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JAZZ HISTORY

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Interviews Manuel ValeraManuel Valera Jazz Standard, April 11Jazz Standard, April 11

Javon JackosnJavon Jackosn Dizzy’s Club, May 14Dizzy’s Club, May 14

PHOTOs Houston PersonHouston Person Jazz Standard, April 19Jazz Standard, April 19--2222

Kenny GarrettKenny Garrett Blue Note, April 19Blue Note, April 19--2222

Frank MorganFrank Morgan

Comprehensive Comprehensive

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Jazz Inside Magazine

ISSN: 2150-3419 (print) • ISSN 2150-3427 (online)

April-May 2018 – Volume 9, Number 2

Cover Photo and photo at right of Victor Lewis

by Ken Weiss

Publisher: Eric Nemeyer Editor: Wendi Li Marketing Director: Cheryl Powers Advertising Sales & Marketing: Eric Nemeyer Circulation: Susan Brodsky Photo Editor: Joe Patitucci Layout and Design: Gail Gentry Contributing Artists: Shelly Rhodes Contributing Photographers: Eric Nemeyer, Ken Weiss Contributing Writers: John Alexander, John R. Barrett, Curtis Daven-port; Alex Henderson; Joe Patitucci; Ken Weiss.

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CONTENTSCONTENTS

CLUBS, CONCERTS, EVENTSCLUBS, CONCERTS, EVENTS 13 Calendar of Events 18 Clubs & Venue Listings

4 Victor Lewis by Ken Weiss

Jazz History FEATUREJazz History FEATURE 30 Art Blakey, Part 5 by John R. Barrett

INTERVIEWSINTERVIEWS 24 Manuel Valera 26 Javon Jackson

PHOTOSPHOTOS 12 Houston Person 29 Frank Morgan 36 Kenny Garrett

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Interview and photo by Ken Weiss

Victor Lewis (b. May 20, 1950) moved on from

his Omaha, Nebraska roots to become one of

jazz’s most in demand drummers. He’s toured

and recorded with Art Farmer, J.J. Johnson,

Grover Washington Jr., Bobby Hutcherson,

Kenny Barron, Mike Stern, John Abercrombie,

Carla Bley, James Carter, Eddie “Lockjaw”

Davis, Dexter Gordon, Oliver Lake, Carmen

Lundy, David Murray, David Sanborn, Antho-

ny Braxton and Gary Bartz, while spending

significant time in the bands of Woody Shaw

and Stan Getz, as well as serving a co-leader

in the Bobby Watson & Horizon band that was

very popular in the late ‘80s-into the ‘90s.

Lewis is also a highly skilled composer with

many sterling compositions under his name. In

person, he’s extremely personable and animat-

ed, and he’s renowned for his storytelling. Jazz

Inside Magazine caught up with him on De-

cember 30, 2017 in his Philadelphia hotel

room prior to performing with Kurt Rosenwin-

kel’s band later that night at Chris’ Jazz Café.

Jazz Inside Magazine: You grew up in a mu-

sical household, both of your parents were

classically trained musicians who toured with

territory bands. What was your impression of

how life would be as a musician when you

chose that as your career?

Victor Lewis: Both of my parents considered

learning an instrument as part of your growth

in life. It was their way of showing us the con-

cept of effort and reward. My father knew that

music gets kids more than arithmetic, as far as

tricking them into learning about effort and

reward. He’d ask us if there was an instrument

that we liked from the radio and when my

brother said horn, he went out and got an alto

sax for my brother. A few days went by and

my brother went to him and said, “Daddy, the

horn doesn’t play!” [Laughs] So my father

said, “Well, would you like to take a lesson?”

“Oh, well maybe I should daddy. Would that

help the horn play better?” And so he went to a

teacher and as time went by, he got better at it

and it taught him about life. If you put the time

in, you’ll get better. When I chose to be a mu-

sician I had an idea of what it would be like. In

my early life it was a fantasized dream based

on what I saw. My family worked day jobs and

then went and played at night. So that set me

up for an all-day/all-night work ethic. My fa-

ther had two day jobs before he went to his gig

at night. He busted his fanny so that I could go

to college during the “free love” era! But, alt-

hough he wanted to teach us [through music],

he didn’t want any of us to pursue a career in

music. He said, “Yeah, all black people play

sports and music.” He was trying to look down

the line at the opportunities that African Amer-

icans could go into. My family had some doc-

tors, nurses and accountants, but I’m baby

brother, I just had to do music, and my father

said, “Okay, you made your choice.” I ended

up finding my day job after I moved to New

York. I got there at the tail end of the real re-

cording industry in New York, so my day job

was recording. I worked all day and all night,

but it was all music and that cooled my father

out.

JI: After initially studying cello and then clas-

sical piano how did you get the calling to play

drums?

VL: Yes, that’s a sequence that deals with

first gravitation and puberty. The first instru-

ment I gravitated towards, and to this day I still

love it but I was too small, was the acoustic

bass. That’s how I ended up with the cello. I

have a photo of me at five-years-old standing

there on Christmas day with a cello that was

my bass that Santa had brought me. Propor-

tionately it worked. So they sent me to take

lessons and the first thing the teacher made me

do was pull out the bow and start playing arco.

No, that wasn’t what I wanted to do, I wanted

to get to pizzicato like the walking jazz bass

players. I studied it about a year or two but was

disillusioned because I never got to the pizzica-

to thing. I took classical piano from seven to

eleven and then at eleven puberty started to

kick in and all of a sudden it wasn’t manly

enough for me to be a brother taking classical

piano lesson. I mean that’s all bull but now I

thank God that I took classical piano lessons.

Then came the Fourth of July Parade that they

used to have in the black neighborhood of

Omaha and I saw this drum corp in the parade

– Boom! Talk about a calling. I got to junior

high and after I convinced my folks, they rent-

ed a snare drum and a pair of sticks for me. I

wanted to be in the school band and play

drums so I went to the band director but he

said, “We’ve got too many drummers, what we

need is French horn players.” So I played

French horn in junior high. I just wanted to be

in the band. Christmas came, my second year

in junior high, and I got my first drum set. I

lobbied hard for that and I’m bonkers, I’ve got

my first drum set and I had no idea of how to

put it together. It took me all afternoon and I

just could not wait to get busy. So I finally get

it set up in the basement and then Slam-Bam-

Boom-Boom-Boom-Kapieya-Chuum-Bla-Bla-

Boom. So that went on for a couple of months

and then all of a sudden one day I came to a

screeching halt. ‘There’s something wrong

with this picture.’ Finally it hit me. I didn’t

want to be down in the basement by myself, I

wanted to play with a band! That was a heavy

revelation so from that point on I started to

tailor all of my efforts to convincing guys to let

me play in a band. It put a selflessness perspec-

tive on how I viewed my participation in the

band. It’s a team effort and that’s how that

calling began.

JI: Those early years of classical training

taught you to read music which ended up set-

ting you apart from many of the other drum-

mers in Omaha and you got a lot of commer-

cial work as a result. What commercial work

were you doing?

VL: I did jingles. They needed a drummer

who could read music because you had to start

“If you put the time in, you’ll get better. When I chose to be a musician I had an idea of what it would be like. In my early life it was a fantasized dream based on

what I saw. My family worked day jobs and then went and played at night. So that set me up for an all-day/all-night work ethic.”

Victor Lewis

Effort & Reward

INTERVIEWINTERVIEW


and stop together. I did my first jingle when I

was like eighteen and it was a great experience.

It was a Union Pacific Railroad jingle and I

was really proud of it because it was repre-

sentative of an accomplishment of mine in

music that I could listen to. My first time

checking myself out.

JI: You also worked for the circus?

VL: Yes, and I talk a lot about the circus a lot

to my students. The first mistake that they can

make is to think that they can only get good at

playing jazz in a so-called “hip” jazz situation.

No, they don’t realize that you take stuff from

all different areas. The circus had to do with

what I experienced from working with the

clown in terms of participating with the dia-

logue and responding and keeping the tether.

The clown is going to do something funny on

the tightrope and the band plays a waltz for

him so I had to watch him and make some sort

of response to what he did to be funny and then

go back to the waltz. It gave me a great experi-

ence at responding and going back to the teth-

er. That’s something you’d never think could

be applied to your “hip” jazz situation.

JI: What did you do for the Bob Hope Show?

VL: I got hooked up with contractors because

I could read music and they would call me

when the shows would come to town. I did the

Bob Hope Show and the Redd Fox Show with

the great, bless her soul, Melba Liston playing

trombone and musical conductor. I did a Las

Vegas topless review and tried to keep my

place in the music! [Laughs] I also played a

month with a Turkish belly dancer named Özel

Türkbaş who came to play in Lincoln, Nebras-

ka around 1969. I got to the rehearsal and she

said, “Veektor, what I want from you is mad,

passionate mallets on the tom-toms. Just watch

me.” And she proceeded to dance and I

watched her and thought, ‘Oh, man, this is a

chance I can try to explore my Art Blakey mal-

lets on tom-tom stuff!’ That was a wonderful

experience I tell my students about.

JI: How did hearing Tony Williams’ drum-

ming change the course of your playing and

career direction?

VL: That’s a very deep story in terms of my

development. I’m fourteen-years-old, 1964 in

Omaha, Nebraska. One of my best buddies,

who was a drummer also, his father was a jazz

trumpet player who was heavily into Miles and

would buy his records as soon as they came

out. So here it was in February with snow up to

here and I happen to look out my window and

saw my buddy running and slipping on the way

to my house to tell me about the new Miles

record with a new drummer on it named Tony

Williams. I told him, ‘I never heard of

him.’ [Laughs] He said, “He’s got some stuff,

man. It’s different.” So we ran slipping to his

house and his father puts on Miles’ Four &

More record and Boom it was everything my

man said it was and more. I grew up during

part of the Midwest territory big bands and I

had checked out all the cats. I saw Basie,

Duke, Buddy Rich, Woody Herman, Stan Ken-

ton, all several times, so I had an imprint on

me from the big band drummers but this was a

small ensemble drummer that resonated with

me because of the freedom and the dialogue.

I’m a rebel at heart and the reason I chose jazz

was because I like to play how I’m feeling that

day. I’d had enough of reading exactly what’s

on the page. So hence my decision not to be

what my professors at University of Nebraska

envisioned for me to be, maybe the first Afri-

can American tympani player in the New York

Philharmonic. I got another calling and I pur-

sued exploring smaller ensembles. Fast for-

ward from fourteen to age twenty-one. I heard

that Tony was playing in New York with Stan

Getz but my funds were poor so I only had

enough money for a one-way ticket. I bought

the ticket to see Tony but then I had to figure

how to get back home. That’s where big both-

ers come in. If your family is half-way func-

tional, your first heroes should be your father

and big brothers. [Laughs] When I went to see

Tony I didn’t say anything to him. I just sat in

the corner. That was around 1970. I moved to

New York in 1974 and in the beginning of ’75,

I got the gig with Joe Farrell and I played the

Village Vanguard for the first time. There was

a waitress that worked there who came to me

after the second night and said, “You sound

okay. I’m gonna tell my boyfriend about you.

He’s a drummer, you might know him, may-

be.” She said he was Tony Williams. I forgot

about it and four nights later, we’re playing

one of the tunes of the day “Captain Marvel,”

and I’ve got my eyes closed. At times, Joe Far-

rell would play a novice cowbell from his Lat-

in jazz days. The guitar player is taking a solo

and I hear this killin’ cowbell kick in and I’ve

still got my eyes closed and I’m saying, ‘Okay,

I know that’s not Joe Farrell on cowbell. I

wonder who this is?’ I open my eyes and turn

to my left and it’s Tony right up on me. Whoa!

So that’s how I met Tony Williams. Fast for-

ward a year after that, I played with Jackie

McLean on what might have been the last gig

at the last Five Spot in New York. In those

days I was never happy with my playing be-

cause I was trying to get to something. And I

look out and see Tony Williams and Billy Hart

sitting in the audience and it’s, ‘Oh, man, what

am I gonna do? I’m gonna be exposed as an

imposter!’ [Laughs] So we played the set, and I

wanted to go and hide, but I have to go over

and pay my respects to these cats and say hel-

lo. So I walk over — a little puppy dog, all sad

– “Hi guys, how ya’ doing?’ And the thing is,

Tony said something to me that for sure he

would know, but humbly speaking, I was

blown away with the fact that he said it to me!

I didn’t feel that I was at that level yet but To-

ny said, “You may not have been happy with

your playing because you never heard it played

before,” meaning I was on a path to my own

innovation of being me. And there’s no refer-

ence for that and although I felt not worthy, he

planted a seed that I’ve milked to this day. And

part of that seed that he nourished, I had a cou-

ple of events that helped give me a kick to-

wards it. So here I am, highly influenced by

Tony and I’m playing a club back in the day

called the Tin Palace and Clifford Jordan, who

lived in that neighborhood, happened to walk

in to hear the set. On the break he came to me

and said, “Yeah, youngblood, you sound pretty

good but I hear who you’ve been listening to.

It’s time to cut him loose and get your own

shit.” Boom! And that started that. Thank God

(Continued on page 8)

Victor Lewis

“I talk a lot about the circus a lot to my students. The first mistake that they can make is to think that they can only get good at playing jazz in a so-called “hip” jazz situation. No, they don’t realize that you take

stuff from all different areas.”


that I paid attention to the stepping stones in

my life because what you gonna do when you

end up playing opposite Tony Williams trying

to play all of Tony’s licks cheaply? You better

have some of your own self. So when that hap-

pened I was me. Studying the legacy is an es-

sential part but the doctorate that you get in

this art form is when you get your own style.

JI: How did the transition to New York City

in 1974 come about? How did you know you

were ready?

VL: I spent a year in Minneapolis working a

steady gig playing in the backup band in a club

that did Broadway reviews with the goal of

saving as much money as I could to move to

New York and stay as long as I could to learn.

A year went by and I hadn’t really saved any

money but I had bought two drum sets!

[Laughs] Suddenly, I felt the clock ran out and

I moved to New York to stay with one of the

guys I went to school with, who was now mar-

ried with a baby and had his own apartment. I

came to New York with the seed of encourage-

ment that Bennie Maupin planted in me when I

met him after my little band played backup

band to Herbie [Hancock’s] Sextet, which also

included Buster Williams, at the University of

Nebraska. I had a healthy fear of respect for

the music and Bennie Maupin gave me the

right perspective. He said, “People don’t think

twice about moving to a city they’ve never

lived in before to go to college. They do it all

the time and you’ve got to look at it that way.

Go to New York and take lessons from the cats

and go and listen to them play.” And the point

that he made that really gave me a boost was,

“The time that you spend there will be acceler-

ated growth.” So I moved to New York Sep-

tember 16, 1974 with two hundred dollars, my

drum set and a little suitcase with some

clothes. That was forty three-years-ago and I’m

still waiting for my luck to run out. [Laughs]

JI: You actually had to make the decision

between moving to New York or Los Angeles.

Los Angeles offered you more commercial

work opportunities.

VL: I loved the intensity of New York. I grew

up in Omaha, Nebraska with neighborhoods

and backyards. I had a great childhood. It was

a wholesome era that I grew up in. I decided to

come to New York instead of Los Angeles,

where I could have worked in a house band

and with the film score scene, because in L.A.

you could only club hop one place a night be-

cause it took too long to get to another club,

but in New York you could walk to all these

clubs and you felt the energy of the closeness

of the scene. The final capper on my decision

to move east came the August before I moved

to New York. I was there visiting my buddy

and we came out of a record store and were

sitting in a diner looking at our LPs and a guy

comes in and sits next to me. He kept looking

over at the record and finally he said, “Excuse

me sir, could I take a look at that?” He looked

at it and goes, “Uh ha,” and hands it back to

me and extends his hand and says, “Hi, my

name is Bob Cranshaw, I’m the bass player on

that record,” and proceeded to invite me and

my boy to a private taping with Horace Silver.

Here we are! That was it, I moved to New

York.

JI: How did you get your career started after

landing in New York?

VL: I met Woody Shaw in my early days in

New York after I stumbled upon a few gigs. I

sat in on this gig that Buster Williams was

playing and Buster said, “Alright, I’ll see if I

can shoot anything your way.” So a few weeks

went by and I go to see Buster’s band with Al

Foster playing drums at a club called Boomers.

The club owner asked Buster to also play the

next week but Sonny Fortune and Al could not

make the next week because they were playing

with Miles so he got Woody and he got me.

Now this is an important story [in my career].

This is like my first heavyweight gig in New

York. It was a Friday and Saturday and that

Friday night, I’m gonna be honest about it, I

essentially froze. Maybe the laymen didn’t

notice it but I almost blew it. I was awestruck.

I had maybe a ‘I’m from Omaha, Nebraska’

inferiority complex, which is bullshit, [Laughs]

and just doubting whatever it was that I had

learned. So I froze. The guys kind of tolerated

me and at one point Buster goes, “Come on

man, relax.” Which made me more nervous!

[Laughs] I finished the gig and went home all

depressed. I said, ‘Oh man, Victor, you didn’t

come all this way to fizzle out.’ I went through

many fazes of emotion - disappointment – to

feeling that I had blown it all and needed to go

back to Omaha – to, ‘Man, you blew your shot!

Are you gonna blow your shot?’ I went

through this cycle and I said, ‘No!’ and I got

my conviction up and the next night I went in

and went for broke because I realized that I

couldn’t fuck it up any more than I had already

and that’s when the cats said, “Okay,” and

that’s what led to me doing my first record in

New York with Woody Shaw. Had I not

[fought through my nerves] I might have

blown my history. Like Elvin [Jones] used to

say, “You know how one thing can lead to

another?”

JI: What surprised you the most about Woody

Shaw after you got to know him?

VL: Man, I had been into Woody for a long

time. One was how vulnerable his life was

which had a strong impetus in his life. The fact

that music was his life. This was a man who

was legally blind but could see a little bit but

had perfect pitch and a photographic memory.

So he was very vulnerable and was self-

conscious about it because he should have been

walking with a cane for the blind but he didn’t

want to do it. He was a very strong force in the

belief of the power of music and I learned a lot

of great tough love lessons with him.

JI: Would you share some memories of

(Continued from page 7)


“Thank God that I paid attention to the stepping stones in my life because what you gonna do when you end up playing

opposite Tony Williams trying to play all of Tony’s licks cheaply? You better have some of your own self. So when that happened I was me. Studying the

legacy is an essential part but the doctorate that you get in this art form

is when you get your own style.”

Victor Lewis


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Woody Shaw?

VL: I’ve got so many memories and I share

them when I talk about tough love in terms of

the level of the music and what it takes to play

it. This is a great story that I tell my students. I

had made The Moontrane with Woody, and

this was before he signed with CBS and got

really busy, we did occasional gigs. This hap-

pened in 1977. We were in Knoxville and I had

just broken up with my first New York girl-

friend. Woe is me, heartbroken, deflated, unin-

spired, and I go to play with Woody. We play

the first set and on the intermission Woody

asked to speak with me and he took me way

away from the rest of the band and turned to

me and said, “Motherfucker, what the fuck is

wrong with you?” I said, ‘Well, I broke up

with my lady,’ and he said, “Fuck a girl-

friend… Fuck all that,” and stepped off and left

me in a spin. So here I am like the first night I

froze at Boomers, and I went through the same

cycle until I got my life force back by trigger-

ing my vibrations and spinning my chakras. I

went out to play the second set and went for

broke and you know what Woody did to

acknowledge it? He stopped in the middle of

his solo and turned around to me and said,

“Yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ about, play for

your mf’n life.” So that was a lesson that may-

be you can’t learn until you’re there.

JI: You mentioned that your very first record-

ing was Woody Shaw’s 1974 classic The

Moontrane. Would you talk about that session?

VL: Once again, nervous like a big dog, my

first record. ‘Oh man, oh man,’ and Buster was

on that too. Buster said, “Well, it’s just another

gig.” [Laughs] Conceptually he’s right but I

didn’t have the time under my belt like Buster

did. It came out alright. Something I learned

from Woody is, I do a lot of composing, and

with jazz musicians a lot of the time the tunes

are triggered from something, an event, some-

body, and I learned not to put the name on the

tune. Find something that makes the same

statement but doesn’t announce the direct

meaning because Woody wrote songs for his

girlfriends. They were great songs but when

they would break up, he didn’t want to play the

song anymore. We’d ask him to play them and

he would say, “No, man, later for her!” I only

named one tune kind of directly but it’s still

camouflaged. It’s called “P.D. on Great Jones

Street,” and who she is is Patricia Dow, mother

of my two daughters, and we lived on Great

Jones Street at the time.

JI: You wrote a composition in honor of

Woody Shaw called “The Shaw of Newark.”

What were you conveying with that tune?

VL: I used his intervallic concept. Woody’s

style on the trumpet was not naturally condu-

cive to the natural bugle partial series. He told

me that he checked out all the trumpet players

and after checking them all out he went to

McCoy and Trane for inspiration and therefore

embracing intervallic concepts that aren’t natu-

ral to the trumpet. He worked it out. So “The

Shaw of Newark” has that intervallic concept. I

always liked that from when I played Bartok –

the 4th intervals and the dissonance always

resonated with me. The melody of that song is

right up in his alley. Woody was also a great

drummer on the trumpet. His time was impec-

cable and very rhythmic and high articulation.

The trumpet’s a hard instrument. I don’t play

the trumpet but I own a trumpet and I mess

around.

JI: You made one recording with Eddie Lock-

jaw Davis – The Heavy Hitter in 1979. He was

known for his unusual performance style of

playing “backwards,” using the opposite phras-

ing. Was it difficult to play for him?

VL: No, it wasn’t and in fact the way that

recording session went down was he was on a

mission to get it down with, with dignity, and

get out of there. And thank God he felt that

way because earlier that same day I was re-

cording the Woody III record with Woody

Shaw so I had back-to-back dates so by the

time I got to Eddie Lockjaw’s date I was al-

ready tired. It’s the quickest record date I’ve

ever done in my life. Do you know we did that

record in an hour and a half? No rehearsals, no

rundown, just talk down – “roll em.” All one

takes. We had to stop one time because of me!

[Laughs] It was all medleys. This was the one

and only time I got the chance to play with the

great George Duvivier. This was a hero if you

ever saw one. So elegant and just used to an-

other day in the office, playing great music.

And there was also the great Albert Dailey. It

was over so fast I was delirious trying to figure

out what happened. Are we done?

JI: Would you share a memory of Lockjaw

Davis? He was known to be a rough character.

VL: I never played any gigs with him. He was

always nice to me. It was another day at the

office for him. It was a great thing to witness.

These were like professional artists, hired

guns.

JI: You were part of Stan Getz’s quartet

through the ‘80s.

VL: Those were great bands, it was like driv-

ing a Rolls Royce playing with those bands.

The first band was kind of a fusion band with

Mark Egan on electric bass, Mitchell Foreman

on keyboards, Chuck Loeb on guitar, Bobby

Thomas Jr. on percussion. I did a couple tours

with that band and then Stan changed bands

but kept me. The next band was Lou Levy and

Monty Budwig which recorded The Dolphin

record. Then there was Marc Johnson and Jim

McNeely, and then George Mraz and Jim

McNeely, and eventually Kenny Barron and

Rufus Reid. After I left, Stan was mainly

working duet with Kenny. I developed some-

thing working with Stan. Working with Stan

did a lot for my touch in terms of what I call

playing on simmer. To where you’re not bash-

ing out, you don’t have the laws of physics

intensity of bashing out. And when you have to

play a softer volume, and still want to get that

same intensity, you have to recalibrate how

you deal with the laws of physics because

playing the drums is seriously about the laws

of physics – distance, velocity. Stan liked the

dialogue, he liked for me to stretch out, he just

didn’t want me to bash too hard, so I really

developed another part of my touch spectrum

with him. There’s a Charlie Parker song called

“Sippin’ at Bell’s” that Stan used to like to

play. He and Marc Johnson would play the

melody together and McNeely wouldn’t come

in until the solo started, so it’s me, Stan and

Marc Johnson, and I wasn’t happy just [hitting

a steady pattern] while they were playing the

melody so I decided to play the melody with

them. I started it off by thinking about the

wording and played the melody on the bells of

the cymbal but I wasn’t satisfied with the in-

tensity, so one day I decided to play on the

rims of the cymbals and in that way I could dig

in and accent it and it wasn’t overbearing. That

kind of became a trademark of my style, play-

ing on the sides of the cymbals.

JI: Do you have a memory of Stan Getz to

share?

VL: Let me think about that and edit myself,

like they say to protect the innocent. [Laughs]

You may want to leave this out. Stanford Uni-

versity at Palo Alto used to have a summer jazz

workshop with Stan as the figurehead artist-in-

residence and mascot for the program. We

used to do three-week workshops every sum-

mer and in the summer of 1984 there was a big

event where they invited all of the chancellors,

regents and deans to the lobby to get a full

curriculum jazz program for the school year. It

was a big concert with Dizzy Gillespie. So it

was Stan Getz and Dizzy Gillespie, first time

doing a recording together in twenty five years.

It was a big thing. Before we did the sound-

check, Dizzy did a master class and he turned

it out. Now Stan never finished high school, he

went on the road instead, and he felt like he

didn’t have anything to say [as a teacher] and

meanwhile we’re saying, “Come on man, this

is Stan Getz. You got a lot to say, just start

talking.” But watching Dizzy’s prowess at giv-

ing a formal education presentation kind of

took him out. Immediately afterwards we do a


Victor Lewis


soundcheck and then between the soundcheck

and the concert, Stan disappears and doesn’t

show up at the gig or the after party. There was

a wrecking ball of events that happened as a

result of that. Of course, the recording got

screwed up, so we didn’t get paid for that!

Hey, I got a couple of kids and responsibilities.

Stan turns up three days later, and of course

there’s a wrath of hell from Jane, his girlfriend,

who gives him hell. Now, they were staying in

one of the professor’s houses who was away

on sabbatical and Stan gets mad and starts to

trash the professor’s house. What happened as

a result is that they started a new study about

alcoholism at Stanford University! [Laughs]

They tried to figure out Stan Getz after he fell

off the wagon. I like to tell these stories to peo-

ple who may look at somebody up there on

stage playing, and it seems so effortless for

them that you think this shit is easy, but it’s

not. It takes more than prowess on the instru-

ment and studying jazz. It takes a lot and the

biggest element about it that creates a distor-

tion of what guys go through is that for this art

form, you can’t depend on how you played last

night because every time it’s different. You

have to call “the spirit” every night, and if you

don’t, it’s gonna stay in the mundane or lower

and once you’ve experienced a drop, you’ll do

anything to keep it from dropping like that

again. I like to call it the commitment that a

jazz artist makes to getting it across to the au-

dience. Our job is to open people’s hearts and

raise their vibrations and resonate different

emotions through the abstract intellect of notes

and beats and harmony. Guys know that and

guys do what they do just to be in the right

zone to do what they’re supposed to do, and

sometimes things can go awry. Charlie Parker

died young by doing what he did so that he

could make the presentation that he wanted to

make and move people’s hearts. He paid a

heavy price, but check this out – we still riding

on him like a big dog! Don’t feel bad that he

died at 33, so did Jesus Christ. [Laughs] People

are still riding on him too! It’s what you do

while you’re here that’s important. And that’s

a big issue for me with the jazz legacy because

at 67, I’m older than maybe eighty percent of

my early heroes were when they died and we

still riding on them.

JI: You’re not exposing Stan Getz here, Don-

ald Maggin’s biography Stan Getz: A Life in

Jazz details many stories such as this.

VL: Okay.

JI: You’re not thought of as a free jazz drum-

mer but you’ve recorded with artists in that

genre such as Anthony Braxton, Paul Bley and

Oliver Lake. How much do you resonate with

jazz’s avant-garde?

VL: I like everything and opportunity some-

times comes that embraces whatever your de-

sires are, put the ripple-effect into the cosmos

and so on. A lot of people don’t know this

about Tony Williams, he was very influenced

by the avant-garde in his early days. I used to

listen to Ornette and all that stuff. I used to do

duet concerts with Julius Hemphill, who was

part of the World Saxophone Quartet, and it

would be – ready, set, go! [Laughs] So I like

that but I like the challenge of it’s not a free-

for-all, there has to be music, a focal point, a

tether between the people playing whatever it

is, as abstract as it may be, there’s still a disci-

pline involved. Yeah, it was a great experience

doing a record with Oliver Lake. That record

Heavy Spirits was either my second or third

record and came shortly after The Moontrane

with the same producer Michael Cuscuna. It

was my first avant-garde record and I just went

from what I had listened to and Oliver, who’s a

master at playing avant-garde and other genres,

the way he set it up…For example, there’s a

tune on there called “While Pushing Down

Turn” and he said, “Imagine the sound of [a

prescription container opening]. It’s a point of

departure to convey some kind of picture in

your mind, to tailor where it goes with some

kind of communal goal together.

JI: You’ve been one of jazz’s busiest free-

lancers since the late ‘80s. Who were you most

surprised to hear wanted to hire you?

VL: Steely Dan, I passed on it though. People

couldn’t believe it. I was honored that they

called in to consider me but at that time, I did-

n’t want to do the getting back in shape of

playing that style that would require for me to

do the job I wanted to do. And I had too much

going on swinging. I was a part of a couple of

groups and with a gig like Steely Dan there’s a

chunk of time that you can’t commit to any-

thing else because you’re for hire. You can’t

commit to anything because if they call, you

got to go. So I turned that down and I said,

‘Wow, I’m at a point where I can artistically

pass on the Steely Dan gig. Huh, wouldn’t

never thought that back in the day in Omaha,

Nebraska as a kid.’ I had a few choices and the

choices I made didn’t have anything to do with

money at all.

JI: You play with so many different people,

how do you arrange your schedule and how

many gigs a year is ideal for you?

VL: It’s changed the older I get. I don’t like to

work every day. I like to think about and prac-

tice music every day but I don’t like to work or

travel every day. It’s too taxing. I hate it even

worse in the wintertime when it’s cold. I’ve

done enough tours where you’re standing on

the corner with a drum set waiting for the pro-

moter’s guy to pick you up and hasn’t showed

up yet and you’re freezing to death. I don’t

want to do those six –week tours anymore. A

couple of weeks for me is enough at one time.

Because I’m getting older there’s maintenance

stuff I have to do to my body when I’m at

home that I can’t do on tour. For example, my

hang upside down Teeter [inversion table],

because I’ve had back surgery, it’s essential. I

hang upside down, it’s one of the first things I

do when I get up in the morning. These days

performing two or three times a week is

enough, not even every week. I’m in an in-

spired composing period now and it’s hard to

compose on the road because you got to schlep

so much stuff. Also I have to travel light now,

that’s what the surgeon told me. He told me

without a lumbar 4-5 fusion I was headed for a

wheelchair. He gave me new life!

JI: You’ve only made four recordings as a

leader. Why haven’t you focused more on that?

VL: The industry hustle, that along with the

record labels basically becoming extinct,

which means they’re scrambling to find the

next lucrative artist. I understand it’s business.

What I want to do is produce my next record

myself, meaning pay for it myself, because I

think the future of this industry is not gonna be

record labels. That’s just gonna be for the

hyped artists. Kids these days are putting out

their stuff on the Internet. The reason it’s been

awhile since I recorded is that my younger

daughter got out of college eight years ago so

I’m saving up again! [Laughs] I want to have

full control and do it the way I want which is

what I was able to do with past records, but

times have changed.

JI: You’re an acclaimed drum master but

what do you feel you still need to work on and

when’s the last time you took a drum lesson?



Victor Lewis

“The greatest discovery of any generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering the attitudes of their minds.”

- Albert Schweitzer


Houston PersonHouston Person Hear Houston atHear Houston at

Jazz StandaardJazz Standaard

April 19April 19--22, 201822, 2018

© Joe Patitucci© Joe Patitucci

13 To Advertise CALL: 215-887-8880 April-May 2018 Jazz Inside Magazine www.JazzInsideMagazine.com

Sunday, April 1 The Smokestack Brunch: Easter Brunch With Carmen Intorre Jr.;

Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Ravi Coltrane Trio; Plus Ralph Alessi; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Andrew Cyrille; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

DIVA Jazz Orchestra's 25th Anniversary Celebration and CD Release Party; Dizzy’s Club, 60th & Bdwy

Monday, April 2 Mingus Big Band; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Vanguard Jazz Orchestra; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

Scott Alan "Home Again"; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet with Special Guest Carl Allen; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Tuesday, April 3 Mary Halvorson: Code Girl; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Renee Rosnes; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

Jane Monheit; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Wednesday, April 4 Mary Halvorson: Code Girl; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Louis Armstrong Eternity Band; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.


Lew Tabackin Trio with special guest Randy Brecker; LATE NIGHT SESSION: Joel Wenhardt; Dizzy’s Club, 60th & Bdwy

Thursday, April 5 Renee Rosnes; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

John Scofield Quartet; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Charles Turner; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Randy Weston's African Rhythms Sextet, 92nd Birthday Celebra-tion; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Friday, April 6 Crescent City Monk, with Herlin Riley, Eric “Elew” Lewis, Ellis

Marsalis, Todd Williams, Reginald Veal, Pedrito Martinez, Mela-nie Charles, And More, 7PM, 9:30 PM, The Appel Room



Monk/Sung - Helen Sung Quartet With Special Guest Catherine Russell; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy


Saturday, April 7 Crescent City Monk, with Herlin Riley, Eric “Elew” Lewis, Ellis

Marsalis, Todd Williams, Reginald Veal, Pedrito Martinez, Mela-nie Charles, And More, 7PM, 9:30 PM, The Appel Room



Monk On Tap - The “Monk Mob” With Special Guest Michela Marino Lerman; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy


Sunday, April 8 Randy Weston's African Rhythms Sextet, 92nd Birthday Celebra-

tion; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Jazz For Kids; Randy Weston African Rhythms: Blues Night; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Vocal Masterclass With Marion Cowings; Sacha Perry Trio; Tardo Hammer Trio; Ken Fowser Quintet; Jon Beshay "After-Hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.


The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Monk: High Priest Of Bebop Helen Sung Quartet With Special Guest Dr. Eddie Henderson; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Monday, April 9 Mingus Big Band; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Ari Hoenig Trio; Joel Frahm Trio; After-Hours Jam Session; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Natalie Douglas Tributes: Elvis; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

MSM Jazz Orchestra: A Love Supreme By John Coltrane; Diz-zy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Tuesday, April 10 Walter Smith III "TWIO"; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Enrico Pieranunzi; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

Spike Wilner Quartet; Frank Lacy Group; After-Hours Jam Ses-sion; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Eliane Elias: Music From Man Of La Mancha; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Christian Mcbride’s New Jawn; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Wednesday, April 11 Manuel Valera Trio; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


John Stetch Quartet; Troy Roberts Quartet; Isaiah Thompson "After-Hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.



Thursday, April 12 SFJAZZ Collective: The Music Of Miles Davis; Jazz Standard,

116 E. 27th St.


Philip Dizack Quintet; Steve Hall Sextet; Davis Whitfield "After-Hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Michel Legrand Trio Featuring Ron Carter; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.



Friday, April 13 SFJAZZ Collective: The Music Of Miles Davis; Jazz Standard,

116 E. 27th St. (Continued on page 14)

CALENDAR OF EVENTSCALENDAR OF EVENTS

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Scott Neumann & "Spin Cycle"; Rob Scheps Core-Tet; JD Allen "After-Hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.




Saturday, April 14 The Smokestack Brunch: Ted Chubb Band; SFJAZZ Collective:

The Music Of Miles Davis; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Smalls Showcase: Ark Ovrutski Quartet; Mark Zaleski Band; Rob Scheps Core-Tet; Philip Harper Quintet; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.




Sunday, April 15 Jazz For Kids; SFJAZZ Collective: The Music Of Miles Davis;

Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Vocal Masterclass With Marion Cowings; Sacha Perry Trio; David Schnitter Quartet; David Gibson Quintet; Hillel Salem "After-Hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.




Monday, April 16 Mingus Big Band; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St


Lucas Pino Nonet; Jonathan Michel Group; After-Hours Jam Session; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Frank Wildhorn & Friends; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

MONDAY NIGHTS WITH WBGO, Emmet Cohen Trio Featuring Tootie Heath; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Tuesday, April 17 Ethan Iverson; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Linda Oh; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

Steve Nelson Quartet; Abraham Burton Quartet; After-Hours Jam Session; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Dizzy Gillespie Afro Cuban Experience; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Curtis Stigers; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

James Morrison Quartet; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Evan Sherman; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Wednesday, April 18 Roxy Coss; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Adam Larson Quartet; Harold Mabern Trio; Theo Hill "After-Hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Dizzy Gillespie Afro Cuban Experience; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.


Thursday, April 19 Mike McGinnis / Art Lande / Steve Swallow; Jazz Standard, 116

E. 27th St.


Brockowitz Quartet; Carlos Abadie Quintet; Charles Goold "After-Hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Kenny Garrett; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.


Christian McBride Big Band; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Friday, April 20 Mingus Big Band; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Paul Nedzela Quartet; Quincy Davis Sextet; Corey Wallace Dubtet "After-Hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.




Saturday, April 21 Smokestack Brunch: Andrew Gould; Mingus Big Band; Jazz

Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Paul Nedzela Quartet; Quincy Davis Sextet; Brooklyn Circle; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.




Sunday, April 22 Jazz For Kids; Mingus Big Band; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Vocal Masterclass With Marion Cowings; Sacha Perry Trio; Nick Hempton Band; JC Stylles/Steve Nelson Hutcherson Band; Jon Beshay "After-Hours; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.


Gunhild Carling; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.


http://www.jazz.org/dizzys


http://www.jazzstandard.com



Monday, April 23 Mingus Orchestra; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Ari Hoenig Trio; Jonathan Barber Group; After-Hours Jam Ses-sion; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Maureen Mcgovern; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Purchase Jazz Orchestra With Special Guest Mike LeDonne; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Tuesday, April 24 Nate Smith + Kinfolk; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Javon Jackson; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

Ian Hendrickson-Smith Quartet; Frank Lacy Group; After-Hours Jam Session; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Irakere 45; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Karrin Allyson; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

9:30pm: Chimy Presents: “Four By Four”; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Wednesday, April 25 Nate Smith + Kinfolk; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Massimo Farao Quartet; Arcoiris Sandoval Sonic Asylum Quintet; Aaron Seeber "After-Hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.



Thursday, April 26 Black, Brown & Beige &The Best Of Basie Featuring The Jazz At

Lincoln Center Orchestra With Wynton Marsalis; Program Is Presented As Part Of The Ertegun Jazz Concert Series. 8PM, Rose Theater

Houston Person Quartet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Chet Doxas Quartet; Matt Chertkoff Quintet; Asaf Yuria "After-Hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.



Friday, April 27 Black, Brown & Beige &The Best Of Basie Featuring The Jazz At

Lincoln Center Orchestra With Wynton Marsalis; Program Is Presented As Part Of The Ertegun Jazz Concert Series. 8PM, Jazz At Lincoln Center, Rose Theater

Joe Locke “Subtle Disguise”; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Houston Person Quartet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


John Ellis Quartet; Lew Tabackin Trio; JD Allen "After-Hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.



Saturday, April 28 Black, Brown & Beige &The Best Of Basie Featuring The Jazz At

Lincoln Center Orchestra With Wynton Marsalis; Program Is Presented As Part Of The Ertegun Jazz Concert Series. 8PM, Rose Theater

Joe Locke “Subtle Disguise”; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Smokestack Brunch: Theo Hill Trio; Houston Person Quartet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.




Sunday, April 29 Joe Locke “Subtle Disguise”; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln

Center, 60th & Bdwy

Jazz For Kids; Houston Person Quartet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Smalls Showcase: Ben Barnett; John Ellis Quartet; Lew Tabackin Trio; Philip Harper Quintet; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.



Monday, April 30 Temple University Jazz Band; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln

Center, 60th & Bdwy

Mingus Big Band; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Ari Hoenig Trio; Joe Farnsworth Quartet; After-Hours Jam Ses-sion; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Max Von Essen In Concert With Billy Stritch; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Tuesday, May 1 Kenny Barron Quintet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Eric Reed Quartet, Village Vanguard, 178 7th Ave S.

Chucho Valdés; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Fleurine & Boys From Brazil Featuring Brad Mehldau

William Paterson University Jazz Orchestra and Ensembles; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Wednesday, May 2 Michael Feinstein: The Enchanting Lena Horne with Michael

Feinstein, Tedd Firth Big Band, and Guest Vocalists Christine Ebersole, Nnenna Freelon, Alexis Morrast; 7PM, Appel Room

Kenny Barron Quintet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.



David Ostwald's Louis Armstrong Eternity Band

Darcy James Argue Secret Society; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lin-coln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Thursday, May 3 Michael Feinstein: The Enchanting Lena Horne with Michael

Feinstein, Tedd Firth Big Band, and Guest Vocalists Christine Ebersole, Nnenna Freelon, Alexis Morrast; 7PM, 9PM, Appel Room




Savion Glover Featuring Marcus Gilmore; Birdland, 315 W. 44th

Bruce Forman Trio; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Friday, May 4 Zakir Hussain and Dave Holland: Crosscurrents - Jazz Legend

Dave Holland, Tabla Percussion Master Zakir Hussain, Chris Potter, Amit Chatterjee, Louiz Banks, Gino Banks, and Shankar Mahadevan. This Program Is Presented As Part Of The Ertegun Jazz Concert Series. 8PM, Rose Theater




Savion Glover Featuring Marcus Gilmore; Birdland, 315 W. 44th

Birdland Big Band; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Elio Villafranca: On Any Given Night In Havana featuring Claudia Acuna; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy


Jazz

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Jazz

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— Anton Chekhov

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http://www.jazzmusicdeals.com


Saturday, May 5 Zakir Hussain and Dave Holland: Crosscurrents - Jazz Legend

Dave Holland, Tabla Percussion Master Zakir Hussain, Chris Potter, Amit Chatterjee, Louiz Banks, Gino Banks, and Shankar Mahadevan. This Program Is Presented As Part Of The Ertegun Jazz Concert Series. 8PM, Rose Theater

Smokestack Brunch: The Ladybugs; Kenny Barron Quintet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.



Dida Pelled; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Sunday, May 6 Jazz For Kids; Kenny Barron Quintet; Jazz Standard, 116 E.

27th St.




Monday, May 7 Mingus Big Band; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Jeff Hamilton Trio; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Tuesday, May 8 Fred Hersch Duo Invitation Series With Anat Cohen; Jazz Stand-

ard, 116 E. 27th St.

Steve Coleman & Five Elements, Village Vanguard, 178 7th Ave S.

Bill Charlap; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Wednesday, May 9 Fred Hersch Duo Invitation Series With Kate Mcgarry; Jazz




Essentially Ellington Alumni Band; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Thursday, May 10 Fred Hersch Duo Invitation Series With Miguel Zenon; Jazz




Friday, May 11 Fred Hersch Pocket Orchestra; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Steve Coleman & Five Elements, Village Vanguard, 178 7th Av S


Saturday, May 12 Smokestack Brunch: Carmen Staaf's "Day Dream"; Fred Hersch

Pocket Orchestra; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.



Sunday, May 13

Jazz For Kids; Fred Hersch Duo Invitation Series With Esperanza Spalding; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th



Monday May 14 Mingus Big Band; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Vanguard Jazz Orchestra; Village Vanguard 178 7th Av S


Javon Jackson's Berklee Sextet; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Tuesday, May 15 Broken Shadows; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Vijay Iyer, Village Vanguard, 178 7th Av S


Glenn Zaleski Trio; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Late Night Session: Anthony Hervey; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Friday, May 18 Celebrating Ornette Coleman, Featuring The Jazz At Lincoln

Center Orchestra With Wynton Marsalis And Music Director Ted Nash; 8PM, Jazz At Lincoln Center, Rose Theater

Saturday, May 19 Celebrating Ornette Coleman, Featuring The Jazz At Lincoln

Center Orchestra With Wynton Marsalis And Music Director Ted Nash; 8PM, Jazz At Lincoln Center, Rose Theater

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is an outrage.”

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5 C Cultural Center, 68 Avenue C. 212-477-5993. www.5ccc.com

55 Bar, 55 Christopher St. 212-929-9883, 55bar.com

92nd St Y, 1395 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10128,

212.415.5500, 92ndsty.org

Aaron Davis Hall, City College of NY, Convent Ave., 212-650-

6900, aarondavishall.org

Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, Broadway & 65th St., 212-875-

5050, lincolncenter.org/default.asp

Allen Room, Lincoln Center, Time Warner Center, Broadway and

60th, 5th floor, 212-258-9800, lincolncenter.org

American Museum of Natural History, 81st St. & Central Park

W., 212-769-5100, amnh.org

Antibes Bistro, 112 Suffolk Street. 212-533-6088.

www.antibesbistro.com

Arthur’s Tavern, 57 Grove St., 212-675-6879 or 917-301-8759,

arthurstavernnyc.com

Arts Maplewood, P.O. Box 383, Maplewood, NJ 07040; 973-378-

2133, artsmaplewood.org

Avery Fischer Hall, Lincoln Center, Columbus Ave. & 65th St.,

212-875-5030, lincolncenter.org

BAM Café, 30 Lafayette Av, Brooklyn, 718-636-4100, bam.org

Bar Chord, 1008 Cortelyou Rd., Brooklyn, barchordnyc.com

Bar Lunatico, 486 Halsey St., Brooklyn. 718-513-0339.

222.barlunatico.com

Barbes, 376 9th St. (corner of 6th Ave.), Park Slope, Brooklyn,

718-965-9177, barbesbrooklyn.com

Barge Music, Fulton Ferry Landing, Brooklyn, 718-624-2083,

bargemusic.org

B.B. King’s Blues Bar, 237 W. 42nd St., 212-997-4144,

bbkingblues.com

Beacon Theatre, 74th St. & Broadway, 212-496-7070

Beco Bar, 45 Richardson, Brooklyn. 718-599-1645.

www.becobar.com

Bickford Theatre, on Columbia Turnpike @ Normandy Heights

Road, east of downtown Morristown. 973-744-2600

Birdland, 315 W. 44th St., 212-581-3080

Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd, 212-475-8592, bluenotejazz.com

Bourbon St Bar and Grille, 346 W. 46th St, NY, 10036,

212-245-2030, [email protected]

Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery (at Bleecker), 212-614-0505,

bowerypoetry.com

BRIC House, 647 Fulton St. Brooklyn, NY 11217, 718-683-5600,

http://bricartsmedia.org

Brooklyn Public Library, Grand Army Plaza, 2nd Fl, Brooklyn,

NY, 718-230-2100, brooklynpubliclibrary.org

Café Carlyle, 35 E. 76th St., 212-570-7189, thecarlyle.com

Café Loup, 105 W. 13th St. (West Village) , between Sixth and

Seventh Aves., 212-255-4746

Café St. Bart’s, 109 E. 50th St, 212-888-2664, cafestbarts.com

Cafe Noctambulo, 178 2nd Ave. 212-995-0900. cafenoctam-

bulo.com

Caffe Vivaldi, 32 Jones St, NYC; caffevivaldi.com

Candlelight Lounge, 24 Passaic St, Trenton. 609-695-9612.

Carnegie Hall, 7th Av & 57th, 212-247-7800, carnegiehall.org

Cassandra’s Jazz, 2256 7th Avenue. 917-435-2250. cassan-

drasjazz.com

Chico’s House Of Jazz, In Shoppes at the Arcade, 631 Lake Ave.,

Asbury Park, 732-774-5299

City Winery, 155 Varick St. Bet. Vandam & Spring St., 212-608-

0555. citywinery.com

Cleopatra’s Needle, 2485 Broadway (betw 92nd & 93rd), 212-769-

6969, cleopatrasneedleny.com

Club Bonafide, 212 W. 52nd, 646-918-6189. clubbonafide.com

C’mon Everybody, 325 Franklin Avenue, Brooklyn.

www.cmoneverybody.com

Copeland’s, 547 W. 145th St. (at Bdwy), 212-234-2356

Cornelia St Café, 29 Cornelia, 212-989-9319

Count Basie Theatre, 99 Monmouth St., Red Bank, New Jersey

07701, 732-842-9000, countbasietheatre.org

Crossroads at Garwood, 78 North Ave., Garwood, NJ 07027,

908-232-5666

Cutting Room, 19 W. 24th St, 212-691-1900

Dizzy’s Club, Broadway at 60th St., 5th Floor, 212-258-9595,

jalc.com

DROM, 85 Avenue A, New York, 212-777-1157, dromnyc.com

The Ear Inn, 326 Spring St., NY, 212-226-9060, earinn.com

East Village Social, 126 St. Marks Place. 646-755-8662.

www.evsnyc.com

Edward Hopper House, 82 N. Broadway, Nyack NY. 854-358-

0774.

El Museo Del Barrio, 1230 Fifth Ave (at 104th St.), Tel: 212-831-

7272, Fax: 212-831-7927, elmuseo.org

Esperanto, 145 Avenue C. 212-505-6559. www.esperantony.com

The Falcon, 1348 Rt. 9W, Marlboro, NY., 845) 236-7970,

Fat Cat, 75 Christopher St., 212-675-7369, fatcatjazz.com

Fine and Rare, 9 East 37th Street. www.fineandrare.nyc

Five Spot, 459 Myrtle Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 718-852-0202, fivespot-

soulfood.com

Flushing Town Hall, 137-35 Northern Blvd., Flushing, NY, 718-

463-7700 x222, flushingtownhall.org

For My Sweet, 1103 Fulton St., Brooklyn, NY 718-857-1427

Galapagos, 70 N. 6th St., Brooklyn, NY, 718-782-5188, galapago-

sartspace.com

Garage Restaurant and Café, 99 Seventh Ave. (betw 4th and

Bleecker), 212-645-0600, garagerest.com

Garden Café, 4961 Broadway, by 207th St., New York, 10034,

212-544-9480

Gin Fizz, 308 Lenox Ave, 2nd floor. (212) 289-2220.

www.ginfizzharlem.com

Ginny’s Supper Club, 310 Malcolm X Boulevard Manhattan, NY

10027, 212-792-9001, http://redroosterharlem.com/ginnys/

Glen Rock Inn, 222 Rock Road, Glen Rock, NJ, (201) 445-2362,

glenrockinn.com

GoodRoom, 98 Meserole, Bklyn, 718-349-2373, goodroombk.com.

Green Growler, 368 S, Riverside Ave., Croton-on-Hudson NY.

914-862-0961. www.thegreengrowler.com

Greenwich Village Bistro, 13 Carmine St., 212-206-9777, green-

wichvillagebistro.com

Harlem on 5th, 2150 5th Avenue. 212-234-5600.

www.harlemonfifth.com

Harlem Tea Room, 1793A Madison Ave., 212-348-3471, har-

lemtearoom.com

Hat City Kitchen, 459 Valley St, Orange. 862-252-9147.

hatcitykitchen.com

Havana Central West End, 2911 Broadway/114th St), NYC,

212-662-8830, havanacentral.com

Highline Ballroom, 431 West 16th St (between 9th & 10th Ave.

highlineballroom.com, 212-414-4314.

Hopewell Valley Bistro, 15 East Broad St, Hopewell, NJ 08525,

609-466-9889, hopewellvalleybistro.com

Hudson Room, 27 S. Division St., Peekskill NY. 914-788-FOOD.

hudsonroom.com

Hyatt New Brunswick, 2 Albany St., New Brunswick, NJ

IBeam Music Studio, 168 7th St., Brooklyn, ibeambrooklyn.com

INC American Bar & Kitchen, 302 George St., New Brunswick

NJ. (732) 640-0553. www.increstaurant.com

Iridium, 1650 Broadway, 212-582-2121, iridiumjazzclub.com

Jazz 966, 966 Fulton St., Brooklyn, NY, 718-638-6910

Jazz at Lincoln Center, 33 W. 60th St., 212-258-9800, jalc.org

Frederick P. Rose Hall, Broadway at 60th St., 5th Floor

Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, Reservations: 212-258-9595

Rose Theater, Tickets: 212-721-6500, The Allen Room, Tickets:

212-721-6500

Jazz Gallery, 1160 Bdwy, (212) 242-1063, jazzgallery.org

The Jazz Spot, 375 Kosciuszko St. (enter at 179 Marcus Garvey

Blvd.), Brooklyn, NY, 718-453-7825, thejazz.8m.com

Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St., 212-576-2232, jazzstandard.net

Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St & Astor Pl.,

212-539-8778, joespub.com

John Birks Gillespie Auditorium (see Baha’i Center)

Jules Bistro, 65 St. Marks Pl, 212-477-5560, julesbistro.com

Kasser Theater, 1 Normal Av, Montclair State College, Montclair,

973-655-4000, montclair.edu

Key Club, 58 Park Pl, Newark, NJ, 973-799-0306, keyclubnj.com

Kitano Hotel, 66 Park Ave., 212-885-7119. kitano.com

Knickerbocker Bar & Grill, 33 University Pl., 212-228-8490,

knickerbockerbarandgrill.com

Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard St, 212-219-3132, knittingfacto-

ry.com

Langham Place — Measure, Fifth Avenue, 400 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10018, 212-613-8738, langhamplacehotels.com

La Lanterna (Bar Next Door at La Lanterna), 129 MacDougal St,

New York, 212-529-5945, lalanternarcaffe.com

Le Cirque Cafe, 151 E. 58th St., lecirque.com

Le Fanfare, 1103 Manhattan Ave., Brooklyn. 347-987-4244.

www.lefanfare.com

Le Madeleine, 403 W. 43rd St. (betw 9th & 10th Ave.), New York,

New York, 212-246-2993, lemadeleine.com

Les Gallery Clemente Soto Velez, 107 Suffolk St, 212-260-4080

Lexington Hotel, 511 Lexington Ave. (212) 755-4400.

www.lexinghotelnyc.com

Live @ The Falcon, 1348 Route 9W, Marlboro, NY 12542,

Living Room, 154 Ludlow St. 212-533-7235, livingroomny.com

The Local 269, 269 E. Houston St. (corner of Suffolk St.), NYC

Makor, 35 W. 67th St., 212-601-1000, makor.org

Lounge Zen, 254 DeGraw Ave, Teaneck, NJ, (201) 692-8585,

lounge-zen.com

Maureen's Jazz Cellar, 2 N. Broadway, Nyack NY. 845-535-3143.

maureensjazzcellar.com

Maxwell’s, 1039 Washington St, Hoboken, NJ, 201-653-1703

McCarter Theater, 91 University Pl., Princeton, 609-258-2787,

mccarter.org

Merkin Concert Hall, Kaufman Center, 129 W. 67th St., 212-501

-3330, ekcc.org/merkin.htm

Metropolitan Room, 34 West 22nd St NY, NY 10012, 212-206-

0440

Mezzrow, 163 West 10th Street, Basement, New York, NY

10014. 646-476-4346. www.mezzrow.com

Minton’s, 206 W 118th St., 212-243-2222, mintonsharlem.com

Mirelle’s, 170 Post Ave., Westbury, NY, 516-338-4933

MIST Harlem, 46 W. 116th St., myimagestudios.com

Mixed Notes Café, 333 Elmont Rd., Elmont, NY (Queens area),

516-328-2233, mixednotescafe.com

Montauk Club, 25 8th Ave., Brooklyn, 718-638-0800,

montaukclub.com

Moscow 57, 168½ Delancey. 212-260-5775. moscow57.com

Muchmore’s, 2 Havemeyer St., Brooklyn. 718-576-3222.

www.muchmoresnyc.com

Mundo, 37-06 36th St., Queens. mundony.com

Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Ave. (between

103rd & 104th St.), 212-534-1672, mcny.org

Musicians’ Local 802, 332 W. 48th, 718-468-7376

National Sawdust, 80 N. 6th St., Brooklyn. 646-779-8455.

www.nationalsawdust.org

Newark Museum, 49 Washington St, Newark, New Jersey 07102-

3176, 973-596-6550, newarkmuseum.org

New Jersey Performing Arts Center, 1 Center St., Newark, NJ,

07102, 973-642-8989, njpac.org

New Leaf Restaurant, 1 Margaret Corbin Dr., Ft. Tryon Park. 212-

568-5323. newleafrestaurant.com

New School Performance Space, 55 W. 13th St., 5th Floor (betw

5th & 6th Ave.), 212-229-5896, newschool.edu.

New School University-Tishman Auditorium, 66 W. 12th St., 1st

Floor, Room 106, 212-229-5488, newschool.edu

New York City Baha’i Center, 53 E. 11th St. (betw Broadway &

University), 212-222-5159, bahainyc.org

North Square Lounge, 103 Waverly Pl. (at MacDougal St.),

212-254-1200, northsquarejazz.com

Oak Room at The Algonquin Hotel, 59 W. 44th St. (betw 5th and

6th Ave.), 212-840-6800, thealgonquin.net

Oceana Restaurant, 120 West 49th St, New York, NY 10020

212-759-5941, oceanarestaurant.com

Orchid, 765 Sixth Ave. (betw 25th & 26th St.), 212-206-9928

The Owl, 497 Rogers Ave, Bklyn. 718-774-0042. www.theowl.nyc

Palazzo Restaurant, 11 South Fullerton Avenue, Montclair. 973-

746-6778. palazzonj.com

Priory Jazz Club: 223 W Market, Newark, 07103, 973-639-7885

Proper Café, 217-01 Linden Blvd., Queens, 718-341-2233

Clubs, Venues & Jazz ResourcesClubs, Venues & Jazz Resources

— Anton Chekhov

“A system of morality

which is based on relative

emotional values is a mere

illusion, a thoroughly vulgar

conception which has nothing

sound in it and nothing true.”

— Socrates


Prospect Park Bandshell, 9th St. & Prospect Park W., Brooklyn,

NY, 718-768-0855

Prospect Wine Bar & Bistro, 16 Prospect St. Westfield, NJ,

908-232-7320, 16prospect.com, cjayrecords.com

Red Eye Grill, 890 7th Av (56th), 212-541-9000, redeyegrill.com

Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 East Ridge, parallel to Main St.,

Ridgefield, CT; ridgefieldplayhouse.org, 203-438-5795

Rockwood Music Hall, 196 Allen St, 212-477-4155

Rose Center (American Museum of Natural History), 81st St.

(Central Park W. & Columbus), 212-769-5100, amnh.org/rose

Rose Hall, 33 W. 60th St., 212-258-9800, jalc.org

Rosendale Café, 434 Main St., PO Box 436, Rosendale, NY 12472,

845-658-9048, rosendalecafe.com

Rubin Museum of Art - “Harlem in the Himalayas”, 150 W. 17th

St. 212-620-5000. rmanyc.org

Rustik, 471 DeKalb Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 347-406-9700,

rustikrestaurant.com

St. Mark’s Church, 131 10th St. (at 2nd Ave.), 212-674-6377

St. Nick’s Pub, 773 St. Nicholas Av (at 149th), 212-283-9728

St. Peter’s Church, 619 Lexington (at 54th), 212-935-2200,

saintpeters.org

Sasa’s Lounge, 924 Columbus Ave, Between 105th & 106th St.

NY, NY 10025, 212-865-5159, sasasloungenyc.yolasite.com

Savoy Grill, 60 Park Place, Newark, NJ 07102, 973-286-1700

Schomburg Center, 515 Malcolm X Blvd., 212-491-2200,

nypl.org/research/sc/sc.html

Shanghai Jazz, 24 Main St., Madison, NJ, 973-822-2899, shang-

haijazz.com

ShapeShifter Lab, 18 Whitwell Pl, Brooklyn, NY 11215

shapeshifterlab.com

Showman’s, 375 W. 125th St., 212-864-8941

Sidewalk Café, 94 Ave. A, 212-473-7373

Sista’s Place, 456 Nostrand, Bklyn, 718-398-1766, sistasplace.org

Skippers Plane St Pub, 304 University Ave. Newark NJ, 973-733-

9300, skippersplaneStpub.com

Smalls Jazz Club, 183 W. 10th St. (at 7th Ave.), 212-929-7565,

SmallsJazzClub.com

Smith’s Bar, 701 8th Ave, New York, 212-246-3268

Sofia’s Restaurant - Club Cache’ [downstairs], Edison Hotel,

221 W. 46th St. (between Broadway & 8th Ave), 212-719-5799

South Gate Restaurant & Bar, 154 Central Park South, 212-484-

5120, 154southgate.com

South Orange Performing Arts Center, One SOPAC

Way, South Orange, NJ 07079, sopacnow.org, 973-313-2787

Spectrum, 2nd floor, 121 Ludlow St.

Spoken Words Café, 266 4th Av, Brooklyn, 718-596-3923

Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, 165 W. 65th St., 10th Floor,

212-721-6500, lincolncenter.org

The Stone, Ave. C & 2nd St., thestonenyc.com

Strand Bistro, 33 W. 37th St. 212-584-4000

SubCulture, 45 Bleecker St., subculturenewyork.com

Sugar Bar, 254 W. 72nd St, 212-579-0222, sugarbarnyc.com

Swing 46, 349 W. 46th St.(betw 8th & 9th Ave.),

212-262-9554, swing46.com

Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, Tel: 212-864-1414, Fax: 212-

932-3228, symphonyspace.org

Tea Lounge, 837 Union St. (betw 6th & 7th Ave), Park Slope,

Broooklyn, 718-789-2762, tealoungeNY.com

Terra Blues, 149 Bleecker St. (betw Thompson & LaGuardia),

212-777-7776, terrablues.com

Threes Brewing, 333 Douglass St., Brooklyn. 718-522-2110.

www.threesbrewing.com

Tito Puente’s Restaurant and Cabaret, 64 City Island Avenue,

City Island, Bronx, 718-885-3200, titopuentesrestaurant.com

Tomi Jazz, 239 E. 53rd St., 646-497-1254, tomijazz.com

Tonic, 107 Norfolk St. (betw Delancey & Rivington), Tel: 212-358-

7501, Fax: 212-358-1237, tonicnyc.com

Town Hall, 123 W. 43rd St., 212-997-1003

Triad Theater, 158 W. 72nd St. (betw Broadway & Columbus

Ave.), 212-362-2590, triadnyc.com

Tribeca Performing Arts Center, 199 Chambers St, 10007,

[email protected], tribecapac.org

Trumpets, 6 Depot Square, Montclair, NJ, 973-744-2600,

trumpetsjazz.com

Turning Point Cafe, 468 Piermont Ave. Piermont, N.Y. 10968

(845) 359-1089, http://turningpointcafe.com

Urbo, 11 Times Square. 212-542-8950. urbonyc.com

Village Vanguard, 178 7th Ave S., 212-255-4037

Vision Festival, 212-696-6681, [email protected],

Watchung Arts Center, 18 Stirling Rd, Watchung, NJ 07069,

908-753-0190, watchungarts.org

Watercolor Café, 2094 Boston Post Road, Larchmont, NY 10538,

914-834-2213, watercolorcafe.net

Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall, 57th & 7th Ave, 212-247-7800

Williamsburg Music Center, 367 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY

11211, (718) 384-1654 wmcjazz.org

Zankel Hall, 881 7th Ave, New York, 212-247-7800

Zinc Bar, 82 West 3rd St.

RECORD STORES

Academy Records, 12 W. 18th St., New York, NY 10011, 212-242

-3000, http://academy-records.com

Downtown Music Gallery, 13 Monroe St, New York, NY 10002,

(212) 473-0043, downtownmusicgallery.com

Jazz Record Center, 236 W. 26th St., Room 804,

212-675-4480, jazzrecordcenter.com

MUSIC STORES

Roberto’s Woodwind & Brass, 149 West 46th St. NY, NY 10036,

646-366-0240, robertoswoodwind.com

Sam Ash, 333 W 34th St, New York, NY 10001

Phone: (212) 719-2299 samash.com

Sadowsky Guitars Ltd, 2107 41st Avenue 4th Floor, Long Island

City, NY 11101, 718-433-1990. sadowsky.com

Steve Maxwell Vintage Drums, 723 7th Ave, 3rd Floor, New

York, NY 10019, 212-730-8138, maxwelldrums.com

SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, CONSERVATORIES

92nd St Y, 1395 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10128

212.415.5500; 92ndsty.org

Brooklyn-Queens Conservatory of Music, 42-76 Main St.,

Flushing, NY, Tel: 718-461-8910, Fax: 718-886-2450

Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, 58 Seventh Ave., Brooklyn,

NY, 718-622-3300, brooklynconservatory.com

City College of NY-Jazz Program, 212-650-5411,

Drummers Collective, 541 6th Ave, New York, NY 10011,

212-741-0091, thecoll.com

Five Towns College, 305 N. Service, 516-424-7000, x Hills, NY

Greenwich House Music School, 46 Barrow St., Tel: 212-242-

4770, Fax: 212-366-9621, greenwichhouse.org

Juilliard School of Music, 60 Lincoln Ctr, 212-799-5000

LaGuardia Community College/CUNI, 31-10 Thomson Ave.,

Long Island City, 718-482-5151

Lincoln Center — Jazz At Lincoln Center, 140 W. 65th St.,

10023, 212-258-9816, 212-258-9900

Long Island University — Brooklyn Campus, Dept. of Music,

University Plaza, Brooklyn, 718-488-1051, 718-488-1372

Manhattan School of Music, 120 Claremont Ave., 10027,

212-749-2805, 2802, 212-749-3025

NJ City Univ, 2039 Kennedy Blvd., Jersey City, 888-441-6528

New School, 55 W. 13th St., 212-229-5896, 212-229-8936

NY University, 35 West 4th St. Rm #777, 212-998-5446

NY Jazz Academy, 718-426-0633 NYJazzAcademy.com

Princeton University-Dept. of Music, Woolworth Center Musical

Studies, Princeton, NJ, 609-258-4241, 609-258-6793

Queens College — Copland School of Music, City University of

NY, Flushing, 718-997-3800

Rutgers Univ. at New Brunswick, Jazz Studies, Douglass Cam-

pus, PO Box 270, New Brunswick, NJ, 908-932-9302

Rutgers University Institute of Jazz Studies, 185 University

Avenue, Newark NJ 07102, 973-353-5595

newarkrutgers.edu/IJS/index1.html

SUNY Purchase, 735 Anderson Hill, Purchase, 914-251-6300

Swing University (see Jazz At Lincoln Center, under Venues)

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Jazzmobile, Inc., jazzmobile.org

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(Continued from Page 11)

VL: Oh, man, I take unofficial drum lessons every

day and I’m always practicing in my head. I’m at

the point now that I can work out [in my mind]

what I want to do and I know what the movement

is gonna be. Now what I’m working on is really

exploring me to the fullest extent without feeling

that I have to add more chops to my arsenal. They

say every generation runs faster and jumps higher

and there’s a lot of young cats now that have more

chops than they’ll ever need but they’re still seek-

ing for more chops thinking that’s gonna get them

musically to what they’re trying to do, but not nec-

essarily. I had a revelation. I’ve been playing the

drums for 55 years and say, maybe for 25 or 30 of

them, I tried to collect all the licks and beats and

rhythms. The last 25 years I’ve been trying to fig-

ure out how to play one lick a thousand different

ways. I’m trying to use the facility that I have be-

cause I used to be a practice-aholic. I’d be scared to

go to the gig if I didn’t at least put a couple hours

in and then life threw me a wonderful curve ball

where my living situation changed and I couldn’t

practice before I had to go to the gig. That was a

great thing for me because that meant that I had to

play music with what I had, whatever I showed up

with, and that’s the whole point, which is to play

music as opposed to playing facility.

JI: In addition to drumming, you’ve excelled as a

composer. Your songs have rich, memorable melo-

dies. What stimulates you to compose?

VL: One is that it’s cheaper than seeing a shrink

and you might make some money with royalties.

It’s a vent, it’s a purging, it’s a mission. Really I

started composing from getting bored with my

classical piano lesson for the week and just started

screwing around on the piano when I was eleven.

Then when I got my drum set and I assembled

some cats to come and play at the crib in the base-

ment, it got to the point of, ‘Ok, here we are, what

are we gonna play?’ I started coming up with little

ditties on the piano that I could teach the cats and

then we could play them. Over the years, I just like

creating music, expressing a feeling. I didn’t just

want to be a drummer, I wanted to be a musician.

In my early days in New York, I got chumped off

as a composer because the scene wasn’t evolved

enough to embrace drummers who were compos-

ers. When I hit New York there were only a few

cats who were composers – Joe Chambers, Jack

DeJohnette, Tony Williams, but Woody encour-

aged me to bring in music when I joined his band.

He told me the reason why was because when he

was a young man, playing with Horace Silver, he

was always up in Horace’s ear asking to play one

of his tunes and Horace wouldn’t play them.

Woody kept hassling him so finally Horace agreed

to play one. So they rehearsed it and played it and

it got a standing ovation. He didn’t play the tune

anymore after that! Woody said he vowed that once

he got his own band that he wouldn’t just play his

own stuff. He almost demanded other’s bring mu-

sic in and lucky me. You can’t buy that kind of

opportunity at Berklee.

JI: One of your most popular tunes is “Big Girls.”

What’s the story behind that title?

VL: “Big Girls” is all about grownup women who

are really responsible little girls at heart and the

relationship between men and women. Sometimes

the girlfriend is kind of motherly to the guy and

sometimes the guy is kind of fatherly to the girl in

terms of looking out for each other. It has to do

with the dance of the relationship and how the

pendulum can swing to either side. When we rec-

orded that with Kenny Barron’s Quintet

[Quickstep, 1991, Enja] there was an incident that

you would think would have killed the vibe. It was

recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s and Rudy, who was

an analog genius, bless his soul, but eccentric and a

little cocky and could be a drag sometimes, but he

was good at what he did. Somedays he was cranky.

So we’re getting ready to record “Big Girls” and

John Stubblefield mentioned something to Rudy

about the sound of the horn in his headphones and

Rudy says the wrong thing. He said, “And is this

your record? Then don’t worry about it!” It wasn’t

cool. [Laughs] He roughed off Stubblefield and

the whole band felt a vibe of diss. I was thinking,

‘Oh, man, the vibe is screwed up. It’s gonna kill it,’

but it did just the opposite. It made everybody in

the band arch up and say, “Look, until we play the

first note there ain’t nothin’ for you to do. We

come first!” That’s the spirit that we had to get to

rally to transcend how Rudy fucked up the vibe.

And John Stubblefield, who he dissed the most,

every time I listen to his solo on it, I start to cry

because it was such a challenge. Everyone arched

up so much, the tune ended up being fifteen

minutes and Kenny kept all of it.

JI: Do you have a 9/11 experience to share?

VL: Indeed I do. I was supposed to go to Bogotá,

Columbia the day after 9/11. On 9/11 I woke up

around 7:30 with a mission to buy a new pair of

shoes to take with me. I put on NY1 to see what

was happening in the world and I saw this plane

crash into the World Trade Center. I figured it was

a trailer for a new movie and then I realized it was

live. Boom! It was on! I had a daughter who was at

City College and her campus was right next to the

World Trade Center. My daughter still has an im-

print of what she saw. She said, “Daddy, they had

us come out of the building and we looked at the

World Trade Center and at first, I thought that they

were throwing valuables out of the windows but

then I realized they were jumping.” Can you imag-

ine a twenty-year-old girl seeing that? Needless to

say, I never made it to Bogotá the next day because

nothing was flying. But the thing that was disas-

trously beautiful about it was it made the comara-

drie level in New York go up tenfold. Everyone

was being nice to each other until that wore off but

for about a month it was intensely unified.

JI: The final questions have been given to me by

other artists to ask you:

Herlin Riley (drums) said: “Thanks for reaching

out to me for my input in interviewing my well

respected friend, colleague and fellow drummer -

the great Victor Lewis. I checked out a few of

Vic’s interviews and performances on YouTube.

One of his interviews talked about intellect vs.


“They say every generation runs faster and jumps higher and there’s a lot of

young cats now that have more chops than they’ll ever need but they’re still

seeking for more chops thinking that’s gonna get them musically to what they’re

trying to do, but not necessarily.”

Victor Lewis


Photo of Victor Lewis performing with

Sonny Rollins, Damrosch Park, New York City,

August 26, 2006 Copyright © Eric Nemeyer


spirit in musicians. He said Woody Shaw chal-

lenged him on that issue! Today’s musicians go to

college to study with different teachers to develop

their musical intellect. I’d like to ask you Vic, how

does a musician develop the spiritual component of

playing jazz music?”

VL: That’s a great question, Herlin, my man!

Yeah, I’ve studied. Yeah, I went to college. Yeah, I

know what a flatted 5th chord is, I know a bunch of

stuff, but that doesn’t always give you a ticket to

make music. These are tools and you need to put as

many tools into your bag as you can so that when

your heart decides what you musically want to

play, you look in the bag and see which tool you

need. That comes from a non-detached spiritual

ceremony when you play. I believe there’s a spirit

that you have to call when you play that helps you

distribute your tools purely as opposed to it being

calisthenics, and these are things that I would like

to be addressed more in the educational institu-

tions. Eddie Henderson tells a story about the time

Miles Davis came to his house for dinner when

Eddie was five-years-old and he played his little

horn for Miles and Miles said, “Okay, good kid. I’ll

see you in twenty years.” Twenty years go by and

little Eddie has grown up and worked on his stuff,

and low and behold, another opportunity for Miles

to hear him. He came to a gig Eddie was playing

and Eddie played his heart out. On the break he

went over to Miles hoping to fetch some kudos and

Miles said, “When you gonna stop playing the

trumpet and start playing music?” So I stopped

playing the drums twenty years ago and started

playing music, it’s just that I do it with the drums.

A pitfall for the younger musicians is that the ac-

cess to the vocabulary is so easy now with the In-

ternet. Herlin knows that you have to balance the

intellect with the emotional and the spirit. When I

play or compose my best, it’s not just me playing,

I’m a vessel, I’m a channel.

Herlin Riley also asked: “Where do you start

when composing a tune? Do you start from the

bass line or do you hear the chord structure first

and fill in the melody, or the opposite - the melody

first and fill in the chords. What’s your method?”

VL: It comes through either one of those channels.

There are some tunes where I had a bassline and I

found some chords to put around it and a melody to

put on top of it. Some tunes, I heard the melody

first, and other tunes I had a drum groove I wanted

to explore. I used to do it methodically, just check-

ing to see what I stumbled on but now I’ve come to

realize those inspirational moments when it went

somewhere, it was channeled. I hear the band play-

ing [in my head], I hear all the parts, and then I sit

down and write it out. I hear what I want to play -

the melody and potential solos. I like to through-

compose the vision of it. I won’t bring a tune to be

improvised on if I haven’t already explored hearing

an improvised solo in my head on it to see where it

can go, what mood it conjures up. In that sense I’m

a medium when I compose but don’t tell everybody

that, I don’t want to be hung as a heretic, ha!

[Laughs]

Carmen Lundy (vocalist) asked: “I know that you

sing. Would you talk about your connection to

singing and have you ever sung on any record-

ings?”

VL: My girl, yeah, I’ve done some small vocal

parts on my recordings. I have never done a record-

ing singing lyrics but I come from, not only a fami-

ly of instrumentalists but a family of singers too

and everybody used to sing a lot! I used to sing doo

-wop on the corner with my boys imitating Smokey

Robinson and the Miracles. Actually, my folks

didn’t want me to make a career out of music but

when they accepted the idea, they wanted me to be

a vocalist – you may as well be out in front. But

back then I didn’t feel that I had the personality to

be out in front, working the crowd, talking stuff. I

wanted to just be behind the drums, close my eyes,

playing music. I didn’t have much to say back then

but now, with most of the legacy gone, somebody’s

got to say something so here I is!

Carmen Lundy also asked: “Who creatively in-

spires you now?”

VL: She does! The music that I listen to at any

time is something that raises my vibrations and

inspires me and the last couple of weeks, I’ve been

revisiting a record I did with Carmen called This is

Carmen Lundy [Afrasia, 2001] There are three

women of my generation that I call jazz high

priestesses – Geri Allen, who just passed away,

Cassandra Wilson and Carmen Lundy. Me and

Carmen go back to the eighties and I watched her

grow. Carmen is one of my favorite composers

because all of her tunes are messages about life,

she’s deep. For my money, she’s the greatest jazz

vocalist alive today, and I’m serious about that.

Curtis Lundy (bass) asked: “We’re both in the

same generation, we were both blessed to be able

to know and sweat and bleed with the masters of

this music. How do you approach imparting that to

the younger musicians who need to understand


Victor Lewis

“Yeah, I’ve studied. Yeah, I went to college.

Yeah, I know what a flatted 5th chord is, I know a bunch of stuff, but that doesn’t always give you a ticket to make music. These are tools …

so that when your heart decides what you musically want to play, you look in the bag

and see which tool you need. That comes from a non-detached spiritual ceremony when you play. I believe there’s a spirit that you have to

call when you play that helps you distribute your tools purely as opposed to it being calisthenics…”


“”A man’s character may

be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses

in conversation.”

- Mark Twain

what that means?”

VL: That’s a really important issue. I’ve been

trying to convey to them what it takes to get out of

the mundane. There’s a lot of generic because it’s

easy to get facility and vocabulary but guys are not

innovating because it is not coming from their

heart, they’re emulating. There’s a spiritual ele-

ment to this music that’s not being addressed in the

schools. I tell my students that you are dealing with

things that you cannot see and I learned it from the

guys that I grew up under. That’s what Curtis is

talking about. I tell them stories about rubbing

shoulders with the cats and I think that the younger

generation has to be hungry to get that wisdom,

that’s part of their lesson. Access is so easy for

them that they are complacent about that and they

miss the spiritual part of it. They’re really getting

good at emulation but they’re getting stuck there.

The original guys of this music were not spoon-fed

the music, they had to hunt for it and be in a crea-

tive zone.

Yoron Israel (drums) asked: “I have always en-

joyed the tone that you produce from your drums

and cymbals, whether you’re using sticks, brushes

or mallets. Could you talk a bit about the personal

development of your touch and sound?”

VL: I think that comes from my classical percus-

sion days [and training] in specific textures and

working with the tympani being at the right pitch.

Pitch and touch and tambour comes out of there. I

went through the fusion period, I love it all, and in

the fusion era, cats had all kinds of stuff to hit.

They would have one thing to hit for every sound

they wanted to get to. Necessity is the mother of

invention, and to tell you the truth, I got tired of

carrying all that stuff around. I had to have back

surgery from carrying drums for fifty-five-years.

It’s kind of a badge of honor, I wouldn’t have it

any other way, but it took its toll. I started to travel

lighter to the gigs and I began to try to find all

those sounds that you had one thing to hit for, find

all those sounds on three things. If you look at

Tony Williams you’ll notice efficiency of move-

ment, no superfluous movement what so ever. It

was like a Ferrari steering wheel! Yeah, when it’s

my gig, I’ll add a few things, because it’s my gig.

I’ll put my Chinese cymbal way up in the air but I

just got to make sure I Tiger Balm up the night

before.

Yoron Israel also asked: “The last time that I saw

you perform was at the Berklee Performance Cen-

ter in Boston a few years ago. It was a project that

you led, featuring your compositions. Interestingly,

you did not play any drum solos the entire set, yet

as a drummer, your presence, personality and indi-

viduality spoke so clearly through the music. Is this

an intentional concept within your presentations as

a leader? If so, please speak about the origin, phi-

losophy and development of this concept.”

VL: Great question, man. I want to say that one of

the many things that I like about Yoron is how he

tunes his drums and the sound he gets. It’s like they

say – it takes one to know one because he really

gets a great sound and has a great touch. About the

soloing, probably if you come to one of my gigs,

maybe you’ll see a solo but most likely not. There

are two reasons for that. One is that I’m kind of

soloing through the whole thing! [Laughs] The

other part is that I hate it when it’s like this is the

drummer’s gig so we’re gonna listen to frickin’

drum solos all night. “Oh, it’s the drummer’s gig –

drums, drums, drums!” I like to make sure that the

success of my gig is on the merits of my compos-

ing. It’s me trying still to solidify getting chumped

off as a composer back in the day. It’s not gonna be

a drum solo where the band leaves the bandstand to

go have a drink, smoke a cigarette, and the audi-

ence goes, “Okay, that was good but enough.

Somebody cut him off!” I never want to be seen as

that. I call it “drums obnoxiousness.” I swing to the

other side of the pendulum, I want to make sure

that they don’t get enough of my drum solos.

Edward Simon (piano) asked: “Besides your great

sense of swing, one of the many features of your

playing that I always enjoy is your ability to incor-

porate the melody and other parts of the tune into

the groove. You always know the melody of the

tune intimately and have a unique way of letting

that manifest in the way you play the composition

and groove. I suspect this may have something to

do with the way in which you listen to and learn

music. How do you typically go about learning a

new tune and how can others develop this intimate

knowledge and relationship to a tune?”

VL: When you deal with a tune, from the point of

view of a drummer, the first thing you gotta not do

is look at it as a drummer, you’ll only derive a

limited amount of information. I always ask them

not to give me a drum part that says, “Play fifteen

bars and play a fill on the sixteenth bar and then

play another eight bars.” Meanwhile when you’re

reading the chart down, you’re hearing all kinds of

things that are going on in the band that you should

be addressing but it’s not on your part. So I want a

lead sheet like everybody else has. I want to be

looking at the same thing as everybody else. If

there’s a bassline, I want to be aware of it. I want to

internalize the melody as soon as I can. I want to

see how the chords go by. It’s all essential infor-

mation for you to have an overview of the tune in

order to accentuate the melody and feel the colors

of the different chords. I have to say something

about Edward. He is such a masterful musician.

He’s a master at having a vision that’s off the pa-

per. It’s so important to have the right guys in the

band. With cats like Ed, you give them the music,

and you start playing it, and you say, ‘Yeah man,

that was just the way I heard it! Oh, boy, you’re a

genius!’ [Laughs] John Stubblefield played my

tunes just like I wrote it. Joe Henderson played my

tunes like he wrote them.

Victor Lewis

“Miles Davis came to his house for dinner when Eddie [Henderson] was five-years-old and he played his little horn for Miles and Miles

said, ‘Okay, good kid. I’ll see you in twenty years.’ Twenty years go by and little Eddie has grown up and worked on his stuff, and …. another opportunity for Miles to hear him. He came to a gig Eddie was playing

and Eddie played his heart out. On the break he went over to Miles hoping to fetch some kudos and Miles said, “When you gonna stop playing the trumpet and start playing music?” So I stopped playing

the drums twenty years ago and started playing music …”


xxxxxxxxxx

JI: Talk a little bit about how you discovered your

interest and passion for jazz and the opportunities

that opened the door for your development in this

music.

MV: Well, since a very early age in Cuba I was

exposed to jazz, straight-ahead jazz, via my father

who’s a very well-known saxophonist in Cu-

ba. His name is also Manuel Valera. He played

with people like Gonzalo Rubalcalba and with

Chucho Valdés. So jazz was always around the

house. At a very early age I was introduced to

people like Ted Baker, Paul Desmond. He liked a

lot of the West Coast guys, but he also liked Char-

lie Parker and Chick Corea and there was some

Michael Brecker stuff in the 80s. When the fusion

thing started going, he also listened to a lot of the

80s stuff like Chick Corea’s Three Quartets, Steps

Ahead, stuff like that. I always had an ear for

it. And in 94, when I moved to the United States, I

really started playing with people and furthering

discovering jazz. And I got a chance to get into

the New School in Manhattan. That’s when it

really opened my ears – being in New York City

and being able to play with a lot of people and just

thriving and all the stuff that everybody does.

JI: When you came to the United States, you went

to New School and you already had a lot of stuff

together. But what kinds of challenges did you

experience when you first arrived in the United

States?

MV: The first one is the language. I couldn’t real-

ly speak English so that was a really hard chal-

lenge for me and I would imagine for anybody

that’s from a different country that travels

here. English, that’s a ginormous chal-

lenge. Fortunately for me, I really caught on quite

quickly to the English and I finished my last cou-

ple of years of high school in Miami and then I

moved up here. There are many challenges other

than that by being in New York and being in the

states; it’s just a different culture than Cu-

ba. Fortunately for me, I didn’t have that much of

a hard time adapting to the new culture, but I

know a lot of Cubans do have a tough time adapt-

ing because the system is completely differ-

ent. We come from a place that if you’re a musi-

cian, there’s never a lot of money involved in

Cuba of course. But if you’re a musician you have

work. And musicians are musicians. There is no

need to get a day job or anything like

that. Musicians are just musicians. And here, a lot

of people feel that they have to get a job and stuff

like that. For me fortunately, that was not the

case. But it can be a very difficult switch for a

Cuban to come to the States.

JI: Yes. Now that you’ve lived in Cuba, you’ve

live in Miami, you’ve lived here in New York, so

you’ve lived in three rather different places and

you’ve traveled around the world and had a

chance to come in contact with lots of people and

observe different cultures and so on and so forth.

What kinds of interesting discoveries have you

made about human nature in your travels?

MV: The most interesting discovery is that every-

body likes good music. And it could be jazz, it

could be whatever you want, but when you go –

like last year we went to India which doesn’t have

a huge jazz culture. But people seemed to have an

appreciation for I guess what they call intelligent

music or whatever, like jazz, classical music or

something. I’ve found that those things are really

universal. You can connect with many people

even if they’ve never heard jazz. A lot of the

times, they find it interesting because of the inter-

play and – it’s hard for me to explain but they

somehow can sense that something is

cool. There’s something there that’s really open

and it lets people in. I saw something on the Dis-

covery Channel some years ago; this explorer

brought Mozart to this tribe in Africa that they’d

never heard anything Western – Mozart, Michael

Jackson, nothing. And he played Mozart for them

and they started crying. So I think music has a

stronger message that we think.

JI: Everybody is responding to music as you

said ... yes, it’s a universal language. And maybe

some people like different types of music more

than others,, or in different ways, or maybe there

is more of a universal connection that somehow

Bach and Beethoven and Mozart hit us a certain

way because there’s a universal kind of logic to

the way that the frequencies and the tones are laid

out. But either way, we’re all made up of different

chemicals so your body would be different than

mine and maybe therefore the cells would reso-

nate in different ways and we’d each like different

types of music based on the way our cells are kind

of responding to a feel from those resonance.

MV: Right. There’s definitely something like that

happening, I’m certain of it. Because some of the

places that we’ve gone to play, people hardly have

any idea of what we we’re doing on any intellec-

tual level like they do here. They just hear stuff

and they’re like “Oh, yes. We like that.” Also it

helps that my music is very rhythmic, and a lot of

these places, they’re very strong rhythmic plac-

es. Like India, for example, is a very strong rhyth-

mic place. Between Africa and India, I think

they’re the two strongest rhythmic places in the

world probably. We got to connect there, and also

when I went to Nepal, the same thing hap-

pened. Nepal is even more distanced from India,

it’s even further away from Western music than

India is. So I guess that’s what it comes down to;

there’s a mystical power to music.

JI: Yes, for sure. Can you talk about your experi-

ences working with Arturo Sandoval and Paquito

D’Rivera who also, like you, hail from Cuba?

MV: Yes. Working with both of them was very

interesting and I learned quite a bit. With Paquito,

I’ve done over the years things with Paquito. I

never really played in his band but we’ve done a

lot of things together like I’ve done arrangements

for him. We’ve played dual concerts. We’ve done

a bunch of projects and things like that togeth-

er. Back in the day, he was sort of like a mentor to

me in some ways. He’s also very good friends

with my father from Cuba so he’s almost like

family. And as far as Arturo, I played with Arturo

for four years in his band, and we did travel a lot

all over the world. I learned a lot about the music

business from him; he’s a great business man. He

has a way of just staying busy all the time. I think

people seem to like what he does.

JI: What is it about Paquito and about Arturo

Sandoval, the kinds of things that you picked up

in terms of leadership and business things in addi-

tion to the music that was a valuable experience

for you? What kinds of things did you pick up that

kind of gave you some larger perspectives?

MV: It’s kind of hard for me to generalize it like

that. Arturo liked to get paid. So there was always

emphasis on that– you must get paid. He had

some aspects that I’m not going to relate it to

“...when you write something for somebody, it will take shape really

quickly because you really hear how they’re going to do it and you hardly

ever have to say anything.”

Manuel Valera

From Cuba to the United States

INTERVIEWINTERVIEW

Hear Manuel Valera at Jazz Standard with Hans Glawischnig, Mark Whitfield Jr.,

April 11, 2018


xxxxxxxxxx

music like he has showmanship. His concerts,

they always have a show element to them. And

really entertaining; he could definitely play the

trumpet. He has a way of grabbing people’s atten-

tion via just being himself really. He played some

piano, keyboards, played the trumpet of

course. There’s an element of showmanship from

Arturo that a lot of people could learn from. As

far as Paquito, I always found really inspiring his

need to always move forward musically. He’s

always writing, he’s always composing, he’s al-

ways applying for grants, he’s always writing a

grant. He’s always doing something new like

developing a project with some South American

cats or some European people. He’s always mov-

ing around. He’s never stagnant.

JI: Right, he’s a showman.

MV: Right. That has value as well. Arturo’s thing

has value as well, but typically I think Paquito is

superior in my opinion to Arturo.

JI: Being around all these different artists, what’s

your approach to leading your band and teaching

the people that you play with your music and what

are you looking for from them? How does that

communication work for you?

MV: I’ve basically been fortunate that the people

that are playing in my band are sort of the ideal

people that I want to play in my band. So playing

new music and teaching them new music is super

easy because I sort of write the music for them in

a way because I already know the sound of each

of them. So it’s really when you write something

for somebody, it will take shape really quickly

because you really hear how they’re going to do it

and you hardly ever have to say anything. That

part is generally really painless for me, mainly for

the reason that I write the things for them. When I

write something, I write it for just Bonnie and

Tom or whoever. So with that in mind, it’s real

easy.

JI: Your wife does your artwork for you, so

you’re pretty lucky that you have someone kind of

like onboard to handle the design of your album

jackets and all of your stuff. Talk a little bit about

what it’s like for you at the world headquarters of

Manuel Valera Incorporated.

MV: Like you said, I’m super fortunate that my

wife is such an amazing graphic designer and

she’s willing to help me get all these things go-

ing. We’ve been working on getting sort of a look

on everything that I produce, getting a consistent

sort of look with the fonts and other stuff. I have a

couple of great people on the team that I work

with all the time. I have a great booking agent, her

name is JoAnne Jimenez, she works with Ron

Carter and people like that. So I’m really fortunate

to have people behind me willing to help me get

everything moving forward. Just the whole graph-

ic design thing is a super plus because generally

people would have to pay for that. I get to pay for

it in other ways but I don’t have to pay for it mon-

etarily.

JI: If you could wave a magic wand, what are

some of the things that you’d like to accomplish

in the upcoming couple of years and people that

you might want to play with. Give us a quick wish

list here.

MV: I can always play more with my band.

Sometimes I feel that people are a little reluctant

to book the band even now at this stage and that’s

the one thing that I wish to be a little bit differ-

ent. But people that I want to play with, I don’t

know. I’ve been focusing so much on my own

thing that that whole thing of playing with other

people is a little behind my wish list. I would al-

ways want to play with people like Wayne Shorter

or something like that. I think that would be really

fantastic, but I don’t think that’s happen-

ing. That’s definitely a wish list for real.

JI: Maybe Danilo Perez will let you sit in.

MV: Maybe, I don’t know. Probably not. I really

hope that my career as a leader keeps growing and

growing in the next couple of years even

more. We’ve been very fortunate so far. I think

this year, we’re doing the solo thing and the group

thing. We’re doing between 40 and 50

gigs. That’s actually much better than last year on

my own. I’m doing other things with Daphnis and

Yosvany and a bunch of people. But on my own, I

hope to get even more work because I really enjoy

the possibility of writing new music and just play-

ing more live. That would be a great wish.

JI: Are you teaching too?

MV: I don’t teach so much. Once in a while I

teach writing lessons and things like that but it’s

not something that’s on my schedule too much.

Manuel Valera


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Interview & Photo by Eric Nemeyer

JI: Can you talk a little bit about how earlier jazz musicians like Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Duke Ellington may have impacted and influenced you? JJ: Lester Young was a guy who’s always telling a story. It’s always swinging no matter how fast or how slow he’s telling the story. There were certain things that he did on saxophone—things like false fingering [hums example]. He was the guy that was at the forefront of those kind of things. He just had a pretty sound. Hawk, Coleman Hawkins was a guy with a strong muscular tone—very aggressive, lots of facility. Lester came another way. You hear these fast tempos, and you wonder how is he going to make these tempos. They are so fast, but it was just effortless, and all these beautiful melodies. He seemed to use the common tones of chords. Sonny Rollins was a guy who played the common tones like Lester, but he had the muscular sound like Coleman Hawkins. So, those guys were very im-portant for me. I listened to them and I still listen to them. I loved the record with Lester young, Nat Cole and Buddy Rich. Or The President Plays. I listen to those records a lot. As you begin to listen more and more it’s not even about a certain period.

I think we are influenced by more of the modern melodies in general, of Coltrane, and that period of the 60’s. But you’d be surprised at the number of musicians who actually understand that stuff or really do appreciate it when you talk to them. We are in an era where the further you move up in history, the further you go back. JI: Talk about your association with Art Blakey and some of the ideas you might have picked up. JJ: Art was such an incredible human being. He comes from an era where music is your life. In other words, when you talk about Art Blakey and

jazz music and life, there is no separation. He lived jazz. It wasn’t about money. It wasn’t about acco-lades. He was one of the originators of the art form. So the art form was as serious as cancer to him, he would say. Every time he got behind the drums onstage he treated it as if it was his last time. He was a very impromptu, in-the-moment musician, which is something that can’t be said for every-body. You’d see him do these openings before we did the songs. People would say that they had seen they same openings for ten, fifteen years in some way. But, they always sounded like it was the first time, because he had that zest. The big thing I learned from Art was how much he valued people, how much he valued the audience. He would al-ways take the time to say “I thank you for coming. We appreciate you.” He always stressed to us never to play down to the audience. Play to them and respect them—because the audience heightens your ability to go for things you might not go for. And professionalism—he always wanted us to wear a tie and look professional. He’d always say they see you before they hear you. He was just a supportive guy for young people. His only goal was swing them to death, and make sure that we have some fun. He also didn’t want you to be like anyone else. That’s the thing I loved. When you think of all the different groups, all of the varied musicians that were in his band—Chuck Mangione, Wynton Mar-salis, Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan… All of these different people—but he never tried to put anybody into a particular box.

JI: That is exactly the way it should be. JJ: But everybody’s not like that. He had all these different personalities, but the band always sounds like him. It always sounds like Art Blakey—no matter who’s in the band. That’s pretty amazing. JI: Absolutely. Do you want to talk about the dy-namic in Art’s band when you played alongside Terence Blanchard, Kenny Garrett, Wallace Roney, Benny Green? JJ: When I joined the band it was Wallace Roney, Donald Brown, Kenny Garrett, and Delfayo Mar-

salis. We joined together. Donald, Kenny and Wal-lace had been in New York a lot longer. I hadn’t moved to New York yet. They had much more experience, and each of them helped me in a cer-tain way, like mentoring. I was very close with Kenny and still am. Wallace, not as much, because Wallace lived in Harlem and I was commuting back and forth. I learned a lot being around Wal-lace. Very dedicated musician, very serious, and a guy who is willing to help with information. Wal-lace was working with Tony Williams at the time too, so he was kind of in between. If I called any one of those individuals right now, and said I need some help, they would be right there for me. It was like a family. It was a nice college fraternity. We were all good friends. We were young. We were interested in music. There was a dialogue about musicians. Guys were hanging out and hearing other musicians, and you travel all over the world together. You spend time with those guys that you don’t even spend with family members. And that’s what it was. It was like a family. JI: With the expansive repertoire that the group had accumulated over many years, did you have access to parts in advance? Or, were you working out the music in hotel rooms? JJ: No, what happened was when you joined Art Blakey’s band, all the musicians said, “ I play this and this and this.” Your job was to go and learn your part. But there was no music. Either they taught it to you themselves, or you went to the recording. If a guy had his own original, he’d teach you his music. In general, you just had to learn on your own. So that was a challenge. And then if you got there and you learned it and it was wrong, someone would say, “well it’s not quite that note, blah blah blah.” But that’s how it worked. There was no music. Art Blakey’s thing was that there was no music on stage. If you’d have brought a Real Book on stage, you’d have been fired immedi-ately. I’m serious. I don’t think I’ve ever worked with a band… If I’d have brought a Real Book onstage with Freddie Hubbard, he wouldn’t have fired me, but he’d laugh me to death. He’d laugh because that’s not how music was learned in their era. Everything they do is by ear. I remember one night Art got on the bandstand and he said let’s play a certain song. Somebody said “I don’t know it,” and Art said “you will after we play it.” And he just started playing it. Those kind of experiences—that’s the school of hard-knocks. That’s the way Art was. He’d say, people come to hear you. They don’t want to look at you—you look all nice and there’s a big sheet of music in front of you. As I get older, I think he’s right. I don’t want to pay $30 to see James Brown across the stage with music read-ing “I Feel Good.” I don’t want to see Prince read music. But the difference is nowadays unfortunate-ly, there’s no [regular] band. So guys have to have music, so we can play each other’s repertoire. But all these guys that had working bands—Miles, Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Cannonball. There was no need for [sheet] music. JI: Of course, they were working every night. JJ: Everything now is transient. Guys get together for one gig. Somebody may call you next week for a gig. They show you some music. You look at it. You play it one time. You know you may never see the music again. There were record dates like that too. But the bands developed a lot more. I think that’s possibly what’s missing from today. It’s just

“Art Blakey’s thing was that there was no music on stage … if I’d have brought a Real

Book onstage with Freddie Hubbard, he wouldn’t have fired me, but he’d laugh me

to death. He’d laugh because that’s not how music was learned in their era. Everything they do is by ear.”

Javon Jackson

Mastery By Ear

INTERVIEWINTERVIEW

Hear Javon Jackson’s Berklee Sextet at Dizzy’s Club, May 14;

Javon Jackson, Village Vanguard, April 24-29


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different. I think if there were more bands … for people to develop more and people to hear each other. Say you went to a gig one night and saw so and so and his band, and you had your own band. You could kind of push each other—like Sonny Rollins and Trane—kind of pushing each other. JI: Can you discuss the difference in leadership styles between some of the band leaders for whom you played? JJ: Art Blakey was the ultimate band leader. You felt like he was a General and we were Privates. The ultimate general. Cedar Walton was a band leader, but in a different kind of way. Cedar has an idea of the direction in terms of the way he wants the music to go. Cedar is definitely a strong band leader. And Elvin was a band leader, but his thing was that we are going to go out and swing and have a good time. It wasn’t that he didn’t take every-thing seriously. Charlie Haden was a person who was very open for everybody. He wanted every-body to express themselves. Art Blakey was like that too, but he was more about the framework: this is the jazz message, it goes like this, and within that structure, we are going to have some fun. But it wasn’t completely wide open. He did want you to be yourself, but there were certain things you had to do. There backgrounds. There was going to be some standards, some ballads, some features and it didn’t really deviate. But within that we took as much liberty as we wanted to. Art was just an in-credible band leader. I can’t say enough how in-credible he was—especially for a small band. For a guy to have that kind of impact when he really didn’t have the harmonic…When you heard Duke Ellington, it was his sound on music. With Art Blakey, it was in his drum sound. Any of these records you put on man—that’s Art Blakey, that’s Art Blakey’s band. And that’s pretty amazing com-ing from a drummer. He was a bad dude, man. Did you ever see him play? JI: Many times. Could you talk about your first albums—the ones you recorded for Criss Cross, on which you used different rhythm sections. On one album you used Kirk Lightsey and Louis Hayes and on Me and Mr. Jones you used James Wil-liams, Elvin Jones. Was that a decision by you or the producer? JJ: No, Jerry Teekens had no claim as to who I had to use. That was my choice. I wanted to play with Elvin. I met him a couple of times when I was with Art. He played a gig when Art was sick one time, so I played with him that time. I’d known James from Boston as well. Christian McBride would come by and play all the songs we had just record-ed. I thought that was amazing. He’s not that much younger than me. It was just amazing that he was already on top of stuff. So I just wanted the oppor-tunity to get Christian up on stage with me to play and to record and that’s how that happened. Kirk Lightsey obviously, was a favourite of mine, from his work with Dexter Gordon. I heard him on rec-ords with Sonny Stitt as well. And Louis Hayes, he’s another person who’s been close to me. We are still very good friends. I was very appreciative of each of these players who came out and played to support me.

JI: How was your association with Blue Note different from Criss Cross? JJ: Really, it’s about the same. Bruce [Lundvall] didn’t tell us who to play with. He gave me artistic freedom. He was a great lover of the music, like Teekens. Criss Cross is probably what Blue Note was in the sixties. Blue Note is a bigger machine, but Bruce was definitely appreciative of what we were trying to do. I never remember him telling any musicians what they had to play. He supported that artist. If he hired you, if he signed you to the label, than he believed in you and he allowed you to do what you wanted to. And if you needed some help, if you wanted some artist as a special guest, he’d try to make it come together as best he could—within the numbers. I had a lot of respect for Bruce. He was a really special person to me. JI: Are there any lessons you learned you want to share about your dealings with record labels, pro-ducers, or managers? JJ: Well, I can say that I think I have learned not to take anything personally. It’s business. Sometimes we mistake a business decision, or things might happen to us that appear personal, and it’s not nec-essarily that. Under the guise of business things happen. If you take it personally, you kind of beat yourself up, and that person on the other side of the fence. JI: Someone might have had an entirely different reason for their activities than we might perceive. As artists we can be overly sensitive about our creations, and deeply impacted by criticism. JJ: Yeah, and the bottom line is, if they don’t like it, that’s okay too. It’s just business. Eddie Harris taught me something very, very important. He said that no matter how good you might sound, there are always going to be people who don’t like you; and no matter how terrible you might sound, there are going to be a bunch of people who love you. As much as we love Coltrane—and it’s hard to believe that people don’t like Coltrane, but—there are some people who don’t like John Coltrane. This cat gave up everything. Yet there may be another guy who you might think is nowhere near the kind of musician that Coltrane was, and yet people go crazy for it. And, it’s not personal. That’s what I try to work on. Don’t take it personal. Cause it can eat you up if you do, man. JI: Could you talk a little bit about the temptation that some of us run into from time to time—to focus on technique over music. How have you worked over the years to balance the two? JJ: I always had nice sound and a pretty good feel. You hear certain things, and you think, “I really want to develop this aspect of it.” Sometimes I think we all think technique is how much stuff we are playing or how busy it is. For instance, Gene Ammons may not be as technical as Trane. But there’s a lot of technique in Ammons’ subtlety. Miles Davis—there’s a lot of technique required to play very few notes, man. So after we understand that technique is not just actual velocity, we can understand that soul can be technique. But it takes awhile for us to get over that masculine, testos-terone-based kind of thought. JI: As we try to develop our skills over many years, we work on scales, chords, patterns—a body of technical and theoretical understanding. During

that process of amassing this vocabulary, many of us have gone through stages where we feel we need an outlet to express those things we might be work-ing on in the practice room. Then, in time, and with experience, we invest much more time trying to grow, making each note mean more, and in some cases, to that end, striving for an economy of notes—to choose just the tastiest notes. JJ: To choose just what’s necessary. And in that respect Art Blakey always helped. He always said, “I don’t care how much you are playing, if it ain’t swinging, it don’t matter.” If it’s not musical it doesn’t matter how much you’re playing. He told us that Art Tatum, and Bird all had the greatest of technique, but they were still musical. JI: The music came first. It was what they were feeling. JJ: They were one and the same. Nowadays, it’s not necessarily. Depending on who you are listen-ing to and who’s listening, it may not always sound musical first. It might sound more like an exercise. It might have more quantity there, but I don’t know about the quality of it. So, we’re saying the same thing. JI: Talk a little bit about how your involvement in jazz education, teaching at the college level, at SUNY Purchase has contributed to or challenged your creativity and artistry? JJ: Well, it helps me actually to be around young people who are inspired and interested to learn. It helps me because it helps me keep things in per-spective and think about some aspect of what they are working on and keep that in my current pro-gress. It’s kind of like Michael Jordan. To me, he was so great because he was the master of the fun-damentals. Like Coltrane, he was really, really great, but he was the master of the fundamentals. Same with Elvin Jones, Tony Williams. They had all this great stuff they could play. But they mas-tered the fundamentals. When you are around young people and you can express this, it gives them a way to look at it. It’s a good thing to have a chance to share some of the experiences I’ve had with the great artists with whom I’ve played. These are artists that, in some cases, the students won’t have the opportunity to meet, unfortunately. They see Art Blakey as just a guy on a record. They nev-er got to meet him, they didn’t get to see him. I was lucky enough to see them. I feel like I’m passing something on, and that’s a good thing. Also, I just try to stress to them that school is great, and it’s great that you are here, and we’re going to share something. But when you really learn, is when you get out there on the street, in the club, and hang out and meet people. That’s where it’s really at. So there’s that balance there, but I don’t really find it a challenge. Do you find it a challenge? JI: No. As a result of teaching, I get ideas—ideas for improvisation, composing, writing articles. Somebody will ask me a question, and I’ll think: “Gee, I forgot about that.” Then I realize that just because I know something, or I understand some-thing doesn’t mean that I should assume that some-body who hasn’t been playing for the same twenty-five or thirty years might have the same under-standing.


Javon Jackson


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Frank MorganFrank Morgan August 22, 2004August 22, 2004

Charlie Parker Jazz FestivalCharlie Parker Jazz Festival



By John R. Barrett, Jr. The title cut opens much as “Study in Rhythm” did: a go-for-the-throat solo, helped by extra percussion. Art’s work adheres to the mold of the earlier tune, going from cymbals to toms and back – suddenly the reeds hit the counter riff as Hardman does his best Dizzy. Hearing his soft touch on Reflections, his inten-sity here is shocking; also good is McLean, who sounds like a flute in places. Jackie’s solo be-gins, twisting wildly around Sam’s visceral comp; Spanky DeBrest has a fun time, walking fast along the edges. Hardman’s turn has an exotic tinge, often returning to the theme and venturing far. Griffin sounds the most “foreign”, his notes bending high like a soprano. In the second chorus he earns his nickname “The Fastest Gun in the West”, going at least triple-time; he also does the quavering yowl made famous in his duets with Lockjaw Davis. Dockery ripples slowly, setting a tension that Blakey enhances. (It’s great hearing Sam front and center – he was not served well by the Elektra disc.) A brief interlude by DeBrest returns us to the percussion motif, a tad noisier this time. Art takes the bridge alone on the end-theme, there’s an unac-companied bit by Griffin, and it ends in a cloud of cymbals. The alternate take is the same, with a few exceptions: Art’s intro is stronger, there is no bass solo, Hard-man fumbles the theme slightly, a riff develops during Bill’s solo, and Griffin’s turn is somewhat bland (that doesn’t happen often.) Clearly they selected the right take for the album, and clearly this was a “Night” to re-member. “Off the Wall” has the horns in full scream, charging the theme as Blakey gets busy. McLean is assertive, starting his solo where the theme ends – hear him push the beat with a blunt, stinging tone. Hardman continues the thought with a little less tension; his im-provement from the last date is instantly appar-ent. Griffin raises the bar again, matching Jack-ie’s ferocity with even more speed. Sam is ele-gant, Blakey concise, and the ensemble fade is outstanding. McLean is superior on the alternate take, but Bill sounds a little pinched … too bad, since Johnny’s effort tops the released version. Hardman’s “Theory of Art” is a hot mover, showing the reeds in full combat. Jackie fills the air with curlicues, airy in tone and relentless in

pace. Hardman has an agreeable drawl, quoting “Dixie” as he runs his own maze. There are points in this solo when he sounds like Kenny Dorham – high praise indeed. Bill’s effort is the cream of this crop; Griffin’s solo is fast, but not much else. Jackie is slower on the alternate, and perhaps a little more tuneful. His intertwined phrases are really outstanding; Bill’s is at least equal to this, and he shines when Art turns to waltzing. Griffin has a screaming good time, and the whole thing is very cohesive – why wasn’t this the released take? The label must have a different theory of art. The theme to “Couldn’t It Be You?” is first played by McLean, the tune’s author. The other horns make it a rondo, and the rhythm gets into place. While one horn is the focus, another is

sure to repeat the theme in the background – priceless. Griffin sways through his turn, laying off the speed for the most part; Hardman adds a sweet riff in the middle of this. Bill’s solo is somewhat ragged, but soon smoothes out: his high calls are mellowed by the background riff. Jackie sounds like Griffin on this, keeping it slow and mellow. And check out DeBrest, who ends the tune with a groan from his bow. As good as “Tunisia” is, I call this the cram of the album. “Evans”, credited to Sonny Rollins, was first heard as “Out of the Blue” on Miles Davis’ Dig album, where Miles is the listed composer. Whoever wrote it, it’s a beauty: based on “Get

Happy”, Hardman has a great time leaping through the bridge. Jackie takes the advice, with a very happy solo; Bill goes for baroque, sound-ing almost classical with an ornate string of staccato notes. Griffin is restless as usual, and Sam contributes a calm, stylish solo. A solid effort from beginning to end, this sextet proved very cohesive – sadly, this would be their only album. In a month McLean would be gone, soon followed by Dockery and DeBrest – their replacements would start the next great era for the Messengers. But before this happened, the group would join forces with another jazz leg-end, to produce a legendary album. A brief stay at Atlantic gave Blakey anoth-er session with Thelonious Monk, this time with the support of The Messengers. (The predictable title was Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers with Thelonious Monk.) While Monk often recorded with guests, this was the first time he played with an established group; unlike a later attempt with Shelly Manne and His Men, this one was an unqualified success. Two tunes were recorded on May 14: “Blue Monk” is among Thelonious’ best-known, most accessible tunes. (Legend says Monk improvised it after a record producer asked why the pianist “didn’t play blues”.) Art

opens with a proud roll, and the horns march gravely behind him, sounding like a New Orleans funeral. Griffin hits some jagged lines, then cools into a slow ascent; his tone is also cleaner than on previous records. Quoting “Rhapsody in Blue”, Johnny then moves into the fast lane, while never losing control: Monk adds solemn chords where needed, but is otherwise silent. Nest is Thelonious: his hands do a call-and-response, volleying back and forth against Spanky’s walk. Icy and spare, the blues creep in near the end of the solo, where he quotes “Misterioso”. Bill’s leisurely turn is accompanied by a “Misterioso” riff; he’s fairly fast, but not much hap-pens. Spanky’s moment is agile, chorded and deep – probably his high mark as a Messenger. The alternate finds Monk more active, striking dissonance into the theme statement. Johnny is far busier, blowing multiphonics at various points. There is stride in Monk’s ef-

fort: instead of “Misterioso”, he quotes “April in Paris”, interspersed with many Monk bleeps. Hardman’s turn is ordinary, but Spanky’s ex-cels, more tuneful than the official release. The first take is sweeter, but this is more “Monkish” – there was no “best” here, as they both are. “I Mean You” offers up unison horns, served with a garnish of cymbals. Griffin is on fire, referring to “’Round Midnight” as he whips through a barwalking solo. Monk slows it way down, taking gingerly steps along the chords. Bill goes racing as Thelonious showers sour notes on him – later he shoots up high, inspiring a good double-time sequence. Art’s solo culminates in a mighty roll, easing back to

Art Blakey

His Life & Music — Part 5

FEATUREFEATURE


the theme. The theme is more forceful on the alternate, and Johnny’s turn is super-fast, maybe too much so. Monk follows with a dainty solo, full of tremolos and other old-fashioned devic-es; Bill is mellow, and bests his solo on the re-leased version. This day was fruitful, if not es-pecially productive; the rest of the disc would be finished the following day. Four songs were recorded on March 15, completing the Messengers with Monk album. “Evidence” would become a standard part of the Blakey repertoire, often retitled “Justice”. (Referring to Monk in his introductions, Art would say “He calls it ‘Evidence’ but we call it ‘Justice’”.) The horns give the theme together, harmonies turning sour at unexpected times. Hardman’s convoluted solo again goes through “Dixie”, his shrill interjections answered by Monk in kind. The pianist is restrained on his turn; Griffin takes it as a street-corner strut, leading to a metronomic solo by Art. The alternate begins with a melodramatic gesture by Monk, who adds florid chords to the theming horns. Hardman is very tuneful, with a lengthy excursion into “It Could Happen to You”, followed by harplike figures from Monk, which lead to “Straight, No Chaser”! Johnny seems restrained here, also playing with “It Could Happen to You”; Art’s moment is short, but powerful all the same. “In Walked Bud” gets a gentle reading, with Monk fussing at the edges of the tune. With his rustiest tone, Griffin turns it into a speed trial – technique triumphs over melody, which is rarely a good thing. Thelonious lingers on a single chord for most of his solo; he goes silent for half a chorus, revealing Spanky’s walk pattern. This is full of ideas that don’t quite resolve; trimming two minutes would help it immensely. DeBrest appears to take the first solo on “Rhythm-a-Ning”, but it really belongs to Monk, who is quieter than usual. Blakey is also reticent, restricting himself to rimshots; this lets Hardman soar, his hovering notes surrounded by silence. Johnny is agreeable, taking it slow … slower, anyway. The torch is then handed to Art, who is not silent this time: bass drums, toms, and an endless parade of snares leading back to the theme. The disc ends with “Purple Shades”, a blues composed by Griffin. (Philly Joe Jones would record it a few years later, retitled “Blues for Dracula”.) Johnny is the primary voice, snaking notes downward as Blakey pounds the low keys. As Spanky makes a menacing walk, Thelonious drops a few solemn notes, then pro-vides variations. Bill calls out like a foghorn, weeping at some private sorrow. Monk lays out on this section, leaving Art’s brushes to provide accompaniment. Griffin does his own sobbing, in wavelike notes that pick up speed. A chal-lenging, confident album, things were looking up for Thelonious Monk. In a month he’d make the outstanding Monk’s Music, also with Bla-key; he year’s end he would employ Johnny

Griffin, filling the chair vacated by John Col-trane. After Griffin, other Messengers would leave the group in swift fashion, and when 1958 came around, Blakey needed to hire a whole new band. The new bassist was Jymie Merritt, unknown at the time but prodigiously talented. Griffin would be replaced by Benny Golson, a stylish tenor with a gift for composing; the ma-jority of his best tunes would be introduced by the Messengers. Dockery’s chair was filled briefly by Junior Mance and then by Bobby Timmons, a songwriter whose skills rivaled Golson’s – here at last was a successor to Hor-ace Silver. But the greatest improvement would come on trumpet – Lee Morgan, an admirer of Clifford Brown (he briefly studied under Clifford) who got his professional start in Dizzy Gillespie’s big band. It is hard to underestimate how important these men were to the Messen-gers – this was like drawing a new poker hand and coming up with four aces. If the nonet date broadened the Blakey palette, Art Blakey Big Band made it wide as the horizon. Cut in New York at the end of

1957, this was Art’s first big band record since the Eckstine sessions, and his first such record-ing as leader. (In their short existence, the Sev-enteen Messengers had gone unrecorded.) The cast was full of familiar faces: charts by Eck-stine arranger Jerry Valentine; Messengers Byrd, Hardman, Bishop, and Shihab; Melba Liston from the nonet session, and a sax section including Al Cohn and John Coltrane. The po-tential was immense … as would be the music.

The sound is expansive, a vast improve-ment on the Eckstine dates. A soft echo floats in the background, adding punch to the proceed-ings: you can hear this on “Midriff”, as the sec-tions go after each other. After a theme with rollicking trumpets, one of them (Idrees Sulie-man, maybe?) angles his way upward, with sweet reeds blaring behind him. Coltrane is next, unwinding a fast spiral – his “sheets of sound” style, while not mature, is certainly present. By the second chorus he’s sprinting up the scale, as Art keeps the pace steady. Trane ends on a ecstatic squeak, a sign of things to come. Blakey gets a showy break, and the band roars home – that’s how you start an album! “Take One” (included on the CD reissue) is rough on the ensembles; Trane’s solo has its moments but is cut short by the ending. “Take Three” has a calmer, more confident trumpet; this might be Byrd, but I’m far from certain. Coltrane lacks the fireworks of the released take, but it is beautifully realized – one thought carried seamlessly over two choruses. There’s even an allusion to “While My Lady Sleeps”, Coltrane’s most-used quote of the ‘Fifties. May-

be the original track was better than this one, but not by much. “Ain’t Life Grand” (called “Al’s Tune” in the outtakes) gives us a battle of the speakers: reeds coming from the right, brass screaming on the left. Byrd lets it rip with dizzying high notes, but the focus is Art, booming the toms in several short breaks. Two extra tracks appear on the CD, with little to distinguish either. “El Toro Valiente”, a romper by Chiefy Salaam, lets Cohn sail in a rising tide of horns. There’s a slick, mellow trombone (Liston?) and a thunderous Blakey spot, tuning his kit as he goes. Take One is quite tentative: the ‘bone solo tops the released version, but a horrible trumpet takes it out of contention. “Late Date” uses har-monics to great effect – there are three or four layers, each with its own tempo and mood. Ar-ranged by Melba, this tune gives Art many tex-tures to explore, as well as the only solo. In contrast, “The Kiss of No Return” is all Coltrane: a gentle pace, a warbling tone, and a


“The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes.

That’s the day we truly grow up.”

- John Maxwell

Art Blakey

“A brief stay at Atlantic gave Blakey another session with Thelonious Monk, this time

with the support of The Messengers. (The predictable title was Art Blakey’s Jazz Mes-

sengers with Thelonious Monk.) While Monk often recorded with guests, this was the first

time he played with an established group; unlike a later attempt with Shelly Manne …”


heartfelt, inventive solo. Wendell Marshall’s bass is warm and buoyant; the trombone is vel-vet and the tune is golden. Two further takes are offered: Trane’s solo on each has variations but all are cut from the same cloth. You can hear the band argue on the chatter between takes, as they work out their parts – a quest for a setting to match Trane’s gem-like effort. One tune, “Oasis”, was recorded but not used until the CD release. The opening is price-less: a bored engineer says “’Oasis’, Take Four”, a musician starts singing the theme, Mel-ba joins him, Marshall is consulted … and the

engineer snarls “’Oasis’! Take Four!” After a prickly intro the reeds glide together, and Art gets some juicy breaks. Someone says “Yeah” at take’s end, but they were still having trouble with it; definitely interesting, though not exactly good. As a sendoff we have Cohn’s “The Outer World”, with a swagger you must hear to be-lieve. The tom-toms are crushed, the reeds creep at the depth of their range, over a thick cushion of brass. There’s a call-and-response between sections, and a circular theme turning ever fast-er. Trane has one of his more animated solos, somewhat drowned by the roar behind him. Art thunders for a spell, Byrd’s turn is calm and raspy, building to a scream as the band goes into orbit. Take two takes a light approach: the cym-bals have a Latin tinge, and the horns are less raucous. But not Coltrane: his notes are dark-hued, darting with urgency in tight angles. Mak-ing the most of his one chorus, the solo is per-fect … if only the ensembles were. Number Five is closer to the finished take, as Coltrane goes sailing – this is good, but it takes no chanc-es. (He’s certainly more passionate before the tune starts, shooting tough phrases as the band debates something.) Also, the pace is a little sluggish, despite Art’s fine effort. In all, the bonus tracks, while interesting, add little to an already strong album. To complete the disc, most of the horns were sent home, as Blakey took charge of a mighty quintet – Byrd, Bishop, Coltrane, and

Marshall. (The horns were paired earlier in the year, cutting several discs with Red Garland as leader.) While the band tracks were somewhat staid, these cuts are loose, impulsive and rather emotional. Byrd’s “Tippin’” is a saucy minor blues – in fact, “Minor Blues” was its original title. The theme is played slowly by Donald; Trane ends each chorus with a double-time surge. His solo is even faster, racing to the heights on a bold, bitter tone. He plays with more strength, more fury, than anything with the big band … and he was the highlight of that session. A half-quote of “While My Lady Sleeps” is followed by a pungent squawk, and in steps Byrd, sailing the high notes as Blakey hits hard. After this fire Donald calms down, telling his tale with soft murmurs. Next we hear Walter (a quiet blues reminiscent of Bobby

Timmons), then Wendell (a pleasant rolling bounce), then Arthur, with a melodic display on toms. Take One is all different but the melody: the tempo is faster than the released version, and Coltrane is slower. This time Byrd gets the first solo, and he’s assertive throughout. His high notes are hard, while down the scale the tone is wrinkled – a friendly sound, and raucous too. Trane is in vertical mode, fluttering through the scale on a big sheet of sound. This approach, which Coltrane made famous, is better heard here than anywhere else on the session. Bishop is tuneful but morose on his effort; Marshall is delicate and Blakey is not. Take Three has the pace of the released track, and Trane gets the first solo: he’s slow at first, and turns up the heat in tiny steps. Notes multiply and the tempo quickens, all in good melodic order – we have a winner. Don’s solo is rhythmic and quiet, Bish-op packs big blues in a small space, and Art thunders like mad. If there’s a reason why this take missed the album, I’ve yet to discover it. The aptly-named “Pristine” is Coltrane’s rewrite on the chords of “Lady Bird”. (It was his second such composition, the first being “Lazy Bird” on Blue Train.) Bishop skips through the light theme, and the horns breathe a dark harmony. Trane is ecstatic, scattering fast notes in an airy tone, while Byrd takes a gentler path. As always, Art is a rock, keeping a steady, busy pace. The bonus tracks offer a variety of flavors: Coltrane is more strident on Take Two, with definite hints of his ‘Sixties style.

Don’s turn is decent, though somewhat aimless; he’s better on Take Six, where his prim diction makes for a leisurely mood. At the start of the take, Trane was told to step closer to the mike; he responds with a lyrical solo, twirling his lines with vigor. Maybe this take was too long; otherwise there was no reason to junk it. Trane’s solo is fast on Take Eight, but it’s note-worthy for Bishop’s good comp – Byrd’s effort is nice, though similar to those before. This quintet session was the closest Coltrane got to playing in the Messengers. Hearing it now (currently packaged as John Coltrane: The Bethlehem Years), one wishes that opportunity had come. While most Blue Note sessions took ad-vance planning, including paid rehearsals, the label took the opposite tack when it came to Jimmy Smith. The organist liked things sponta-neous, often inventing his tunes on the spot; if paired with a sympathetic band he could go all night, with little else needed. For a session held at Manhattan Towers on February 25, 1958, the plan was simplicity itself: in the studio were Jimmy’s working trio (Smith, Eddie McFadden, and Donald Bailey), an all-star rhythm section (Blakey and Kenny Burrell), and a crowd of special guest horns. Players were shuffled in and out for variety’s sake, and Smith played every tune he could think of. The resulting har-vest was spread out over three albums, one of which was named for the best tune of the ses-sion. A low-key blues, “The Sermon” begins with a quiet, wavelike theme by Smith; his bass pedals are strong, marching steadily upward. Blakey works the cymbals in light procession; after a minute Burrell drops in, with flashy stings at irregular moments. His part starts as a standard comp and grows from there – the same goes for Smith, whose stutter-notes give way to trebly blues lines. Shrill notes will creep in, and rhythmic variations, but the funk is never too far away. Burrell’s solo stays low, like an electric bass; hints of his “sweet” style are present, but mostly he follows what Jimmy is doing. Tina Brooks is next, in his first recording session: he’s a gruff tenor, with a nice touch of swagger. He drives hard in short phrases, hitting the same notes again and again; Jimmy stokes him with hammered chords. It’s an agreeable style. Well suited to sessions like this; sadly, Brooks would be forgotten when the music changed directions in the ‘Sixties. Morgan seems restrained, unsure of what to do – he de-cides to go quiet, purring phrases beneath the organ’s roar. He ends on a trailing note, picked up by Lou Donaldson: he develops a wicked little sway, copied by Smith to great effect. This solo creeps up on you: a simple four-note ascent is repeated at length, becoming a charge and then a scream. Jimmy and Art keep the fire burning, and when the horn riff appears (the same one Miles Davis used on “Walkin’”), over twenty minutes have gone by. Slowly burns rarely get hotter than this, the highlight of The Sermon! And the first step to making a star of Jimmy Smith. Morgan is the only horn on “Flamingo”, a


“At about 10 A.M. the musicians slowly gathered before a New York brownstone to have their picture taken. The event was being organized for Esquire

Magazine by the photographer Arthur Kane; incredibly, this was Kane’s first professional

assignment. He knew it was an early hour for the musicians and did not know who would show up:

he would be stunned the presence of 57 jazz musicians, from all eras and styles of the music.”

Art Blakey


ballad showing Smith at his most romantic. The trumpet is golden, sending out pure notes with big echo – like a foghorn calling out to sea. The brushes work slowly, Burrell chimes octaves in a nice metallic style, and the organ stands still – a pure, peaceful hum. This track may be superi-or to “The Sermon”; it’s a restful groove you’ll replay many times over. For a groove of another kind, try “Au Privave”: Jimmy starts the camp quietly and all the horns jump in. Watch Art on Smith’s solo – he ratchets the tempo up fierce, way beyond your typical blues. Screaming notes are every-where, little bleeps from Burrel, a rising tide of percussion – and then come the horns. Don-aldson toodles in high gear, spinning some Par-ker-isms before running a maze of fast notes and sharp corners. Tina steps out with a hard tone, matched by exploding cymbals and a joy-ous Smith comp. Kenny is good, the foot pedals rock, and the brushes raise steam. A quick ag-gressive solo by Jimmy ends it – this one says plenty. Continuing in the Parker vein, “Confirmation” gives Art and expansive intro, leading to Morgan’s theme. Burrell glides smoothly, picking up grit along the way – per-haps his best effort of the session. Lou perks it up with a pretzel-like solo: there are plenty of curves, and everything comes back on itself. (In the middle of this, Art starts playing a waltz – wonderful.) Lee drawls like a trombone before scaling high towers, Tina excels with a Rollins-like effort, and Jimmy percolates the way Shirley Scott would. The end-theme is a rouser, as is the snare break by Blakey. A landmark session by Smith, these cuts were divided be-tween The Sermon! And Jimmy Smith’s House Party, making both discs indispensable. The February 25 session not only sparked the career of Jimmy Smith – it also served as an audition for the young Harold “Tina” Brooks. A tough tenor whose style blended Gene Ammons and Johnny Griffin, Brooks so impressed Blue Note’s Alfred Lion that he was offered his own session for the label, held on March 16. The pianist was Sonny Clark, a lively, underrated voice; the quintet was completed by Morgan, Watkins, and Blakey, giving us an idea how Brooks would have sounded in the Messengers. Once completed, the session sat in the can un-heard for 22 years; Lion often did this with dates he felt “not up to Blue Note’s standard”. When it finally saw vinyl in 1980, the disc was retitled Minor Move. The session opens with “Nutville”, a Brooks composition later covered by Morgan and Horace Silver. A fastish blues, the theme is played by the horns in unison, who then put it through Monkish harmonies. Clark wiggles through a fast solo, at once elegant and bluesy. With his short phrases and funk impulses, I’m reminded of Horace; he certainly deserves more attention. Morgan is brassy and bold, pushed by Art’s rimshots; in time he becomes more an-gled, more tangy. Brooks enters quietly, a de-

lightful rasp in his note, circling rapidly as his diction stays sharp. Assertive without being flashy, his solo is a series of loops, joining ideas in an upward climb. Doug’s sweet solo is far too short; a clumsy edit takes us straight to the end-theme. That aside, it’s a splendid tune: if Tina was nervous in this company no one can tell … least of all the listener. Brooks is fast from the gate on “The Way You Look Tonight”: he’s playing a counterpoint to the theme, which we don’t actually hear. This continues on the bridge, when Morgan joins in; here Lee plays the theme, and the chart sounds complete. The Rollins influence is strong on Brooks’ solo, where long notes lead to intricate improvisation. His tone is considerably cleaner than on the Smith session, delivered with confi-dence … this is not the sound of a rookie. Clark surrounds us with shimmering chords, which turn rhythmic with Morgan’s effort – a mixture of trills and bold octave leaps. Watkins has a great moment on this solo, walking between three notes in constant variation. Morgan pre-

vails on the exchange; Art takes a close second. “Star Eyes” presents Brooks the romantic, sliding through the theme with an alto’s ring. He gives a brief look at “The Breeze and I” (we also heard this on “The Way You Look”) and angles downward as the tone gains grit. Sonny goes casual, ruminating softly on the chords – during this segment Doug turns bolder, twang-ing the notes for added heft. “Minor Move” gets a Latin beat from Art and parallel harmony from the horns: the tune is nothing much but presented well. Tina’s solo is a breathless sentence, where the ideas are many and the transitions effortless. Lee’s is more

forceful, with a series of thrilling peaks. Clark might have the best effort, all tart notes and cerebral melodies. An alternate take is rather similar, with splashier drum licks. And “Everything Happens to Me” is the perfect Am-mons ballad, its vibrato-choked tenor leaning against a lavish piano. The brushes whisk, the bass bites deep, and Lee goes wistfully into his lower register. Tina returns in a more buoyant spirit, yelping high for a relaxed kind of urgen-cy. A strong, evocative album, it is a mystery why it stayed unreleased for so long … as much as a mystery as why fame eluded Tina Brooks. On July 16 Art would cut a brief session for Jimmy Smith, in a quintet with Burrell, Cec-il Payne, and Donald Bailey – the two drum-mers made for added depth. One tune was rec-orded, a take on Moe Koffman’s “Swinging Shepherd Blues”; this would appear on the com-pilation album Jimmy Smith: The Singles. One month later, on August 18, Art participated in a morning session – a seminal moment in jazz history, though no music was played.

At about 10 A.M. the musicians slowly gathered before a New York brownstone to have their picture taken. The event was being organized for Esquire Magazine by the photog-rapher Arthur Kane; incredibly, this was Kane’s first professional assignment. He knew it was an early hour for the musicians and did not know who would show up: he would be stunned the presence of 57 jazz musicians, from all eras and styles of the music. Here was a saxophone star of the ‘Twenties (Bud Freeman), the man he influenced (Lester Young), and the man who made him famous


Art Blakey

“After Griffin, other Messengers would leave

the group in swift fashion, and when 1958 came around, Blakey needed to hire a whole

new band. The new bassist was Jymie Merritt, unknown at the time but prodigiously talent-

ed. Griffin would be replaced by Benny Golson, a stylish tenor with a gift for

composing; the majority of his best tunes would be introduced by the Messengers.

Dockery’s chair was filled briefly by Junior Mance and then by Bobby Timmons, a song-writer whose skills rivaled Golson’s – here at last was a successor to Horace Silver.”


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(Count Basie) … all standing on the same stair-way. Here was the great trumpeter of the ‘Thirties (Roy Eldridge) talking to the great trumpeter of the ‘Forties (Dizzy Gillespie), as a bemused Gerry Mulligan looked on. Many had not seen each other in years, and incredible sto-ries were told and retold – they never stopped talking, even when Kane said to face the cam-era. (As the picture was taken, Mary Lou Wil-liams was facing Marian McPartland, engrossed in a conversation now lost to time.) Neighbor-hood kids, curious about what was happening, sat down in front of the musicians; they too became part of the picture, which is rightly called “A Great Day in Harlem”. Blakey resides at the top of the stairs, sur-rounded partly by Messengers, partly by heroes

of jazz’ past (including Chubby Jackson, Buck Clayton, and Henry “Red” Allen.) Such was his stature, after five years as a bandleader, that he had recorded or played with nearly a third of the people in this photograph: Farmer, Gillespie, Golson, Griffin, Gryce, Hawkins, Hinton, Jo Jones, Mingus, Monk, Pettiford, Rollins, Shihab, Silver, Wilbur Ware, and Mary Lou Williams. Art was called for a session, held on Octo-ber 28, pairing Milt Jackson with the ebullient Cannonball Adderley. Titled Things Are Get-ting Better, the album featured old tunes like “The Sidewalks of New York”, strong support from Wynton Kelly, and a surprising show of restraint. While both leaders could duel with the best of them, here they are polite, with one man-nered solo after another – it’s a good effort, but far from what they were capable of. Two days later, Art entered Van Gelder’s to record Moan-in’, his only studio album with this group of Messengers. The bulk of the album was com-posed by Golson, with one contribution by Tim-mons – the explosive title cut, which immedi-ately became a standard.

Bobby starts the tune with a slow, languid blues; the horns hum an “Amen” at the end of each phrase. The roles are reversed on the sec-ond chorus, with Lee on the high road and Gol-son beneath him; the bridge is a weary lament, and Morgan screams the first solo. These are high-pitched smears, a lazy yawn soon promot-ed to rapid-fire leaps. Behind this Timmons is steady, comping with the blues and staying out of Morgan’s way. His sound is perfect for a group like this: where Silver could get too or-nate for his surroundings, Bobby’s vamps are direct, emotional, and right. As the solo pro-gresses, Morgan gets softer – it’s the same style, only subtler. Entering a fresh chorus, Morgan plays a two-bar phrase, then hands off to Golson, who continues the thought. Built mostly on that one phrase, Benny’s solo lurches fast, turns wonder-fully harsh, and concludes on a quote of “While My Lady Sleeps”. Timmons is relaxed, bluesy, and highly cool … as you knew he’d be. He’s

lush, yet he’s lowdown; think of a cross be-tween Red Garland and Wynton Kelly. Jymie has a quick bit, and it’s back to that wonderful theme … it’s ten minutes long, but it should go forever. The next tune is unlike anything the Mes-sengers did before, yet it’s very representative. One morning, partly as a challenge to see if he could do it, Golson set out to compose a march. As Benny put it in an interview: “It had to be a funky, Grambling College-type thing … I fig-ured it was a novelty and would never last, just something to get us over, maybe.” The novelty factor appears at once: Blakey opens with a by-the-numbers march pattern, absent of any jazz feeling. (“I told Art to pre-tend he was with the American Legion band, and he did.”) Golson takes the lead with a proud blues theme; his diction is clipped, as if he is marching himself. Morgan begins his solo meekly, as a few airy notes purr at low volume. He soon speeds up, but the gentility remains – you don’t have to scream to make yourself heard. The drum major returns for a spell, and then it goes to Benny: a fine metallic growl,

with fast flurries and jagged edges. I’m remind-ed of Lockjaw, mixed with a little Sonny Stitt – Bobby follows with some up-and-down pat-terns, as he’d use on “This Here”. There’s a short exchange, as Art the Legionnaire trades riffs with Blakey the jazzman – I wish he did this longer. In his interview, Golson remarked that of all the people he’s played “Blues March” with, nobody played it like Blakey. The proof of that is here. “Along Came Betty” is a perfect piece of soul-jazz, from the softly-coursing piano to the easy surge of the melody. The notes move so naturally, you forget the involved chord struc-ture and lengthy lines – traits also found in Golson’s “Whisper Not”. Morgan plays from the distance: kissed with echo, his notes rise slowly like smoke. His tone alternates between gentle glow and tough-guy rasp; Benny starts in the mold of Ben Webster, then speeds up with a growl like Griffin. So much happens, and he accomplishes it in a single chorus; Terence

Blanchard called this solo “…the perfect sound for the band at the time.” It is impossible to disagree. When Alfred Lion was asked about what he liked to do when he wasn’t producing jazz records, he replied “Listening to Art Blakey.” Art was a constant presence at Blue Note re-cording sessions, as a leader and as a sideman, and when Blakey had a special project in mind, Lion was inclined to say yes.


“If the nonet date broadened the Blakey palette, Art Blakey Big Band made it wide as the horizon. Cut in New York at the end of

1957, this was Art’s first big band record since the Eckstine sessions, and his first such recording as leader. (In their short existence, the Seventeen Messengers had gone unrecorded.) The cast was full of

familiar faces: charts by Eckstine arranger Jerry Valentine; Messengers Byrd, Hardman, Bishop, and Shihab; Melba Liston from the nonet session, and a sax section including Al Cohn and John Coltrane.

The potential was immense … as would be the music.”

“What baffles and even frightens most people are mere

smokescreens. You’ll see these events as simply the illusions they actually are and begin to walk right through them. You’ll understand that your success

lies just beyond your thoughts about these walls.”

- A Rich Man’s Secret

Art Blakey


Kenny GarrettKenny Garrett Hear Kenny atHear Kenny at

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We have authenticated and brokered the sale of instruments owned by such famous drummers as Buddy Rich, Joe Morello, Elvin Jones, Mel Lewis, Tony Williams, Sonny Greer, Don Lamond, Cozy Cole, Papa Jo Jones, Philly Joe Jones, Gene Krupa, Peter Erskine, Stan Levey, Dave Tough, Louie Bellson, Jake Hanna, Earl Palmer, Billy Gladstone and more.

We have sold more of the world’s rarest drums and drum sets than anyone in the world. Items such as: the finest known Ludwig Top Hat and Cane drum set; the finest known and unique example of Leedy’s Autograph of the Stars set; four of the twelve known examples of ’50s era Gretsch cadillac nitron green “Birdland” drum sets; more Gretsch round badge era 12-14-18 drum sets than any dealer world-wide; eight of the rare Billy Gladstone snares (of which only 25 exist) and one of the only two complete Billy Gladstone drum sets.

Our worldwide clientele consists of serious players; collectors, investors and anyone else who loves the finest examples of rare vintage drums. Our expertise runs deep and is rooted in the superb instru-ments crafted by US manufacturers from the 1920s through the 1970s.

Contact Steve: 630-865-6849 | email: [email protected]

When it comes to superb vintage drums

you need a true expert. I have over 40

years of experience with vintage drums

and have authenticated and brokered

some of the rarest and finest sets in exis-

tence, including sets owned by some of

the world’s most renowned drummers.

Whether you want to purchase or sell a

fine vintage snare drum or drum set, or

perhaps purchase something owned by

a famous drummer you admire, trust

the industry’s leading expert.

When you call or email, you get me. I am available and I want to speak

with you. Feel free to call or email with questions and requests.

No one does “vintage” better, and you deserve the best.

Steve Maxwell

Midtown Manhattan 242 W. 30th Street, New York, NY 10001 Ph: 212-730-8138 Hours: 11–7 M–F; 11–6 Sat

Chicagoland 2000 Bloomingdale Road, Unit #110 Glendale Heights, IL 60139 Ph: 630-237-4997 Hours: 11–6 Fri; 10–5 Sat | Additional hours by appointment.

www.maxwelldrums.comServing the

Community of

Professional

Drummers and

Drum Lovers

JAZZINSIDE_full-page_VintageExp10.07.17.indd 1 11/13/17 3:10 PM

http://www.maxwelldrums.com

Visit JohnALewisJazz.com

New CD Release from Dallas Area Pianist

John A. Lewis

John A. Lewis, piano Merik Gillett, drums Robert Trusko, bass TRACKS: Backstory Deadline Jacked Complicity Bylines Liable Precocity Excerpt from the "Ancient

Dance Suite" What Say I A Cautionary Ruse All compositions by John A Lewis

http://www.johnalewisjazz.com

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