The NOTE
Al Cohn Memorial Jazz Collection at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania • Spring / Summer 2015

MICHAEL STEPHANS • JERRY DODGION • BILL CROW • GENE QUILL

In This Issue...
The NOTE

contains some content that may be considered offensive.
Authors’ past recollections reflect attitudes of the times and remain uncensored.

3 A Note from the Collection Coordinator
By Matt Vashlishan
4

Write of Spring

6

Two Versions of Jazz • Eyes, Mind, Hear

8

By Phil Woods

By Michael Stephans

From the ACMJC Oral History • Jerry Dodgion Interview
By Jay Rattman

16 Zoot Fest 2014 Photo Essay
Photography by Bob Weidner and John Herr
20 Gene Quill Remembered
By Gordon Jack
23 Memories of 1950 to 1953
By Bill Crow

26 Dave Liebman Interview
By Bill Kirshner

From the Collection . . .

The NOTE
Vol. 25 - No. 2 - Issue 63
Spring / Summer 2015

The NOTE is published twice a year

by the Al Cohn Memorial Jazz Collection,
East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania,
as part of its educational outreach program.

Editor:

Matt Vashlishan, D.M.A.

Design/Layout:

Charles de Bourbon at BGAstudios.com
ESU Office of University Relations
________________________________

Al Cohn Memorial Jazz Collection
Kemp Library
East Stroudsburg University
200 Prospect St.
East Stroudsburg, PA 18301-2999

alcohncollection@esu.edu
(570) 422-3828
www.esu.edu/alcohncollection
East Stroudsburg University President
Marcia G. Welsh, Ph.D.

Dean of the Library
and University Collections:

Edward Owusu-Ansah, Ph.D.

Cover Photo (front): Warren Vaché performing at the 2014 Zoot Fest.
Photo by Bob Weidner.

Center Spread: Matt directing the Al
Cohn and the Natural Seven Ensemble.
Photo by Bob Weidner.

Cover Photo (back): Lew Tabackin performing
at the 2014 Zoot Fest.
Photo by Bob Weidner.

2

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2015

The mission of the Al Cohn Memorial Jazz Collection
is to stimulate, enrich, and support research, teaching,
learning, and appreciation of all forms of jazz.

The ACMJC is a distinctive archive built upon a unique
and symbiotic relationship between the
Pocono Mountains jazz community
and East Stroudsburg University.

With the support of a world-wide network of jazz advocates, the ACMJC seeks to promote the local and global
history of jazz by making its resources available and useful to students, researchers,
educators, musicians, historians, journalists and jazz
enthusiasts of all kinds, and to preserve its holdings for
future generations.
© 2015 Al Cohn Memorial Jazz Collection /
East ________________________________
Stroudsburg University

East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania is committed to
equal opportunity for its students, employees and applicants.
The university is committed to providing equal educational and
employment rights to all persons without regard to race, color,
sex, religion, national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation,
gender identity or veteran’s status. Each member of the university
community has a right to study and work in an environment
free from any form of racial, ethnic, and sexual discrimination
including sexual harassment, sexual violence and sexual assault.
(Further information, including contact information, can be found
on the university’s website at: http://www4.esu.edu/titleix/.) In
accordance with federal and state laws, the university will not
tolerate discrimination.
This policy is placed in this document in accordance with state
and federal laws including Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act
of 1964, Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972, Sections 503 and 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and the Civil Rights Act of 1991
as well as all applicable federal and state executive orders.

Fran Kaufman

A Note from the Collection Coordinator

By Dr. Matt Vashlishan

G

reetings once again from the
office of the Al Cohn Memorial
Jazz Collection! As many of you
may have heard by the time I am writing, the Poconos jazz community (and
beyond) lost two very special people
in the past month, both victims of
different types of cancer. Trombonist Rick Chamberlain was one of the
primary voices of Poconos jazz. He

founded the COTA Festival with
Phil woods 38 years ago, established
COTA Camp Jazz, and was very active with Bob Bush in recent years
in regards to the ACMJC, helping to
organize Scholastic Swing and Library
Alive concerts. In my short time
here as coordinator, Rick was always
involved with the Collection and in
particular all of the Al Cohn big band
music. His inspirational personality
and excitement for music and helping
others will always be remembered as
we all continue the programs that he
set up so many years ago. Pianist Eric
Doney was also a prominent figure
in the area, teaching and mentoring
many young musicians during their
high school years. Eric was active
in our COTA Camp Jazz for several
years and always performed at the
COTA Festival and the Deerhead Inn
to a packed house. One of my first
memories of Eric and his music was
a CD of his titled “The Piano” that I
purchased at a COTA Festival many
many years ago when I was performing in high school as a COTA Cat.

Both Eric and Rick were truly special
people as well as musical voices and
their work and memory are a part
of what makes and will continue to
make the Poconos so special. In the
last issue of The Note, Rick was kind
enough to recount his memories of
the most recent COTA Festival. He
provided a great photo of one of the
first festivals where the band was
set up on the street performing on a
tiny stage. None of us were sure of
the pianist performing with Phil and
the band, but fortunate for us he has
made himself known! Wolfgang Knittel wrote this about the photo and
that day:
“Wolfgang Knittel on piano: Wolf’s
electric piano with the mixer on top, the
amp on the floor below. That equipment
burned up in the garage fire set by somebody that hated fancy sports cars (belonging to Julia [Wolfgang’s wife]). My equipment was in my car which I was to drive
to the Lehigh Valley for repairs the next
morning. This equipment was used at the
Bottom of the Fox gig with Rick Chamberlain and others.”

Garth Woods

Once again I prove I am not
perfect. Part of my column is to correct any inaccuracies that might have
occurred in previous issues, and the
latest is the personnel list for the centerfold photo of Woody Herman’s 2nd
Herd. The general consensus is that
Marky Markowitz and Stan Fishelson
should be switched, and Shorty Roger
is Shorty Rogers. I appreciate everyone who took the time to write and
let me know.

Eric Doney (left) with Rick Chamberlain (right) during COTA Camp Jazz

There will be other changes
happening in regards to the content
of The Note, but I will leave those as a
surprise to you as you read. Times are
definitely changing, but this is a good
thing. There’s more content laying
around here than you would believe!

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Spring / Summer 2015 • The NOTE

3

Phil In the Gap

David Coulter

Write of Spring
By Phil Woods

“A good jazz musician plays half
by ear and half by technical knowledge.”
That’s what 14 year old Richard
Chamberlain says and he adds it’s
beginning to work for him. Already
he has developed ability both ways on
the trombone through the concentrated
two month camp.
The school features teachers who
are tops in the fields of jazz music instruction, drama and ballet. Jazz alto
saxophonist Phil Woods who toured
Russia with Benny Goodman in 1962
is Richard’s teacher.

4

“What you do is keep the basic
rhythm of a song and improvise on the
melody,” Richard explained. “I decide
on the spur of the moment what I’m
going to play. I’ve learned more in two
and a half weeks of intense jazz study
than I learned in two years of study at
home. When some of the guys are sitting around the dorm they talk about
jazz techniques; I sit there and soak it
in.”
Some of the students were
Richie Cole, Mike Brecker and
Roger Rosenberg, all consummate
pros as I write this.

“Mr. Mack gave me my first lessons in improvising,” he said. “The
chords are written down, yet you play
what you feel. The piano player or
whoever plays rhythm must stick with
the basic chords, while the individual
musicians each come in for a couple of
choruses in their own style.”
The jazz students rehearse all day,
working on harmony, arranging and
theory as well as private instruction
on their instruments.
When Rick started the COTA
Camp jazz he utilized many of

Already Richard has composed
some arrangements of songs. He wrote
his own version of “Soliloquy” from
“Carousel.” The band group, comprised of 17 members, meets for practice throughout the day in the “Bird’s
Nest,” a one-time sheep shed which
once housed some birds in their nests.
The sign that once adorned the
restaurant that Chan had in New
Hope. (Is shown in photo, right.)
Richard first became actively interested in jazz at Pennsbury Jr. High
School, where his teacher, John Mack
saw potential in him.
Pennsbury under John Mack’s
tutelage became one of the best high
school jazz bands on the East coast
and won First Place every year.

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2015

Courtsey of Phil Woods.

R

ick Chamberlain died today.
I met him when he attended
my jazz school in Bucks
County, Solebury, Pa., in the mid60s.
The owner’s first intent was to
hire Maynard Ferguson who came
the first year and never showed
again. The next year they needed
a “jazzer” and that is when I took
over the program. It was 1964 and
it was Kismet wrapped in Fate!
My house was a quarter mile away
from the generous campus. There
was no money but I got free tuition
for the family and Chan taught
jazz singing because Annie Ross
gave her copies of Lambert Hendricks & Ross. Ramblerny was
happening. Rick was 14 when he
came to the school.
Here is an excerpt from the local New Hope Gazette in 1965:

Phil Woods and Rick Chamberlain at the
Ramblerny Camp.

Courtsey of Phil Woods.

and turned me on to
the best French musicians, Daniel Humair
on drums, Henri Texier
on bass and George
Gruntz on piano. We
called the band The
European Rhythm Machine. We sometimes
called it The European
Washing Machine –
cleanest band in the
west!
Stay in Paris long
enough and one takes
up writing and painting. My painting was
terrible but Chan and
I had a great idea. We
would write a book
together and call it Life
In E Flat. We used pink
and blue paper and
wrote every morning.
Chan eventually got
her part of the book,
the pink part published
and titled it “Ma Vie
En Mi Bemol” the French
translation of my title “Life In E
Flat” that Chan appropriated. My
blue part is still in the drawer.
After our divorce and my
return to the states in the 70s I
wrote some columns for Saxophone Journal. I enjoyed the process and it was a welcome break
from composing.
When Jill and I settled in the
Poconos Al Cohn’s wife, Flo, with
the urging of trumpet man Ralph
Hughes started a magazine called
The Note. I called her Maxine
after Thomas Wolf’s editor Max
Perkins. It was soon picked up by
East Stroudsburg University as an
adjunct to the Al Cohn Memorial
Collection.
This will be my 62nd Phil In
The Gap and someone else will
have to pick up the pencil – I am
tapped out.
And my disease is getting
mean. I am not as fleet of finger
nor foot – so I just keep looking for
the good notes and only breathing
out is the ticket. My plan is try to
be nice and be even nicer to Jill.
Besides, spring is here my dear. In,
out, in, out and again and again.
And don’t forget COTA Camp
Jazz - July 27- August 2.

Phil Woods directing Camp Ramblerny Big Band.

the techniques that we used at
Ramblerny. Sadly it closed in 1967
and became a remedial reading
school. If it had remained open I
don’t think I would have moved to
France in 1968.
Rick and I stayed in touch
through the years and when we
moved to the Poconos in the 70s
we resumed our friendship. He
and Ed Joubert and I were known
as the unholy trio. Why, I will
never know. We were the model
of decorum, most of the time. One
night we were in the Deer Head
Inn as were about 20 other musicians all waiting to sit in. I idly
remarked that we should move this
whole scene out doors and start a
Festival. Celebration of the Arts
was the end result of our musings.
Joubert built the stage and Rick
became all-purpose director and
remained in this post for all 38
years.
I remained the saxophone
player who made up new work for
others to do. The trio became a
duo when Joubert was murdered.
Now I am the last one and I miss
my glorious partners. I loved them
both very much and keeping focus
on future Festivals will be dif-

ficult. But Rick always stayed on
point. He started the COTA Camp
program and modeled it on the
Ramblerny model. He was also the
Jazz Ensemble Director at Lafayette College and kept his teaching
schedule while undergoing chemotherapy. I don’t know what else to
say. It won’t be the same without
Rick. Pete Peterson put it best:
“I have no words. Damn you
Rick Chamberlain for leaving the
world with one less angel and
doing it at such a young age. I am
sure the Lord will forgive you.”
In 1968 the family with our
matching luggage, 24 cardboard
cartons, left New Hope, Pa. and
moved to Europe. We were headed
for Amsterdam, even bought a
car for delivery there. First stop
however was Ronnie Scott’s club
in London. They picked us up in a
Mini Cooper and took us to a hotel
called the Eros featuring hot and
cold running hookers.
Things eventually worked out
when Simone and Jean Louis Ginibre came to London and brought
us to Paris where we stayed for five
years. Jean Louis was the editor
for the French Jazz Magazine who
did a story on our expat status

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Spring / Summer 2015 • The NOTE

5

Chaz de Bourbon/BGA Studios.com

Michael Stephans

Improvising:
The Heart of the Jazz Experience

S

uppose you’ve just emerged
from the subway on 42nd Street
in New York City. Suppose also
that you have no particular destination in mind; so you decide to head
east on 42nd and see where it takes
you. You cross Broadway, then 6th
Avenue, enjoying the sights and
sounds as you walk. The only guidelines you have are to have some lunch
and head back to your hotel by dinnertime.
As you come to Madison Avenue,
you make a split-second decision to
turn right and head south. You have
never been on this street before, and
everything you see and hear is new to
you. At this point you decide to find a
restaurant for lunch. Your only guideline is your budget; so as a result, you
discover a tiny Indian restaurant on
38th Street. The prices are reasonable, so you make the decision to
have a meal there.
And so goes your afternoon.
Street after street, you move spontaneously and without an agenda. The
only thing you come to expect is the
unexpected itself.
Now, move the scenario from the
streets of New York City into your
kitchen. You’re tired of the same old
recipes, and you haven’t made your

6

Ears, Mind, Heart:
Two Views of the Jazz Experience
for Listeners
weekly trek to the grocery store. So
you decide to just throw something
together. But what? You decide to
make up a recipe on the spot, using
whatever available ingredients you
have at hand. So into the skillet go
the sliced onion, the ground beef,
a little chili powder, some sliced
tomatoes, and a few black olives. You
have no idea what you are preparing,
but you do know that you will serve
these prepared ingredients over a bed
of white rice. If this experiment tastes
good, you might try to prepare it
again sometime. If not – well – you’ll
try to invent something else another
time.
These two scenarios represent
an important part of life and they
are certainly at the very core of jazz
music for both the performer and
the listener. When the jazz musician
is through playing the melody of a
song, s/he then embarks upon an
improvisational journey, not unlike
an afternoon in New York City or an
adventure in your kitchen. There are
some guidelines, however; just as you
know how to put one foot in front of
the other when you walk down the
street, the jazz musician knows how
to play a musical instrument and
understands the structure of a song,
before s/he moves into unfamiliar
territory, choosing this note or that,
this musical phrase or that, just as
you might instantaneously choose
one city street over another in your
travels, or one spice rather than another in your instant recipe.
This sense of spontaneity that
provides the basis of improvisation
is what is often known as being in
the moment. As Buddhism and other
spiritual philosophies often sug-

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2015

gest, there is no past and no future;
there is only the present moment in
which we find ourselves – either as
musicians or listeners. Buddhists call
this state of attentiveness, samadhi.
When we musicians improvise, we
are often seated squarely in the present moment of spontaneous creation.
That is not to say that we don’t use
the lessons of the past to create our
improvisations. We bring certain
fundamental tools to a performance;
things like the knowledge of theory,
harmony, and rhythm – as well as
the full range of human emotions we
feel at that time – in order to craft
our improvisations in some way that
brings deep personal meaning to us,
and hopefully brings the listener into
our world, if only for a little while. As
my friend and colleague, New York
pianist Jim Ridl, points out, “Jazz is
a complex medium of expression. It
calls for both musical intelligence and
passion. The musician draws on multiple sources: music of all kinds, personal life experience, current events,
history, and culture, and something
intangible within the self, whether
it be called soul, inspiration, the
Muse, or the Spirit” (Interview, 2011).
Creating jazz, to paraphrase the
legendary trombonist and composer
Bob Brookmeyer, is the act of telling
your story and mirroring the world at
large – with all of its emotional ups
and downs. In this sense, the jazz
improviser says things through his or
her instrument that all human beings
are capable of feeling as a part of life.
That is where the connection between musician and listener has the
potential for creating a moving and
memorable experience.

of sitting through a jazz concert
or listening to an entire John
Coltrane recording in a college
music library or at home may
seem too much like work.
So how do we create a sense
of focus if we want to be able
to give our total concentration
to a jazz performance? My jazz
appreciation students, who over
the years have been mostly nonmusic majors, have discovered
that such listening is a challenge,
especially when they are exposed
to music that is often under threeminutes in duration; and when they
are overexposed to a hit song by a
well known popular musician. For
example, you might hear a new song
by a good singer, and as a result, you
download that artist’s song or purchase her CD. After several months
of listening to her hit song on your
iPod and on the radio, and hearing
it as background music in boutiques,
grocery stores, and elevators, you become understandably bored with it.
Jazz, on the other hand, is not a
commodity that can be canned and
packaged into a three-minute recording. It is not an entertainment and
has little “commercial potential.”
Musicians don’t become jazz musicians because the music provides a
lucrative means of making a living. As such, the first thing a new
listener can do is to cast aside all
previous notions of what jazz is, and
accept it on its own terms. Before
you decide whether you like a particular jazz performance, you must give
your attention fully to it. This means
openly embracing whatever you hear
and avoiding comparisons with any
other musical genre. It also means
taking the time to learn about and
from the men and women who create the music – for they and the music they play are inseparable. This
is one of the keys to the samadhi
of listening. A fellow musician once
said to me that we [jazz musicians]
are vessels through which the music
of the universe passes; and this is
what flows through us and into you,
the listener, if you are open to what
we have to say; our stories, our lives.
Laurie Samet

Focusing:
Tumbling into Selflessness
When we go to the movies or the theater, we watch
the production and listen
to it simultaneously. This
is a given; however, when a
film or play has depth and is
totally engrossing and engaging (think of your favorite
movie, for example), something happens to us. We often
move beyond the mere act
of observation and into the realm of
participation; that is, we empathize
with one or more of the characters
and laugh at his or her bumbling
mishaps (in a comedy) or cry when
he or she encounters tragedy (in a
drama). We also revel when justice is
served and evildoers get their comeuppance. In other words, we are able
to experience a film or play, rather
than passively watch and listen to the
production.
The above analogy holds true for
jazz as well, although the act of experiencing jazz can often be more subtle
than experiencing comedy or tragedy.
In other words, the whole range of
human emotions is not as readily visible as it would be in a
film or a play. As you experience
a jazz performance, you must be
open to whatever feelings you
might be having at the very moment you are hearing the music.
Since art often mirrors life, you
may well experience a wide
range of emotions, from pleasure and excitement, to sadness
and contemplation, and all that
falls in between.
Even as jazz musicians
strive for a state of samadhi –
that is, total immersion in the
creative act – so too can listeners move into a state of absolute
concentration. As a listener,
you have only to be completely
open to the music unfolding on
the bandstand or on your iPod
or CD player. As multimedia
composer and violinist Stephen
Nachmanovitch suggests in his
book, Free Play, “For art to appear, we have to disappear.” In
other words, we essentially have
to abandon conscious thought
while listening to (or playing)
music. We have to train ourselves to be present; to allow

ourselves to focus upon what is going
on at that very moment – much as a
child focuses upon something as simple as the act of building a sandcastle.
That means, in a sense, to become
what we’re doing. So when we hear
jazz, we have to give ourselves over
to the experience, without preconception, judgment, or distraction. In this
sense, we are truly experiencing jazz,
not merely listening to it.
Sounds easy, right? If my own
students are any indication, experiencing jazz can be a real challenge.
With our attention spans becoming shorter and shorter, due to the
dynamic advancements in computer
technology as entertainment, the idea

Excerpted / adapted from Experiencing Jazz: A Listener’s Companion (Scarecrow Press, 2014) ©2014
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Spring / Summer 2015 • The NOTE

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7

From The ACMJC Oral History Project

Jonno Rattman

Jerry Dodgion Interview
Part One

By Jay Rattman
[Jerry Dodgion] [JD] I like to be sure to show my
gratitude. I really I have been very lucky, really lucky.
And I am not kidding because I have been lucky with
timing of all kinds of stuff that has happened. Some
people used to think that I must be a great hustler. I
never learned to hustle a gig because the phone rang
just before suicide, but I mean it rang, I never called
anybody and begged for a gig ever. And not that I
worked that much but I’ve been really lucky, you will
see.
[Jay Ratman] [JR] I read another interview of yours where I
think you said Dinah Shore wanted a copy of a song you wrote so
that she could get someone to write lyrics for it...
[JD] Oh yeah, Johnny Mercer, a friend of hers.
Yeah.
[JR] Johnny Mercer. And you never sent it.
[JD] No, I never got around to that. (Laughing) He
really was a good friend of hers, you know a little bit
of research that I ran into along the way, Dinah Shore
was the first one in history to sell a million records.
[JR] Right.
[JD] Before Bing Crosby or anybody else. It was
Harold Arlen/Johnny Mercer song, Blues In The Night,

8

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2015

sold a million records. So when she said he was a good
friend of hers…
[JR] I’m sure he was. (Laughing)
[JD] (Laughing) Yeah...oh man funny huh?
[JR] Alright well, let’s get properly started. I’m here with
Jerry Dodgion on June 23rd, here in New York City, 2014.
[JD] Yeah!
[JR] And we are here to talk about your career.
[JD] Oh boy…
[JR] And your whole life. So I guess let’s get started at the
very beginning, where and when were you born?
[JD] August 29th, which is Charlie Parker’s birthday as well, in Richmond, California. [1932]
[JR] Okay.
[JD] And I grew up there and in the summers I
used to go to my grandparents’, who were custodians
on a prune ranch in Healdsburg, which is 60 miles
north. Healdsburg at that time, and Sonoma county
was really known for prunes. So I started going there

a saxophone and it was great. I go into the junior
high school and beginning band, you know with
the band teacher, and that was my beginning. And I
didn’t know anything about anything, I had no musical family...no anything, but there was a guy who
lived a few blocks away who played the saxophone.
I used to go over and hang out with him now and
then and hear him play the sax and he played a C
melody [saxophone], and he could play pretty good,
I mean I didn’t know and he played melodies... so it
was nice. Anyway, that’s how I got started.

Frederic Sater

[JR] What about the saxophone was so appealing to you?
When you saw that saxophone on the table, why?

Jerry Dodgion

and spending half of the summer, I split the summer
with a cousin of mine who was a year younger than
me and my grandparents couldn’t take us both at the
same time so we each split a half a summer and it was
a great education.

I went barefooted all summer and the river was not
far from there and I learned about all kinds of things.
Prune picking season started around near the end of
August, I always wanted to pick prunes but I was never
old enough, so on my twelfth birthday, or right before
that I think, I said look I am old enough now so they
made arrangements so that I could pick prunes for a
couple of weeks maybe.
But you see the reason I mention that is that when
I was in grammar school they said, “Does anybody
want to play a musical instrument? Raise your hand.”
So, I raised my hand and another kid in the class
raised his hand and we went to the room so-and-so
and I saw a saxophone on the table. The teacher comes
into the room and says “Do you have any preference
of the musical instrument you would like to try?” And
I said, “Yeah, I am interested in the saxophone.” He
said “Well the [school system] doesn’t provide saxophones,” so you had to have your own. So he gave me
a trombone and my arm wasn’t long enough for even
sixth position I don’t think, so I put it on hold.
I said, well I would like to get a saxophone, so
when I was turning twelve and just going to go into
junior high school I picked prunes and I made sixty
dollars which in 1944 was pretty good. I told my
mother I would like to look for a saxophone, and she
said okay, so we went to look for a saxophone and the
altos were one hundred and a quarter, so my mom
says “okay, we’ll split it with ya.” So I got to buy half

[JD] Well, I had already asked questions when
I heard the radio, and I asked “What’s that sound
there?” and my mother says that I think that’s
saxophones. It could have been Guy Lombardo, it
could have been anything, but I liked the sound of
it you know. That’s all, my only attraction.

So then I acquired a clarinet because I was in
an old band where we would try to play stocks and
stuff and I wasn’t doing very well at all. It got to a
point where I had to have my instruments repaired
so I went to a music store repairman and I said that I
needed to have my instruments repaired so he fixed
them up and when I came back to pick them up he
said, “Okay play something,” and I played something
and he said, “Jesus, you need lessons,” you know? I
said, “Ah, I guess so, who would you recommend?” and
he said “Me.” He was a very good teacher, he was a
good guy and he had been on the road with some commercial bands, you know?
[JR] What was his name?
[JD] Jim Ginn. And he played the tenor and the
alto and clarinet and flute. He started me on the clarinet, he said “We’ll start on the clarinet” and we did
the Klosé (Method). I made a little progress on it, you
know I actually practiced, he gave me stuff to practice
so I practiced and then we got to the saxophone.

I’m glad that I was very fortunate that I finally got
with a teacher. When I see people now that don’t have
a teacher I say, “You should get a teacher, I am telling
you from personal experience that you really get in bad
habits that you have to break and it is a waste of time.
To make your time count better get a good teacher.” So
that’s what I recommend.
[JR] He worked on the clarinet with you and then the saxophone presumably?
[JD] Yeah, yeah.
[JR] And when did you pick up the flute?
[JD] Well that was later, but he played the flute
also. But I didn’t get to the flute with him. Later I
started playing with little bands when I was in high

Spring / Summer 2015 • The NOTE

9

school. I played with a Latin band. I was studying
Spanish in school in the Bay Area of California, and
there was a little Latin band that was like a family
band that the father was a trumpet player, and the
daughter played piano, and his wife played maracas,
and two or three other saxophone players and trombones, and he had stock arrangements that we would
play, stocks from Mexico that looked like there was a
paper shortage because they were very small and there
was CODA one, CODA two, CODA three, DS 4, 5, 6. It
was like wow this long piece of music comes from this
little tiny piece of paper. But it was all great learning
experience and then also the Spanish, well you know,
it was really great. I could actually speak a little Spanish.
My first tour to South America with Benny Goodman I was one of the band interpreters practically. But
I told them everybody speaks so fast, I mean in Chile
they speak so fast. Everyplace, and now in New York
in this neighborhood Dominicans speak really fast and
Puerto Ricans speak so fast that they leave off all the
s’s so they can speak faster.
[JR] Do you still speak Spanish?
[JD] Not very much because there is nobody that I
can speak too. In California Spanish there is Mexican
“Buenos Dias! Como Esta? Hey! You know?” It is relaxed. Relaxed and slow. But here it is like double time,
you know? I just never could keep it up. (Laughs)
But it has been interesting, well you know Spanish is an easy language because of the pronunciation.
The vowels are always pronounced exactly the same
way. When I started learning a little French I said,
“Gee, this is tough.” If you don’t know how that word
sounds, you don’t know how to say it...but in Spanish
you do. You can pronounce words you don’t have to
know anything about the meaning of it or anything but
you can pronounce it correctly because the vowels are
pronounced the same all the time.
[JR] So you were playing with this Latin band in high
school?
[JD] Yeah!
[JR] And what other sort of groups were you playing with
then?
[JD] That was the best one. That was more professional. Then I joined the National Guard because there
was some professional musicians in the band that were
in the band to stay out of the draft. An officer owned
a music store in Oakland and he came around to the
high schools and was trying to drum up business and
get some kids in the band. Then I met some people
in the band that took me into another world because
some of the guys were professionals and they said that
they had been on the road with bands, this opened a
door to all kinds of stuff.
So I lied about my age about joining, you had to

10

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2015

be 17 and I was 16, so I think I said I was 17. We go to
camp, the band rehearsed every Monday night and I
remember I was playing clarinet for the band to start
with and I was starting to play the flute a little bit on
some of the Latin gigs that I was doing, but without a
teacher. I finally got with a teacher and I thought, “Oh
man,” and one thing led to another...and gee I am back
there now. I said, I can’t do anything.

I met a lot of really good people —meeting other
musicians, some of the great musicians were really
good people. There were some guys that were really
different, some guys were very aggressive, but that was
just their personalities. But anyway, I met a lot of good
people who shared the information and helped each
other and I started getting encouragement.
[JR] At this point would you say you were playing jazz or
was is not really jazz exactly?
[JD] Well no, I wasn’t into jazz but I was starting
to play stock arrangements in little bands and some of
the guys I played with were really talented. I remember
there was one band I played in, in junior high school
into high school, and there were two brothers...one guy
played the saxophone, the other guy played the piano
and it turned out the other guy played saxophone as
well, and these two guys whenever there is a school
assembly they would play the piano. They would play
Boogie Woogie on the piano, two guys...one guy playing the bass and the other guy the treble. They would
rock it!

They would have the auditorium rocking, and I said
“My god, this is amazing!” So we played in the band
and the tenor player, whenever we were playing some
stock arrangements when it comes to the tenor solo he
would play the solo from the record and I would look
at this part and it’s not there. I said, “wow look at all
of this stuff happening.” Anyway that is how detached
I was when I started. Luckily, I met more people that
helped me and I got into it. It opened more doors and I
was really attracted to it. It was amazing.
[JR] How would you say you first got into listening to jazz or
playing jazz?
[JD] Well, there was a really good friend of mine,
one of my best friends I guess, that happened to live
around the corner and his name was Clive Hawthorne.
He played the trumpet and he stuttered so badly that
he could barely say hello and I got really close with
him and he was tuned in. He was tuned into who’s
good and what to listen for, and man, he said, “listen
to Basie,” he said, “listen to Gillespie.” I used to listen
— we went to the record store together and I bought
my first record, and man, was I lucky! 75 cent record,
the first one I ever bought...

Well let’s see my mother and father were divorcing
when I was about 13 and my mother met a guy who
was newly out of the Navy. He was coming over to visit
and he brought over a phonograph! I thought “Wow!”
and he brought some records, some Benny Goodman

records, some Peggy Lee and stuff like that. Then I
started getting into it.

My first record, I’ll never forget, was the Teddy
Wilson Quintet with Ben Webster and Buck Clayton.
Man, I must have listened to that a thousand times.
I said, “This music is great! Everytime I listen to it, I
hear something new in it!” I said, “Wow, how is that
possible?” Then I see that people listen to the pop music and they listen to that twice
and it never changes. There is no
depth to it. And Clive, around
the corner, was always getting all
the new stuff all the time. I mean
I learned a lot with him because
he would just keep turning the
pages of stuff happening, just
always.
And he was into poetry and
art, painting and sculpture, and
you mentioned it. He opened the
door to me for a whole bunch
of stuff because with my family
situation I was not going to see
anything like that. My future
was a big question mark, but
music was bringing me to life.
Man, I just couldn’t believe it. I
was lucky, really lucky then, with
that because I didn’t know how
to seek out anything or go any
place or anything. It was amazing and it hasn’t stopped yet.

experience trip ever since. It is still just as rewarding,
it is amazing.
[JR] So what happened next or where did you go from there?
[JD] Well from there I went to camp with the
National Guard band. It was funny, my first gig away
from home was playing tenor in a San Francisco tenor
band, which is the lowest form of commercial band. It
was three tenors and a trumpet
playing stocks. My teacher prepared me for this - he said you
gotta transpose alto parts, so
he taught me how to transpose
and play a fourth higher on the
tenor from the alto parts. I got
good at that so I got a gig with
this tenor band in Lake Tahoe.
But it was starting the week
that I was at camp, so somehow
or other I talked them and said,
“Look I can’t get there until the
second week.” So I auditioned
for it, I showed up with a bunch
of other saxophone players that
sat in and played one tune sight
reading. The leader had his favorite lead tenor player there to
listen to everybody and the guy
picked me for one of the tenors.

Garth Woods

When I was at camp, it
was 1950, and the Korean War
started and there was a notice
up on the bulletin board that
[JR] So did you make a conscious
says “We are on alert because
decision to sort of learn how to play
there is war starting in Korea
jazz or was it a gradual evolution in
and we may be activated.” I am
that direction?
thinking “Oh shit, I am gonna
Jerry performing at Zoot Fest 2013
get in trouble because I lied
[JD] Well, I noticed that the
about my age.” Then eventuguys that were really talented, they could just do it. I
ally
they
took
a
division
from California, but they took
asked them lots of questions and I said, well I know I
the
one
from
L.A.
And
that
was a disaster, they went
am not talented in that I can’t get it that way, I can’t
right
into
the
combat
and
there
were 90% casualties in
just play by ear and do that, I didn’t play well enough
the
band.
The
band
didn’t
know
anything about what
that I was pointed in that way. I was with guys my age
to
do
and
neither
did
we.
We
had
a great officer, he
and we would get together and try stuff, you know?
kept us out of all that stuff so we could play better. I
It just came gradually, very gradually. Then I
thought, “Jesus, that’s lucky right there.”
started getting lucky with one of the guys in the NaAnyway, when I got out and went up to Lake Tahoe
tional Guard band who was one of my first mentors, I
there
were a lot of gigs, like three hours a night in a
guess. He was a trumpet player a little older than me,
ballroom
and most of the band stayed in a little cabin.
John Coppola. He played with Charlie Barnett and Stan
The
band
leader was kind of a militaristic guy. On the
Kenton and some other road bands, but he kept coming
inside part of the front door there was a big poster of a
back to the band to avoid the draft.
picture of our band leader and somebody brought some
Whenever he was around and we started to redarts, so his picture was on the back of the door with
hearse something he was right on the case to get us
his face full of darts. He came to visit one day and he
to play together and get an ensemble sound, to play
was talking to us for a while and he says, “Well, I’ll see
together in an ensemble and be conscious of the time
you tonight,” and goes to open the door and he looks
and the dynamics, especially the time. Get the time
and sees his face with all these darts in it. It just sorta
right and it will take care of the other stuff, the time
stopped him for a while. He didn’t say anything and
has got to be right. It’s just that some real good prioriwent out, I thought “Phew!”
ties were taking shape, and it has been a great learning
I mean this is stuff you learn. I just thought of

Spring / Summer 2015 • The NOTE

11

stuff to learn. Man, wow.
[JR] So when did you get out of that band?
[JD] The National Guard?
[JR] Yeah.
[JD] Well I kept staying in it because if you
miss six meetings they are supposed to turn your
name into the draft board and there was still a
draft going on. So, knowing that I didn’t look for
any traveling work. There were opportunities to
do stuff because I started getting opportunities
young. Then Gerald Wilson moved to San Francisco and stayed there for a couple of years. And
he started a band and I got a call to come to his
rehearsal one time and I said, “Oh man, now this
is really something! Wow!”

Frederic Sater

I sat between Jerome Richardson who I had
known and I had heard him play but I had never
met him before, so I sat between him and Teddy
Edwards, the great tenor player. And I noticed
right away that when we were warming up we
sounded just like high school band, and then
Gerald steps in front of the band and if he wanted
to say something he just sort of raised his hand
a little bit like this and it got quiet, really quiet,
and I said, “wow!” I had been doing rehearsal bands
around the Bay Area for a little while and I thought,
“Man, I have never been in a band that showed the
leader this much respect.”

Speaking at the Frank Wess Memorial service.

that, I haven’t thought of that in 100 years. Anyway,
the good thing about that was it was only a three hour
gig and we were only a half hour from the state line
into Nevada and in the casino right there they had live
shows and stuff and I could get in. I saw Nat King Cole
Trio, and I saw Lena Horne with George Duvivier and
the drummer that played with Gerry Mulligan — nopiano band… [Chico Hamilton] I played with his group
later and he just died recently. He was teaching at The
New School...
[JR] Yeah, I know exactly who you are talking about…
[JD] Oh, why can’t I think of his name? That’s
a senior moment, I guess. Anyway, to see actual live
music and think, “Wow, that’s an actual level.” When
I heard Duvivier and Lena play I said, “Holy shit, I’ve
never heard anything like that,” you know it was more
and more inquisitive stuff. It was just accumulating information and inspiration along the way! It was really a
great trip!

The guy who played first tenor in that was an old
timer and he really played that hotel dance band style.
He was from New York and he had played Broadway
shows in New York. When we played Tea for Two he
told me — he says, “I played in the original show in
New York of that,” and I thought, “Wow!” And he
was! It was really wild. When I look that far back it
is amazing how much I remember. You know, I don’t
do that very often. When I get through some of those
things I am just glad that they are behind me. Musically it was not very good, but it there was lots of

12

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2015

Then I found out more about him: he had played
with Jimmie Lunceford. He joined Jimmie Lunceford
when he was 18, and took Sy Oliver’s place playing
trumpet, writing arrangements, and singing in the trio.
And after that, he played with Count Basie for a while
and arranged for Count Basie. After than he played for
Duke Ellington for a while and actually wrote some for
Duke Ellington. That is where his respect was from,
see I didn’t know about him but now it’s like there is
so much to learn here.

We started playing Sunday afternoons at a place in
Oakland and we’d have guests sometimes. Some people
would come and sit in, like Sarah Vaughan was playing
in San Francisco and she’d come to our Sunday afternoon thing because she knew Gerald. Everyone knew
Gerald and respected him. And she would come sit in
and I said, “Wow, unbelievable!” Then we got a really good gig: we played on a concert in San Francisco,
it was a George Shearing concert and we opened the
concert. George Shearing I guess was the main thing
but there were three tenor players — Norman Granz’s
brother, I think, named Gene Norman, it was one of
his productions — and there were three tenor players,
soloists, and they came up and played with our rhythm
section, and it was Wardell Grey, Zoot Sims, and Stan
Getz. And man, wow! Here we go again, you know. I
said, “Amazing!” Let’s see that was in ‘53... 30 or 40
years later Jay Branford sends me a CD and says “Are
you on this?” and it was that concert!

[JR] No way!
[JD] It was that concert with those three tenor
players! The big number that the band played was
“Hollywood Freeway,” which was one of Gerald’s
arrangements of a blues in C, and Jerome starts off
playing, and I play, and we play 12’s and stuff. That just
wiped me out I said, “Oh God,” because we had no idea
that it existed. Those things happen sometimes.
[JR] Was that commercially released or was that a bootleg?
[JD] Well, it was sort of commercially released but
the information on it was all wrong. They say Clark
Terry is on it and Paul Gonzalez is on it, but they get
their information mixed up a lot. It’s actually Jerome
and me playing together in 1953 on there. Anyway
then Jerome gets a call to go with Earl Hines so he
leaves town with Earl Hines and eventually moves to
New York and Gerald said “Well you move over and
play lead alto.” That’s so funny, that was one of the
times that I took Jerome’s place.

I had no idea that it was going to be an over fifty
year friendship with him. So I learned a lot doing that,
of course, and I was playing the flute a little bit better... not much better. Jerome was a good flute player
then and Jerome could sing. Gerald had an arrangement of “The Song Is You” and it had band vocal. The
whole band sang the melody except when it comes to
the bridge, he says “Jerome!” he points to Jerome, and
Jerome sings it like a ballad singer! I said “Holy shit!”
Anyway, one thing led to another and we got another
gig at the Downbeat club and we were playing Sundays
there, that was in San Francisco on Market Street.
Then the club started calling me to come in occasionally to play with someone for a week or so.
[JR] Leading your own band?
[JD] No, no, no, no, just to come in and play —
they always had a group… a bass player named Vernon
Alley and he always plays at Blackhawk as a rule, and
they accompanied — everybody who came through
town played with this group — and Richard Wyands
was the piano player. They started calling me to play
with the group at the Downbeat club, and it was Richard Wyands, and Vernon Alley and different drummers. So one time they call me in ‘55 — well they had
been calling me a little bit in ‘54 I guess. I guess they
were calling me because that had heard me play with
Gerald Wilson’s band in there.

One night they called me in an emergency and said
can you come in tonight because Chico Hamilton’s
group is here and Paul Horne has to take off one night
and has to go to L.A. because his wife just had a baby
and she is having the after baby blues or something so
can you come in tonight? I said okay and so I came in.
Paul Horne was playing clarinet and alto and flute, and
they had little charts and stuff, and it was cello, woodwind player, and guitar, bass and drums. I got through

it, you know I didn’t do it greatly, but Chico was very
nice and told me, “You should try to get your clarinet
together,” which was very good professional advice.
He was good, he didn’t jump on me and tell me that I
didn’t play it well enough. Then he featured me on a
ballad. I played, “I Can’t Get Started,” and I got a lot of
applause.

I think there was one guy that I knew there. He
was a New York saxophone player that came to San
Francisco a long time ago, and he started the applause
and pretty soon everyone was applauding. That was
the very time I ever got recognition for playing something. I was a little embarrassed and a little, you know,
“What do I do now,” you know? And then the club
started calling me more.

One time they called me for a two week gig, so I
show up — this was in January of ‘55; this was a big
year for me I didn’t know what was coming — and I
show up and see that the marquee says Billie Holiday.
I said “Oh, uh oh...I am probably playing in the other
group,” I think, so we go up with the trio, only Richard
Lyons wasn’t there. Richard was in New York visiting
his girlfriend who he eventually married and lived in
New York. He still lives in New York and we still play
together! Isn’t that amazing? That is really great. So we
played a couple of tunes with quartet, and the piano
player was someone that I didn’t know. Her name was
Memry Midgett, and she was a light skinned black girl
who was about 6 feet tall. I thought, “Memry Midgett,
what an outstanding name!” and she played very well
and we played a couple of tunes.
Then the announcement comes, “Now ladies and
gentlemen, Miss Billie Holiday.” There is an up staircase and a down staircase, so as she’s coming up I’m
walking down. And so I listened to the trio playing for
them and they sounded good, they obviously rehearsed
and had their stuff together. Then when the second
set comes and we go up and play a couple of tunes and
they announce her again and I’m going down the stairs
and she is coming up and she says “Hey baby, come
play behind me.” And I don’t know what I said..but I
said “Oh no, you sound great with the trio...you sound
really good I don’t want to mess up… you sound great.”
So I walked down.
Now the next night before our couple of tunes I
hear, “Hey you! Hey you, alto player,” and I said “Uh
oh,” so I go and say, “Yes, can I help you?” and she
says, “Yes,” she says, “Tell me something... Do you
think you are better than Lester Young?” and I don’t
know what I said to her but, “that is ridiculous why
would you say that… that’s… come on!” She said,
“Well I said it because if you don’t want to play behind me you must think you are better. You see, he
likes to play behind me, so if you don’t want to play
behind me, you think that you are better than he is.”
So I said, “Well I’ll try it, but I don’t want to get in the
way, I don’t know the tunes. I don’t want to embarrass
me and you.” So I played behind her and I played very
little and I didn’t play anything while she was singing I
played in between.

Spring / Summer 2015 • The NOTE

13

I hear lots of records where some guys are playing behind singers and they are playing a solo and it
doesn’t make any sense. But when Pres played behind
her, it was like she would sing something and he would
make a little comment just in the vein of what it is. So
I tried to do that and just play very little and she was
delighted. I am walking around looking for a place to
try reeds and she says, “Baby, what are you doing?”
and I said, “Trying reeds,” and she says, “Well come in
my room... Pres used to do that all the time. Come on,
man.”

Frederic Sater

So I would go in there and try a reed and she
would start telling me stories. And the stories were
great, I mean just great, about when she and Pres
were living with her mother. She said, “He called me
Lady and I called him The President, and he called
my mother The Dutchess.” Oh it was just great stuff.
It was unbelievable, just great, and she was enjoying
telling me stories and I was enjoying hearing and every
Jerry performing in Harlem, NY.
intermission I would go back in and here we go. She
wasn’t really crowded with fans coming back and asksongs because there is no place for a saxophone butting
ing for autographs and stuff at all and the house was
in because the lyric is so intense, and so sad.
packed but there was nobody bugging her which was
nice. She liked me coming in there because she could
I learned a lot just playing behind a singer. After
tell stories of a happier time maybe and they were
that I got more calls to play behind singers and stuff
great stories, just great stuff. Her logic, the way she got and I played very little, and then when then I heard
me to play behind her, that is an example of her logic.
other people doing it they were playing too much even
One day the door is open and I am sitting there talking on records. I would here Billie Holiday records with
with her and the piano player walks by and she says,
Benny Carter, and another trumpet player I knew too,
“Oh Memry come in here, would you please,” so she
but they are playing too much. They are playing like
comes in, and she says, “Are you okay tonight, how are they can’t hear her. Maybe they can’t, maybe that was
you feeling?” and she says, “I’m okay…” “Well I heard
the situation, who knows?
the way you are playing, is something bugging you?”
Now it is so strange, everything is so manicured
and she said “Well, Vernon is bugging me.” “The bass
now.
I mean the guy playing behind you might live
player?” “Yeah” “What’s he doing?” “I don’t know
in Taiwan and he is doing it on his lunch break. Who
he is just bugging me.” “Well what is he doing to bug
knows? Anyway, I was getting more calls to do stuff
you?” “I don’t know.” So she leaves and pretty soon
and then Gerald Wilson left town and had to go back
Vernon walks by and she says, “Vernon, come in. Tell
to L.A. Then he called me to come to LA to play a week
me are you bugging Memry,” and he says, “No, I am
just trying to play my bass what do you mean?” “Well,” at the Oasis in L.A., on Vermont [Avenue], and about
maybe six or eight of us from San Francisco went down
she says, “well, if she has the idea that you’re bugging
and we played a week, and we didn’t stay in hotels:
her and you’re not doing anything, then either she
we stayed in private houses and nobody got paid. But
loves you or she hates you.”
it was a great week! It was really a great week, and
Her logic again, just tying it up so that she can
Gerald was just great. He was my first real real — real
handle it. That was two weeks of just wonderful stuff
— band leader, because there was no better or anybody
for me which is amazing. And she talked about Pres.
on a level like that. Anyway then the week turned out
The drummer walked by and she says, “Rocky, come
okay.
in here.” She says, “you know when we do ‘I Cried For
During ‘55… ‘55 was a big year. I call it a big year
You’ and we do the first chorus as a ballad and with
because
in January after the two weeks with Billie
your brushes you just double the tempo and we go into
Holiday,
I had my very first record date with a quartet
the chorus... How come you always f**k that up?
of mine. It was a three hour date, we did a few tunes,
I mean you people have studied music and I never
and then the next day I had a recording with Vince
see how you could get something wrong like that,” and Guaraldi Quartet. I used to play with him a lot around
she said, “You know, Count Basie and I, we don’t read
town.
music and we are doing okay.” [Laughs] Her logic, you
know? You sound alright doing this stuff and then you
[JR] Who was on your own record date?
do this simple thing… You know she wasn’t a complainer, it was just about time to mention it because
[JD] Sonny Clark, Eugene Wright and Larence
it hadn’t been happening right. But it was okay. Then
Marable. They were really good, they sounded great. I
she would do “Strange Fruit” or “Don’t Explain” and I
sound like a little kid because I was.
had enough, nobody had to tell me not to play on those

14

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2015

Oliver Nelson Band with Phil Woods, Zoot Sims, Jerry Dodgion, Danny Bank.

[JR] You would have been 23 then? Is that about right?
[JD] I had turned 22 the August before that. And
then one afternoon the phone rings and it is Gerald. I
said, “Hey Gerald, how are you doing?” and he says,
“Oh, I am fine, how are you?” and he talks slow and
says, “Benny Carter is taking a band into a brand new
interracial hotel in Las Vegas for the whole summer... I
was wondering if you would be interested to play lead
alto?”
[JR] Wow!
[JD] I said, “Geez, of course I would.” Then I
thought, “Oh shit, I can’t do it.” He said, “Why?” I
said, “Because I am in the National Guard and if I miss
six meetings I am in the draft.” He said, “Oh well, that
is too bad. I am sorry.” I said, “I am sorry Gerald,” and
hung up. I thought, “Oh my god, I have never felt like
this about anything before.” There was never anything
so important and I had to say, “Oh f**k.”

So I said, “Let me call Charlie Kruter.” That’s my
warrant officer who leads the band, the National Guard
band. I said “Charlie, I just got a call from Gerald
Wilson and he said he wants to hire me for this gig
with Benny Carter in Las Vegas for the whole summer

starting in June,” and Charlie says, “Oh that’s a great
opportunity.” I told him that I couldn’t do it because
of the National Guard and he says, “Call him back and
tell him if you can take off two weeks in July to come
to the National Guard camp that you can do it. I’ll take
care of you on the rest of the stuff.” Now, that’s lucky.
I didn’t ask him for that, I am not aggressive anyway,
but it was his idea. I said, “oh man, okay!”

So I called Gerald back, I can’t get to the phone
fast enough, and then he answers [slow drawl] “Hello,”
and I said [quickly] “Gerald, did you get anybody yet?”
you know? [laughing] And he says, “Oh, I haven’t talked
to anybody yet.” I said, “Well I will tell you what happened, I asked the band leader in charge and he told
me that if I can take off two weeks in July to go to
National Guard camp then I can do the whole gig!”
He said “Oh well, I’ll call Benny now and ask him for
what he says about that,” so I am on pins and needles
waiting for the phone to ring and the phone finally
rings and it is Gerald. “What’s happening?” and he
says, “Well, I talked to Benny and he said by that time
he will play your part, he will know it by then anyway
so don’t worry about it.” I said “Okay!” So I drove to
LA and stayed at my wife’s grandparents, who were
Sicilian, and had a garden and everything around their
house and the food there was great.

U

Spring / Summer 2015 • The NOTE

15

ZOOT FEST 2014

Special thanks to all
of our 2014 Zoot Fest
Sponsors!
Gold Sponsors:
Louise Sims,
George Wein,
and Joseph Sample

Bob Weidner

Copper Sponsors:
George Ennever,
Steven Bush

Friend Sponsors:
Ralph Morris,
Evangelynne Mueller,
Robert Bush,
Dick Sheridan,
Betty Hafer,
Ronald Hart,
Edith Polansky,
Bob Cartwright

Hugh VonKleist and Bob Ackerman performing.

John Herr

John Herr

Nancy Reed

John Herr

Bob Weidner

Louise Sims, Marcia G. Welsh, Ph.D., and Burt DeTomaso.

Steve Gilmore

16

Bill Goodwin, Warren Vaché, Lew Tabackin, John Mosca.

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2015

John Herr

Bob Weidner

Warren Vaché diggin’ Lew Tabackin’s solo.

John Herr

Bob Weidner

Steve Gilmore and Larry McKenna

Larry McKenna with Steve Gilmore and Tom Whaley

John Herr

John Herr

Bill Crow providing entertaing stories.

Lew Tabaken remembering Al and Zoot.

John Mosca enjoying his first Zoot Fest

Spring / Summer 2015 • The NOTE

17

Matt directing the Al Cohn an
Photo Bob Weidner

nd the Natural Seven Ensemble.

Gene Quill Remembered
Editors Note: This article was
first published in Jazz Journal
International in July 2013 and
is reprinted with permission.
By Gordon Jack

G

ene Quill was just 15 in 1943
when he joined the AFM Local 661 in his home town of
Atlantic City. Precociously talented
on alto he had already won a “Stars in
the Making” contest three years earlier which led to an appearance with
the Jimmy Dorsey orchestra. While
in high-school he had his own band
playing army bases and USO dances
and on leaving school he joined Alex
Bartha who had the house band at
the famous Steel Pier in New Jersey.
He first met Phil Woods in 1948
at one of the regular sessions held
at Teddy Charles’s loft on the corner of 55th. Street and Broadway in
New York where Brew Moore, Tony
Fruscella, Don Joseph, Jimmy Raney
and Frank Isola were in regular attendance. Phil was studying at Juilliard
at the time and he told me in a JJ
interview (September 1998), “I sat in
with Gene for a super-fast Donna Lee.
He kicked it off and when we hit the
head it sounded like a unison. Afterwards we went to the bar to hang out
and Gene could really hang out!”
Another popular venue where 24
hour sessions frequently took place
was at Joe Maini and Jimmy Knepper’s apartment on the southwest
corner of 136th Street and Broadway.
Gene was often to be found there and
a list of those attending at various
times reads like a who’s-who of the
new music because Dizzy Gillespie,
Max Roach, Joe Albany, Miles Davis,
Herb Geller, John Williams, Charlie
Parker, Gerry Mulligan, Zoot Sims
and Warne Marsh all played there at
various times. Lenny Bruce frequently
came to listen and socialise with the
musicians. On one occasion in 1950

20

Don Lanphere taped Charlie Parker
there accompanied by John Williams,
Buddy Jones and Frank Isola and the
results were eventually released as
The Apartment Sessions (Philology
W842-2CD). Many of the younger
musicians though were finding it difficult at the time to become established. Joe Maini was occasionally
reduced to busking in subways and a
year after the Parker recording Mulligan sold all his horns and hitch-hiked
with his girl friend to Los Angeles in
search of work.
In March 1951 Gene joined the
newly formed but short-lived Buddy
DeFranco big band performing arrangements by Mulligan, Jimmy
Giuffre and the leader. In an enthusiastic DownBeat review of the band’s
performance at the Rustic Cabin in
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Leonard Feather said, “Buddy really has
something on the ball musically and
could be built into an idol of American youth.” It didn’t happen despite
extensive financial backing from a
number of quarters including a very
well connected call-girl named Charlotte. She invested around $50,000.00
in the band which was an enormous
amount for the time. Eight months

later and hugely out of pocket Buddy
had to call it a day as a band leader.
The same year DeFranco disbanded, Gene worked briefly with Jerry
Wald’s band at the Arcadia Ballroom
which had a strict Local 802 policy
for tax purposes. Gene didn’t have
a union card at the time so Herb
Geller took his place and in a JJ
interview (September/October 1994)
he told me, “There was some resentment because Gene was very popular
with the guys and he was an excellent
player but quite soon I was accepted
and everything was fine.” A couple
of years later he had another unfortunate experience with Quill who
was late for a Nat Pierce recording
session. Pierce telephoned Herb who
immediately took a cab and arrived at
the studio just as Gene came running in. Nat said, “Herb is going to
do the date because whenever I use
you Gene, you’re either late or you
don’t turn up at all.” Quill was angry
and upset and accused Herb of always
taking his jobs although he obviously
didn’t bear a grudge because in 1956
when Leonard Feather asked him
who his favourite alto players were he
named Charlie Parker, Phil Woods,
Charlie Mariano and Herb Geller.

Gene Quill & Pat Sheridan, 339 West 48th Street, NYC 1963

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2015

Soon after leaving Jerry Wald he
successfully auditioned for Claude
Thornhill who was organising a new
orchestra at the Local 802 union hall
in New York City. It was quite a band.
Quill had the jazz alto chair and
Med Flory led the sax section which
included Brew Moore for a time. Bob
Brookmeyer was on trombone and
relief piano and Teddy Kotick and
Winston Welch were also there with
the delightful Chris Connor taking
care of the vocals. Quill remained
with Thornhill off and on until 1956
eventually taking over from Med
Flory on lead alto which included a
great deal of clarinet work.
Teddy Kotick left in 1953 to join
Stan Getz and was replaced by Bill
Crow who remembered Gene in his
book - From Birdland to Broadway “As a scrappy little
Irishman always ready to challenge the world.” Along with Brew
Moore and Brookmeyer he was
a heavy drinker and although he
had been a Golden Gloves boxer
his diminutive status left him at a
disadvantage in certain situations.

Donated by Bill Crow

Courtesy of Phil Woods

Phil Woods - Gene Quill Quintet

Gene Quill in the Thornhill Reed Section.

According to Crow, “He wound up
the loser in many after-hours brawls.”
The Thornhill organization did not
have a band bus. They travelled in a
convoy of four cars between bookings and one of the vehicles – The Rat
Patrol - carried rejects from the other
three with Gene of course usually at
the wheel.
According to Crow’s book, his
brilliance on both alto and clarinet did not extend to the essential
maintenance regimes all instruments
require. One night in Texas part of
his alto’s right side-key assembly
broke off requiring pressure from his
hand to keep it in place. On another
occasion in El Paso his horn almost
collapsed. Pausing in mid solo he
refitted the keys and rods while instructing tenor-man Ray Norman to “Hold your finger right there.” During
the band’s residency at the Roosevelt
Hotel in New Orleans he married his
girl-friend Bobbie who had been travelling with him. Winston Welch and
Bill Crow were two of the witnesses.
The Thornhill orchestra recorded

14 titles in April 1953 for the Trend
label. Quill is heard on Jeru, Family Affair, Rose Of The Rio Grande
and Five Brothers which are his first
recorded solos (Hep CD 80) - he had
soloed on Tiny’s Blues in 1951 with
DeFranco but that title has never
been released. A brilliant sight-reader
and one of the finest lead alto and
clarinet players of his generation, he
had become an established member
of the exclusive New York studio
scene by the mid-fifties. It was a busy
time and he was frequently called for
recording dates with among others
Quincy Jones, Ernie Wilkins, Joe
Newman, Manny Albam, Michel Legrand, Tito Puente, Johnny Richards
and Oscar Pettiford.
In 1955 he had a short-lived small
group with Dick Sherman an outstanding but now almost forgotten
trumpeter. They had been colleagues
in the DeFranco and Thornhill bands
and Jordi Pujol has released a fine
example of their work on FSR-CD
667. It includes a memorable concert
from the Pythian Temple, New York
introduced by Al ‘Jazzbo’ Collins

Spring / Summer 2015 • The NOTE

21

It was at this time Quill became
very friendly with John Williams
who told me, “Gene was special.
We shared a lot of jam sessions and
booths full of friends and laughter in
Charlie’s Tavern.” Frank Isola was one
of their close, mutual friends. He had
worked a few months with Quill in
Atlantic City in 1951 and they can be
heard together on one of Dick Garcia’s few albums as a leader – Message
from Garcia (Dawn DCD 108).
Another close friend of Gene’s
was of course Phil Woods. He was
best man at Phil’s marriage to Charlie Parker’s widow and early in 1957
Woods sat in when Gene was working with John Williams at the Pad in
Greenwich Village. Things worked
out so well musically that they decided to form a group together which
worked fairly regularly for the next
year or so around the New York area.
They were booked as Phil and Quill.
This confused an M.C. at the White
Canon club in Queens who enthusiastically introduced, “Phil Anquill
- here he comes now” to a bemused
audience. Well worth tracking down
is their Fresh Sound release (FSRCD-473) which includes some titles
with Sol Schlinger one of the busiest
baritone players in New York at the
time.
Early in 1960 Gene joined Gerry
Mulligan’s Concert Jazz Band taking
Eddie Wasserman’s place on lead alto
and clarinet. Don Ferrara told me
that Gene was a very popular member
of the band because he was a stellar
player with a good sense of humour.
Brookmeyer who was the straw-boss
was also impressed, ”I thought that
Gene had the fire and the madness
sometimes of Charlie Parker. He was
a little maniacal but controllable.”
Unfortunately he did not get many

22

solo features with
the CJB at least
on record but the
‘fire’ Brookmeyer
mentions is readily
apparent on 18
Carrots For Rabbit
(FSR-CD 710)
and All About
Rosie – both on
alto. He also made
an outstanding
clarinet contribution to Bridgehampton Strut
which is available
on Mosaic MD
4-221 together
with Rosie. One
night he had an
accident at Birdland when he had
his alto balanced
on his knee with
the mouthpiece
close to his face.
Somebody called
him and in turning
quickly, the reed
cut his eyeball.
Phil Woods was in
the club and took
Gene’s place with
the CJB for the
remainder of the
engagement.

From the ACMJC archive.

with excellent performance on Flying
Down To Rio and Sherman’s own Sid
Meets Haig. The latter has an AABA
32 bar form reminiscent of Monk’s
Rhythm-A-Ning in the A sections.
The trumpeter was a former Juilliard
student who had disappeared as a
recording artist by 1958 but luckily
his Bobby Hackett by way of Fats Navarro approach can be heard at length
with Al Cohn and Zoot Sims on From
A To Z (RCA 74321).

Gene Quill

After Mulligan disbanded in December 1964,
Gene free-lanced around New York
at clubs like Kenny’s Pub and Embers
West where he had his own quartet.
He was one of several fine alto players
who worked with Buddy Rich’s exciting new big band in the late sixties.
Ernie Watts, Art Pepper and Richie
Cole all followed him after he left in
1967. Jazz-work becoming scarce he
did what a lot of musicians at that
time were doing and moved to Las
Vegas where he worked with Dan
Terry, Ray Anthony and Billy Daniels.
In 1974 he moved back home to
Atlantic City where he played in the
Steel Pier Show Band. Sadly in what
was believed to be a robbery he was
mugged on Memorial Day weekend in
1977 which left him paralysed on his
right side and blind in one eye. One
of his former Thornhill colleagues
told me that it was not so much a

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2015

mugging as an assault. Phil Woods
and Bill Potts went to visit him in
hospital where he was lying in a semicomatose state in an oxygen tent with
tubes connected to every orifice. Phil
gently asked if there was anything he
could do and Gene whispered, “Yeah,
take my place!”
He no longer had a horn so at a
1979 benefit Phil Woods presented
him with a new alto. Revising his
fingering to compensate for his lame
right hand he played his favourite ballad It Might As Well Be Spring with
Woods on the piano. Years later Phil
told me, “There wasn’t a dry eye in
the house…the sound and fire where
still there”.
Daniel Eugene Quill died on the
8th of December 1988 in Pomona,
Atlantic City.

U

Memories of 1950 to 1953
By Bill Crow

W

Penthouse, the recording studio
on 57th Street.) Nola’s had
a number of small rehearsal
rooms, each with a piano, and
one large room that could hold
a big band. That was the room
where jam sessions were often
held, with a collection being
taken up to pay the rental.
I found out about Nola’s
during a visit to New York City
while I was still in the Army,
stationed at Fort Meade, Md. I
looked up a friend of a friend,
who took me to a session there.
About 20 people were in the big
room, but only five or six were
playing. A good rhythm section, a
trumpet player, and Brew Moore on
tenor. Brew had finished most of a
gallon jug of Gallo wine, and was
lying on his side on the floor, playing,
with a lit cigarette tucked into his
octave key. I was impressed with his
ability to still swing when so far into
the bag.
There were several private lofts
and back rooms of bars where we
could play, and on one nice afternoon when no one had any money
for studio rental, Gerry Mulligan
rehearsed some of his big band arrangements on the shore of the 72nd
Street lake in Central Park. Until I
got my own bass, I would hang out at
sessions and rehearsals until the bass
player got tired, and then would get a
chance to play his bass. I played a lot
on Teddy Kotick’s bass, and on one
Donated by Bill Crow

hen I left Seattle to
live in New York City
in January of 1950, I
got off the bus with 50 dollars in my pocket, carrying a
suitcase and a valve trombone.
My friend Buzzy Bridgeford, a
drummer, had convinced me
that if I wanted to be a musician I had to be where the music was. In his estimation, New
York was the only place to be.
I didn’t see any reason not Bill Crow walking in Times Square.
to believe him. When we arrived, Charlie Parker was playnight Gene had a fight with the boss’s
ing with his quintet at Birdland, with
wife and walked off in a huff. Buzzy
Red Rodney, Bud Powell, Tommy
salvaged the job, and a week or two
Potter and Roy Haynes, and opposite
later he got me hired as a trombone
him was a house band made up of
player.
Max Roach, Al Haig, Miles Davis, J.J.
The boss wouldn’t hire a bass
Johnson, Curley Russell and Sonny
player… he felt that piano and drums
Stitt. The admission price was 95
were enough rhythm. So Buzzy
cents, and you could listen to great
found a local kid who owned a Kay
music all night long without spending
bass and paid him 20 bucks to rent
another dime.
it for the summer. Then he told me,
After our first tough winter
“When you’re not playing the tromscuffling in New York, Buzzy wound
bone, you’ve got to try to play the
up with a summer gig in the Adbass. I can’t stand playing without a
irondacks, at the Altamont Hotel in
bass player.”
Tupper Lake, N.Y. It was originally
The other musicians sort of
Gene Roland’s gig, but on opening
gaslighted me into staying with
the bass… they didn’t give me any
positive feedback about my trombone
playing, and constantly encouraged
my bass playing. “Wow, on that
last tune, you sounded just like Ray
Brown!”
By the time I got back to
the city, I had taught myself
to play the bass well enough
to accept gigs. I would rent
a bass when I got work. It
took a while to find one of
my own.
As soon as I met a few
New York musicians, I began to discover all the places
where jam sessions might
take place. Nola Studios,
on Broadway in the 50s,
was a main location. (Not
Jerry Mulligan Band rehersing in Central Park, NYC.
to be confused with Nola
Bill Crow playing bass.

Spring / Summer 2015 • The NOTE

23

Donated by Bill Crow

Whenever Bird
played, Jimmy Knepper would turn on his
tape recorder, and then,
during the next day, he
would listen to the tapes
and write out Bird’s
solos. Those transcriptions became Jimmy’s
practice material.
A club date bass
player in the Bronx let it
be known that he had a
bass for sale, and I heard
about it at Charlie’s Tavern. I went up to look at
it, an old Kay that was in
good shape, and he said
he wanted $75 for it. I
only had five dollars to
Jimmy Raney, Phil Woods, Bill Crow.
give him, but he agreed to
hold the bass for me until I
owned by a Spanish bassist, Louis
got
the
rest
of the money together.
Barreiro.
I
wasn’t
making much profit at
Another great location was a
the time… a club date might pay $15
room at 136th Street near Broadway.
or $20, and I had to pay five bucks
It was a basement that extended out
to rent a bass for the weekend, and
under the street, so you could make
maybe another five to rent a tux. But
noise all night without bothering
I was also finding other work. Dave
anyone. A baritone player named
Lambert, who was also scuffling at
Gershon Yowell found the place, and
when he moved out, it was taken over the time, would come up with jobs
by Joe Maini and Jimmy Knepper. We we could do together, like moving
played there a lot. Sometimes Charlie somebody from one apartment to
another, or painting someone’s apartParker would drop by just to hang
ment, or baby-sitting, or doing minor
out, and he would occasionally play.
carpentry jobs. I took a traveling job
I was too shy to play while he was
around, but I enjoyed getting to know for a few months with Mike Riley’s
trio playing drums and singing, and
him. A very sweet, funny, intelligent
even with the low pay I was getting,
and generous man, no matter what
I managed to save a few bucks and
Miles Davis said about him in his
send them to the bassist in the Bronx.
book.
When I finally paid off the $75
and took possession of
my bass, I quit my job
with Riley and started
working with Teddy
Cohen’s trio, with Don
Roberts on guitar.
After I’d been with
Teddy for a couple of
months, he told me
one day that he was
changing his name
to Charles. “Charles
Cohen,” I said. “That
sounds pretty good.”
He laughed, and said
it was the Cohen he
wanted to get rid of.
He felt that the Jewish
name was holding
Charlie’s Tavern, a favorite New York watering hole on Seventh
back his career. He
Avenue in the former Roseland building.

24

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2015

Kenny Clarke

did all right with the new name, so
maybe he was right. Other friends
had already done the same thing:
Donald Helfman became Don Elliott,
Julius Gubenko was now Terry Gibbs,
Herbert Solomon became Herbie
Mann, and Anthony Sciacca became
Tony Scott.
We rehearsed every day, and
worked occasionally. Teddy taught
me the right changes to all the bebop
standards of the day, and playing
with no drummer helped me develop
a strong sense of time. I’d invented
my own fingering system for the bass,
which was a little awkward, but I
didn’t know any better. I improved
it several years later when I began
studying with Fred Zimmerman, of
the New York Philharmonic.
Don Roberts got a better job and
left us, and Jimmy Raney replaced
him. Jimmy had been working with
Stan Getz, but Stan had gone alone
for some work on the west coast, and
so Jimmy was available for a job we
had on West 46th Street in the Iroquois Hotel, playing jazz and accompanying Amanda Sullivan, who was
billed as “The Blonde Calypso.”
At the end of that summer,
Jimmy got a call from Getz. “I’ve got
a week at the Hi-Hat in Boston. Roy
Haynes is living up there, and says
he’ll do it. And I got Jerry Kaminsky
on piano. So find a bass player and
come on up.” Jimmy asked me if I
wanted to do it, and of course I did.

Stan Getz and Frank Isola.

We got together at his apartment one
afternoon and he taught me Stan’s
tunes, and then we took the train up
to Boston.
I met Stan at the hotel where we
were staying, and he said, “Do you
mind if I check into your room with
you? I’ll split the bill with you, but
I won’t be staying there… I’ve got a
chick in a room upstairs. This is just
for the record.” I agreed, and became
Stan’s roommate, on paper.

Duke Jordan

On opening night, we started
the first tune and my D string
broke during the first chorus. I
tried to play around it, but was
having a terrible time. There
was another bass under the
piano, which belonged to the
house group that was playing
opposite us. I decided to quickly
switch basses, hoping the other
guy wouldn’t mind.
But when I began to play it,
I discovered that it was set up
for a left-handed player, with the
strings in the opposite direction
from mine. I fumbled through
the tune, making many mistakes,
and at the end Stan gave me a
minute to put a new D string on
my bass, and the worst was over.
By the second night I was
pretty comfortable with the
quintet, and the music went
smoothly. But I was amazed at Stan’s
love life. In addition to the girl in
the room upstairs, he was spending
time during the day with another
girl he had met at the club. And on
the weekend, his wife came up for a
surprise visit, and checked into the
hotel. At the club that night all three
women were sitting at a table in front
of the bandstand, and each one was
sure she was the one with Stan, and
the other two were just friends.
When we got back to New York
the next week, Stan called and said
he had a week at Birdland. Jerry
Kaminsky and Roy Haynes had
stayed in Boston, so he hired
Duke Jordan and Frank Isola.
During that week we also played
a concert at Carnegie Hall opposite Charlie Parker’s quintet.
Then Stan found us a week each
in Baltimore and Washington,
and we came back to New York
for a week off.
That Tuesday, Stan called to
say Birdland had a last minute
opening for a week, so I went
there and found Kenny Clarke
setting up. I assumed Frank had
already booked something and
wasn’t available. We began to
play, and I got along with Kenny
very well. We played the radio
broadcast that was always done
on the first set of opening night
at Birdland each week.
When I got up for the second
set that night, I looked over in

Claude Thornhill.

the Peanut Gallery, the seating area
beside the bandstand, and saw Frank
Isola there. “What’s up, Frank?” I
asked. “I don’t know,” he grinned. “I
turned on the radio and discovered
I was fired!” Stan pretended not to
notice him.
We did a recording session for
Norman Granz and another for Teddy
Reig, and then Jimmy Raney left us
to take a steady gig at the Blue Angel
with Jimmy Lyons. So we worked a
couple of weeks as a quartet. Then
Duke and Klook left to do something
else, and Stan said, “Well, I guess I
have to form a new quintet.” So he
hired Bob Brookmeyer, John Williams
and Alan Levitt, and I stayed on bass.
That was an interesting group,
but the rhythm section never really
jelled. John wanted the time feeling
to be up on top, and Alan wanted it
more relaxed. I was too inexperienced to have a strong point of view,
and Stan and Bob weren’t comfortable with us. So Stan decided to go
back to his original bass player, Teddy
Kotick, and that was the end of my
six month tour with Stan. Teddy had
been doing one-nighters with Claude
Thornhill’s band, and I wound up
taking that job for the next summer,
and my musical education continued.
I learned a lot from playing with Stan
and with Claude, and had a lot of fun
doing it.

U

Spring / Summer 2015 • The NOTE

25

David Liebman

Matt Vashlishan

Smithsonian Institute
NEA Masters of Jazz Project:
Bill Kirchner with David Liebman

The following is the Smithsonian Institute interview
between Bill Kirchner and David Liebman following his
acceptance of the NEA Masters of Jazz Award, and took
place in January of 2011. This interview is incredibly extensive and will be presented in its entirety via several
installments. This first “episode” is a bit larger to get
you started. Enjoy!
Kirchner: Today is January 4th, 2011. I’m Bill Kirchner.
We’re here in my home in South Orange, New Jersey, and we’re going to be talking with NEA Jazz Master Dave Liebman. Let’s start
out with the most obvious thing. What’s your full name, Dave?
Liebman: No middle name. In fact, when I was
about 13 or something, I said, “How come I don’t have
a middle name?” to my mother, and she said, “Choose
one.” In those days I was enamored by all the tough
guys in the neighborhood, who were Vinny, Vito, Tony,
Tito. I said, “Can I do Tito or Vinny?” She said, “No,
I don’t think so.” So that was the end of any middle
name. Nobody in our family has middle names. This is
a rarity, I guess.
Kirchner: And just so we get the formal stuff out of the way,
you were born what day?
Liebman: September 4th, 1946, Brooklyn, New
York.
Kirchner: In a hospital? At home?
Liebman: Brooklyn Jewish Hospital.

26

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2015

Kirchner: What were your parents’ names?
Liebman: Francis. Her maiden name was Gatina
– Hungarian, Alsace, a little German, and my father
was a Liebman. They were from Belarus, White Russian Minsk, around that area. I never met my grandfather. I think he died when I was very young – he was a
butcher, upper East – East Harlem. My mother lived in
Brooklyn. I think that’s where they were always, like
Crown Heights, that area. They met through school,
teaching, because they were both teachers.
Kirchner: So you’re a first generation American.
Liebman: I would be second, right? No, I’m second
generation, because I’m talking about the grandparents
coming from the Old World. My parents were born
here.
Kirchner: What did your father do for a living?
Liebman: Teacher. That was the Board of Ed., New
York school system, both my parents. Eventually my
father, his last 10 years, 15 years, was an assistant
principal in Brooklyn, Ditmas Junior High, and he was
out in Rockaway. My mother was in Rockaway. My
father was in Borough Park and then at Ditmas Junior
High. My mother was in Bedford-Stuy, because when I
was a kid, I used to go – we had to go to the hospital. I
would go spend the day with her. Then she ended up in
Far Rockaway. The Board of Ed., until they retired.
Kirchner: Are they still alive?

Liebman: My mother died in 2006 or ’7. My father
died in ’86.
Kirchner: Do you have any siblings?
Liebman: I have an older brother, five years older.
I’m not sure where he is now. I think he’s in Las Vegas.
We’re not in contact.
Kirchner: Is he musical at all?
Liebman: He played accordion, which I got to say,
that’s what I first saw. But nothing more than that.
Kirchner: Were your parents musicians?
Liebman: My mother had classical piano lessons
when she was young, from what I understand, and
would occasionally sit down and play. In fact, on my
first record, Look How Far – my first official record as
a leader, I did Pablo’s Story for Pablo Picasso, and at
the end I – what’s the word? – I put in, inserted, The
Breeze and I (Andalusia), because I always remember
her playing that at the piano [Liebman hums a phrase
of the melody]. That one.
Kirchner: I was going to ask you why you did that.
Liebman: That’s why. It was dedicated. That’s good
that you know that.
My father loved classical music. I remember – and
I still have them, LPs – Tchaikovsky. I know Brahms’s
Fourth was there. I remember Beethoven. He loved Caruso. I would hear that in the background in the house.
He wasn’t a fanatic, but that was the music he loved,
opera and classical.
Kirchner: What do you remember of your earliest musical
experiences, things you heard on the radio, or live, or whatever?
Liebman: Rock-and-roll. I loved – I don’t know if I
heard Rock Around the Clock when it came out, but I
was there certainly pretty close to the beginning. And
Elvis was my big hero, Elvis Presley. Even I used to
sing, when I was on crutches – because I had the polio
thing, which I’m sure we’ll get to eventually – I would
take the crutch, like a guitar, stand in front of the mirror, and think I was Elvis. I sang Hound Dog, Don’t Be
Cruel, Heartbreak Hotel. I loved Elvis Presley. So I was
– the first musical experience, it’s got to be 8, 9 years
old, listening to rock-and-roll and Martin Block’s Make
Believe Ballroom, AM radio, Saturday mornings, the
Top 25, and I had my own Top 25 for years. I still have
it. But I liked the best of the week, and collected 45s. I
still have – probably have a pretty valuable collection of
original 45s, things from Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck
Berry, etc. That was my first music that I loved. I liked
to dance. I learned how to dance. As I said, I won a talent show – I guess it was not a talent show, but it was
an assembly in fourth grade, PS 99, I got up. I know I

sang All Shook Up. I remember that. Yeah, it was rockand-roll.
Kirchner: When Bill Haley and Elvis came on the scene, you
would have been about 9 or 10. So that makes sense.
Liebman: That’s about right, yeah. And I loved – to
get to it, I liked the sound of the saxophone. And of
course since early rock-and-roll, as you know, had – the
saxophone was the main soloing instrument, eight bars
here and there. I liked the tenor. I didn’t even – certainly didn’t know what it was. Nobody in my immediate family – I never saw a tenor. But I liked the sound
of it, and I wanted to play that instrument from rockand-roll, right from the beginning.
Kirchner: Did you hear some of the R & B tenor players like
Big Jay McNeely and Sam “the Man” Taylor?
Liebman: Not at that time, no. These are solos
from, like, Rock Around the Clock, that guy Rudy
whatever his name was, a long Italian name. Duane
Eddy had a great saxophone player, Rebel Rouser. Then
there were the little crossover things, as I know now,
like Walkin’ with Mr. Lee, Lee Allen, Honky Tonk, Bill
Doggett. They were R & B guys who snuck into the
pop charts, and I heard – that’s where I heard tenor.
Even In the Still of the Night has a great – no, Come
Go with Me, my favorite song – the Del Vikings – my
favorite song from that era has a great tenor saxophone
solo with a giant squeak in the middle of it. I’m either
thinking of Come Go with Me or In the Still of the
Night, which is a very famous tenor squeak. The cat’s
reed, and that’s the way – but I liked the sound of the
tenor from rock. I really did.
Kirchner: How about Sam Butera with Louis Prima?
Liebman: Not at that time, nope, no. There was
no jazz – jazz, swing, Benny. None of that was in the
house, that I remember, and I didn’t have any relatives.
Often you hear, “I went to my uncle’s, and I heard
Benny” [Goodman] – not that I recall.
Kirchner: You mentioned getting polio, which happened
pretty early in your life, right?
Liebman: ’49, yeah. Summer of ’49.
Kirchner: Why don’t we talk about that now?
Liebman: I of course don’t remember the actual
incident, but from what my mother told me, and
described, I got up. I couldn’t walk. I just fell over.
I had had a fever. Went to the doctor. He said, “We
don’t know what it is.” She raced home. She tells me
she had a police escort across the George Washington
Bridge. This happened in Monticello, where we – we
spent summers in the Catskills, as most teachers did.
They had July and August off. We were at a place called
White Lake. I guess it still exists. I just got sick and
was in the hospital for the next 13 months from that

Spring / Summer 2015 • The NOTE

27

day, from what I understand. Of course then, at 3 years
old, you don’t know anything, and you don’t realize
it. Somebody asked me – in fact I was just talking to
somebody about this earlier, we were just talking this
week, earliest childhood memories. It’s always good to
say, “What do you remember from – the earliest thing
you remember?” I remember the balloon losing air at
the end of my bed in the hospital. Again, I’m not sure
if this is when I was 7 or 8, when I had a couple of the
operations. But I remember watching the balloon go
down. It was right – somebody gave me a balloon. In
the middle of the night it was starting to wither, and
how upset I was.
Also I remember with my brother wasn’t allowed
in. He was then 12, 13, whatever. My mother, they
wheeled me out to the balcony whatever it was – overlooking the parking lot. My brother was downstairs.
He was waving to me. But that’s about all I remember,
except a couple other hospital scenes. But that was
– my whole childhood, outside of normal, whatever
normal was, is tied up with the next doctor, the next
thing, and when you’re going to have this magic operation that’ll enable you to walk without a brace. That
happened eventually, I’m 13 years old, after several
operations, several broken legs, etc., etc.
Kirchner: You mean you broke your legs trying to walk?
Liebman: I broke my leg in the hospital, that
3-years-old thing. Fell down. That was an extra four
months. I broke my leg on ice. I’ve done that several
times through that whole era. And I had a couple operations. They did – I don’t know what they tried. The
main thing was, we went to Bellevue. It was a world
famous guy, Dr. [?Diever]. The reason we were going there – this is when I went to my mother’s school.
That’s why I know she was in Bed-Stuy, because I
would be off from school. I’d be with her until 2, 2:30,
3, and then we’d go to 34th Street. I remember this
very distinctly. It’s probably where I learned geography
so well. It’s because there was a giant map outside the
elevator, and pins of people who came to this rehabilitation center. I remember sitting for hours, waiting for
the doctor, going, “Look at the Philippines,” like that.
Anyway, the big deal was that I was – I could have
this operation called arthrodesis, which was something to do with stabilizing the bones, so that the foot
wouldn’t go out. You had to wait until your bones were
mature, which is somewhere around 12, 13 years old.
So it was always like, “When are we going to do it?
When are we going to do it?” “He’s not ready yet. David’s not ready yet,” cha cha cha. Finally, about 13, 14, I
had that operation. Then, shortly after, I got rid of the
brace until the last 20 years.
Kirchner: So they considered the operation “successful?”
Liebman: Yeah, from what they said which means,
like right now, I can lift it only in one direction. It’s
stabilized. That’s – my problem was that the foot

28

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2015

just went out, from whatever the polio did. Of course
everything was atrophied, weak. The knee was weak.
But I then went without a brace until 1987, ’88. We’ll
eventually get to it. So that’s a long period that I didn’t
have a brace.
Kirchner: Gene Lees, whom we both knew, also had childhood
polio. I don’t know if you knew that or not.
Liebman: Yes I did. In fact he wrote some great
articles about post-polio syndrome, years ago.
Kirchner: I wanted to ask you about this, because he said in
later years, it was expected that things would come about.
Liebman: Some people have gotten it. I know some
people who have. I have not, thankfully. I feel weakening happening. I definitely see myself walking worse.
But I’m also 64 years old. Not to tell you about that.
That’s going to happen no matter – in a normal situation, let alone in a situation like our situation, where
you are stressing on this one side of your body, etc.,
etc. It’s eventual – it’s wear and tear. I feel it. There’s
no question about it.
Kirchner: So knock on wood.
You started playing piano fairly early, right?
Liebman: Yes, because I wanted the saxophone. I
was vehement about it. She said, “You must take two
years” – my mother. My father, of course – it’s just
that my mother was the vocal one. So I always say, my
mother. “You got to take two years of piano, because
that’s how you’ll know music.” Aw, come on. So I did.
I took three years, classical. It was a neighborhood
teacher. Für Elise, Spinning Song, and a little Bach,
blah blah blah. Eventually, like 12 years old, I said,
“Okay. Is it time? Can I get it?” Then there was the,
“You have to play clarinet first.” So I didn’t get to tenor
until right before my Bar Mitzvah, because I know I
played at my Bar Mitzvah, I’m in the Mood for Love,
with the band, and I’d been playing nine months. So
that’s when I’m 13. That’s September of ’59. So by the
time I was . . .
Kirchner: You played that on clarinet?
Liebman: No, on tenor, finally, because I took
clarinet, like around 11 and a half, 12 years old. I did
it for a year or whatever. Hated the clarinet, probably
because I didn’t – I was pushed into it. Because those
days, the belief – you know – the belief – not the belief.
De rigueur. You’ve got to play clarinet first, because it’s
harder.
Kirchner: That’s what I – I started on clarinet when I was 7.
Liebman: Yeah, because it’s much more difficult,
which it is. But my question still remains: whoever said
you wanted to play clarinet, anyway?
Kirchner: Did you ever hear Frank Wess’s remark about the

clarinet?
Liebman: No.
Kirchner: The clarinet was invented by two guys who hated
each other.
Liebman: With all due respect to the great clarinet
players in the world, it’s just never been an instrument
that turned me on. I love it in classical, and of course,
obviously – I think the reason that it never turned me
on, because I always associated it with that sound of
swing and that kind of syrupy, corny extension of Jewish klezmer-type playing that I probably never heard.
If I had heard Jimmy Giuffre first, I probably would
have loved the clarinet, because he was so hip and so
cool on it, or if I had heard someone like Eddie Daniels
play, but I guess Benny just didn’t get to me when I
was a kid. “Aw, that’s the old stuff.” And it’s not fair to
clarinet, because, as I’m saying, there’s some amazing
players on it. Tony Scott, man, the way that guy played
the instrument, it was a joke, it was ridiculous, it was
beyond the instrument. So I take everything back I’ve
ever insulted the clarinet for. Hold the guards, please.
Kirchner: Although you and I being people who specialize in
the soprano, we’ve heard all the dissing about soprano players. We
have to put up with that garbage.
Liebman: That’s right. Thank you very much. I feel
better.
Kirchner: So you started – when you started saxophone, was
it on tenor?
Liebman: Yeah, finally tenor. Yes. Yeah, right away.
Never did the alto. It just never came up.
Kirchner: The first saxophone players you heard, then, were
rock-and-roll tenor players.
Liebman: That had already by then been ensconced
in my brain. Not that I played like that. I didn’t try
to play like that. I began playing – I have to back up.
Where I studied music, after the classical, where I did
clarinet, where I did saxophone, was in a little neighborhood school called Bromley – B-r-o-m-l-e-y – Studios. It was a family, Fay Bromley, Buster Bromley,
and Eric Bromley, the son, who was going to Juilliard.
I spent Saturday mornings there. This is from around
12 years old. My mother found it in the phone book,
I guess, neighborhood school, 15 minutes from the
house in Brooklyn. I went for piano lessons. I went
back, took piano with the father, learning chords and
all that. I took saxophone with Nat Shapiro. He was
the teacher at that time. And I took combo. You sat
and you play Combo Orks [orchestrations]. You remember Combo Orks, with all three . . .
Kirchner: Charlie [?Cohen] books.
Liebman: The three-part harmony written out.

This family – this mother, Fay, who just died – amazing. I was in touch with her all the way through – she
booked you in the Catskills as soon as you could play. I
was there. I’m 13 years old. My first summer – because
I’m September. So right July, August of my 13th year,
becoming 14, I played at the Cedar Hill Hotel in South
Fallsburg. I basically was playing – what I’m getting at
is, I didn’t play blues and rock-and-roll that I heard. I
played club dates, because my teacher was a club-date
musician. He taught me the vibrato with the wa-wa
with the jaw, wa-wa-wa-wa. I had that sound. I learned
tunes. I wore a tuxedo at 14, 15 years old. I felt like
quite a mensch. You know what I mean? I was going.
I had a tuxedo. I had three tuxedos at one point. So,
style-wise, that’s what I was playing before I started to
hear jazz.
Kirchner: It’s like Gerry Niewood once told me, that he
thought club dates were the best preparation for jazz playing.
Liebman: Little I knew, that we’re playing the
bebop tunes, that when you’re playing How High the
Moon [Liebman sings the opening melody], that you
would end up hearing Bird [Charlie Parker] playing it. Because then, Top 40 didn’t exist. Club date
was the standards and cha-chas and mambos and the
freilachs and Hava Nagila and tarantella and all that
stuff. That’s where the clarinet – clarinet and the flute,
because now I was playing finally. By about 14, 15, I
got the flute. So you’re playing the Latin tunes on flute,
blah, blah, blah. But it was a great training, first of
all, in styles – maybe it led to my eclecticism. I don’t
know – in the fact that you had to switch from a Latin
tune to the Peabody [a dance] in two seconds, because
Grandma asked for it, or something like that. That was
a great – it was a great training ground, and I did it
religiously. I was in the Catskills every summer until
I was 18 or 19. I was there at Passover weekends and
Sukkot and all that stuff – from April to October, every
weekend, more or less, that we could, we were in the
Catskills. I had a group called the Impromptu Quartet, and we were a club-date band. That was really my
training.
Kirchner: Student musicians don’t get that now, and they
don’t know what they’re missing.
Liebman: No, they don’t get it. They’ll never get
it. It’s over, all over. But of course Top 40 ruined that
too. By the time that came in, a guy doing “a club
date,” even before the deejay stuff, ’80s, ’70s, they were
already playing Top 40, because they’re old tunes. They
lost their value to the new generations.
Kirchner: When did you first hear jazz?
Liebman: I always tell the famous first story of
Birdland. If that’s the first, I don’t know. But how I really heard it was at Bromley Studios, because between
the combos at 11 o’clock, and then they switch over at
12 o’clock to another bunch of kids, Eric, who played
alto, and his assistant, Nick something, played – I don’t

Spring / Summer 2015 • The NOTE

29

know if he was a drummer or not. He played drums
like I do, amateur have-fun drums – they would just
play while you were putting your horn away. Kids are
coming in and out. I’m like, what the heck? I always
tell this story. It sounds so naive, but it’s the truth.
“How do you move your fingers that fast with your
eyes closed and no music in front of you?” That completely floored me. I just couldn’t believe it, because
here I am, playing, looking, and everything like that.
And moving fast, and seeming to have a good time. I
didn’t under- – I had no idea what the music was like.
But that’s probably the first time I heard jazz.
Then it was more so when I went to the Catskills,
because of course the guys all wanted to play after the
gig was over. The Catskills had certain places where
you could hang. It had sessions every Thursday night
at a place called the Hom[?], which is still I think in
existence near Ellenville, in that part of the Catskills.
1 o’clock in the morning until 5, they left the nightclub
open. Arnie Lawrence was the leader of the band, and
you could sit in. I didn’t sit in until I was 16. I had no
chance to get on stage. I could hardly play. But this is
Eddie Daniels, Steve Schafer, Marty Morrell, this guy
named Donny Kretmar who just disappeared. He had
been playing electric bass. I don’t know what ever happened to him. I thought he was brilliant. Lonnie Rutstein. I remember these guys’ names better than a lot
of other people from the past. I heard it every summer.
So it was like, “Where are the guys playing? Where are
they playing?” So that’s where I informally heard it.
Then finally, the most formal way was at 15 years
old. I’m in a dance band, playing tenor, high school –
Lafayette High School – and my friend said, “Do you
want to go to Birdland?” Christmas week, vacation.
“What is Birdland” What is it? Blah blah blah. Anyway, I cleared it with my parents, went to Birdland. I
was just talking about this. I’ll tell you how this is a
funny story. I was in somebody’s house a couple days
ago, and he put on Count Basie at Birdland, 1961.
Kirchner: Great record.
Liebman: I never knew this record. It had – because
it said it’s his only engagement in New York during
those years. It said something in the liner notes. This
is just a few days ago, for a Christmas party. I said to
the guy, that has to have been the week I was there,
because I saw Basie opposite Gerry Mulligan’s – whatever it was called – the jazz concert band.
Kirchner: Concert Jazz Band.
Liebman: I was – that’s Christmas week of my – I’m
15 in September. So that’s Christmas week of that year.
It’s ’61. The reason I remember it – I don’t remember
the music – I remember that a Coca-Cola was a dollar.
We sat in the peanut gallery.
Kirchner: I was going to ask you that.
Liebman: Which I didn’t know and became inti-

30

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2015

mate with eventually. We sat in the back, high school
kids. I was the youngest. They were 17, maybe 16 years
old, the other guys. Took the subway. “What you want
to order?” They came over. I said, “Coca Cola.” She
said, “That’ll be a dollar.” I went, “What?” I flipped,
because it was five cents in Brooklyn. So that’s 20
times. Okay.
Plus, I had never seen so many black people in one
place. I had never seen women dressed the way they
were dressed, the waitresses and the girls that had the
cigarettes and the box around the – we have a camera,
so you know the – the box with cigarettes, and then
the camera girl with the big flash. I said, what is this
about?
So then started the whole folklore thing. Philosophically, I had no idea I’d do music. You’re a kid.
You’re into music because of the music. But you also
get into music because it represents something to you.
Something’s going on that isn’t just because it sounds
great. I think what happened there is, I went, “There’s
another world out here.” This is not Brooklyn. I don’t
think so. This is not Mom and Dad and Aunt so-andso.
Kirchner: You’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.
Liebman: Thank you. This is exactly it. I think
that is – in a way, it was a gigantic culture shock which
I’m still absorbing in a certain way, because I wasn’t
headed in that direction.
And then – to finish this – a few months later I
went – I’m sure we’ll talk about this, but I went, and I
saw [John] Coltrane live. That was – epiphany was – if
there was a night, it was that February gig, because
now I see, because of Fuji’s [Yasuhiro Fujioka] book
with all the dates, I see the billing, Bill Evans and
Coltrane, and now I’ve pinned it down to the week that
I was there, February of ’62. That was the beginning of
realizing that something more than meets the eye . . . .
Kirchner: The first time I ever heard Coltrane was live at the
Pittsburgh Jazz Festival, nine days before he recorded Ascension,
June 1965.
Liebman: What a way to come in.
Kirchner: So, I’m curious, because we both were exposed to
Coltrane live for the first time, before we knew who he was or had
heard him. What was your initial reaction to Coltrane?
Liebman: There’s a few things that happened that
night. The first one was, it was the group with Eric
Dolphy. I’m with my first girlfriend, a flute player in
the orchestra. I’m first clarinet. A love affair. We went
to Mama Leone’s for dinner, and we went to Birdland.
I walk – I didn’t have any idea, except that I had been
there a few months earlier, but I didn’t know who was
playing. There’s a placard. It has a picture of Bill Evans
– maybe a picture of him, Bill Evans Trio – I didn’t have

any idea who he is – and this picture of a guy playing
soprano. It’s Coltrane. I’m just starting to read Down
Beat. I said, “This is the guy who plays soprano saxophone,” which was a big thing then, because I never
saw one. So we go in. They’re playing. I say to Julie, I
say, “This guy sounds like he’s practicing.” He’s missing notes. This is that period when he’s going for the
altissimo. He’s squeezing out the G’s and the A’s and
all that. And the other guy, with the ball in his head –
that thing that Eric had – I could recognize in the little
fledgling ear that I had at that time, that this was jazz,
because Eric played at least rhythmically. He played in
that style. Trane was just like – I don’t know what he
was doing.

especially then, where he played, from ’65 until the
end, he must have been aware of the – not antipathy,
but of the reaction. I remember Newport, seeing him
in ’66, the people – and the Titans of the Tenor Saxophone story. I always tell that story. Half the audience
left Lincoln Center. He must have known that. He
didn’t have his eyes closed. This is a big difference in
the response from – you hear the Europe concerts in
’63. They’re playing Mr. PC then. They’re playing Impressions. The people are enthusiastic. Then you hear
this. Is this because it was America, where you just
don’t know anything? Or it’s just because he was really taking it far out? He must have felt that vibe. How
could he not? I think about that.

So that was the first thing. The second thing was,
they go into this tune. She leans over. She says, “That’s
from The Sound of Music.” I said, “Wait a minute.” So
now I think – this like, we’re walking into the hippest
place in the world, and I say, there’s no way that those
guys are going to play something from Julie Andrews.
This is the height of absurdness. No way. Sure enough,
of course, it was My Favorite Things, as I found out.
Those are the big things that night, was, “Who is this
guy? He sounds like he’s practicing,” and this ditty
from The Sound of Music is being played in Birdland. It
impressed me.

Kirchner: I get the impression from reading stuff that he said
in interviews and whatever that he just felt that it was what he
had to do, regardless of the consequences. He just felt that that
was the course he had to take.

Kirchner: It’s funny. My reactions were very much the same. I
was two months short of 12 years old.

Kirchner: For example, at the end of ’65 McCoy Tyner and
Elvin Jones left, because they couldn’t deal with the way the music
was going. Did you ever talk to Elvin about this? Did he ever say
anything?

Liebman: But you heard the free stuff then.
Kirchner: No, he was – this was . . .
Liebman: ’66?
Kirchner: No, ’65. This is the so-called transition period,
with the quartet. He played My Favorite Things, but it was like –
you know the ’65 records, like Transition and . . .
Liebman: And Vanguard Again – but that’s ’66.
Kirchner: It was really intense.
Liebman: Oh God. I can’t believe walking in on
that.
Kirchner: Half the audience walked. But the bill that night,
just to be quick about it – I don’t want to hog your time – but the
bill that night was Earl Hines, Carmen McRae, Stan Getz’s quartet with Gary Burton, Steve Swallow, and probably Roy Haynes,
Coltrane’s quartet, and the [Duke] Ellington band.
Liebman: It definitely stood out like a sore thumb.
Kirchner: Everybody but Ellington and Coltrane were on
before intermission. Then Coltrane’s quartet came on after
intermission. So as a result, even though a lot of people walked, a
lot of people like my parents and me gritted our teeth and stayed,
because we wanted to hear Duke.
Liebman: Isn’t it – when you think about it though,

Liebman: But imagine the guys getting off the
bandstand. You know how you are, when you’re on
with your guys, and you get off the bandstand. “Man, it
was weird out there.” Somebody’s thinking something.
There’s four guys up there. Maybe nobody’s talking
about it, but you got to think, God, they just got up in
the middle and left. What a drag.

Liebman: No. It’s just what I read, what you read,
that it was too loud, two drummers, and I think egowise, he didn’t want to be competing with anybody
else. You know the way he was. And Rashied [Ali], he
was the kid on the block. Who knows? McCoy couldn’t
hear himself, he says.
Kirchner: But Elvin never said anything to you about this?
Liebman: No. I would think that would be taboo.
Kirchner: Yeah. I would imagine.
All right. So that’s your first experience with Coltrane. Obviously that was a life-shifting experience for you.
Liebman: Eventually. Certainly not that night,
although I tell it like it was. Epiphanies don’t happen
immediately. They take time to enlarge and magnify
and get exaggerated with time, because we exaggerate.
But it certainly made me – the main thing is, it made
me see, this is not a hobby. What can I say? I’m still 15
years old. This is not just playing saxophone in school
band. That’s the same instrument I have at home in
Brooklyn under my bed. This can’t be possible, that’s
the same instrument. It’s a tenor saxophone. It’s the
same instrument, made by the same people. How could
he play it like that? That was the thing. And then of
course Elvin and McCoy in the band, the intensity and
energy, the way that they played when you saw them

Spring / Summer 2015 • The NOTE

31

live. It was just such an experience. You’re shifting in
your seat, 45 minutes. They’re still playing a duet, and
your back hurts. You know what I mean? People like
this – guys are serving drinks, and they’re still playing
the same tune. Everything about it made me go, this is
way beyond any reality – again, I’m 15. I’m not – I can’t
cognate these thoughts. But it appeared that this was
what was going on. This is way past anything I ever
knew. This is beyond Birdland’s lifestyle. This is like –
how can four guys make music like that? What is this
about, this kind of intensity, that I can’t take my eyes
off it? I have certainly no understanding of the music. I
didn’t understand a thing. Nobody knew what was going on in my – whatever my peers were at that time. I
was trying to play like that. I’m sure we’ll talk about it.
But we know at that period, there was no jazz education, there was no transcription books, blah blah blah.
I was just mystified, but I knew there was something
here that’s got to be dealt with. You can’t turn away
from this.
Kirchner: When you were in high school, did you have a band
director who was especially hip to these things?
Liebman: No, not that – we never talked jazz. It
was a decent band director, Mr. [?] and Mr. [? Polikov].
I remember them. We were in the dance band. We kind
of ran ourselves. But no, I didn’t have any older guy
who said, “Listen to this.” I didn’t. I had my friends,
Mike Garson, my first friend, piano player. We hunted
it together, maybe. And my friend Steve Lipman. He
would come and see Trane with me. You had friends,
and they’d say, did you hear this record?, did you hear
that record? But I would say, more or less, I was on my
own. And the teaching, again, remember, there’s no
teaching either, because I’m studying with Mr. Shapiro,
and that’s certainly not jazz. Not that it was taboo, but
it wasn’t – nobody taught jazz then. There was no –
eventually I got to [Lennie] Tristano, because he was
the only game in town. But nobody taught jazz, really.
Kirchner: When did you get to Tristano?
Liebman: It looks like I’m 17. So, ’63, ’64, and it’s
because of my friend Mike Garson, who plays piano.
His father was a liquor salesman, and on one of the
rounds, they stopped at the Half Note. He supplied
liquor to the Half Note. Mike walked in, and he saw
Tristano with Warne [Marsh] and Lee [Konitz]. He –
Mike was a year older than me in high school. He was
part of my Impromptu Quartet, my first close friend,
musical friend. Somehow he knew the – “Do you give
lessons?” Anyway, he started studying with Lennie,
and he said, you ought to go to Lennie. I was desperate
to have anybody teach me anything about jazz, because
there was nobody. There was nothing. No books. There
was nothing to learn from.
So I went to Lennie at 17. The short of the story is,
it was a year, and I went Sundays. You might know he
lived out Hillside Avenue, 190th Street, in Jamaica.
Kirchner: In Queens.

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The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2015

Liebman: You had to take – from Brooklyn, you
had to go to Manhattan. Then you went to blah blah
– Jamaica line. You got off. You took a bus up Hillside
Avenue, and then you walked a block or two. He was
at the end of a street, Victorian house. I can see it right
now. Dark trees. It looked like Vincent Price. It looked
like the House of Usher. It was forbidding, let alone going in there. You lined up. You got in. You got a lesson.
My favorite story is, at the first lesson, I’m walking
– first of all, the room is empty, except for the piano,
living room, whatever it is. White, if I remember right.
Somebody answered the door, a little weird. I don’t
know. It was strange. And I’m intimidated and nervous, although I don’t know who Lennie really is, musically. I don’t really know. I just know he’s a famous
musician who teaches jazz, from Mike, but I’m not at
all aware of the genius that he was. He says, “What
do you play?” He’s blind, right? Because he’ll take any
instrument. “Tenor.” He says, “Play a B-flat major scale
from the bottom all the way up to the top.” Now you
know, because you’re a saxophone player, how difficult
it is on a good day to get a B-flat out with having an explosion, and on a nervous day, at 17 years old, etc., etc.
So I went bleh bleh bleh. Finally it came out, and I got
up to C or D or E-flat. I think I got halfway up, and he
said, “Go home, and learn how to play your low notes.”
Or he said, “Go home and learn how to play that scale,
and don’t come back until you do.” Something like
that. That was the end of the lesson.
Of course he was right. Eventually I studied with
him. I did the Lester Young. I did the blah blah blah,
playing a melody without the chords, just with an [?]
note. I did the thing. I was loyal, because I wanted to.
I didn’t get it, not that you really get it at that age. But
I didn’t get it, and he was so strange that I – look, I’m
a kid. You’re a kid, and so everything’s personal. You
don’t like the guy. So suddenly he’s of no use to you.
You know what I mean? I didn’t say I don’t like the
guy. I didn’t have any feeling about him. But until one
night – one Sunday I came in, having just seen Trane
the night before, blown out of my brains, saying oh, I –
I’m just talking, like a kid. I say, “I saw John Coltrane
last night, and it was fantastic.” He says, “He ain’t
playing nothing, and Elvin hasn’t played good since he
came to New York.” Some categorical diss. Dissed completely categorical, nothing – don’t even go there. I’m
like – the guy couldn’t see me, but I must have fallen
off my feet. I was like, how could you say that about my
man? Anyway, that was my last lesson. I couldn’t face
him after that.
Kirchner: Reportedly he had those kind of views, but then he
would turn around. Like, I heard that he loved Wayne Shorter’s
solo on E.S.P. on the Miles [Davis] record.
Liebman: It’s quite possible. He was very selective.
He was a genius. But basically, it all stopped with Bird,
as far as he was concerned. In the end – look, I could
dig it. From that standpoint – it’s like a Barry Harris
situation, too. I can understand these guys. I respect

them. I appreciate them. I don’t know if that’s the way
to live, but that’s their business. Because to me, you’re
cutting off half the ship, but that’s your – if you want
to be like that, you must have a reason.
But he was – the thing about Lennie – the main
thing that I got, though, when all is said and done – I
don’t think there’s any one thing I got, except understanding more about Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh,
which is timely, because I just recorded with Lee. So
I know more now than I ever did, and it came back to
Lennie. But it was that there’s a system that you can
learn this music. Because of the conditions in those
days, and the “we can’t teach jazz” thing that was
around, you just didn’t know what to do. I saw – even
though it wasn’t right for me, and I wasn’t – it wasn’t
Lennie. It was me. I wasn’t mature enough – that you
could learn this music. You can do something. It isn’t
just hit and miss and put your finger in the air and wait
for the wind to hit. That was the thing that – I didn’t
know it then when I left him, but I see that that’s what
it is. He said, “This is serious business,” because he
was very serious. Outside of peculiarities, and eightminute lesson, and when you missed a lesson, you had
to pay – I never heard of that before, but he was right,
etc., etc. – the point was that this was a discipline that
was real, and there was a way to approach it, which
came to roost 20 years later when I became this jazz
education thing. But that was a thing that had to be
noticed. There was a guy who really knew what he was
doing.
Kirchner: Our lives ran parallel in a number of ways. One of
them is, I studied with Lee when I was about the same age as you
were, when I was – from 18 to 20.
Liebman: He’s much more communicative.
Kirchner: Yeah. Lee is a more sympathetic person than Lennie
was.
Liebman: As a human being.
Kirchner: That was for me a life-changing experience. But I
got the same revelation that you did.
Liebman: Especially at that age, and especially in
our time, because of the lack of its being organized. We
didn’t know Jerry Coker. I didn’t know [David] Baker.
That’s going to come later, when I finally met them and
became friendly with them, familiar with them. But
we from New York had nobody. We had [John] Mehegan, Hall Overton’s little class on [Thelonious] Monk
or whatever he did at The New School, and Lennie
Tristano. That was it in New York City, from what I
understood.
Eventually I took lessons with Charles Lloyd. I
went up to Charles. This is a couple of years later. This
is just because Bob Moses, who became my first real
playing friend, and who was way ahead of me. He was
into jazz when he was eight years old. Parents lived in
the same building with Max Roach and Elvin Jones,

Central Park West. Abbey Lincoln was his godmother.
Blah blah blah. He was my conduit to knowledge. I
said, “Who’s the one that sounds the most like Trane?
Who can I go to.” He said, “Charles Lloyd. He’s playing
with Cannonball Adderley.” So I went to the Half Note.
Sure enough, they’re doing Fiddler on the Roof and all
that. I went up to Charles, dressed beautifully, perfect.
I went, “Mr. Lloyd, do you teach?” That’s all. I just
said, “Do you teach?” He said, “No.” Then he looked at
me. He said, “But you could come over tomorrow. I live
on West 4th Street, across from the firehouse,” which
is right near the – right across from the Blue Note. I
said okay.
I went that next day, Sunday. It was the next day.
And for the next year I spent every Sunday with him.
I even drove Keith [Jarrett] and Cecil [McBee] – they
don’t remember – Cecil, Keith, and Jack [DeJohnette],
I drove them to Newport for them, because they were
playing. And this is when I saw Trane at Newport, ’66.
Okay, I’m 20 years old.
I spent the year with Charles. I became his gofer,
his aide-de-camp. I drove him around. I got him when
he was at Slugs with [Pete] LaRoca. That’s when I
first met Pete, Tony Williams, etc., etc. I was a kid. He
didn’t teach me. I just hung out with him. We just hung
out. I helped him. One night he said, “Let’s go. We’re
driving to New Jersey.” He looked in the New York
Times. He went and he bought a Maserati, that day in
New Jersey. Went to this beautiful, elegant house overlooking the Palisades, or something like that. Went up
there. “I’m Mr. Lloyd.” Blah blah blah. “I’m interested
in buying your car.” He said, “Okay, I’ll buy it with
cash.” I don’t remember. But I was his guy at that time.
I spent a year, a solid year, being with him. I can’t tell
you that I learned anything in particular, but there are
things that I gleaned from being around him, because
he was a very intelligent teacher-type guy. He was a
teacher, and there were things that I got out of him.
But again, once again, there was nobody to really
tell you what to do. So, at 20 years old, I was still in
the same boat, which is like, there’s not going to be
anybody to tell me. Now I could see that this is all
going to be hit and miss, trial and error. Finally. No
teacher is going to show you what’s going on. You’re
not going to get instruction from A to Z in order. Berklee School of Music, that’s not – you don’t do that. So,
what? – you’re on your own. I realized then that the
only way I’m going to get good, is playing, playing, man
hours spent on the horn, just man hours. That was the
resolve that led me to the next years of my life, which
is finally, after college – whenever we discuss that –
the whole idea, how to live in a loft, that I had to play
every day. I had to have drums and a piano, and a bass
if possible, and that that door had to be open all day,
and that was the only way I was ever going to get good,
because of this situation.

U To be continued next issue.

Spring / Summer 2015 • The NOTE

33

Readers, please take NOTE
COTA Camp Jazz

July 27-Aug 2, 2015 Founded in 2007 by Phil Woods, the
camp focuses on small group improvisation, inspiration
and motivation for musicians ages 13 and up. Students
experience level specific study of harmony, ear training,
listening, history and more. The curriculum also includes
the world-renowned Deer Head Inn, Red Rock Recording
Studio sessions and a family gazebo concert.
Faculty: Dr. Matt Vashlishan, Evan Gregor, Bobby Avey,
Sue Terry, Dr. Sherrie Maricle, Spencer Reed, Jay Rattman
with Master Classes by Phil Woods, Dave Liebman, Bob
Dorough and more…
www.campjazz.org

The 10th Annual Scranton Jazz Festival

August 14-16, 2015 This summer The Scranton Jazz Festival will celebrate its 11th year at the historic Radisson
Lackawanna Station Hotel and various downtown Scranton venues. Attracting international, national, and regional jazz/blues and world beat artists, the SJF has proven to
be a “don’t miss” summer musical event!
www.scrantonjazzfestival.org

The Delaware Water Gap Celebration of
the Arts (COTA) Festival

September 11-13, 2015 Founded in 1978 by NEA Jazz
Master Phil Woods, trombonist Rick Chamberlain and the
late Ed Joubert primarily to share jazz and it’s relationship
to all art forms with neighbors, COTA has become a reunion of old friends both on the stage and off. The festival
features many local jazz and visual artists that have made

the Poconos their home. Come celebrate the festival in its
38th year!
www.cotajazz.org

ZOOT Fest 2015

November 8, 2015 Zoot Fest is a major annual fundraising event to benefit the Al Cohn Memorial Jazz Collection
and its important outreach initiatives. A portion of ticket
proceeds will also benefit COTA Camp Jazz via a donation
to the Delaware Water Gap Celebration of the Arts Fund
for Young Musicians. This year Zoot Fest will be held in
ESU’s new Innovation Center conveniently located off
Interstate route 80 at the Marshalls Creek exit.
www.jazzatesu.com

Pennsylvania Jazz Collective:

Improving the future through arts education.
The Pennsylvania Jazz Collective is a Lehigh Valley Pennsylvania 501 (c) 3 non-profit, non-stock company, organized exclusively for educational and charitable purposes,
more specifically to foster jazz appreciation through a
regular series of educational initiatives, public performances, and special programs.
“PA Jazz focuses on the musical communication that is at
the core of jazz, which is an expression of individuality
and the spontaneous artistic language spoken within the
context of a democratic framework. We are cognizant that
jazz performers and students draw upon multiple educational and social disciplines to simultaneously interact in
a manner that uniquely ties together many educational
disciplines and learning domains.”
www.pajazzcollective.org

Contributors & Acknowledgements
For additional information about the contributors to The NOTE, you can visit their websites:
Phil Woods: www.philwoods.com
Michael Stephans: www.michaelstephans.com
Scarecrow Press: https://rowman.com/ISBN/978-0-8108-8290-4
David Liebman: www.daveliebman.com
Jay Rattman: www.jayrattman.com
Bill Crow: www.billcrowbass.com
Special thanks to:
Marcia G. Welsh, Ph.D., Brenda Friday, Ph.D., and Edward Owusu-Ansah, Ph.D. for showing their support for
the Al Cohn Memorial Jazz Collection and providing an opportunity for you to enjoy this publication; Gordon Jack and
Jazz Journal International for the use of their article, Phil Woods for his continuous humor and ability to remember
and articulate such great stories; Bob Weidner and John Herr and all of the ACMJC contributors for their spectacular
photographs, Michael Stephans and Scarecrow Press for their permission to print a great excerpt, Charles de Bourbon
for the graphic design, and the ESU Staff for making this publication possible.

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The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2015

Spring / Summer 2015 • The NOTE

35

Lew Tabackin playing at Zoot Fest 2014
Photo by Bob Weidner