The NOTE

Al Cohn Memorial Jazz Collection of East Stroudsburg University • Spring / Summer 2017

CLARK TERRY • GERRY MULLIGAN • DEER HEAD RECORDS

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
Dr. Matt Vashlishan
4
From the Bridge: Warm Ups and Hot Ideas
Su Terry
6

Clark Terry Interview with Steve Voce

14
Pepper Adams’ Joy Road: An Annotated Discography
Gary Carner
15

Gordon Jack: The Gerry Mulligan Sextet

20
The Deer Head Inn & Deer Head Records
Matt Vashlishan
27
“You ‘n’ Me” by the Al Cohn-Zoot Sims Quintet
T. Storm Heter
28
You Can’t Get There From Here
Steve Voce
30

Smithsonian Institute NEA Jazz Masters Project:
Bill Kirchner with David Liebman Part 3

From the Collection...
Cover Photo (front):
Rick Chamberlain leads Camp Jazz
students from the Deer Head
to the Castle Inn
Photo by Garth Woods

Center Spread:
Gerry Mulligan
Central Park Rehearsal
Photo by Bill Crow

Cover Photo (back):
Gerry Mulligan 1960
Photo by Herb Snitzer

2

The NOTE • Spring/Summer 2017

The NOTE
Vol. 27 - No. 2 - Issue 68
Spring / Summer 2017
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
esu.edu/alcohncollection

East Stroudsburg University President
Marcia G. Welsh, Ph.D.

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.
© 2017 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 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 ANote
Coordinator
Notefrom
fromthe
the Collection
Collection Coordinator

Dr. Matt Vashlishan

I

will begin with the big news. For
those of you annually on the lookout for Zoot Fest information, the
next Zoot Fest will be on Thursday,
March 29, 2018. We moved the date
to align with the 30th anniversary of
the Al Cohn Memorial Jazz Collection. Started back in 1988, it’s hard
to believe that we are here 30 years
later! There are big plans in the
works, and part of those plans involve an early evening concert with
a drastically reduced ticket price.
The Collection can’t survive without
community support, and my goal for
this upcoming concert (and others
- more on that below) is to get the
local community more involved. We
appreciate support from all communities, and I know many of you travel
some distance to attend Zoot Fest.
This is ideally a time we can bring
different age groups and communities together to celebrate the best
jazz that history has to offer. So like
always, please keep a lookout on
esu.edu/jazzatesu for all information regarding Zoot Fest and other
events we will have in coordination
with the Collection.
As the ACMJC Coordinator, my
efforts to promote the Collection
are spread out through a variety of

mediums. Sometimes I communicate with you through this column,
other times I get to spend time on
the phone with you, or through
email. Sometimes I meet people in
town and the conversation leads to
discussing jazz. One of these discussions in particular took place at the
local coffee shop in town, Café Duet.
The owner of the café and I
were having one of our usual philosophical conversations where I try to
persuade him to realize his opinion
isn’t what he thinks it is (a fun game
we used to play there often until
he no longer worked as a barista
behind the counter). On this particular occasion, the opinion he had
was that he didn’t like any big band
music. Now, you must realize that
along with incredible food, a hip atmosphere and excellent coffee, this
café has one of the highest quality,
well-rounded playlists in town (and
only on vinyl!). I knew he had great
taste in a variety of different genres,
but as active and passionate as I
am in the big band world, I simply
refused to believe that he didn’t like
any big band music! We proceeded
to discuss some of my favorite
records, old and new, this composer
and that composer, some of which
he was familiar with and some he
wasn’t. I left him that day insisting
there was a big band record out
there that he absolutely loves, and
I wouldn’t back down! And in true
form of our little game, he insisted
there wasn’t, and wouldn’t back
down either.
Fast-forward several months.
We didn’t see each other a single
day during this time. My guess is
business and family got the best of
our social jousting. Out of the blue
I get a voicemail on my cell phone,
and it was him saying, “You’ll never
believe this and I hate to admit it,
but you were right! I found a big
band recording that I love!” So
I stopped in the shop again and
we talked about it. What was the

record? The Duke Ellington band
playing The Nutcracker Suite! If you
haven’t heard this recording it is
worth the effort.
Our conversation migrated
towards how accessible this recording can make jazz to a wide variety
of audiences. The culmination of our
discussion that day is to try to bring
that music to the community. I recently started planning to combine
forces with a few local businesses to
present this music to the community
in its entirety this coming holiday
season, featuring the musicians of
the Water Gap Jazz Orchestra. So
once again, please keep a lookout
on esu.edu/jazzatesu for information regarding this concert. If you
plan on attending the COTA Festival
in the Water Gap this September,
the Ellington Nutcracker could be a
nice event to hold you over until the
new Zoot Fest date in March.
The last few issues of the Note
were themed issues, which got us
off the beaten path a bit. This issue
will set us back on track with a more
random selection of material. Dave
Liebman’s Smithsonian interview is
back picking up where we left off.
Prior to this issue, I included his
original interview with Bill Kirchner
in its raw state, but upon further
reflection I started to trim the fat a
bit to make it an easier read. There
are also a few newer contributors
getting their feet wet, so enjoy that
material as well. Please feel free to
contact me with any suggestions or
comments you might have as you
read. I would like to give special
thanks to Jazz Journal International
for permission to provide you some
of the material in this issue. I think
it’s a great partnership with the
authors that I can present their work
to you and at the same time provide
you all with unique photographs that
have been donated to the ACMJC
that accompany their writing.
Thank you for your support and
enjoy! U

Spring/Summer 2017 • The NOTE

3

From the Bridge

James Richard

Warm Ups and Hot Ideas
By Su Terry • Suterry.com

I

n the winter of 1996-97 I lived in Köln, Germany for
several months while playing a show at the Tanzbrunnen Theater, situated in a bucolic area on the River Rhine. Between the show and other gigs I didn’t have
much time off, but I did get to a movie theater once.
The Island of Dr. Moreau, starring Marlon Brando, had
just been released. The version I saw was dubbed in
German, of course. Weird, especially since one of the
main points of going to see a Marlon Brando film is to
hear his unforgettably dulcet vocal modulations.
I settled into my seat in the well-appointed theater,
preparing to ignore the previews. I never pay attention
to them; I consider them an infringement on my space.
In the old days of network television, I understood the
need for ads to subsidize the program since viewers
were watching it for free (if you don’t count paying for
the electricity and the home in which to watch the TV
set you also bought.) But if I’ve already paid for something, why do I have to be subjected to otherwise unwanted content? Oh wait, I forgot: in the old days, we
paid to have things. Now we pay to NOT HAVE things.
So there I was in a German movie theater, eagerly
awaiting the appearance of Marlon Brandenburg,
né Brando. Waiting, waiting, waiting. The movie, as
it turned out, was preceded by a full 30 minutes of
previews and advertisements! Americans would never
stand (or sit) for this, I thought. But a mere decade
later the same thing was happening in the States, not
only in movie theaters but also on television (I guess I’ll
leave the sound on this time ‘cause my muting thumb is
SO tired).
Having traveled a good deal (and gotten paid for it,
unlike you schlubs who fork over big bucks just because
you don’t want to work on your vacation like I do) I’ve
been impressed with many innovations I’ve seen while
on tour–long film previews and TV advertisements

4

The NOTE • Spring/Summer 2017

notwithstanding. Apparently filmmaker Michael Moore
had the same idea. His 2015 documentary Where
Should We Invade Next features Moore’s team scouting
out several countries, researching good ideas to steal.
How about eight weeks paid vacation in Italy? Or maximum security prisons in Norway where the prisoners
have their own apartments and the facility has a music
teacher, a recording studio and its own record label? I
loved the brief scene of a thermalbad (thermal bath)
in Germany, which I frequented weekly while living in
Köln. In addition to restoring my shredded equilibrium
(it wasn’t an easy gig) the thermalbad was very affordable. All of the above are testaments to civilized living,
n’est pas?
I recall a scene in the Netherlands as I was strolling
down the Binnenhof about 30 years ago: a lady was
walking a dachshund whose hind legs didn’t work. He
did just fine, propelling himself with his front legs while
the hind legs tagged along on a miniature skateboard.
I understand this workaround is commonplace now,
but in the 1980s it sure wasn’t. On the other side of
the planet, in Tokyo Station in 1992, I bought a CAN OF
HOT COFFEE from a vending machine. Brilliant! How
do machines dispense hot coffee in the States? A flimsy
cardboard cup drops down, some brown liquid squirts
out, you spill it taking it off the tray because there’s no
lid. Attention, entrepreneurs: vending machines with
hot coffee in cans–a gold mine! You heard it here first–
cut me in for 1 percent and we’re good.
In South America (my current base of operations as
Artist in Residence at the Jazz Society of Ecuador) toilet
paper is dispensed by machines outside the stalls. This
handily circumvents the possibility that loose rolls of
TP have rolled around on the possibly-wet floor, been
picked back up and left sitting on top of whatever small
ledge or asymmetrical platform surrounds the toilet,

where they can fall off and roll around on the floor
some more, as happens in my native land quite often.
Although it’s possible that the TP in the machines also
could have been dropped and rolled around on the
floor before being picked back up and re-inserted–but
the idea is good, you must admit! We can always work
the kinks out later.
Let’s help out our new White House administration that purports to be bringing change to the United
States. I propose that a new commission be formed,
somewhat on the order of Michael Moore’s quest. It
could be called the Committee for Appropriation of
Foreign Ideas (CAFI). The job of this committee would

be to travel around the world on the government’s
dime, writing down and photographing every good
idea it comes across, like skateboards for mobilitychallenged dachshunds and vending machines with hot
coffee in cans. Surely, readers of The Note would be
ideal members of such a team. Submit your resumés to
this address:
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20500
Compensation will be commensurate with experience. Kickbacks are negotiable. And I could use a nice,
hot, canned coffee right about now. U

Illustration by Jonathan Glass — fountaingallerynyc.com

Spring/Summer 2017 • The NOTE

5

Clark Terry Interview with Steve Voce

F

or someone who must be amongst the most
gregarious of jazz musicians, Clark Terry
presents an atypically lone figure. For more
than 30 years he has been acknowledged as one of
the best craftsmen on his horns and has reached
an eminence where the myriad of solo bookings
he takes across the world each year are taken for
granted, very much in the way that his seemingly
infallible inspiration is. Promoters program his
name at Nice or Newport without thinking twice.
You can stick Clark with anything and it will work,
and not only that, whatever it is will reach new
levels because of his presence.

Terry is a great teacher with a real interest in
the past and present state of the horn, and his was
a benign influence on most of the post-bop players.
His fluency and tone production are immaculate
and something for young musicians to try to emulate. All this mastery comes with an effervescent
character and sense of humor that make him one
of the musicians most popular with his fellows. Add
his strong sense of integrity—what you see is what
you get—and it begins to sound as though we have
an exceptional man in our sights.
He seems to enjoy himself so much that his
appears to be a life without problems, and it is true
that today he is probably happier than at any stage
of his life. But he has had his ups and downs likely
anybody else: He was shattered by the long illness
and subsequent early death of his wife. Then on one
occasion he was driving home through New York
when his car had a puncture.
Clark tried to pull the hub cap off the wheel.
The inside edge of the cap was razor sharp and
sliced into all his fingertips. Apart from not being
able to play for some time, the shock of this probably induced his diabetes—a blow to one who had
so manifestly enjoyed a taste; ever since he has
been able to drink only a little red wine.
He loves big bands and ran one of his own for
years with great artistic success, but he doesn’t
have the tough nature that band leading requires.
He learned a never-to-be-forgotten lesson when
he toured Europe at the head of a team of ex-Basie
stars and discovered what it is like to be at the
wrong end of a prima donna temperament.
This begins to sound like a sad story, but that
cannot be in the case of a man who makes people
happy just to look at him. A man who, ironically,
is known to thousands as a great and humorous
vocalist, rather than one of the greatest of all jazz
trumpeters.

6

The NOTE • Spring/Summer 2017

THE INTERVIEW
In my hometown of St. Louis there were so many
trumpet players, all the way back to Charlie Creath,
the King Of The Cornet, Bruz Woods, Baby James, Levi
Madison, Dewey Jackson, Mouse Randolph, Sleepy
Tomlin. All were fantastic players, and us younger kids
always had a bunch of these guys to look up to. Some
we could ask questions of, but some we couldn’t because in those days the older players thought that the
younger players were trying to get in on their scene.
You remember even Louis Armstrong back in
those days used to keep the handkerchief over his
fingers so that the cats couldn’t steal his tricks. But
fortunately that attitude is really the opposite of
the situation today. Those of us who are involved in
jazz education feel that it’s a very important thing
to impart knowledge to young people. Many of the
things that are involved can’t possibly be documented
and if we go down with them so go down most of the
secrets.
Amongst the first recordings that I learned to solo
from were Erskine Hawkins’ Tuxedo Junction and No
Soap. I was very much surprised to find out that the
soloist was not Erskine Hawkins, but a trumpeter by
the name of Dud Bascomb. He had a unique approach
to chords and resolutions and the harmonic structure
he used was very original. He would pick beautiful notes out of the chord that the average person
wouldn’t even think of settling on. He would play flatted fifths, flatted ninths even back then in the early
forties. So I was listening to him, and I was trying to
use Lester Young’s type of articulation.
I had a different concept of the way the trumpet
should sound, and I played with a piece of felt over
the horn. Perhaps my fluent technique came partly
from the fact that I used to practice on the clarinet
book when I was in the navy. The passages in the
clarinet books seemed to be more legato and fluid—
the trumpet ones tended to be staccato. I just loved
to get involved in the velocity part of phrases.
As a result of this I became pretty versatile, so
that people hired me to play certain roles. These may
not have been roles that I would have chosen for
myself, but I tried hard to do everything that was required of me. I suppose that if I had had the security
and freedom I would have gotten into a different vein
a little quicker.
Once I got out of the big bands I was more relaxed and able to get into what I eventually considered to be my thing. Most of the time in the old days
the big band leaders would ask me to play something

Herb Snitzer

Clark Terry in Boston 1983

similar to the same solos each night so that alone
would stymie you. That would put a stumbling block in
the path of your ability to create.
With regard to the so-called half valve thing, it’s not
true that I derived my style from Rex Stewart. One of
my contemporaries mentioned that I derived the style
from Rex Stewart and the half valve, which was untrue.
I’d never even heard or seen Rex Stewart at this particular time and I never knew what he was doing.
After I got into the Ellington band some of the guys
in the band played this record where he was talking through the horn with Ivy Anderson singing, and
I learned to do that little bit from the record, but it is
completely wrong to suggest that I developed a style
built around Rex’s. Leonard Feather said that I played
the half valve style. The only time my valves are halfvalved when playing is when they don’t come up, when
they stick or something. I’m too busy trying to make
as clear a note, as full a note or as beautiful a note, as
meaningful a note or as colorful a note as I possibly
can. I found that there were many other specific ways

to create that sort of effect other than to half suppress
a valve.
I spent much of the early days in St. Louis with
friends like Ernie Wilkins, although even then I used
to travel a lot to out-of-town jobs. There was a pianist
from East St. Louis, which is where Miles was raised up.
I don’t know his last name. Don’t think any of us did,
but we used to call him Duke. He was a fantastic player
who was later killed while he was travelling to New York
to start working there.
One time I got a phone call in the middle of the
night. “Hiya, Clark.” I’d just been hanging out and I was
kind of half-wasted and half sleepy and very annoyed
because someone’s calling me up between four and
five o’clock in the morning. “This is Duke.” “Duke? What
you doing calling me up at this time? Call me up later in
the day,” I growled. “What time?” he asked. “Any time
after two or three o’clock.” He said “Yeah, OK,” and
hung up.
I’m angry and mumbling, “This jive turkey calling
me up at this time of the morning, gobble, gobble,

Spring/Summer 2017 • The NOTE

7

gobble.” I’m doing my mumbles bit, you know. So I slept
until about one or two o’clock and finally the phone
rings. “Hello,this is Duke. You told me to call you,” and
the voice sounds a little different this time so I said,
“Duke who?” and he said “Duke Ellington. I called you
earlier this morning and you told me to call you back
this evening after you’ve had some rest.”
I said, “Ooh yes, that’s right!” I felt like crawling
under the bed, even though he wasn’t mad. I couldn’t
believe that I had talked like this to Duke Ellington and
that he actually called me back! This was of course
before I went in the band permanently and he was
calling to ask me to come into the band temporarily. To
replace Frances Williams, I think it was.
The other Duke I mentioned used to work with
Miles Davis and Miles will probably recall his last name.
Miles’ teacher, Elwood Buchanan, was an old buddy of
mine. We used to drink beer together in a couple of our
favorite watering holes, and always used to be telling
me. “Man, you’ve got to come over to school and hear
this little cat, Dewey Davis, man, he’s fantastic.”
Elwood taught over in East St. Louis. So I went over
one day and sure enough here was this little skinny cat
about two inches wide all the way down and very, very
shy and timid. When he played you could tell then that
he was a very talented person. At this time he wanted
to use vibrato and every time he would shake a note,
Buchanan would slap his wrist and I’m sure that this
was one of the determining factors in the puritanical
straight sound which Miles developed.
On one particular occasion I was playing down at
Carbondale, Southern Illinois, with a pianist by the
name of Benny Reid, who had one leg. We called him
Dot And A Dash. We were playing this May Day celebration and Miles came down with his high school band
from East St. Louis. He came up while I was playing
with Benny and asked me to show him some things
he wanted to do on the trumpet. “Man,” I told him, “I
don’t want to talk about no trumpet!” I was looking at
the little girls sashaying around, so Miles, very crestfallen, said “OK,” and walked away.
About six months later I went to our favorite jazz
spot called the Elks Club, where Roy would come and
hang out. There were about 90 stairs up to the place
and when I was about half way up I heard this fantastic
trumpet, very fast. “Wow!” I said, “That’s a new horn,
I never heard that one before.” I ran up the rest of the
stairs. Eddie Randall’s band was playing and I ran up to
the bandstand. This timid little skinny cat was playing
and I said “Hey, man! Aren’t you the guy . . .?” and he
said “Yeah, I’m the cat you fluffed off at Carbondale.”
We laugh about that quite often now.
It was through me that Count Basie acquired Ernie
Wilkins. We were on Broadway at the Strand with the
film Key Largo. I was talking to Basie one day while he
was in the steam room. “Hey,” he said, “I need an alto
player and a trombone player.” “OK,” I said, “I’ll get ‘em

8

The NOTE • Spring/Summer 2017

for you,” because up to that point I’d brought many
people into the band and he’d never questioned my
choice of any of them. Right away I’m thinking, “...Alto
player? I wonder if Ernie can play alto?” He was strictly
a tenor player then but I figured he had a big enough
sound, he read well and he’s a good enough musician.
So I called Ernie in St. Louis.
“Hey Ernie! You wanna come and join Basie’s
band?” He said, “Aw, man, stop kidding me!” I said, “Seriously. Can you get here in the next couple of days?”
After some time I managed to convince him that I was
serious. “And bring Jimmy,” I told him. “Jimmy too!” (His
brother Jimmy is a fine trombone player). So Ernie and
Jimmy came to New York and the next morning I took
them into the theatre and I said, “Basie, these are your
new alto and trombone players. Ernie Wilkins and his
brother Jimmy. And in case Jimmy Mundy and the other
arrangers get tied up, Ernie can write very well he can
help them out.”
So Ernie came in with what we called a gray ghost,
an old zinc plated alto saxophone that he had borrowed from somebody who had played saxophone in
the church choir! It was held together by rubber bands.
Anyway, just as I figured, he went to work right away
and he had a good enough sound to sit there beside
Marshall. The band was at its lowest ebb because it
had just started, so Basie said to me, “You say this cat
can write?” I said, “Yeah!” so he said “OK, we’ll let him
do something for this new singer we got.” A kid named
Joe Williams! So he let Ernie loose and the first thing he
wrote was Every Day I Have the Blues and that particular tune with Joe Williams is what catapulted the band
back into prominence.
You know I shudder sometimes when I think about
how all of this happened as a result of that big lie that I
told Basie when I called up Ernie Wilkins who was working in a little place over in East St. Louis, Missouri, for 75
cents a night!
Whenever he was ill, Count used to call for me to
lead the band. And if they would try someone else in
front of it he would say, “Hey, that’s the man you get.
Get my man Clark up there!” and that used to make me
feel so good. But it never really materialized to anything
on a permanent basis after Count had gone because of
his adopted son. He and I never saw eye to eye.
But I’m happy to see that they got a good man now
in Frank Foster. Thad was great too, but they never did
too many things with Thad because I think he really
wanted to put his own type of band into the Basie band
and I don’t think that would have worked too well. He
asked the guys to bring in sopranos and so forth. You
couldn’t blame Thad for that, but Frank has decided
that he’s going to write strictly in the Basie idiom and
keep the band swinging and still play himself. I envy
him, because I really miss my own big band.
I ought to tell you how I came to join Duke Ellington. I was with Basie, and Duke had been scouting

Joe Warwick

Mousey Alexander and Clark Terry

me and he sent a few people over to hear the band at
the Brass Rail and the Capitol Lounge where we were
playing in Chicago. He said, “I can’t just take a man out
of my friend’s band, so I’m going to put you on salary.
Then you suddenly get ill and just go home, OK?” So I
told Basie and I went home. Meanwhile I’m getting my
salary from Duke and on November 11, 1951, Armistice
Day, Duke’s band came through, and I just happened
to join the band. We were playing a big show that day
with Sarah Vaughan, Nat Cole, Stumpy Patterson and
Peg Leg Bates.
When I left Basie’s band he had just given me a
raise. I was making $125 a week and Basie had given
me a $15 raise. I’m making $140 and when I put my notice he took back the raise! I didn’t tell Basie this story
about going to Duke for years but when I did he said, “I
knew it, I knew it all the time!”
There were so many guys in the Ellington band who
were fantastic soloists and here I come, a little young
upstart who nobody had heard of—I was lucky to get
a piece to play on like Perdido. I’m just one of the few

people who soloed in the band that Duke only wrote
one piece for. I think Juniflip for the flügel was the only
thing he wrote for me from start to finish.
When I first joined Ellington, the band was not
really too cordial to any newcomer. Many times Duke
wouldn’t call a tune. He would suggest what he had in
mind through an introduction which all the guys who
had been there for some time would know. Here I am
sitting in the section, which at this time consisted of
Harold Baker, Cat Anderson, and Ray Nance. They were
nice guys, I can’t say that they wanted to freeze you
out, but it was just customary for the band members to
be that way in the band to new people. So I’d look over
to see what they’re playing.
Then all of a sudden I found I had a friend up in the
next row, Butter. So I would look up to Quentin Jackson.
“Hey Butter,” I’d say through the side of my mouth,
“what are they playing?” “Oh, 156,” he’d say. Then I’d
flip, flip, flip through the book to where 156 was supposed to be. There’s 155 and 157 but no 156 so I’d
growl to Butter, “It’s not here!” “Fake it, baby!” he said.’
Spring/Summer 2017 • The NOTE
9

Peter Kiefer

I did some writing for the
band myself and you can hear
my style in things like Jones.
Duke gets half composer credit
and Barney Bigard always
claimed that he wrote Mood
Indigo, but the main credit
there goes to Duke too.
He was very well known
for that. For instance Cootie
had as his warm-up before a
session the phrases that Duke
later turned into Concerto For
Cootie and Do Nothin’ Til You
Hear From Me. Duke wrote
down his warm-up. But Cootie
would never have made a tune
out of that, so if it hadn’t been
for Duke there wouldn’t have
been the two or three very
beautiful tunes that fit right
in there with the same set of
chord changes.
So Duke wasn’t really a
person who stole things, he
used the ideas of his surroundings, which were the guys in
his band, and they used to say
that Ellington could play his
band like an instrument. It’s
so true. Like he did with me in
A Drum Is A Woman. He said
“Hey, Sweetie, you’re going
to portray the role of Buddy
Bolden.” Obviously I’d never
heard Buddy Bolden, but after
about five or ten minutes of
convincing me that I could
do it, I thought I was Buddy
Bolden. “That’s it!” he shouted.
“You’re Buddy Bolden!”
He was very good at that.
I would say it was very important that he took some of these
ideas—perhaps even Barney would never have written
down Mood Indigo, but Duke did it and of course with
his harmonic structures. Neither Cootie nor Barney had
the expertise or the know-how to voice and compose
and arrange like Duke did, so I think it was a beautiful
idea.
Now about Jones, it was customary always if a
member of the band brought a tune in, Duke would
say “OK, we’ll play it.” If he liked it he’d explain that,
in order to record it, he would have to make himself
half-composer. But what you didn’t realise was that he
was going to publish it too—he had his own publishing

Clark Terry singing

The reason Duke didn’t write anything to feature
me was that he was very busy at that period writing
all the suites. Another thing, we had a saying that as a
new guy coming into the band you didn’t dare put your
laundry in until after about five or six years because you
didn’t know if you were going to be there permanently
or not. Maybe after about 10 years he would have
thought, “Well, I’ll write a few things for him.”
He did use me in the suites. In Such Sweet Thunder
I had the role of the funster Puck where I had to create a voice effect with the cocked valve and say, “Lord,
what fools these mortals be!

10

The NOTE • Spring/Summer 2017

Joe Warwick

Clark Terry Whispering to Zoot Sims

company. First of all, publishing-wise, half belongs to
the publishing company, so he’s already got half of it.
Now he’s half-writer of it as well, so whack! There goes
another bit, and he’s got six bits and you got a quarter!
I was with Duke for almost nine years. Many
many people ask me why I left. It was almost like they
thought I’d left heaven to go to hell or something, but
people don’t realise that a musician is constantly trying
to better his financial condition. There were occasions
when I went out on a gig for someone else and on just
half of the gig I made as much as I would have done in
two full weeks with Ellington. It’s sad, but it’s true.
I left the band to join the show Free And Easy which
Quincy Jones was putting together. We were due to go
to Europe with Duke’s band, so I went to him and said,
“Maestro, I don’t particularly want to go this time.” He
said, “Oh, come on! You’ve got to go!” At that time my
salary was $235 a week. I knew I had a deal with Quincy
making about $200 a week more. I said, “If you need
me, just pay me! $450 a week.” He said, “You drive a
hard bargain, Sweetie!” “I can get you a guy for $200,
Duke,” I told him. So he said, “Yeah, but he’s not you!”
We didn’t discuss it any longer, but then he came back
later and said “Well, I think you win. We’ll give it to

you.” So I was on $450, but just for the European tour.
When I was with Quincy at first I was the contractor, that is the guy who hires the musicians, but after
a lot of politicking Jerome Richardson, who thought
he should have had the job, finally got it. All of a sudden I wasn’t being called, although I had called him for
all the jobs. Same thing happened to me with another
good friend of ours. There’s an organisation in New
York called Mark Brown Productions. Mark and I were
very good friends. He needed a couple of guys to write
for him and I got Jay Jay Johnson the gig. I had hired Jay
Jay on contracts, you know. So Jay Jay got the gig with
an office and a secretary, and all of a sudden he’s hiring people and Mark comes to him and says, “Where’s
Clark? I don’t see him on any of the gigs,” and Jay Jay
says, “I don’t know, he’s probably busy.” So Mark calls
me and asked if I had been busy on any of the dates.
“No,” I said. So then he passes the word down that for
all the dates hereafter the first person to be called is
Clark. If he’s not available make the dates so that he is
available.
The studio work was drudgery to a degree, but we
did have a chance to play lots of new and varied music
and at the same time we were in a position to do all of

Spring/Summer 2017 • The NOTE

11

Herb Snitzer

Clark Terry 1988

the club things. There are many times when there was
so much to do that you would start early in the morning and work straight through the day and work your
show at the studio. Then if you did a jazz club like Bob
Brookmeyer and I used to do the Half Note, we’d finish
so late in the morning that we couldn’t even go home.
We’d have to stay in a hotel close to the next morning’s
gig. One of the old timers warned me when I first went
into the studio: This is referred to as ‘The House’, but
remember, Clark, a house is not home!
Bob Brookmeyer and I got along beautifully and we
still do. That band which included Roger Kellaway, was
the product of a sort of mutual admiration society, because I’d always loved Brookmeyer, and my first instrument had been valve trombone. He was a fan of mine
so we had it automatically made because we both had
great respect for each other. The merger of the flügel
horn and the valve trombone, two illegitimate scale instruments, played by guys who had put lots of time into
them, seemed natural. It like the fish horn, the soprano,
it had the same difficulties.
I first took to the flügel horn in November, 1957.
The horns made a beautiful marriage and Bob and I
were good friends so the result was good, happy music.
We were fortunate enough to get some good players
in the rhythm section and we had some good tunes

12

The NOTE • Spring/Summer 2017

together. W had a nice ‘home’ at the Half Note where
we could go in any time and play as long as we wanted.
There were three groups Zoot and Al, Jimmy Rushing
and our group used to take turns playing there.
Bob and I first met when he was on tour with Gerry
Mulligan’s Quartet and I was on the same tour with Ellington. We shared a dressing room together. Bob was
very much in his cups in those days and Mulligan was
married to a very strange lady. Then Bob and I were in
the Gerry Mulligan Concert Band together just before
we formed our own group.
Gerry was kind, and different to work for. He
was very much of a perfectionist. He still is today. He
brought a group on a cruise last year. They thought
they’d just come on and play a couple of times a day,
but he rehearsed them every day for a couple of hours
and the guys didn’t like it too much. He’s a great player
and a good writer. He writes some excellent tunes. But
I think he’s made a lot of enemies. Some of the guys
who’ve worked with him are not too fond of him. I like
him. He always has superb big bands.
I’ve always loved big bands, and of course had my
own for a long time. In that first one we had a lot of
youngsters who were then on their way up, people
like Randy Brecker, Lew Soloff and Lloyd Michaels, as
well as veterans like Frank Wess, Ray Copeland, Chris

Woods, Ernie Wilkins, Ernie Royal, Ron Carter and
Grady Tate. I recorded the band under my own label
and fortunately, with a Japanese company ordering a
couple of thousand and Big Bear in England using a lot
more, I almost broke even on that!
As it is, I’m very happy because Ursula and I are fortunate enough to enjoy the best of both worlds, Europe
and America, and it’s nice that way. We spend half the
year in New York and half in Zurich.
I was directly responsible for the return to manufacturing of the flügel horn. I used to tell Keith Ecker,
who was technical adviser on brass at Selmer in Akron,
Indiana, “I’d like some kind of horn with a more intimate sound.” I used to put the felt hat over the bell of
the trumpet to acquire the intimacy which I had always
sought. “What about the old flügel horns they used to
use all those years ago?
Now there’d been a couple of guys who used them,
Shorty Rogers and Miles Davis, but they both put trumpet mouthpieces in them and played very high because
of the larger tubing. They were using them in that fashion and the horns weren’t really good models or old
models so Keith said, “Let’s just see what we can put
together.” We sat in this basement and got some tubing
and put it together and tried different curvatures and
tubing and so forth, and eventually we put together this
horn right in his basement. The very first one that was
made by Selmer was the one that I was playing.
One of the first jobs I had after I had got it was a
record date for Riverside. I used Thelonious Monk as a
sideman, but when Monk died they brought the record out as by Monk with me as a sideman! I’d played
with him on his Brilliant Corners album. It was always
a challenge playing with him and I always loved his
music. I feel that he was creative and as different from
other musicians as Ellington was, although he didn’t
have the finesse nor was he as knowledgeable as Duke.
I think Monk took much of his style from Ellington and
he would like to have been an accomplished pianist
who could have articulated in the fashion of Ellington.
Ellington was a great pianist, as you know—a lot of
people are asleep on that. Monk wanted to play like
that but because of his shortcomings he was thrown
into another category which, although it was a strange
type of playing, created something that was different.
We love him for that.
I was surprised when he agreed to do the gig with
me. I thought he would probably say no, but he was
happy to and he was very easy to work with. He had
his moments, but he was a beautiful person and I loved
him very much. I wrote most of the pieces for the session and when they reissued it some years later, they
retitled one of my pieces.
I had a brief foray with the electric trumpet. I was
with the Selmer Company. I felt so bad about that
because it was teaching young people to rely on a gimmick. But I was being paid to do it and what could I do?

I still have the gadget at home in my garage. I look at it
with contempt and spit on it occasionally. I made that
one record with it, It’s What’s Happening.
It’s funny, you practise and practise all your life to
try to become as near perfect as you can on the trumpet, try to articulate, manipulate and do everything to
have the right sound and then you make one record of
a stupid song where nobody knows what you’re singing
and it opens up all the doors that you thought would
have been opened by practising legitimate trumpet.
Brotherhood Of Man? Yes, I recorded it twice. It
came from the show How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying. I did it once with Gary McFarland and
the other time was with Gerry Mulligan’s group. Both
versions were at the same tempo and in E flat. They
were pretty much at the same time, because that tune
was very popular then.
Gary McFarland was a fantastic talent. It was such
a waste that he went out the way that he did. He was
just a beautiful cat. He was in a bar with some friends
and he did something very stupid. They were playing
Russian Roulette with a poisonous drink. He swizzled
it around with the other drinks, and he got the bullet.
He was just that daring type of person, like Joe Maini in
California doing the same with a gun, spun the chamber
around, put the gun to his head and just happened to
get the bullet.
With Oliver Nelson I did that tribute to Louis on
Winchester Cathedral and do you know, I haven’t heard
that thing to this day. I would love to have a copy of it.
I was trying to pay tribute to Pops and in retrospect I
think about how important that was because later on
towards the end of Pops’ career I had occasion to go by
his house, to tell him that Harvard University wanted
to offer him an honorary doctor’s degree. He was still
in good spirits, but his limbs were very frail and he was
very thin—he’d lost lots of weight. It was about three
and a half weeks before his total demise. He called
me in and asked how I was. “I’m fine, Pops, aside from
just the pleasure of coming by just to see you and be
inspired and get my batteries charged again. I’m on a
special mission because Harvard University wants to offer you an honorary doctor’s degree.” So he said, “The
hell with ‘em, Daddy. Where were they 40 years ago
when I needed them?
The last thing he said to me, he said, “Yeah, Pops,
you know you’re my man!” He looked me up and down
and he said, “I love you, you’re Pops, man, and I gotta
tell you one thing, you know. The people love trumpet
playing, but you gotta sing more. People like to hear
you sing.” I took that as good advice and I try to include
a little singing in every performance I do. U

Spring/Summer 2017 • The NOTE

13

Pepper Adams’ Joy Road: An Annotated Discography

Chuck Lily

by Gary Carner (2012, Scarecrow Press), winner of the ARSC Award for Best Jazz Discography

Pepper Adams - Birdland 1956

About Pepper Adams, pianist Hank Jones told the author, in a 1988 interview:

B

aritone was the instrument, the medium that he
used to express his ideas, which were endless; absolutely endless and varied. I worked with him at
Fat Tuesday’s on a job, and I never ceased to be amazed
at the flow of ideas—continuous flow. Every chorus was
better than the last one. Now, that’s genius! And absolutely flawless execution! What else can you say? You
see, there are lots of ways to play the instrument. You
can play an instrument with what we’d like to describe
as “safe.” That is, you don’t take any chances. You don’t
go out on a limb. You play everything absolutely safe.
Of course, you can get by like that. But Pepper didn’t
play it safe. He got out on a limb. He took chances and
always made it work: harmonically, melodically, everything, in every possible way. I’ve never heard anybody
that played like that on saxophone before. The man
was just a total genius!

“

14

The NOTE • Spring/Summer 2017

The word genius carries with it many implications
and connotations. When you say, “The man is a genius,” that means that he’s capable of doing things that
nobody else is capable of doing, or at least relatively
few people. Charlie Parker had that same thing. Charlie
Parker had an endless flow of ideas, which he could
execute flawlessly at any tempo, with a tone that was
impeccable.… I was just always amazed: I used to get
the impression that there was nothing that [Pepper]
couldn’t do. I got that same impression from Charlie
Parker. There are probably things that he couldn’t do,
but, if there were, I don’t think anybody ever invented
them!… I never felt I was up to his standards, to tell
you the truth. I was reaching to play along with him.
Pepper would extend your thinking, your abilities. That
was part of the greatness of Pepper. He would make
you play. He would make you think more creatively
because he was thinking and playing creatively.”

Gordon Jack
THE GERRY MULLIGAN SEXTET
This article was first published
in Jazz Journal International in
March of 2016, and is used with
permission.
erry Mulligan formed a shortlived sextet in 1963 with Art
Farmer, Bob Brookmeyer, Jim
Hall, Bill Crow and Dave Bailey. They

Chuck Lily

G

recorded a couple of albums now
reissued on Lonehill LHJ 10222 and
also appeared at the Newport Jazz
Festival that year. It is an earlier
version of the sextet that is remembered with most affection however - the one which worked pretty
extensively from September 1955
until late 1956 featuring Zoot Sims,
Bob Brookmeyer
and Jon Eardley.
A trumpet,
trombone, tenor
and baritone ensemble is one Mulligan first worked
with as a member
of Kai Winding’s
group in the late
forties with his
good friend Brew
Moore along
with trumpeter
Jerry Lloyd (aka
Hurwitz). A few
years later in 1953
there was talk of
Mulligan, Stan
Getz, Chet Baker
and Brookmeyer
going on the road
together but this
never materialised
because Stan and
Gerry could never
agree on who was
to be the leader.
Although Mulligan’s sextet was
officially launched
in New York in
1955, west coast
audiences were
given a preview
when Zoot and
Brookmeyer appeared as guests
Gerry Mulligan NYC Jazz Fest 1956

with Gerry’s quartet at a San Diego
concert in December 1954. Three
tracks were recorded for the album
titled California Concerts - Western Reunion, I Know Don’t Know
How and The Red Door. Reunion is
Gerry’s homage to Zoot Sims and is
in fact a Bweebida Bobbida contrafact. I Know is a delightful ballad
based on the bridge from Line For
Lyons and Red Door is a joint effort
by Sims and Mulligan (Gerry wrote
the middle eight). It was named
after a rehearsal studio on West
49th Street between Broadway and
8th Avenue. Mulligan, Sims, Lester
Young, Frank Isola, Jerry Lloyd and
their friends used to pay a rental of
25 cents each to play there around
1947-48. On one occasion when
nobody had any money Gerry took
a band that included Jimmy Ford,
Brew Moore and Allen Eager to
rehearse in Central Park.
The sextet’s first rhythm section was Peck Morrison and Dave
Bailey who were both quite new to
the Mulligan scene. Impressed by
his writing for the Miles Davis nonet
they visited Nola’s studio where he
was rehearsing a tentet. It is worth
pointing out once more that Mulligan’s contribution to what became
known as The Birth Of The Cool was
far greater than was acknowledged
at the time - he arranged seven of
the 12 titles recorded by the ensemble not five as was originally
thought. John Carisi who wrote
Israel for Miles confirmed this when
he said, “Gerry wrote more than
anybody” and in an interview for
this magazine Lee Konitz told me
that he considered Mulligan to be
the guiding light for that particular
project. Just as an aside the principal writers - Mulligan, Gil Evans and
John Lewis – were apparently never

Spring/Summer 2017 • The NOTE

15

Bill Crow

always generous and protective of his musicians and a good
example of that occurred at a
club in Baltimore. Bailey and
Morrison arrived early to set up
and then sat in the club lounge
waiting for the rest of the
group. The owner told them to
wait in the kitchen because that
is where musicians stayed when
not performing. On Gerry’s
arrival he found the policy only
applied to black musicians so
he told everyone to pack up they were leaving. Dave said
the venue was sold out because “Gerry was hotter than a
firecracker at the time” and not
surprisingly the policy immediately changed that night, allowing the musicians to sit where
they liked. Peck didn’t stay too
long with the sextet because of
the demands on a bass player
in a pianoless context and his
wife was probably not too keen
on all the touring he was doing
with Mulligan. Bill Crow who
had been working with Marian
McPartland took his place.
Don Joseph another of
Mulligan’s friends was an excellent player and he was the
first choice on trumpet for the
sextet. He had played with all
the big bands that came to the
Paramount Theatre in Times
Square but his career went
downhill for various reasons
at the end of the forties. Band
leaders refused to hire him and
he even found himself unwelcome at Charlie’s Tavern which
was a musician’s hang-out.
Charlie would have one of the
bartenders throw him out if he
tried to get in, prompting the
trumpeter to once shout from
the door, “It’s me - Don Joseph.
I’m banned from bars and I’m
barred from bands!”. He missed the
rehearsals so Idrees Sulieman was
selected for the first few bookings
although he didn’t stay too long
because he had other fish to fry.
After the Cleveland booking the
sextet played Boston’s Storyville be-

Gerry Mulligan at the Newport Festival

paid for those hugely influential
charts.
Oscar Pettiford and Osie Johnson were booked for the Nola
rehearsal and when they didn’t
appear Idrees Sulieman who was
in the band introduced Morrison
to Gerry. Peck mentioned that

16

The NOTE • Spring/Summer 2017

Bailey played the drums and that is
how they joined the sextet which
opened in Cleveland’s Loop Lounge
the following week. A little later
when the group became very popular Pettiford and Johnson wanted
the gig back!
Dave told me that Mulligan was

fore recording their first album with
Sulieman’s replacement, Jon Eardley
on trumpet. The repertoire included
a number of quartet staples like
Bernie’s Tune, Nights At The Turntable and The Lady Is A Tramp as
well as a hard swinging Broadway
which has a real back-to-Basie feel.
Incidentally Turntable has part of
Chet Baker’s 1952 solo transcribed
for Eardley and Brookmeyer to play
as a background behind the leader’s
statement.
For the next few months they
remained pretty close to home often performing at New York’s Basin
Street and radio broadcasts from
the club have been released by
RLR Records. They also did a short
package tour with Dave Brubeck’s
quartet and Carmen McRae which
began with a midnight concert at
Carnegie Hall. John Williams, one of
the finest pianists of his generation
was an interesting and surprising
addition to the sextet for the tour.
Things didn’t really work out and
John returned to New York after engagements at Ann Arbor, Cincinnati
and Philadelphia. On one occasion
Carmen McRae sat in with the sextet and she was later to tell Leonard
Feather that Mulligan’s group was
her all-time favourite.
Just prior to a European tour
that began in February 1956, the
sextet was again in the recording
studio performing Gil Evans’s chart
on Debussy’s La Plus Que Lente and
Mulligan’s Mainstream. Initially the
guardians of the Debussy estate
refused to permit an arrangement
to be made of his work. Luckily
they relented because La Plus is a
sensitive ensemble reading with
brilliantly observed dynamics and
intonation. The cute Mainstream is
a stimulating exercise in improvised
counterpoint by two masters of the
form, Sims and Mulligan. The melody is only eight bars long but they
weave their way creatively through
two choruses of a 32 bar sequence
based on I Got Rhythm with the
lead constantly switching between
the tenor and the baritone.

The group sailed for Europe
on the SS Andrea Doria which was
the pride of the Italian navy at the
time but it sank a few months later
after a collision with a freighter off
the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts. They were accompanied by
Gerry’s wife Arlyne (songwriter Lew
Brown’s daughter) who was there as
his manager and Bob Brookmeyer’s
wife Phyllis also came along. Concerts were performed in Naples,
Rome, Milan, Genoa and Bologna
followed by a three week engagement at the Olympia Theatre in
Paris. They were one of the acts
on a variety bill featuring jugglers,
comedians, a dancing violin duo as
well as the Nicholas Brothers and
Jacqueline Francois who was the
headliner. There was also an unsuccessful booking at the Palais d’Hiver
in Lyon where the audience made it
quite clear that if the music didn’t
sound like Sidney Bechet it wasn’t
jazz.
Talking to me about the tour a
few years ago Bill Crow had this to
say, “We ran into places where we
followed Chet Baker whose group
was leaving a trail of bad junky vibes
around Europe. As a result we were
not welcome in some hotels and we
were searched quite seriously on
the trains. Of course the authorities nearly always picked on Dave
Bailey to be the one they searched
and he is the straightest guy you
can imagine.” Baker sat in with the
sextet for eight numbers at the Air
Force club in Landstuhl, Germany
but if recorded these performances
have never been released.
The Dutch Jazz Archive Series
has recently issued the sextet’s
entire concert from the Amsterdam
Concertgebouw where the group
was in fine, uninhibited form. There
are also three tracks recorded in
Milan on RLR Records.
Soon after their April return to
the USA on the Queen Elizabeth
Jon Eardley moved to Florida and
Don Ferarra took his place for the
sextet’s final recording on the 26th
of September 1956. They rehearsed

in the afternoon and after a meal
break recorded six titles later that
evening including Elevation which
finds the group at its most spontaneous and free-wheeling. An up
tempo blues it opens with the trombone and baritone in unison before
the trumpet and tenor are added
for a second chorus in harmony.
The climax is a stimulating passage
of extemporised polyphony with
each horn submerging its identity
resulting in a quite unique ensemble
sound. In his role as resident Pied
Piper Mulligan develops Don Ferrara’s closing phrase leading the
group through a series of extemporised riffs and phrases, creating
a form and structure worthy of a
written arrangement.
Gerry wanted Ferrara to remain
with the sextet but Don was working with Lee Konitz at the time so
Dave Bailey recommended Oliver
Beener who sight read the parts
with ease. He remained with the
group for several weeks including
the sextet’s final booking at the upstairs room of the Preview Lounge
in Chicago. By this time Zoot Sims
had begun working with his own
quartet and he told Gerry he would
not accept any more sextet bookings. As Mulligan explained to me a
few years before he died he readily understood, “A soloist like that
would have found it to be a straitjacket after a while and I certainly
didn’t try to replace him – Zoot was
Zoot”.
The sextet was the finest of all
Gerry Mulligan’s pianoless small
groups and everything it recorded is
currently available – as far as I can
tell. U

DISCOGRAPHY

The fabulous Gerry Mulligan Sextet
(3 CD set) – Fresh Sound 417.
Gerry Mulligan Sextet/Quartet Rare
And Unissued 1955-56 Broadcasts
RLR Records 88660.
Gerry Mulligan Sextet Jazz At The
Concertgebouw MCN0801.

Spring/Summer 2017 • The NOTE

17

Gerry Mulligan Central Park Rehearsal 1950s – Phil Leshin (b
Photo by Bill Crow

bass), Harry Bugin (bass), Gail Madden, Gerry Mulligan

The Deer Head Inn & Deer Head Records
The Center of Jazz in the Poconos

The Central House: Before the Deer Head Inn

Matt Vashlishan: It is Friday, April 21, 2017 and I am here at

the Deer Head Inn in Delaware Water Gap, Pa., with Mary and
Denny Carrig, the owners of the Deer Head Inn. We are going
to talk a little bit about the Deer Head Inn as well as their new
record label Deer Head Records. I would like to start of by asking if you could explain the history of the Deer Head – how it
came to be or maybe what it was before it was a music venue?
It believe it was a hotel of some kind? (For more information
on this topic, see Pat Dorian’s article in the Summer/Fall 2012
issue 58!)

Denny Carrig: Yes it was a hotel. 1853 is the date
that we have. There are a few sources that have discrepancies as far as the date goes, but we chose 1853
because it was the most common. It was called the
Central House back then. The construction lasted until
1865 because it was done in three different phases. The
house where Bob and Fay Lehr lived [the first owners of
the club], the barn that Fay restored, was the carriage
house for the main building which was the Central

20

The NOTE • Spring/Summer 2017

House. I’m not sure who actually changed the name to
the Deer Head Inn but it was before Bob and Fay.
MV: Did they have music back then?
DC: No, I don’t think so. Not when it was the Central House.
MV: So you aren’t sure when it actually became
known as the Deer Head Inn?
DC: No not exactly, but it changed at some point
because the inside was lined with deer heads all
around the room on the walls. Actually the first thing
Fay did when she took it over was she took out all the
deer heads because it freaked her out! [laughs]
Supposedly, and I’m not sure if it was 1950 or 1951,
there were a few guys that were going to be playing
some Dixieland at the Stroud hotel in town. It was

MV: So are you originally from this
area?
DC: No, I was born in Washington
D.C. but I grew up in Trenton, NJ, actually five blocks from Johnny Coates.
When we got talking about old times
we discussed how we were both from
Trenton and what part we lived in. He
went to a high school in my old neighborhood, and he dated a girl that lived
on my block. His dad was a musician
from Trenton as well.
MV: How did you first learn about
the Deer Head then?
DC: I was in college, and I was kind
of into jazz. I liked listening to it. I had
some friends in Trenton that played,
and I would go to their gigs and I
thought it was pretty interesting. Then
I heard that the Deer Head had a really
good jazz piano player.
MV: Who was Johnny Coates
right?
DC: Yeah, so I came over with a
couple of friends one night to hear him
when I was twenty years old.

Bob Doherty

MV: That was your first time here?

The Deer Head Inn 1959
Left to Right: Jerry Segal, Bob Dorough, Bob Doherty, Bob Newman

scheduled for Good Friday, and somehow it got canceled. They said they couldn’t have it on Good Friday.
So Bob said, “Dixieland? Sure! Come on over!” So the
band came over to the Deer Head and they had the gig
here. It went really well so they kept it up continually.
MV: So it was never created specifically as a music
venue, it sort of just fell into place?
DC: Well, I think Bob had it in his head to have music. He hired Johnny Coates in 1962, when Johnny was a
senior in high school. And he played here that summer
and got to know some musicians. John Dangler was
one of the guys in the original Dixieland group, and he
looked out for Johnny when he was up here.
MV: Then he became the house pianist right?
DC: Yeah he played here continuously for over 30
years.

DC: Yeah. After that I was hooked
and have been coming continuously
since then.
MV: Did you stay around the area
the whole time?

DC: No, but I would always come back for jazz periodically.
MV: I see.
DC: I did theater and things like that around the
country. Mostly in New York and D.C.
MV: So how and when did it happen that you finally decided to take over the Deer Head?
DC: One time before Donna and Chris Soliday took
it over (after Bob and Fay), Bob and I were around here
a lot.
MV: Do you know how long Chris had it?
DC: I think they had it fifteen years. And before
that Bob and Fay were looking to sell it, and I was even
thinking about taking it over back then! So I was toying

Spring/Summer 2017 • The NOTE

21

Mary Carrig: We did, and we added private baths in
all of the rooms. Prior to this there were shared bathrooms.
MV: Was it more or less an apartment building way
back then? Or was it designed as an Inn?
DC: Well when Bob and Fay were running it, it
wasn’t an Inn. However, they did renovate some elements of it. They turned a few of the rooms into efficiency apartments, things like that. Young guys would
stay here and share the bathrooms. I think there were
three bathrooms.
MC: There were two on the second floor, and one
on the fourth floor. I used to laugh when I first got here
because every musician that came through said they
lived at the Deer Head at one point… I asked, “did anyone not live at the Deer Head?” [laughs]

with the idea and I went home and said something to
my wife and she said, “what, are you crazy?!” [laughs]
So that didn’t come to be, I got into other things. So
Chris and Donna ran it for about 15 years and then in
2005 we took it over. We just took the leap. My sister
Mary had been here a few times over the years and
really liked it. So when the possibility came up she
wanted in too. I might have been a little hesitant but I
thought it was a good idea to keep the jazz going.
MV: Of course.
DC: Like Mary, I’m one of the proprietors. We’re the
keepers of the keys so to speak. We’ve had it going on
twelve years now.
MV: Wow it doesn’t seem like it has been that long
already. And of course you did some changes when you
took over right? I remember you remodeled…
DC: Physically yeah. We basically took the building
apart and put it back together again.
MV: One element of the Deer Head people might
not realize is that there are a few upper floors used for
apartments and lodging. You redid all of that right?
Was that originally how it is now or much different?
DC: Oh not at all! [laughs]
MV: I was never really up there, but you redid the
entire thing? What a project. You made it into a functioning hotel and music venue.
be.

22

DC: We tried to bring it all back to what it should

The NOTE • Spring/Summer 2017

DC: I guess that’s how they got a gig here! Bob was
a teacher over in New Jersey and eventually became
the Superintendent of his district. So a lot of younger
teachers, mostly guys besides musicians, who were
looking for a cheap place to live would have a room
here. Fay would keep a couple rooms reserved that she
would rent out overnight. When I was doing theater up
here I invited my parents up for a show, and I arranged
for them to stay here. It was in pretty good shape.
MV: Are there a lot of musicians that stay here
now? Maybe musicians who are booked for a show or
otherwise?
DC: Occasionally yeah. If they are traveling from
far away and need a place we offer them a room for a
musician rate. We also have a few area musicians living

tival, the COTA Cats emerged. You know about that,
because now you will be directing them and giving back
yourself. You’ve mentored and are mentoring a lot of
younger musicians.
MC: And Monday night big band!
MV: That’s a good point too. Can you discuss that
variety of music you have here now? Is it any different
than it used to be? I mean, there is a lot of music going
on here. This week in particular you have a Thursday
night jam session, a straight ahead jazz quintet on Friday, NEA Jazz Master Jimmy Cobb on Saturday, a duo on
Sunday, and a full size big band on Monday. That’s quite
a selection!

in two apartments here as well.
MV: That’s interesting. So moving forward, if you
can summarize this, I’m wondering what you think the
Deer Head Inn means to the Poconos? Either musically
or culturally?
DC: Well I think it’s definitely the epicenter of jazz
music in the Poconos.
MV: And for quite a radius as well right? I mean,
there is so much music happening in the area, you’d
think there would be a few more venues, but the Deer
Head is really the whole reason that this music is even
happening here.

DC: Yeah, we get a lot of people that want to play,
and a lot of people we want, so it works both ways.
Sometimes we approach them, and other times they
ask us, so we just make decisions based on the music
we want to listen to or what works best with the schedule and the jazz community here.
MV: It seems like Friday and Saturday cater more
towards quartets, quintets, maybe a singer, and things
like that. Then Sunday is usually a smaller group, is
that right?
DC: Yeah, or solo piano. Saturday night is probably
the headliner night, but not always.
MV: Do you put any particular effort to reaching
out further than local musicians? Or do you try to keep
a good mix of local and non-local artists?
DC: Well, I have connections like you and other
musicians that live here locally. Other times I know

DC: Yeah and even from the beginning the lions
have been mentoring the cubs so to speak, and that
continues. And I witnessed a lot of it here myself when
I used to come to the more formal gigs that would
eventually turn into great jam sessions with Johnny
Coates, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, Stan Getz, and Keith Jarrett
would play the drums when John was playing piano. So
there’s always been that nucleus that emerged from
here. It was a great place for the guys to hang out. I
always say it was John Coates that made it the center
for jazz in the Poconos, but it was also Bob. He was
the guy who let it happen and encouraged it. He loved
music and played a little bit himself. He’s the one who
let these guys hang out until “the wee small hours of
the morning.”
There was a lot of good music happening and a lot
of good ideas emerged here as well, with guys sitting
at the bar. That’s where they got the idea for the COTA
Festival, and it’s now in it’s 40th year. And from that, a
lot of things emerged. Of course from the COTA Fes-

Spring/Summer 2017 • The NOTE

23

MV: And when was this all happening? When
would you say it officially began?
MC: In 2013.
DC: Is that all it has been? Wow. Here I am thinking
about all of the records we have put out since then…
MC: Richard Burton has also helped us a lot on the
business end. He is instrumental in doing the distribution. He has a lot of experience from running Vector
Disc. He has been doing this for years.
MV: So how many do you have at this point?
MC: We put out two per year, so there are eight so
far.
DC: And there is a couple more in the works.
MV: All of them were recorded live here?

people that have the connections and I do it that way.
That’s how we got Bucky Pizzarelli playing here initially.
Walt Bibinger was playing here and he was a friend
of Bucky’s and playing with him, so I said, “Hey Walt,
what do you think if you guys played here?” And that
was actually one of the first live records that we did
here, that guitar trio.
MV: That is an excellent segue. Let’s talk about
this. So a little while back you started Deer Head Records?
DC: The Deer Head Music Group is the official title.
MV: So who is involved with this?
DC: The initial conversation was between Bill
Goodwin and I. We were chatting and he mentioned
he had all these recordings; some live things that he
wanted to put out or maybe turn into a series at the
Deer Head of some sort. He wanted to release them
live and they had been recorded at the Deer Head.
Coincidentally Sonny Murray (a local lawyer that has
been involved with the music scene in the area for
many years), Mary and I were talking about starting a
label. We were thinking the same thing: “Live at the
Deer Head Inn,” and it would be great. So we asked Bill
if he would help us out because he is a great drummer
but also a great producer. He produced the records for
the Phil Woods Quintet for nearly the entire run of that
group. So he said, “OK” and we then thought his sister
(also Phil Woods’ wife) Jill would be a great addition as
well. She basically ran the business of the Phil Woods
Quintet/Quartet for their entire run. She handled the
business end of it and had a lot of experience about
the industry and the recording business. So she came
on board and actually helped us a lot.

24

The NOTE • Spring/Summer 2017

MC: Yeah. The first year we released the Guitar Trio
and Nancy Reed with John Coates. Year two was The
Quartet and Su Terry, then Phil Woods and Five Play,
and finally Clarice Assad and Bob Dorough.
DC: The idea when we first decided to do this was
to do ten records and see what happens. So right now
we have eight and one or two more in the works.
MC: We have a bunch of Phil Woods recordings
that are all live from here so there is plenty of material
to do another volume of that band.
DC: The next one will probably be Najwa Parkins.
That has been in the works for a little bit. You know
the problem has always been marketing. We are trying
to get the word out and it’s hard these days with all of
the different media outlets – all the internet sites and
social media.

MV: As a musician you’d never think it’s cool judging from the way it looks, but it is.
MC: You would think on big band night that you
would get blown out of the place but…
DC: Yeah people like sitting right in front of the
band!
MV: I know I see them come in before we start
and I often ask, “are you sure you want to do that?”
[laughs]
DC: And a lot of people request to sit there. Nobody wants to sit in the back, they love it.
MV: I should know the date, but remind me how
long we’ve been doing the big band here. It started
when we were rehearsing for the last record.
MV: Who do you have doing the physical recording? Are you using the local people like Kent at Red
Rock Recording?
DC: We use Kent and Jim McGee at Spectra Sound.
Kent has done a couple and Jim did most. We used a
few people that Richard knew for a couple as well.
MC: For the Nancy Reed and John Coates recording Spencer Reed actually had the recordings that he
made, so we used those for that.
MV: I know you mentioned you wanted to produce
ten and see what happens, but do you have any longterm plans or goals in the back of your head for this?
Would you like to expand or keep it a small operation?

MC: Yeah Phil needed a place to rehearse, so Rick
Chamberlain and Phil organized it so the band could
meet here once a month leading up to the “New Celebration” recording session.
MV: It is interesting how it has evolved, because
it was never necessarily supposed to be a monthly
concert.
DC: Well that was all Rick. He actually wanted to do
it once a week! I said, “whoa, whoa.” [laughs]
MC: During one of our late nights here he was talking after one of these rehearsals saying, “yeah the guys
were all really diggin’ it… how about we do it once a
week?!”

DC: Well the age old goal is figure out how to keep
doing it and make some of the money back!
MV: Would you like to keep it as documenting
live gigs at the club or maybe expand to where other
people can submit recordings for release under your
name?
DC: We’ve talked about that. I can’t be sure at this
point but we need to see how that evolves. I do like
the idea of the live recordings. There are so many great
groups that we know now from booking every week.
There’s a lot of music to be heard. Obviously hopping
into a studio would be a little easier than bringing everything into the club.
MV: But the acoustics are actually really good in
here for recording.
DC: Yeah we got lucky. I don’t know. There’s just
enough plaster and wood…

Spring/Summer 2017 • The NOTE

25

DC: So I quickly responded, “hey how
about once a month? That’d be great!”
[laughs]
MV: What year was this? The record
was in 2013 or so, so maybe about five
years? The big band has been a staple
in this area forever. It seems really appropriate that we finally started a regular
residency so to speak.
Over the years you have been really
generous with the space you have at the
club. Just the other month Mary was nice enough to
let us rehearse here during the day for the upcoming
Phil Woods Sax Quartet recording, and you have been
very involved with the COTA Festival as well as COTA
Camp Jazz. For the jazz community, the Deer Head has
become a central place in the Poconos, much like a
scaled down version of the Local 802 in New York City.
MC: Yeah, and some guys even teach lessons in one
of our spare rooms. The other thing that occurs to me
is that we also partner with the Morning Cure, which is
every Saturday and Sunday. They come in and use our
facility to turn the Deer Head Inn into a breakfast restaurant. We’ve been doing that for at least five years.
MV: This underscores the whole point I’m trying
to make about the club. Sure it’s the only club within
maybe 20 or 30 miles. You can see live music on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday (depending
on the week). These shows feature completely different
musical experiences and a completely different mixture
of musicians. People can hear solo
piano to big band within the span
of four days. And we aren’t talking
$40 per set like in New York. These
sets are $10 or $15, which I think is
incredibly reasonable. Our Monday
big band night is $10! In a quiet town
like the Delaware Water Gap, it’s
pretty incredible.

Woods, Dave Liebman, Urbie Green,
John Coates, and so many others are
not living right up the street from you in
those places! I often wondered what it
would be like growing up in the middle
of nowhere. All you have are the records,
which are a great thing. But hearing it
and seeing it live is a whole other story,
especially for a young kid trying to learn
the language. And these people came to
the jam sessions here. Here I was a little
kid in high school learning saxophone
getting to hear and play with Dave Liebman or work
with Phil in the Cota Cats big band, etc. It completely
changes the game.
So in closing, what can people expect when they
come to the Deer Head Inn? What lodging is available
if they want to spend the night or the weekend here?
MC: Most weekends we are pretty full. It has been
good. We offer jazz packages for people that stay here
on Friday and/or Saturday. These include the room, the
music charge, and a food voucher. We also pay a portion of the breakfast charge and that comes with the
room. All of our information is available at
deerheadinn.com.
MV: I think that sums it up nicely. Thank you both
for taking the time to share all of this information with
me. I’m looking forward to the next Deer Head Records
release! U

DC: I think some times I take it
for granted…
MV: Well I think we all do.

MV: That’s what I always used
to tell people when I went away to
college. That was the first time I
realized that you don’t have something like this in say, Minnesota. Phil

26

The NOTE • Spring/Summer 2017

Laurie Samet

DC: I have friends that are really
in to it that come from other parts of
the world and they are completely
amazed at the scene we have going
on here.

Looking in from the porch of the Deer Head Inn

Review of You ’n Me
Al Cohn-Zoot Sims Quintet (1960)
By T. Storm Heter

T

he album “You
’n Me” by the Al
Cohn-Zoot Sims
Quintet (1960) is available for listening as part
of the Al Cohn Memorial Jazz Collection.
Listening to this record
for the first time, I was
struck over the head by
the power and depth
of Zoot Sims’ soloing.
His lines are fresh and
modern. Nothing he
plays sounds like a lick,
even fifty years later! I
get the sense that playing next to him must
have been like riding in
a friend’s new Ferrari—
you hold on, just waiting for him to punch it.
Al Cohn’s arranging, composing and
full-throated playing
pull the album together as a whole.
Cohn’s two compositions “The
Note” and the title tune, “You ‘n’
Me” were my favorites. They showcased Cohn’s ability to write for
two tenors. On the opening chorus
of “The Note,” there are several
different interactions between the
two leaders: parallel lines, exchanging one or two beats to create a
phrase, harmonies, and wonderful
call and response sections. These
two musicians are not just thinking of lines in their own minds and
playing them; they are creating the
musical thoughts as one. Listening
to them reminded me of the literal
meaning of the word “conspire,”
which means to “breathe together.”
I recommend listening to this
record on headphones. The record is mixed with Sims on the left

channel and Cohn on the right.
The stereo separation heightens
the already sharp contrast in tone,
timbre and approach between the
two tenors.
As a drummer, I was especially
interested in hearing the contrasting rhythmic tendencies that the
two masters used when approaching solos. On “The Note” Cohn
solos first. He starts with two and
three beat phrases, building to a
wailing style that echoes of some
of the popular music of the time.
Then comes Sims. First he offers
a four beat phrase, then a breath,
and then a long, glassy eight beat
phrase. He goes on like this for
three choruses, with five, six or
seven beat phrases that float across
the bar line. His phrasing is propulsive. His time is so good, it makes
you want to go to the mixing board

and click mute on everyone else, even the
very good drummer,
Osie Johnson.
On the Cole Porter
tune, “You’d Be So
Nice to Come Home
To,” the tenors took a
different approach to
sharing the lead. Sims
states the melody the
first time through,
with Cohn commenting. Then the two
reverse roles. If I had
gone to music school,
I probably would have
studied this tune as an
example of difference
in tenor saxophone
playing. Sims’ playing
is light, even, layered,
and cool. Cohn’s playing is sweet, warm,
and bold. Both approaches are wonderful, and to hear them stacked
against each other on the same cut
is fun. In the end, my own ears are
again drawn to Sims’s approach,
with its lightness and rhythmic
gymnastics.
One sign of a good record is
that it forces one to rethink their
own playing. What are my takeaways? In Cohn’s playing I hear the
importance of craft, drama, and
emphasis. He shows that an honest, well-placed quarter note is
devastating. Through Sims’ playing
I hear how the musical imagination
can be stretched far across the bar
line. His liquid style is an antidote
to relying on licks. Fifty years
after it was recorded, “You ’n Me”
remains an instructive, inspiring
album. U

Spring/Summer 2017 • The NOTE

27

You Can’t Get There From Here
hen the exquisite coda to the ballad ended, the
tsunami of applause raged around the theatre
as the tenor player bent to speak to his pianist.
“Now who’s your favourite tenor player?” Stan
Getz demanded.
“Al Cohn,” said Lou Levy. “Isn’t he yours?”
Zoot Sims famously described Stan Getz as being an
interesting bunch of guys. I was lucky to meet the affable one of the pack that day in Nice during the 1980s.
With an interview in mind that I arranged the
evening before, I planned to meet Stan at eleven the
following morning outside his hotel. Naturally it was
one of the best hotels in town.
As I stood there weighed down by a BBC portable
tape recorder. I thought it quite likely that he wouldn’t
turn up. But he did, five minutes late, with his very attractive partner and a male friend who he introduced
as an acupuncturist “who does wonders for my back
pains.”
Stan led the way to the hotel’s private beach and
paid for me, as a non-resident, to enter. He chose a
good spot, pointed to the towels and we all lay down
to sunbathe. After about 20 minutes Stan began to talk
about music and I started up the Uher.
He talked first about his early days and of the band
he and Shorty Rogers had when they were eleven and
how he left school when he was 16 to join the Jack
Teagarden band.
Teagarden was a wonderful man,” he said. “The
war was on and sidemen were hard to get. But my
mother and father were anxious about me going, so
Jack had to become my guardian to convince them that
I’d be OK.”
Stan quoted some of the things that Jack had said
to him and suddenly I jumped. The voice he used was
Teagarden’s and I thought for a moment that the Texan
was lying on the beach with us!
It turned out that Stan, who I knew had a perfect
musical memory (he never forgot a tune once he’d
played it) was also a brilliant mimic.
The morning drifted on and the reels turned. I was
ecstatic. I left them to it at lunchtime.
I took the recorder back to my modest hotel and
set up the tape. It was then I discovered that the battery had failed making the tape record slow and the
playback like a bunch of white mice on a hot plate.
The back pains turned out to be the lung cancer
that eventually killed him.
Another tenor player, Bud Freeman, was cited by
Lester Young as one of his main influences. Bud liked to
think of himself as a cultured man and a connoisseur of
28 The NOTE • Spring/Summer 2017

Bill Potts

W

By Steve Voce

A very young Stan Getz from 1955

many arts besides his music making.
Very much an anglophile, he had always affected an
English accent, and was delighted when it became time
for his first visit to England in 1960.
When he stepped off the plane he was met by a
Rolls Royce sent for him by the Hon Gerald Lascelles, a
cousin of the Queen’s.
Bud was swept through the beautiful English
countryside to Fort Belvedere, ancestral home of the
Lascelles family and other royals. The Rolls passed
smoothly along the long winding drive with its beautiful poplar trees and up to the magnificent portal of the
house, where, as a liveried footman held the car door
open for him and others scurried with his luggage, he
stepped out onto a red carpet.
Bud stood and surveyed the scene with satisfaction.
“Aah,” he sighed. “I always new England would be
exactly like this.”
A few years ago Bill Crow was kind enough to let
me have his recollections of the backing for soloists
when he was in the Gerry Mulligan Concert Band:
“Gerry Mulligan established a good system with his
Concert Jazz Band. Most of the charts hung together
very well, with some backgrounds for the soloists. But

so fine in its earlier days.”
A Canadian priest, Gerald Pocock, went to hear his
friend Duke Ellington at New York’s Rainbow Grill in the
early ‘70s:
“I sat at the bar to wait for Duke and the small band
to arrive. Sonny Greer (a childhood friend of Duke’s
who had left the band in 1951) joined me at the bar
and we chatted. Ellington eventually arrived and approached me saying things like, ‘Father Pocock! How
wonderful to see you! You look wonderful! How have
you been? We must get together!’
“Ellington didn’t say a word to his old friend Sonny
Greer who was sitting next to me. He eventually excused himself, saying that the band needed to start its
set.
“Sonny Greer was understandably miffed; how
could his old friend ignore him like that? Ellington and
the band started to play, and at some point in the set
Ellington made an announcement.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we recently travelled to
Ethiopia, where we were presented to their king, the
man who has more titles than the Pope, His Imperial
Majesty Haile Selassie, Menelik, the Lion of Judah. We
were ushered into his large royal chamber. We were on
one side of the room and Selassie was at the other side
on his throne, with an assistant standing at either side.
Selassie turned and whispered something to one of his
assistants. It was very suspenseful. The assistant walked
all the way across the room, bowed and said to us: ‘The
emperor would like to know ... what the hell is Sonny
Greer up to these days?’”
Sonny Greer broke up laughing. U

From the ACMJC archive

Gerry liked to improvise backgrounds as well, as he
did in the quartets. When he wanted to open a chart
for longer solos, he would leave the soloist in the open
with the rhythm section for a chorus, and then begin
inventing background patterns. If the soloist went on
longer, the rest of the sax section would pick up on
Gerry’s patterns, harmonizing them. Then the brass
section might add a counter-pattern (Brookmeyer and
Clark Terry were very good at inventing that sort of
thing). The backgrounds would build, encouraging the
soloist, until Gerry felt we’d reached a climax, and then
he’d signal us to go on to the next written section. That
system kept the charts alive, and kept us all excited to
see what would happen each time we played a chart...
it was always somewhat different, and yet familiar
enough to keep us in a comfortable groove. The band
got very flexible with it, and as a group, came up with
wonderful new readings of the same material.
“When I first joined the band the esprit was as high
as I’ve ever experienced, mainly because it was a good
band that looked like it was going to stay together for a
while. Gerry and Norman Granz had made a deal that
would keep us working, and we were all high from the
music. (By the way, Al Cohn wasn’t playing with us...
he just wrote some good things for us). But when the
Granz deal disappeared, and Gerry was only able to
book the band for occasional appearances at Birdland,
the spirit changed a little. Since everyone had to make
a living, subs were sent in when there were conflicts in
schedule, and even though the subs were ace, like Thad
Jones and Phil Woods, and the music was great, there
was a loss of central purpose that had made the band

Blue Note - Chicago, January 1955 from left to right: John Williams, Bill Anthony, Stan Getz, Frank Isola, Tony Fruscella

Spring/Summer 2017 • The NOTE

29

David Liebman

Matt Vashlishan

Smithsonian Institute
NEA Jazz Masters Project:
Bill Kirchner with David Liebman
Part 3

The following is the Smithsonian Institute interview between
Bill Kirchner and David Liebman following his acceptance of the
NEA Jazz Masters Award, and took place in January of 2011.
This interview is incredibly extensive and is presented here in
its entirety via several installments. This is the third “episode.”
If you missed the first two portions, they were printed in the
Spring/Summer 2015 and the Fall/Winter 2016 issues.

Kirchner: You were involved in the loft scene and
started this thing called Free Life Communication,
right?
Liebman: When I knew that I had to play a lot, I
had to get into the loft situation. I was familiar with
the loft situation because of Bob Moses. By 17 he was
already living in a loft. I understood what it was about.
You could play all the time. This was exactly what I
wanted. So in 1969 when I finished college (I graduated
in June of ’68), the next day I went to upstate New York
to a place called Lake Katrine, near Kingston… Woodstock. I found a place. I went up in April. I drove a taxi
in NYC for one week in April, Easter week, mid-break.
Drove 20 hours a day to make just a certain amount
of money, because my parents said, “Once school’s
over, you got it. You’re on your own. We did enough
for you.” The NYU was $3,000 a year then, which was
– I had to get some money! So I drove a taxi. That was
an interesting week. I had enough money that I could
rent a place for like $200 a month. It’s 1969, I had a
girlfriend, and I had a bass-player friend. We went and
lived in this place from June, the day after graduation,
until Thanksgiving. And that’s my only real time of

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serious eight-hours-a-day practicing. I really had the
chance to do it. What I did, I don’t know. Transcription
or whatever.
When I came back, I said, “I must get a loft,” and
I had to teach school. I had a degree, and I had the
license for substitute teaching. I found a place on 19th
Street in January through the Village Voice. You had
to go at 7 a.m. to Sheridan Square to get the Voice
as soon as it came out. You went into the ads, and
you made the calls. By 9 a.m., you had a place or you
didn’t. Sometimes you call and you didn’t even get it! I
found this joint on 138 West 19th Street. The landlord’s
name was Lieberman, Sol Lieberman. Talk about coincidence! This is comic. Nobody lived there. It was a Tie
Dye shirt factory, three floors. I don’t know what was
on the first and second floors, but the third floor was
the one that was available. It’s the first time I ever got
wind of what key money was. I had to pay somebody
off in order to get in the door! Wild shit!
Anyway, to make a long story short, the loft became a center, and we played all the time. In the mid
70s, late 70s, Moses was the first who said it. He said,
“There’s organizations, the Chicago AACM, and there
was something in St. Louis, that Oliver Lake thing,
right? And Julius [Hemphill].” We were playing the loft
for ourselves. There are hundreds of hours of tapes.
We’re not playing for people, because jazz in ’69 is at
the lowest point it had ever been, at least up to that
time. Rock-and-roll was completely ascendant. I said,
“We got to do something. Why don’t we organize? Go
out and play in churches. Do something. We got to play
for people. We’re just playing for ourselves! It’s not
right.” Forget about making a living, because every-

body was driving a taxi, or a bartender, or whatever.
We had to do something to figure this out. So Moses
said, “They did organizations, blablabla.” Moses wasn’t
quite the organizing kind of guy, but I am. I said, “Let’s
have a meeting.”
We had a meeting and we invited Leroy Jenkins,
who was the St. Louis guy, and Anthony Braxton, who
was the Chicago guy, to come and talk to us. I’m talking 20 guys sitting on the floor of my loft. Bob Berg,
Michael [Brecker], Randy [Brecker], Chick Corea, Dave,
Lenny White, some guys who disappeared since then.
Richie Beirach, Frank Tusa, those guys. I remember,
because Leroy came up, and he basically said, “If you
don’t have a cause, there’s no reason to organize,” for
community and all that stuff. Kind of left us like, “why
did he come here and talk?” Then Anthony came up at
10 o’clock at night, and he was peace and love. He was
like, “Oh yeah, it’s beautiful. I think it’s beautiful.” So
that night, we talked, and we came up with a name.
Bob Berg came up with the name, Free Life Communication. Somebody had a friend who was a lawyer. Next
thing I know, we’re a 501c. Next thing I know we’re up
for the New York State Council of the Arts grant and
got $5,000. Next thing I know we’re in the Space for
Innovative Development on West 36th Street, a renovated church that the Rubin Foundation, who then supported the National Symphony in Washington – that’s
all I know about them – they came to my loft to hear
us play, so we could get in. The Nikolais Ballet, Murray
Louis Dance Company, and Free Life Communication
on a 2,000-foot square, beautiful, pristine space. We
became the resident music group of this place. So we
were a big deal for a couple of years. 300 concerts the
first year, all free jazz.
The first year of our official stay at the – it was
called the Space for Innovative Development, this renovated church I’m talking about. As I say, we were there
with Alwin Nikolais Ballet, the Murray Louis Dance
Company. It was prestigious, as I discovered. I didn’t
know it then. But we were all into free jazz.
Just to go aside now, the model for the music, for
at least the people I was hanging with, was Coltrane’s
Ascension. We just wanted to play like that. The loft,
these tapes I have, the most that went on in my loft
and other lofts – Moses had a loft, Gene Perla had a
loft – maybe less so in Gene’s place over there. He had
Jan Hammer and Don Alias living there. But definitely
in my loft it was free jazz à la Ascension, 6 guys – 6
saxophones at once, everybody playing drums, piano.
It was like the collective energy jazz of Ascension.
Let’s put it this way: we were not even aware – I was
not even aware of Nefertiti, Sorcerer, the whole midMiles quintet. I really didn’t know what the heck – I
had no awareness of that. Everything was Trane, and
late Trane! I think is what was happening in New York
in the late ’60s, right? The cluster’s around ’70, ’71 is
the remnants of the free-jazz movement, because of

Coltrane’s death. Coltrane embraced the free-jazz thing
at the end, as we know. With his passing, it was like
Charlie Parker’s passing in a way, like what happened
with bebop. Not just the man, but the music.
Kirchner: A father figure was gone.
Liebman: Yeah. And Trane being so massively the
father-figure, and having taken so many of these guys
under his wing, specifically who was on that record
date, by the way, on Ascension. Him not being there,
and free jazz never catching on as a popular, commercial music, which was never going to happen. We were
kind of like the leftovers, because we’re predominantly
white and a little late in the game. There’s a big separation. This is 1968. This is Vietnam. This is the height of
the assassinations, and [Robert] Kennedy and [Martin
Luther] King. There’s a whole social milieu thing happening that this is and that we’re part of. On the other
hand, we’re also white middle class, a lot of us, and to
one degree or another we are exposed to rock-and-roll
because it’s part of our generation. We’re 20 years old.
We passed through the ’60s. We saw the Beatles. We
heard the Beatles. We heard Janet [Joplin]. We heard
Jimi Hendrix. I always say, if it had been a couple of
years later, it would have been Jimi Hendrix, not Coltrane. That would have been, “This is my idol.”
I’m saying, what we were doing in the loft, we had
Ascension, and then we had Bitches Brew, In a Silent
Way, Filles de Kilimanjaro, Miles in the Sky. I’ve got
to give them all credit, because they’re all of a whole.
Then Live-Evil and eventually, On the Corner, with me.
We were really caught in the crosshairs between a
change of music. So, even though the loft represented
the free-jazz thing, slowly, everybody’s starting to see
that there’s this fusion thing, and that leads me to my
gig with Ten Wheel Drive, which means, I’m on salary.
This is what’s most notable about Ten Wheel Drive in
my life is, you’re on salary.
The day I got the gig, I auditioned for the gig
through my friend Steve Satten, who was playing
trumpet. They needed a guy playing baritone, soprano,
clarinet, flute, and tenor. It was the first soprano I
had to play, so I had to go get a soprano. I auditioned,
got the job, and it was $125 or $150 a week, and you
were on call every day. You either rehearsed or had a
gig. This was a working. Fusion, standing aside next to
Chicago, Blood, Sweat and Tears. Never as famous, but
it was in that genre. Genya Ravan, the singer, she was
a Janis Joplin knockoff, but she was great. Five horns.
The guys who arranged it, Aram Schefrin and Mike
Zager. Mike studied with [Stephen] Sondheim and was
a real Broadway writer who organized this music. The
music of Ten Wheel Drive was pretty heavy, actually.
I’ve listened to it over the years, once in a while. Words
were great. Music was great. It was that orchestrated
rock-and-roll. It was not some throwaway stuff. So with
seeing that there’s a way – there’s something going on

Spring/Summer 2017 • The NOTE

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here that is a new thing… Of course Miles opened the
door, but Blood, Sweat and Tears, Chicago, the whole
idea of horn bands, the New York studio musicians who
were in the studios at that time had a chance to play,
do some improvising, and be commercial but yet jazz.
This is all a big fermenting pot, from ’68 to ’72.
The loft, our little Free Life Communications thing,
was a little window of what we were doing, what this
particular crew of people was interested in. We had
60 people in the organization at one point. Guys were
getting auditioned to come in, which is a mistake. I
learned a lot. I learned about, first of all, the administration, leadership, and don’t judge your peers. A lot of
stuff.
Kirchner: Judge your peers, but don’t judge your
peers.
Liebman: Don’t tell them. But we were like the
underground – this is before the Lower East Side,
before the whole downtown thing, we were kind of
that. Again, predominantly white, middle-class guys.
Not New York. A lot of guys coming from elsewhere,
but all around 20 to 25 years old and all working other
kinds of gigs for the most part – making a living and
just wanting to play jazz. But this is the era when
jazz is at a very low point, when there’s a transition
happening musically, and when economics were
such that you never expected that you were going
to be playing jazz for a living. It wasn’t like that.
Everybody wanted to be a sideman to somebody
who was still around. It was still Horace Silver. It was
still [Art] Blakey. It was still Elvin. It was still Miles.
There was always the hope that somebody will get
picked. Two things happened. Horace Silver got Mike
and Randy [Brecker]. That was heavy, but not really
because Horace was, with all due respect, considered
a little… not commercial, but not quite the real deal.
But when Gene Perla got the gig with Elvin, that was
the beginning of our generation starting to be taken
into account. Gene’s older than me, but he was part of
this little crew, and when he took Wilbur Little’s place
and became the bass player with Elvin Jones – you
can’t talk about a heavier position for a bass player.
That, and Bill Evans. Those are the bass player gigs at
that time. That’s the top of the pyramid. When that
happened, that meant, slowly – it was a signal and
a sign that our generation was coming of age, that
some of us would become part of the scene and of the
mainstream, which is eventually what happened.
Kirchner: When you were doing these loft sessions
and concerts, who were some of the young saxophone
players besides yourself who were involved in them?
Liebman: The main crew was Michael Brecker,
Steve Grossman, and Bob Berg. We were the crew.
Gary Campbell, who has been in Florida the last few

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The NOTE • Spring/Summer 2017

years – he was there some of the time. We were definitely together all the time. We were buds. We were
living together. It was: he went to Juilliard. He was
done on Wednesday. He’d come home with me. I did
my substitute teaching Monday and Tuesday. Took the
tie off. We’d drop a little LSD or something of that sort,
and we would be launched for the next four days, ending up in Chinatown at four in the morning, come back,
play, listen to tapes. Also, we were into macrobiotics at
that time, and in this building . . .
Kirchner: Acid and macrobiotics. What a . . .
Liebman: Yeah, what a great collection. Talk about
well, yin and yang, after all. And we’re in the building
with Dave Holland on the second floor. This is another
story, Dave Holland on the second floor, and Chick is
on the first floor of this loft. So this is a pretty happening loft building. Because these were small lofts, 1200
square feet. This is nothing like the massive lofts that
were usually identified. But this was quite a community
going on there in this period. And Miles – I’m there
with Miles, on top of it.
Kirchner: There was one on Grand Street that Marc
Copland told me about.
Liebman: I moved to Warren Street eventually,
in ’72, the next loft in ’73. Down the street was
Abercrombie and Copland. That was down by the
World Trade Center, on Warren Street. Michael came
and took my place from me. He was there for 10
years. Michael eventually, in the ’80s, went to Grand
Street. There were a couple places that meant opendoor policy, pretty much. You want to play? I’m ready.
Whoever. Bass player? Whoever wants to come up.
Let’s play. Again, mostly free jazz, until one day,
everything changed.
Lanny Fields, the bass player – I remember this
distinctly, ’70, ’71. He walked in. He says, “Any of
you playing this record called Speak No Evil?” I said,
“No.” He says, “Check this out.” Phonograph. Great
tunes, great tunes. “Man, what’s that tune about?
What’s that tune about?” We spent the whole night
transcribing the record. Taking the bass lines, best we
could. Suddenly we realized, “You know what? We’re
really not that good on chord changes. Certainly not
these chord changes!” In other words, slowly (at least,
this is for me. I don’t talk for anybody else) but slowly,
the reality of the past and of the need to understand
the legacy, reared its head. I don’t think we sat down
and decided this. I don’t think we realized, “you know
what? To one degree or another, we have to take
care of business, that stuff that came before. And this
isn’t Ascension. It’s pre-Ascension.” In other words,
what was Trane doing in ’58, ’57? Can you do that?
Can you play on Speak No Evil or Witch Hunt, etc.?
Slowly, the whole mood changed, which has never

come back again since then. But it changed to… I don’t
say more conservative, but the need to have a total
jazz education. Remember, we didn’t have school. We
didn’t have anybody to tell us this. Nobody said, “You
got to know…” Because there’s a course on jazz history,
you’re going to transcribe Louis Armstrong. Nobody
did that for us. So we came to that on our own,
collectively, and then slowly, by the mid-’70s, now I’m
Miles and Elvin. Michael is on his own. Slowly we’re
becoming the guys of the next scene. But this is a very
interesting period, for these reasons.
Kirchner: Before we go any further, there’s one
teacher of yours that we haven’t talked about, and
that’s Joe Allard.
Liebman: Oh yeah. He was the guru of saxophone.
I was 16 or 17. After three or four years with Mr. Shapiro from Bromley studios, I can see that I have to move
up. I literally take the phone book and look for saxophone teachers. I think it was even the yellow pages
and I called, (among others) – Marty Napoleon, Garvin
Bushell, and Joe Allard. I didn’t know anything. I just
see their names. And I spoke to them. My mother said,
“You speak to them.” Joe seemed to be the most personable or whatever. He was at Carnegie Hall studios.
That didn’t sound so bad. You got to take lessons, you
take lessons at Carnegie Hall!
I went every Sunday to Joe. I’m not sure if this was
before or after Lennie Tristano. It might overlap. I’m
not particularly sure, but it’s somewhere when I’m 16,
17, 18 years old. It goes on for a few years, and I took
Saturday lessons. It was the subway, same thing, to
Rockefeller Center, D train, Sixth Avenue line.
The great lesson with Joe is – outside of saxophone
– is that when it’s really heavy, you definitely don’t
know it at the time. You really need to take some time
to understand the depth of what’s going on. And that
less is more. Joe gave me the same lesson over and
over again. Did you study with Joe?
Kirchner: I took a couple lessons from him.
Liebman: You had the same lesson I had. I just had
more of them. He did repertoire, I’m sure, with the
classical guys, because he had straight guys too. But for
me, I wasn’t classical. This has got to be right before
Queens College, because I did go in purportedly for
clarinet, because you needed an instrument major. So
that’s got to be 17 years old. So that would be ’64.
Kirchner: You used your lower lip to cushion the
reed?
Liebman: I didn’t know anything. Here was the
main thing: his thing was about sound; my teacher had
never said a word about sound. And you know what?

To this day, most teachers don’t talk about sound. The
thing about saxophone is, you put it in your mouth,
and you can play it. You really don’t need much to get
sound out. Something comes out. Whether it’s pleasant or not, but it’s unique for sure, which is probably
why it was so good for jazz.
Kirchner: And why there are so many bad saxophone players!
Liebman: Well, that’s the thing. It’s self-taught. You
don’t need much. It’s not iron chops to get this instrument down. My teacher again, he never said a word
about sound, not Shapiro. He taught me to transpose
up a step, (thank you very much!), and to read, and to
be a good technical musician. But he never said a word
about sound. I never understood really what sound
meant. What does tone mean? What is the significance
of a good sound? What is a good sound? Joe’s thing –
although he didn’t talk about it like that, his thing was
to understand the basics, get your principles together,
so that you’re at least in a position to be able to find a
sound that’s you. That’s the overall gist of what he did.
Most of all not be handicapped.
You walk in there to your lesson. Your head’s too
low. You’re putting pressure here. Your lip is like this.
How can you play? You’re not hearing it. You’re not
singing it. What are you feeling? It’s not just fingers.
Basically, that’s what his thing was. I was young, but I
still had bad habits already. By 17 years old I had bad
habits. To break habits and to instill new ones is why
he gave the same lesson over and over again. I see that
now. He just said, “Overtones, the lip, things with the
larynx. Take out the book, the Grey’s Anatomy.” He’d
point to that page. He’d show you the breathing thing.
I use it right now. He’d show you the whole throat, the
larynx, the pharynx, the trachea, the whole thing and
what’s going on. Then he explained opera singers and
what they use to sing, and how they would do it.
I didn’t know what he was talking about. I think it
was $15, $20 a lesson. Guys are lined up from all over
the world. The guy taught 70 people a week! I’m walking out of there that first year, going like, “I don’t know.
Sounds like a con job to me!” Here’s another Lennie
Tristano vibe. I’m getting no books. I didn’t get past the
first four bars in the Rose clarinet studies the first six
months! I didn’t get past the first four bars! I played the
first bar, he’d stop me and just rap, have me do these
singing exercises, the overtones, the mouthpiece alone,
all the stuff I teach. I said, “This is the heaviest teacher
in New York? What’s this? Is this it? Is this all there is?”
As I said earlier, it was ten years later when I realized it,
because it took me about ten years to get what he was
talking about. U

Spring/Summer 2017 • The NOTE

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Readers, please take NOTE
Big Band Night at the Deer Head Inn!

Join the Water Gap Jazz Orchestra under the direction
of Matt Vashlishan the last Monday of every month
at the Deer Head Inn for a great evening of big band
jazz. Each month the ensemble performs original and
arranged music from throughout jazz history, as well as
performing modern compositions by many internationally recognized composers and arrangers.
Sets at 7:30 p.m. and 9:15 p.m., admission $10.
For more information visit deerheadinn.com

The ACMJC and the Jazz Lounge at Kemp
Library
Visit esu.edu/jazzatesu to stay up to date on everything happening at the Collection. From jazz concerts
on campus to Zoot Fest to Jazz Lounge Lectures, any
information will be available on this website. We hope
to see you at a future event!

Pennsylvania Jazz Collective

PA Jazz focuses on improving the future through arts
education. The PA Jazz Collective is a Lehigh Valley
based 501 (c) 3 organization designed for educational
and charitable purposes and to specifically foster jazz
appreciation through a regular series of educational
initiatives, public performances, and special programs.
pajazzcollective.org

Zoot Fest!

In preparation for the ACMJC 30th anniversary in 2018,
Zoot Fest will not be held this November, but instead
will be in March, 2018. More information will be available in the January 2018 issue of The Note, as well as
on the esu.edu/jazzatesu website. Check back often
for any updates and we look forward to celebrating 30
years with you!

Contributors & Acknowledgements
For additional information about contributors to this issue of The NOTE, you can visit their websites:
Su Terry: www.suterry.com
The Deer Head Inn: www.deerheadinn.com
David Liebman: www.davidliebman.com
Jazz Journal: www.jazzjournal.co.uk

Special thanks to:

Marcia Welsh, Ph.D., Brenda Friday, Ph.D., Joanne Bruno, J.D., and Jingfeng Xia, Ph.D. for showing their continued support for the Al Cohn Memorial Jazz Collection and providing the opportunity to continue to present
this publication; Jazz Journal International for permission to reprint their wonderful material; Storm Heter for his
insight and perspective on jazz classics; Charles de Bourbon for the graphic design; and the ESU Staff for making
this publication possible.

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The NOTE • Spring/Summer 2017

Spring/Summer 2017 • The NOTE

35

Gerry Mulligan 1960
Photo by Herb Snitzer