Junior Mance 1928-2021

 

It has been my privilege to meet and converse with a long list of notable jazz personalities, and I thought of pianist Junior Mance as one of my favorite guys. His wife, Gloria Clayborne Mance, announced his passing at home yesterday after a long illness. My first reaction to hearing this news was to fetch my autographed copy of the 1960s era “Harlem Lullaby” LP and play the title track. It took me back to my junior high days when I listened to an all-night jazz station and first heard this evocative Junior Mance composition.

We interviewed Junior twice for the Fillius Jazz Archive and he shared fascinating stories about his learning process, career path, and notable collaborations. Junior worked as a sideman with none other than Cannonball Adderley, Joe Williams, and many others, but spent most of his career as a leader of his own trio.

In a fortuitous aligning of the stars, we were able to facilitate a CD of a previously unreleased live date from 1964 with Joe Williams and the Junior Mance Trio with Ben Webster as special guest. “Havin’ A Good Time” was produced by Joel Dorn who also supervised Junior’s “Harlem Lullaby” LP.

In 2015 I was able to bring The Junior Mance Trio to Hamilton for what turned out to be his last road trip. He showed early signs of poor health, but his distinctive brand of blues-drenched bop won over students and faculty alike.

From the Fillius archive, here is a link to the first YouTube interview conducted with Junior on July 27, 1995. The second interview, conducted on January 18, 1999, can be found here.

The archive sends its deepest sympathy to Gloria, as we mourn the passing of yet another jazz luminary.

100 Years of Bird

 

This morning I visited five internet sites professing to rank the greatest saxophonists of all-time. Four of the five bestowed the honor on Charlie Parker, and the fifth put him at number two behind John Coltrane. This accurately represents Bird’s foremost position in jazz hierarchy.

My first exposure to Bird was not a recording, but an arrangement of the bebop classic “Groovin’ High.” When Bird recorded this uptempo tune with Dizzy Gillespie, his 16-bar solo represented perfect balance of improvisation and composition. The arranger transcribed the solo note for note and cleverly added four supporting saxophone parts. The result was an exquisite blend of melodic and harmonic elements. It was as difficult as any classical etude.

Today marks Charlie Parker’s 100^th birthday, and his influence has not diminished since his death in 1955 at age 34. Bird and a small number of like-minded instrumentalists changed the course of jazz and brought an enthusiastic cadre of young musicians along for the ride.

Charles McPherson offered a typical story of the effect of hearing Bird for the first time, in our 1998 interview:

CM: I grew up in Joplin, Missouri, which is a little town south of St. Louis. I was there up until about nine years of age then I moved to Detroit. But during the time that I was there, I did have occasion to see various bands, coming from Kansas City, territorial bands. This is when I was  maybe six. Every year in the summertime these bands would come to this park in Joplin and play for a week. I was quite impressed with the bands, with the music and with the way the horns look, just the physicalities of the nice, gold, shiny horn.

During the 50s, you didn’t have jazz in the schools. We just played the regular school type things. We played marches and for football games, morning auditorium and all that. It was fun playing and I really liked it, This is what I wanted to do. There were some jazz records around my house, but not a lot. And I did get interested in jazz and a student at school told me about Charlie Parker. I’d never heard of him. And he said, “You should really check this Charlie Parker out.” So I did. I went to a little candy shop in my neighborhood and on the juke box there was a Charlie Parker record, a little 45rpm. I think he was playing “Tico Tico,” which is a Brazilian samba song. And it just blew me away. I knew immediately that this is what I wanted to do. It made perfect sense to me. I didn’t need to be nurtured or taught how to listen to this music. I was about 14, when I heard that, I had no history of hearing a lot of jazz records, I had no concept of what’s considered bebop and modern jazz or any of that. It was like this is the way music should go. This is the way an instrumentalist should approach this. I felt that. I immediately said okay, I’ve got to get these records. Then I was told that this guy was a member of a group of musicians that play a certain genre of jazz, and it’s called bebop. There was like a school of them. So I said oh? That’s what that is. I had no idea that Charlie Parker represented anything but a jazz musician. I knew nothing about schools and styles. Then I just zeroed in on that. He was definitely my main influence.

View Charles’ YouTube video here.

The draw of Parker’s innovations compelled numerous aspiring jazz artists to New York City. Phil Woods offered his own variation on Bird’s magnetism:

PW: I graduated high school at the age of 16 and I wanted to go on with my music education. I went to the Manhattan School of Music for a summer course. I wanted to be in New York, that’s where Charlie Parker was.

MR:         You had to major on the clarinet, didn’t you?

PW:         Yeah. But clarinet, I think it served me well. I could work on my Mozart and with the keyboard stuff work on Bach, and I went to composers workshops. I sort of minored in composition. But at night I would study bebop, Charlie Parker, I’d have the radio on and listen to broadcasts from Birdland.

MR:         When was the first time you saw Charlie Parker play live, and what kind of effect did it have on you?

PW:         The first music I ever played of jazz, my teacher gave me transcribed Benny Carter solos. And then within that month, Ellington came to town and I saw Johnny Hodges. And then I picked up the latest record of this guy called Charlie Parker and it was “KoKo.” And that was it. I mean between Benny Carter, Hodges and Parker all in one dose, I said yeah, man, let me at it, my course was very clear, especially after hearing Bird. The first time I saw Bird would be on 52^nd Street when I was studying with Lenny Tristano, I was still in high school. That’s where I first heard Charlie Parker. I think he was sitting in with Milt Jackson and Howard McGhee.

MR:         What kind of person was he to you?

PW:         Sweet. I remember one day he asked me, “Did you eat today, young man?” I mean he didn’t know me from a hole in the wall, I was just another alto player looking at his heels, and he said, “did you eat today.” The misconception is that Charlie Parker was stealing everybody’s money and using it to buy drugs, but he was very nice to young musicians. That’s often overlooked. This is my only real Charlie Parker story up close — I was working in a place called the Nut Club in the Village, Sheridan Square. Playing for strippers, “Harlem Nocturne” ten times a night. This joint had so much class they would hand you like little wooden hammers as you walked in the door, so you could beat the shit out of the table for your favorite strippers. So somebody said, “Bird’s across the street jamming.” And he was over at Arthur’s Bar, which is still there to this day, it’s a little dinky joint. I walked in and there was Bird and he was playing on the baritone sax. Now let me preface this, at this period I didn’t know if my mouthpiece was right, I didn’t like the reed, I don’t like this horn, it’s not happening, I need new stuff, you know. So I got up my nerve and said, “Mr. Parker, perhaps you’d like to play my alto?” And he said, “That would be very nice, son.” Man I ran across Seventh Avenue and I got my horn, and I’m sitting — Bird was there and I was sitting there and the piano was there, just a drummer — a snare drum and a piano and Bird. And I’m sitting there. I hand him the horn. He played “Long Ago and Far Away,” Jerome Kern. And I’m listening to this guy and it seems there’s nothing wrong with my saxophone. The saxophone sounds pretty darn good, you know what I mean? And he says, “Now you play.” And I says oh Jesus. When kids talk about being awestruck, I know about awestruck. I did my feeble imitation of the master. He said, “Sounds real good, son.” Oh man, this time I flew over Seventh Avenue, and I played the Bejesus out of “Harlem Nocturne” that night. But I mean just those few words were so important.

Here’s a link to the full Phil Woods interview.

The lore of Parker’s talent and life are legion, most prominent among them is the story behind his nickname. Legend has it that a yard bird (chicken) crossing the road fell victim to the band’s car, and Charlie insisted on bringing it to their destination for dinner. Buddy Collette offered an competing tale in his interview in Los Angeles:

BC:  Bird had this meeting with Jimmy Cheatham. He said that all those stories are phony, that’s not what happened. He said when he was 14 years old he used to go out to the park with a couple of his buddies, a drummer or a guitar or bass player. Before school, at 6, 7 in the morning, so they could get a little practice in because at home they couldn’t get it in. They’d get home from school and they’d have to do work, so they’d get this hour or two early to play, just jam and do tunes and things. And he said that the neighbors could hear them. They were about a half a mile from the residential area. The cops would come by and they’d wave to them. They were just friendly neighborhood kids and they’d be jamming. So they said the neighbors called him the Bird. “Oh that’s just the Bird out there practicing in the morning.” So it was a kind of a cute story. They wanted to play so much that they would go out there, but that horn would always be going.

 

Buddy’s YouTube is located here.

In the 90s I recall a Fed Ex television commercial featuring the world’s fastest talker. His supersonic, perfectly articulated verbal delivery came to mind when I recently listened to some classic Charlie Parker recordings. His rapid-fire ideas matched with peerless technique remains a wonder to behold, even 66 years after his death.

Advice for Jazz Graduates

It’s May. Thousands of young people across the country move on from their college education into the real world. Some of them entered college not knowing what their career path might be, and some of them graduate from college still not totally clear on where they are headed. It’s been my experience that music students are among of the most focused of all young people. Music students know exactly why they’re going to college. They may be headed on a performance path or a music teaching career, but there is no doubt of their planned trajectory from day one of their freshman semester. Four, six or eight years later their hoped-for destination may have shifted, particularly in the field of jazz. Jazz is one of the most creative, exciting and challenging career paths a musician can pursue, and equally fraught with competition. In this blog we’d like to offer three opinions about a jazz career and how to prepare for it.

In a most recent interview, I spoke with Denis DiBlasio, saxophonist and educator at Rowan University. His take on careers in jazz is highly relevant for the times.

Denis DiBlasio, in 2019

MR:   So are you able to give [jazz majors] advice on what their possibilities are after they graduate?

DD:   Well the ones that are serious we usually have a talk right around the sophomore, junior year. And it’s different for these — the age that we’re teaching now than it was for us. They can’t do what I did, because what I did doesn’t exist anymore. You know you go out in the big band, maybe get a name. I mean almost everything that happened to me happened because I was on Maynard’s band and I maybe took advantage of it afterwards, doing these clinics and all this business you know. It all came because people saw me with that band and you know then you’re able to keep it going. Most of us that have been on the bands, a lot of them, like when I think about the people I know who are doing things now, they either were with Count’s band or Duke’s or Woody’s or Stan’s or Maynard’s or Buddy’s, you know? And when these guys leave they either go to Chicago, New York or LA for the most part, and there’s pockets of guys, and they’ve all had that kind of experience, so — but now that whole band thing doesn’t exist. And I don’t want to say it shouldn’t, it just doesn’t. But when a student starts talking now about you know what am I going to do when I get out, I get them in my office and we look at YouTube. And I talk to them about how certain people have to — well you have to kind of design your own life. There’s nothing that you’re going to go to and join and that’s going to be your life in jazz. However, you look up — look at some of the people who are creating their own thing, and I’ll pull up you know Leo Pellegrino? Too Many Zooz? He’s a baritone sax player. He’s playing. And so I’ll pull that up. And I said, “Look at what he did.” Now no one would think you’re going to make a living doing this. But he put this up. Social media is a big part of it. You develop your own audience so your audience comes and sees you, where before you would play a gig to sell your CDs. Now you’re giving away CDs to hope they come to your gig kind of, because you have to have, how do you develop your audience? You’ve got to have an online presence. It’s all the stuff that didn’t exist before. Have a website. People start to follow you. People ask you questions, you answer them back, and I have a couple of students that have gone out and been successful but part of the work is this online activity that is very much a part of it all. We have a Music Industry major at our school. And these guys that teach it like they’re all about this thing. And I asked one of the guys, I said, “How do you get a record deal these days?” Because the record deal thing the way it used to work was different. You have a name like Sal Nistico. Played with Woody Herman, great tenor player. Sal gets off the band, Sal’s got recordings, ooh let’s follow Sal. That’s over. How do we do this. And I said, “What would the record companies even do?” He says, if you came to a record company one of the guys told me that the record company is going to look at your social media to see how many followers you have. And if you have enough followers then I’ll just create a real nice slick video for you and we’re just going to post it on the followers that you’ve already made and there’s your audience. So if you have enough followers you’re apt to get a record deal, not that the music isn’t that important but it’s almost not as important as how many followers you have. Nobody’s going to listen to it to say man that’s great tenor playing. They’re going to say who’s going to follow you? Nobody. Well then we’re not interested. So I think wow, that’s a whole change. But they need to know that. And as a teacher teaching something that is like an art form, and the society around it is changing so quickly you can’t look at it like the way it used to work. But it’s do-able and there are some kids doing it. So some of my students they get on it, it’s not that foreign for a lot of them, and they have a big presence. Because now it used to be the club would advertise it and you would go and play and you know you get paid and hopefully somebody would show up. But now they want a guarantee that you’re going to bring your peeps to the gig, right? So you have to guarantee like 35 people before you get — but for some kids it’s not a problem because they’re active on the social media. And that’s a thing that never happened — that didn’t even exist before. And when I had to learn that, I won’t say it was a bitter pill but it was so opposite of how I came up. But we talk about it and we look and Colin Stetson, this guy that plays bass saxophone and he sets up a loop, he does these concerts — it’s great playing. It’s unbelievable playing. I never heard it. I have about five different people that I show my students look at what they’re doing. This is what you have to do if you want to have a future in it. Because what I did is gone. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just what it is.

Denis mostly works with instrumentalists who hope to carve their own niche in the world of jazz.

Ametria Dock is a valued vocal and theatrical coach and has worked with numerous successful artists during her own career. She is adamant that setting goals is essential. In our 2019 interview, she offered advice.

Ametria Dock, in 2019

MR:   If you get a student that comes to you about the age of when you entered the business and they say, “I really want to make it in the music business.” This idea of making it — do you address that?

AD:   Absolutely. So I have a lot of young artists, up-and-coming I call them, artists, creatives. Now I have some that are really successful in movies and television right now that are transitioning over to doing more musical things. And we sit down and we talk about what is your idea of making it. What does that mean for you? What does that look like for you? Who does that look like for you? Who are some of the people that you think made it you know? Because sometimes what you think making it is not necessarily — I mean is it making a lot of money? Is it doing what you love everyday? So we sit down and we have conversations about that. And I have some really, really intelligent kids that are way ahead of their time. So I’m blessed to be able to mentor and sit down and have real conversations about what that looks like. What does the next five years look like for you in terms of working on this music and working toward whatever goals you have. We sit down and we create plans and things like that. I think that’s important — whether they’re kids or college aged, 20, 21 years old and coming up with a plan of action.

MR:   I wonder how the technology and the way music is delivered these days affects their vision?

AD:   Yeah. 100%. I think it does. I think that social media, I mean it has its value, but it also makes the creative, the artist see something so fast. It’s here today and it’s gone tomorrow. And so music that artists that I loved growing up, you know, they had albums upon albums upon albums. And now we have singles. And they’re here for a couple of weeks and then it’s on to the next thing. And it’s scary because you never really get to — I feel like a lot of artists got to really dig deep and develop and evolve and become. Artists today, that opportunity is, I mean you get a window and then you’re gone.

MR:   There used to be an art to creating an album concept, and which song should follow which and the keys and all that kind of thing.

AD:   Yeah. There was a lot of thought put into making an album or creating a body of work, and then introducing it to the world you know. I think now there’s more emphasis on introducing it to the world than the body of work, in my opinion. It’s like you’re pushing to put something out instead of taking the time to really master and create, and so yeah that’s my opinion.

And last, but certainly not least, the late iconic saxophonist Phil Woods suggests that the path to a jazz career has to start before you enter your freshman college dorm. As a successful jazz man who paid many dues, I feel he is qualified to offer the following advice:

Phil Woods, in 1999

MR:   Do you have advice for aspiring jazz musicians that might help them in their careers?

PW:   Advice for young jazz men. No. I figure that if they’re going to do it, no matter what I say they’re going to do it. It’s for those ones in between, those ones that aren’t really sure, those are the ones I worry about. I mean I think jazz is only for those that have no choice. I think if you’re a young man and you’re entertaining thoughts of becoming a brain surgeon or a jazz tenor man, I’d go with the brain surgery, you know what I mean? If you have a choice. If you’ve got two burning desires, don’t pick jazz. I mean keep playing it, I mean sometimes I envy the amateur, like all those dentists and doctors who play for kicks. They don’t have to worry about making bread at it. They really enjoy making music. And that’s really what it’s about. Never forget that joy, that first time you made a note and it made you feel good. Musicians kind of forget that stuff, you know, they’re sitting in the pit and reading The Wall Street Journal and grumpy, grumpy, grumpy. They forgot that feeling, that burn of the belly the first time they sounded decent. And it’s easy to get kind of trapped into just making some bread and trying to exist when the bloom is off the rose. But a young man should consider — you only have one life. When you make a choice, a career decision, it should be well thought out. Not too carefully structured mind you, but I wouldn’t rush into anything. I wouldn’t rush to go to a jazz school or any university. I always recommend take a year off man. Hitchhike around the world. Take your horn and see if you can play for your supper around the world. See what life is about while you can, before you have a family, before you need bread. Get a couple of thou and just do it. Just do it, man. Take a chance. Because you might never have a chance to do it, and that’s when you can really kind of get inside your head. It’s hard to do it when you’re surrounded by your peers or family or the pressures of society that you know — go somewhere where it’s all fresh and pursue your — find out who you are. And then when you decide, you’re going to be a much better player for this experience.

MR:   Well I think you just gave some good advice in spite of yourself.

PW:   Darn. There goes my image as the curmudgeon.

Jazz has evolved at a rapid rate, as have the social and economic conditions in which it lives. Opportunities for musicians that once existed have disappeared, but others have presented themselves. The music graduate must be open to career opportunities they create for themselves, which may not have existed thus far. Making a living in any genre of music has never been easy. People who have the requisite passion must also have parental support and enthusiasm behind them. Conversely, convincing a creative and determined young person that a musical path would be too difficult is unhelpful in the long run. Evaluating with an eagle eye the current musical milieu should be undertaken by all music majors before they arrive at music school.

Nancy Wilson 1937-2018

On the heels of our tribute to Joe Williams, we now learn of the passing of vocalist Nancy Wilson at the age of 81. Nancy and Joe shared a number of parallel lines throughout their singing careers. They had a common manager in John Levy; they both recorded albums with Cannonball Adderley, George Shearing, and Count Basie; and both objected to being typecast as a certain style of vocalist. I was fortunate to sit with Nancy Wilson in November of 1995 for an interview, and she addressed the issue of stereotypes:

NW:   I have to say about jazz critics, they really gave me the pits for a while. They felt that the Cannonball Adderley album was a compromise for Cannon. Because I was a pop artist.

MR:   No kidding?

NW:   Oh, yes. You don’t know the stuff they did to us. But my point that I’ve always tried to stress is I came into this business with a gift, the voice is a given. It was a gift from God. I didn’t put any labels on it. I also decided to leave my home to do this, to be commercial. I mean the object of the game for me was why would I want to, why would anybody in their right mind want to give up their security, their home, all the things that mean happiness to me, to go out to only want to fulfill somebody else’s idea of who and what I am. I figured that I was going to do this on a major scale or I didn’t want to do it. Because I could go home, go to Carnegie Tech as opposed to Central State, and be a doctor or be something in medicine, and I’d have been fine. But the voice was always out front. But I have never apologized for being a commercial artist. That is why I do what I do, is to sell. I want to be heard, I want to reach as many people as I can. I believe in that mass thing. You know I want everybody to know who I am if I’m going to do it.

I recall being surprised to hear this recollection, as the Cannonball Adderley-Nancy Wilson LP is one of my absolute favorite recordings.

One thing Nancy did not have to deal with was performance anxiety. Again from her interview:

MR:   Can you recall as a child, were you always pretty comfortable in front of an audience? 

NW:   It never occurred to me that you should be nervous. When I found out I was so grown that it didn’t make any difference. Then I found out people actually get nauseous and tremble and shake. Well I don’t want to do this if I have to be sick before I go on. But some people do. Some people just feel that that’s a part of it. I like being relaxed. I like taking it in stride. I love it. I keep it in its proper perspective, and it allows me to continue to do it. As long as I do it this way I can do it.

Nancy was awarded three Grammys and was an NPR host for Jazz Profiles. She considered herself a storyteller, and she chose the songs in her repertoire based on their strong narrative element.

This interview was conducted early on in our oral history project, when I was still developing an interviewing style. I will always remember the dignity and class that was part of Nancy’s persona. You can view the complete video here.

Bill Watrous, 1939-2018

From the left: Wendell Brunious, Dennis Mackrel, Jerome Richardson, Keter Betts, Monk Rowe, Bill Watrous, Rick Montalbano

Readers may have noticed my absence from writing this blog. All my spare time has been spent preparing uploads for the Fillius Jazz YouTube channel, where complete interviews have been posted for more than half of our oral history sessions. The death of Bill Watrous, however, has returned me to the blog. My interview with Bill, viewable here, was comprehensive and congenial, but there is more backstory to be shared about my association with him.

In the spring of 1999, in true cosmic fashion, Bill’s promo kit arrived unexpectedly on my desk just as I was seeking a trombone player to participate on my upcoming recording of “Jazz Life.” This album of original compositions would eventually include myself plus six members, three of whom are now deceased: bassist Keter Betts, saxophonist Jerome Richardson, and now trombonist Bill Watrous. Rounding out the ensemble were Rick Montalbano, Dennis Mackrel and Wendell Brunious. Before I started the archive project I had always assumed that artists of the stature of Bill Watrous would be unavailable to me. However, every artist I contacted happily agreed to the engagement. I learned along the way that jazz musicians always have dates in their calendars to fill, and a gig is a gig. Bill proved to be full of positive energy as well as the consummate musician. He entertained the group with his personal cache of jazz stories, while treating the music as if he was in an L.A. recording studio. One of my favorite moments on the recording is during the improvisation section of BeyondCategory at the 2:34 mark where Bill seamlessly extends Wendell’s last improvised phrase, then launches into his own striking solo. As trumpeter Joe Wilder said of improvisation, you always want to make a smooth transition, as perfectly exemplified in this moment.

Our paths crossed again at jazz conventions, and over the years we exchanged phone calls where our lengthy conversations extended beyond music and into the ups and downs of everyday life. Oddly enough, Bill’s wife Maryanne occasionally referred to Bill as “Monk.”

Bill’s passing caught me off-guard. He always struck me as younger than his years, probably due to his distinctive Price Valiant haircut, penchant for jean jackets, and his poignant observations on current events. Adios Mr. Watrous, and thank you for our friendship.

Otis Redding's Music Theory

Fifty years ago, on December 10, 1967, pop star Otis Redding along with his band perished in a plane crash on a lake in Wisconsin. Otis was at the height of his career. His song “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay,” written with Steve Cropper, was released shortly after his death and became the first posthumous number one record. I have played this song countless times as a solo pianist and as a member of various bands. To me it’s a perfect example of hip chord changes, optimized structure, and interesting story line.

Fifty years ago in December I had decided on a career in music. As a high school senior I was doing my best to prepare myself for music college taking lessons on saxophone, piano, and music theory. One of the first things we learned was chord types — mostly major or minor. A three-note chord built on each tone of the major scale looks like this:

When using chord symbols, the minor triads are indicated with a lower case m, as in Bm (for B minor). This arrangement is the same for every key, and has provided a basic compositional language for hundreds of years.

For the verse of “Dock of the Bay” Otis and Steve chose the I, the iii, the IV and the ii chord, in that order. If you look at this transcription of the first eight measures of the song you will notice that their three and two chord are not minor at all. This very slight change makes all the difference in the sound of the song. I have tried playing the song returning those two chords to their normal state and it is amusingly terrible. It works in an odd way because of the nature of the melody, which will be discussed momentarily. But Otis and Steve’s progression is where it’s at.

In the chorus of the song, the chord choice is the I chord, followed by the vi chord. If we refer to our triad chart we notice that the vi chord is normally minor. But once again, our two songwriters change this chord to major, offering a distinctive progression that schooled musicians would rarely be inclined to employ.

When I did get to music school, I was placed in Music Theory 101, and quickly learned about four part contrapuntal composition. Among the myriad rules is a dictum to “avoid parallel fifths and octaves.” The Harvard Dictionary of Music defines this in musical legalese as: “…[T]he duplication of the melodic progression of one part by another at the distance of a fifth or an octave. Such voice leading is considered faulty and strictly prohibited in classical tonal counterpoint.”

Fortunately for us, Otis Redding was not confined by such archaic directives. If we look at his notated melody and the accompanying chords, we will find that this whole four-bar repeated phrase contains exactly the parallel octaves that classical composers were forbidden to employ. Even when it hits the chorus, Otis still lands on the root of the chord with his melody. I never noticed it until I sat at the piano and, instead of singing the melody, actually played it and compared the treble and bass. “A classicized version of the first four bars of “Dock of the Bay” would look like this:

If I had handed in this melodic invention in my Theory 101 class, red ink would have flowed. The professor would have been puzzled by both the chord progression and the insistence on parallel octaves. It’s a definite breach of classical etiquette. Including an F major chord in the key of G as Otis did later in the bridge would have earned a “see me in my office” from the professor.

What’s the conclusion? For me, I am continually fascinated and envious of the musical inventions of self-taught songwriters. Lennon and McCartney, Cat Stevens, and Joni Mitchell all fall under this category, and I like to describe it as “if it sounds good, use it.” Referring to music theory, trombonist Dan Barrett stated in his interview, “Any knowledge is good.” But there is a downside if adhering to music theory norms inhibits the use of ears and musical intuition.

If you haven’t found it by now, here’s a YouTube link to “Dock of the Bay” for your listening edification.

George Avakian, 1919-2017

Artists in all disciplines depend on a variety of behind-the-scenes personalities who bring their visions to life. George Avakian, who passed away on November 22, was an integral part of the presentation and marketing of jazz for six decades. In addition to his role as a producer, George was a jazz historian, a talent scout, and a prolific writer of LP liner notes. Early in his career he made a significant contribution to the jazz canon by compiling and re-issuing historically important recordings by Louis Armstrong and other jazz pioneers.

There is some debate about when jazz changed from entertainment to an art form. George addressed this question during our interview:

MR: Yesterday I had asked you a question about if the early jazz musicians thought of their music as an art form. And you said probably not.

GA: No not really. They were just playing happy music that they had developed within their lives, and they were happy making a living at it as best they could in many cases of course. Because a jazz musician’s life has never been easy unless you happen to hit it big. But I don’t think musicians ever took it seriously as an art form until they were told it was an art form, and that probably started, I think it would have to be during the World War II years. Because before there weren’t any articles being written in magazines, God knows no books to speak of, but once that started, quite a bit of pretension did begin to creep in. And some of it spurred I feel the bop movement because that was something new and hard to understand compared to the relative ease of listening to the earlier music because that was, among other things, dance music, social music, good time music, popular songs were involved. Bop became something which for the most part did not depend on familiar standard selections, even though a lot of the earlier compositions were simply variations on the harmonies which were themselves altered along the way, of standard tunes by Gershwin and Cole Porter and so forth. So it became a kind of an inside arty thing. And this was encouraged by the people who wrote about jazz because more and more writing about jazz took place in magazines.

George’s expertise in production and marketing played an important role in moving jazz not only into the retail marketplace but also into the greater culture. His range of projects included work with Louis Armstrong and other innovators such as Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, and Gil Evans. Notable LP productions included Benny Goodman “Live at Carnegie Hall,” “Ellington at Newport,” and “Miles Ahead.”

George was the co-founder of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, and was named a National Endowment of the Arts Jazz Master in 2011.

From the Fillius archive, here is a link to the full YouTube interview I conducted with George on April 21, 1998.

Happy Birthday(s)

October 10^th marks the birthdays of two prominent jazz pianists. Thelonious Sphere Monk was born 100 years ago today in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. His piano style was unique among his peers and his original compositions have become celebrated standards, studied and performed by all aspiring jazz musicians. Thelonious appears on any jazz historian’s list of the top ten most influential jazz artists.

Among his many admirers is pianist Junior Mance, born in 1928 on this same day, October 10^th, in Evanston, Illinois. Junior enjoyed a successful career as an accompanist to jazz singers, including Joe Williams and Dinah Washington, and as a leader of his own piano trio. He often included Monk compositions in his recordings and a perfect way to acknowledge this October 10^th is provided at this link.

Junior Mance performs “Blue Monk” [Thelonious Monk]

Just this week the Fillius Jazz Archive published two videos with Junior Mance. You can view Part 1 here, and Part 2 here.

Happy viewing.

Make Your Own Luck

Some people believe in luck. Some people dismiss the very idea of something occurring without a specific reason. A number of celebrities have addressed the role of luck in their careers, including Oprah Winfrey who stated, “Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity”; and Loretta Lynn who said, “In the long run you make your own luck—good, bad or indifferent.”

Jimmy Owens is a highly accomplished jazz trumpeter, an advocate for jazz education, and a 2012 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master recipient. I was recently drawn to a story he told during our interview in 2001, and in a sense it has to do with luck. Jimmy was fortunate to come from a household that appreciated music and his supportive father took him to see the Miles Davis Quintet in a club when Jimmy was 15 years old. This event occurred in 1958, a period where Miles Davis was becoming a household name and leading one of his most celebrated combos who in less than a year would record the iconic “Kind of Blue” LP. Jimmy tells the tale:

JO:  What happened was my father took me to see Miles Davis. I am fifteen years old. And Miles was working at a club called Small’s Paradise doing a matinee, and my father took me to see Miles, and when we got there, the band was off. They were on a break. So my father is at the bar and I’m next to him, and I walked over to the bandstand, which was this high off the ground you know, and I’m standing there, I’ve heard all of these stories about Miles Davis being a nasty person. I’m standing there with my hands behind  my back looking at the trumpet and the piano. I’d never seen a blue trumpet before. And he had this horn that was tinted blue. And all of a sudden someone slides down at the piano, and I see it’s Miles. And he looks up at me and he’s playing some chords, and he says, “You play trumpet, kid?” I said, “Yeah.” He played a little while, and he says, “Play me a tune.” And he gave me his horn. So I took the horn and I was going to take the mouthpiece out and I said, “Take your mouthpiece.” “What you going to do, play without a mouthpiece?” I said, “No, I’ve got my own.” I put my mouthpiece in the horn, and I played “Walkin’.” Okay? At which point the musicians were coming back on the stage. And the last person on the stage — Miles took the horn back you know — the last person on the stage was Bill Evans. And Miles said, “Hey, Bill, you hear this kid play?” “No,” he says. Miles gave me the horn and said, “Go ahead, play it again.” So I started to play “Walkin’” and the whole band joined in. And when I say the whole band, that’s Cannonball Adderley, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb. And I played “Walkin’,” and take a solo, you take it out and Miles says, “Go play another one.”  I play “Bags’ Groove.” And Trane takes a solo you know, Cannonball takes a solo. Oh it was unbelievable.

There are a number of things that struck me about this story. First, the idea that Miles Davis would offer young Jimmy Owens his trumpet, mouthpiece in place. Sharing mouthpieces may have been common back then, but it certainly is not something you do today. And this is the Miles Davis who had built a reputation as the “Dark Prince,” with an aloof and sometimes irascible reputation amplified by his half-whispered, raspy voice. Perhaps Miles was tired and welcomed the opportunity for a guest to fill some time.

The other thing I recognized in this story is that the young Jimmy Owens was making his own luck. The fact that his trumpet mouthpiece was in his pocket was not “luck.” The fact that Jimmy had been working on the Miles Davis composition “Walkin’” and that he knew the tune “Bags’ Groove” was in the  band’s repertoire was also not simply lucky. Jimmy Owens was prepared. He probably thought that even speaking with Miles Davis was a pipe dream. Nonetheless, he prepared for any eventuality. So there’s a lesson to be learned.

I constantly tell my college students who pursue jazz that they have to be ready when opportunity strikes. If they’re asked to sit in they need to be ready by knowing (without music) a number of songs they can play and improvise on. I elaborated more on this on this in our blog entitled Jazz Etiquette: The Art of Sitting in, from March 19, 2013.

It would have been a wonderful, fairy tale ending if after the gig Miles had suggested that Jimmy call a fellow band leader who was looking for a trumpet player, or arranged for a recording session for the 15-year-old phenomena. That did not happen, but the confidence that Jimmy gained that night is an experience money can’t buy.

There is a noteworthy addendum to Jimmy’s story:

JO: I mentioned specifically Jimmy Cobb, because we played together many, many times. And he was teaching at the New School where I was teaching. And one day in the office I bumped into him. And I said, “Hey, Cobb, I want to ask you something. You remember working at Small’s Paradise with Miles?” He says, “I remember working there.” I said, “You remember a matinee that a kid sat in with the band and played with them?” He said, “You know I do recall that.” I said, “Man, that was me.” He said, “What!” I said, “You remember that for sure?” He says, “I really remember that night, because that was my first week working with the band and I look up and at the bar there is Philly Joe Jones and I got so nervous. Well when he told me that story, I just broke up. And he really remembered that night, me sitting in with the band, or a kid, a young kid sitting in with the band.

From the Fillius archive, here is a link to the full YouTube interview I conducted with Jimmy Owens on January 12, 2001.

Frank Capp, 1931-2017

-->

Drummer Frank Capp passed away after a long and successful career on September 12. Frank had an arc to his career that was similar to many interviewees from the Fillius Jazz Archive collection. Musicians like guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli, pianist Dick Hyman, and saxophonist Ernie Watts began their career playing jazz and swing with big bands and small combos. When the big bands faded from the scene in the 1950s many of these musicians found lucrative work in the recording studios on both the east and west coasts. Their versatility enabled them to play on every kind of recording imaginable. The drums you hear on Sonny & Cher’s “The Beat Goes On” and “I Got You Babe” were played by Frank Capp. He could go from a rock & roll date to a movie soundtrack stage, and in our interview he described such a session:

MR:   Give us a little idea of what a typical studio date would be like.

FC:   Well let me example something like a motion picture session. You’d be given a call by a contractor to be at Warner Brothers Studio or Universal or MGM, whatever, and you’d go to the studio at 9 o’clock in the morning, and there would be 60, 70 musicians, depending. It could be a small group too, but a lot of pictures used at that time, large orchestras. And you walk in, and the librarian hands out the music. You open it to page one and play. Here it is: one-two-three play. And you have to play that music like you wrote it, or like you’ve been playing it for — rarely in those days did you get a chance to play it more than twice. Maybe three times. You’d run it down for notes, to make sure there was no copying errors. And then you begin recording. And if it was a tight budget picture, which is the case now, you don’t get a second chance. You’re on the edge of your seat at all times.

Around 1976 Frank left the 9-5 recording studio life and returned to his first love, which was big band jazz.  His passion was shared by his friend, pianist Nat Pierce. The well known big band named Juggernaut came about serendipitously as many musical ventures do.

FC:   Our first album was just called Juggernaut. And the reason it was called Juggernaut is because Nat and I put the band together for a one-night situation to help a guy who was running big bands at a club called King Arthur’s in the San Fernando Valley. And he had hired Neal Hefti’s band and Neal disbanded before the engagement came up. And I was contracting for Neal, so the club owner asked me to put a big band together. I did. I got Nat, we went out, and we called it “A Tribute to Count Basie.” And we worked that first night, and that was all it was going to be. And the crowd liked it so much, and the club owner liked it so much, he said, “You’ve got to come back next week.” Well we did and we came back subsequent weeks for a couple of months, and Leonard Feather, the jazz critic for the L.A. Times at that point, came out to review the band. And the next day in his article it said, “A juggernaut on Basie Street.” That was the title of the review. So at that particular time, everybody had a name to the band. Buddy Rich had the Big Band Machine, and Louie Bellson had Big Band Explosion, and everybody, they were putting a tag on all of it. So I said, “Nat, let’s use the name ‘Juggernaut.’” So we subsequently recorded that first album, and Carl Jefferson from Concord said, “Let’s call the album ‘Juggernaut.’” I kind of wish that we never used the word quite frankly, because people don’t know how to spell it. They are forever asking me what is a Juggernaut, and a lot of people call it “Juggernauts” and it’s not a plural.

The Webster dictionary defines Juggernaut as “an irresistible force” and the Capp-Pierce big band was certainly that. Their second album, “Live at the Century Plaza,” featured our favorite singer, Joe Williams, in an spontaneously-created 11-minute tune called “Joe’s Blues.”

Frank was a man of strong opinions, especially about the role of music, and jazz in particular:

FC:   This country’s got its values all screwed up. Musicians who spend and devote their life to become really facile on their instruments and help create pleasure for people, make nothing. And some athletic dummy, you know, goes out and bangs his head against somebody else’s helmet and they make millions and millions. But that’s another story.

MR:   Well we feel that this music is such a big part of this country.

FC:   It is, it is. Thank God — I could kiss you for saying that. I mean it’s America’s heritage, you know?

From the Fillius archive, here is a link to the full YouTube interview I conducted with Frank on September 3, 1995.

Musician, Know Thy Gig

The first gig I can remember being paid for dates back to 1968, my senior year in high school. I played with fellow classmates in a sax-keyboard-drums trio. The gig was a Spanish Club banquet, and the faculty coordinator of the club gave us $12 to split between us. It was my first experience getting paid to play, and I liked it! Since that time I’ve played every imaginable kind of gig, in various ensembles, at assorted settings.

One type of engagement I play regularly is for alumni functions at local colleges. Most of these gatherings are sponsored by the development office; the most recent one celebrated the grand opening of a remodeled campus building while simultaneously honoring major donors. Though the atmosphere and setting were casual, the college staff were highly motivated to stage a flawless event.

After all these years I still was playing with two other musical partners. This particular trio consisted of keyboard, guitar and drums. Our contract stipulated that we be ready to play at 5:45, and to expect a 20-minute break while speeches were made at the podium.

As we were setting up, a good half hour before the beginning of the event, our contact came up to the band and in good humor deliberately looked at us and counted, “One, two, three,” pointing to each member in succession. It was a way of saying, “I see you are all here, you’re dressed appropriately, and that you will be ready to play at the appointed time.”

Three songs into our set the contact again approached the band and I could tell a comment was forthcoming. Musicians have a short list of complimentary audience observations they like to hear, including, “Nice tunes, terrific guitar solo,” etc. What we heard was, “The volume is perfect.” At that moment I was reminded that the most important thing on this engagement was that people could congregate and have a conversation without shouting over the music.

I am lucky to play with two guys who already know this. Our drummer wisely played with brushes, and our guitarist brought his smallest amp. Some rooms are difficult to gauge, but a glance around the room will make it clear. If people are leaning into each other to talk, it’s time to turn down. Curiously, some of our best musical moments occur in these intimate situations.

Some musicians might be mildly offended by the volume remark, as if that was all that mattered. But you can take pride in yourself and in your fellow musicians that you are capably filling your role, and likely to get called again for another event.

Musicians should take note of the non-musical aspects of performing professionally. This does not mean that what you play does not matter. The very next day I received feedback from this same person remarking on the positive comments he received about the trio. If you want to work more than one time in the same location, keep in mind what’s important to the individual with the checkbook.