:51:11.280

Frank Kofsky: No, it's not entirely I don't think it's entirely new. I wouldn't say it's a bastardization of jazz, but the musicians themselves, The Rolling Stones, took Howlin Wolf with them on tour when they were over here the first time on

00:51:11.280 - 00:51:25.520

television. They have, themselves, said that they get their inspiration from guys like Chuck Berry and Otis Redding and Ray Charles and so forth. So they have bastardized several forms of black music and created something that is saleable to a

00:51:25.520 - 00:51:37.580

white public. But another thing that is also true is that most rock bands have at least one jazz musician in them, and this I've found out from an extensive series of interviews that I've conducted, as well as those interviews I've seen in print,

00:51:37.940 - 00:51:52.660

generally speaking, it'll be one guy who's a stone jazz musician, or else a jazz follower. And in San Francisco, when you talk to the bands, they know they know who Coltrane is. They know who everybody in his band is. And you can have long and very

00:51:52.660 - 00:52:06.300

intelligent discussions about this. This doesn't get out to the general public, not through any conspiracy. I mean, there's just no mechanism in most cases for making it clear. But fact of the matter is that jazz and specific and black music in

00:52:06.300 - 00:52:22.700

general has provided a lot of the fuel to get rock into orbit. And any honest rock musician will tell you that Ray Taliaferro: I understand very clearly why the Malcolm X end of the book. But tell me why John Coltrane well, as opposed

00:52:22.700 - 00:52:36.320

to say Frank Kofsky: the Adderley, yeah, sure. To justify that, what I would say is this, that in listening to the music of the newer players, it seemed to me that they there were the

00:52:36.320 - 00:52:54.910

Coltrane's phrasing. Coltrane's approach cropped up almost in every case, or if it wasn't the case of a horn player, it would be a piano player like Andrew Hill, whose point of departure is Coltrane's piano player, McCoy Tyner. So that was why I

00:52:55.990 - 00:53:08.840

put John Coltrane in the center of this music revolution. But because I didn't want to be in the position of trying to dictate something, I also something. I also checked this with the musicians. I interviewed about two dozen or

00:53:08.840 - 00:53:18.000

so musicians in New York thanks to a small foundation grant that I got. And I said, Who do you think are the most important people playing this music? And Coltrane always came up, usually came up at the head of the list. Everybody said that,

00:53:18.420 - 00:53:32.660

Ray Taliaferro: do you feel that at some point this whole business of respectability will increase in so far as jazz music is concerned, or have they pretty much reached an apex of that, and those people who who like that music will continue to

00:53:32.660 - 00:53:42.160

like it, and those who don't will will go their way, and we will never really see an infusion say in college curricula. No, Frank Kofsky: I don't feel that's the latter thing that you

00:53:42.160 - 00:53:54.880

said is true, Ray, what I think is this, you can't talk about jazz without talking about the position of black people. The Myth of America is that it's pluralistic, that we have many different groups, and everybody has their place in the sun. But

00:53:54.880 - 00:54:08.760

that's a myth. When that myth becomes true, and every group is accepted on the same plane and at the same level, when women can be accepted as same level as men are, and blacks the same level as whites, and so forth and so on, then you will get a

00:54:09.420 - 00:54:22.760

college, university curriculum that does reflect this acceptance. And all musics will be equally respectable, whether it be hillbilly, Country and Western rock, black music, jazz, blues, gospel or what have you. But this, all of it will be

00:54:22.760 - 00:54:33.800

called high brow, all of it will be called music, which is what it really is. But this society is premised on dividing people up and opposing them to each other. So but I don't suppose I have to tell you about that.

00:54:34.640 - 00:54:45.160

Ray Taliaferro: Frank, it's really been a pleasure talking with you. And thank you for taking an hour out of your good Sunday evening to spend with us. It was my pleasure. And good luck on the book. Thank you very much. My guest has been Frank

00:54:45.160 - 00:54:58.300

kofke, the author of black nationalism and the revolution in music. It's, it's not a very big book, as matter of fact, let me check here. It's, oh, about 300 pages long, but it's very, very interesting. I'll be back following the station

00:54:58.300 - 00:55:07.440

identification break with Leonard. Simon, who is starring in the of a watcher presently at the Encore theater. So those of you there hang in. We'll be right back. You.