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Jazz Inside Magazine

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

February-March 2019 – Volume 9, Number 11

Cover Photo and photo at right of Charles Tolliver

By Eric Nemeyer

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 Charles Tolliver

INTERVIEWSINTERVIEWS 6 Jay Beckenstein

8 Chuck Israels 20 Benny Green 28 Miguel Zenon

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Interview by Eric Nemeyer

This is an excerpt from the full interview with

Charles Tolliver.

CT: When I was a teenager in high school

there was a little neighborhood pharmacy, I

delivered medicine from there and I used to

watch the two doctors who owned it mixing

the medicine, and I thought that was cool.

And that stayed with me after I graduated

high school. And I decided—you know, with

chemistry, musicians, they’re into numbers

anyway, so mathematics, chemistry and all

that was fun to work with. I got accepted into

the School of Pharmacy at Howard, I trudged

through for about three years. It was hard be-

cause I was paying tuition. But, I mean, I was

mostly in the fine arts building in my spare

time, anyway. [laughs] And just one day

something really clicked. And I said, “I’m

history.” I just packed up, came back home.

Finding every jam session I could find. That

was ‘63.

JI: How did your association with Jackie

McLean develop?

CT: The summer of ‘63 I got back here and

there were little places to go and jam, and

there was a fellow named Jim Harrison who

was getting little gigs with Jackie because this

was really a tough time, even though he was

recording at Blue Note. You know at that

time, gigs for journeymen—at that time, Jack-

ie, basically that’s what he was, I mean, even

though he had made some great Blue Note

recordings, there was no work. Besides, he

was drying out. And this fella told Jackie

about me, and he called me to make a record-

ing without even hearing me. Just went on the

word of this fella, Jim Harrison. And that’s

how it all started out. It’s actually amazing—

’cause generally, the guys, they usually go

around, even Miles in those days would go

out to different clubs and check things out …

see if there’s anybody that he could use. So

I’m forever in the debt of Jackie McLean.

JI: What kinds of discussions did you have

with him that made a significant impact on

your artistry and your development that you

might share with us?

CT: Well, really, to tell you the truth, we did-

n’t talk so much about the music, except that

he asked me, did I have any tunes. Maybe he

was already inside my head, or something,

you know? And I’d go by his house and bring

him a couple of my tunes, and he said, “Oh

yeah, great, we’ll use that. Here’s one of

mine.” It was that sort of thing. It was as if I

had known him my whole life. It was quite a

start for me.

JI: Going to record with him for Blue Note,

what kinds of direction, or what kinds of

things did you experience from producers? Or

did everything go in the studio as he wanted?

CT: Well, one thing I remember was that

Jackie was in that phase, he had already done

One Step Beyond…

JI: Exploratory freedom.

CT: Yeah. And so he was in that mode, and

so even though bebop was hitting, I believe he

really had already started to expand it. The

first record I did with him, I mean, I had been

practicing 2-5-1 chord progressions. And for-

tunately, I don’t know whether it was his deci-

sion—probably it was Alfred’s [Lion] deci-

sion—to have that rhythm section. I mean,

that record was quite something because it

had bebop and free stuff.

JI: But you were working on more traditional,

sophisticated, harmonic kinds of vocabulary,

and then going in and working with him while

he’s suggesting to you that he wants some-

thing freer, how did that hit you?

CT: Well, it was quite something. One would

be shaking in their boots, so to speak on their

first record. But I think what helped me was

that I’m very rhythmically inclined. You

know, having someone like Roy Haynes and

Herbie Hancock there, it made all the differ-

ence. I think if it had been another drummer

or a pianist, it might not have come off the

way it did. That was a great start for me.

JI: What kinds of discussions did you have

with Art Blakey?

CT: It was never about the music, because

those men, they expected you to get it already.

If they tapped you to blow, then they expected

that you were ready and were there with what

they want. So, it was never a discussion about

the music. And there were no rehearsals ei-

ther, with Art Blakey there were no rehears-

als. It was just expected that I would know the

repertoire. It seems like every time I got a gig

in those days with one of those great innova-

tors, there were always asking me, “who

would you like to play with,” or, “who should

we get for this particular movement?”

“they expected you to get it already. If they tapped you to blow, then they

expected that you were ready and were there with what they want. So, it was never a discussion about the

music. And there were no rehearsals either, with Art Blakey there were no rehearsals. It was just expected that

I would know the repertoire.”

Charles Tolliver

Fortuitous opportunities at just the right moments ...

INTERVIEWINTERVIEW


Fea

ture

Charles TolliverCharles Tolliver


Interview By Eric Nemeyer

This is an excerpt from the extensive interview

with Jay Beckenstein of Spyro Gyra

JI: One of the ways artists in jazz have in

large part, developed their own styles and or

reputations, has been to apprentice—to play in

the groups lead by high-profile, established

jazz artists for extended periods of time.

Could you comment on how your own inde-

pendent path has helped or hindered your mu-

sic and opportunity in light of the aforemen-

tioned realities

JB: I caught the very last, last little part of the

apprenticeship era when I spent about a half

year with Charlie Mingus at school. I think

there’s a difference as you go back in history

as to the availability to listen to things that

people have. Certainly, as you go back far

enough, apprenticeship is the only way you

heard something that might influence you.

You went somewhere to a band stand to hear

somebody else play it. It wasn’t like everyone

had a Victrola or there was MTV. More and

more now, there are alternatives to the teacher

-student, one-on-one apprentice kind of thing.

There are jazz programs in colleges. There are

books on playing jazz. There is every kind of

music you could possibly lay your hands on –

and for free. There is a lot that somebody can

learn now, without being an apprentice. I do

wish though that in college someone had tak-

en me by the hand and said, “Look this is

what you’re lacking and this is what you’ve

got to work on.” But, I didn’t. To this day I

miss it. I think there are holes in what I do

that might have been corrected early on if I

had a great teacher. I didn’t. It just wasn’t

there. So I did develop on my own. I guess the

up side to that is maybe that I don’t sound like

anybody else. I can read music and play pi-

ano. But my approach to jazz is not a

schooled approach. I have a very good ear –

maybe too good. Every teacher I had would

throw up their hands because I would refuse

to read the music – and be able to play it back

anyway. A funny thing about Spyro with me

is that the band can change the key of the

tune, and I might not notice it. And, I’ll just

play it in that different key but not know that

I’m playing it in that different key. That kind

of ear led me to just kind of do it, to be a sing-

er. 95% of the time I can play what I’m hear-

ing. But that other 5%, which would make me

a more sophisticated player, would require a

different kind of mental knowledge – because

my ears just want to go where they want to

go. So when someone is putting in chord

changes that are twisted that are not in their

natural place – I can be thrown. At those

times, I do have to go, “here’s the chord

change, remember that.” Or, “play a G and

you’ll hear where you go.” I’ll get through

different sections of harder harmonic kinds of

things – the sort of thing that Tom Schuman

plows through. At those moments I miss not

having a Berklee education. Those moments

don’t happen a lot. I can’t get around them.

Eventually, my ear learns the most twisted of

chords, given enough time. The whole beauty

of jazz was its natural evolution. Somewhere

along the line though, back in the 1960s, a

whole bunch of people tried to canonize it – to

write it down, to put it in books, to tell you

how to do it. The thing that attracted me to it

in the first place was that it didn’t stay still.

JI: Yes. And, if you heard ten different ver-

sions of “Bye Bye Blackbird” by the same

group, playing it in the same key, at the same

tempo, each version was different, and you

wanted to hear each different version.

JB: More than that, when I was growing up,

every single Miles Davis record was a new

style of jazz. There was this amazing thing

that was going on between 1955 and 1965.

Then, along came a lot of stuff that didn’t

please traditionalists – electric instruments,

rock backbeats, combinations of styles. They

then sort of took a step backwards and said we

better write the book. We better put things in

canon – as if to say this is jazz and that is not.

I think that was a bad decision on everybody’s

part. Considerably later on, along came

smooth jazz to lock it into some awful place;

and split it off into instrumental R&B.

“the band can change the key of the tune, and I might not notice it. And, I’ll just play it in that different key but not know that I’m playing it in that different key. That kind of ear led me to just kind of do it, to be a singer. 95%

of the time I can play what I’m hearing. But that other 5%, which would make me a more sophisticated player, would

require a different kind of mental knowledge”

Jay Beckenstein

Founder of Spyro Gyra, Alto Saxophinst

INTERVIEWINTERVIEW

— Anton Chekhov

“Encroachment of freedom will not come

about through one violent action or movement but will come about

through a series of actions that appear to be unrelated and coincidental, but

that were all along systematically planned for dictatorship.”

— John Adams, 2nd President


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Photo by John Meloy

Chuck: I lived in Cleveland Heights from

1946 to 52 and I liked it. It was next to Shaker

Heights. It was just south of Shaker Heights.

They’re contiguous. I enjoyed my life be-

tween the ages of 10 to 16, and I remember

that the kids I went to junior high school with,

we all knew the names of all the guys on the

Cleveland Indians because that was around

1948, they won the World Series.

JI: That’s right, they won the series and 1948

and 1954 when they played the New York

Giants in the World Series—but nothing

since.

Chuck: Well, those were all people that we

knew well. We knew everybody’s names. We

new who they were. I could tell you even to-

day who they were. The kids also knew all the

first chair players in the Cleveland Orchestra.

JI: That speaks to what culture was back then

as opposed to today.

Chuck: That’s right, and I thought that was a

pretty good community.

JI: Of course, the Cleveland Indians played in

Municipal Stadium that had a center field that

was something like 900 feet away from home

plate.

Chuck: [Laughs] One of the bullpen pitchers

was Early Wynn, who rented our house one

summer when we were away. It was a differ-

ent world. I was thinking about how to de-

scribe what I think is the situation at the mo-

ment. There is a preponderance of cheap pop-

ular music with improvisation that’s masquer-

ading as creative jazz. And it takes up most of

the listening space in the world. And if I had

heard that music when I was learning to play,

I would never have become a jazz musician.

JI: Well, a lot of it’s produced, so of course it

doesn’t grab your heart.

Chuck: Well, you’re old enough to have had

a little bit of that experience, and I’m a few

years older and so I had that much more of it

before the baby boom generation reached ado-

lescence and the whole culture.

JI: Do you have a manager?

Chuck: Well, I haven’t got one. As a matter

of fact, I do have someone here who helps me.

I don’t have to tell him how to do things be-

cause it’s his general character that attracted

me to a relationship with him in the first

place.

JI: Could you talk about the music of Horace

Silver which is the centerpiece of the new

album, and why you chose this as a focus for

your current project?

Chuck: That was pretty easy. He died, and it

caught my attention. He died last year, and I

grew up loving his music, looking forward to

all the new releases of it. I met him in 1956.

There was a record producer named Tom Wil-

son. He was a Harvard grad, a black man,

who remained in Cambridge after he graduat-

ed. And he had a record company called Tran-

sition Records. I loved Tom. He was a real

mentor of mine and we had a close affection-

ate relationship. He was a few years older

than I was, and he kind of took me under his

wing and he liked my playing. Because he

liked my playing, I got on my first jazz record

which was the one that he was producing in

New York that had Cecil Taylor and John

Coltrane and Kenny Dorham and Louis

Hayes.

JI: I remember that album.

Chuck: That was through my relationship

with Tom. But before that, he produced a rec-

ord of Donald Byrd, which was in fact Horace

Silver and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers with

whom Donald Byrd was playing. Tom hired

them to make a record that Donald would be

the leader, and they recorded it in the radio

station at Harvard in that studio. And I was

there and I met Horace. I can’t say I ever

knew him well, but I would always run into

him through the years and we were always

friendly and cordial, and he was a nice man,

and I loved his music so I would go and hear

it at every opportunity. I have this band that

plays mostly music that is more like Bill Ev-

ans’ music than Horace’s. But the roots of

Bill’s music are the same roots that are

Horace’s roots, and that is Bud Powell. They

both sit on Bud Powell’s music, and they

simply take off in slightly different directions

from there. I played with Bud Powell too in

1959 for several months in Paris. So all of this

is a pretty basic fundamental connection with

my beginnings as a jazz musician.

JI: When you were playing with Bud Powell,

what kinds of instructions, if any, or words of

wisdom did he impart to you that made a sig-

nificant impact on your development at the

time or ever since?

Chuck: Wouldn’t that be nice if that had hap-

pened? But Bud was, at that point, not fully

relating to the world. He had been traumatized

in a number of ways that I don’t know about.

Barry Harris talks about it a little bit. He’d

been beaten up by the police. He’d been given

electroshock therapy at Bellevue, and he was

pretty much a mess. So my relationship with

him was to show up on a bandstand and play.

All he wanted to do was to get five francs so

he could buy a cognac which he wasn’t sup-

posed to have. So I didn’t have any real rela-

tionship. I had plenty of relationship with

G.T. Hogan who was the drummer and with

Kenny Clarke who was also in Paris and with

whom I also played from time to time, and

Lucky Thomson whom I knew a little bit and

played with there and much admired. I had

graduated from Brandeis, and I was doing my

obligatory European trip after college.

JI: How did you find the atmosphere in Paris

at the time, both in terms of the musical envi-

ronment, as well as the way the Parisians and

Europeans related to Americans?

Chuck: The musical atmosphere was good,

and the relationship with American jazz musi-

cians was that they were revered. And Bud

was certainly revered, even though in a lot of

ways he was a shadow of himself. But there

was great respect for his history and for his

contribution to the music, more respect from

the French than from me, which was my error.

I think back about my own attitudes at that

time, and I was young and I wasn’t thinking

very clearly about what Bud was doing. A lot

of the time, he was on automatic pilot, and

you could tell that there wasn’t much emo-

tional connection with his playing. That was

the state of mental life that he was in at that

point, and it made me, in my youthful way,

incorrectly disrespect his accomplishments.

And I look back on that thinking, well, you

know, I was glad to be working with Bud and

for people paying attention to me, but I really

wasn’t paying that much attention to how

great a musician he was, and the French were.

However, they had him playing in a dive on

(Continued on page 11)

Chuck Israels

On Bill Evans, Horace Silver and More

INTERVIEWINTERVIEW



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the left bank, with a lousy upright piano that

was not always in tune-and I always thought

that was a little bit hypocritical to turn him

into this hero and not give him a suitable

place to play and a good instrument. I was a

child. How old was I then? Let’s see, 23. I

was lucky to be there and I got a lot of work. I

worked with Bud and with Lucky Thompson,

with Kenny Clarke, with Daniel Humair, who

was a brilliant, brilliant drummer. I had a

good time.

JI: What prompted you to move back to the

United States?

Chuck: I never had planned to remain in Eu-

rope. I don’t think that I was looking for an

expatriate existence. I think that’s a difficult

life to live away from your home country.

People find it necessary. Some years before

that, for political reasons, people had been

“outed” by Joseph McCarthy and had moved

to Europe because they were blacklisted at

home. But I wasn’t planning to stay in Eu-

rope. I did come home to Boston after that,

finding not very much jazz at that moment. I

went to work for Acoustic Research and did

experimental work on loud speakers for a

while until George Russell and I found each

other in Lenox, Massachusetts.

JI: What year was that, 1960?

Chuck: Yes, yes, that was the beginning of

my New York career.

JI: What was that session like on which you

recorded with John Coltrane and Cecil Tay-

lor? What are your impressions?

Chuck: It was professional, and there are

stories about it that there were fights and ar-

guments and all kinds of things because peo-

ple hear the discrepancy in musical style from

what Cecil was doing and what everyone else

was doing. But I don’t remember any sign of

anything but professional courtesy. It was

people doing their jobs.

JI: Was there music handed out? What do

you remember about the development of the

music during the session?

Chuck: Well, we played a couple of blueses.

One little counterpoint exercise that I had

written, that I had no idea anyone was going

to play, was sitting on a music stand. John

picked it up and looked at it and said, “Oh,

let’s try this.” He and Kenny played this two

part invention, and it became something

called “Double Clutching.” But there wasn’t a

lot of planning for that session. We played a

couple of standards and four people played

one way and then Cecil played the way Cecil

plays-which is rhythmically very choppy and

kind of unrelated to the language that the rest

of us were speaking. And we did the best we

could to find a way to relate to that and to

integrate it. It was our job. And for me, first of

all, it was the first session I had ever taken

part in, first professional one, so I had nothing

to compare it to.

JI: I guess you felt like a kid in a candy facto-

ry. Everything that was happening was excit-

ing and new.

Chuck: Of course. I also heard myself rush

on a playback, and decided instantly that I

was never going to do that again. One of my

solos-I wasn’t at all aware that it was happen-

ing when I was playing. And I heard the play-

back and said, my God, I’m rushing, that’s

terrible. I have to re-orient my experience of

my own playing to make sure that I keep a

part of me outside of myself listening to what

I’m doing to make sure that the music comes

out right, comes out the way I want it to.

JI: Did you go back in the practice room for a

long time with a metronome to make sure that

you didn’t rush?

Chuck: No, I just became aware that my

emotional state was misdirecting what I was

hearing, and I just fixed it. I just thought that

when I feel like that, and I think I’m dragging,

I’m not—so don’t pay attention to that. I fixed

it right away. I didn’t have any time to go

back in the practice room and fix it. I had to

fix it on the next take.

JI: Well it’s good that you got to hear it back

so you could make those instant changes.

Chuck: Exactly. Recording is a wonderful

thing for musicians.

JI: Probably like everyone who has recorded,

at one time or another you’ve cringed at hear-

ing the playback and thought that the music

was not where you wanted it to be. We all go

through that at one time or another. I’ve had

experiences where I initially thought that and

then let it sit for a month or two months, until

you’ve forgotten the “mistakes” that you think

you made on the spot. Then later, with clarity,

you realize, “Oh my gosh, that sounds really

good.”

Chuck: Of course, yeah. But at the moment,

it’s like the dancer looking in the mirror. The

dancer feels his or her body in a particular

position and thinks it looks a certain way, and

that’s why they have those big mirrors, to

make sure that it looks the way they want it

to. And you have to train yourself to observe

yourself from a distance. It’s part of your

training as an artist to recognize how things

are really coming out.

JI: Sure, and it takes training to get to that

point. As our ears become more sensitive and

attuned to the subtleties, we pick up things we

may not have initially heard. I listen back now

to recordings that I was listening to when I

first became involved in the music-even solos

I may have transcribed—and I find myself

hearing, discovering subtleties that I never

could have imagined when I first started out.

Chuck: Yep. Well, I found some things in

Horace’s music, but not too much that I didn’t

know was there. I was pretty aware of how he

organized things. First place, his music is very

organized. His quintet arrangements are kind

of little big band arrangements already. They

have shout choruses, they have specific fig-

ures in the piano part that he would play the

same every night, much to the consternation

of a trumpet player that worked for him later,

whom I knew well who played in the National

Jazz Ensemble. He came back, and we said,

“Well how was it working with Horace?” He

said, “Oh man, it’s such a drag. He comps the

same way every night.” But we talked to this

guy and said, “You know, you have to play a

different kind of solo. In Horace’s music, that

comping is written into the arrangement and it

carries part of the story of the piece.”

JI: Sure, the music would be entirely different

if Barry Harris or Bill Evans were comping

for the same tunes with the same group.

Chuck: Right, and Horace’s comping was

part of the arrangement. So in my writing for

this album, there’s quite a bit of orchestration

of Horace’s piano parts. So a lot of the things

that are beautiful and colorful and swinging

on this album actually originate from Horace.

There’s a lot of Horace in here and a little bit

of me. I don’t mean to minimize my contribu-

tion or the contribution of the other guys in

the band. But there’s such a strong foundation

in that music that it doesn’t take a lot. It takes

performing it well, which took us some time.

It took some time for these younger players to

figure out how the eighth notes had to go, and

I was exigent with them about that because if

you play Horace with swingy eighth notes in

the wrong place, it destroys the line of the

music. So we had to work a lot on that. But

we did solve the problem, and the soloists

were really wonderful about playing solos that

fit the piece. So I’m really pleased about how

(Continued from page 8)


Chuck Israels


the players put themselves inside each piece

that we played. And most of them sound like

Horace Silver. There are some that have a

little bit of different approach to them. I think

“Strolling” gets a treatment that Horace prob-

ably wouldn’t have given it, and maybe

“Peace.” But the rest of them-I think Horace

would recognize them right away and feel

comfortable and I would hope honored by the

respect that we have for what was already

there and didn’t feel that it was necessary to

change it all that much. I tried to get a variety,

and I think I avoided the ones that have osti-

nato bass parts [“Song For My Father,” for

example] because I don’t have much fun play-

ing them. So even though some of those are

the most popular ones, they were not that in-

teresting to me. I picked the ones I knew and

that I liked. A couple of them, my daughter

suggested because she knows John Hendrick’s

versions of them, knows the words, and

thought that they were particularly attractive

pieces. “Home Cooking” was one of them.

JI: All of his songs seem to have a certain

lyricism about them that the average person

can relate to.

Chuck: They’re very straightforward, acces-

sible, simple in the best since for the word.

They’re distilled Bud Powell. And Horace

uses the bebop language and kind of avoids its

excesses.

JI: Yes, the old saying that less is more has

really been epitomized by his approach to

composition certainly I think.

Chuck: Absolutely. What did I do as an ar-

ranger? Well, on “Moonrays,” which is this

long kind of a mood piece, I added a lot to

that arrangement. I added polyphony and

some contrapuntal lines to that because I

thought there was a lot of room for it with the

long lines in the melody. And it develops in a

particular way because there’s that room in

that piece. But some of the pieces, you didn’t

really have to do a whole lot to. Nevertheless,

it did take me months to get all the musical

ready for this. I don’t do it quickly. It takes a

lot of thought and a lot of balancing of ele-

ments.

JI: Are you planning to do a follow-up to that

one or is this the one and only?

Chuck: I don’t think we’ll do another Horace

Silver one. We were going to do a Monk one,

but the guys in the band are interested in my

pieces. I have a substantial repertoire of my

own pieces, and there’s quite a bit of variety

in them. And the band members liked playing

them and they identified with them, so that’s

going to be the next project.

JI: For several years in the 1960s, from ‘61 to

‘66, you played with Bill Evans. Perhaps you

could talk a little bit about how you made his

acquaintance and how your tenure in his trio

began.

Chuck: Well, I met him—I’m not sure if it

was the first time, but when Gunther Schuller

had the first third-stream concert, which took

place at Brandeis in June of 1957, Bill was the

piano player. As a matter of fact, my contact

with musicians at Brandeis, when I was a stu-

dent there, became my entre into the New

York scene three or four years later. I met

Bill, I met George Russell, I met Joe Benja-

min who was the bass player on that job and

who later used to send me on gigs subbing for

him. I met Jimmy Knepper, I met Art Farmer,

Barry Galbraith, a whole bunch of people, Jim

Buffington, French horn player. Charlie Min-

gus was there and we became friendly.

Brandeis has a campus that doesn’t have any

businesses next to it. It’s in a residential area.

So those guys were there for a week or two

rehearsing. And when they had breaks, there

was no place for them to go to eat except the

student union. So I made sure that Steve Kuhn

and Arnie Wise and I, who had a trio together,

were playing in the student union when those

guys had their break. And they all came in

and they sat down and they didn’t eat. They

were kind of dumbfounded because there was

no jazz in universities, and here was a really

professional jazz trio. And that was the begin-

ning of getting to know these people. I got to

play with Bill through his knowing of me, and

liking my playing, having heard me then. And

when Scott [LaFaro, Bill Evans’ bassist

through June 1961] died, I was in Europe. It’s

a complicated story but there were a lot of

mutual friends involved. And I knew that

Scotty had died. I didn’t get back to New

York until October. And there was a phone

call waiting for me. Bill had decided that he

was going to call me and he was going to wait

until I got back, and I went to work for him

then. That was kind of the materialization and

realization of aesthetic ideas that were already

built into my musical background, kind of

confirmation of aesthetic direction that I was

pointing in, but I didn’t know how to achieve

myself. And so I felt very lucky that I was

able to participate in that music, in the music

that Bill was making-because it was the kind

of music I wanted to make and I couldn’t do it

by myself. And I stayed there, and probably

would have stayed there a lot longer if Bill’s

emotional and chemical health had been bet-

ter. But after almost six years, I felt as if I had

to break away from that and do the home-

work, do the necessary work to make music

like that, to come as close to that level of mu-

sic making as I could under my own direction.

So I had to learn to become a composer and

arranger which was not what I started out to

do. I started out to be a bass player and I’ve

changed my point of view considerably. I play

bass now because it helps the guys in my band

understand the direction of the music.

JI: With your entre into Bill Evans Trio, were

there initially discussions or kind of sugges-

tions that he made verbally that helped you

along? What was the whole beginning like in

getting acclimated and connected together?

Chuck: Nonverbal. Sometimes it’s hard for

people to understand that, but the communica-

tion took place in the music. He played the

way he wanted to play. He wrote out little

chord sheets showing you the harmony with

an occasional rhythm, and left you alone.

JI: And your interest in composition evolved

during the time of the trio I take it?

Chuck: Yes, I wanted to be able to do that,

and I didn’t know how Bill was doing it. In a

lot of ways, I didn’t realize how simple and

straightforward some of it was. On the other

hand, there were other elements of it that were

highly sophisticated elements that people usu-

ally don’t notice. People tend to notice the

beautiful harmony and the great pianistic

touch, and they miss the complexity and so-

phistication of the rhythm and timing. Bill’s

rhythm was completely authoritative. You

could make mistakes and it would never

throw him. I didn’t make many but if I did, if

I played something that was good for the mu-

sic, it would affect the music. You could hear

Bill’s response to that instantly. If I made an

error, he was so strong that it didn’t throw

him. He would not respond to errors.

JI: That’s amazing.

Chuck: There weren’t a whole lot of them,

but when it did happen it never threw them.

JI: What were some of the recordings like?

Do you remember any interesting or dramatic

or humorous moments that you’d like to

share? (Continued on page 34)


Chuck Israels

“Ultimate success is not directly related to early success,

if you consider that many successful people did not give clear evidence

of such promise in youth.”

- Robert Fritz, The Path Of Least Resistance

13 To Advertise CALL: 215-887-8880 February-March 2019 Jazz Inside Magazine www.JazzInsideMagazine.com

Saturday, February 9 Freddy Cole Quintet: Songs For Lovers; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At

Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

The Clayton Brothers Quintet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

George Cables Trio - George Cables, Piano; Dezron Douglas, Bass; Victor Lewis, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

Smalls Showcase: Dave Meder Trio; Adam Birnbaum Quartet; Darrell Green Quintet; Philip Harper Quintet; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

John Pizzarelli Trio; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Ron Carter’s Blue Note Winter Residency; Gideon King & City Blog; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Sunday, February 10 Freddy Cole Quintet: Songs For Lovers; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At


Jazz For Kids; The Clayton Brothers Quintet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

George Cables Trio - George Cables, Piano; Dezron Douglas, Bass; Victor Lewis, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

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

Ron Carter’s Blue Note Winter Residency; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd

Monday, February 11 Brussels Jazz Orchestra & Tutu Puoane: We Have A Dream;

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

Mingus Big Band: Celebrating 10 Years At Jazz Standard; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

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

Ronnie Burrage & Holographic Principle; Jonathan Barber Quar-tet; Jon Elbaz Trio “After-hours”; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Lorna Dallas; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Wallace Roney Quintet - February Residency; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Tuesday, February 12 Brussels Jazz Orchestra & Tutu Puoane: We Have A Dream;


Michael Leonhart Orchestra “Valentine’s Day Show: Movie Love Themes”; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Catherine Russell and Her Septet, 315 W. 44th St.

Thundercat; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Wednesday, February 13 Brian Charette: Music For Organ Sextette; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At


Double Date With Tierney & Kate: From Django To Joni; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


John Stetch & Vulneraville; Dave Pietro Quintet; Davis Whitfield Trio “After-hours”; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Catherine Russell; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.


Thursday, February 14 Valentine’s Day: Kim Nalley Sings Love Songs; Dizzy’s Club,

Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Tierney & Kate: From Django To Joni; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th


Phil Stewart Quartet; Chris Byars Original Sextet; Jonathan Thomas Trio “After-hours”; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Catherine Russell and Her Septet: Alone Together; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.


Friday, February 15 Kim Nalley: Love Songs; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center,

60th & Bdwy

Dianne Reeves, 2018 NEA Jazz Master, Valentine’s Day week-end, 8PM, Rose Theatre, Jazz at Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdway



Michael Weiss Quartet; Alexander Claffy Quintet; JD Allen “After-hours”; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.



Saturday, February 16 Kim Nalley: Love Songs; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center,

60th & Bdwy

Dianne Reeves, 2018 NEA Jazz Master, Valentine’s Day week-end, 8PM, Rose Theatre, Jazz at Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdway



Smalls Showcase: Dean Tsur Saxophone Choir; Michael Weiss Quartet; Alexander Claffy Quintet; Brooklyn Circle; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.



Sunday, February 17 Kim Nalley: Love Songs; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center,

60th & Bdwy

Jazz For Kids; Mingus Big Band: Celebrating 10 Years At Jazz Standard; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Vocal Masterclass with Marion Cowings; Emanuele Tozzi Quintet; Bill Goodwin Trio; Joe Magnarelli Group; Ben Zweig Trio “After-hours”; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

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


Monday, February 18 Juilliard Jazz Ensembles; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center,

60th & Bdwy

Mingus Orchestra: Celebrating 10 Years At Jazz Standard; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Ari Hoenig Trio; Joel Frahm Trio; Sean Mason Trio “After-hours”; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Judi Silvano and The Zephyr Band; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Wallace Roney Quintet ; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Tuesday, February 19 John Chin; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy (Continued on page 14)

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Godwin Louis; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Steve Nelson Quartet; Frank Lacy’s Tromboniverse; Malik McLaurine Trio “After-hours”; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Saxophone Summit with Joe Lovano, Dave Liebman, and Greg Osby; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

David Sanborn; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Wednesday, February 20 Bobby Broom Organi-Sation: Soul Fingers; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At


An Evening With Branford Marsalis; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th

Dayna Stephens Quartet - Dayna Stephens, Saxophone; Aaron Parks, Piano; Ben Street, Bass; Greg Hutchinson, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

Rob Bargad’s Reunion 7tet; Harold Mabern Trio; Micah Thomas Trio “After-hours”; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.



Thursday, February 21 David Binney; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Spanish Harlem Orchestra; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.



Friday, February 22 Warren Wolf Quartet Featuring Joe Locke; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At






Saturday, February 23 Warren Wolf Quartet Featuring Joe Locke; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At





Sunday, February 24 Warren Wolf Quartet Featuring Joe Locke; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At


Jazz For Kids; Spanish Harlem Orchestra; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Emilio Solla Tango Jazz Orchestra; The Ktet; The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.


Monday, February 25 Matthew Shipp Trio; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th &

Bdwy



Lucas Pino Nonet; Rodney Green Group; Jon Elbaz Trio “After-hours”; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Victoria Shaw; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Wallace Roney Quintet - February Residency; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Tuesday, February 26 Allison Miller; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Steve Slagle’s A.M. Band; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Terell Stafford Quintet - Terell Stafford, Trumpet; Tim Warfield, Saxophone; Bruce Barth, Piano; Peter Washington, Bass; Billy Williams, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

Eric Harland’s Voyager; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Wednesday, February 27 Black Art Jazz Collective; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center,

60th & Bdwy

Joey Defrancesco Trio With Troy Roberts And Billy Hart; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Terell Stafford Quintet; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

Michael Stephans: Quartette Oblique; Amos Hoffman Trio; Davis Whitfield Trio “After-hours”; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Cyrille Aimee: A Sondheim Adventure; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Eric Harland’s Voyager; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Thursday, February 28 Black Art Jazz Collective; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center,

60th & Bdwy

Alfredo Rodriguez/Pedrito Martinez; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th

Terell Stafford Quintet - Terell Stafford, Trumpet; Tim Warfield, Saxophone; Bruce Barth, Piano; Peter Washington, Bass; Billy Williams, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.


Cory Henry Birthday, The Revival; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Friday, March 1 Azar Lawrence Experience; Late Night Session: Jeffery Miller; Dizzy’s

Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Alfredo Rodriguez/Pedrito Martinez Duo; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th



Cory Henry Birthday Residency: The Revival; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd


http://www.jazz.org/dizzys


Greg OsbyGreg Osby Birdland, Februay 19Birdland, Februay 19--2323

© Eric Nemeyer© Eric Nemeyer


Saturday, March 2 Alfredo Rodriguez/Pedrito Martinez Duo; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th




Sunday, March 3 Alfredo Rodriguez/Pedrito Martinez Duo; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th


Papo Vazquez Mighty Pirates Troubadours; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.


Monday, March 4 Monday Nights With WBGO: Gwilym Simcock; Takeshi Ohbayashi

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

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


Dizzy Gillespie Afro Cuban All-Stars; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd

Tuesday, March 5 A Gotham Kings Mardi Gras Celebration; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln

Center, 60th & Bdwy

Ravi Coltrane; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Ambrose Akinmusire; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

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

Spyro Gyra; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Wednesday, March 6 Chuck Israels Nextet Featuring Aaron Diehl; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At






Thursday, March 7 Renee Rosnes Quartet; Dizzy’s, Jazz At Lincoln Ctr, 60th & Bdwy


Ambrose Akinmusire, Trumpet; Walter Smith, Tenor Sax; Sullivan Fortner, Piano; Harish Raghavan, Bass; Justin Brown, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.



Friday, March 8 Ravi Coltrane; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.




Saturday, March 9 Ravi Coltrane; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.




Sunday, March 10 Jazz For Kids; Ravi Coltrane; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Brian Newman & the New Alchemy Jazz Orchestra; The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.


Monday, March 11 Brubeck Institute Jazz Quartet With Special Guest Lewis Nash;


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


Will Reynolds; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Tuesday, March 12 New York Youth Symphony Jazz With Ryan Keberle And Matt Holman

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

Kurt Elling’s “The Big Blind”, A Jazz Radio Drama - World premiere of vocalist Kurt Elling’s dramatic musical production, featuring vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater, actor Clarke Peters, and a swinging band with strings; 8PM, Rose Theatre, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

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

Miguel Zenón, Alto Sax; Luis Perdomo, Piano; Hans Glawischnig, Bass; Henry Cole, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

Eddie Palmieri; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Wednesday, March 13 Lakecia Benjamin: Jazz Takes Flight; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln

Center, 60th & Bdwy

Chris Bergson Band; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Beegie Adair and Monica Ramey; Pete Malinverni Trio: On The Town The Music of Leonard Bernstein; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Eddie Palmieri; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Thursday, March 14 Joan Belgrave Quintet; Dizzy’s, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

René Marie; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Miguel Zenón; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

Ehud Asherie; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Charles Tolliver 50th Anniversary Paper Man: Bartz/Iyer/White/Williams; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Friday, March 15 Johnny O’Neal Quartet Celebrates The 100th Birthday Of Nat “King”

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



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


Saturday, March 16 Late Night Dance Session: Zaccai Curtis CUBOP; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz

At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Monterey Jazz Festival On Tour Featuring Cécile Mclorin Salvant And Christian Sands - Featuring vocalist Cécile Mclorin Salvant, trumpeter-Bria Skonberg, saxophonist Melissa Aldana, drummer Jamison Ross, bassist Yasushi Nakamura, and pianist and music director Christian Sands; 7PM, 9:30PM, Appel Room, Jazz At Lincoln Ctr, 60th & Bdwy



Eric Comstock; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.


Sunday, March 17 Jazz For Kids; René Marie; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


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


Monday, March 18 Jazz At Lincoln Center Youth Orchestra With Special Guest Marshall

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



Will Calhoun's Zig Zag Power Trio; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Tuesday, March 19 United States Army Field Band Jazz Ambassadors; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz

At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Carla Bley, Andy Sheppard, Steve Swallow; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27

The Bad Plus; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

Nate Smith + KINFOLK; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Wednesday, March 20 Uptown Jazz Tentet; Dizzy’s, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Carla Bley - Trios With Andy Sheppard / Steve Swallow; Jazz Stand-ard, 116 E. 27th St.


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Kristina Koller; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Nate Smith + KINFOLK; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Thursday, March 21 DIVA Jazz Orch; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Jimmy Greene Quintet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Jay Leonhart; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Sadao Watanabe Quartet; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Friday, March 22 Jimmy Greene Quintet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

The Bad Plus - Reid Anderson, Bass; Orrin Evans, Piano; Dave King, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

Frank Vignola Quartet; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

The Rippingtons; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Saturday, March 23 Jimmy Greene Quintet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Frank Vignola Quartet; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.


Sunday, March 24 Jazz For Kids; Jimmy Greene Quintet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Jane Scheckter "I've (still) Got My Standards" With Mike Renzi, Jay Leonhart, and Vito Lesczak; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.


Monday, March 25 Brandon Goldberg Trio; Mike Lee & Friends; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At




Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra; T. Oliver Reid Celebrates Bobby Short; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Tuesday, March 26 Judy Carmichael Quartet With Special Guest Harry Allen; Late Night

Session: Alina Engibaryan; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Lage Lund – 'Terrible Animals'; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Broken Shadows - Tim Berne, Alto Sax; Chris Speed, Tenor Sax; Reid Anderson, Bass; Dave King, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

New York Voices; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Ron Carter's Blue Note Winter Residency; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Wednesday, March 27 Ralph Towner Solo; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.



Ron Carter's Blue Note Winter Residency; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Thursday, March 28 Duduka Da Fonseca, Helio Alves And Maucha Adnet; Dizzy’s Club,

Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Ralph Towner Solo; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.



Bobby McFerrin & Gimme5 w Joey Blake, Dave Worm, Judi Vinar & Rhiannon, Blue Note

Friday, March 29 Avishai Cohen Quartet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.



Bobby McFerrin & Gimme5, Blue Note

Saturday, March 30 Avishai Cohen Quartet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.



Bobby McFerrin & Gimme5 w Joey Blake, Dave Worm, Judi Vinar & Rhiannon

Sunday, March 31 Jazz For Kids; Avishai Cohen Quartet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Renee Manning/Earl McIntyre Septet; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Bobby McFerrin & Gimme5 w Joey Blake, Dave Worm, Judi Vinar & Rhiannon

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“...among human beings jealousy ranks distinctly as a

weakness; a trademark of small minds; a property of all small minds, yet a property

which even the smallest is ashamed of; and when accused of its possession will

lyingly deny it and resent the accusation as an insult.”

-Mark Twain

“Some people’s idea of free speech is that they are free

to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back that

is an outrage.”

- Winston Churchill



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, 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)

William Paterson University Jazz Studies Program, 300 Pompton

Rd, Wayne, NJ, 973-720-2320

RADIO

WBGO 88.3 FM, 54 Park Pl, Newark, NJ 07102, Tel: 973-624-

8880, Fax: 973-824-8888, wbgo.org

WCWP, LIU/C.W. Post Campus

WFDU, http://alpha.fdu.edu/wfdu/wfdufm/index2.html

WKCR 89.9, Columbia University, 2920 Broadway

Mailcode 2612, NY 10027, 212-854-9920, columbia.edu/cu/wkcr

ADDITIONAL JAZZ RESOURCES

Big Apple Jazz, bigapplejazz.com, 718-606-8442, gor-

[email protected]

Louis Armstrong House, 34-56 107th St, Corona, NY 11368,

718-997-3670, satchmo.net

Institute of Jazz Studies, John Cotton Dana Library, Rutgers-

Univ, 185 University Av, Newark, NJ, 07102, 973-353-5595

Jazzmobile, Inc., jazzmobile.org

Jazz Museum in Harlem, 104 E. 126th St., 212-348-8300,

jazzmuseuminharlem.org

Jazz Foundation of America, 322 W. 48th St. 10036,

212-245-3999, jazzfoundation.org

New Jersey Jazz Society, 1-800-303-NJJS, njjs.org

New York Blues & Jazz Society, NYBluesandJazz.org

Rubin Museum, 150 W. 17th St, New York, NY,

212-620-5000 ex 344, rmanyc.org.

“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world

and moral courage so rare.”

— Mark Twain


PAY ONLY FOR

RESULTS

PUBLICITY! Get Hundreds Of Media Placements —

ONLINE — Major Network Media & Authority Sites & OFFLINE — Distribution To 1000’s of Print & Broadcast

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Interview & Photo by Eric Nemeyer

Benny: As you may be aware, everywhere

you go in Japan, in restaurants, in shopping

centers, elevators, you actually here classic

Blue Note and Prestige and Riverside records

from the 1950s and the 1960s playing all over

Japan. And myself and my comrades, we

speculate on the fact that it can’t be the case

that all the places this music is being played in

Japan, the people at are playing the music

actually even know what it is. But somehow,

it’s become embedded in the culture that this

particular era of like hard bop jazz recordings,

American hard bop jazz recordings, as I said,

it’s especially epitomized by those labels,

Blue Note and Prestige and Riverside, those

classic records are played all over the place in

Japan. That’s obviously not the case here in

the U.S. You do hear it at times in out of the

way places, which is always a pleasant sur-

prise for me. There’s a big department store in

Chicago. I was walking through it last year.

And Dexter Gordon’s recording of “Don’t

Explain,” Sonny Clark and Butch Warren and

Billy Higgins in 1962 …. the album is A

Swinging Affair. It came on the public ad-

dress system all over the store. It was really

wild to hear it. It was with good fidelity, just

playing across the whole floor. It was wild,

and I know most of the people shopping, they

don’t know what the music is. But somehow

it’s translated to society that it’s very cool

music. But it’s fascinating to me how in Ja-

pan ... I’m not just saying you hear jazz. You

hear specifically

that era—that

vintage of record-

ing being played

all over. So that’s

unique to Japa-

nese society. This

very much trans-

lates here in the

U.S. I have been

seeing especially

in the last two, three, four years, a real influx

of young people coming out to hear the kind

of music we play—straight ahead, four-four

jazz. And I think there’s something inherent

in the integrity of the music itself, as much as

ourselves—but in straight ahead jazz, and its

disciplines and beauty that young people are

really hungry for today. With such an empha-

sis that’s come I guess with the advent of first

music video, and how the internet generation

and sensationalized award shows like Ameri-

can Idol and The Voice, that there’s just a real

push for shock value in music.… I forget if

it’s American Idol or The Voice, it now has

Harry Connick as a coach they bring in at

times for young vocalists. And it’s interesting

because some of these young vocalists will be

covering 20th century American popular

songs. And Harry Connick is really represent-

ing kind of the old school approach with these

students—saying you’ve really get to consider

the lyric here and the story that’s being told

by the composer. I see these kids say, “Yeah,

yeah, okay.” Then they go out there and they

sing, and they hit these high notes and the

hold the high notes, and the audience immedi-

ately starts applauding. The whole emphasis

of what music is even for has really shifted

dramatically, I think, in the last 15 years. So

something that I appreciate, like a certain aes-

thetic on those records that I was referring to

that you hear a lot when you walk around

Japan, those classic jazz recordings, is that—

to me as a listener, being informed by being a

player myself having this perspective, some-

thing that’s very refreshing in the older re-

cordings is that when you go back generation-

ally to that period, it was more often the case

that the group of musicians, often on these

Blue Note records … it was five musicians

like a trumpet, saxophone, piano, bass and

drums ... they’re working together on each

track to just try to expound on the mood and

vibe that’s established right in the melody, the

arrangement of the melody and the character

of the melody itself of the tune they’re play-

ing ... more so than the individual players

showing their wares and kind of showing off

by proving something of a cutting edge nature

of what their style is—trying to distinguish

themselves as individuals ... which has kind of

become an emphasis in recent times that the

musicians somehow within the achievement

of all their virtuosity, they can just lay in the

cut and just work together to create a mood

and a feeling in these tracks. The kind of am-

bience that they achieved is a profound thing

to me. Emotionally, it’s thorough. I can go

back to these tracks and listen to them again

and again over the years, and the kind of plac-

es that they take me just visually and in terms

of just like an inspirational kind of mood are

really deep and beautiful things - whereas, a

lot of what I hear in jazz is represented today

by younger players. It comes across to me as

having more of an emphasis on just proving

something of a stylistic nature.

JI: To amplify on what you were just saying

… When you would hear players like Thad or

Joe Henderson or whoever, and regardless of

what music they were playing, their identity

was instantly recognizable by their sound.

They probably weren’t trying to develop a

unique sound. It was just their identity. A lot

of younger players I hear now, coming out of

school, have astonishing acrobatic technique.

Is it an athletic sport or is it an artistic endeav-

or? When you make that distinction, then you

realize it dovetails with what you were saying.

The harder they are trying to impress with

their technique often is inversely proportional

to the unique identity that they are hoping to

project … and the less I’m able to distinguish

one from the next.

Benny: I hear what you’re saying. One of my

students at University of Michigan said, eve-

ryone is so intent on trying to sound different

that they all sound the same.

JI: It’s hard to argue against that.

Benny: Because, in fact, so many kids – how

many kids can stand up and say they’re really

earnestly going about trying to learn the histo-

ry? I mean, there’s so much history to even

learn.


Benny Green On Betty Carter, Art Blakey, Oscar Peterson ...

INTERVIEWINTERVIEW

“… my first rehearsal with Betty Carter ... I was 20. We were rehearsing a ballad. Betty said, ‘Now gentlemen, I want you to think about the last time you made love.’ She turned to me, and she said, ‘You, you just use your imagination.’

She just read me.”



JI: I learned a lot by reading the backs of all

those album jackets on those classic labels we

were just talking about.

Benny: Me too, absolutely. It gives you the

personnel, the history, what other records

they’ve made, who else they have played

with, who their inspirations were, which is

huge, who they’re coming out of. I was al-

ways fascinated by that. But I want to say it’s

like getting a chance to be a teacher now, I’m

trying to take a proactive approach because

it’s not the kid’s fault I feel its the culture

today. For Wynton Kelly to become the com-

per that he was, he had to be playing all the

time in all sorts of different quality situations,

all the time though. But you can’t comp like

Wynton Kelly or Tommy Flanagan in a labor-

atory. And today, it is in fact the case that we

spend much more time in the practice room

than we actually do performing. There’s not

as much work to have an actual consistently

touring straight ahead jazz group and straight

ahead being my focus. I know the word jazz is

used to mean all sorts of eclectic things these

days. But I’m referring to it meaning straight

ahead jazz — the kind of music that we play,

not to be exclusive. just want to say, it’s very

difficult, as you realize to actually have a

group with the economy. And also, I think the

artists should accept some onus too here—its

how we play the music. There is a way. When

I listen to myself and a lot of my comrades ...

consider the Miles Davis quintet of the sixties

and the final recordings of that acoustic

group, Nefertiti and The Sorcerer and those

records, Miles’s quintet. They’re an “A” pick

in that particular heritage of the trumpet saxo-

phone quintet ... maybe the shorter history

kind of starting with Bird and Diz, be-bop.

You’re going through hard bop. Something

kind of culminated there with that band and

those recordings. And when we went through

those recordings, it’s really got everything in

it. It’s incredibly hip and fresh—hipper and

fresher than anything that’s come since. It’s

got the blues in it and they’re taking chances,

and it’s very melodic and you can sing it …

and it comprehensible, it’s incredibly sophisti-

cated on a level that you can’t quite write

down on paper. A lot of the elements that

make jazz really great and exciting are there

on those recordings—the essence of it. A lot

of what has made jazz so universally beloved

gets overlooked in the whole sort of clinical

process of young people getting their chops

together. There is a fascinating phenomenon

that’s been happening all along with recorded

music, and the fact that young people can

come along and sort of hear recorded repre-

sentation of a particular artist’s lifelong jour-

ney, sweat and tears, the young person can

kind of come along and say, oh, you mean

like this, and piggyback on it and get a lot of

the surface of what someone gave a whole

lifetime to get together. And that’s potentially

a really good thing. But how the music is be-

ing used… One thing that Freddie Hubbard

said when I was playing with him, echoing

with something you said about the kind of

chops that young people have today, is that a

lot of the young players had more chops in

Freddie’s opinion than some of the guys had

when Freddie was coming along. Freddie

said, “But I miss that feeling.” There’s is cer-

tain kind of warmth in music. I felt like for

me, my older mentors, Betty Carter and Art

Blakey and Freddie Hubbard and Ray Brown

and Oscar Peterson—these people had such a

love and such a spoken and unspoken humili-

ty and reverence to their forefathers that you

got to see being around them and you saw the

relationship with the music. I saw these peo-

ple, most of the people I mentioned, not every

single one of them, cry tears at some point

talking about their heroes and mentors that

they lost over the years. I think young people

don’t see as much of that, if at all these days.

And that informs the music and the emotion

in music. Now I’m fond of telling a funny

little anecdote about my first rehearsal with

Betty Carter, but it indicates something that

you don’t get today. I was 20. We were re-

hearsing a ballad. Betty said, “Now gentle-

men, I want you to think about the last time

you made love.” She turned to me, and she

said, “You, you just use your imagination.”

She just read me. The beautiful thing is no-

body laughed. The guys didn’t laugh and

that’s exactly what happened. So the other

guys in the group, they thought about the last

time they made love, and I just used my imag-

ination and just imagined what it would be

like. But what it did, Eric, was it put us all on

the same page when we played this song. We

have some imagery there, and it gave Betty

what she wanted. There was a vibe when we

played this song. Things like that aren’t as

considered today, and those things are like

kind of essential to what music is for in terms

of communication and touching people.

JI: Right.

Benny: But I want to help. I don’t want to just

shake my head at the younger generation and

say they don’t get it. I want to just try to make

positive exemplification as best I can. The

essence of how I see my work as a teacher is

being a bridge to the recordings. I feel like

what the real deal, all the people that you’re

mentioning, on the record ... if you want to

listen to Joe Henderson ... if I can hip them to

Larry Young, Unity, then I’m being a good

teacher. Point them to the record. I’m not the

source but I can definitely be a bridge to this

20th century integrity that I’ve gotten to expe-

rience.

JI: You’ve had experience playing with a

number of instantly identifiable, influential

jazz artists — Ray Brown, Milt Jackson, Fred-

die Hubbard, Art Blakey. Could you talk

about any words of wisdom you received,

your experiences. There are obviously many,

but maybe you could cite one or two in some

of these cases that have made a significant

impact on you—that were dramatic or funny

or interesting or unique or that somehow or

another moved you or stayed with you.

Benny: Well, you mentioned Milt Jackson.

Once, Milt was a guest with Ray Brown’s

trio. And as you’re probably aware, Milt and

Ray were like literally musical brothers going

all the way back to the mid-1940s in Dizzy

Gillespie’s big band. So Milt would often

make appearances with the trio which was

great for me and great for the audience. We

were in Japan and we’d just played a set, and


Benny Green

“A lot of what has made jazz so universally beloved

gets overlooked in the whole sort of clinical process of young people getting their

chops together.”


Milt was burning. I was feeling the magic as

we walked offstage. Milt was walking in front

of me, and I just asked him kind of a geeky

question, meaning to be rhetorical. I said,

“Milt, can you just tell me how does it feel to

swing like that?” Without hesitation, Milt

turned around and looked me in the eye and

he said, “Natural,” with such a conviction. It

was as if he was prepared for my question. To

me actually that said quite a bit. It’s a way of

life. He just explained it plain and simply—

and that said so much to me, that the way one

plays is a way of life. You’ve got to know

who you are when you’re up there in the first

place. So it’s not like he got up to his vibra-

phone and then turned on some inner swing

mechanism. It’s how he walks, how he thinks,

how he chews his food. Consistently, with all

these masters you’ve mentioned that I was

privileged to get to be around, I saw that they

lived with an ongoing awareness and love for

their musical heroes and inspirations. They

answered to those people at all times, and yet

they had reached a certain kind of level of self

-awareness and self-acceptance. And they also

knew who they were. For example, Oscar

Peterson said to me, quoting, he said, “Every

time I play, I endeavor to pay homage to three

gentlemen, not that I’m always successful,

because those three gentlemen are Art Tatum,

Nat King Cole, and Henry Hank Jones.” This

is me talking now. I’m saying, if you listen to

Oscar Peterson, in the course of about eight or

sixteen bars, if you’ve really checked those

people out, who he’s talking about, you can

actually hear their influence in his very voice.

Yet, you can also say it’s pure Oscar Peterson.

Oscar Peterson’s voice is built from those

people and some others of course, he’s point-

ed out. Dizzy Gillespie really influenced his

sense of accent. He’s illustrated that to me. So

without them, we have no Oscar, and yet

when you hear it, it’s unmistakably Oscar

Peterson. That’s a very important example of

something that my teacher, my New York

father, Walter Bishop Jr., started talking to me

about when I was 19, that there are these three

logical stages of evolution, one having to fol-

low the other—imitation, assimilation and

innovation. Not that most of us get to the third

one, but they sort of have to go in that se-

quence. I make no secret of the fact that I’ve

really never endeavored to become an innova-

tor. I think innovation by definition is a rare

and special thing. It’s been suggested to me,

which I think you were saying yourself in

other words earlier, that the voices these peo-

ple achieved, was not necessarily a result of

their intent on trying to sound different, or

trying to distinguish their sounds. But it oc-

curred through their hard work and their pas-

sion just becoming better musicians. So if two

people individually were locked in a room

with the same records to study, obviously

what they’re going to come out with is going

to be unique.

JI: Could you talk about your experiences

playing with Art Blakey and The Jazz Mes-

sengers?

Benny: So many things. The first thing comes

to mind was just experiencing, just feeling the

kind sweep of color and emotional dynamic

that Art would give us, the Messengers, the

players in his band, compared to how it felt

playing the piano during that same timeframe

that I was in his band with any other drum-

mer. So when I was on Art’s bandstand, it

truly felt as if I had some sort of wings and it

truly felt that I was rather invincible, so pow-

erful that I was invincible. When I would go

and play with another drummer, it would feel

as if the bottom dropped out. Whatever that

incredibly magical thing that had been going

on was, wasn’t there anymore. Then you real-

ized that Art was playing you. He has that

kind of drive that he could just breathe life

into what you were doing and instill a confi-

dence in it. He had this whole trajectory, this

whole intention of grooming the Messengers

to become band leaders themselves. He would

encourage you to write music for the band. As

he said, “After we’ve been playing your beat

for a few weeks, you won’t even recognize

it’s the same tune anymore.” That was true.

But he didn’t want you to make a career out

of staying in the band. He helped you develop

your style as a writer and as a player, your

voice, and then he would boot you out of the

nest and save it for somebody younger. He

was a kind of vampire himself. But in the

group, I found confidence, not so much of an

egotistical swagger, but just actually Art

showed me how it could feel driving the band

from the piano. By him driving me, there was

a connection there. It’s a little difficult to put

into words, but you feel it. And just feeling

this dynamic sweep, as I said, it really gives

you a whole new kind of expanded canvas to

consider as a bandleader. And then that’s your

responsibility, that’s your job what you do

with that. But just that opportunity to feel that

with Art is a very special kind of privilege.

And I worked very hard to get to play with

Art. I want to note that to young musicians

because from the time I heard the band in per-

son with James Williams in San Francisco at

the Keystone Corner around 1978, until I

heard the next edition of the band with Don-

ald Brown playing piano just prior to moving

back to New York in 1982, and determined

that I was going to be a Messenger more than

I wanted to be in the band. This was going to

happen. I felt a conviction about this. It was

about five, six years before I actually was

invited into the band. I think it’s really im-

portant for young people to consider that if

there’s someone they really want to play with

or they have some kind of musical or artistic

goal …. I don’t want to speak of career goals,

I want to focus on the music. I meet a lot of

young people who want to ask career related

questions. But the career I have been privi-

leged to realize has all come through me tak-

ing care of the music. Nothing swayed me

year after year after year after year after year

after year. Nothing swayed me from my goal

to be a Messenger. My focus to keep going to

hear the band as much as possible and sneak

my little walk-man cassette recorder into the

shows and record them and stay abreast of the

band’s repertoire, practice along with tapes,

practice along with their records, and really

consider what the pianists in the band Johnny

O’Neal and Mulgrew Miller and then Donald

Brown again before I joined the band, what

they were doing and how they played with

Art, as much as I’d considered Horace Silver.

I just really stayed focused on being this pia-


“I’ve got to consider what is my core objective as a jazz artist, as

a jazz messenger ... it is essentially to be able to play the music with quality, and integrity,

and honesty, and have it be heard.”

Benny Green


nist that Art would want in the band. So I

think it’s very important for young people not

to give up, not to be shortsighted, give up

after a month or a year on a vision. If they

really want it, you’ve got to stay with it. I had

just a note of you mentioning Thad Jones and

Mel Lewis and Roland Hanna. When I was in

high school and I got to be a member of

what’s now called the Next Generation Jazz

Orchestra at the Monterey Jazz Festival. At

the time it was the high school all-stars, the

year I was there in 1978. Thad Jones and Mel

Lewis were guest directors. So someone re-

hearsed us during the week prior to the week-

end and Thad and Mel actually showing up.

So I had these piano charts with these chord

charts, page after page, all these chords writ-

ten, slash marks for beats. But I’d listen to the

records and I heard that there was a lot of time

where Sir Roland was strolling, where if you

look at the chart it would almost infer literally

that you’re supposed to play it where there’s a

chord symbol lit. So when Thad finally

showed up, I told him that I was listening to

the record and I noticed that although these

chords are written on all these pages, that a lot

of times Sir Roland wasn’t playing. And

Thad’s face just lit up. He said, “That’s right.”

He said, “That’s good.” Of course, he didn’t

want me playing all the time. But I must con-

fess, hearing Sir Roland on those records,

Eric, as a kid listening to Herbie and Chick

and everything, I couldn’t quite, quite appre-

ciate the subtlety of a lot of what he was do-

ing. It wasn’t flashy, per se.

JI: Right. It fit right in and it didn’t stand out

from the whole, but contributed to make the

whole greater than the sum of the parts.

Benny: Amen, as it was endeavoring to do. I

understand what you’re saying now, but at the

time, as a kid, sure enough as I’m like sort of

round about kind of accusing these kids of

today, I was looking for chops. What’s the

edgy thing he’s doing? Where’s the stylistic

thing that’s hot? In keeping with what I appre-

ciate more now as an older person, he was in

fact as you said, serving the music.

JI: Absolutely, yeah. When you were playing

with Freddie Hubbard, what kinds of instruc-

tion or ideas did he suggest or more than that?

Benny: On my first few gigs with Freddie

Hubbard, something happened which was

really kind of embarrassing. Freddie would be

reaching a certain point in his solo and the

energy would be kind of peaking, and Freddie

would sort of turn his head in the direction of

the piano and shout audibly to the audience,

lay out. That happened on the first couple of

gigs. I realized after it happened a second

time, this was definitely not good. I couldn’t

afford for this to happen a third time because

I’d probably get fired. I had to figure out what

was going on, and my instincts told me not to

bother Freddie with it, not to ask him. I was

going to have to really put on my thinking

cap, Eric. So that’s what I did. I said, okay,

what’s going on here. There’s something I’m

doing that’s obtrusive. So I had to think about

what it was that Freddie didn’t want happen-

ing, and I considered how his solos were feel-

ing ... where the energy was going as his solo

was developing, to a point that midway in his

solo, he would want me to stop playing. Then

it rather suddenly occurred to me some simi-

larities in what Freddie Hubbard does as a

writer and player filtered down—with his

being influenced by John Coltrane and Col-

trane’s music. I just thought about John Col-

trane’s quartet, which I would only know by

listening to recordings of the John Coltrane

quartet of course—since I wasn’t there at the

time the group was happening, that on the

records of the John Coltrane quartet. It was

often the case that the four instruments would

start together and at some point in Coltrane’s

solos, McCoy Tyner might drop out. Then

maybe later, Jimmy Garrison might drop out

too. It might end up being a duet with Col-

trane and Elvin Jones on the drums. I just con-

sidered that maybe that’s what’s going on

with some of these solos Freddie is playing

with this certain intensity to start with—and

it’s building that really at some point, the pi-

ano should drop out. I should figure that out—

just kind of really tune into the arc of his solo

and figure that out musically on my own—

without him having to interrupt the flow of

what he’s doing to say to me don’t play. So,

the next time I got on the bandstand with

Freddie, I had it in mind that I am going to

drop out at some point, and start listening

from the time the solo begins to the shape of

it, and the rhythmic density, and just feel

when it’s a good time to kind of dovetail and

just kind of back out of there. That’s what I

did, and that never happened again that Fred-

die shouted at me to lay out, and I stayed on

the gig for a few more years. I eventually

stopped playing with Freddie when I joined

Ray Brown’s trio. I kind of kept doing both

jobs for a while. Then it came to a point

where I had to sort of decide which I was go-

ing to do. So I went with Ray which was in-

credible for me—and it ended for me being

my longest tenure as a sideman in any one

group, four and a half years. So I mention that

story about Freddie, and considering what was

going on, when he wanted me to stroll, and

thinking about Coltrane, referencing the Col-

trane recordings, as an example of why, just

one reason, it’s essential for kids to listen and

absorb the history through records. But I’m

like you, Eric. No one had to tell me you need

to listen to records of the John Coltrane quar-

tet like saying you need to eat your vegeta-

bles. I couldn’t get enough of it. JI: Well, the

way we became curious about other jazz mu-

sicians and learning the history was by read-

ing the often elaborate liner notes on the back

of those album jackets on Blue Note, Prestige,

Riverside, Contemporary and other labels.

You’d look at the back of one album and

you’d see the name of some other sideman

you had not heard of, and then you’d go to the

record bin with his name on it and start the

process all over again.

Benny: Absolutely.

JI: One bit of information would lead you to

the next, and you’d explore your way

“geographically” through the music of these

different players—players who you’d hear

and develop a curiosity about. You’d often be

teaching yourself and filling in the blanks for

yourself—as opposed to somebody telling you

that should do this or you should listen to that


“the voices these people achieved, was not necessarily a result of their intent on trying to sound different,

or trying to distinguish their sounds. But it occurred through their hard work and their passion just becoming better musicians.”

Benny Green


because a third party told you that you should,

as opposed to your being attracted to the mu-

sic organically. Maybe it’s hip to be un-hip.

Benny: Yeah. If there is such a thing as being

hip, it must have something to do with being

yourself, just being authentic to yourself. I can

trace … when you mentioned tangents …

McCoy is my second hero, after Monk. I dis-

covered Monk because my father was listen-

ing to his records at home. They did that tour

around 1978 or so. I keep mentioning that

year for some reason—the Milestone [label]

All-Stars, Sonny Rollins, McCoy, Ron Carter,

and Al Foster. There ended up being some

kind of award show on public television—a

duet of Sonny Rollins and McCoy Tyner play-

ing. I recall there being “My One and Only

Love.” I was just transfixed just checking out

what McCoy Tyner was doing and just watch-

ing Monk—such a unique thing. The way he

connects with the piano is like nothing else.

So I went to the public library here in Berke-

ley, and I found Coltrane Live at Birdland.

There are photographs inside. You could open

up the album’s book like jacket. There are

these photographs of him with his hair cut

close and sweating. I was imagining being on

that bandstand at Birdland. As you know, they

miss all that with mp3s.

JI: Part of the interest and development of

your understanding of the music and the dis-

cography and everything else—whether from

the standpoint of a fan, a listener, a musician

…. was that the songs on each album were

sequenced to create a whole, an entire artistic

presentation and experience—whether it was

an album by the Beatles, Sinatra or Coltrane

or anyone else. There was intelligence, focus,

reason behind the sequencing of the tracks on

album—however many those tracks happened

to be – six or eight or whatever on an album,

you know, side one, side two, or even with a

CD. The sequencing would create a certain

mood and feeling and understanding that was

as essential as the performance and sound of

the individual tracks themselves. The se-

quencing suggested things to the ear and the

body—and that might elicit certain universal

understandings as each of us resonated with

the music on the album. The album might

start with an up-tempo tune, and then maybe a

Bossa Nova, or some other groove. Then

maybe there was a ballad that just cooled

down the mood, and grabbed you in a certain

way … because you had your eyes closed, or

it was the evening and you were looking out

over the park, or something like that. That

gets lost today—as listeners can simply go

online, isolate certain single tracks of entire

recorded performances, and download

those—completely bypassing that other over-

arching message that the artist may have em-

bedded in the completed artwork by virtue of

the sequencing of the songs. So, people and

hear single songs. Imagine going to the Muse-

um of Modern Art, and looking at a Picasso,

or a Rembrandt, or something, and the top

half, or right upper corner or lower left center

of the painting was removed or isolated or

covered over. Would you get the same sensa-

tion, understanding, imaginings and connec-

tion with the artist if that were the case?

Benny: I’m with you, man. The size of the LP

cover [12 inches square] was also a factor.

Like just the Wayne Shorter records on Blue

Note—I would look at the cover of like Speak

No Evil or Juju or Night Dreamer, and just

stare at those covers while listening to those

six tracks.

JI: It could often be a comprehensive sensory

experience—visual, aural …

Benny: Totally. It’s like you’re going to a

magical place. I also felt like there were hid-

den secrets to aspects of the photograph in the

notes on the tracks I’m listening to. I really

believed that. It was that enchanting to me. Of

course, I was a child. I was like barely ten

years old. Even trying to find one of those

Blue Note records … you just had a little

small image inside a sleeve … and you actual-

ly found a copy in a used record store. It was

a real romance. You felt like it was meant for

you to find that copy of the record.

JI: Yeah, there was an excitement about kind

of looking through those record bins, and see-

ing the sometimes amazing graphical images

on the front covers, that sparked your imagi-

nation about the musicians, what it is you

might discover and so on. There was a whole

kind of storyline for each of us as we traveled

those roads of exploration and the hidden jew-

els we expected to find. Although the music

obviously spoke to us in a variety of ways—

so that there’s a common connection—

everybody’s who kind of grown to love this

music and be attracted to it obviously had,

like you said, that magical moment, a moment

where a magic wand was waved, and sudden-

ly you have this “golden dust” that came over

you to connect you with and be transported to

an entirely different situation or realm.

Benny: Yes. I feel like that is something that

music is for. It can bring us into another

realm.

JI: I don’t get that feeling in as high a ratio

with the numerous recordings that we receive

for review—as I did from releases in the past.

Maybe that’s because there are just so many

more albums being released in this independ-

ent music environment and reality and corre-

sponding fewer barriers to entry or quality

controls. And in all fairness, many of the al-

bums to which I’m referring are tops from an


“I should just kind of really tune into the arc of his solo and figure that out musically on my own—without him

having to interrupt the flow of what he’s doing to say to me don’t play …start listening from the time the solo begins to the shape of it, and the rhythmic density,

and just feel when it’s a good time to kind of dovetail and just kind of back out of there.”

Benny Green


audio standpoint with musicians whose tech-

nique has been honed to Olympic perfection

in every way. Yet, there is some kind of emo-

tion missing sometimes, or the feeling that the

artist is trying too hard to be different to com-

municate that they have a unique voice or

sound—by using or forcing some odd time

signature, assimilating some styles of music

from different cultures, making a form have

some unusual number of bars, and going to

harmonically varied places … contrived to be

different for the sake of being different in

hopes of being recognized.

Benny: The pretense. I hear you man. Well,

admittedly, I keep my head buried in the sand.

The records that I’m talking about, those clas-

sic records, listening to my favorite pianist,

and saturating myself in their recordings—

that has no end. I’ll be doing that for the rest

of my life.

JI: There a motivational speaker who I had

heard, who passed away a few years ago, Jim

Rohn. At one point about – he said that when

he would go to the movies or hear a piece of

music that he wanted to have that movie take

him somewhere. He was referring to the pos-

sibilities that those experiences might expand

his understanding of the world, or of people,

of human nature and so on. I think that can

accurately be applied to the music we listen

to. It’s 40 years later, and I’m still listening to

Miles [Davis] at the Blackhawk, and finding

more and more to like about it as I become

more and more attuned to the subtleties I had

missed when I first started listening. I remem-

ber years ago transcribing Hank Mobley’s

solo, and Wynton Kelly’s solo on “Bye, Bye

Blackbird,” and then “All of You.” I always

thought there was something missing on “All

Of You” on the LP. Sure enough it was Hank

Mobley’s solo that they surgically cut out of

there to accommodate the time limitation of

the LP. The bottom line is that the music at-

tracted me when I first heard it—even though

I had very little idea about what I was listen-

ing to.

Benny: Yeah. I’m sure we could agree there’s

a reason why that is, because the Blackhawk,

that music you’re talking about—it’s built on

something which is built upon something

which is built upon something. And it’s got

deep, deep, deep roots going back to, you

know, they’re actually playing the blues on

that record. And a lot of young people today

consider Coltrane to be old.

JI: From time to time an independent musi-

cian will tell me that they have nothing to

promote—because their current album was

released six months ago or a year ago. But,

unless the music has an expiration date on it,

their self-sabotaging perspective does not

make sense. And, in all likelihood most pro-

spective listeners for their music, don’t even

know that the album exists, let alone that they

might think it is outdated as the musicians

themselves have lamented to me. So I ask

musicians—have you ever heard of the album

Kind of Blue? It was recorded in 1959. It’s

still one of the biggest selling jazz albums—

and artistically aware people wouldn’t call it

outdated. It is timeless. It may not be your

favorite or my favorite album, but the fact is

that unless you think that your music is not

timeless, or what you put into creating that

song that you’re writing, or that song you’re

recording is not of some timeless nature, and a

snapshot of who you are at the moment ….

then perhaps your perspective may benefit

from being more open.

Benny: Yes. I’m with you. And a huge lesson

among others for us in Kind of Blue is the fact

that it conveys no influence of an A&R direc-

tor telling Miles what record of Chet Baker’s

was selling that year, and how Miles should

try to make his record more like that.

JI: Yes. Whereas today, it seems like every

other album is a tribute to some past artist.

Benny: Yes, yes, yes. Well, that’s really em-

barrassing. You know, I had a successful do-

mestic festival appearance with my trio this

spring. I won’t say which festival, but it’s a

respected festival in this country, and we were

well received, well reviewed, and the promot-

er wants us back next year. Wonderful, right?

But he asked if next year we could do it with a

Bud Powell theme. And like now let’s put a

name on the Bud Powell theme. And I just

want to say, look, obviously if not for Bud

Powell and all the other founding fathers, I

wouldn’t have a note to play. I wouldn’t have

a career as a jazz pianist.

JI: I think that it makes sense to pay tribute to

one’s mentors from time to time.

Benny: I think so too. My point is, and at

least it’s organic that he’s not asking me to a

tribute to Sting or something, a tribute to one

of my actual heroes. But, on the other hand at

some point, I think what an honest jazz band

leader is fighting for is the right to be able to

actually program their own set. I just did that,

and based on what I did, being able to pro-

gram my own set—the audience loved me, the

critics appreciated it, and they want us back.

That’s being overlooked. It wasn’t just how

the three of us played our instruments. It was

in fact the repertoire and the presentation that

was part of this whole thing. It’s part and par-

tial, and just an indicator of this generation

and how things become marketed on the inter-

net, and us needing buzz words and titles.

And it’s just so different from how music was

created. But I do realize I need to be able to

be aware of what’s happened before that I

appreciate, that we can benefit from, that I

have some kind of responsibility having been

shown by mentors who have passed on to

uphold today. I also can’t be blind to realities

of today. I’ve got to consider what is my core

objective as a jazz artist, as a jazz messenger

…. it is essentially to be able to play the mu-

sic with quality, and integrity, and honesty,

and have it be heard. I’m wanting young peo-

ple to get a chance to hear this music played

in person, music that swings and has some

blues and it still feels fresh and hip. You get

to experience that in person—and not just

come to equate it only to something that’s old

on an old record. So I’m very happy to see

that’s taking place, that there are young peo-

ple – not just young musicians, but folks in

their twenties and thirties and teenagers com-

ing out to hear our music. That means there’s

something inherent in the feeling of the music

itself and how we’re playing it that’s mean-

ingful to these kids.


“a huge lesson among others for us in Kind of Blue is the fact that it conveys no influence of an A&R director telling Miles what record of Chet Baker’s was selling that year, and how Miles should try to make his record more like that.”

Benny Green


Terell StaffordTerell Stafford Village Vanguard, Februay 26Village Vanguard, Februay 26--March 3March 3




JI: Could you discuss your CD Identities Are

Changeable and the evolution of that record-

ing from initial concept to completed work of

art?

MZ: This recording is inspired by the idea of

national identity from the perspective of the

Puerto Rican community in the United States,

specifically in the New York City area. I

wrote the music around a series of interviews

with various individuals, all of them New

Yorkers of Puerto Rican descent. Those con-

versations led to specific themes such as

“”Home”, “Language” and “Identity”. Those

themes eventually turned into the composi-

tions on the CD. The whole idea of “Identity”

and the phenomenon that is the Puerto Rican

community in New York City is something

that has interested me for a very long time.

My father lived in New York for a long time

and I have a lot family here from his side.

When I was about ten years old I came over to

New York City for the first time to visit them

and got my first taste of the community here.

It felt then as being around something very

familiar—same language, same food, music,

etcetera.—but

very alien at the

same time —

high rise build-

ings, subway

trains… Even at

that young age it

had a profound

effect on me.

Later in life,

when I moved to

the States for good, first to Boston and then to

New York, I was able to experience these

same feelings from a more mature perspec-

tive. It was just amazing to me to see this lev-

el of commitment to an Identity, especially

from individuals who could barely speak

Spanish and had visited the island only a few

times, if any at all. It all seemed contradictory

to me at the time—a feeling that has changed

dramatically after working on this project. In

any case, my interest in the matter continued

growing the longer I lived here and away

from Puerto Rico. About 4 or 5 years ago I

met a gentleman by the name of Juan Flores

after a gig in the city. We quickly realized that

we had a lot of friends in common. Juan—one

of the greatest academic voices on the subject

of the Puerto Rican community in the US,

who sadly passed away a few months ago—

gave me a copy of his book, The Diaspora

Strikes Back. The central element of the book

was a series of interviews he conducted with

individuals with Caribbean heritage—Puerto

Rican, Dominican, Cuban. On those inter-

views he would speak to them about their

relationships with their specific countries and

how that had shaped their identities as human

beings. Around that same time I was ap-

proached by Peak Performances at Montclair

University to write a commission for them,

and it occurred to me to write something that

would combine a large ensemble interacting

with audio and video samples from interviews

that dealt with the subject of Identity form a

Puerto Rican perspective. David Dempewolf,

a video artist who had worked with Jason Mo-

ran and was highly recommended by him, put

together the video installment for the piece.

We performed it in its entirety a few times

before recording in early 2014.

JI: What were the challenges to your musical

passion and pursuits that you experienced

growing up in a housing project in San Juan

Puerto Rico?

MZ: I grew up in a place called “Residencial

Luis Llorens Torres”, the largest housing pro-

ject in the Caribbean—150 buildings and

thousands of residents. Although it is consid-

ered one of the roughest places in the island if

not the roughest, my childhood there was not

rough at all. The people in my household

made sure that I stayed on the right track and

that I had a good circle of friends. Plus I was a

disciplined kid, made aware early on about

the consequences of poor decisions and bad

company. It was in this neighborhood where I

had my first formal exposure to music, from

Ernesto Vigoreaux, a gentlemen who taught

music to kids in the neighborhood free of

charge.

JI: How did your classical saxophone studies

prepare you for your subsequent interests and

developments in jazz?

MZ: I attended a performing arts middle

school-high school called “Escuela Libre de

Musica” from age 11 to 17. My training there

was exclusively classical, but it was very

good. I was trained extensively on ear train-

ing, solfege, classical harmony and ensemble

playing. When I eventually came over to the

states to study jazz all this training helped

immensely, because I was very well prepared

on all my fundamentals and on the technical

aspects of the instrument.

JI: What were some of the experiences, re-

cordings or artists that sparked your interest in

jazz and opened the door for you to develop

your skills as an improviser?

MZ: My first exposure to jazz came around

age 15. Some of my friends at school starting

passing around tapes and I eventually got to

hear Charlie Parker for the first time. I was

very impressed by his control, technique and

sound; but when I realized that he was mostly

improvising I was blown away. The concept


“A lot of these lessons also had to do with what not to do: how not to treat your band mates, etcetera. You learn by example and by making mistakes, which I

think is one of the greatest things about this music.”

Miguel Zenon

“focus on the things that matter the most”

INTERVIEWINTERVIEW



xxxxxxxxxx

of improvisation is obviously not exclusive of

jazz music and was not entirely new to me,

but I had never witnessed at this level. Jazz in

many ways represented to me the perfect

combination of something that was both

heartfelt and intellectual. From there I found

others: Miles, Coltrane, Cannonball, Monk. I

became obsessed with jazz and eventually

realized that this was what I wanted to do with

my life.

JI: What were the circumstances that led you

to study at Berklee College of Music?

MZ: When I decided that I wanted to study

jazz more formally it was quickly evident that

I had to leave Puerto Rico to do so. There

were no higher education institutions for jazz

at that time, plus the scene was very small. I

did a bit of research and it seemed like Berk-

lee was the best option for I was looking for

then. Unfortunately my family could not pro-

vide me with any financial support, so after

graduating high school I stayed in Puerto Rico

for about a year and a half, basically working

and saving money. Eventually I was able to

combine a few scholarships with my savings

and moved to Boston in the spring of 1996.

JI: Who were the artists or mentors with

whom you connected in Boston that inspired

you and perhaps opened the door for your

move to New York City?

MZ: I got a lot from my teachers during my

time at Berklee. People like Billy Pierce, Hal

Crook and Ed Tomassi inspired me tremen-

dously. Plus I was greatly inspired by my fel-

low students, most of whom were a lot more

advance than I was in terms of the jazz lan-

guage and indirectly forced me to push myself

harder in order to progress musically. People

like Avishai and Anat Cohen, Jeremy Pelt,

Antonio Sanchez and Jaleel Shaw were all at

Berklee while I was there. But the person who

had the most profound effect on me while I

was in Boston was Danilo Perez. Danilo was

one of my greatest sources of inspiration back

then—still is, actually. Not only because of

his music, but because—as a Latin American

musician playing jazz music—he represented

a lot of the things I wanted to achieve. I intro-

duced myself to him after a concert and he

was immediately very receptive and welcom-

ing. I would get together with him constantly,

to play or talk about music and life. I figured

out a lot of stuff about myself because of his

help, and will be eternally grateful to him for

that. It was also through Danilo that I met

David Sanchez, who sort of took his place as

my mentor once I moved to New York City.

JI: Could you share some of the words of

wisdom or motivation that you received, or

conversations that you may have had with

artists or mentors in or out of the music world

- that have developed as key understandings

for you?

MZ: They are too many to mention, really.

Some of the greatest lessons have come from

my musical elders: how to present yourself on

stage; how to organize a set of music; how to

act as a sideman and as a bandleader; how to

deal with the road, etcetera. A lot of these

lessons also had to do with what not to do:

how not to treat your band mates, etcetera.

You learn by example and by making mis-

takes, which I think is one of the greatest

things about this music.

JI: How did your additional schooling at the

Manhattan School of Music contribute to your

development as a performer and or composer?

MZ: Once I graduated for Berklee I wasn’t

sure about what to do. Going to New York

made a bit of sense, because I had family

there, but I didn’t feel comfortable with mov-

ing there without a pre-set agenda. So I opted

for graduate school, which gave me some-

thing to do while acclimating to the city. Man-

hattan School of Music was one of my first

options and they gave me a good scholarship,

so I went there. I got the most there from Dick

Oatts, my saxophone teacher there, and again

from my peers—guys like Dan Weiss, Miles

Okazaki and Ben Gerstein. But I also got to

take some survey and composition classes

from the classical department there, which

really opened up my mind and ears from a

composer’s perspective.

JI: What have you discovered about conduct-

ing business from your various activities as a

sideman, as a leader, as a record label artist,

and so on?

MZ: I’ve learned that the creative and busi-

ness sides of music are very different. The

creative side is in many ways that ever-

growing thing that keeps you going, and the

business side is sort of like a game that you

have to learn how to play in order to survive.

Strangely enough, both are almost equally

important, although is very hard to stay on top

of both.

JI: What were the challenges that you experi-

enced when you arrived in New York?

MZ: I would imagine that the challenges I

encountered then are the same a young musi-

cian would encounter these days. Most of the

musicians we admire are based in or around

New York, so by being there you are basically

in competition with them. Plus, there are a lot

of young musicians like you, eager to make an

impact and get better. So, being able to make

a living from music becomes a lot harder than

it would be elsewhere. It takes a lot of hard

work and even some luck to be able to stay in

the city for a long time. There were a lot of

great things about it also. Like being able to

interact with some of your heroes and learn

from them. Also, feeling part of a community,

a collective of individuals that, although very

different, are all striving for the same things.


“I’m very aware that, although recognition

might make me and my music more visible to

some, it does not make me better as an artist.”

Miguel Zenon


xxxxxxxxxx

JI: Having been awarded a MacArthur Geni-

us Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, among

other accolades and high profile media cover-

age, how have you maintained your balance

and avoided allowing these experiences to

inflate your ego?

MZ: It is, of course, very rewarding to be

recognized for your work. In some ways it

makes you feel that is worth the grind and that

you’re on the right path. But on the other hand

I’m very aware that, although recognition

might make me and my music more visible to

some, it does not make me better as an artist.

I’m a firm believer on being my own judge

and not losing sight on what I need to work on

to get better, all on my own terms.

JI: What words of advice would you offer to

other musical artists, in the jazz world, that

might lead them on a path to develop their

lives and experience the kind of notoriety you

have attracted in the past few years?

MZ: This is what I feel has worked for me:

Respect the tradition, respect your peers, work

as hard as possible, be professional and re-

sponsible, have confidence without losing

your focus, be honest about your music and be

proactive when dealing with the music busi-

ness side of things.

JI: What are some of the noteworthy under-

standings that you have gleaned from your

associations with members of the SF Jazz

Collective—such as Bobby Hutcherson? Josh-

ua Redman? Others?

MZ: Working with The Collective is proba-

bly one of the most fulfilling musical experi-

ences of my life. It is a leader-less ensemble

that functions as a true collective. We work on

a new book of music every season, so it also

works as a composer’s workshop, something

that has been very helpful to me. We are treat-

ed very well and with a lot respect by

SFJAZZ and get a two-week rehearsal period

every season to put this music together. PLUS

I’ve gotten to play with some of the greatest

exponents of this music: Joshua, Bobby, Brian

Blade, Nicholas Payton, Renee Rosnes, Dave

Douglas, Joe Lovano, Eric Harland and many

others. I personally couldn’t ask much more

out of a musical situation that what I have

with this ensemble.

JI: How has your heritage from Puerto Rico

contributed to the development of your voice,

sound and vocabulary as an improviser in

jazz?

MZ: Even though I grew up in Puerto Rico,

surrounded by a lot of music and culture, I

didn’t really start paying serious attention to

that stuff until much later in life. It wasn’t

until after I graduated Berklee and starting

taking my first attempts at writing my own

music that I realized that I had never studied

Puerto Rican music from a musicians perspec-

tive. So I made it sort of a personal goal of

mine to go do just that, get a bit deeper into

the development and history of that music.

The more I did it, the more natural it felt.

Eventually I started identifying elements from

Puerto Rican, Caribbean and Latin-American

music in general that I could incorporate into

my music in an organic and honest way.

JI: Could you talk about how your artistry

and playing has developed from Jíbaro

(2005), and continuing with Esta Plena

(2009) and Alma Adentro: The Puerto Rican

Songbook (2011) (both Grammy-nominated),

and Oye!!! Live In Puerto Rico (2013) and

now into 2015—during the ten year period?

What changes have you observed about your-

self over this period?

MZ: Like I mentioned before, a lot of my

own efforts as a band leader during the past

decade have been concentrated on the music

and culture of Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean,

and finding ways to balance that with ideas

that come from the jazz tradition. I still feel

like I have a long way to go and many more

things left to explore, but I feel comfortable

about the road I’m in at this point in my life.

JI: The core idea of your new CD Identities

Are Changeable is based on a series of Eng-

lish-language interviews you conducted with

seven New Yorkers of Puerto Rican descent

— inspired after you read the book—The Di-

aspora Strikes Back: Caribeño Tales of

Learning and Turning, a book by cultural

theorist Juan Flores. What kinds of discover-

ies or enlightenment did you glean about hu-

man nature as a result of those interviews?

How did that undertaking give you greater

insight into yourself and your artistic pursuits

and development?

MZ: I went into the project with one big

question in mind: What does it mean to be

Puerto Rican? Or for that matter: What does it

mean to be from anywhere? What defines our

National and Cultural Identity? Of course I

understand now that there is no “correct an-

swer” to that question. It depends so much on

each personality, each life experience, oppor-

tunities that are presented to us and what we

decide to do with them. The variety of re-

sponses I encountered during the process was

really the most enlightening thing for me. On

top of that it made me think about my place

here in the United States, having lived here

now for more than half of my life. It also

brought family into perspective: My daughter

Elena was born in New York City, and even

though my wife, who is also Puerto Rican,

and I will do everything in our power to make

sure that she’s exposed to as much as we were

exposed growing up in the island, we do un-

derstand that eventually our daughter’s identi-

ty will be hers to decide.

JI: Identities Are Changeable is composed

and arranged for a 16 piece ensemble – big

band instrumentation. Who are some of the

arrangers and what are some of the big band,

and or other compositions and scores that you

have studied that have contributed to your

own development as a writer?

MZ: It helped to get a lot of experience play-

ing in large ensembles myself: The Village

Vanguard Orchestra, The Mingus Big Band,

Jason Lindner’s Big Band, Guillermo Klein, y

Los Guachos, and many others. That definite-

ly put a sound in my head, and gave me an

idea of how it felt to deal with something like

that. When going into the project I did check


“Respect the tradition, respect your peers, work as hard as possible, be professional and responsible, have

confidence without losing your focus, be honest about your music and be proactive when dealing with the music business side of things.”

Miguel Zenon


out a lot music: from Duke Ellington, Bob

Brookmeyer and Bill Holman to more modern

composers like John Hollenbeck and Darcy

James Argue. It helped me figure out what

would suit both me and the project best.

JI: What kind of guidance and or inspiration

did Charlie Haden provide you during your

experiences on and or off the stage working

with him?

MZ: I met Charlie in 2003 at the North Sea

Jazz Festival. He came to listen to our band

and we talked for a long time after the show,

mostly about music we liked, like Charlie

Parker and Silvio Rodriguez. He mentioned a

few projects he had in mind that he would like

me to be a part of: One was Land of the Sun, a

project he was putting together in collabora-

tion with Gonzalo Rubalcaba. The other was a

revival of The Liberation Music Orchestra.

Working with Charlie was a highlight of my

life so far, not only musically but also on a

personal level. He loved music, was incredi-

bly passionate about it and we could talk for

hours about specific musicians and record-

ings. And no matter what, when it came time

to play he left it all there; gave it all to the

music - a very special human being who will

be dearly missed.

JI: How do your activities as an educator at

New England Conservatory of Music support

or challenge your artistic pursuits?

MZ: I’ve come to really enjoy teaching. It

makes me discover things (even things about

myself) that I wouldn’t have discovered other-

wise and I feel it makes me a better musician.

Plus I get the opportunity to share with

younger musicians and maybe help them find

the tools that could make them become better

at what they do. And New England Conserva-

tory is a really good place to teach. Students

there are, for the most part, very talented, hard

-working and respectful, and the folks who

run the department do a very good job at it.

JI: Given the nature of the niche that jazz is,

the current reality of this being a contracting

market, the challenges of selling prerecorded

music, because of illegal downloading, copy-

right infringement and so on—what kind of

vision do you have for yourself about experi-

encing some of your hopes and goals in the

next five or even ten years?

MZ: Is hard to tell where is all going, since it

seems to change almost daily. I try not to

stress about it too much to be honest. Just stay

the course, working hard and staying focus on

the things that matter the most.

JI: What are your perspectives on balancing a

purity of purpose about creating music that

you hear and want to see come to life, with

the simultaneous attractor and consideration

of trying to connect with and or please your

current and potential audiences?

MZ: I think it is obvious that when we make

music we want others to enjoy it and respect

it. Sharing is sort of an essential part of what

this is all about. But I feel that, from my crea-

tive standpoint, making music to please others

is not only dis-honest but also counterproduc-

tive. The music we make should be an honest

reflection of us as artists, and we should set

our own standards in terms of what deserves

to be shared and what does not. We should be

celebrating the fact that we’ve been provided

with a vehicle to express ourselves as artists.

If, after taking all these things into considera-

tion, our music is also recognized and accept-

ed, then that gives us something else to cele-

brate. But it should not be our priority.


Miguel Zenon


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Chuck: Boy. You know, it was concentrated work.

A guy interviewed me - not so smart guy - a couple

of weeks ago and asked me, “Well, when you’re

playing with Bill, since Scott La-Faro was such a

powerful iconic musical personality and he preced-

ed you, were you thinking about what Scott had

done?” I answered him alright, but really the an-

swer to that is what do you think people have time

to do?

JI: You’re too busy making music. It’s like the

quote that goes, “Don’t worry about what people

are thinking about you. They’re too busy thinking

about what you’re thinking about them.”

Chuck: Exactly. And I also thought that if you

were given the chance to be with Marilyn Monroe,

would you spend any time thinking about [her ex-

husbands] Joe DiMaggio or Arthur Miller?

JI: Of course not.

Chuck: So I was simply enjoying - that’s too lim-

ited a word - I was in deep satisfaction just making

my sound be part of that music.

JI: Sure. The thought by any of us who play music

to wonder, Gee, am I playing enough like-fill in the

name of your hero or predecessor-is preposterous.

Who cares? Once you get way past the point of

learning all the scales and the chords and the licks

and the patterns, and you can let all that go and let

it become some reservoir of knowledge and ability

and emotion that floats around inside of you, your

mind, your soul, so you can immerse yourself in

the moment to create some sort of meaningful con-

versation with whoever you’re with-it would be

very limiting to be thinking about whether you’re

playing like somebody else? I had heard that when

someone told Hank Mobley that he was sounding

like some other saxophonist, he did everything he

could to not sound like that other player. Eventual-

ly, after enough effort, experience and life, you

can’t help but have your personality come out

through your music-not unlike your gait when you

walk down the street.

Chuck: Of course. And in

fact, I am imitating people. I’m imitating Oscar

Pettiford and Red Mitchell. If I played as well as

Oscar Pettiford and Red Mitchell, I’d be really

happy. Oscar Pettiford’s general playing and Red

Mitchell’s solos - nobody plays bass solos better

than Red Mitchell, and a little bit Paul Chambers

who was a contemporary of mine and whose style I

liked a lot. And, yeah, we do imitate people. But it

just comes through you. Unless you’re a particular-

ly good mimic, even in my effort to sound like

Oscar Pettiford I can’t do it. In the shortfall, my

personality emerges.

JI: Sure. You’re translating it, by nature, through

whatever talents and limitations that you have

physically, emotionally, mentally at any given

moment.

Chuck: Right. So my life with Bill was fulfilling,

deeply fulfilling while it lasted, and then I wanted

control-which meant that I had to do my homework

and learn to be a composer/arranger, and I’ve spent

my life doing that. It’s taken me years and years

and years to be able to listen to my own music and

feel as if it stands comparison with Bill’s music.

JI: Once you left Bill and you began going out on

your own in 1966, what were the kinds of profes-

sional situations that you began to be involved in

for those several years beyond that, before the Na-

tional Jazz Ensemble?

Chuck: The National Jazz Ensemble was my effort

at doing what Wynton has done with much more

success 20 years later. But I worked with J.J. John-

son, which I very much enjoyed. I worked with

Bobby Timmons also, I enjoyed that. I got a lot of

different little jobs, and then I got work in Broad-

way theater in order to survive. I hated that, but it

did make me a living.

JI: Were there any noteworthy shows that you

initially enjoyed the music that you were playing?

Chuck: I don’t think anyone enjoys playing the

same music the same way eight shows a week.

JI: Of course not. What were the shows at that

time?

Chuck: Well, I played in Promises, Promises with

a lot of other jazz musicians, many other jazz musi-

cians—Joe Newman, Johnny Coles, Frank

Perowsky, George Barrow, Al Porcino, Dave Tay-

lor bass trombone, Julian Priester, a bunch of jazz

musicians in that show. Bobby Thomas was the

original drummer in that show and then after Bob-

by was Alphonse Mouzon and Billy Cobham. They

were all drummers in that show. So it was a place

people made a living. Then I found my way into

academic life and became a college professor and

that saved my psyche actually. It kept me from

having to play bad music. So I spent a great deal of

my life teaching other people at the same time as I

was learning myself, learning to write and to make

the decisions that are necessary to make the music

go the way I wanted it to go.

JI: Talk about the National Jazz Ensemble which I

believe began in 1973.

Chuck: That’s right. I started it because I had had

a rehearsal band and I was learning to write. And

the rehearsal band had different people in it from

time to time, but it had all of the best musicians in

New York. They would all come and play for you.

For whatever reasons, they found it an attractive

activity and you could learn a lot because the play-

ers were so good. You knew if the music sounded

bad, it was your fault not theirs. And I tried to fig-

ure out a way to have a band that would be able to

get kind of public subsidy. And I thought, well,

symphony orchestras do it, and this is how they do

it, and it’s not boring. And they can play Mozart

and Bartok on the same evening, so could we play

Jelly Roll Morton and Thelonious Monk on the

same evening? Probably so. I found people who

liked to do that. And there were some extraordinary

musicians involved in that—Jimmy Maxwell, a

great trumpet player; Tom Harell; Jimmy Knepper,

whom I had met at Brandeis; Rod Levitt; Greg

Herbert; Bob Mintzer; Sal Nistico; Bill Dobbins;

Bill Goodwin; Dave Berger, who became my part-

ner in that and was tremendously helpful. It was a

great band and I kept it together as long as I could

and never had the kind of backing that Wynton has

been able to get from Lincoln Center. It was before

its time. Some of the recordings that we have-I

have a lot of live recordings of that band that are

better than the recordings that we made in the stu-

dio ... a lot better. And a record company is now

interested in releasing those.

JI: Where were the live recordings made?

Chuck: Various places, different schools that we

played at - Purchase, Ithaca College, Corning, New

York, Eastman School of Music, various places

that we had performances. South Carolina, we did a

tour of South Carolina at one point and quite a

number of the recordings come from that tour,

some at the New School. We played at the New

School and we had some guest soloists-Gerry Mul-

ligan, Budd Johnson, Tommy Flanagan. It was an

interesting time. Who knew that it was the good old

days? I look back on that and say, “Boy, if I could

find players like that now.”

JI: A few years ago one of the sax players who

came up in the New York loft scene in the 1960s

and 70s explained how everyone would listen and

share ideas because there were few texts to learn

how to improvise. When he arrived at one of the

colleges to teach, he was astonished to see that

everything was laid out like scriptures.

Chuck: Well, that happens to any art that gets

institutionalized. Once you institutionalize some-

thing, you change its character. And the easiest

things to hold still become the scripture. So chords

and scales that you can study, you can write down

on a piece of paper, become the language-where, in

fact, they are no more the language than any writ-

ten language is language. Written language is al-

ways impoverished compared to its spoken version.

JI: Sure, and you can speak the King’s English and

be the most incredible “Thespian” in the English

language. But if you have nothing to say, who

cares? You can always teach the nuts and bolts, the

scales and chords and the letters and words and so

on. But you can’t tell someone to feel something

that they are not, or can not. Making music, feeling

it, or feeling some music and not other music, and

or being attracted to it as a listener, is directly relat-

ed to your heart and soul.

Chuck: We do our best. We write down what we

think is necessary in order to get the message

across and then people have to make their contribu-

tion to that. They have to interpret it and add hu-

man elements that are not there. I use Finale Play-

back to check things in my scores, but I never be-

lieve that I’m hearing the piece.

JI: It’s a great tool to be able to see if the notes

sound right, if you haven’t made a mistake with a

sharp or a flat or there’s something out of whack.

But it doesn’t substitute for real live playing, that’s

for sure.


Chuck Israels


Chuck: Not at all.

JI: Could talk about working with Eric Dolphy?

Chuck: He was a lovely man and everybody liked

him, for good reason. He was a generous, sweet-

natured guy. Before playing with Bill, I was in

Europe with the Jerome Robbins Ballet Company.

It was a job I had been sent on by Joe Benjamin

who didn’t want to do this long tour. And I was in

Copenhagen, and I had worked with Eric with

Gunther Schuller, so we knew each other. Eric was

giving a concert. I got through my work with the

ballet company early and I went to go hear Eric,

and he simply asked me to come up and play with

him. So now I have an association with him that is

a result of a rather casual, incidental encounter. His

bass player had a good bass and Eric Dolphy want-

ed to play with me and it got recorded. Later, to my

surprise, I received a check for that recording. Now

part of my identity as someone who played with

Eric Dolphy. But I didn’t have a long relationship

with him. I liked the guy a lot. I’d say he was a

really, really sweet guy.

JI: Of course, he was associated with Charles Min-

gus who you also had an association with and who

could be a volatile individual.

Chuck: Charles was paternal with me - protective,

never aggressive. I don’t know why, but that was

the relationship we had. I would be playing at

Bradley, sometimes with Barry Harris or some-

body, and that is where Charlie used to come in

and eat his dinner all the time. He’d eat a steak

dinner at the back of Bradley’s, right near where

the piano and bass were playing. Bradley’s was a

noisy place. At one point, he stood up and told

everybody in the place, “Be quiet because Chuck’s

playing us a bass solo.” So my experience with him

was not like the stories that some people tell, it’s

quite different. He used to come up - on the other

hand when I was playing there. He liked my bass.

He used to come after he finished his dinner if we

were playing, sometimes he would grab my bass

and play four measures and hand it back to me and

he would want to trade fours with me on the same

bass. Interesting encounters. But it was never any-

thing but good-natured, always. I wish I had taken

the trouble to get to know him better. There were

some people I was around that I really could have

known better and didn’t. I worked opposite Monk

and Mingus for many, many weeks at the Five Spot

when it moved over to St. Mark’s place. I was with

Bobby Timmons’ Trio and we were working oppo-

site them six weeks at a time, each of those groups,

so it was three months. I did speak with Charlie,

but not with Monk. I was a little afraid of Monk

probably unnecessarily so.

JI: Do you remember any specific things that Min-

gus said to you?

Chuck: Yeah, I remember he was comparing the

two drummers that were working with Bobby. One

of them was Ben Riley and the other one was also a

well-known drummer. And Charlie used to talk to

me about how much he preferred Ben’s playing to

the other guy. Charlie really appreciated how musi-

cal Ben’s playing was.

JI: You also worked with Gary Burton and Jim

Hall back on that album, Something’s Coming.

What was that like?

Chuck: Well, it was great. In the first place besides

those two, Larry Bunker who’s one of the best

musicians I ever worked with was on that record.

Brilliant, brilliant musician. Wonderful drummer.

And that was great fun. I also worked for two

weeks when Larry Bunker had to go back to Cali-

fornia when his father in law died and he was play-

ing with Bill’s Trio. We were at the Café au Go Go

and I suggested to Bill that he hire Jim Hall for

those weeks, rather than look for another drummer.

So for a couple of weeks I played with Bill Evans

and Jim Hall and I can’t even remember what it

was like. I just know it had to have been heaven for

me. I can’t remember the music. I wish someone

had recorded it or I had recorded it. Jim Hall was a

great hero of mine. He lived downstairs from my

parents on 12th Street.

JI: Is your daughter involved in music?

Chuck: I have two daughters, one of whom is a

singer and choral director. She lives here. Wonder-

ful and a great joy to be around, generous, great,

great woman.

JI: Are there some things that I haven’t prompted

you about that you would like to promote or other-

wise talk about?

Chuck: Well first of all I’m grateful for the atten-

tion, and I recognize that my time with Bill is the

biggest single chunk of my musical career and it’s

what people know me for and I don’t mind that,

I’m proud of it. And the aesthetics of that live with

me all the time. They were there before that and

they are the same aesthetics now that they were

then. I guess what I don’t want to do is beat a dead

horse. I don’t want to be a necrophiliac with that.

Sometimes the most lucrative jobs I get offered are

jobs playing Bill’s music with piano players who

are selected by promoters and producers who don’t

know what they’re doing. And really I don’t know

any piano player who wants to put themselves in

that position and I wouldn’t put anybody in that

position and it’s one of the reasons I have a five-

horn band. Because my aesthetic is Bill’s aesthetic

and you cannot ask another pianist to do that. How-

ever, you can take all of that material and all of

those nuances and all of those details and orches-

trate them and come up with beautiful music for a

larger ensemble, something Bill never did. I asked

him about it at one point. I said, “Bill you could be

doing this. You could write an opera, you could

write a Broadway show, you could write orchestral

pieces, you could do all of these things.” And he

said, “Chuck it’s all I can do to hold my life togeth-

er.” So I had to do it—not do all of those things,

but some of them. That was kind of the materializa-

tion and realization of aesthetic ideas that were

already built into my musical background … so I

felt very lucky that I was able to participate in that

music, in the music that Bill [Evans] was making-

because it was the kind of music I wanted to make

and I couldn’t do it by myself.”

Chuck Israels

“I played in Promises, Promises with a lot of other jazz musicians … Joe Newman, Johnny Coles, Frank Perowsky, George Barrow, Al Porcino ... Bobby

Thomas was the original drummer in that show and then after Bobby was Alphonse Mouzon and Billy Cobham … So it was a place people made a living.

Then I found my way into academic life and became a college professor and that saved my psyche actually.

It kept me from having to play bad music.”


Carla BleyCarla Bley Jazz Standard, March 19Jazz Standard, March 19--2020


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Eric Nemeyer’s - Jazz Inside Magazine...CT: The summer of ‘63 I got back here and there were little places to go and jam, and there was a fellow named Jim Harrison who was getting