The NOTE
Al Cohn Memorial Jazz Collection at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania • Spring / Summer 2014

MED FLORY • ZOOT FEST • DAVE LIEBMAN’S EXPANSIONS • JOE TEMPERLEY

In This Issue...

The Note

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

2

A New Beginning

4

Phil In The Gap

7

An Interview with Med Flory

by Matt Vashlishan

The NOTE
Vol. 24 - No. 1 - Issue 61
Spring / Summer 2014

The NOTE is published two times per year

by Phil Woods
by Bob Bush

14 Remembering Brew Moore
by Gordon Jack

16 Brookmeyer and Me: An Odyssey of Friendship
by Michael Stephans

20 Zoot Fest 2013 Photo Collage
by Garth Woods

22 Near Dawn: Dave Liebman’s Expansions Quintet
by Dave Liebman, Matt Vashlishan,
and Pathorn Srikaranonda

25 An Interview with Saxophonist Joe Temperley
by Jay Rattman

32 Straight Talk: Understanding the Common Qualities
that Artists Possess
By David Liebman

34 Readers, please take NOTE
Contributors & Acknowledgments

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

Editor:

Matt Vashlishan, D.M.A.

Design/Layout:

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

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

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

From the Collection . . .

Dean of the Library
and University Collections:

Edward Owusu-Ansah, Ph.D.

Cover Photo (front): Bucky Pizzarelli at the
2013 Zoot Fest, by Garth Woods

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.

Centerfold Photo: From left: Adam

Niewood, Evan Gregor, Lew Tabakin,
Joe Lovano, and Jay Rattman,
by Garth Woods

Cover Photo (back): Cannonball Adderley,
by Herb Snitzer, donated.

2

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2014

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.

© 2014 Al Cohn Memorial Jazz Collection /
East Stroudsburg University
________________________________

Notice of non-discrimination: East Stroudsburg
University of Pennsylvania does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin,
religion, sex, disability, age, sexual orientation,
gender identity or veteran’s status in its programs
and activities in accordance with applicable federal and state laws and regulations. The following
person has been designated to handle inquiries
regarding this policy: Director of Diversity/Ombudsperson, 200 Prospect Street, 115 Reibman Building, East Stroudsburg, PA 18301, 570-422-3656.

A Note from the Collection Coordinator

Fran Kaufman

A New Beginning

By Dr. Matt Vashlishan

I

would like to say my first hello to
the loyal subscribers of The NOTE;
followers of the Al Cohn Memorial
Collection and the various activities
associated with it and East Stroudsburg University. As some of you may
know, long time Collection Coordinator Bob Bush left his position at the
University this past year. After meeting with the East Stroudsburg University administration, I gladly took
on the task of keeping the Collection
going as well as communicating with
all of you through this publication.

They say big shoes are hard to fill,
and Bob’s are enormous! Since I grew
up in the Poconos of Pennsylvania
and play the saxophone, it was easy
to find out about Bob and the Collection at ESU. Over the years I have
had a lot of contact with Bob through
various Library Alive, Scholastic
Swing, Celebration of the Arts, and
Zoot Fest concerts that I have been a
part of. His work and reputation are
first rate, and he put his entire life
into the Collection. I am happy to be
following such a great example and
plan to do my best to keep the Collection alive as well as introduce my
own perspective whenever possible.
One of my main goals of course
is to keep the flame going and to

educate people about the amazing
resource available here at the University. As I mentioned, I knew about
the Collection for years and visited it
at least once a year when I returned
to the area to teach at COTA Camp
Jazz, so I had a “surface” understanding of what was available. I
now find myself digging deeper to
understand the scope of the Collection and am amazed at the amount of
audio recordings, books, oral history,
photographs, handwritten as well as
digitally engraved manuscript, and
countless other features that make up
this collection. Furthermore, it goes
far beyond a simple “jazz archive” or
a dedication to Al and Zoot, although
it does serve those purposes well.
The Collection represents some of
the best music in history as well as
a representation of the rich musical
culture created in the Pocono Mountains.

Part of my mission through ESU
and The NOTE is to ensure that the
younger generation of the Poconos
becomes represented just as well as
the veterans in an effort to keep the
music moving forward and to keep
things fresh. Many young people grew
up in this area and were incredibly
fortunate to be in regular contact
with amazing musicians like Phil
Woods, Dave Liebman, Bob Dorough,
Urbie Green, and many others, all
who are involved with the Collection
in some way (either by writing for
The NOTE, donating their time and/or

materials, playing concerts, etc.). I remember meeting Dave Liebman when
I was about 15 years old, and the
fact that young people get that kind
of influence at such a crucial age in
their development is something that
doesn’t happen in almost any other
town in the country. The product of
this musical “perfect storm” is something that should be documented and
shared with the world.

Many students had experiences
like I did: Bobby Avey, Jay Rattman, Evan Gregor, Dave Lantz, most
recently Patrick McGee, and the list
goes on. Many, if not all, of these
younger people have gone on to create
a career for themselves in music, and
they are playing at a VERY high level.
It is not by coincidence that they grew
up under such giving tutelage from
so many masters of the art, who were
always there to encourage them and
give them the tools necessary to do
whatever they wanted with the music.
It is because of the people represented by the Collection and the mere
fact the Collection exists that creates
these opportunities in this area.
Even in the short time I have
been involved with the Collection, I
have met wonderful people and am
working on many interesting projects.
I am excited for what is to come and I
feel that music at ESU as well as the
Collection both have a bright future,
so watch your mailbox and inbox for
information. Until then, please enjoy
this issue of The NOTE!

Spring / Summer 2014 • The NOTE

U

3

David Coulter

Phil In the Gap
So Where
are the Pork Chops?

By Phil Woods

S

o here we are - jazz folks under
the editorship of our new custodian of the Al Cohn Memorial
Jazz Collection, Dr. Matt Vashlishan.
I have known Matt since he was a
young lion and he studied with me
for a while. He is a great sax man,
musician and a good guy who has
a doctorate from the University of
Miami. I think Al Cohn would be
pleased with ESU’s new president’s
choice of Matt to take up the burden
of former custodian Bob Bush who
raised the jazz bar very high during
his tenure. I am confident that Matt
will continue to maintain Bob’s laudable high standards.
***
The jazz world lost a giant and
a dear friend. Frank Wess died on
October 30, 2013, at the ripe old age
of 91. He was born January 4, 1922,
in Kansas City, and in 1953, he joined
Count Basie’s band playing flute and
tenor sax. He left Basie’s band in
1964, and was named an NEA Jazz
Master in 2007.
I met Frank in 1956 on the Birdland All Star’s tour and we became
good friends over the years. When I
was diagnosed with emphysema in
the 70s Frank called and gave me a
recipe of wheat grass and assorted
herbal cures. He named me Wheezy
and I always called him Sneezy. We
did a lot of gigs together and he was
the most perfect musician I ever

4

played with. He did it all with aplomb
grace, and humor – he was a funny
cat. Here is his phone voicemail message:
“Hey! How are you? You’re not
going to believe this but I was just
thinking of you. You must be cyclic. It’s
so nice to have sensitive friends. If you
have anything to make my blues turn
green tell me about it. I want all the
sordid details. However if your call relates to my doing a benefit for one of the
so-called non-profit organizations of
my performance with one of the trendy
necrophilia ensembles I suggest you call
my manager at: 1-800-182 oh I ate
one or at 281 I heard you ate one too.
And to ensure a prompt response please
leave your phone number and a short
message, your sexual preference, your
credit card number and your mother’s
maiden name. Thanks for the call,
--ahh ahh -- wait for the beep (Beep!)
Now you talk!”
They don’t make ‘em like Frank
Wess any more. I will miss him very
much. I loved him very much and life
is a little darker with his absence. But
he’s in good hands I am sure.
Word has also just reached us
that Iola Brubeck, soul mate of Dave,
has died at the age of 90. A great lady
has joined her husband. Both will be
missed.
***

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2014

What a winter of discontent! I
haven’t been out since Christmas. It
was so cold I could only breathe out,
but I did have a moment’s respite
when the Quintet, Jill and I did a gig
in Santiago, Chile for the International Jazz Festival where it was 90
degrees. I was tempted to transfer my
Union card and take up residence, but
I already belong to Locals #577 and
#802.
The International Jazz Festival
of Santiago has been around for a
few years. The early years were more
‘smooth’ jazz than the real thing.
People were disappointed until new
blood took charge. Roberto Barahona and an old friend, Pepe Hosiasson, took the reins and brought the
Festival up to very high standards.
I first met Pepe in 1956 when the
plane carrying the Dizzy Gillespie
big band stopped to refuel in Santiago on our way to Buenos Aires.
Pepe always knows when jazz is in
the air or on the ground – how he
knew we were refueling in his town
is amazing. Refueling is not usually
on the Arrivals/Departures board.
Our friendship was further enhanced
when the Quintet did a USIA (US
Information Agency) Tour in South
America and Santiago was one of our
stops. Pepe and the local jazz club
were most kind and solicitous. I did
not know his partner, Mr. Roberto
Barahona, but he told me that he

Donated by Phil Woods.

Phil Woods with Benny Carter.

came to my house in New Hope, Pa.,
in the 60s. My memory is not clear on
the details but he and Pepe know the
jazz scene and working for them (and
being warm) was a delight. One of
the performers was Melissa Aldana,
a beautiful, young tenor saxophonist
who won the 2013 Thelonious Monk
Jazz Competition. We hung out at a
party at Roberto’s home and had a
great hang. She is the first woman
to win this prestigious prize and the
first Chilean. In fact the she was the
first non-American winner - a coup
for Santiago. And she can play! Not
just a pretty face like me.
We flew down on LAN on their
new plane, a Boeing 787. I was looking forward to this state-of-the art
aircraft (I am an aviation buff). My
first flight with Dizzy in ’56 was on
a Lockheed Constellation, the first
plane to have reverse pitch (useful
for short runway use). The flight to
Chile was 10 hours and although
First Class had flatbed design, the
food was so-so and the portions
extremely small, like all flights these
days. The return was at 11 p.m., and
we left three hours later. Guess what
the problem was? The software, of
course! The computer couldn’t flush
the toilets. People in orange vests
scurried to and fro and eventually
re-booted it. My bladder is not new
and they had to transport me to the
men’s room several times, which was
miles away up many ramps. When
they brought me back to the plane

the captain was in the doorway. I
told him to consider a Boeing Triple
7 next time. He laughed. Nobody is
laughing today!

The Malyasian Flight 370 has
made the flying public extremely
nervous. I sure am! But CNN is on 24
hours with the same story that has no
answer as of this writing and it has
been more than 10 days. There are
other stories that should be addressed
but CNN has a pit-bull grip on this
mono event.
***
Back in 2002 I did a world tour
with Ray Brown celebrating his 76th
birthday. Sadly he died before our last
gig at the Blue Note in New York. The
club called me and said because of his
demise they would not need me for
the week that Ray contracted me for.
Instead, they were just going to have
a jam session and asked if I could play
on Thursday night only for $200. I
told them Ray would not appreciate
this treatment of his alto man and to
stick Thursday night “where the sun
don’t shine.” For years I boycotted
this club. But being a forgiving soul I
reneged and did a gig there last year
for two nights with my quintet - (two
nights before Kenny G, who had three
nights! Never trust a jazz club that
hires Kenny G).
When I got to the gig I noticed
they now had an elevator. I would be
spared the long flight of stairs to the
dressing room! Stairs are the enemy
to victims of emphysema. However,

further research detected a flaw. The
lift was on the second floor and only
serviced the upper levels. It did not
start at the beginning, the first floor,
and therefore only aided the workers on upper levels, not the workers
on the first level, let alone old jazz
folks who might need the toilets. Yes,
the facilities are on the second floor!
What a perfect testimony to the intelligence (or lack of) of New York club
owners.

A couple of months later Jim Hall
called me and wanted me as a guest
for his gig there to celebrate his 83rd
birthday. And then he died. The club
again called to say they would not
need me because they were going to
honor him with a jam session and
cancelled all the cats that Jim had
already hired. Déjà vu all over again!
So I have decided no more jazz clubs
in New York until they inaugurate the
pension plan that Local 802 has been
championing for years. If I die I want
to have a tribute and then cancel
everyone the day before the gig!
I have decided I cannot in good
conscience work in NY jazz clubs
until they initiate the paltry sum
Local 802 is asking them to put into
a pension plan for jazz musicians. If
we had one when I started I would be
getting more than the $322 a month
I now get. The Union helped the
clubs get a tax repealed and the clubs
agreed to contributing to the pension
fund. Then they reneged! Nice guys
huh? Please consider this when you

Spring / Summer 2014 • The NOTE

5

get closer to the head of the line.
***
I am currently reading Terry
Teachout’s book, “The Life of Duke
Ellington.” Terry is the drama critic
for the Wall Street Journal and is occasionally a bit snarly but his historical detail is on the money. I broke out
all my Ellington CDs including the
Mosaic set from 1932-40. Listening
once again to the 1940-42 edition of
the band with Jimmy Blanton, Ben
Webster and Billy Strayhorn was
blissful. Always was, always will be.
This period led to the musical revolution of Bird, Monk and Dizzy’s and
puts their contribution in perspective – so logical. Jimmy Blanton’s bass
virtuosity is especially important; it
freed up the rhythm sections for all
time. Sadly, he died of tuberculosis
two years later. Billy Strayhorn’s writing influenced all arranger/composers
from Gil Evans to Jim McNeely. Ben
Webster (Jimmy Blanton called him
‘Frog’ and the cats called him ‘The
Brute’) was a revolution unto himself
but with the band it was awesome – a
word I hate but it fits.

I knew Ben well. When in
Amsterdam I would make it a point
to call Ben Webster and have dinner
or at least a visit. He came to see
me doing a single in the Paradiso.
Before the gig I scouted up a place
to smoke some cannabis. There I
was fresh from the States, paranoia
intact, sneaking around the bowels of
the building to do a bowl. Imagine
my surprise when I hit the stage and
looked out at the spaced crowd. They
were getting high on every imaginable
substance. There were stands set up
in the lobby where one could purchase every kind of high! This was
off‑limits to the authorities and was
Holland’s way of isolating the action
and keeping a loose control over such
activity. Very civilized, the Dutch.
Each morning the government radio
station quotes soft drug prices and
warns the kids about any bad stuff
that might be in town.
We always had dinner together
during those Euro years – 1968-1973
– either in Holland or Copenhagen.
He was sober and dressed to the
nines in a graceful gray Worsted double-breasted suit with a thoughtful

6

shirt and tie ensemble, a glaze on his
skates and a hat right out of the Godfather. He was sharp and cool! My
man! I got his address and showed
up at the appointed noon hour. Ben
was still in his pajamas but greeted
me heartily. We had, some coffee
(this was to be my most substantial
meal that day), chatted, and listened
to Duke. Who else? When you were
with Ben you listened to Duke! He
said he was going to order those pork
chops, real thick ones! Did I want
any beer to go with them succulent
beauties that Ben was going to shake
up right in front of my eyes? I said
sure, a couple of beers would go darn
good with those porcine delights we
were soon to enjoy, of this I had no
doubt! Well, the man delivered the
pork chops along with a case of good,
Dutch Amstel beer and we were off.
I shall not bore you with all of the
grisly details of this marathon day.
So the story goes. Around midnight
Ben collapsed on the rug in the living
room, still in his robe - totally messed
up! And so was I! I bent over to kiss
him goodnight and as I got up after
giving him a harmless peck on his
wizened old cheek, he came to and
cold-cocked me with a vicious right to
the jaw, calling me a fairy! (The fashionable f-word of the era). I assumed
that the pork chops were out of the
question and took my leave.
A year later I was working at the
Montmartre in Copenhagen. Ben had
left Holland and taken up residence
in Denmark. He came to opening
night sober as a judge. I asked him
if he had his horn. He said he just
wanted to listen and was the model
of decorum. Same thing the next
night! I asked him if he had his horn,
he said he would just listen. A couple
of nights later, here comes Ben and
he is tore up! I could hear him as he
crashed through the ringside tables
with his horn. NOW he brings his
horn! He put it together somehow,
climbed on the bandstand with considerable difficulty and proceeded to
fall ass-over-tea-kettle right into the
drums! He never did sit in. But we
did have a lovely dinner the following
night.
Ben was born in Kansas City,
Mo., February 27, 1909, and studied
violin and the piano. He made his

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2014

professional debut on the piano with
Dutch Campbell. Ben played some
stride piano that always knocked me
out. He was a piano player before
he was a tenor man and Ole Dude
Albert Budd Johnson showed him
how to finger the sax when they met
in Texas before Vaseline! He did all of
the territory bands and came to New
York City with the great Benny Moten
band. He worked with Benny Carter
and Fletcher Henderson in 1933-34.
He later went with Willie Bryant,
then Cab Calloway. He is best known
for his long intermittent association
with Duke Ellington from 1939-43.
In the 40s, Ben was the unofficial
sheriff on 52nd Street. One night
in 1946 I saw him personally eject
three drunken sailors from the Three
Deuces who had made the mistake of
messing with the cute club photographer. Ben threw them into the path
of an oncoming cab. That is where
the nickname “The Brute” was put
on him. He was also known by the
sobriquet “Frog,” but I never heard
anyone but Harry Sweets Edison call
him that. Ben was in Los Angeles in
the 60s but lack of work led him to
Europe where he worked more regularly in clubs and concerts around the
continent. If you want to know more
about this great artist I would recommend the video called The Brute and
the Beautiful. This is John Jeremy’s
very compelling portrait of one of the
legends of jazz.
Ben could be very good or very
bad, but all of his wrongdoing was
nothing compared to the incredible
way he could play a ballad; how he
finds that one meaningful note on a
fast tempo that you never heard before! When I want to hear a song and
be touched, I listen to Ben Webster.
He’ll do it every time! Ben died following a two-week hospitalization in
Amsterdam on September 20, 1973.
He was a gentle giant and I shall always love and treasure his friendship
and his music.
“Works of art are of an infinite loneliness and nothing can reach them so little
as criticism.”

U

-Tom Courtenay to Maggie Smith
in the film “Quartet”.

From The ACMJC Oral History Project

Interview
with Med Flory
Charles Perry Hebard

Part 1 of 2

By Bob Bush

Editor’s Note:

I

n March of 2014, the world lost a great musician. Med Flory was
incredibly versatile and could play, write, and act. He was prominent in both New York and Los Angeles and founded one of the
most popular saxophone groups to date: Supersax. This group was
known for playing harmonized transcriptions of Charlie Parker solos
with a standard jazz rhythm section (or sometimes with Med’s big
band), which was something that had not been done previously. It is
hard enough for one saxophone to play any of Bird’s solos let alone
five!

When I learned of Med’s passing, I immediately scoured the Collection to see if there was any relevant material that I could use to celebrate his 87 years. I quickly stumbled upon this interview that was
conducted by Bob Bush a few years earlier. Throwing caution (and
a rapidly approaching deadline) to the wind I set about editing the
raw transcription for use in this issue. One of the perks of using the
Collection in my perspective is that all of the audio recordings from
the Oral History Project are intact, many of which must be used to
properly edit words, phrases, etc. that might be unclear from the initial transcription pass. When I began listening to the recording of this
interview, it was immediately clear why Med had such an interesting
and multifaceted career. His voice, personality, and overall demeanor
were so entertaining and captivating they drew me in, making the
work (that can normally be tedious at best) extremely enjoyable.
The following is the first of a lengthy, two-part interview that is
divided based on where Med was living. I hope his spirit comes alive
through his printed words as it did on the tape.Enjoy!

L

et me say that for the record today is
Thursday, August the 12th, 2010. I’m
Bob Bush. I’m at the Al Cohn Memorial Jazz Collection in Kemp Library at ESU
(East Stroudsburg University), and I’ve got
Med Flory on the telephone from his home in
North Hollywood, California. So, hello Med.
[Med Flory] Hey Bob, uhh, is it the
12th? I’ve gotta go; I’ve got a doctor’s appointment I need to—
[BB] [Laughs]
[MF] I’m just kidding. Fire away, my
boy.

[BB] Well, if you could just spare us a little bit
of time, I’m gonna try to—
[MF] All you want, all you want.

[BB] Well, you’ve had such a diversified career
there’s a lot to talk about.
[MF] Yeah, I’m good at anything you
can’t make any money at.

[BB] [Laughs] Well being that you broke in
during the big band era, and played with several of
the most well-known band leaders, then started your
own band and founded Jazz Wave, Supersax, the
LA Voices, then went from the east coast to the west
coast and are not only a musician, but you also got

Spring / Summer 2014 • The NOTE

7

involved with screenplays, film, and TV you have a lot tell us, so
let’s get started. I’d like to just go all the way back to the beginning if we can. Let me ask you an icebreaker question: Where were
you born and when?
[MF] I was born in Logan’s Fort, Indiana, August
27, 1926, so I’ll be 84 in a couple of weeks. My mom
was a great musician; better than I’ll ever be. When
she was in high school, she was playing for silent movies you know?
[BB] Yep.

[MF] She memorized the classics, all the stuff that
she had to play, but then she improvised. She was always improvising; she played the organ for the church
and someone would come up and say, “That was beautiful, Florence, what was that?” She would say “I don’t
know, I was just messing
around.” [laughs]
She was a contra alto
with a pure voice; she
studied with Madame
Schumann-Heink, who
was the big one back
in those days. She had
a beautiful sound, perfect control, and perfect placement and no
vibrato; she never sang
with any. She was like
John Wayne and would
say, “Uh, vibrato’s a
sign of weakness,” that
kind of an attitude. She
had it down; she was
six feet tall, 180 pounds
at her peak and I’ve
never saw another chick
get on top. You know,
she always had everything under control. A
great mom; great mom.
And my dad; he was in World War I, he carried a
message to General Pershing in Chaumont, France.
He was, you know, a 90 day wonder, and he went over
with a black company because that was the only way
to get over there. So on the way back, they said, “We
were listening to them playing and it was just the
strangest,” you know I said, “That was jazz, daddy!”
[laughs]
[BB] Wow.

[MF] The beginning of jazz, you know, so anyway
I was born; my older sister Eleanor was almost 6 years
older than I.
[BB] How many kids in your family?

[MF] That’s it; me and my sister.

[BB] Ok.
[MF] And, we had a dog, a German Shepard; he
weighed over 100 pounds, a big one—his name was Silver and he was the smartest dog you ever saw in your
life. He could do 20 minutes, you know, be doing common tricks and throwing shit up in the air and catching
it, you know, that was the family.

8

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2014

[BB] I would really like to know more about when you were a
kid and your relationship with music and music teachers; that sort
of thing.
[MF] Well that was the whole thing; my dad was
a school teacher. He caught the flu in France and it
turned into TB and he was in a sanatorium for a year
when he was first married, but then all he could do was
teach school. He was so weak when he got out. But
he was a hybridizer; he hybridized daylilies and won
international prizes for it. He loved to dig in the dirt,
like my son Rex; he likes to dig in the dirt. He’ll be 54
pretty soon so it takes a lot of weaning him away from
that stuff [laughs].
[BB] [laughs]
[MF] So there was music there and mom thought
voice lessons were for people who
shouldn’t go near anything or have
anything to do with music but, you
know.

[BB] Well did you play in the typical
school bands?
[MF] Well, when I was 9 I got
a clarinet and I studied with Bill
Morocco, who became the big band
master in the high school and controlled all of the music. When I was
in the seventh grade after studying
for maybe a year and a half, he got
me in the high school band, with
all their uniforms and all that. So
all the way through junior high and
high school I was in band all the
way, and in the ninth grade I made
first chair in the high school band
and all that.

[BB] Well what was your favorite
instrument then?
[MF] I played clarinet.

[BB] Mm-hmm
[MF] Yeah, he was a clarinet teacher; he went to
Northwood. He was the greatest guy in the world, a
real mentor for me. He taught me all kinds of stuff you
need to go through life.

[BB] Were you in Logan’s Port, Indiana all through your
childhood?
[MF] Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[BB] What was the name of your high school?
[MF] Logan Port High School. [laughs]

[BB] That’s easy enough to remember.
[MF] Yeah. So in ‘44, I graduated and enlisted in
the Army Air Corps in November of ‘43.

[BB] How old were you at that point?
[MF] I was 17 when I enlisted, 18 in January of ‘45
when I went in; I was in for two years. I was in the first
troupe carrier command in the Army Air Corps and
that was like taking gliders full of soldiers and letting
it go; it flies down and hits a tree, then everybody gets

killed and that’s the kind of…[laughs] But I was in supply so I didn’t have to worry about—

[BB] Where were you stationed?
[MF] Well, at that point, I was in Stout Field, Indianapolis and it was only 70 miles from my home so
I was grooving, you know. And then we got our orders
and we got our shots in August of ‘45, all ready to go
over and the bomb went off and so they didn’t need to
bring any troops in. They were trying to get everybody
out of it, so they dissolved the first troop carrier command men. So I went to North Carolina, Greensboro,
and everybody was getting out on points in the band
so I got in and I became a band leader for the next year
that I was in.
[BB] Tell me more, what was that like?
[MF] It was great because we had a pretty good
band, you know. I got my high school best buddy Mike
Millhouse in there on baritone and he managed to
carry through; he really wasn’t ready for it, but none
of us were, and that’s where I started writing. I’d write
a chart and say, “Come, let’s go!” So we’d go over and
play the thing. So that’s where I learned how to write;
in the Army. And I got out in December of ‘46 in Sacramento. Oh I LOVE that town. I don’t care, we used
to get high on the state house lawn because there was
this club called the Zanzibar and that’s where we used
to score for some grass, you know and it was pretty
good. And that was my first introduction to grass you
know…

[BB] Were you now at this point starting to think of yourself
as a musician?
[MF] Yeah, you know, in high school, Bill Morocco
had this little band and we played two nights a week,
Friday and Saturday; either the Elks or the Eagles, or
the Veterans of Foreign Wars or the country club or
something and I got my chick on the band; Mary Louis
Stephie as the singer, that way nobody can be bird doggin’ my old lady while I’m working. I wasn’t so dumb!
[Laughs]

[BB] What kind of music were you playing with that band?
[MF] Oh I don’t know; nothing serious. But when
I was a kid and just started playing in the high school
band back in the 7th or 8th grade, I played with this
Bill Morocco; he had a rube band, you know… a guy
on snare drum, a guy on bass drum, a guy on trumbone, trumpet, tenor, and I was playing clarinet. So
we played all those old prohibition tunes like “My
Gal, Sal,” all those tunes; “These Days” and “Limehouse Blues,” and in their original keys. I was forced
into playing what went absolutely against my instinct
because all I wanted to do was play in the key of C
and on the horn (B flat concert). But that got me some
early experience. It was like playing Dixieland only it
was 4/4, Chicago style. That’s what Chicago was; it was
kind of like Dixieland only it was in 4/4 time, it wasn’t
a two beat.
[BB] Oh, uh-huh.
[MF] And Bill’s brother Clarence, they both went
to Northwestern so they were very hip compared to
what was going on, you know. He played tenor and he

played in that style.

[BB] Now you eventually went to the University of Indiana,
didn’t you?
[MF] No.

[BB] No?
[MF] I went to Indiana University. That guy, what’s
that guy’s name, Coseth? Uh, Cosell? Howard Cosell?

[BB] Yeah.
[MF] He never got it right. He always said the University of Indiana and it’s Indiana University, it always
has been.
[BB] Ah.
[MF] So I guess don’t ever say that again…
[BB] [laughs] I apologize…

[MF] You got me? [laughs]

[BB] [laughs] Got it. What was that like?
[MF] Going to college?

[BB] Yeah.
[MF] Oh, it was great. I got out of the Army and
went back [to college] in January because I was on the
Bill of Rights so I got out in 1950 on the bill all the
way so I had that coming in, and I started a band and
we booked all our gigs in the first semester before we
even had the band because we went down there and
just did it, you know. Me, Warren, and Dick: it was
like a partnership and I was the leader and I had the
book. It worked out great. Warren played trumpet on
the band and Dick played trombone. It was the band
on campus, for all the time I was there. So then Tom
Patton, a fraternity brother of mine, he got me on
Thornhill’s band because when Dick Hafer left to go
with Woody, I think, he got me on the band. So instead
of going to graduation, on that day I went to play on
Claude Thornhill’s band. We played West Point and
then we were gone out there in the wilderness for two
years. But we worked out of New York, so I considered
that the home plate.

[BB] So this is how you got from Indiana to New York at
this point? You were going there to be part of Claude Thornhill’s
orchestra.
[MF] Yeah.

[BB] Did they make you audition for that?
[MF] No, it’s cut or pack: You cut the book or you
pack and split and you don’t get any transportation or
anything like that.

[BB] Oh, okay.
[MF] So that was the deal. I made it on the band
and I was playing tenor, and Sonny Salad was playing
lead and in a couple of months he split. So we were
playing a thing, I played clarinet on it, we were jamming and they said, “You wanna play lead?” And I
said, “Yeah!” I didn’t know they wanted a real clarinet
player to play that.
[BB] [laughs]
[MF] They had Fazola and Danny Polo and all

Spring / Summer 2014 • The NOTE

9

great clarinet players and they had that old style of
playing down, you know. So I made it and I did pretty
good.

[BB] Did you immediately love being in this band? Being on
the road, and being a professional musician?
[MF] Yeah, are you kidding? It’s like being on a
road, well not like, what happened since I don’t even
recognize it as, you know, noise. Benny Goodman
called it “amplified noise” you know, rock. What a wise
man he was. Anyway, yeah, so I’m playing lead and
singing… I was a snowflake, we were the Snowflakes
[laughs].
[BB] What do you mean “the Snowflakes”?
[MF] Well we were three guys and three chicks, a
vocal group.
[BB] Oh!
[MF] We did the Tennessee Waltz together, we did
it real funny...
[BB] Why did singing start for you? Is that something you did
as a kid too? Back in high school and all?
[MF] Well you know, you do all that stuff when
you can play, which I guess I could, so you get involved
with everything. Like with the chorus and all that
jive… you know. But in college, I was singing, “Watch
the Birdie, Take a Candid Camera Shot,” fooling around
strike a pose and hold it, the whole band holds a pose,
you know, it was big time! [laughs] As a matter of fact I
did it on Thornhill’s band too, and did it on Cavalcade
of Bands. I was on that with the band back on the old
Blue Network, Mutual. I guess that was the name... So
we did that and we did Kate Smith and Perry Como. I
was doing all kinds of stuff on the band, playing lead
and then I was a snowflake [laughs] and I was singing
funny tunes and a couple of nice tunes, too. Gil Evans
was on the band too; he wrote me a chart. So it was
fun.
We were rehearsing at Nola’s one time and Gil
brings in a chart, and I don’t know what key it was in…
D or some damn key, and I’m on clarinet, back and
forth over the hump all the time, impossible fingerings and it’s supposed to swing! And Bird came in with
Gil and he’s sitting back there and we’re up there for
about an hour and finally we got this thing down; I
look back and he had this big grin on his face. So I met
him there. One night, Joanie and I were walking down
Broadway and we went past Birdland. A guy walks
up and goes, “Hey man, you have a few bucks?” And
I said, “Yeah, sure.” So I gave him five bucks and he
said, “Thanks, man…” and he disappeared and Joanie
said, “What did you do that for? We only had ten
bucks!” And I said, “That was Charlie Parker!” And
she said, “Oh.” [laughs] She was so hip.
[BB] That’s a true story, huh? Wow…
[MF] It’s all true, I don’t lie.

[BB] Wow. Well this was around 1950 when you got on
Thornhill’s band. What band were you on next? Was it Art
Mooney’s band?

10

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2014

[MF] Art Mooney, yeah. That’s when I got my card,
and Art was a pain in the ass, I gotta say. Anyway,
that’s an integral part of the story. I got in front of the
Dixie Hotel in January of ‘52. Real cold in the middle
of the night, got on the bus, and Art said, “Watch your
head,” (because he’s my height; he’s a tall guy… I could
whip him though, but that’s another story…) So I get
on the bus and I’m walking back and I see this redhead
in at the back of the bus, with a top light on her, you
know, and it was Joanie… Her sister Gloria was with
her and she looked over at Gloria and said, “There’s the
man I’m going to marry.”
[BB] Wow.
[MF] Now what kind of chance did I have? This
was the best lookin’ woman in New York City and she
wanted me. So what chance did I have?

[BB] [laughs]
[MF] And I just loved every minute of it, you know,
we were married for 48 years. Parkinson’s got her.
Last 10 years she just, you know. Anybody who knows
anybody that has Parkinson’s knows that it’s just the
worst. So we were together a long time…

[BB] How long did Art Mooney’s band stay together?
[MF] I don’t know, I got out of it as quick as possible!

[BB] [laughs] Where did you go next?
[MF] Oh I stayed in New York. Claude went out for
a few weeks and I went out with him, and Gene Quill
was on the band too. Gene Quill is one of the greatest be-boppers of them all. I mean, Phil and Quill, you
know?

[BB] No argument from me on that one.
[MF] Yeah right! I thought Phil was lucky to get
by as easy as he did, because Gene Quill was a real
killer, boy, and just the silliest… He was really short
and he was Irish of course, and he was always getting
in fights! We’d be on the road and our lead trumpet
player, a pretty good-sized cat, would hear him and say,
“HEY MAAAN!” We were in there eating, then we go
in the bar and there were all these truck drivers surrounding Quill, you know, he’s just asking for them to
beat the shit out of him, and I went in and said, “Hey
man, don’t worry about him, he had a bad accident;
he’s been acting weird ever since.” And they go, “We
don’t give a shit! We’re gonna knock the shit out of
him!” And so I said, “Well no you’re not ‘cause you’ll
have to go through me and George to do it!” And they
go, “Alright, get him out of here.”
[BB] [laughs]
[MF] We do a thing, this is a time we’re in Defiance, Ohio, and there’s a guy, a millionaire there, and
every year he’d have a party for the town; free booze,
and a line of chicks from Chicago and a headliner. It
was Jerry Colonna this time and they had these little
mustaches that everybody in the band wore, with
the little hook on your nose, and we’re up there doing stuff, Jerry Colonna is running around, and Brew
Moore (juiced already), he walked up to him and said,
“We need ya!” [laughs]

Brew was a terrible juice head. You know all junkies that quit junk, they become terrible juice heads, for
a while anyway. But anyway we’re in the car and Gene
Quill is driving and his girlfriend was up in front with
him and it’s and me and Brew in the back. We’re going
fast (Gene liked to drive 80, 90 mph and he didn’t care,
you know) and all of the sudden Brew, just out of his
bloody mind, he takes his scarf and puts it over Quill’s
head while he’s driving and is trying to strangle him!
[laughs]

[BB] Oh my.
[MF] And we’re going like the wind, Quill’s trying to get his cap on his head, he finally knocks him
back off. Then it was Sunday, and we went in this joint
called the Knotty Pine, a nice place where you go to
eat Sunday dinner with the family and we go in there
and sit down trying to look cool. And Brew, he’s sliding
his chair around backwards
and bumping into other
people, stuff like that, and
cussing his ass off! And
me and Quill just look at
each other and grab him
and drag him to the door
and of course he fell on
the floor and the door was
just right, he banged his
head against the door a few
times and he just looked
up right at me and smiled.
[laughs]
[BB] [laughs]
[MF] So we get him
in the car, and we go back
and finish eating and we
go back out after apologizing to the whole town. We
come out and he’s gone! So
we go looking for him and
Dave Figg, Dave was with
us too, and he had on one
of those blue jackets with a
mutton-type collar and so
did Brew… and we walk in this joint looking for him
and the bartender takes one look and he’s over the bar
with a club, you know, and when he got closer he said,
“Oh, you’re not him!” And I said, “Heh! We knew he’d
been here!”
[BB] [laughs]
[MF] And what had happened, the cops grabbed
him and said, “We’ll let him go if you make sure to
send him into his hometown and never let him get
back here again,” and so Brew was gone, we never saw
him again! [laughs]

[BB] [laughs]
[MF] Boy was he something. Anyway, there were a
few characters that came along from time to time. Red
Kelly, my man came on the band January of ‘51, and
both summers were great because we were out west in
all the cowboy country. We were in the same car together: I had a ‘49 Dodge Wayfarer; front seat only and

no back seat, big trunk, straight-six, just the greatest
little car you could ever... We drove across Texas; 90
degrees in the middle of the summer, the thing didn’t
even heat up! It was a great car.
So we get to Salt Lake City, we had a great night
the night before, Saturday night, completely out. We
were in the same room. We got up and he came in and
stuck a pipe in my mouth and gets me loaded and said,
“You gotta see this!” And we went across the street
to this auto place, and they had this little yellow MG,
with cream leather. Just a real pretty little car and he
talked me into buying it, trading in. So we took it out
on the road and naturally an MG is built for England
where you’re always never more than 50 miles from
water, you know, and it didn’t really work out too
good. We could only drive it so fast and something
went wrong. Then you take it to a mechanic and he
would look at you like you were
from the stars.
[BB] [laughs]
[MF] You never saw an MG
outside of LA. It was rough in
that regard, but we had a lot of
fun in that thing. We were driving down in Kansas. We were
going like crazy down this road
with the top down and everything and we look over and
there’s this wolf in a field running along beside us! And that
was a wolf, it wasn’t no coyote!
It’s pretty easy to tell the difference and it was not a police
dog. It was a damn wolf! So we
make a left hand turn and he
almost jumps in the car with
us! Just misses!

[BB] [laughs]
[MF] So we played the
Palladium which was great, I
fell in love with that joint. So
we’re going up the coast, we
get just below Crescent City in California, up along the
old ocean road, right beside the coast all the way, and
Kelly’s driving and obviously fell asleep and we side
swiped a log truck coming the other way! You know
how big those things are?
[BB] Yeah, I see quite a few of them in upstate New York.
[MF] [laughs]

[BB] You don’t want to mess with them.
[MF] And we banged into this thing, going back
and forth and we’re spinning around like crazy and we
hit a rock with our back end and it took out a wheel.
So we just put the other wheel on and drove away,
man. We could’ve been killed! He was an Irish man
all the way, just crazy. And he could drink; he drank
pretty good and anything else that happened to be
around. He was an omnivore person.

[BB] [laughs] Well I’m waiting to hear when you ran into Al
Cohn, was that when you got on Woody’s band? Back in the early

Spring / Summer 2014 • The NOTE

11

‘50s? 1953 or something like that?
[MF] Well yeah right around ‘53. We worked the
Rustic Cabin with uh, it might have been Art Mooney
too; I forget who it was.

[BB] You didn’t play with Jerry Wald’s band, did you?
[MF] Yeah, I played with him once, with Al’s book.
You know he wrote all the charts for that band, that’s
why it was almost a jazz band. Except for Jerry Wald…
it’s a Wald-aphone! It looks like a clarinet… it fingers
like a clarinet… but it don’t sound like a clarinet. It’s a
Wald-aphone!

[BB] [laughs]
[MF] He was terrible. He tried to burn my own
lady for some bread. She sang with the band, and finally got it, but…

[BB] So tell me about Woody’s band.
[MF] I got on in ‘63 I guess, the first time. Al was
on the band, I knew him from before. Absolutely the craziest cat you
would ever want to meet. Great
lead player. I never met anybody quite like him. He had it
all. In ‘53 we did two things;
one of them was with Al, I
forget was it was called, but another one was with Dick. Dick
Collins or something?
[BB] Well there’s a record you
played on with Dick Collins. Its called
“Horn of Plenty,” that I know.
[MF] Yeah, I think Al was on
that, wasn’t he?
[BB] Yes.
[MF] Yeah, that was the first
one, with Al, but what was his
album called?
[BB] Which one?
[MF] Al’s first album with
Columbia for Jack Lewis.

[BB] It might be “Mr. Music” but
I’m not quite sure if it was the first one.
[MF] Well Jack Nimitz was on it and me, and then
I think we played the Rustic Cabin. That was for a
couple of weeks and so we hung out a lot together and
then in New York, at Charlie’s Tavern and all those
places around. Joanie and I used to go down to see the
Pennsylvania… whatever they were calling it that week
and Elliot Lawrence’s band was in there and it was a
great band, with Tiny Kahn on drums and Al Cohn. . .
Al Porcino was on that band yeah, it was a great band.
The whole book was written by Johnny Mandel, Al
Cohn, and Tiny Kahn. You couldn’t go wrong. I listened to him a lot in that band. I knew him, we were in
the same neighborhood, Times Square.
[BB] Did you strike up a good friendship with him at that
time?
[MF] Well yeah. When he came out here to the

12

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2014

west coast he would stay with Lou and we would hang
out together. Yeah, I don’t know if you’d called it a
“deep friendship,” but like anybody else in New York I
certainly didn’t put down the time. He’s such a funny…
you know that joke he said, when he’s in Sweden: They
say “How do you like our Elephant Beer?” He says, “I
drink to forget!”

[BB] [laughs] Everybody loves that one.
[MF] Those were the four words, anything else
was extra. “I drink to forget.” Some might say, “yeah, I
do, but--” That wasn’t in it.

[BB] Right.
[MF] Sometimes they don’t tell it right. I hate that.

[BB] Since you were there, I’m interested to learn something
more about Al’s composing and arranging side of his career. Did
you ever observe him at work doing that? He did so many arrangements for Elliot Lawrence back in those days.

[MF] Yeah he did
for me, too, for my first
thing with on the Emarcy
[label]; He did “The Fuzz”
and. . .

[BB] “Wonderful You”?
[MF] “Wonderful
You” and out here he did
“No Thanks,” I recorded
it out here and he was
here for that. Yeah man,
“The Fuzz.” I went over
this club, he was working there and he handed
me the chart and he said,
“This is either the greatest chart in the world or
the worst.”
[BB] [laughs]
[MF] Pretty good.
It’s a pretty good chart.
Terry Gibbs would kill
to get it, but I won’t let
him have it.

[BB] Well we appreciate you giving us a copy to put into the
Al Cohn Collection. It’s very difficult for us because we want to get
all of Al’s charts back here.
[MF] Yeah.
[BB] But they’re sprayed all over the place, you know?
[MF] I know.

[BB] But thank you for helping us with that.
[MF] I’m still looking for “No Thanks.” I’ll come
up with it one of these days.

[BB] When did you first meet Johnny Williams, the pianist?
[MF] We were living in 252 West 71st Street and
John lived downstairs from us and he didn’t have a
piano so he was always up in our pad because we had
a little piano up there. He was always bangin’ on it.
So when we recorded that thing for Emarcy, he was a

piano player. John is such a pure cat, a wonderful guy.
[BB] He’s still a big Med Flory fan, I can tell you that.
[MF] Is he?

[BB] Yes he is and he’s been corresponding with me. You
know he’s down in Florida?
[MF] Yeah.

[BB] You told me you went down there a few times to play in
Sarasota?
[MF] Yeah I wrote some things for strings, they
had a string section. It sounded good too, I couldn’t
believe it. I guess it’s not that hard to write for strings
unless you get hung up trying to write like them. Just
write what sounds good and it usually sounds pretty
good.

[BB] Well Johnny’s been a long time great supporter of the
Al Cohn Collection, so he has been pestering me for many months
to get this interview off the ground so I’m glad to be able to do it
today.
[MF] What, with me?
[BB] Yeah.

[MF] [laughs] Yeah that’s right, he did mention that
once or twice.
[BB] Good.
[MF] Well I think it’s great what you guys are doing because Al [Cohn] is the all-time unsung hero of
jazz.

[BB] What makes you say that? I just have to follow up with
that kind of a question. What makes you admire Al Cohn so
much?
[MF] Well my two favorite tenor players are Al
Cohn and Dexter Gordon. Those are the two I dig the
most. Al had that fine, Jewish soul that shined from
everything he did. When he starts wailing boy, where
you gonna go? You have to go with him. Nobody plays
like Al.

[BB] Well Al had a very complex career, not only as a
performer but a composer, arranger, conductor, all of that stuff.
Where did you go next after the Woody Herman band?
[MF] Well, I was living in New York, working up at
Roseland, working with a clarinet player. Aaron Sachs
and I played in the band together. We had a lot of fun
working there. You could go down the back stairs and
you’re in Charlie’s Tavern. Charlie’s was a great place.
Charlie was a terrific cat. Just another New Yorker. Just
mean as cat dirt, but underneath it all was the soul
of the saint. I was at the bar at one night and I had a
check from home but I couldn’t get the thing cashed in
and I was moaning and groaning about it. He came up
to me and said, “here.” He handed me a 100 bucks and
said, “now shut up!” [laughs]
[BB] [laughs]
[MF] I paid him back in a few days but that’s the
way he was. I would walk in there with Joanie, and
that was a sight to behold. There were all those guys
checking her out, although very subtly. She was gorgeous. Joanie, she was something else.

[BB] Did you play any gigs at the Half Note?
[MF] No.
[BB] Do you remember that bar?
[MF] I don’t think it was there then.

[BB] Okay.
[MF] I left Christmas night of ‘55. It might have
been there, but the main place was Birdland. There
were some other places, but could have been down uh,
was that down in the Village?
[BB] Yeah, that was Spring and Hudson Street.
[MF] Yeah, it might have been.

[BB] Well Al & Zoot played there quite frequently but I don’t
know if it was this early in the 50s.
[MF] It wasn’t because I never heard them play
together. That happened later, I guess.
[BB] You mentioned that you know specifically that it was
Christmas night that you left for the West Coast?
[MF] Yeah.

[BB] Tell me about that.
[MF] Well I had gone to Indiana earlier and picked
up a car, a dark convertible and drove it back to New
York. Johnny Williams was there when we left that
night. He was great. I’ve got to give him a call because
I didn’t check out his political woes yet. [laughs]
Anyway, we left that night with the car packed all
up and headed back to Indiana. Some guy named Rudy
gave Joanie a parakeet named Rudy. So we’re driving
across the country in January in a convertible and he’s
sitting on the steering wheel looking at me. All the way
across the country. He’s looking at me with this baneful stare, like “What are you doing, man? What are we
doing here?”
We stopped in Vegas for a few days because Joanie
got a gig singing in the Tropicana hotel. She was on a
revolving stage, and she was getting morning sickness.
So she would sing and then go off stage and barf and
then come back.
[BB] [laughs]
[MF] I came back out here to play the Palladium.
Then we got together and got a joint up on Beachwood
Canyon. Terrible place but we were there for a while.
We’re doing quite the bit of work, and then that fall we
got that TV show. So that straightened us out.

[BB] What was the reason that you moved from the east coast
to the west coast in the first place?
[MF] Well it was Sputnik I think or something like
that was going on. I remember thinking if anything did
happen, all we had were the bridges and the tunnels to
get out of there and all of the little people would just
knock me out of the way. I figured, “Now’s a good time
to move out.” I always wanted to go to the coast anyway. I never thought about living in New York. I always
wanted to go to Hollywood and get in the movies. I
figured, “Hey, if Alfalfa can do it, how hard can it be?
To be continued . . . next issue.

Spring / Summer 2014 • The NOTE

U

13

Remembering Brew Moore
by Gordon Jack

Editor’s Note: This article was first published in
Jazz Journal International in May 2013 and is reprinted
with permission.

14

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2014

Property of the ACMJC Photo Archive, donated by Bill Crow.

O

n the eighth of April in 1949, five of the best
young Prez-influenced tenors assembled in a
New York studio to record original material by
Al Cohn and Gerry Mulligan. Allen Eager, Al Cohn,
Stan Getz and Zoot Sims were already well known
but the fifth man, Brew Moore, was destined to
remain under the jazz radar throughout a fairly brief
career. As if acknowledging his low profile, he is the
only one to have one of the titles recorded that day
dedicated to him: “Four and One Moore” by Mulligan.
Milton Aubrey Moore Jr. was born in Indianola,
Mississippi, on March 26, 1924. After briefly attending Ole Miss (the University of Mississippi), he started playing in Memphis and New Orleans burlesque
clubs like the Puppy House and the Kitten Club. He
was making $23 a week, which was good money for
the time, playing behind exotic dancer acts, such as,
Kalema and Her Pythons. He once said that he was 21
years old before he saw a naked woman from the
front.
By 1948 he made his way to New York where he
had to wait six months for his Local 802 union card
which would allow him to work in the city. He was
one of the regulars, though, along with Mulligan,
Sims, George Wallington, Kenny Drew and Warne
Marsh who played in private sessions at Don Jose’s
studio, a fourth floor walk-up on West 49th Street.
The studio was characterized by a red door which
became the title of a well known Sims-Mulligan
original (“The Red Door”) and, much later, to which
Dave Frishberg added a very hip lyric (“Zoot Walks
In”). He did manage to get the occasional booking
in Brooklyn strip clubs with the young Mike Zwerin,
who described him as one of the ‘White Presidents.’
In 1949 Brew worked briefly with Claude
Thornhill, who he said, “… was some kind of freak
genius. He could take the worst, out-of-tune piano and
make it sound in-tune.” The band loved his playing
but apparently found him hard to handle because of
his heavy drinking which nevertheless did not affect
his playing. Ironically, Serge Chaloff, who had his
own personal demons, was warned by his mother
(the celebrated Madam Margaret) to keep away from
Brew because of his extreme behavior. She thought
he was a bad influence!
By now he was playing regularly at the Royal
Roost and Bop City in a Kai Winding group which
included Mulligan, Wallington, Curley Russell and

Brew Moore —1951 Central Park, Gerry Mulligan rehearsal.

Max Roach or Roy Haynes. They worked as far afield as
Tootie’s Mayfair in Kansas City, where Bob Brookmeyer
sat in, and they recorded no less than 14 titles in 1949.
Occasionally trumpeter Jerry Lloyd (aka Hurwitz) was
added. Moore had played with Charlie Parker and was
highly regarded by his colleagues but his recordings never
seemed to do him justice as a soloist. He composed two
fine originals for the group – “Mud Bug” and “Igloo” – but
by the late 50s he had dropped out of music and was driving a cab in New York to make ends meet. Some enterprising label should reissue all the material Moore recorded with Kai Winding because titles like “Sid’s Bounce,”
“Night On Bop Mountain” and “Lestorian Mode” feature some
of his finest work.
In the late 40s, Moore began a long romance with
Arlyne Brown (songwriter Lew Brown’s daughter) which
continued until 1953 when she became Mrs. Gerry Mulligan. Arlyne once described Moore to me as, “A soft, sweet,
southern boy with an enormous talent looking like a combination of Leslie Howard and James Dean.”
Moore often performed with Machito’s Afro-Cuban
orchestra at Birdland and the Apollo and he can be heard
on their recording of “Cubop City.” Harry Belafonte once
sat in with the band at Birdland and Brew has a solo on
the singer’s debut recording, “Lean On Me,” with Howard McGhee’s orchestra. Soon after yet another Birdland
engagement, this time with Miles Davis, J.J. Johnson and
Charlie Parker, he returned home to New Orleans where
he apparently lived in a “dive” with Joe Pass and writer
William S. Burroughs. While he was working there he
drove up to Baton Rouge for a two-week engagement at
the Flamingo with Mose Allison. The pianist told me
that he had heard Brew in many situations, “… but even
on the dumbest gig with people that could barely play he always
sounded terrific. He was a very bright, sensitive character who
could also write poetry. He was something of a hero to all the
southern guys because he was the first one of us to work and
record in New York.”
Moore continued working in the South but early in
1953 he was booked to appear with Charlie Parker in
Montreal for a TV performance on CBFT’s “Jazz Workshop.” Returning to New York he recorded with Chuck
Wayne and then re-joined Kai Winding at Birdland. The
arrangements were by Tom Talbert, and Winding’s group
included Phil Urso, Cecil Payne, Walter Bishop Jr., Percy
Heath and Philly Joe Jones. In an enthusiastic Metronome
review George T. Simon said, “The soloists are all good,
notably Kai and Brew Moore, who blows some mighty exciting,
moving, well-toned horn. Urso keeps up with him some of the
time (the two engage in cutting sessions now and then) but he
has neither Brew’s ideas nor his drive.”
Brew worked fairly steadily at the Open Door in
Greenwich Village, usually with Don Joseph or Tony Fruscella along with Bill Triglia and Teddy Kotick. There were
always a number of drummers available, like Nick Stabulas, Al Levitt or Art Mardigan, and Freddy Gruber kept his
kit there when he was not working. Charlie Parker was
often the featured attraction and, on one occasion, he and
Brew “goosed” each other as they slowly ambled around
the dance floor. They finished up serenading a large piece

of chewing gum stuck to the floor. Another of Brew’s
favorite haunts in Greenwich Village was Arthur’s Tavern
where Parker often held forth. Once, when the great man
didn’t have his alto, he borrowed Brew’s tenor. Arthur’s
Tavern opened in 1937 and is still going strong – no cover
charge, minimum one drink per set.
Some time in 1955 folk singer Billy Faier drove
through Washington Square shouting “Anybody for the
Coast?” Brew’s gig book was anything but full so he joined
Billy who also had Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Woody Guthrie in the car. Brew left them in Los Angeles and took the
bus to San Francisco which was to become the center for
the new beat culture.
The years spent in California were busy and productive ones. Brew worked regularly at the Black Hawk and
the Jazz Cellar where Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Kenneth
Rexroth gave poetry readings. It was probably at one of
these clubs that Jack Kerouac heard him because he mentions listening to Brew in his book Desolation Angels. He
had a popular two-tenor group with Harold Wylie at The
Tropics and he recorded with Cal Tjader for Fantasy. He
also appeared at the 1958 Monterey Jazz Festival with
trumpeter Dickie Mills and he sat in for a set there with
Gerry Mulligan.
He always said, “I go where the work is,” and in 1961
he emigrated to Europe. He did six months at The Blue
Note in Paris with Kenny Clarke and appeared at the
Berlin Jazz Festival with Herb Geller, who told me, “He
was a wonderful, natural player, like Zoot. It was strictly talent
and intuition with both of them. I was very fond of Brew.” He
worked extensively in Sweden and Denmark throughout
the sixties but often returned to the States doing casuals
in Manhattan. He played at the Half Note with Bill Berry
and, on one occasion there, Anita O’Day and Judy Garland
were also on the bill. He was featured at Newport in a
jam session in 1969 which was the year he played Danny’s
Restaurant and The Scene with Dave Frishberg. John Carisi sat in at Danny’s and Dan Morgenstern’s Down Beat
review said, “Brew is incapable of playing a dishonest note. His
music is just pure and loving and a joy to hear.” Ira Gitler was
similarly impressed at The Scene: “Moore’s brand of emotional, romantic, hard-swinging music captivated the waitresses
and bartenders as well as the regulars. Brew was beautiful.”
The story of how Brew Moore died in Copenhagen in
1973 has become an established part of jazz folk lore but
not all the details are well known. He gave a party to celebrate an inheritance and during the festivities fell down
some stairs and broke his neck. Mose Allison filled in the
gaps for me a few years ago: “Brew had been staying at Carmen Massey’s house in Biloxi when he heard he had inherited
all this money. He had been scuffling on the fringes of the jazz
world all his life and never made much at all. He left for Europe
and discovered he had lost a good luck charm he had been carrying around for years. He wrote to Carmen asking him to check
if he had left it at the house. The next thing Carmen hears is
that Brew had died and a few days later they found Brew’s lucky
charm. That story sounds like something out of Truman Capote.”
As Herb Geller once said, “It could only happen to a jazz
musician.”

U

Spring / Summer 2014 • The NOTE

15

Brookmeyer and Me:
An Odyssey of Friendship
An updated excerpt from:
at first enter the door of appreciation
Experiencing Jazz: A Listener’s Companion
by Michael Stephans ©2013 Scarecrow Press on any one of these levels. Other arts

PREFACE by David Liebman
hat is it that makes jazz so
special? Surely there is a
lot of music that has commonalities with jazz: solo excursions
co-existing with group participation; spontaneous improvisation;
a “groove” of some sort; virtuosic
expertise on an instrument; passion
and sophistication all mixed together
and more. So WHY JAZZ?
Simply because it represents
THE music of our time coalescing in
American cities created by people
from all cultures mixed together,
most notably in its birthplace, early
20th century New Orleans. Jazz, being a folk music of sorts reflected the
life of the people of this epoch, the
joy, sorrow, aspirations and celebrations. Certainly African Americans
are well represented, yet as I write
in 2012 it is fact that jazz increasingly includes people from all over
the world. Musically speaking, the
technical aspects of jazz are heard far
afield from its home environment, in
pop music and contemporary classical settings and of course more and
more in “world” music. Jazz is the
lingua franca of the past 100 years
and as an educator, I can attest to
the abundance of jazz learning going
on worldwide on the university level.
Jazz, despite the impression that it
may be of importance to only a few
listeners, is here to stay in one form
or another.
Art can communicate on any or
all three levels that Michael refers to
in this book as ears, mind and heart.
One may be attracted to a work of art
because the technique is so dazzling,
or the mood that the piece conjures
up strikes a responsive note. Sooner
or later it is the spirit and passion of
the artist that truly affects the receiver of the art. For jazz, the listener may

W

16

have a more shall I say “dramatic” atmosphere when they are presented…
ballet, theater, poetry, painting and
sculpture, etc. One can physically see
the artistic creation.
But music is much more elusive,
especially when it appears to move
fast as improvised music often does as
a result of several improvisers offering
their experience, knowledge, heart
and soul in the moment, creating
a special synergy. The way Michael
presents the material in this book
offers a perfectly balanced approach
to entering the world of jazz as a listener at first on the “mind” level, but
with the understanding that one will
sooner or later hear the music from
the heart.
I have known Mike for the past
six years since he moved to the area
of Northeast Pennsylvania where I
live, a fertile area for jazz musicians
by the way. Michael is first and foremost a great jazz drummer with an
encyclopedic knowledge of the music.
We have shared some great moments
recording and performing together.
Besides other musical abilities (trombone and singing for example), Mike
is a published poet and excellent prose
writer as you will see. What makes
him the perfect person for a book
of this sort is that he truly wants to
communicate with people about this
special music that we hold so dearly.
People who dedicate themselves to
jazz are well aware of the necessity of
honesty and sincerity when entering
this universe.
Experiencing Jazz: A Listener’s
Companion is a “perfect storm” of
sorts…..written by a master musician,
poet and writer describing the special
world of jazz past, present and future
in a lively, non-academic tone that for
anyone who has an inkling of interest
in jazz will further their appreciation
of the music.

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2014

I

By Michael Stephans
first heard valve trombonist Bob
Brookmeyer when I was in my
mid-teens. My family and I were
in Jacksonville, Florida visiting some
relatives, and while out walking
around town one day, I happened
into a record shop and bought an
album by baritone saxophonist Gerry
Mulligan and The Concert Jazz Band.
To make a long story much shorter, I
brought the record back to my cousin’s house, took it out of its glossy,
black sleeve, and plopped it onto the
phonograph. The first cut I heard was
one of those finger-snapping things
that sort of chugged along like a big
old Hudson Hornet, lumbering from
side to side, rooty-tooting down the
street. The piano and tenor solos
were good, but sort of unmemorable;
however, after the tenor solo, there
was a funky, raspy, downright greasy
trombone solo that changed how
I would hear and play music over
the next 50 years. It wasn’t a slide
trombone solo, even though initially,
I knew it was some sort of trombone.
This was a different breed of animal
– one that wheezed, bleated, belched,
farted, yowled, and groaned. This
was down and dirty and somehow I
knew in my underdeveloped teenaged
brain that this was the real deal. This
was my first exposure to the genius
of Bob Brookmeyer.

Now, even an uneducated greengilled teenager like me back then
could figure out that Brookmeyer
didn’t play slide trombone. He played
the valve trombone, which has always
been considered the illegitimate stepchild of the more conventional slide
instrument.
But it wasn’t only the valve horn
that caught my attention. It was
the way that Bob Brookmeyer was
playing it that completely turned
me around. By using certain valve
techniques, Brookmeyer could bend
and twist notes. He could actually

Even though I was a young and somewhat overzealous jazz drummer, I wanted to be as soulful and hip as
Brookmeyer. Whoever said that imitation is the sincerest
form of flattery would’ve been amused at just how much
I embodied that statement. I cut my hair in an ivy-league
style like Brookmeyer’s. I dressed in that early sixties
New York hip couture like he did. I even tried to affect his
mannerisms. It was quite ridiculous, really; it was idolworship at its most chronic. When no one was home, I
would crank up the volume on the stereo in my room and
play air trombone to Brookmeyer’s solos, bending forward
and arching backward, swaying from side to side, like an
old Hassidic rabbi singing and praying on the Sabbath. I
was pretty far into it after school one day, when my father
(who came home early that afternoon) opened the door
and leaned in to ask me to turn the music down. Catching me in a particularly dramatic pose, as I pointed my air
trombone toward the ceiling at the zenith of the solo, my
father looked at me with bewilderment before closing the
door, leaving me to feel like someone who just got caught
with his hands deep in the cookie jar. What does one say
at a time like that? In my house the exchange probably
would’ve gone something like this:

“Oops…Excuse me Dad, I was pretending to be Bob Brookmeyer.”
“Who? Bob who?”
“Brookmeyer. The famous jazz valve-trombonist. You know,
the guy who plays with Mulligan and Getz and…”
“A jazz musician? A jazz musician? This is your hero?
What happened to Mickey Mantle, Sandy Koufax, President
Kennedy? A ball player, I understand. A president, I understand. Even Jimmy Hoffa, I understand. But a jazz musician? Is
this Brookmeyer Jewish, at least?”

Given the circumstances in my house, had this been a
real scenario, I probably would’ve lied and said “yes.” And
somehow, at least for a little while, that would’ve made it
alright. But, my father merely closed the door behind him,
leaving me to the demons of self-doubt who pointed at me
and shouted, “Weird! Weird! Weird!” before I chased them
away with a swat of my invisible horn.
I finally met Brookmeyer in the mid-70’s, about a
month after I moved to Los Angeles from the east coast.
We became immediate friends and musical associates,
jamming, rehearsing, and playing local jazz joints. Those
were rough years for Bob, since he was battling alcohol
addiction – a battle which he eventually won. After a time

Photographer unkown, contributed by Michael Stephans.

sing the same note he was playing into the horn and make
the note being played sound wet and raspy, like a bull
elephant with a cold. Sometimes he would not play a note
at all, but just move the valves and breathe through the
horn, sending a column of air loudly out of its big brass
bell. All of these techniques made the valve trombone
sound incredibly like a living, breathing thing – a gruff,
yet fundamentally primordial voice that dug down deep
into something I could not even begin to identify. It sang
and resonated. It mesmerized. It incandesced brilliantly
like a dizzying mix of silver, gold, and copper stars blanketing the ‘glades at midnight, and like a full, hot Florida
sun at midday.

Bob Brookmeyer

he began the long and arduous journey back to music and
life, and his rebirth as both man and artist.

In the late 70’s, Bob moved back to New York City
and rejoined the vigorous Manhattan jazz scene. Even so,
he returned frequently to the west coast and we played
some successful and inspiring club gigs and concerts. In
the mid-80’s, he called from New York and in his dryly
laconic way, said: “I think it’s time we made a record together.” And so, a dream came true for me. We recorded Oslo
for Concord Records in September 1986. Every minute in
the studio with Brookmeyer, pianist Alan Broadbent, and
bassist Eric Von Essen was like magic, and Bob’s disciplined and focused approach to recording was inspiring
and challenging. Bob and I went into the studio again in
2000, and along with my then-future-wife, Kathleen, coproduced a beautiful recording called Stay Out of the Sun
for Challenge Records, further documenting our lifelong
friendship. Kathleen became very much a part of the fold
around that time and several years later, Bob and his
lovely wife, Jan were the best man and woman at our wedding in a small chapel in the Vermont countryside.
Brookmeyer regained his stature as a well-respected
jazz soloist, evolved into a brilliant composer, and became
a beloved teacher – both here in America and in Europe.
And our relationship continued to flourish, even though
we didn’t play together nearly as much as we used to. But
when we had the opportunity to make music together, it
was always as though we never stopped. It was never less
than very personal with Bob and me, and our musical
moments were often filled with joy and humor and even
a touch of sadness. Until his passing several years ago, I
continued to dot Bob’s i’s and cross his t’s, and he continued to turn around and smile at me when we moved along
through the music on the same wavelength: the teenaged
kid from Miami and the suave, world-class hipster from
New York-cum-Kansas City. The stuff dreams are made
of...

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Spring / Summer 2014 • The NOTE

17

ZOOT FE

Adam Niewood, Evan Gregor, Lew Tabackin, Joe Lovano, and Jay Rattman:
“Another Four Others” perform “Four Brothers” charts by Al Cohn at Zoot Fest.
Photo by Garth Woods

EST 2013

ZOOT FEST 2013

“COTA Festival Orchestra” with Phil Woods conducting.

Joe Locke

Jam Session
Joe Cohn

From left: Bucky Pizzareli, Ed Laub, Walt Bibinger.

20

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2014

From left: Jerry Dodgion, Bill Goodwin, Joe Cohn,
Billl Crow.

From left: Phil Woods, Joe Lovano.

President Marcia G. Welsh, Ph.D., and Rick Chamberlain present Bob Bush
with an award for more than 10 years of tireless support of jazz performance
and education.

From left: Jim Daniels, Phil Woods, Joe Lovano, and Marion Evans share a humorous moment about their past jazz adventures.

e

th
e
v
Sa

!
e
t
a
D

In the ESU Innovation Center

Spring / Summer 2014 • The NOTE

21

Expansions: The Dave Liebman Group

Bud Nealy

Matt Vashlishan:

We met many wonderful musicians during our week, several
of which played on the Near Dawn
recording session:
“This trip was and probably will Somnuek Saeng,
be one of the most memorable and Chumchon
Suebwongs,
enjoyable experiences I will have Pruettiron Nanthawowat, and
playing music.”
last but certainly
not least Pathorn Sristudio in the hood, the final result is
karanonda.
The
music consists of free
the CD, “Near Dawn.”
improvisation blending our western
Improvised music is a universal
instruments with Thai folk instrufact, the differences being the sound
ments, one Thai folk tune, and one of
of a particular instrument(s) along
His Majesty’s compositions.
with the improvisational material itPathorn Srikaranonda or “Dr.
self whether it be pentatonics, strange
Pat” as we called him, educated us
scales, odd rhythms, whatever. The
throughout the week on various Thai
bottom line is that musical communicustoms and traditional Thai music.
cation goes beyond the here and now.
What stood out to all of us in particThis might sound cliché but it’s true.
ular is how interested the King is in
This recording and interaction
jazz. Pathorn has been involved with
between the Thai musicians and
the King’s music for many years and
“Expansions” (with Matt Vashlishan,
has a very good understanding of his
Bobby Avey, Tony Marino and Alex
history playing saxophone and clariRitz) will resonate for years. I still
net, as well as his composing. From
remember doing a similar project in
the 1950s to present day, Thailand
India, in 1975, with “Lookout Farm”
has remained interested in jazz and
and Badal Roy that still remains one
this was very apparent when workof the highlights of my musical life.
ing with the students over the course
The bottom line beyond the music
of our week there. On one occasion
is that Thailand is a beautiful counduring one of Dave’s lectures about
try with the most hospitable people
transcription, we played a Miles
around.
Davis solo for them. Almost instantly
***

Dave Liebman’s Expanion Quintet: Alex Ritz, Dave Liebman, Matt Vashlishan, Bobby Avey,
Tony Marino

Near Dawn: Thailand
Tour November 2013

Introduction by Dave Liebman:

As some of the readers may be
aware, I began a new group in the last
year after 23 plus years with Vic Juris,
Tony Marino, and Marko Marcinko
(prior personnel being Phil Markowitz and Jamey Haddad). By chance I
was invited to take part with the new
group last fall as part of the 180th anniversary of relations between Thailand and the U.S. (News to me!!).
From previous trips to “exotic” locales
(specifically India and Mauritania) I
try to make it a habit to search out the
opportunity to find the true musicians of the country I am visiting and
interact with them, hopefully for a
recording at the least. After expressing my wishes to the consulate person
(thanks Kelly) and to Dr. Pat whose
article you will read accompanying this column, we were suddenly
surrounded by what I presume were
folk musicians from Thailand. (As an
aside, jazz is a “folk” music of sorts,
meaning from the people.) In any
case, I took advantage of the situation and requested that we somehow
record together. Visiting a home type

22

This trip was and probably
will be one of the most memorable
and enjoyable experiences I will
have playing music. There were so
many combinations happening;
the exotic environment, the wonderful people, the unique music,
and the opportunity to hear our
own music grow as a result of the
trip overall. Our trip consisted of
two days of master classes for Thai
students in high school and college, a recording session, and our
main performance for diplomats
from about 70 different countries
in celebration of 180 years of relations between the United States
and Thailand.

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2014

the entire room started singing along
with his solo! Jazz is everywhere,
and many different kinds of people
manage to find something in it that
resonates with them so much that
they decide to devote at least a portion of their lives to trying to play it
themselves.
During the evenings we visited
several clubs in Bangkok where a
jazz band was performing, and we
heard about several others as well.
It is interesting to discover how far
America’s true art form can travel
from home.
***
Pathorn Srikaranonda:

While living in Switzerland during the years
between the World Wars,
the two royal princes
were encouraged to take
up wind instruments for medical reasons. King Ananda took up the clarinet while Prince Bhumibol took up
the alto saxophone. The saxophone
would become his love affair throughout his life. During this period, the
Princess Mother paid tuitions for her
children’s music lessons. After three
years of basic training on the instruments and classical music theory,
the royal children started to play the
music they preferred. The “hottest”

music in Europe at that time was the
craze from the New World – jazz. The
royal children, as any ordinary youth
at that time, quickly embraced this
new sound. During the years that led
to World War II, jazz in Europe was
at its full swing. Prominent figures
in jazz such as Sidney Bechet, Benny
Carter, Coleman Hawkins and the
likes, traveled to Europe and enjoyed
their celebrity status even more than
in their own hometowns.

Donated by Pathorn Srikaranonda.

His Majesty King Bhumibol
Adulyadej of Thailand was born
Prince Bhumibol Aduldej in Cambridge, Massachusetts on December
5, 1827. His father, Prince Mahidol,
was a medical student at Harvard
and his mother, Princess Sangwal, a
nursing student at Simmons College.
Previously, the King’s royal parents
were living abroad while studying
as the King’s elder siblings, Princess
Galyani and the future King Ananda,
were born in London and Heidelberg
respectively.

When Prince Bhumibol was 2 years old, the
royal family moved back
to Bangkok. After Prince
Mahidol’s untimely death,
Princess Sangwal took
her young children to be
educated in Lausanne,
Switzerland. Prince Anada
was unexpectedly elected
King when their uncle
King Prajadhipok abdicated the throne without
issue. The royal family,
however, remained in
Switzerland throughout.

The King playing clarinet with the late Laykram Band (Manrat is already at piano) c.1956

Spring / Summer 2014 • The NOTE

23

Photo provided by Pathorn Srikaranonda.

In late 1945, the
“Manrat” to him.
royal family briefly
By that time, many
moved back to Thaimembers of the Lay
land in preparation
Kram Band had left
for King Ananda’s
due to illness or
coronation. While in
old age. Eventually
Bangkok, Prince Bhuonly two, the King
mibol met his relaand Manrat, were
tive Prince Chakraleft in the band so
band Pensiri. Prince
Manrat asked the
Chakraband was an
King for a royal
amateur song writer
permission to take
who also embraced
in more musicians
the new sound of
to become the core
jazz. After a brief con- Reception of gifts from the US Embassy of Thailand at the conclusion of the Expansions of the new band: The
concert. FROM LEFT; Bobby Avey, Dave Liebman, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry
versation about the
Au Sau Friday Jazz
Foreign Affairs Mr. Sihasak Phuangketkeow, Ambassador Kristie Kenny, Pathorn
blues, the impressed of
Band. The reason
Srikaranonda, Matt Vashlishan, Alex Ritz, Tony Marino.
Prince Chakraband
behind this name was
Viennese Waltz and wrote more than
encouraged Prince Bhumibol to
that Au Sau (or A.S.) are the initials
a dozen in that style, some of which
take up jazz composition. A couple
of the King’s old residence, the Ambbecame a part of his “programmatic”
of months passed by before Prince
hara Stan Villa where a radio station
ballet music the Kinari Suite, which
Bhumibol would pen his first royal
of the same name was also located.
was written in 1959. For this suite,
tune, the soulful Candlelight Blues.
The band, being the “official” band
A month later, three more tunes were the College of Music and Performof the radio station, would broadcast
ing Arts in Vienna (now the Univerwritten – “Love at Sundown,” “Falllive music every Friday night (there
sity of Music and Performing Arts)
ing Rain” and “Near Dawn” – all
is even a royal composition called
presented the King with an honorary
became the mainstay in Thai music
“Friday Night Rag”) and rehearse
degree when he made an official visit
literature. Enjoying the early success,
on Sunday nights. So when the King
to Vienna in 1964. The King also
Prince Bhumibol wanted to pursue
moved to the Chitralada Palace, he
penned four marches for the military
his music career and study music in a
also moved the radio station with
branches and five anthems for univer- him but did not change the name so
European conservatory.
sities and other establishments. There the name Au Sau Friday Jazz Band
A good start it may seem, howare also five compositions where the
remains in present day. These musiever with King Ananda’s tragic death
King wrote the lyrics (in English)
cians were not the only ones who
from a gun accident on June 9, 1946,
himself, all of which are love songs
have the privilege to play music with
Prince Bhumibol became King in his
dedicated to his wife, the Queen. The the King. Some foreign musicians
brother’s place and his dream of a
last two songs, written in 1994 and
were also granted audiences. Among
music career came to a halt. When
1995, are musical settings to poems
the list includes big names in jazz
he returned to Switzerland, the new
written by his second daughter, Prinsuch as Jack Teagarden, Benny GoodKing switched his studies to law and
cess Sirindhorn during her youth. In
man, Lionel Hampton, Stan Getz,
political science in order to prepare to
2004, the University of North Texas
Benny Carter, Maynard Ferguson
be king. No more professional career
presented the King with an Honorary and the most recent, the Preservain music, however the King still
Doctor of Music in composition for
tion Hall Jazz Band, who awarded the
continued to play and compose music
his contributions in the field of jazz
King with an honorary membership.
throughout his life and still does up
composition.
In 1998, the Yale School of Music also
to the present day.
presented the King with the cultural
***
citation and the Sanford Medal for
***
Jazz musician
his unique role in musical life of his
Royal Compositions
country, particularly the influence
Since his earliest time back in
Of all 49 compositions written
of jazz through his music that takes
Bangkok for good in 1950, the King
between 1946 and 1995, nearly half
formed an amateur band composed of roots in the Thai society since 1946.
are in a jazz style. More than a dozen
mostly royal relatives playing differAt present, the King no longer
are written in his favorite style, New
ent kinds of music, which included
composes
music. At the age of 86 he
Orleans/Dixieland. The best-known
some traditional Thai instruments.
still enjoys the company of his Au Sau
pieces are the blues such as “HM
The King would play clarinet and
Friday friends, who drive down every
Blues” and “Candlelight Blues,” and
saxophones in the band. He named
weekend to Klai Kangwon Palace, the
the show tune type such as “Love at
it “Lay Kram” – meaning “antique”
King’s current residence in the South.
Sundown” and “Can’t You Ever See.”
due to the age of most musicians in
They spend time together playing
There is even a Broadway hit called
the band. In 1954, the King granted a jazz as they have been doing for more
“Blue Night” which caused a sensaroyal audience to a young Portuguese- than half a century.
tion in New York City in 1950. Apart
Thai pianist, whom the previous
from this, he was also fond of the
year the King granted a Thai name

U

24

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2014

From The ACMJC Oral History Project

Jonno Rattman

Interview
with Saxophonist
Joe Temperley

By Jay Rattman
January 6, 2010
[Jay Rattman] Let’s see, it’s January 6, 2010, and I’m here
with Joe Temperley at the Manhattan School of Music, and I want
to thank you very much for speaking today.
[Joe Temperley] Oh it’s my pleasure to be here, you
know I was looking forward to this.
[JR] Good. So let’s start at the very beginning. Where and
when were you born?
[JT] 1929 in a place called Cowdenbeath, Scotland,
which was a coal mining area. It’s no longer a coal
mining area because you know, people don’t use coal
anymore. Back then it was a very vibrant coal mining
area. There wasn’t much in the way of music going on,
unfortunately.
[JR] Was anyone in your family musical?
[JT] No, nobody.
[JR] So how did you start playing?
[JT] My brother bought me a saxophone; an alto
for my 14th birthday.
[JR] Did he play at the time?
[JT] He played the trumpet, but not very well. I
had a few lessons, but unfortunately after about six
months I could play better than the teacher. So that
was about the extent of my musical education at that
time.

[JR] And who was your teacher?
[JT] He was just a local guy, you know? He was
also a coal miner and he played in little local dance
bands, which I gravitated to after a couple of years. I
started playing in these little dance bands around the
area. Around there, you know they had these little
places called miners institutes where everybody used
to congregate, and they had meetings, and socials, and
weddings and galas—all kinds of things. They had one
in practically every town in the area. So that’s what I
was doing.
There used to be a musical paper called “The
Melody Maker” in London and they had a dance band
competition, which was nation-wide, and they divided
the country into different sections. So we went in for
this dance band competition in our area and of course
we didn’t win. We weren’t really good enough to even
come anywhere close to that, but a few weeks later,
the band that won was from Glasgow. Now Glasgow is
a big city as far as I was concerned. So the band that
won, the bandleader sent a letter to the bandleader
that I was associated with and asked if I would be
willing to come through and rehearse with their band
and go to the finals in Manchester. Now that was a
big deal! That was a really auspicious occasion for all
the finalist bands that met in Manchester. So I used
to go to Glasgow every Sunday to rehearse with this
band. I guess I did it probably for three or four months.
Finally, I went to Manchester with this band and we
played a couple of Glenn Miller tunes. Of course, we
didn’t come anywhere either. The band that won prob-

Spring / Summer 2014 • The NOTE

25

ably came from London or that area, because they were
much more proficient. But anyway, through done doing
that, I got a job in a nightclub in Glasgow, called the
Piccadilly Club, which was on Sauchiehall Street. So,
I was sort of more or less on my way, [laughs], so to
speak. I maybe worked there for 18 months or 2 years,
or something like that. I met this really fine trumpet
player who’d worked in London. He worked in London
for a long time and he had come back to Scotland, you
know he wanted to sort of settle down and he came
back to Scotland. He took me sort of under his wing;
his name was Jimmy Morgan and he was a beautiful
trumpet player. He took me under his wing and taught
me a lot of stuff. I started studying with a saxophone
player in Glasgow called Bobby Thompson who had a
big reputation at that time. So that was really the extent of Glasgow. I used to make 10 pounds a week but I
used to make 15 pounds a week playing Snooker…
[JR] Playing what?

[JT] Playing Snooker.

[JR] What’s that?
[JT] Snooker, it’s like a form of pool only you play
with 15 red balls and a series of colored balls. Like a
yellow ball and a green and brown and blue and pink
and black. And I was pretty good at that. I used to
make more money doing that than I did playing the
saxophone in this nightclub.
But anyway, the next thing that happened was
there was a band from Scotland and the band leader’s
name was Tommy Sampson and he had this big band.
Big bands used to come up to Glasgow to play at a
place called “Green’s Playhouse,” and I did an audition
there with Tommy Sampson and through doing the audition, I got a job with Tommy Sampson and went back
to London with him. So then I was in London. This
must have been probably around the mid 50s or somewhere around there. Then I started looking at London,
by then I was based in London, and there were many
more opportunities in London to associate with different people. Up to then I had tried to play somewhat
“jazz” but mostly I was playing dance music, and making a living, things like that.
I played with Tommy Sampson for a while and then
after that I went with this clarinet player; his name
was Harry Parry and he had a radio rhythm club sextet
and he was pretty famous. He had clarinet, trumpet,
and saxophone, and a rhythm section, and a singer. So
I started doing that and did that for a couple of years
and then I went with this famous dance band, Joe Loss,
who was probably the most famous dance band leader
in the country at that time. But at that time, we used
to play “In the Mood” three or four times a night and
[laughs] “Woodchopper’s Ball” and things like that. He
was a real businessman. I mean, he wasn’t interested
in musicians or musicality or anything like that. It was
business to him. If we played in a dance hall that held
2,000 people and only 1,600 people showed up, well
then he considered that lost money. You know, that
was the kind of mentality.
From there I was making progress, and I went to a
band called Jack Parnell, and Jack Parnell had a really
hot band then. The place I took was Ronnie Scott’s.

26

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2014

Ronnie Scott left to go out on his own and I took his
place, so I was playing tenor that time. So that’s how
I came to be with Jack Parnell’s band. I stayed there
probably two or three years and then I started freelancing around London and stuff and finally ended
up playing with Humphrey Lyttelton. There was a
bandleader called Humphrey Lyttelton. He had a sort
of jazz band; we played mainstream jazz. Buck Clayton,
sort of Basie, sort of stuff, Ellington – a lot of Ellington stuff – and we used to do tours with Buck Clayton
and Jimmy Rushing and Big Joe Turner and people like
that. I stayed there until I came to the states. I stayed
with Humphrey probably for about 8-9 years, and then
I came to New York.
I had previously been to New York in 1959 to do
a tour; a big tour with this British band. On this tour
was the Thelonious Monk quartet, George Shearing
with a brass section, Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh
with Lenny Tristano, the Cannonball Adderley sextet,
and Anita O’Day. It was all one, big package. That was
a good introduction to what was happening in New
York. Then we were there in New York for this tour for
best part of the month and spent some time in there. I
was going down to the Five Spot to hear Benny Golson
and Curtis Fuller – they were working at the Five Spot
at that time. So that was my introduction to New York.
I went back to England but then I thought “I’ll come
back to New York at a later time.” So I went back to
England in 1959 and came back to New York in 1965.
[JR] Before that, how much jazz from America had you
heard?
[JT] Well, there was a union ban that banned
American musicians from coming in to the country.
But that was all changed when the Beatles and the
Rolling Stones became world famous and they were
coming to America. That opened the floodgates for
people to come to England. So we got the best of it:
they got the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, but we got
Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Al and Zoot, Coleman
Hawkins, Ben Webster and people like that. So that
opened up the jazz world, so to speak, at that time.

[JR] When you were first starting, who were your favorite
musicians to listen to or who were your early influences?
[JT] The first record I ever heard was Cab Calloway’s band and on one side was Hilton Jefferson, and
on the other side was Chu Berry playing “Willow Weep
For Me.” I can’t remember the name of the Hilton Jefferson [sings]. The big record over there was “Sing,
Sing, Sing,” you know, by Benny Goodman. We had a
sort of jazz club, and we used to meet and play “Sing,
Sing, Sing” [laughs]. And that brought me all the way
to New York.
[JR] And when exactly did you move to New York?
[JT] I came to New York on the 16th of December
in 1965. I remember walking down the street with
Gene Quill and he said, “Why did you come here?
There’s nothing down here.” And you know, there
were musicians all over the place. Every hotel had a
band and there were like four or five television shows
in New York. I mean a whole lot of things going on,
compared to today. Now you’re quite entitled to say
nowadays “There’s nothing happening in New York,”

but then to me there was a whole lot of stuff happening in New York. But, I had to wait six months to be
in a Union so I went to work in a department store: in
Korvette’s on 5th Avenue. I worked there for maybe
the best part of six months, and then Jake Hanna and
Nat Pierce got me on Woody’s band, and that’s how I
started. In the saxophone section was Joe Romano, Sal
Nistico, Carmen Leggio and myself. So that was a real
eye-opener, especially to hear Sal Nistico. What a great
player!
I stayed with Woody’s band a couple of years, but
it was very grueling. There used to be some awful bus
journeys. It was a hard life, you know: 10-hour bus ride
and you’d get to the job 20 minutes before you had to
hit, then change your clothes in the toilet downstairs
and play all night. And then, maybe sleep that night
and then the next night you would hit and run; but
you play the gig. You sleep all night and
travel all day to the gig,
and play the gig – this is
the second night – play
the gig and then travel
all night to save a night’s
rent. Those were the days.
That happened all the
time. After I had enough
of that touring and stuff,
I just couldn’t do it anymore. I came back to New
York and by that time I
was semi-established and
I started working around
New York and started
subbing a lot for Pepper
[Adams]. I used to sub for
Pepper quite a lot. Then Pepper’s mother got very sick
and he went back to Detroit. So I played with Thad
and Mel for three and a half
years. All the time Pepper was back in Detroit, I was
his permanent sub. This was in the late 60s, early 70s.
So that was a real eye-opener and a wonderful experience. And you know, to me, that’s one of the greatest
bands of all time.
[JR] Absolutely.
[JT] I would like to play with that band now! I
wasn’t ready for it then, but I would like to play with
them band now.

[JR] Yeah.
[JT] Of course, it’s a whole different band now. But
that was a wonderful band; there were some great players in that band.
[JR] Who in particular really stood out to you?
[JT] Well the saxophone section was Jerome Richardson, Jerry Dodgion, Joe Farrell, and Eddie Daniels,
so that was really something. Eddie Daniels used to
amaze me because we used to play a thing called “Fingers” which was at breakneck speed. And one night,
Eddie would play it on the piccolo and the next night
he played it on the flute and the next night he played
it on the tenor and then he played on the clarinet. I’m

like, “My god. What am I doing here?!”

[JR] Yeah. [laughs] And when you first got to New York, did
you ever get any sort of weird vibe “because you were from Scotland” or “because you didn’t fit the mold,” whatever that was?
[JT] No, no, I never got anything like that. I got
weirder vibes when I went back to Scotland. They used
to call me Joe the Yank.
[JR] Really?
[JT] Yeah, but you know I never experienced anyone like that.

[JR] That’s good.
[JT] It was a little tricky with Woody at one time.
Around the time that Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated and there was a lot of bitterness and it was
a
terrible – it was really a sad time. We
just lost – and then a little while later
Robert Kennedy was assassinated.
The intriguing thing about Sal was
that he was completely obsessed with
who shot President Kennedy. He
spent his whole life trying to figure
it out. But that was a bad time. Riots
in Newark, and a bad feeling. But
happily, we’ve sort of come through
all that.
[JR] At one point you mentioned that
you studied with Joe Allard?
[JT] Yeah.
[JR] And when was that?
[JT] That was around that
time, in the late 60s.

[JR] And what was that like?
[JT] That was a real great
experience. I studied also with
Harold Benett [flautist with the Metropolitan Opera
Orchestra], but I was never able to make any connection with the flute; it didn’t appeal to me at all. You
know, I sounded like a police whistle and I couldn’t
really associate myself with the flute.

[JR] Sure.
[JT] But Joe Allard, I learned a lot of things from
Joe, especially about the mechanics of playing; the
mechanics on how to make reeds work and how to deal
with mouthpieces and all that kind of thing. I’ve played
the same mouthpiece forever. I’ve played a mouthpiece
on my bass clarinet – I’ve played it for 40 years, the
same mouthpiece. I’m always terrified I’m going to bite
through it. I tried all kinds of other mouthpieces but I
can’t get the timbre of this particular one. I got it from
a guy called Bob Pierson who was on Woody’s band.
He loaned it to me and when I got it, I played it for a
little while and I said to him, “you know, I’m gonna
keep this.” He didn’t have a bass clarinet. So I said,
“any time you need a bass clarinet, you can borrow
mine, but I’m borrowing your mouthpiece,” and I’ve
had it since then. Bob died about four or five years ago
in Las Vegas, so I guess I could keep it now.
Anyway, after Thad and Mel, by that time I was

Spring / Summer 2014 • The NOTE

27

busy working in New York; I’m doing all kinds of different things. I played in a lot of jazz clubs, and I’ve
played a lot of big bands. At that time, everybody had
a big band. Clark Terry had a band, Duke Pearson had
a band, Joe Henderson had a band, Frank Foster had a
band. There were all these people – it was all the same
people who worked with all these different bandleaders, you know?
[JR] Right.
[JT] Everybody was working in New York. I remember we were working at the Half Note with Joe
Henderson and we played for the door. And I think
we played Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for $8 each or
something like that.
[JR] Huh.
[JT] But nobody cared, because everybody was
working all the time.
[JR] Right.

[JT] That was a great experience.

[JR] What were the more lucrative
gigs back then?
[JT] Oh, well, doing things like
telethons and those kind of gigs.

[JR] Uh-huh.
[JT] Those gigs paid well—I
remember one time I made a record
with John Lennon and it was like
1968 or something and we recorded
the whole day and we made $1700
and that was a lot of money then.

[JR] Yeah.
[JT] And the record was terrible.
You know, we had no music; we
were just making it up, and double
tracking: like we’d play and then
play again on the same track. I couldn’t understand any
of it, you know, but the fact was the money was nice.

[JR] [laughs] It allowed you to play $8 gigs with Joe Henderson.
[JT] That’s right, yeah, and at that time I was
working at the Rainbow Room. I worked there a lot,
especially with Joe Williams. That was nice, with
Norman Simmons, Lisle Atkinson, and Ted Dunbar.
I used to look forward to that. We used to do a lot of
things. The great thing about Joe was he never told you
what he was going to sing. But New York was vibrant
then. You could go and hear Al and Zoot; go one night
and Phil would be sitting in with them and another
night Richie Kamuca would be sitting in with them.
You could go hear John Coltrane and sit all night, buy
a bottle of beer, two bottles of beer, and sit all night
and listen to the music. Not like now, you gotta pay a
deposit to get in the door.
[JR] Heh.
[JT] Yeah.

[JR] So how did it come about that you toured and recorded

28

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2014

with Duke Ellington in 1974?
[JT] Well in 1974, first of all, Ellington died in
April. And then Harry [Carney] died in November.
Harry was a good friend, I knew him well.

[JR] How did you first meet him?
[JT] I met him in England. When the band came
to England, they did about 26 concerts and we probably saw 22 or 23 of them. We just got in the car and
drove around all over the country. Wherever they went,
we followed them. I got to know Harry pretty well and
when Harry died, John Gensel was the pastor at the
Lutheran church on 54th Street. He was the “shepard
of the night flock,” that’s what Ellington used to call
him. He asked me if I wanted to play at Harry’s funeral, so I played “Sophisticated Lady,” and then that’s
how I came to be in the band. Mercer [Ellington] was
sitting there and he offered me the job and I started
working with the Ellington
band. But it wasn’t the same;
it wasn’t the same Ellington
band, but it was still a pretty
good band. It just didn’t
sound like Duke Ellington.
[JR] And what year was this
that Ellington came to England
when you saw him?
[JT] 1958. We spent a
lot of time with the band
there, too.

[JR] Was that the same trip
where he met the Queen?
[JT] Yeah. That was
in Leeds. There was a big
festival at Leeds, and I
was there with Humphrey
Lyttelton and the Ellington
band was there. We went
out to eat one night and I was sitting there
amazed by the way some of the guys ate there. Quentin
Jackson ordered five pork chops with five eggs on top
[laughs].
[JR] Woah!
[JT] [Laughs] And Harold Ashby, he ate a whole
steak dinner and then he had a fish dinner and then he
had something else. But I guess, you know, probably
traveling all day and you don’t get a chance to eat.
[JR] Sure.
[JT] They make up for it after the gig [laughs].

[JR] Right.
[JT] I was there off and on for a couple of years. I
worked off and on with the band but I didn’t stay because I didn’t want to be touring all that much. I went
to Japan with them a couple times, and I went to Europe a couple times. And then they got the Broadway
show, “Sophisticated Ladies.” I did that for two years.
Previous to that I played “Brigadoon” for probably 10
or 11 months. That was a beautiful job because that
had a woodwind sextet and it was really great going to
work and playing in that context every night.

[JR] What instruments were in your book?
[JT] I played bass saxophone, bass clarinet, and a
little flute and clarinet, but mostly bass clarinet and
doubling with the bassoon. The bassoonist was a man
called Sandy Sharoff who was a wonderful player and
a great friend of mine. When he did “West Side Story,”
Bernstein made a special solo for him. He was a great
player. Al Regni was there too, and Al was a really
great player too. There were a couple of people from
the American Symphony; there was the clarinet player,
and the oboe and English horn player. It really was a
thrill to play in that context every night.

[JR] One of my favorites songs is from that show, “Heather
on the Hill.”
[JT] “Heather on the Hill,” yeah. My hometown
in Scotland, I call that “Brigadoon” because ever since
I was a kid, it’s never changed. It’s always looked the
same to this very day…
So we did “Sophisticated Ladies” for almost two
years. The band played on stage, and that was a lot of
fun.
[JR] What years were those?
[JT] That was 1980.

[JR] Okay.
[JT] Gregory Hines was in the show and Phyllis
Hyman and Judith Jamison. It was great. There was a
wonderful singer whose name was Patricia Baskerville.
She was a wonderful singer. That was enjoyable too,
but I got tired of the routine of working on Broadway.
You know, once you go there and sit down and start
playing it’s OK but just the thought of it. [Laughs]
Dragging yourself in there every night.
[JR] Huh.
[JT] And after that came Wynton [Marsalis].
That’s when I met Wynton, around that time.

[JR] And how did you meet him?
[JT] About two or three years later, after “Sophisticated Lady,” I started playing with Wynton. When the
Lincoln Center Band was first put together, it was more
or less to play Ellington music. So there were a lot of
Ellington people there, you know. The first saxophone
section was Frank Wess, Norris Turney, Joe Henderson, Jimmy Hamilton, and me. That was the first saxophone section. After Joe Henderson left, Todd Williams
came in. He worked for a while with us, Todd. He’s a
great player, too. And then gradually, Wynton sort of
brought his septet: Victor Goines, Eric Reed, Herlin
Riley… Veal?
[JR] Reginald Veal.
[JT] Reginald Veal. Yeah, and Wess Anderson.
Gradually those people came into the band. We started
playing with the band in ’87 or something like that,
and in 1990 we became a constituency and we started
from there. We started touring and working all the
time and I’ve been there ever since.
[JR] So I guess you like it.
[JT] I do, yeah. I love working for Wynton, I love
Wynton dearly because he’s a wonderful man. I have a

lot of respect for him.

[JR] What have been some of the highlights of your experiences working with that band?
[JT] Oh well you know, different aspects of touring. Like going to China, and going to Korea, going to
Australia, Brazil, and Russia, all over Europe. There’s
talk of us going to Cuba.
[JR] Really?
[JT] They’ve been talking like that for a while so
I don’t know, but I would like to see it happen one of
these days. But we’ve been everywhere. Wynton also
writes a lot of orchestral things so we get a chance to
play with symphony orchestras.

[JR] Right.
[JT] We played with the Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, New York Philharmonic; we recorded
with the LA Philharmonic; we played with the Concertgebouw Orchestra; we played with Berlin Philharmonic. In fact, we’re going to Berlin to play with the
Philharmonic next June, to spend 10 days with them.
So Wynton wrote a piece called “All Rise,” which
consisted of the band plus the symphony orchestra plus
the Morgan State Choir. It was a huge undertaking, so I
would imagine he’s in the process of writing something
like that for Berlin.
[JR] How do all these orchestras compare?
[JT] Well I would say at that level of orchestra,
they’re all pretty good orchestras; they’re wonderful
orchestras. I’ve met some great players in those orchestras; became friendly with a lot of different people.
One time in Chicago, I heard a trumpet player with
the most beautiful sound. I said to somebody, “Who’s
that?” and he said, “Oh that’s so-and-so and he’s 90
years old.” [Editor’s note: most likely this was Adolph
“Bud” Herseth.]
[JR] Wow.
[JT] And he was one of the principal trumpet players for the Chicago Symphony at that time.
[JR] Right.
[JT] He had the most wonderful sound. And here
I am, this present day. I found a wonderful career in
America, much more than I ever dreamed of when I
left to come here.

[JR] Could you tell me about the Fife Youth Jazz Orchestra
and what that is?
[JT] Well that came about when I met this schoolteacher named Richard Michaels and he was talking
about this Fife Youth Orchestra. I used to spend a lot
of time going back to Scotland at the time.

[JR] What time was that?
[JT] That was around the late 1970s and 1980s.
And we finally got together and we started off with 11
kids. We had a seminar, a summer school with 11 kids,
and we built it up in the span of oh, five, six, seven
years, something like that. It became 70 kids. That’s
like three full-scale orchestras; big bands. There were
little kids, 8, 10, 11 years old, and then there were

Spring / Summer 2014 • The NOTE

29

intermediate kids between 11 and 15, and then the
senior kids. It is still thriving and still doing well. But
unfortunately I don’t have the time to get there, too
much. Every time I say I’m going to go there something
comes up and I can’t go. Maybe this year. I think this
year we’ll have some time off in the summer.
Last year we [Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra] went
to 7 different countries in July. You know, it’s not fun
anymore. Trying to deal with airports and crowds…
Getting instruments on planes and getting luggage on
planes. And people have computers nowadays. People
travel with computers, and they have all kinds of keyboards and that all stuff. Touring is a lot different now
than it was.
[JR] How many weeks a year is the band out on the road?
[JT] I would say last year we were probably out
about 14 to 16 weeks, something like that. Three different tours. A tour usually lasts about three to four
weeks. Like in March, we’re going to do a tour and it’s
about three and a half weeks. And in June we’re away
the whole of June. We have 10 days in Berlin and then
a week in London at the Barbican. That takes us up
to the 21st of June, and the rest of June is going to be
spent doing some one-nighters in the rest of the UK
until the 30th. Then we come back to the States. Then
I think we’re off for all of July and August as far as I
know, which I’m looking forward to.
[JR] Yeah, I’ll bet.
[JT] Maybe I’ll get a chance to go to Scotland.

[JR] How often do you make it back there?
[JT] Well I was there in August; I went to the Edinburgh Jazz Festival and spent about a week in Edinburgh, which is a beautiful town.

[JR] Yeah.
[JT] My hometown was probably about 20 miles
from Edinburgh, over the other side of the Firth of
Forth. So hopefully… You know, I like to go back there.
It’s the only time I ever get a chance to play golf. It’s
too hard to play golf around New York.

[JR] I’ll bet.
[JT] I gave it up. You know, getting up at 5 o’clock
in the morning and driving for an hour and a half and
then waiting for maybe an hour or an hour and 15 minutes. And then it takes between five and six hours to
play because it’s so small. It’s not fun. In Scotland, you
play golf for three and a half hours and it’s over. You
walk up to the course, head straight out. Three and a
half hours, walking.
[JR] Yeah.
[JT] I guess right out where you live you can play
golf. [Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania]
[JR] Yeah I think so.
[JT] Yeah.

[JR] Well having taught for nearly 18 years at Manhattan
School of Music and the past number of years at Julliard since
their program started, how do you approach teaching? Or what
has teaching been in your career?

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The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2014

[JT] I don’t have any hard or fast method. The
thing that I like to teach is to teach people how to be
themselves and how to get a sound and how to approach music and their musicianship in their own way,
and try and deal with that, rather than make them…
I mean, I like to play exercise books and play duets
and things like that with them, too, but I really try to
encourage people to figure out how to make a living
in the music business, because not everybody can be a
jazz star. That’s not possible.

[JR] Right.
[JT] Not everybody. I mean there are a few special
people that can do that and God bless them and good
luck to them, but not everybody can do that. So the
thing is to try to encourage people to make a living as
a musician. Not to go into some obscure club and line
up to play 85 choruses of blues. First of all, encourage them to play all the saxophones. Then encourage
them to play the clarinet, which is very important.
And a lot of people don’t want to do that, you know? A
lot of people say, “Well I’m an alto player.” No, you’re
a saxophone player. You should be able to play any
saxophone. And also, you have to play the clarinet and
the flute if you want to have a family and a house and a
car. So that’s my approach to teaching.
[JR] And from your perspective of these schools, do you think
there’s anything missing from jazz education? Or what would you
change about the overall approach that you see?
[JT] The only thing I see – the only fault I find is
the obsession with John Coltrane. I mean I love John
Coltrane. I’ve always loved John Coltrane, but there’s
a whole lot of other saxophone players who are never
mentioned as far as I can see in these schools. Like nobody talks about the way that Zoot can play a melody
and sing a song, you know, or Al Cohn’s approach to
playing and Stan Getz and Phil Woods, and different people like that are never brought up at all. I try
to encourage my students to listen to people like Bud
Freeman, and when I tell people that Bud Freeman had
a big influence on Lester Young, they don’t believe it,
but he did. Bud Freeman and, who was the other one,
that C melody saxophone player?
[JR] Frankie Trumbauer?
[JT] Frankie Trumbauer. They had a big influence
on Lester Young.
[JR] Yeah.
[JT] And what a wonderful saxophone player
Jimmy Dorsey was.

[JR] Yeah.
[JT] And a wonderful clarinet player, you know? I
get my students to make transcriptions of things like
that. Don Bias to me is another important saxophone
player. Lucky Thompson too. You know there are a
whole lot of people. But the emphasis is all the time
on John Coltrane; it’s not Coltrane’s fault, of course. I
like Al Cohn’s description of “Giant Steps.” “Do you
play “Giant Steps?” He said, “Yes, but I play my own
changes.”
[JR] [laughs] That’s great.

[JT] The thing about listening to music is, listening to the difference between Art Tatum and Vladimir
Horowitz, you know, things like that.

[JR] Yeah.
[JT] Teddy Wilson. You know, people forget about
that. I don’t enjoy going to jazz clubs because to me,
nowadays, everything is too loud, especially the bass or
the drums. Way too loud!
[JR] Why do you think that happened?
[JT] I guess people tried to play like Elvin.

[JR] Huh. Interesting.
[JT] Maybe that’s what it is, I don’t know. Amplifiers too, of course. Bass players turn up their amplifier,
and now the bass player is louder than the whole band.

[JR] [laughs] Are there any people today that you particularly like or that you think are playing music that you like better?
[JT] Uh, yeah! I have to think about that. I don’t
know. In days gone by, there were so many people to
go and listen to, you know?
[JR] Mm-hmm
[JT] But you can’t do that anymore. I don’t want
to go to a club and hear somebody’s “project.” I don’t
want to hear a band trying to play like Cannonball.

[JR] Right.
[JT] I don’t want that. Or, the Beatles Project, you
know, stuff like that. What I want to hear at the club is
somebody playing like themselves.
[JR] Sure.
[JT] That’s hard to find nowadays.

[JR] You’ve released some CDs over the past few years haven’t
you?
[JT] Yeah.
[JR] “Concerto for Joe” and “Double Duke” and…
[JT] The last one I did was Sinatra. I enjoyed the
Sinatra album.
[JR] Oh right.
[JT] Yeah.

on?

[JR] Do you have any projects coming up that you’re working

[JT] I’m thinking about recording again in May. I
just recorded one track for a Japanese project. I’ve been
playing this tune called “A Single Pedal of a Rose” on
bass clarinet for quite some time now.

[JR] Right. In “The Queen’s Suite.”
[JT] Yeah. In fact, the lady heard me play at Lincoln Center. She took me and my wife; she flew us first
class to Paris and put us up for five days and I played
that one tune at a wedding.
[JR] Hmm.
[JT] With Dan Nimmer, the piano player in the
band. Just to go over there for that one tune. It was a
wonderful experience [laughs].

[JR] That’s great.
[JT] Well I’ve played it at people’s funerals; I’ve
played at people’s weddings. It’s a great piece. And I
love playing the bass clarinet.
net.

[JR] Yeah, the piece seems like it’s written for the bass clari[JT] Absolutely!

[JR] It’s got that low D-flat in it.
[JT] I first heard it when Ben Webster played it
with Hank Jones.

[JR] Hmm.
[JT] Well, the first time I’ve heard it was in the
“Queen’s Suite,” with Ellington as a piano solo. But
then, I’ve got this record of Ben Webster, and all of a
sudden, I heard him playing the “The Queen’s Suite,”
playing “A Single Pedal.” I’m really a big fan of Duke
Ellington, I guess; Billy Strayhorn too. I just love that
music.
[JR] What’s your favorite recording by the band?
[JT] My favorite Ellington record is “And His
Mother Called Him Bill.”

[JR] Yeah. All the Billy Strayhorn tunes.
[JT] Yeah. But the band is so good. And the record
that Dizzy plays a solo on, uh, on U.M.M.G. [Upper
Manhattan Medical Group, from the album Jazz Party.]

[JR] Oh right, right.
[JT] With all of the percussion instruments. That’s
a great record too, because of Dizzy. That solo he plays
is so—not many people can play a really authentic solo
on that tune.

[JR] Yeah.
[JT] That’s a great piece. But that band was funny,
you know, when they came to England. They did two
shows a night, and I used to go to the first show, and
there would be about six people on the bandstand.
There’d be Jimmy Hamilton, Harry Carney, Russel
Procope, and maybe Lawrence Brown and Cat Anderson and the rhythm section. And Harry Carney would
beat off, “Take the A-Train,” and they’d play “Take the
A-Train” and make it sound exactly the same.
[JR] Even with all those people missing.

[JT] [laughs] With everybody missing, it still sounded the same, and then people used to drift in. They’d
play a couple of tunes and then somebody would come
on, and then another couple of people would come
on, and always the tune before intermission, Johnny
Hodges would walk out. And then Paul [Gonsalves]
wouldn’t appear for the second half. But he would appear, sit down, and go to sleep.
I think we should have a little toot on the soprano
now.
[JR] I think that sounds good. Well, thank you so much for
sharing all of this.
[JT] Oh, my pleasure. I can’t believe I actually did
all that stuff, when I think about it.

U

Spring / Summer 2014 • The NOTE

31

David Liebman - Straight Talk

Matt Vashlishan

Understanding
the Common Qualities that
Artists Possess

F

ollowing is a transcription of
a talk that I gave to a class of
students at East Stroudsburg
University of Pennsylvania for the
conclusion of a course titled “Masters of Jazz.” For 12 sessions, guest
musicians spoke about their lives to
the students. The textbook for the
course was my “Self Portrait of A Jazz
Artist” (Advance Music). The topic
for the talk was to describe and understand the common qualities that
these artists possess which define
success in jazz and in life.
I wrote down a few of what I
would describe as common qualities
that you saw in these speakers, in
various intensities, that you will find
in the real world no matter what you
do, no matter what field you encounter. I think there are some general
lessons here that you can observe
and then there are some very unique
things that we only see so with such
intensity in the jazz field.
      One of the things I really admire
about the musicians, maybe the
main thing is that the musicians and
people involved in jazz are in it for
the music and possess a certain kind
of --- I’m going to say it slang-wise
--- a certain kind of down-home,

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Part 1 of 2

informal quality…straight-forward
vibe basically, just plain folks. These
are the kind of people you can talk
to anywhere. This is not to disparage any other field or any other kind
of music, but the idea of the prima
donna, the idea of the “great artist”
sitting in an ivory tower aloof and
away from the real world for the most
part really doesn’t exist among jazz
musicians. It’s just not in their “M.O.”
I think that is something we really
value. I’m not saying that they’re not
sometimes quite introspective and
like their privacy and so forth, but
they’re the kind of people who don’t
holds airs or come on strong with an
attitude. To me, that’s a very endearing quality in common with all the
jazz musicians I’ve met. And by the
way, this is true all over the world
regardless of language. That’s a nice
thing to see and something that I feel
anyone would prefer to encounter in
the real world but of course that isn’t
always going to be the case. This is
definitely something in common with
the artists you have seen here.
Another thing that you might
have noticed, again depending on
what each of the people spoke specifically about, meaning what the

The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2014

emphasis of their discussion with
you was, is how the word “integrity”
enters into the life of these artists.
Integrity is a word that gets bandied
around a lot and means different
things to different people. I think
for the most part what you saw are
people who are so true and connected
to what they do that it would be very
difficult to imagine them moving
from that place. Their ways of achieving what they want are going to be,
for the most part, honest, moral and
ethical. And that is I would say, a very
common trait among jazz musicians.
They are very straight, honest people
in that respect with no game-playing.
These are not the kind of people that
are going to take the money and run.
For the most part there is a real honesty about intentions and personal
dealings.
What is it that makes these
common traits among people who
come from all different experiences?
I always go back to the fact that the
music is the source of the truths and
our principles. In other words, what
we heard, and you heard everybody
talk about their influences --- who
inspired them, how they started,
what gave them the idea to even

play --- what you find in the music
is usually something much higher
and much more spiritual, much more
balanced than your life or the life you
see around you. The music is perfect, after that it’s what we bring to
the music. When you listen to those
who inspired you, you are turned on
by the beauty, the logic, all the great
intellect and the great technique.
That beauty that comes through the
music I have always felt showed me a
better way to be as a person. In other
words, if I had a doubt about how to
be, I would listen to Coltrane who
would straighten me out, especially
when I was in that period of my life
searching for how to be which was
my early 20s for the most part. In
other words, when questions arose
about which way I should go, the kind
of things that one confronts in life,
when I would listen to Coltrane, it
would make me say: “Well there’s no
question about which way I have to
follow.” So there’s something about
the music that gives a sense of integrity and direction to those who love
and devote themselves to it. This is a
definite common trait.
      More to the practical world. I read
a book years ago called “The Lives
of the Great Composers.” It was by a
very famous critic from the New York
Times, Harold Schoenberg, a classical music critic, very respected and
so forth. It was biographies of all the
guys from, you know, Mozart right on
through the modern ones. I remember my impression of the book was
how different everybody was in the
way they organized music. Some were
completely organized, I forget, it was
one of the H’s – Handel or Haydn,
one of those guys was so organized;
he had everything together, everything was copied, parts were together,
and he would hand it to the King or
whomever and that would be it. One
of the other dudes, Debussy or somebody, was up at 5 in the morning the
night before it was due, copying the
parts. I’m talking all geniuses, all
great, all different paths to the same
thing. A quality you see among all
these musicians, a quality you can
glean from all of these speakers is
some sense of organization. Now, if
you were to compare the organization
of Speaker A with the organization
of Speaker B and go to their studio,
you’d see one guy’s studio where

there are saxophones in the corner
on the floor, reeds, music paper,
pencils strewn all about, and go to
some other studio and everything
is in boxes and neatly stacked. This
would reflect an obvious difference
in the style. But I think, beyond the
style, beyond the way one does it, for
somebody to be able to play and be
involved in this music, you have had
to be organized somewhere, somehow. Because there’s no way that you
could amass this kind of information,
to be able to spit it out in a spontaneous way in such rapidity that we do in
jazz without being organized in some
fashion. I mean like a computer. The
boxes in the brain are divided up into
little segments which work. They’re
different for everybody but they are
very, very clear. There’s no way that
they would get to this kind of level if
they weren’t like that.

Another thing that’s in common,
that goes along with the organization
principle, is the ability to project, to
think ahead, to imagine. It’s thinking
about a situation, about what will it
be like, what is happening tomorrow,
what will the music sound like if I do
this, where will the music be played,
etc. In other words, what we spend
a lot of our time doing is preparing
for the next event, whether it’s a gig,
or writing for a recording, or traveling, or organizing a tour. These are
very practical things. Or maybe I am
preparing to learn something so that
possibly in a year or two I’m very
good at it. In other words I’ll learn
this piece and then I’ll get better
through the discipline I’ve learned by
studying. A musician has to be able
to imagine what things are going to
be like, to project and not be afraid of
the future, or be scared about how it
will sound…just go out on a limb. In
a way, that’s very tied to the spontaneous nature of what we do, that
we’re playing on the spot, in the moment and we’re not sure how it’s going to work out. But even more than
that, even away from the instrument,
it is the ability to really look ahead
and say “What would happen if I did
this? And if I do this, what would
the results be?” That’s a certain kind
of ability. I don’t know if that comes
through the music or that comes because of the music, but I think that is
in common to a lot of jazz musicians

-- the ability to project ahead into the
future.

Obviously a big thing, and this
you probably got very clearly from
all the speakers as they spoke about
their past and their lives and how
they developed is the ability to learn
from experience. How to take a
kernel of information and let that
be a lesson to do something better
the next time. Now we do it every
minute with the music. If we see a
chord change, or we see a new pattern, or we see something musically
that is thrown in front of us that is
unusual, the way we handle that is
a preparation for the next time that
comes up. We may not realize it but
of course we’re honing our abilities…
we’re disciplining ourselves every
time we see that particular problem.
One might say: “Well you know what,
I saw this chord progression which
was very difficult in this tune that I
did on a recording date. I got through
it but it was a bitch to play. I’m taking
it home, I’m going to practice it and
write 20 extra exercises on it to make
a study out of it.” Well, that’s quite
organized and very, very disciplined.
Another person might just be more
spontaneous about it, in the sense of
saying: “Well you know that thing I
saw yesterday in the music was quite
challenging and I will remember
that and lodge it in that part of the
brain that I can use for experience.”
That’s very important…to learn from
experience. We do it with the music,
which is no different from anybody in
any other part of life who learns from
experience.

But that’s what’s unusual about
us. What’s different from other
people in this respect is that the music made us become this way. That’s
how I feel about it. It wasn’t like we
came on to the planet with these
things. We came in as anybody else,
equipped with whatever our past is
and whatever our upbringing was. But
when we got to the music, usually at
a very impressionable age, it told us
these things without even spelling it
out. So they’re all things we got from
music and then of course those that
are smart enough or that are aware
will take these things and develop
them further.

U

To be continued . . . next issue.

Spring / Summer 2014 • The NOTE

33

Readers, please take NOTE
COTA Camp Jazz

July 21-27, 2014 Founded in 2007 by Phil Woods, the
camp focuses on small group improvisation, inspiration
and motivation for musicians ages 13 and up. Students
experience level specific study of harmony, ear training,
listening, history and more. The curriculum also includes
the world-renowned Deer Head Inn, Red Rock Recording
Studio sessions and a family gazebo concert.
Faculty: Rick Chamberlain, Dr. Matt Vashlishan, Evan
Gregor, Bobby Avey, Sue Terry, Dr. Sherrie Maricle,
Spencer Reed, Jay Rattman with Master Classes with Phil
Woods, Dave Liebman, Bob Dorough and more…
www.campjazz.org

The 10th Annual Scranton Jazz Festival

August 1-3, 2014 This summer The Scranton Jazz Festival
will celebrate its 10th year at the historic Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel and various downtown Scranton
venues. Attracting international, national, and regional
jazz/blues and world beat artists, the SJF has proven to be
a “don’t miss” summer musical event!
www.scrantonjazzfestival.org

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

September 5-7, 2014 Founded in 1978 by NEA Jazz Master
Phil Woods, trombonist Rick Chamberlain and the late Ed
Joubert primarily to share jazz and it’s relationship to all
art forms with neighbors, COTA has become a reunion of
old friends both on the stage and off. The festival features
many local jazz and visual artists that have made the Poconos their home. This year the festival will feature: The
Absolut Trio, Evan Gregor and Matt Vashlishan Quartet
with Vic Juris and Jeff Hirschfield, Najwa Parkins and the

After Hours Quartet, Walt Bibinger, Bob Dorough, Diva,
La Cuchina, the COTA Cats, Co-Op Bop, Dennis Jeter,
and many more. Come celebrate the festival in its 37th
year, the weekend after Labor Day.
www.cotajazz.org

ZOOT Fest 2014

November 9, 2014 noon-6 p.m. Zoot Fest is a major annual fundraising event to benefit the Al Cohn Memorial Jazz
Collection and its important outreach initiatives. A portion of ticket proceeds will also benefit COTA Camp Jazz
via a donation to the Delaware Water Gap Celebration of
the Arts Fund for Young Musicians. This year Zoot Fest
will be held in ESU’s new Innovation Center conveniently
located off Interstate 80 at the Marshalls Creek exit.
www.jazzatesu.com

Pennsylvania Jazz Collective:

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

Contributors & Acknowledgements
For additional information about the contributors to The NOTE, you can visit their websites:
Phil Woods: www.philwoods.com
Michael Stephans: www.michaelstephans.com
Scarecrow Press: https://rowman.com/ISBN/978-0-8108-8290-4
David Liebman: www.daveliebman.com
U.S. Embassy of Thailand: http://bangkok.usembassy.gov/
Jay Rattman: www.jayrattman.com
Special thanks to:
Marcia G. Welsh, Ph.D., Brenda Friday, Ph.D., and Edward Owusu-Ansah, Ph.D. for showing their support for
the Al Cohn Memorial Jazz Collection and giving me the opportunity to continue to bring you this publication, Gordon Jack and Jazz Journal International for the use of their article, Dr. Pathorn Srikaranonda and everyone at the U.S.
Embassy for a memorable trip to write about and a wonderful CD package, Phil Woods for his continuous humour
and ability to remember and articulate such great stories, Garth Woods and all of the ACMJC contributors for their
spectacular photographs, Michael Stephans and Scarecrow Press for their permission to print a great excerpt and
photo, Bob Bush and Colette LaMarche for the invaluable help getting me acquainted with the Collection and The
NOTE, Charles de Bourbon for the graphic design and patience with my first issue, and the ESU Library Staff for being
so welcoming and helpful during my first few months.

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The NOTE • Spring / Summer 2014

Spring / Summer 2014 • The NOTE

35

Cannonball Adderley
Photo by and donated by Herb Snitzer.