renelaanen.comrenelaanen.com/thad_jones.pdf · Thad Jones—Mel Lewis Page 1 of 17 Thad Jones and Mel Lewis We’re just two lucky guys As co–leaders of this band, would you say

Thad Jones and Mel Lewis

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______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Thad Jones—Mel Lewis Page 1 of 17

Thad Jones and Mel LewisWe’re just two lucky guys

As co–leaders of this band,would you say it had a spe-cial significance at the pres-ent time?

Jones: Well, there really is no par-ticular significance attached to theband, other than the fact that we justwant to play good music for people,and play it as well as we know how.We want to present our music to thepeople, and we hope they enjoy it asmuch as we enjoy playing it forthem. That would have to be it, and Im sure Mel will agree with me onthat.Lewis: Yes—we’ re all men that havebeen in the music business a longtime; we’ve all been on the roadwith other bands, and have done alot of nice things in the past, work-

ing for other people. We’ve—asthey say. . .Jones: We’ve paid our dues.Lewis: And we all came to NewYork, settled down, and fell into thestudio situation. All of a suddenwe’ve realised that life is gettingshorter, and we never have stoppedwanting to play.Jones: To play good—and evenbetter than good. Just to continuallydo better all the time, and improveupon whatever performances we’vegiven with our past associates.Lewis: Above all, we want to play;for the rest of our lives, actually. It’ssomething you never want to stopdoing. And the only way somethinglike that can be done is: somebodyhas to take the bull by the horns.That’s what Thad and I did; and we

grabbed all our friends—people welove, admire and respect as musi-cians, that we like to play with. Wesaid: “ Come on; you come with us,you know.Jones: But you know what? I haveto sort of embellish that. We weren’ tall friends, in the beginning. Wewere acquaintances who respectedeach other as individuals and musi-cians. The friendship came throughour association together with ourband. And it developed into such abeautiful, strong thing.Lewis This is really a friendly band,actually. Everybody’s become quiteattached to each other. There’s noseparation of several guys here andseveral guys there; everybody’s in ittogether and sort of hangs with each


other. It’s a togetherness band. Butthey’ re all men.Jones: That’s first; if they weren’ tmen, they wouldn’ t be able to per-form the way they do on their in-struments, or the way they do so-cially.Lewis: We like to feel that this bandrepresents musical maturity. Eachman knows what’s happening; he’spaid his dues, he’s learned, and he’sreached a certain point. Of course,there’s no such thing as ever know-ing it all; you’ re always learning.But every man is a master in his ownright; he knows his job. And that’sso important today.Jones Knowledge by itself is abeautiful thing, but there has to bethat additional factor of accumula-tion. The knowledge that you havemeans nothing unless you can con-stantly add to it; otherwise it’ ll stag-nate and just remain dormant. Thisis the way the guys are, in our band.

It sounds like we’ re bragging,doesn’ t it?Lewis: Well, we are bragging, in away.Jones: Oh, these guys are so beauti-ful. You wouldn’ t believe it. I standbehind what I say: this is the mostbeautiful bunch of men that I’veever been associated with in my life.Without a shadow of a doubt.Lewis: I would say the same thing.Jones: This takes in everything thatwe’ve talked about, or want to talkabout. Everything that we want to doand have done. It’s fantastic.Lewis: I don’ t think any two guyscould be as lucky as Thad and I, asfar as having something that you canbe proud of till your dying day. Thekind of thing you dream about. Andmost people would never attempt it,because they’d figure: “ Oh, itcouldn’ t happen.” But it can. We’veproved it—to ourselves, anyway. Ifsomebody else doesn’ t believe it, it

doesn’ t matter; we know it, andwe’ re two of the happiest guys in theworld right now.Jones: We’ve both been sidemen inother bands for practically all of ourmusical lives; we’ve never reallydone the things that we wanted to doas individuals. When you play withsomebody else, you always try to fitthat particular mould, to give what isin you to give within whatever’sgoing on. I worked for that band-leader; I gave him what he wanted.This is the type of attitude that I’vecome to expect; otherwise you’llnever be able to give one hundredper cent of you. And any band mustdo this, in order to be an orchestra,to play as one.Lewis: What makes it nice, too, forthe fellows that are with us is thatthey do it automatically. They’ reconforming to us, like we alwaystried our best to please the person weworked for and to do what they had


in mind. But to do what we have inmind isn’ t taking as much effortfrom the men we have in the band,because we know that they happento do these things In other words,they’ re doing what they really wantto do. So they don’ t have to bendthat far—or to bend at all, actually.Jones: Every concept that we havein mind fits them as individuals, andalso as people that play collectivelyas sections. We’ re very compatible.Lewis: Like our lead trumpet;Snooky’s a founder member. He’sour man.Jones: He’s only the greatest firsttrumpet player in the world.Lewis: But he already plays the waywe want. He doesn’ t have to try toplay that way; he’s our favourite.And Al is the greatest back–up manfor Snooky; you couldn’ t want abetter one.Jones: You couldn’ t find better.

Lewis: The same goes for Jerome,the lead alto. They all play our way.Jones: These are our idols, the peo-ple we’ve wanted to hear work to-gether as soloists and section–menfor all these years.Lewis And they in turn are playing,in the kind of music that Thadwrites, just what they like most.Jones: Yet I never write anything tofit any particular person. All they dois interpret the music their way, andtheir way will fit the concept of theband. Whatever they want to play isbeautiful. If the adjustment must bemade on the rest of the band’s parts,then that will be made. Or if the so-loist’s part must be adjusted, thatwill be done. With no sweat. It’s aseasy as that. That’s what I mean bycompatibility.Lewis: As you’ve probably noticed,the rhythm section adjusts to eachsoloist. We never do anything be-hind anybody that would be uncom-

fortable for him. Every soloist in thisband plays differently, as well asmarvellously, and in our back-grounds we get into differentgrooves behind the various guys.And Thad is part of our rhythm sec-tion, too. You know, he conducts therhythm section in such a way, whenhe hears some patterns that’ ll fitbeautifully behind what a guy isplaying, he’ ll signal; so the three ofus just open up our eyes and watchhim. Oh, sometimes we get allmessed up, and we laugh. We haveso much fun, just trying to come upwith something new each time,that’ ll give the soloist a good bootjust at the right time.No arrangement is ever the sametwice; it’s a different version everytime we play it.Jones That s the beauty of thewhole thing, because we don’ t haveto do it the same way every time.We can always change it, because


Mel is such a superb musician. As adrummer, he’s a horn player and asection player, in that he knows howto construct, to form and to mouldthings into a pattern. And this is sohelpful in what I m trying to do outthere. In fact, we sort of give eachother little eye signals. He’ ll drop aneye on me every now and then, and Iknow he’s saying: “ Well, that won’ twork.”Lewis: He popped one on me to-night. I couldn’ t fall into it, and Iwas trying.Jones: It cracks us up every time ithappens, because we know that wetried to get it and that time it didn’ twork. Next time. . .Lewis: It’ ll happen. We don’ t knowwhen we’ re going to try it again, butwe’ ll make it next time. It’s always alaugh: “ I just can’ t find it—forgiveme. I’ ll go along the way I’m going;I can’ t fall into, that’s all.” But bet-ter we have fun trying, though.

So you’d say that the bandconstitutes a fruition of allour earlier experiences. Aswell as knowing how to runa band, you know how not torun a band.

Jones: Well, we haven’ t turned ourback on anything.Lewis: We re learning all the time,and I think now we both realise whatsome of the people we worked forwent through. We also know, havingbeen sidemen for them. that we haveour own ideas on, say, their ap-proach to the musicians. But thenagain, times were a little differentthen. Things have changed sinceThad and I got of the road. It’s notthe same situation in today’s musicscene. Back in those days we wereon the road every night, playingmostly dances—and we were in jazzbands.Jones Yes, we did a fantasticamount of one–nighters. This

doesn’ t necessarily have to be atouring band, although it is at themoment. Most of the year it isn’ t—but we’d love it to be. I love travel,and I think a band really gets itselftogether on the road.Lewis: But I’ve got to emphasiseone thing here. We are not a re-hearsal band. We’ re an organised,living, working band. We don’ t evenrehearse; we play every week.Jones: We have never been a re-hearsal band. The band wasn’ tformed just to rehearse. This is apoint we’ve discussed many times.Lewis: We were tagged with that inthe beginning, because that’s whatwe were thought to be. Naturally,when we first organised four yearsago, all we did was rehearse. But,actually, we only had four rehearsalsand then we went to work, and theband has been working ever since.Jones: Six rehearsals.


Lewis: All right, six—I take it back.Still, you have to rehearse beforeyou start. Now we rehearse veryrarely—only when we have newmusic.

Jones: We used to call midnight re-hearsals—and nobody missed.Lewis Everybody’d be there. They’dbe putting in their whole day atwork; they finished rehearsing atfour or five in the morning, got

home at six and had to be back intheir studio jobs by nine or ten a.m.And it wouldn’ t matter to them atall.

Crescendo Vol.8 , No. 3 , P 20 , Oct. 1969


0ur happy bandby THAD JONES. . .

The band is really sounding atits best now, I think, because we’vemaintained this actual personnel formore than a year now; so we’ve allsorta melded together. The commu-nication is running much strongernow, the sound is big, and all thecats in the band like working to-gether.

As for the reports of our goingfull–time—well, in actuality, theband always has been a full–timeproposition. But lately we’vechanged agencies, and our newagent has gone all out one hundredper cent to get the band bookings. Sofar he’s done just a magnificent job.On this particular trip, for instance,we will have been working on theContinent and in Great Britain for atotal of five weeks and one day. And

that’s a very extended tour for a bigband; also our longest stay inEurope.

Out of that, we’re doing threeweeks here in London—the extraweek at Ronnie’s being due to theIsle of Man Festival postponement.We were very sorry to read about thetragedy. I’m very sympathetic withthe promoter; it must have been agreat blow to him, but perhaps hecan re–establish it for next year. Ithink it would be a marvellous thing.Anyway, it’s always good to sitdown in one place for three weeks. Iappreciate that very much; you don’tget a chance to do that normally.You know, situations being whatthey are, it’s best for a band to beconstantly moving, and one–nightersseem to be about the best way to

really maintain a band. As I said—sofar it’s worked out pretty well.

Our visit to Russia was abso-lutely fantastic. We spent five weeksthere, playing six cities. And eachone was so outstanding—the re-sponse to the band was overwhelm-ing. The people were so friendly, ingiving; you know, they reached outto us as we reached out to them withthe music. It was just a wonderfulexperience for everybody in theband—and I hope it was for the peo-ple in Russia, too. We made a lot offriends there, and we’ve sorta main-tained contact with them for the pastyear. For someone who’d never beenthere before, such as myself andquite a few of the other members ofthe orchestra, it was a very exhila-


rating thing to happen. Very heart–warming.

We haven’t made any live re-cordings lately. We had hoped to dothat here, but unfortunately contractswere held up legally, and thereseems to have been a sort of a shiftin the power structure in differentplaces; I understand it’s going on allover. This creates a delay for us thatdoesn’t really do too much good. Ithasn’t harmed us to a great degree sofar, but not having a record on themarket in time can be a little bitharmful to you.

Because, you know, we re-corded an album called “Suite ForPops”. Which, incidentally, includeda tune written by Gary McFarland,who died shortly after the recordwas made. A tragic loss—becausehe was such a great writer, such abrilliant musician. He had startedwriting a suite for the band, called“Toledo By Candlelight”, and we

just have the first movement of it,that we maintain in our repertoire.It’s a great piece of music; we feltthat it deserved to be part of the

“Suite For Pops”, being repre-sentative of the band’s sound. Garywas a great fan of ours; he hadworked with Mel and I when wewere with Gerry Mulligan, and hewrote quite a few things for thatband. So we got to be pretty goodfriends.

Yes, “Suite For Pops” is inmemory of Louis Armstrong, repre-senting his way of life, and perhapsa short history of what his life mayhave been like. Although we didn’tcome in too much personal contactwith him; I first met him many yearsago, but our trails hardly evercrossed while we were on the road.Even with Basie; he and Basie weregreat friends, but I think we came incontact with one another maybetwice during the nine years that I

was with Count Basie. However, weall respected, admired and lovedhim, and the Suite was a tribute tohim.

Unfortunately, though, the al-bum hasn’t been released. It wouldhave been on A&M, but it won’t be,because they decided—for whateverreason—to cancel all of their jazzartists. And a lot of people know ofthis album; they keep asking me, butI can’t tell them anything, as regardsa definite release date. Which be-comes embarrassing—and it makesme angry.

I think we’ll record with thisline–up fairly soon. As a matter offact, practically the same personnelwas on the “Suite For Pops” album;the direction that things seem to begoing in right now is that it willprobably be released through an-other company. So we’ll just have towait and see. I hate to say that


again—I’ve said it too many timesalready!

I’d say the style of the band ispretty well established now. What-ever music we play, it’s gonna comeout a certain way. Once you get agroup of musicians working togetherover a certain period of time, theyautomatically phrase things specifi-cally enough to indicate the band’sstyle. So it doesn’t matter whatwe’re playing—the style, the iden-tity comes through. And the free-dom? Definitely—that’ll neverchange.

I see definite signs of greateracceptance for an out–and–out jazzband. The very fact that bands likeBasie, Ellington. Woody Herman,Stan Kenton have been able to sus-tain themselves over a number ofyears has really encouraged a lot ofyounger musicians to the extent thatthey feel that there is a future forthem in music. And there’s so many

musicians coming out of schoolsnow, and they have to have a placeto play. While they’re in school, bigbands are what they are orientatedin. If there are no bands around, theyeventually go into rock bands.That’s why you’ve found such ahigh quality of rock music in, I’dsay, the last two years. They’rereally very accomplished jazz musi-cians playing it. So, with the main-tenance of these bands, and the for-mation of new ones all the time, thequality of the big bands will gradu-ally become higher and higher. Andyou’ll find a lot more bands justpoppmg up, seemingly out of no-where.

These are truly dedicated play-ers, who love the music that they’reinvolved in; they’ve been trained todo this, and they’ve applied them-selves very diligently. They want tofind the vehicle to express what it isthat they have in their heads. Like,

what I have in my head, in my ears,heart and mind, I have to surroundmyself with. And I’m pretty surethey feel the same way. I can’t countthe number of musicians that I’vehad coming to me, asking if there’san opening in the band. But rightnow, our personnel is pretty well set;so I have to tell them, unfortunately,there isn’t, and I can’t even givethem the hope of a possibility.

In the future there will be a lotmore bands being formed—you cancount on it. The future of big bandsis on the rise. For instance, in NorthTexas State they have seventeenbands. That’s a phenomenal numberof musicians—all interested in jazzand all very, very good. I’m veryoptimistic. As a matter of fact, I’venever been a pessimist, as far as mu-sic is concerned. There’s alwayssomething out there, in front.


. . . and MEL LEWIS

I’m happier than ever with theband —I think it’s the best we’veever been. We’ve got the same per-sonnel we had last time we werehere—that’s a year–and–a–halfago—except for Butter Jackson.He’s having some dental work done,and that’s the only reason he’s nothere. Although his replacement is amarvellous player, a young musicianwho’s probably a future member ofthis band, if and when somebodyleaves. His name is Steve Turre—it’s a Mexican–Italian name. Or Ital-ian–Mexican—I’m not sure which.

I believe I’m playing strongernow. As I want to, because it’s aharder bag, you know; the bandswings harder than we’ve ever done.It’s still very loose and relaxed, asit’s always been; it’s not stiff, by any

means. I guess we’re all playingwith a little more drive. Yet we canbe as subtle as we always were, too.

Most of my jazz work is donewith this band now. But I’ve beenplaying a lot of jazz lately, doing alot of small group work. When I saya lot, I mean more than usual, morethan ever, but it’s still intermittent.First call is still the big band—whichis working a lot more than it everdid. Things are really happening forus now. It’s looking up–and–up; Ifeel pretty happy about it. I think ourtime has finally come.

It s been a long, hard climb,but I think we’ve gotten there. Imean, we’re not at the top, as re-gards acceptance, but we’re proba-bly one of the best at what we doand, for the size of the audience,

we’ve got more people on our sidenow.

We’re going to continue andcontinue with this, because it’s ourlove. It’s what we always wanted;it’s keeping Thad and myself young,and all of us happy. When Thad andI went into it, people thought wewere crazy. These are dumb years tobe starting big bands. Neither one ofus have what you’d call any money.But we’ve gotten a lot of help frompeople,—who believed in us, who’djust jump in and say or do the rightthings. A lot of the writers, and allthat, have all jumped on our band-wagon, and been kind to us. That’sbeen important. Whereas so manyother people have paid for that,when they don’t really deserve itsometimes. Of course, some do. But


we can’t afford press agents, andthings like that, who can keep youractivities in the paper every day,make you a household name. It’smuch slower this way.

Also there’s been our refusal todo real commercial things. Our

commerciality is mostly the fun andthe laughs; we have a lot of humourin this band—which is not contrived.It’s actually just fun. We have somelittle bits we do, that have comealong, that we think the audienceenjoys, but we haven’t sacrificed our

music for it—and that’s usuallywhat you have to do to make it. It’sthe last thing in the world we’regonna do.

And a word from the oldest memberCLIFF WEATHER

There are four or five of us, Ithink, who have been with Thad andMel since the band’s inception. Butsomehow, the timbre of the bandnever seems to change. Even thoughwe’ve replaced a lot of men, wehave great men all the time. The keyfactor almost always is Thad’s writ-ing. Well, Bobby Brookmeyer wrotesome charts, too; they play the samecharts in the same way. It may alsobe due to the fact that we don’t get

an influx of more than one or twomen at one time; so they’re takenalong with the mainstream as theycome in.

Yes, you can safely say I’m theoldest member of the band—wayoldest. I’m seventy. I have a hardtime feeling that way, but when Ilook at the calendar I have to admitit. I started professionally back whenI was eighteen or twenty—that’s a

lot of years. I’ve had such a varie-gated career.

You know, it’s a funny thing,though—I really don’t consider thatthe old days were the best days. Itseems to me that these are the goodold days. Oh, I remember humorousthings that happened to me when Iwas younger, and sometimes abunch of the guys get around andwant to know something about ‘35or ‘45, the different bands, and dif-


ferent situations you’ve been con-fronted with. But I certainly don’tregret getting old—because it hasn’thit me yet.

I’m still healthy, and physi-cally my playing power hasn’t di-minished—that’s for sure.

As a matter of fact, I have towork less hard now to keep in shape.When I was younger I was noted forbeing a high trombone player, andthere’s a lot of pressure on you whenyou’re playing first chair all thetime. I played first trombone on theLucky Strike Hit Parade radio andTV show for twenty–five years. ButI’ve found, with the bass trombone,since you’re in the low register mostof the time, that there isn’t thatworry and tension of high playing.There is the tension of the fact thatit’s sort of become a glamour in-strument lately; they feature basstrombone quite a bit—in its ownscope, not so much a solo part. It

plays a very important part in theband.

While I was playing all thesehigh solos, I thought to myself:“Boy, wouldn’t these sound greatdown an octave?” I’d been on CBSstaff for fifteen years, when theGarry Moore Show came in, andthey needed a fourth trombone. Butwe didn’t have one an the staff. Andthe contractor said to me: “Do youthink you’d like to play bass trom-bone?” I said: “I’d love to.” So Ibought one, and that’s how it hap-pened; I’ve been so happy with itever since. Made more money, too!

The change–over was good forme—particularly with this band. Itisn’t as if you’re playing in a sym-phony, or a staff orchestra, whereyou have certain things that youknow are difficult, and if you missthem it isn’t good. Because everynote you play under those conditionsis an audition almost.

But now, everything is cool.You can clam the hell out of any-thing, and all it is is a big joke. Thadknows that nobody feels worse abouta mistake than the man who made it;so he never leans on anybody, andnor does Mel. We just kid each otherabout it—really it isn’t that impor-tant. You can’t play fifteen to twentythousand notes every night, and havethem all right.

Originally, all I did wasstraight work—with the FirestoneOrchestra, the Wallenstein, HowardBarlow, Andre Kostelanetz, PercyFaith. I was playing first tromboneon all those big–selling Columbiarecords by Andre Kostelanetz.

Kostelanetz is a demandingconductor—if you don’t play well.But if you play well, he’s the easiestguy in the world to get along with. Idon’t mean only as far as your capa-bilities are concerned, but your at-tention, and your desire to play well.


That’s all he wants, for a band to bebusinesslike—not to kid around,tune up, or to freeload, as we call it.Everybody’s there tn make a buck,and we don’t have any illusionsabout setting the world on fire, as faras new–type jazz or anything. Al-though Kosty did inaugurate a reallynew type of music, with his concertarrangements of Gershwin, RichardRodgers and so forth.

But he’s an exceptional man,as regards recording. I remember hewas one of the first men to use a sin-gle microphone at the other end ofthe studio, with only one mike up inthe orchestra for close–up pur-poses—and usually that was onlyused for things like cup mutes or asub–tone clarinet. It was his conten-tion that the band should balance it-self. His favourite saying was: “Ifyou can’t hear the soloist, you’replaying too loud.” And that band

actually played very softly—that’swhy the engineers had so muchcontrol over it. It gave me a verykeen sense of dynamics.

I think a band playing softly isa beautiful thing. Unfortunately peo-ple don’t want to listen to it—they’drather keep quiet themselves. But wedo it in this band a great deal.

Thad is a fabulous director.And he knows every nuance ofevery arrangement in the book. Asdoes Mel—he’s very remarkablethat way, as a drummer, too. In fact,he’s one of the few drummers Iknow like that—he knows all thebrass figures, everything. It’s reallyremarkable. I was amazed, the firsttime I played with him—the firstdrummer I ever knew do that. He’svery musical.

Once there were marked divi-sions between jazz players andstraight players. Not any more—be-

cause the jazz players have learnedenough to respect the straight ones,and the straight men have heard jazzplayers perform in a way that theycan’t. Or maybe could, but theydon’t. So there’s a deep mutual re-spect. I have deep respect for sym-phony men. Of course, my problemis: in symphonic circles I’m knownas a jazzman; in jazz circles I’mknown as a long–hair!Another very good jazz band Iworked with was Vic Schoen, whohad the Patti Page show. But almostany good radio or TV orchestra isturned into a jazz band by the chartsthat come through. If they’re withthe Supremes or Peggy Lee, or any-body with great charts, those or-chestras can play that way, too. Theidea is to be pliable, and be able toaccept all different kinds of music.

Crescendo Vol 12, No. 3, P 20, Oct. 1973


“lt’s unlike any other big band ever. . . “EARL GARDNER, lead trumpet with Mel Lewis

This book (The Mel LewisJazz Orchestra) is gruelling in a lotof respects, but it doesn’t compare tothe books of Buddy Rich or WoodyHerman—they’re different stylebooks. I mean, I don’t think I couldhave played all the lead on thosebands; there were a whole lot ofother things that had been estab-lished. Like when Jon Faddis isplaying the lead with Thad andMel—I can’t do what Jon does; nottoo many people can. With Woody,Dave Stahl was another great leadplayer, and I couldn’t do what hedoes either. As for Buddy’s band,they had so many different cats go-ing through the band—I’m not one

of those kind of lead men, thatscream up around double C and dothat all night. I stay in a certainrange, and I can pound for a while.

Yes, it is a demanding book—but there are spaces in charts. Thefunny thing about the book. . . incertain spots. . . when we come in onan ensemble thing, you’re pumping,and blowing your brains out forthirty–two bars; then you’ll get abreak, where at least you get someblood back in your chops, till youcome back in on the next thirty–twobars. Thad’s charts are usually likethat—they give you a little bit ofspace here and there. Whereas theway Brookmeyer writes—his are

constant, and there’s not much placeto stretch out; everything’s prettymuch more structured.

So there’s all kinds of differentthings in the book involving differ-ent ways of playing. It’s demandingbut it’s fun. Sometimes Mel says:“Let’s call an easy set.” We sit theresaying: “That’s impossible—there isno easy set on this band!” He says:“We’ll give you a break—we won’tcall anything hard.” Well, I’d defyhim to make up a set of tunes thataren’t hard. What he thinks isn’thard—it’s still hard. “Let’s do thisone—this isn’t too hard on you isit?” “Not as hard as some, but it stillkills me. It’s hard to keep your


chops up for this gig—for me, any-way. Because I’m the kind of playerthat has to play—I’m not a big prac-ticer or anything. When I have thetime off, I don’t sit around and prac-tise. Besides, practice chops are dif-ferent from gig chops. If I practisedfor three hours a day, I could get to acertain level, but it’s still not likeplaying a gig until I’ve done that.

I had a month when Mel hadgone to Europe and the band wasn’tplaying at all. I’d sit there and prac-tise—put in an hour or two hoursevery day. After a month, you get tothe gig, and your chops feel great formaybe two or three tunes; then, allof a sudden— “But they felt great—what happened?” You have to, like,get your sea legs.

It’s like when we come out onthe road. The first couple of days onthe road, your chops will feel allright; then, as it goes on, they startfeeling stronger and stronger. By the

end of the tour—or not even thatlong; maybe after about four days orso—they’re feeling great, and youfeel like you can play anything.Then the tour’s over, you go back toNew York, and hopefully you’redoing some gigs and stuff. So you’restill playing, but it’s not nearly thesame thing; it’s falling short. I playthird trumpet on this Broadwayshow—it’s got nothing to do withthis thing. But it’s playing—it’sbetter than sitting at home doingnothing.

Sure, I’d love to do more withMel. Not so much on the road, butjust in general. It’d be great if thisband could work three or four timesa week in town or something, youknow. But I guess it’s a pipedream—unless Mel opens up a clubof his own!

The problem time was afterThad left—of course, we had alwaysbeen known as the Thad Jones/Mel

Lewis Orchestra. For a couple ofyears, you’d see people and they’dsay: “I heard the band broke up.” “Idon’t know, but we’re still playingat the Vanguard on Monday.” It waskind of rough; Monday nights wouldbe really slow, because people didn’tthink the band was still together. ButMel kept it going, and made theband the focal point. He was not outfront; he was laying it down andswinging, and we were just riding ontop of him. He was going with us,and we were going with him justplaying, having a good time, and theband developed.

This band as it is now has ba-sically been the same personnel forabout five years. As you know,there’s always a big turnover inbands. It speaks for Mel and for themusic—it’s a musicians’ band. Thepublic—they like the band, but theydon’t understand the stuff as much,maybe, as the musicians. They all


say: “Hey, I’d like to sub on theband some time. “

It’s different—it’s like a familyreally. I’ve been on the band fortwelve years; our lead alto, DickOatts, and another saxophone player,Richie Perry, got on the band abouta year after me. As for lead trom-bone John Mosca, he’s been onaround fourteen years; Earl McIn-tyre, the bass trombonist, has beenthere for fifteen or sixteen—he andMosca are the two senior membersof the band at this point. Yes, it’s afamily band; it’s unlike any otherbig band ever, I think.

All Mel wants to do is playdrums and swing. He’s always goingto be a sideman—he’s a rottenleader! He’s one of the guys—that’sit. Which is great, but when it comesdown to business it’s not that great!It was just the same way with himand Thad—both of them were rottenat business. All they cared about was

playing. Meanwhile, whoever washandling the business didn’t knowwhat they were doing. When you getto a town, and there’s no hotel reser-vations for the band, that’s not sogood! But the band’s great, and it’sfun to play—sometimes it doesn’tseem like it, but it is.

Getting it on to a record is an-other thing. The live ones at theVanguard come closest, but, evenso, it’s hard to do that. The only wayis: you’ve got to hear the band live;you have to see the band in action—up there acting crazy, jumpingaround, and just enjoying it most ofthe time. You don’t really capturethe band on records; it’s not thesame—it’s not really recording theband. When we record, the bandsound good, but it’s not that feel,that energy. The best place to hearthe band is at the Vanguard on Mon-day nights, when everybody’s looseand relaxed, and we haven’t played

together for a week; so we get inthere, and just scream and wail. Oron the road, after we’ve been out fora few days. To capture the essence,you’ve got to hear the band in per-son.

When you’re recording, ifsomething messes up, you stop andfix it here, fix it there, change thebalance—and it loses the impact, thespontaneity. I haven’t really listenedto any of the albums we’ve done. Ilisten to them once—like, after weget a tape or something—and then Iwon’t listen to it again, because itjust isn’t the same.

This band lives with its charts;after we learn them and developthem they sound totally different.We did this live album in Mon-treux—Don Menza did all theseHerbie Hancock tunes, and we onlygot the charts maybe two weeks be-fore we recorded the album. If youlisten to the album and then go and


hear the band play the same chartsnow, we play them quite differentlynow. Because we learned it, weknow how the chart goes, and thephrasing’s different. If I listened tothe record now, I would point out alot of spots: “Oh, we don’t play thislike that any more.” You’ve got tolive with a chart for a while.

The last album we did, we hadpretty much played the charts for afew months before we recordedthem; so they’re much more to-gether. Even so, there are still littlechanges here and there that we’vemade: “Let’s do it this way now.”So, from a record, it’s hard to knowwhat the band sound like.

Most of the music I play awayfrom the band is not inferior—it’sjust different. It’s programme music;it serves its purpose, and you play it.There’s nothing that compares toplaying this music, although you cancome close—you can have a good

time. I did a week at the Blue Notewith Gene Harris Big Band that wasfun, because he had done this great“Tribute To Basie” album. I’d neverheard of Gene Harris. They weresaying: “He played with the ThreeSounds”—I never heard of them ei-ther.

I was playing lead—it wassupposed to be me and Faddis, Lau-rie Frink and Glenn Drewes. We didthe rehearsal, and Faddis was out oftown; he wasn’t going to make it forthe first couple of days, and I playedlead. As I said, it was all Basie stuff,and Basie’s—like, that’s the hand.And from the first tune we hit, it wasjust great. That was the closest bandI’ve played with to this—I had al-most as much fun playing wise. Mu-sically, it was nothing complicatedor anything just straight–ahead stuff.Frank Wess had done the charts, andit was very enjoyable.

But playing a Broadway show,you’re not going to swing. You’replaying music behind whatever’shappening up onstage. The orchestrais an important part of it, but it’s notthe featured thing. They don’t wantyou to out–front too much; so youcan only get into it in a limited way.It’s just a different style.

I do a TV show in New York,Saturday Night Live—it’s like arock ‘n’ roll band. It’s one trumpet,three saxes and one trombone—agreat band, considering. With SteveTurre on trombone and Alex Fosteron alto, it’s like a small jazz bandalso. Anyhow, I’m into pop music—I like: funk and stuff like that; it’snot like I’m just a total jazz freak. Igrew up on Tower Of Power andBlood, Sweat And Tears. In fact, Iprobably knew more about that thanjazz at that time. When I first startedplaying with the band, I was like afish out of water, because I’d never


listened to that much jazz per se. Itwas pretty much split up, and moretowards rock and funk than the jazzthing. I said to myself: “I think youshould start learning a little bit moreabout this stuff.”

Musically, jazz is more com-plicated and more intricate, but theother stuff is fun to play. And Imean, it’s good—Blood, Sweat andTears was a great band, with goodarrangements that were demandingin their own respect. I’m into allkinds of stuff. I can get into some ofthe rap stuff even—I can listen to itfor maybe five minutes, and that’s

enough already. Basically, if it’sgood, that’s all I care about—if it’snot bull. . . I can’t listen to bull. Ihave an open mind—I’ll listen,check it out and see what happens.

Sure, Quincy Jones has writtensome great stuff. For a while, he gotinto the funk thing, and started put-ting out stuff like “Body Heat” and“The Dude”. It was simple, but themusic was great—I wore out abunch of his tapes. It swings, in itsway; you can still get that two andfour in there. You can still hear it, ifyou don’t just close off and say:“Oh, this isn’t jazz—so I don’t want

to hear it. “ Just groove on it; don’ttry and analyse it, because it’s allfeel. If it feels good, then—cool.

Repetitive? Oh, yeah—that’swhat it’s about, though. It’s aboutthat hook—that’s what gets it over.It serves its purpose: you go to aparty and people want to dance andjust groove—you can’t dance to“Cherry Juice”, but you can dance to“The Dude”. It just depends uponthe situation.

Crescendo Vol 26, No. 3, P 8, April 1989

Documents

renelaanen.comrenelaanen.com/thad_jones.pdf · Thad Jones—Mel Lewis Page 1 of 17 Thad Jones and Mel Lewis We’re just two lucky guys As co–leaders of this band, would you say