By Josef Woodard
Longevity is not uncommon in jazz, an art form that, once in one’s blood, can be a happy lifelong affliction. But often, veteran jazz musicians ride on past glories and resist change or challenge. Then, in his own odd corner of the music world, there is the phenomenon known as Dave Brubeck. Brubeck breezed past his 80th birthday in 2000, and, apart from a few slowing physical conditions, abides by a powerful creative work ethic. He came out with an album of new originals, The Crossing, on Telarc last year.
More importantly, Brubeck is actively engaged, and on multiple fronts. He attacks his piano with his trademark intensity, and has a uniquely unsentimental sweetness when approaching ballads. He continues to pen new tunes, as well as larger compositional forms for classical settings and classical-jazz mixtures, and you can often find him on tour with a quartet which often includes one or more of his musical sons.
As jazz figures go, Brubeck has passed safely through many different eras, without ever really leaving his own particular, self-invented niche of the music. Part of his singular sound comes from his unorthodox education, including studies with the composer Darius Milhaud at Mills College in Oakland, California. Milhaud, not coincidentally, was one of the earliest composers to blend jazz into his classical writing, particularly in the seminal Le Creation du Monde. Brubeck, his famed protégé, ventured into odd meters (most famously, in his “hit” song “Take Five” and in “Rondo ala Turk”), and other ideas influenced by sources outside of jazz itself, and outside of western music.
Along the way, Brubeck has twisted in and out of critical fashion: that tendency began early, when he first earned praises for his music and then, after becoming a veritable celebrity who landed on the cover of TIME magazine, experiencing some critical backlash. But any of the jazz press’ perceived musical sins, including the sin of popularity, seems to be forgiven by this point: Brubeck, in his ‘80s, exists in a kind of state of grace, living proof that jazz can both be a renewable passion and a form subject to outside influences.
Jazz Hot : Looking back on your studies with Milhaud, was that a real deciding influence on your musical direction?
Dave Brubeck : Oh boy. Yeah, he was really instrumental in giving me confidence, which I really lacked. I couldn't read music when I was studying with him. That didn't bother him. He'd say “look, you'll do it on your own. You'll do it by yourself. It's too late for me to give you a European background.” But he gave me something better, which was the confidence that I should be a composer, in spite of my weaknesses.
He was actively interested in jazz himself, wasn't he?
Oh very much. His Octet was born right in his class.
Was his idea always that there was a way to combine classical and jazz genres?
He was the first, maybe, to do that, with "Creation of the World." We were all used to being told that jazz wasn't a serious art form. He was saying that it was the only serious art form in America. He said that Ellington and Gershwin were the best American composers. We couldn't believe that, this coming from this tremendous musician.
He said, "if you're going to express your culture and you're an American composer, you should use the jazz idiom." Of course, the composers that seemed to have the most life now and a chance of living on are people who have done that, with people like Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, and of course Gershwin and Ellington. There are a lot of composers who have used and are using the jazz idiom in one way or another.
Even Stravinsky...
Stravinsky, sure. In my last piece for chamber orchestra, the commissions went out with the specification that you use your favorite composer as a point of departure. For my third movement, I used Bach, the Chromatic Fantasy, note for note, for the first few bars. The third movement is an ostinato and it's very jazz-like. When I've talked about this piece, I've said that the ostinato in jazz can be traced back to Bach. It's all so related in one way or another.
So Bach is one of your heroes?
Oh yea.
Was that part of your own personal challenge, once you dived into the music world out of school, to find ways to synthesize these different influences?
You know, I don't think you plan on doing that. A teacher that my wife and I had in college said, “we are the sum of our past.” That's how I feel about music. Everything that you've heard, whether you want to call on it or not, is liable to pop up.
Where, then, did your interest in unusual rhythms and meters come from?
From myself, and then later on, from studying with Milhaud and really seeing how a master handles all of this--polytonality and polyrhythms. I was encouraged by him to follow in that, if I wanted to. It wasn't easy, in the '40s, to be playing a job with guys and be playing in two or three keys at the same time. It upset a lot of people. It upset Paul the first time he heard it. Also, rhythm sections didn't know what to do. One of my earliest ideas was to mix 4/4 with 3/4, and the musicians thought I was crazy. I've had a lot of funny experiences. One of the most successful nights for the quartet was at Carnegie Hall. We were in probably three different tempos, and a critic said that we couldn't even play in the same time signature together. You see, he had no idea that this was what I had dreamt of doing.
Joe Morello could play four different tempos--one in each hand and one in each foot. I think he was way ahead of everybody. Then Gene Wright would hold down the fort with all his might. Paul loved to get into 3 when you were in 4 or 4 when you were in 3. We had all that going on and this critic said "well, they can't even play in the same time signature." So I had to fight all of that with other musicians. One night, I said to Shelly Manne, "I'm having such trouble with the guys in the bands playing bass and drums. I'm going to quit being a musician, because I just can't take the heat anymore. Will you stand on the side of the stage and watch my foot and listen to me, and tell me if I'm right, or if the bassist and drummer are right." After the set, he said "your foot's like a metronome." So I stayed and played. I was ready to quit for awhile and say "well, my ideas aren't working." Then Shelly said "you're like a metronome." I had one drummer--a very good drummer--who said "Dave, you don't need a drummer. You need a machine." I said "I don't want a machine, but I want you to be right there, to play against it." He said "that's almost impossible." I had listened to the music from the Dennis Roosevelt expedition into the Congo in the '40s. After that, there was no way I couldn't argue with anybody. I'd say, "ok, listen to what's going on in Africa and tell me if that isn't more complicated than the 4/4 that you guys want to play all your life."
Willis James is a black musicologist, who was at a round table at Lennox, where a lot of important jazz musicians like John Lewis, Gunther Schuller, Jimmy Giuffre and others would go up and teach and live. At this round table, they were discussing what I was doing and whether jazz should be in odd time signatures or not. Dr. Willis James got up and sang an African work song and he said "what I just sang was in 5/4, and Brubeck's on the right track." That took some of the pressure off.
It's true that there are so many world music traditions that deal with odd time signatures and polyrhythms. But, at that time, jazz hadn't really tapped into ethnic influences so much, had it?
I was pushing that, early on. Before they were using the term world music, I did albums like Jazz Impressions of Eurasia and Jazz Impressions of Japan, and the albums I made in Mexico. I've lived to see a lot of the things I was criticized for become common practice.
It seems that you've come into a real active period in the last few years. It appears that way from an outside perspective, looking at your new albums. How do you perceive it? Are you just more in the public now?
We have steadily had a public, from the late '40s on. I was on the cover of Time in '54. You know you have to already be in the public mind, or they won't put you there.
I just think it's a wonderful period, from the '40s on. We've been able to work when jazz was in the low period. We could still play. We could tour Europe. If you think I'm in a hot period now, think of the Top Ten jazz things in Melody Maker, a big magazine in the '50s and '60s. We had six things in the top ten.
You achieved a level of popularity back then, becoming a household name. Was there a price to be paid for fame, back when you were on the cover of Time and sold more than most other jazz musicians?
It's the same with everybody. I see the young guys today, the ones who get the most publicity, at some point start getting the most criticism. It happened with Duke and certainly with Louis Armstrong and Kenton. I can't think of anybody who it didn't happen to, to a greater or lesser degree. It doesn't matter if you're the president of the United States or what. A friend of mine once said "the higher up the mountain you go, the bigger the target you become, and the guys who can't make it start throwing rocks."
I see it with the young players, too. It's the critics who really helped me get where I am. I won the first Down Beat critic's poll. You'll always read how I had all these critics against me? Well, they were all for me in the beginning. The biggest critics in this country were writing about me when I hadn't yet left San Francisco--John Hammond and even Nat Hentoff. Then, as you climb up that mountain, you become more exposed and you start getting it.
Then, somebody... there was a wonderful article that Gene Lees just wrote, he admits that he didn't defend me when he was the head of Down Beat, because all of his critic friends had this idea of knocking me down.
You see, what happens is that the critics often go in packs. I happen to know about a letter, where a leading critic from the west coast wrote to the leading guy on the east coast saying how they should stop me. This is hard to believe, except that the letter exists. These are not little people. These are your top guys.
There can be something like a conspiracy?
There can be that. When you go to these meetings where these critics are, I hear there are some knock-down, drag-out fights. It's all with this whole idea that, if you're going to make it, you're going to be exposed to criticism, and you've got to take it.
Although you’re considered a mainstream player, you do things in a signature, Brubeck-ish way. Even a tune like “Your Own Sweet Way,” which has become a standard, has a couple of quirky turns in it, which I guess is what distinguishes it, makes it stand apart.
You know, I don’t know why everybody went for that. I didn’t know that they were quirky turns. I just wrote it in a half an hour. So to me, it wasn’t quirky. Except maybe that I’m quirky.
So you’re just being true to yourself?
I didn’t even think about it. I just wrote the tune. What do you think is quirky about it?
There’s that one unresolved chord at the end of the line in the “a” section. It cocks your ear a bit.
On my recording, I go to an E flat, and Miles went to an E natural. When I asked him why he did it, he said `why did you write it that way?’ So I guess when I wrote it out for him, I wrote it with an E natural. That’s the only way I can figure it out. That was his answer.
And that’s become the definitive note in the melody now?
Not always. A lot of people play it with the E flat. It’s about half and half.
There have been numerous reissues of your older albums in the last several years. When these are released, does it instill a rush of nostalgia?
It sure does. Fortunately, I get to hear them (ahead of time). Sometimes I don’t. The last Columbia album came out and I didn’t get to hear it. The last one came out like that and I didn’t know about it until it was number three on the jazz charts. I wondered `where did it come from?’ Fortunately, it’s a good album. I like what they picked.
They’ve found extra tracks, like from Jimmy Rushing, things I’d forgotten I’d even recorded, like “Shine On, Harvest Moon.” I’d forgotten that Jimmy had sung that. Then they’ll discover other things. When they released Dave Digs Disney, they found two tracks I had completely forgotten ever recording. They were as good as the other ones, but in those days, they liked to keep things to 18 minutes a side.
You were prolific in that period, weren’t you?
I had to do three a year for Columbia, and one a year for Fantasy. So I usually did four albums a year. That’s a lot of albums. Now, you can’t even get a sound check in the time that we would have finished an album back then.
Time Out was released in 1959. That must have been a real turning point for you, commercially and otherwise.
Yeah, it was. And Columbia didn’t want to put it out.
Too experimental?
Oh yeah. You couldn’t dance to it. Crazy time signatures. Painting on the cover. All originals. They’d never do that.
You don’t think about those things now.
We broke their unwritten laws. Except that Goddard Lieberson, the president, was the one who fought for it. He said `I’m so tired of hearing “Body and Soul” and “Stardust.” You’re doing something new and I think it’s a real breakthrough.’ So he pushed them, against their will, and the company never helped promote that album. In fact, they worked against it.
The disc jockeys across the country made it popular. It was especially a DJ in Chicago who was playing “Blue Rondo” and “Take Five” all the time. Even the single, I think, took over a year to come out. (“Take Five” and “Blue Rondo.”)
The success of that must have been a boost of encouragement for you, to pursue those interesting, law-breaking ideas.
Yeah, I followed it with Time Further Out, Time in Outer Space, Time Changes…
You’re in a position now of having to play your “hits.” I don’t know how many times you’ve played “Take Five” by now…
In certain countries, different songs will be popular. “Unsquare Dance” is a big hit in Austria, France and England. It was used on various TV shows as a theme song. That makes it big.
You are unique in that you successfully straddle at least two worlds now, the jazz and classical realm. Is it a comfortable dual life you’re leading?
Yeah. It’s a lot more work when you’ve got to write every darn note out and orchestrate and then get it copied, and then go to the rehearsals. It’s so much easier to have a jazz group. There’s so much less strain, than when you do something with an orchestra, which is a lot more difficult, I believe.
There is the line that Stravinsky used in “The Poetics of Music” that is so wonderful. He said that “composition is selective improvisation.” That says it all.
With composition, your mind is working just as if you were playing jazz, but then you’ve got to be selective about how it’s going to go together. A whole set of different problems come up. And yet I think the best music, whether it’s written or just played, sounds improvised, whether it’s Bach or Debussy or Stravinsky. If it’s got that improvised sound and that improvised feeling, where you’re speaking directly, at that moment, to the public, that’s the sign of good music.
In Dr. Faustus, Thomas Mann he goes into this problem, of what he calls the “flush on the cheek” of creativity. He’s describing a composer and what happens between this wonderful creative revelation and what you finally hear with the audience, after the conductor has said `no, we should do it this way’ and he does it a different way, and the copyist does something different and the players don’t play it the way you heard it in the beginning and yet they might play something very nice. So you have all these different things to diminish this original “flush on the cheek.” Whereas, in jazz, it’s immediate. If you’re inspired, you hear it. Pow. If it doesn’t make it, you collapse and fall. That’s my approach to jazz. Let it try and happen, and take your chances.
Is it important for you to work in both fields now, to satisfy different needs?
Yeah. I do need both. If I have to write and write and write, my piano technique goes down, from holding a pencil. You’re not playing, because you’re under a deadline and have to finish the piece. The premiere has been announced. You wish that you were out on the road playing jazz and that you had never seen a sheet of manuscript paper. At that moment, it seems so much more satisfying to be a jazz musician.
Then you play something great on the road as a jazz musician. You’ll never play it again. It’s gone forever, and then you think `gee, I wish I could have written that down.’ It goes back and forth.
You do seem to be generous in terms of playing your “hits.” I seen you many
times and I don’t think I’ve seen you avoid “Take Five,” for instance.
Oh, well, I want to get out of there alive, don’t I?
So that’s where you differ from Miles, for one. He abandoned whole eras of his history.
Well, when I have an audience hollering for it, you don’t want to have to stay there for two and a half hours. That’s a long time to play. You don’t want to stretch it to three. If you don’t play it, people aren’t going to be satisfied. They keep asking for it.
Have you found that young jazz players you're working with are more respectful of tradition than young players of years past?
They certainly are. It's back like it used to be, when I'd go on the road with Duke Ellington or Basie or Louis Armstrong and on and on. We were all like one, you know. There was no feeling of anything except real joy. Then I saw that disappear and it was, for me, a real sad time in jazz. This was in the late part of the '60s.
It wasn't just in jazz. It was the whole country. I think after Martin Luther King's assassination, it divided the country more than I'd ever seen it. Early on, it was bad, but not in jazz. There was segregation, and there was segregation in jazz to some extent, but there was still friendship through the segregation. It was imposed from the outside and not from the inside.
I think we're coming back now to a great period where the musicians of the quality of the young lions--the fellows I've contacted lately--are into respect for the history of jazz and a respect for the players, without getting into other reasons to like somebody. They like them for what they did and what they represent. This, I think, is so healthy and so important.
To broach a subject which may be tired by now. The subject is Ken Burns’ “JAZZ,” which seems to have embroiled the jazz community in a controversy. You had some valuable input on the show, as an interviewee. Do you have any observations about its value or problems at this point?
Oh, it’s really valuable. There’s no doubt about that. As for the people that are unhappy, there’s no law that says they can’t go make a better one. Maybe that desire to do something that was left out of Ken Burns’ (program) will stimulate a lot of research and doing something else (on the subject).
So your view is that it’s pretty much a win-win situation?
Oh, I think it was excellent for jazz.
Certainly, much of the criticism focuses on the way he raced through everything from 1960 forward.
Yeah, well, somebody should do something from 1960 forward. There’s a lot to be done there.
Have you noticed that the general public has more of an appetite for jazz, in the last year or so?
I would say there was more awareness after the Ken Burns show. I haven’t really seen much change. We’ve gone to Europe once or twice a year for 14 years in a row, and we went a lot before that. Usually, all the concerts are sold out - almost 100%. We play big festivals and the top auditoriums. On the last tour, we did my Mass in Vienna, Munich, and Berlin, and then went to play in London with the LSO for my 80th birthday. That was with four sons and Bobby Militello and Alec Dankworth. That’s what just came out on record, live from two concerts in London. It’s on the LSO Live label, and doing quite well.
You do seem to be forward-motion-oriented. I don’t get the sense that you’re one to rest on laurels.
(He laughs) I don’t have time to do that.
Kirk LIGHTSEY
By Josef Woodard
Kirk Lightsey belongs to this incredible melting pot of Detroit (Michigan) where he was born on the 15th of february 1937. The man reflects a great and communicative jollity. He roars with laughters and never stops joking. He is what we can call a man quiet at ease. On the other hand, when he sits at his piano, things are very serious. As a pianist he is very particular, and like a great nomber of musicians of his generation he is not a star, not in the foreground, but those guys are strong and fundamental creators, outside the mode and publicity. Deeply rooted in the jazz origins, having musically lived the whole history of jazz up to to-day, influenced by the French Impressionnists, he has developped both a lyrical and subtle style, with a great harmonic finesse, leaving its space to dream and silence, without ever forgetting swing, hotness, and invention.
Highly appreciated by singers and musicians it would be boring to name those he has played with. He speaks about a few of them in this interview. He welcomed me warmly and heartily, and of course with jollity, after his great duo with Ricky Ford in the Fort Napoleon Festival (La Seyne sur Mer – France) in 2003.
Jazz Hot : You’ve had an interview in Jazz Hot in 1995 (N° 520), so we’ll try to talk about other things.
Kirk Lightsey : Oh, it’s so old as that, oh yes I was already in Paris. But They’ve got the truth, believe me ! (laughs).
How did you come to play the piano, and not another instrument ?
Oh ! my god ! There were other instruments later, but there was always a piano in my house. I was a baby, and I can’t remember not sitting at the piano. So when I was about 4 years old, I asked my mother for lessons. So she took me to a couple of people and then she finally took me to a Mister Johnson-Flanagan, Tommy Flanagan’s brother, and he was really my first teacher, who understood how to get through to me. And then he was on the road, travelling playing music, then he sent me to Tommy Flanagan’s teacher, who turned out to be Barry Harris’ teacher, and Alice Coltrane’s teacher, and Ruth Watts’ teacher, and at the same school, Kenny Burrell was the young genius guitar teacher. We were all there at the same time, at the same place called the Community Music School of Detroit. “ Strange as it seems “ (He sings and aughs)
Were there musicians in your family ?
Not at all !
Jazz in the house ?
Yes. My mother, or was it my grandmother ? had a great record collection. And my grandmother used to sing and play the piano with one finger. But how she whistled, and not in the same key she sang ! She always whistled in fourth or fifth. But she didn’t know she did that.
And after the Community School, did you have any other teaching ?
I went to an elementary school, the middle school, and they had a band there, so I asked to play the saxophone because I had been listening to Charlie Parker. And they say they didn’t have a saxophone, so they gave me an old rusty metal clarinet. I practised it and I began to love it. I became good on the clarinet, good enough that my scholarship in college was on the clarinet. My MOS in the army was on the clarinet. And I travelled in many places with marching bands in Detroit, marching in parade, with the clarinet
Do you still play it ?
I can’t play it any more.
What about the saxophone ?
I don’t play the saxophone, there are plenty of other guys to play it ! I was playing classical music on the clarinet. And I was also playing classical music on the piano. But from the records that I was hearing in my house I’ve always heard great jazz music : Nat King Cole, Dinah Washington, Ella Fitzgerald, cats on the fiddle, and Louis Jordan, I’ve heard all Duke Ellington, all the great ones. He was the big band hero during this time, in the forties. My mother used to take me to the Paradise Theater where we could see Duke Ellington Band, Andy Kirk’s big band… There you saw all the big bands, Count basie, etc… I saw everybody. They were full shows, with a M.C., and there was a singer, then the big band, then the singer with the big band. All the people who had great personality inside the band made something, like Ray Nance who could play the violin, sing, and play the trumpet ! Then they had tap dance. We went there every Friday. The only person I didn’t see in the Paradise was Charlie Parker (laughs). But I saw him many times after that. I’ve never played with him, I was too young, I’ve just carried his horn ! He had some magic about him, he could discover. One day he came right to us and said : “ You boys, playing music ? I’m glad to see you here. What do you play ? ” He started talking to us. We were eyes bright open, and breath short. So we said timidly : “ Mister Charlie Parker can we carry your horn ? ” (big laughs)
Do you remember what year it was ?
Oh my god…That was probably in the early sixties. Or maybe in the fifties. We were there, and that was a big one for us.
Who were your piano heroes at the beginning ?
Art Tatum was always my hero, because he was magical, he was fastest than anybody I’ve ever heard. In Detroit, when I was studying, all the young who went to Barry Harris’house had to be ready to appear with the big guys at the World Stage, which was a space that only played music on Tuesday night, all the other clubs were closed, and everybody came on this stage, so young guys got a chance, if they were ready, to play with the big guys.
Who did you play with ?
I played with so many people in the World Stage that I can’t well remember, and they were all from Detroit. I even played with Chet Baker, and it ended up being one of the big things in my life, because I did 5 recordings with him, in 1965. And we did a tour later on with my quartet, Gerry (Olsen) thought Chet wouldn’t let him play the trumpet, but he said : come on up there, because Gerry Olsen played also hand drum.
What sort of man was Chet Baker ?
Outside of all the things he did, he was a very caring kind, really smart person. He was great.
And the musician ? You learnt a lot with him ?
Oh yes indeed. This is a funny story, on his last record that he did with Gamwixt ( ?)label, we were all in Amsterdam after a long tour in Europe, and they were putting this record together for me, and actually I was vexed as considered Amsterdam on the tour because I was supposed to be on the record with Chet Baker. It was like Kirk Lightsey Trio with guest Chet Baker and Dexter Gordon. Dex didn’t do it. So I told Chet : “ Go look, bring some music of yours we can play too ”. So he said : “ Hmm ! ok. ” So he was there early the next day, before us. I told him : “ You brought some music ? “ He said : “ Oh yeah ! ” He got to his bag and pulled out these sheets, put them on the piano, and only the lyrics to everything happens to me (laughs). We fell on the floor, it was so funny. There was no music, only the words ! That’s the kind of guy he was. It might not have been a joke for him, but that was a joke for us. And I have a great picture to him standing over me when I was sitting at the piano, and we were showing each other different changes on this tune we were rehearsing. He was a great guy.
At the beginning did you try to imitate somebody ?
Well, at the beginning you have to copy somebody, so I had my Bud Powell period, then Art Tatum but that was too much for me at that time. I had been studying classical piano for a long time, and I was pretty good. But see, I was learning music almost every day, but I was to Charlie Parker and Bud Powell only. So I was studying with Barry (Harris) and I’ve gone listened to Tommy (Flanagan) because he has three ranges of improvisation, so he was one of my greatest influences all the time. And later it became that Mister Hank Jones, he was also from Detroit. And I listened to everybody : Lennie Tristano, Horace Silver, Oscar Peterson of course, George Shearing. Oscar Peterson after a while I could just sing because he could play the ballads, most the figure I need, but Tommy Flanagan is still my hero. I call him father, and he answers : Hello son. (laughs)
I suppose you like the French Impressionnists like Satie, Debussy, Fauré…, because we can hear something of them in your playing ?
They’ve always been my favorites. I love these guys. Such expression in my imagination, they are great help, they had colours that I still practise.
What is jazz for you ?
Jazz was dance music, it was a party music, a happy music. It was the music to dance, the music to just have a party. It’s grown so far from that first feeling, that now I don’t know what jazz is. And I don’t know exactly if I’m doing jazz myself, from the original version, from the explanation that I gave. I’m away from that too. But, I mean, it should grow, it should expense, it should go as far as it can go, and keep the tradition somehow, its basic tradition. I’m not shure it’s there at the moment, but still better than rap ! (he shouts that word.) It’s still a creative, wonderful music, and it’s a music of discovery. And people from rap, or world music, or whatever, when they hear jazz music played magically, then they cannot turn away.
What makes the difference between jazz music and the other musics ?
It’s because you have a free range of colours and prospectives to be yourself, to be your personnality, and to be very musical and magical. It can be real magical music. It’s up to you to make it. I’ve always believed that the music I was playing could save the world, through that I am (Laughs). We’re still trying, we still believe that.. Music is the only art that can capture so many people at one time, and people of different origins, different cultures. Music is the only thing that can do that, I mean instantly, by just opening your ears.
What about swing ?
Swing is almost like golf ! (laughs) Swing got a lot to do with the rythm, the presence of our being, the presence of my. Swing for me is golf. Golf is a lot of my music.
So you’re a golfer ?
Yes I am. After all, jazz is golf (laughs). I used to be a tennis player, but all tennis players become young garments ( ?) (laughing) That’s what I am ! I am a young garment. (Laughs loudley).
Very often people repeat the sentence of Duke Ellington : It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing ?
But that’s golf. It don’t mean nothing if you can’t swing ! You’re always in the woods.
I think a man was very close to you at the beginning, I mean Cecil McBee ?
Oh yes, we were in the army together. Now the band that we were in, Cannonball Adderly used to be the top sergent in that band. So he had owned the feeling of the band, and this was in Fort Knox, between 60 and 62. I used to know exactly the time and the date and everything because I was in there. And at the time that I was drafted I didn’t want to, but I was taken there, they only got me because I told my story to the wrong psychologist (laughs). It was funny. I told him my story and he said : That’s a great story but you should have told it to the guy out there ! Well I was in that band, and I played de clarinet, so did Cecil. You Know Gus Niement (Ortho non garantie) ? He was the bassist in that band too. And he taught Cecil McBee the finger technique on the bass. The three fingers at that time, but Cecil played with all four fingers on the strings. I don’t know who next won it in the last, but in the army they learnt to play the bass together. Gus was a bass player but he played the tuba, and Cecil the clarinet. Gus still plays in Paris, and Cecil in New-York. Cecil and I worked together with the Leaders (plus Arthur Blythe, Chico Freeman, Lester Bowie, Don Moye).After the army I called him in Detroit and he played there for a few years, and we did a lot of things together, just leaving up for him moving up to New York. He had a history in Detroit too (laughs).
What kind of music did you play in the army band ?
Classical music, whatever they put up, boring music, a lot of marches, all kind of musics. I was a pretty good clarinettist, I had a good tone, a good technique, but I couldn’t tongue, that was why I gave up the clarinet, because I couldn’t expect to go all the way into playing classical music. I couldn’t tongue the articulation that is actually the character of the clarinet. The clarinet was my scholarship in college, and in the army it was a great friend of mine.
Did the playing of the clarinet have an influence on the way you play the piano ?
Well, harmonically it was great for me because I was actually the leader of the second clarinets which is a support player, for the first clarinets and the soloist, in an army classic band, which acts like a violin section, so the second clarinets are a very important support inside the harmony, and that was very important for me because I was inside of all the harmony. And that was great for my playing at the piano. I lived in that inside harmony. So yes, in a word ! (laughs)
You played with some singers… ?
Playing with the singers was a great problem in my career. I played with Della Reese, Damita Jo, Ernestine Anderson, Anita O’Day, I’ve made records with her, I played with Stevie Wonder, but he played the drums ! (laughs) For a couple of years I was on staff of Motown, at the beginning of Motwn in Detroit, and because Stevie had that feeling, he was little Stevie Wonder at the time, and they were bringing him to play drums on the takes. So I played with a few singers there.
Is it interesting for the pianist you are to back a singer, or is it boring ?
No, no, no, it’s not boring, it depends of the singer. Because to me the piano is an orchestra. It’s all imagination, it’s an illusion that you create around the singer. I love to play with singers that I love ! So the first twenty years of my career were playing with singers. I began with Della Reese, then The Four Tops, and then Damita Jo, she sang between Ella Fitzgerald and that Australian singer, Shirley Bassey. And through the great singers we did the whole chain in Motown in the United States, and outside the United States, like in Japan. I made tours with great singers and I conducted some of the greatest bands that I could imagine.
Damita Jo is quite forgotten now ?
She is dead also. She used to sing with the Red Cats, she was one of the great, and most of the great musicians I met ,because I was conducting for her, they were the greatest studio musicians in the world. That was an experience and an experiment, because I had to come up to that level, I don’t know how I did it, but I did. I even met Hank Jones conducting for her on “ Gene Kelly Special ”, in the greatest CBS Studio.
Gene Kelly, do you mean the famous dancer, singer, and actor ?
Yes, Hank Jones and him were on staff on CBS. He was sitting at the piano rehearsing with Gene Kelly. We met right there. He said : Hello, how are you ? I said : I am a piano player. He said : Come up and sit down. So we shared the same piano stool. He was the pianist for CBS. I said I was conducting the orchestra. He said : Oh Maestro ! Pleased to meet you. I was very young, 21maybe.
Serge Baudot