Judul : Hampton Inn Atlantic Beach Nc
link : Hampton Inn Atlantic Beach Nc
Hampton Inn Atlantic Beach Nc
my name is monk rowe and we are filming inmanhattan for the hamilton college jazz archive, and i've been looking forward to having afollow-up conversation with benny powell. so welcome. bp: thank you. i should say welcome to you - you're in myneighborhood.
Hampton Inn Atlantic Beach Nc, mr: yes i am. it's always a bit of a charge to come intonew york for us. bp: oh i know what you mean. i lived in california.
i was doing the merv griffin show from california,and almost every month, my daughter was still here. so i had to come and get my new york fix. oh man, and then most of the guys out there,because we had this kind of vitality in new york, man we went out from new york and ina few months we had taken over everything. while the other guys went to the beach, wewere doing all the studio gigs, film gigs, all kinds of stuff. mr: they say, "hey, what happened?" bp: they'd say, "which one is the guy in themerv griffin band?
oh, the one in the suit." everybody's got shorts on and we're walkingaround in suits and stuff. mr: that's great because you know the musicianshave their own uniform almost. bp: well i find, yes they do, first of alli think they're real model type guys. but then that's the guys who are the entrepreneursor the leaders. now there's another uniform for the sidemen,and that's what i was alluding to when i was out there. i was a sideman but i was a rebel sidemanso i used to wear my - but guys, there are some guys who really make a very good livelihoodat doing sideman - you know, film, and they
go from there maybe to a big hotel and playa reception, and you know when the week is over they've made a couple of thousand dollarsin those blue suits. mr: yeah. did you ever have aspirations to just do that? bp: oh no, no, no. mine started out, i guess i'd call myselfa legitimate maverick, because i've been going against the tide all my life. but my secret is i can go against the tideand not be abrasive. in fact it seems like i'm going against thetide, i guess that's more prevalent in the
way i've dressed always. i've always liked clothes so i made sure ididn't - well if i got clothes i would wear them, so as soon as i could pull off a tuxedoor whatever and put on my little slick stuff, i was only too happy to. so i never got caught in that trap. and then too i saw that just being a sidemanwas limiting, and i liked to do a bunch of things. i was interested in theater, i don't know,just being creative. mr: you know you said something that juststruck me so much when i called you last week
i guess. you said, "oh i'm just here practicing withmy jamey aebserold." bp: yeah. mr: and talk about education, you're neverquitting, you're still- bp: man, i was in germany with wild bill davison,the old cornet player, and man he had his little audiotape that he - and by this timehe was about 387 years old, i mean this guy was old, but he had this little walkman andhe put his tape on, put his cup mute in and got ready for the gig. well i think i've watched people who havesurvived - well some people don't, jane jarvis
doesn't have to practice. that's amazing. well i guess she does - she keeps loosenedup, but it comes easier for some people than others. i told you in the beginning, i found out earlyin my life, if i want to do something i have to work at it. so it comes easy for some people. but i don't think it comes easy for too manypeople. it seems like everybody i know, you know randyweston is the greatest pianist in the world,
but i know every so often he'll sneak up thesteinway - well not sneak up - well he doesn't really - i don't know whether he practicesthat much or not. i work with him now, and it's a real joy towork with him. every time he sits down at the piano, evenif it's just, well usually he does it when we play concerts, he gets antsy, but he neverfools around. it sounds like a concerto every time he sitsdown. it's amazing. mr: he seems like a very spiritual person,reading his liner notes and so forth. bp: oh he is.
exceptionally spiritual. he is the most scholarly person i know. and he's done his research in libraries inmorocco, germany - these guys man, it's amazing to be with them. randy, talib kibwe, neil clark and this timei think there was a bass player from france who played with us, james - well i'm goingto shoot myself - but i think he has a name like williams or something. at any rate, these guys are always on, whenwe have a day off, they're out somewhere doing research in the library or something.
mr: it reminds me of something i rememberyou saying, and i'm going to quote you now, from our first interview. you said, "most successful musicians understandhumankind. whether you're talking to a president or aporter you should be able to communicate." bp: oh well he does fantastic stuff. we went to jamaica last year to play a festivalthere. randy is so smooth. well he lives in morocco, and he travels backand forth. he lives in marakesh and brooklyn.
but in the meantime, randy's been workingwith the united nations. if you see some of his albums, he has albumsconcerning africa long before africa was free. he's been living in africa, i don't know 30years, as well as here. so his whole communication skills, they'rejust magnificent. for example we were coming back from jamaicaand i saw him, as always, he is always the smoothest guy at the airport, because no matterwhat language it is, he has such a nice demeanor, and i don't know what he's saying but it soundslike he's saying i'm a nice guy, give me a break, and you're a nice person. because he always is complimenting people.
but at any rate i saw him with this ticketlady, i saw him put maybe about two tons of percussion and stuff on his first class ticket. all that luggage you know, you usually haveto pay extra freight for that. he was, i don't know, somehow he talked tothis lady and all the while he's saying - randy forgive me, i'm telling your secrets but it'sall good - all the while he's saying to us isn't she pretty? i love the people down here. the lady's writing one ton, two tons. but traveling with those guys is such a joybecause they're all on a scholarly level.
and well they're like 360 degrees, but it'sall not about the last lady you saw. i'd better take this gum out of my mouth. mr: we can park it somewhere. bp: no, for that reason it's a pleasure. alex blake is the regular bass player withher, and he's phenomenal also. alex blake has, i think he comes from thedominican republic. but when he plays he has a strumming techniqueas well. without group it's pretty - this is randyweston's group - it's pretty - oh i've got a picture of us in spain.
each one of us can hold the stage by ourselvesfor a little while, and alex just does it tremendously. well i mean hold a solo spot for a littlewhile. i don't know, shall we? this is from a concert we did in seville spainlast year. i think it's really nice how they do it. it's from a newspaper but look at the fleshtonesin randy's hand and so forth. and there's randy and there's - oh i'm sorry,maybe we should put this on a stand or something. okay, i want to talk about this lady too.
our last album concerned the african presidentin the chen dynasty. this is a chinese woman and she's playinga chinese instrument called the pipa. she's on our last album, khepera it's called. but randy has such a beautiful way, he's likeduke ellington. he can meld anything because i think, welli don't know, he has just the most beautiful organizational sense. sometimes when we play moroccans, sometimeswe play with moroccan musicians, moroccans will start to play first, and i'm wonderingnow that's a bit different, i know it would be a challenge if i had to play with that,now what is randy going to play with that?
and in two or three minutes it sounds likethey've been working together for years. but it's the same thing with this woman, minxiao fen, she's a master at this instrument called the pipa. and this last tour we did, well you heardall of this on this album if you played this album. have you played this album at all? mr: yes, in fact i had a little piece hereto ask you about. if i can find it. bp: she was a thorough trooper, travelingwith us.
she's not really, i don't guess she's usedto doing one-nighters and stuff, but oh man. mr: i wanted to find a little spot here. [audio interlude]mr: a nice groove, very nice. bp: i love playing with that band becauseyou see you have such freedom. there's no drummer behind you, i mean -mr: how much music does he write out? quite a bit of it? and you get the solo spot? bp: no. well quite a bit for the form, but it doesn'tseem like much.
melba liston is responsible for the arrangements. and i don't know they're really not extensive,not like a big band with an a, b, c and d. there will be a line here, a whole 16 barsor whatever, 32, and then there'll be maybe a middle or a transition. but actually it's built around the solos andstuff. the written music is for interludes or set-upsfor the solos. mr: i was glad to see her name. bp: oh, she had a birthday two days ago, melbaliston. wonderful woman.
mr: she's on the west coast isn't she? bp: no, she lives here now. mr: she lives here now. she's been here for about two or three years. she's been wheelchair bound for a little while,but she and randy are very close, and he really looks out - oh he's a wonderful human being. when i was going through this dialysis, beforei got a kidney transplant, he was benevolent enough or kind enough to really arrange forme, because dialysis is something you have to do every week no matter whether you'rein europe or not.
so dialysis is that method that is used whenyou have kidney failure, when your kidneys don't function. you go to the hospital for 3-1/2 hours andthey put you on a machine that does work that your kidneys would do if they were working. at any rate he arranged for me to have thisdone three times a week in europe, well he helped make arrangements. and when we had to travel by bus, well firstof all he's six foot six or something, with long legs, well traveling is not a problem,it certainly doesn't seem to be because he comes across the atlantic like it's the crosstownbus, or the pacific ocean.
but at any rate my point is instead of lookingout for his comfort, he had the back of the bus prepared like a bed for me. and even on this last tour, it might havebeen around this time we played seville, spain, sometimes we had to wake up at six o'clockin the morning or seven and stuff, and you'd have to change planes two or three times. one of those mornings he knocked on my doorat seven o'clock and said, "benny, can i help you with your bags out?" i said, "man, you're the boss, i'm supposedto be helping you," i said, "you don't know how to be a boss man, you're supposed to betough."
but he's just a wonderful - i can't sing hispraises enough. in fact i told you before, i'm doing presentationsor programs for the new york organ donor network. i use him as an example of an employer understandingan employee's problems, especially like this because what he empowered me to feel like,although i had this kidney thing i was still a valuable person. and as i listen to this, with randy, it'sa perfect spot for me. because when i was with basie's band, wellkind of all my life i kind of lived in the shadow of al grey. and rightly so.
al grey is one of the best trombone playersever. i didn't realize how good he was myself untiljust recently. because somehow in bands with basie's bandand stuff, you don't think, well i wish i had more solos. when i was with lionel hampton's band, wewere first with lionel hampton's band in the late 40s, al had just left jimmy lunceford'sband. i had just left new orleans. so it was easy to understand. anyway my solo work has been limited by variousfactors.
one, working with a big band and stuff-mr: you don't get that many. bp: i was assured of playing the bridge of"april in paris" with basie's band, because sometimes there was a lot of things we hadwith judy garland. it was so funny, i was watching a show theother night, well i was watching this film clip that somebody sent to me, judy garland,mel torme, and i think it might have been the sammy davis jr. show, that was done in brooklyn like 1964or something. but anyway, they played "april in paris,"and i was getting all set to see myself play my little bridge, mel torme sang it.
so you know, you're sitting up there, oh,this is nbc, they're finally going to see me, then you go to rehearsal, "well when weget to that part, mel, you"- so to be with randy, you can play until you're blue in theface with randy. i mean you can play long solos. i run out of breath before we run out of time. mr: you're making up for - i guess everythingcomes around. i wanted to fill in a couple of holes in yourhistory here. i know that you have worked with a familiarname, king kolax? he was with billy eckstine's band the sametime as all the guys - i think charlie parker
was there. in 1946 i think he broke off and organizedhis own band. and when i joined him he had a territory band,well not a territory, it was in port arthur, texas, and there was this guy from my neighborhoodgoing to join, so my mother let me go. and that was my first time, the first bandi played with. mr: you were 16? bp: yes. mr: 16. bp: well was i 16 or 17?
i was in college. i went to alabama state teacher's collegewhen i was 16. mr: did you at that point, 16 or 17, envisionthat you were on the road to becoming a professional musician? bp: well i was a professional from 1944, wheni first got - to me the difference between a professional and an amateur is the professionalgets paid. so the first time i got paid i was professional. mr: do you recall what you got paid that firsttime? bp: no i don't, but i know my mother was impressedwith it.
she said, "well son, you can make this muchmoney in one night? of course you can be a musician." mr: that's terrific. how did the gig with lionel hampton come about? bp: i'm glad you asked that because i haveto give credit to betty carter. betty carter was with lionel hampton's band. at this time i was playing with another band. i had left king kolax and joined ernie fields'band. he was based out of tulsa, oklahoma.
so evidently they are close to each other. the night before they played tulsa, oklahoma,lionel hampton's trombone player left, i never did find out the reason, chips outcalt. he was a guy that used to play with billyeckstine's band. i did this because i think he played valvetrombone. anyway he left the band in oklahoma city,so when they got to tulsa, i don't know if they were looking for a trombone player, butanyway hamp went to betty carter, because at this time she was known as betty bebop,so she was his consultant to the guys who were in the modern - and you know hamp alwayswanted to be modern.
so i understand she gave thumbs up for me. and i didn't find this out until, she nevermentioned it to me, i don't know maybe about 20 years ago, when one of my nieces who isan attorney was at a banquet, some big time washington stuff, and she went to say helloto betty carter, and ask if you remember my uncle benny, and betty carter told her thisstory then. so i was very surprised to hear this, andi was every more surprised because usually when people do something like that they'llsay, "well you know i started your career." she never did that one time. and we were good friends, i mean we didn'tkeep in touch with each other that much, but
we always loved and respected each other. mr: that band did quite a bit of showmanship? bp: oh yeah. i see some of those film clips now. we did some film shorts for schneider. i remember schneider productions. but we did all kinds of visual stuff i thinkwhen the tempo was up. if you see some of those film clips [clapshands], but i was really glad i went through that school, and quincy always talks aboutthe same thing.
because it let both of us know that this wasshow business. you see a lot of guys who become jazz artistswho think it's impure to show any kind of emotion, well at one point, not so much now. but you remember when everybody was too cool,so cool. i mean you step on a guy's foot and he'd sayouch next week. that's how cool we all were. i hope i'm not getting too far away from thepoint. but you know we're all so filled with stories,and one time, i can't really remember it was in germany or somewhere, randy, working withrandy weston, he usually goes on first and
plays a solo for a few minutes while we'restill upstairs in the dressing rooms. one of these times i was putting on my costume,because we wear african clothes, and listening to him on the monitor. and man, i know he plays marvelous concerts,solo concerts. he was playing so much piano that i told theguys in the band, "damn, randy doesn't need us out her with him, what the hell are wedoing out here?" anyway it dawned on me after a little while,i said, "randy, i finally figured out what we're doing out here. you just don't want to have to go back toone of these little hotels in france, or whatever,
at two o'clock and not have anybody to swapstories with." so i said, "i know that's why you want mehere because i'm your age and we can talk about all this stuff." anyway i'm just kidding, but this is a favoritepastime of musicians. mr: i love to hear it. absolutely. how did you end up in ottawa? bp: i was with lionel hampton's band and ithink it was my first time being outside of the united states.
at this time i wasn't even 20 or 21. between racial prejudice and some kind ofpetty things that went on with this organization, things i thought were petty, i was kind offed up. when i finally was exposed to another culturein canada where being black was an asset rather than a liability, i remember the presidentof the jazz club was a big judge, judge enger in ottawa, and i said wow, this is anotherlevel. i remember, you know i think it was when imoved back here i remember seeing my first kind of art film, color in relation to notes,and i remember the soundtrack was played by oscar peterson, this was canada mind you.
anyway, i played there with lionel hampton'sband and the culture, it was the first time i felt that kind of freedom. so i said this is a good time as ever to comeback. so i think i left lionel hampton's band. you know i can't really remember, i'm surei left amicably because i was never one to blow up or anything. anyway i moved back to this town hull, quebecbecause i think i had met a musician and i was in touch with them, and he invited meback. i think my room rent and board was somethinglike five dollars a week.
i could have lived up there the rest of mylife on three hundred bucks. but i went back there and it was the firsttime i had a chance to experience another culture or see that jazz was something thatcrossed racial lines and social lines, the whole bit. mr: was there enough work up there for youto stay? bp: on five dollars a week-mr: i know it doesn't take an awful lot. bp: but fortunately i got a chance to try- yes, because i'd just played there with lionel hampton so i moved back and i'm goingto stay. in fact there were only two black people inthe town, myself and a guy from nova scotia,
so i was exotic. man i'd have little old ladies following medown the street asking me if they could touch my hair. so this had never happened, little old ladieswere running from me in america. and we had just played this hotel, the hotelchaudiere i remember, i think it was in ottawa. where i lived was hull quebec, it was sortof like just over the bridge, sort of like brooklyn-queens from new york. anyway i think i worked at this hotel andit was odd because since there weren't any other black guys up there, everything i didwas exotic.
if i coughed they thought i was billy eckstine. you know if i walked fast i was bill robinson. so i could do no wrong. so i started trying to sing then, and i didn'trealize it had been that long since i'd been trying to sing, and then i think i was playingbongo drums, so i was just really stretching out to see, and it all worked fine becausei had it made. i was exotic, anything i did was. but in my own mind i saw that being blackcould be an asset or a liability according to what situation i put myself in, and howi looked at it.
did you notice a similar, more positive atmospherein europe when you went there? bp: well i'm not a good judge because i wentthere with count basie and the whole world was count basie's band. i always enjoyed myself in europe, but everytime i've gone i've been like a celebrity working with somebody else. i did get a chance to live there in 1980,but then i was playing the show "ain't misbehavin'" so i was kind of - my feelings about it wouldbe completely different from a sideman who went over there. i had a big time job and high visibility.
so i love europe. it loves me. mr: i had another thing to ask you about. for one thing you had said that when you werethere you missed the authenticity - was it the culture or the music or both? bp: both, both. since, i've realized that to me there's noplace - i like new york - well to me i feel like when you leave new york you're out oftown. no matter what it is, budapest or birmingham.
and i guess that extends to here as well. i have a daughter who lives in atlanta. and i go to visit her, and everywhere i goi think well could i live here? would i be happy living here? i guess if it was near the airport, that'smy only thing, but right now new york is it for me man. new york is a whole playground everyday. everything is here, plus the energy, for me- but i guess it's a culmination of what i felt then.
i think i told you last time, in the 70s and80s, a lot of musicians my age moved to new york successfully: art farmer, johnny griffinto name two. and i thought about it also. but i kept procrastinating. and the first time i got a chance to reallydo it was in 1980 when i went with "ain't misbehavin'" but before, well i really waited. a lot of guys, well for instance joe newman,buddy tate, al grey, the basieites who went over and did very well there. when i started thinking about the realityof that, you see, a lot of times those guys
were on their own catching trains with bagsand all of that stuff, so after a while it's not too glamorous. you know, you're in switzerland, and there'sa flight of stairs big as this is with four escalators and all of that, well i was onthat before. but anyway i decided then that that was oneof the reasons, the physical one, but next it was just the music hearing - if i wokeup in switzerland and i heard somebody yodeling everyday, it ain't like hearing b.b. kingor aretha franklin or miles davis. or just to exaggerate, you'd hear miles davisperhaps, but indigenous street music. new york is a whole symphony itself man.
with all these races, all these languagesand stuff, it sounds to me like a big opera. that's i guess - see i must be getting older. but i'm glad i look at it like that. because i love new york. some people have a problem with the crazieshere. i have nothing. i find them utterly fascinating. and i can deal with it and talk to them, thecrazies, and usually you find that all the crazies have an interesting story to tell.
it's more entertaining to me than somebodywho goes to the post office every day, not to put them down, but i don't know man, newyork has such creativity. it's people have such creativity. we have to be pretty creative just to existhere man. do you realize how many people are livingin this little tiny space? mr: it just floors me that it all works. bp: yeah, right. i had a friend come from europe, he wasn'tused to this, so he says every morning he used to go to his window and look out, justlook out, from seven to nine, all these people
coming out like little ants, but he said theynever bumped into each other. and he said from nine-thirty, they all goback in. and he looks out his window again at elevento one. but i think for me, people have to have moreintelligence here than they do other places. otherwise it would be utter chaos. the haitians have to understand the chinese,because we all pass each other in the street everyday. so i think just instinctively we've developeda pretty sophisticated way of dealing with each other, and respecting each other's races.
that's one of the things i am teaching, i'dlike to teach in schools with jazz. i'd like to teach that it is part of my culture,but i mean it's the story of my culture. now sometimes i'd be just as happy to sitdown and let you tell me about the year, the month, or yom kippur, or whatever celebration. i think the next thing in education, and avery important thing, is going to be cultures. because right now we have such a hodgepodgeof everybody, and when we start teaching to appreciate each other's culture i think that'sone of the ways for us to go into the next century. if we disregard that, well i don't think there'sanything that we can disregard.
because we're doing it now, and respectingeach other, but this will just heighten that appreciation because as americans i thinkwe have the advantage of being able to laugh at other things that we didn't understand,for instance other languages. americans for a long time would go to franceand be mad at the people because they couldn't speak english. but i think that's my point. we're beginning to get around this where wehave - well i'll tell you a for instance. i don't have a computer yet. i don't have a computer because whenever ihad time, i've been writing to people who
have computers, now if i had time i felt likei should get to my horn and practice. i'm finally, i'm getting a computer next week. i've already paid for it, only because myolder sister told me that my daughter will be able to keep me in touch with my grandchild'smovements much easier by e-mail than calling me. so that's been the impetus for me. now i can use a computer, you know i teachschool and stuff, but it was simply like that, that it finally - because i've really hadaccess to computer for 20 years, whatever. mr: i wanted to follow up on something thatyou just mentioned, jazz being the story of
your culture and america's culture. there's been a lot of press lately about conflictof looking at jazz history from a racial standpoint. and just a couple of weeks ago there was athing in the times from an author who was i guess complaining that the white musiciansthat he considered innovators- bp: have you heard him play? mr: i have not heard this man play. bp: well. well he has his opinion. but for me, i wish we'd get over all of that.
acknowledge that everybody had something todo with this. one of the things i think that's never beenplayed enough is benny goodman's role in showing a visible democracy. up until then you'd see pictures of franklindelano roosevelt with dr. george washington carver; eleanor roosevelt with marion anderson,but they weren't doing anything. benny goodman with lionel hampton, teddy wilson,gene krupa, was one of the first visible evidence that we could work together in that kind ofrespect. and i don't think history books have madeenough of that. i think if that were the case then we wouldn'tstill have these arguments, because we would
decided that then, we all made this stuff. now if you go into the non-racial thing thenyou're disrespecting my heritage because you see the blues came from people being whippedand beaten and all of that. i know we'd all like to forget about that,but i think it was because of that - i have a contention, no great art is ever createdby happy people. it's always adversity that creates art. so when i do my lectures, i start off my lectureswith negro spirituals because they chronicle the experience, which is "nobody knows thetrouble i've seen," and the i tell the people about the voice of being cut off.
anyway, it's a deep story behind it, and jazzis being left out. that's one of the things that i have a problemwith now. a lot of jazz education that's being taught,the people, or the judges and so forth, are people - well iaje for instance was startedby a man from kansas who was a stan kenton fan. and that's great. but the emphasis on a lot of the conferencesi've been to, starts jazz off there. and so they kind of leave out count basie,fats waller, louis armstrong, duke ellington, and so forth.
so i kind of have a problem with that. but whenever i have a problem with anything,rather than complain about it, i provide another solution. that's why i am teaching and stuff. and this guy, i don't know whether i shouldcall his name or not but i guess i shouldn't now that i've made my little smart remarksyou know. but i don't know, i think i'd like to getpast all of this. because when you walk to the microphone, itdon't know whether you're blue or black or green, a man, a woman, a midget or whatever.
and that's the common denominator. writers have their place and so forth, butwhen it comes to explaining music and so forth, i say well if you know so much about it, takeyour horn out and let's play. mr: it almost seems to go hand in hand with- jazz has been elevated to an art form. bp: that's what it is. and when i speak of culture, what i've donea lot of times is cultural exchange. when i was in california i did a lot of thingswith african people. it was an exchange. i did jazz, they did african.
i've done a couple of cultural exchanges,and that's what i'm speaking of. it's not either/or, it's and. jazz is a product of all of us, just likethe beginning is a product of my people, there's some other parts that are a product of otherpeople. all kinds of people. i don't know why the name tubby hayes keepsringing in my head, but tubby hayes was a saxophonist from england, you know there'salways the question about whether white guys could play or not and stuff. also, one of my favorite saxophonists of alltime is stan getz.
but that thing about who can play becauseof their skin color, i don't know, i can't really deal with that. mr: well said. tell me about your work with jane jarvis,who is one of our favorite people. bp: oh, that's the sweetheart. that's right, she's been up to your school. i think maybe about five years ago i playedthe sarasota jazz festival and it just so happened that we came down on the elevatortogether, and the dining room was a little short walk outside, it was like a motel typething.
and we walked over and she said, "are yougoing to eat?" i kid about i don't know which one of us pickedthe other one up. i had dinner with her, and she was just utterlyfascinating. i think she must have been 80 by then. she's 83 now. yeah she was 80 because i remember for myown recollection, that weekend i met about three people who were over 80, jay mcshann,jane jarvis, and claude williams. and i always kid them all i said for me itwas no problem figuring out what i was going to eat, i just said give me one of them, whateverthey ordered, i'll have the same.
because here they are 80 years old and they'restill playing jazz festivals. i want some of that. whatever is going to let me do that, giveme some. so we met then, and we decided that we hadcrossed paths a lot of times, but both of us took corporate gigs. she worked for bmi, no muzak. mr: muzak. bp: she worked for muzak, i worked for mervgriffin. so both of us are kind of, when you work withcorporations you don't see anybody except
in the corporation you're with. so we kind of passed each other there. also, she was an organist at shea stadium. i'm not particularly a sports fan, enoughto go to the games. many guys did know her from there: frank wessused to go in wherever she was playing and just mess with her, and a lot of guys. so i knew who she was, bill berry, she's avery good friend. and incidentally, the three of us are playingtogether next wednesday night in ft. lauderdale.
mr: with the statesmen? mr: all right. bp: bill berry's there also. so it's funny how everything comes full circle. anyway we ate and we found out we enjoyedeach other's company. i found her utterly delightful and the thingsshe likes. so we kind of kept in touch. i've sort of had a crusade really, to getsome acknowledgement or recognition for her, so we formed this trio, jane jarvis, earlmay and myself.
and we played at zinno's and when i go downto ft. lauderdale, i think when my little stage patter,i'll say that when i was asked to join this band, the statesman, i had no choice. they had two-thirds of my trio already. mr: so earl may's on the gig too, right? bp: yes, yes, yes. mr: you'll be one of the younger guys. bp: i might be. mr: could be.
bp: the last time i played with them i wasthe young guy. no i think there's somebody from florida who'snot familiar to me. he may be younger than i am. if he is i'll kill him. mr: not jerry jerome, he's older than you. bp: no this guy's going to take jerry's place. jerry i understand - jerry is not too well. it's odd that you'd mention that, becausei have a tape, a jazz profile that bill kirchner put together on johnny mandel.
it was broadcast over national public radio. a fine tape. johnny mandel and i used to be roommates withcount basie's band. anyway, on this tape he mentions jerry jeromeand jerry jerome's affiliation with bebop. because there were a lot of guys in it. i mean this, see-mr: i didn't know that. bp: and since then i've talked with jimmyowens and he said the new school has some of jerry jerome's arrangements. so i hope to make a copy of this tape andtake it to him because i understand he's not
too well. [pause for drink]mr: well after basie, did you find yourself, you'd had your fill of big bands for a while? although i know you ended up with thad jones. i was really trying to get a job with charlieventura. charlie ventura had a small group and it wasa bit different - i think jackie cain and roy kral, jackie & roy were singing with him. he was playing tenor, and bennie green wasplaying trombone. and it really made for a nice ensemble sound.
that is one of the jobs that i wanted thati was seeking. i think i wrote cannonball adderley and askedhim to add a trombone, because i really did want to play with a smaller group for a while. i wasn't too successful. in fact i went to mingus' house, thad wastrying to get me in mingus' band. but it was kind of weird because i rememberpepper adams was there and he was transcribing something from the piano, and i don't remembersaying too much to mingus, and i don't remember him saying too much to me. i think we were sort of checking each otherout.
i know i was looking at him to see, causemingus had a reputation for - well first of all one of the things that didn't sit toowell with me was the reputation that he had for knocking out jimmy knepper's two frontteeth. so maybe i wanted to work with this guy, buti didn't know about wanting to work for him that bad. anyway there was a job with illinois jacquetthat i was trying for. no but all of this is the transition fromhamp's band to basie's band. when i left basie's band i was still tryingto work in a smaller group. that's why i'm so pleased about randy's thing,because i've always wanted to work with a
small group and here i am 587 and i'm gettingthe chance to do it. mr: tell me about, we're hopping around alittle bit but as these things occur to me i want to ask before i forget, the thing withthe union and the new school. bp: oh, let me finish with jane. mr: oh yes, we jumped off there. bp: after we talked and so forth we decidedwe'd keep in touch with each other. we didn't decide to form a group right away. i think maybe i went to visit her and i'dtake my horn out and i kid about the kind of day, let's see if i can remember, i'llstructure a day.
wake up in the morning, eat our oatmeal, takeour pills, practice, take our nap, wake up and have lunch, practice, take another nap-but one of the things i like about hanging with her, she is loose like i am. we sleep when we're sleepy and we eat whenwe're hungry. you know she doesn't have like a eat at eighto'clock in the morning. so i thoroughly enjoyed her company, and stayingat her house. i found out too that she was a composer. i'd never known anything about that. she wrote 31 tunes for a broadway show.
so she was showing me some of the tunes wheni was at her home. and i started playing them, and they startedsounding pretty good. so i guess maybe the idea was born for a trioin my head at that time. and then when we put it together, earl mayhas always been my very favorite bass player. he's thoroughly supportive, but he's thoroughlynuts, and that's my kind of person. he's a very kind man, but he has one of thosesubtle senses of humor. i'll tell you a for instance. i was doing a school program and i had thisparticipation for kids. so if i want to tell them about nat king cole,i start off with something they know.
"how many of you know who natalie cole is?" hands would go up. "well do you know what she does?" oh yes, she's a singer. they're little kids. so i say, "do you know who natalie cole'sfather was?" just leading up to the irony. earl says "freddie hubbard." "do you know who natalie cole's father was?"
yes, freddie hubbard. but he's just a beautiful guy to work with. because you see after i teach my students,being a good musician is only half of it. being a nice person is the other half, ormaybe 65 percent. because new york has a bunch of good musicians,but when you get ready to go out on the road and take somebody out there with you, you'reresponsible for them, and you certainly don't want to hire anybody who's a drag, anybodywho's - i think that's how jane and i recognized each other right away. we saw that we were both no nonsense people,and we are both hard working people.
anyway, to kind of put an end to this story,jane is very supportive. she's got me believing i can sing, so i'msinging some of the tunes that she's written, also i've written lyrics to my own song, thefirst time in 68 years i've ever written music and lyrics. and they're in a metaphysical realm, a religiousside of mine. in fact, one of my main influences is o.c.smith. he was singing with the count basie band,he is in church now, he's a minister in this science of mind. all of these things are kind of tying in because,because of the spiritual level i'm on now,
or level of spirituality, jane is there, earlis there, we all, it's like birds of a feather. so besides the music part of it, we have akind of like spiritual side. so it's pretty complete for three people,and we just have the grandest time. well i'm fortunate enough now to work withpeople who i enjoy on the stand and off. that's what i was talking about, being a niceperson off the stand. mr: excellent advice. well that's what comes - especially in newyork man. if you don't want to make it there's somebodyelse who will make it in the next five minutes, and probably - well the fact that they wantto make it is if they're easy to get along
with, or you just blew that gig. you don't hesitate in new york man, becausethe supply and demand, there's a much bigger supply than there is the demand. mr: i was going to ask if the jazz seems tobe getting quite a bit of press lately- mr: and as i said, has been elevated to itsrightful status - i wonder if it translates into work though. bp: not really. we were talking about well i'll start thisstory all over again, about three or four years ago, myself and three other guys whohave been active not only for musicians but
civil rights, and a little politically active,decided that we could get some of the things done better with a committee, so we organizeda jazz advisory committee for local 802. one of the first things that we saw as a possiblegoal was union representation for ourselves as members of the jazz faculty of the newschool. we started working on this in april of 1996. i remember very well because i got my kidneytransplant in january, two months before that. anyway, last december in 1998, we finallygot a contract ratified with the union. and i think this is historic, this thing isgetting a lot of press, in fact you want to shoot these things now or afterwards?
bp: is there any way we can put this on astand? anyway i can hold it up. this first is the allegro newspaper. and it's the union newspaper, and it says"new school jazz faculty ratifies a historic contract." it is historic because i think it's the firsttime any arts department has been represented by the union. the clerical aspects of it, and this is ithink going to affect teaching maybe across the board.
i think at some time it probably will effectyou. you're a teacher and so forth. but this is all for a pension fund first ofall, and health & welfare. now that means the employer pays that forus. i'm fortunate enough to be collecting thisbecause i did broadway shows for many years. and i had no idea about a pension fund. you know i'm a jazz musician, i just happenedto get this broadway show. pension? i don't need a pension, i'm never going todie, i'm going to have fun like this all my
life. this is from the new york times, we made thenew york times. and it says jimmy owens, a spearhead for thething, he's a very well researched guy, and is myself, and these are two of the studentsat the new school. this guy's from portugal, and i think she'sfrom north carolina by - oh no it's the other way around. this guy is from portugal, she is from californiaby way of north carolina. both of these are excellent students. now the new school staff has grown very muchdue to our celebrity.
but although we had celebrities of peoplelike reggie workman, cecil mcbee, charlie persip, oh you can name all of the great jazzmusicians, joe chambers, are working there. now we've been used in ads and so forth toattract students, and the student enrollment has doubled like two hundred percent or something. but until we had union contract ratification,we were not seeing that. we'd see all these students come there, andi personally felt kind of used. but fortunately the new school is a progressivethinking institution, and in negotiations, i wasn't on any negotiating committee, buti think what i liked about it was both sides acted admirably.
we didn't have any -nobody had to go to thepress, and threaten to burn the building down. we were also very fortunate to have a very,i think understanding person in the person of dr. barbara emerson, who is vice presidentof programming. she is also the daughter of reverend holseawilliams from the civil rights movement. and she's fairly new in the jazz program thisyear. when i found out she was there i had a meetingwith her in her office and i said, "you're the answer to my prayer." because i wanted to see things improved, butwe are in such an infancy, you know yourself, you work at an institution, the bureaucracyof things that can get in your way when you're
trying to make a change especially. so i think we have - i'm very optimistic abouthow things are moving now. what we are trying to do with this committeeis show musicians that instead of complaining, they can actually do something about the situation. and i feel very good that we're kind of achievingthat. i feel especially good because i've been ableto keep my career going as well as - it can become consuming when you get involvedin something. bp: well for example bill crow, i don't knowif you know him he's a bass player. mr: yes i do.
bp: he's with the union, he's there almostfull time so he doesn't get a chance to do the traveling that i'm doing. but he's nonetheless a fine bass player. and he's doing his part there too. i think he's head of some part of the unionthat's doing the same thing, trying to enlighten musicians about - i think they're called themusician's assistance program. they had a seminar, and it's a seminar justtrying to enlighten musicians to what they can do about their own plights. mr: you had a couple of more picture here,and i wonder if we could take a look at them?
well let me get the current stuff out. recently i went to japan. that was very interesting because i went bymyself, i wasn't with anybody's band, i was just invited as a guest. one of the jobs i worked with was an amateurband, but for the most part i worked six different concerts with six different bands in six differenthalls, in two days. mr: in two days. bp: two days. it was kobai jazz festival.
and it was all done in eight hours those twodays, because we did this from 12-4, three concerts a day. like 12 to 12:40, 2 to 2:40 or something likethat. you know by 4 o'clock you're finished. anyway this was very successful for me becausei don't get a chance to go out of the country by myself that much, just by myself, juston my own merit. i'm usually with somebody else who has a name. i think there are some places where if i wentby myself nobody would show up because you know i'm not really a household name.
anyway this was very interesting in japanand i enjoyed that. i have a very dear friend, ken fujiwara ishis name, he used to have ken records here, some of conrad herwig's albums were recordedby this man, my japanese friend. he lives there now, and he's the one who broughtme over. next year i hope to release an album throughhis company in japan, something that i recorded with clifford jordan and vernel fournier. i've got some things in the can that i'vealways tried to do my own thing, not really, of course i tried to get a record deal likeanybody else, but the records i've done, i've produced with merv griffin money, or i'vehad to do my stuff myself.
but consequently, at this point, i have allthe right. i have the original tapes and stuff, becausei did it. so now i'm in the process of releasing someof these things. and i've got some marvelous stuff. i've got a tape that shows some of the finestwork of vernel fournier, jack wilson, he's a pianist in california, ted dunbar, cliffordjordan, all these are on one album, and most of these guys are not here anymore, and ifthey are they're not around really playing anymore. so that's my purpose for releasing these thingsmore so than a hit album.
i doubt if i'll ever - i've given up on theidea of becoming a popular star. i don't think i ever wanted that man, becausei like my private life. and consequently i've done my own bookingand so forth because if i want to go and visit my kids and my granddaughter, i don't wantanybody telling me but i booked this and you've got to go and do that. so consequently i guess i've got 50 percentof something as opposed to 100 percent of nothing, and that's what a lot of that canbe. you know it seems like you're being very successfulbut you've got people telling you when to breathe.
so that doesn't work. mr: well it occurs to me that we've been talkingfor about an hour and i have yet to hear you moan and complain about anything. bp: oh that's a luxury i can't afford. mr: well you know, not everybody is like that. bp: well i think it would help if they werebecause i think positive things happen for you only if you think positively, and if youmake a bad thing, if you turn a bad thing into a good thing. for instance, like with slavery, maybe ifwe hadn't had any slavery we wouldn't have
had ourselves billie holiday and all of thatbecause that's why i think you can't wipe out the racial lines. but my point is i guess in my life i've takenthings - for instance, when i took a job with merv griffin, many guys i'm sure said, "bennypowell is selling out," or whatever. i've had jobs, but i would work with mervgriffin and get finished with that and go out and play with thad jones in the evening. so i guess i, and many people remarked thati came through this kidney dialysis and all of that - in fact clark terry calls me king. now can you imagine that?
i just got a message from him, he called andplayed happy new years, but man not in my wildest dreams - max roach had some kind ofname for me. now these guys, i came up like a kid, idolizingthese guys. now that's really because i had a life threateningthing, that has nothing to do with music at all. but that's what i'm saying. if i had looked at oh woe is me, in fact whenit first happened to me i talked to one of my sisters i think when it first happenedto me, when i was first inconvenienced by it.
my sister said, "i don't know why it happenedto you brother," but she says, "if you think about what you have as opposed to what you'velost, and work with that, i'm sure everything will be fine." and at that point i realized how lucky i hadbeen and how lucky i still was. i had something to work with. and i think that if you keep your mind busy,and music is humbling itself, i'm still trying to learn how to play trombone. i have no time to think about i'm sick. i would never have been able to play thatway.
so have we used up all your tape? mr: how we doing there, tim? the pictures. bp: oh yeah, as i was digging out, i don'tknow i was going through looking for other things and i happened to find, i've got awhole archive in my house man, because i'm one of those people who saved everything. i've got newspaper clippings from count basiewhen i was with his band in the 50s in europe. in fact i've got some pay receipts from lionelhampton from 1948, just because i kept all these things.
anyway, these are the members of count basie'sband. these are alumni. because i think in this picture there's joenewman, frank wess, me with hair, i'm sorry joe newman, frank foster, benny powell, frankwess. behind us is jimmy owens because this wasdone at his home. the other guys are a film crew from hollandwho came over to do a piece on count basie's band. this is, i've been very fortunate to playwith some of the greats. this is one of the greats.
this is mr. eddie durham, who played tromboneas well. but actually i guess his claim to fame, manypeople have danced to his compositions and not realized it. "in the mood" is one of the most known piecesof all time in america. this is the guy who wrote it and sold it toglenn miller. he used to be a staff arranger. he was a very fascinating man. a lot of times when i do these educationalprograms, i really like to do things like this and show, because a lot of times peoplehave ideas that jazz is a starvation thing,
and so forth, you show some of the picturesof duke ellington's band, benny carter's band in 1934, they're traveling in the south yetthese guys have got pearl gray suits on with spotless white shoes. so that's a long way from the pictures that'sportrayed of black people in those days. this was at a party given by bmi the publishers. and they're significant because of all - wellthey're significant to me, i am in the company of all my people that i've idolized for years:roy eldridge, sy oliver, lionel hampton, milt hinton, george simon, gary burton and helen- i can't remember her name but she was president of bmi.
there i am, and doc cheatham, i don't rememberthis lady, but this is max roach and oliver jackson. so to me, just to be in the same room, andmuch less on a picture, is something that i'll always cherish. lionel hampton was my first big band leaderfriend. this was taken on a tour with randy weston,when dizzy gillespie was sick. we were in europe at the time. this is randy of course, this is talib kibwe,this is stafford james and me, and eric assasnte, that's his name, eric ajie is the comic.
eric assante. when dizzy was sick we took this picture,we love you dizzy, to send to him. again, this is taken at the same party andthe same people. i don't know who this gentleman is at thetop here. do you recognize him? mr: no. bp: and the last is lionel hampton, gary burtonand myself, and i don't know who the bass player was. but every so often when i'm going throughfiles and stuff, i'll run across pictures
like this, and to me, right now, i'm sortof objective about it. it's like it happened to somebody else. and i still feel like a little kid when i'maround - just recently i was at lincoln center two nights ago, and to pay tribute to dukeellington, and well even around max and randy, i still feel like the little who's wow, theseare my idols. i still really do feel like it. and i'll tell you even more so. i was at a tribute to clark terry a littlewhile ago, and i had the pleasure of sitting next to jonah jones and talking to him, andit was utterly fascinating.
he was able to talk about roy eldridge whenhe was a little kid, quentin jackson, some obscure musicians to the general public, butnevertheless friends of mine, and to see him light up when he talked about all of thesethings was just a delight. mr: well i can relate to that because that'show i feel being around guys like you. bp: oh thank you. well when we're sitting around telling stories,well i think it's a good feeling for all of us. because i think those of us who really lovejazz have a humility about it. we realize that none of it is a big deal,the big deal is just being a nice human being
or trying to be the same kind of human beingduke ellington, ella fitzgerald, count basie, sarah vaughan. if you can live up to their humanity, hopefullyyou'll make some good music. mr: well speaking of good music, i just wantedto ask you if you remember the specifics of this particular recording session. [audio interlude]bp: my first impression is how blessed i am to have been a part of that because as i hearit i think about freddie green, i think about marshall royal, that was just the two thingsthat jumped out at me right away, since marshall royal played lead alto and it was so solid,then you could hear freddie green in the back.
i don't really remember as much from thisdate as i do from the one we did with duke ellington. mr: oh, both bands? it was called battle royal. i think i was like a kid in a candy storebecause i think where i was seated, i was sort of like i was in eyeshot of both basieand duke ellington, and i kept pinching myself, i said you're not here, you're going to wakeup any minute. and these guys were such statesmen themselves,because someone remarked the other night at lincoln center on the duke ellington thing,about that same date.
i think it ended up with basie playing soloon "take the a train," and duke playing a solo on "one o'clock jump." but those guys were such statesmen, they'dsay, "well mr. basie, this number just demands your presence." "but no, maestro, i wouldn't dare." oh man those guys were cool. oh man. and i was a little kid, you know, and i'mlooking at these guys. and i don't believe it.
but also i remember one of the biggest sensualthrills i've ever gotten, on the end there's both of these bands playing these huge chords,i think that arrangement was by jimmy jones who used to be accompanist for sarah vaughan. i think he had a hand in that. but man at the end there's some power chordsin sonny payne's solo. the drum is playing through all of that. oh man, if you were in the room, sometimestry it yourself. go to somewhere in a pretty enclosed room,and turn up the sound. i mean it will just do all sorts of thingto yourself.
it will rearrange your cells. but i think i remember that more than. mr: did you guys ever have a sense of whenone particular song was going to hit for the band? well i always say that. nobody knows when anything is going to bea hit, otherwise we'd all have hits. mr: that's true. bp: and basie himself, i hope i've learnedsomething from him so far as how to take a natural thing and make it saleable.
because it was so natural for him to say onemore time on the end, but that sold it as much as the music did. because at the end he says "one more time"and we play it all over again. now this, i remember, we did a movie withjerry lewis, "cinderfella." and this little created bit that basie didon it made this usable to many things. i think i've done some things with sammy davisjr. and so forth. and it became almost like a coca cola commercial- one more time. but basie was very slick that way. and i guess i did learn something from himbecause i'm still around and i'm still doing
but he was so natural man. what he did was so simple, everyone wouldthink why didn't i think of that, it was right in front of me? and so was duke. all those guys were special breeds of people. a special breed i should say. mr: well, fascinating. i really appreciate your time again. and i wish you the best in your travels, andall your projects, and your work with jane.
bp: one time, let me put in my bit for us,if possible, why don't you have a residency with jane and i and earl? mr: that would be a good combination. bp: in fact if we can talk about it afterwards,maybe i can help you find some money for it. mr: yeah? you're in new york state? we're outside utica. bp: well we have the national endowment andthe new york state council on the arts. mr: well there you go, i'd love to.
bp: but because just to do this same thing,i'd like to say i'm glad, thank you first of all, for allowing me to do this, to documentit. because one of the good things is we havethis technology now, you see before you either had to write it down or read a book or something,you can see it coming from the horse's mouth. and i'm sure, i'd really like to come up toyour place and look at all the tapes you've done of the other guys. i know snooky young, and joe williams was80 years old, did you know? i guess he had a big part at liberache's estate. race, oh, that would be like joe.
i saw him at the white house, they did a thingat christmas in washington, d.c, no, no it was a thing at the kennedy center where theyhonored bill cosby, but joe was in the audience. mr: by the way, have you ever read his biography? bp: joe's? mr: by leslie gourse? mr: okay. he mentions some nice things about you too. it's funny because leslie gourse made himcome out like erroll flynn. he was joe williams the lover i think.
no it was good through because joe is a classact. in fact one of my greatest gigs was with himabout two or three years ago. he was working at the skyland room, what isit, nbc- mr: the rainbow room. bp: the rainbow room, yes. he had four weeks there. and each week he would invite another guestmusician and i was a guest for one week, and had such a great time. because to me first of all he's the consummateprofessional.
so you know being that he certainly made mecomfortable and put me in spotlights where i'd look good. so he's a dynamite person. mr: great. well thanks for your time. bp: my pleasure. mr: stay healthy. bp: i intend to, thank you, and the same toyou.
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