eric nemeyer’s - jazz inside magazine · 2019-05-17 · mccoy tyner and charles mcpherson at 80;...
TRANSCRIPT
HaynesHaynes
Interviews Michael FeinsteinMichael Feinstein Jazz At Lincoln Center, May 15Jazz At Lincoln Center, May 15--1616
Donny McCaslinDonny McCaslin With David Sanchez, Village Vanguard, April 22With David Sanchez, Village Vanguard, April 22--2424
Ernie WattsErnie Watts
Chico HamiltonChico Hamilton
Comprehensive Comprehensive
Directory Directory of NY ClubS, ConcertS of NY ClubS, ConcertS
RoyRoy
Eric Nemeyer’s
WWW.JAZZINSIDEMAGAZINE.COMWWW.JAZZINSIDEMAGAZINE.COM AprilApril--May 2019May 2019
94th Birthday Celebration, Blue Note, April 2294th Birthday Celebration, Blue Note, April 22--2424
December 2015 � Jazz Inside Magazine � www.JazzInsideMagazine.com
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Jazz Inside Magazine
ISSN: 2150-3419 (print) • ISSN 2150-3427 (online)
April-May 2019 – Volume 10, Number 1
Cover Photo and photo at right of Roy Haynes
By Ken Weiss
Publisher: Eric Nemeyer Editor: Wendi Li Marketing Director: Cheryl Powers Advertising Sales & Marketing: Eric Nemeyer Circulation: Susan Brodsky Photo Editor: Joe Patitucci Layout and Design: Gail Gentry Contributing Artists: Shelly Rhodes Contributing Photographers: Eric Nemeyer, Ken Weiss Contributing Writers: John Alexander, John R. Barrett, Curtis Daven-port; Alex Henderson; Joe Patitucci; Ken Weiss.
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CONTENTSCONTENTS
CLUBS, CONCERTS, EVENTSCLUBS, CONCERTS, EVENTS 13 Calendar of Events 18 Clubs & Venue Listings
4 Roy Haynes - Photo Gallery
INTERVIEWSINTERVIEWS 20 Donny McCaslin
26 Ernie Watts 31 Michael Feinstein 33 Chico Hamilton
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Monday, April 1 William Paterson University Jazz Orchestra & Quintet With Ingrid
Jensen; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Vanguard Jazz Orchestra; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Ari Hoenig Quartet; Joe Farnsworth Trio feat. Buster Williams; Jon Elbaz Trio "After-hours"; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
Georgia Middleman and Gary Burr; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Deborah Davis, 21st Annual Jazz Benefit; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Tuesday, April 2 J.D. Allen Quartet Featuring Liberty Ellman; Jazz Standard, 116 E.
27th St.
Yotam Silberstein Quartet Featuring John Patitucci; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Sullivan Fortner Trio - Sullivan Fortner, Piano; Ameen Saleem, Bass; Jeremy ‘Bean’ Clemons, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Hillel Salem Quintet; Abraham Burton Quartet; Malik McLaurine Trio "After-hours"; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
Benny Green; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Joshua Redman Quartet: Aaron Goldberg/Reuben Rogers/Gregory Hutchinson; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Wednesday, April 3 J.D. Allen Quartet Featuring Liberty Ellman; Jazz Standard, 116 E.
27th St.
Yotam Silberstein Quartet Featuring John Patitucci; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Sullivan Fortner Trio - Sullivan Fortner, Piano; Ameen Saleem, Bass; Jeremy ‘Bean’ Clemons, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Brent Birckhead; Sam Dillon Quartet; Davis Whitfield Quartet "After-hours"; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
Clint Holmes Celebrates The Jazz of Sammy Davis. Jr From The Copa to Broadway; Joe Alterman; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Joshua Redman Quartet: Aaron Goldberg/Reuben Rogers/Gregory Hutchinson; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Thursday, April 4 Veronica Swift; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
An Evening With Ben Vereen; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Sullivan Fortner Trio - Sullivan Fortner, Piano; Ameen Saleem, Bass; Jeremy ‘Bean’ Clemons, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Aaron Seeber Quartet; Francisco Mela and the Crash Trio; Malick Koly "After-hours"; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
Diane Marino; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Joshua Redman Quartet: Aaron Goldberg/Reuben Rogers/Gregory Hutchinson; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Friday, April 5 Veronica Swift; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
An Evening With Ben Vereen; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Sullivan Fortner Trio - Sullivan Fortner, Piano; Ameen Saleem, Bass; Jeremy ‘Bean’ Clemons, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Eliot Zigmund Quintet; Ken Fowser Quintet; JD Allen "After-hours"; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
Birdland Big Band; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Joshua Redman Quartet: Aaron Goldberg/Reuben Rogers/Gregory Hutchinson; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
McCoy Tyner and Charles McPherson At 80; Pianist McCoy Tyner and saxophonist Charles McPherson join the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis for an 80th birthday celebration. 8PM, Rose Theater, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Saturday, April 6 Veronica Swift; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
An Evening With Ben Vereen; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Sullivan Fortner Trio - Sullivan Fortner, Piano; Ameen Saleem, Bass; Jeremy ‘Bean’ Clemons, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Eliot Zigmund Quintet; Ken Fowser Quintet; Brooklyn Circle; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
Joshua Redman Quartet: Aaron Goldberg/Reuben Rogers/Gregory Hutchinson; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
McCoy Tyner and Charles McPherson At 80; Pianist McCoy Tyner and saxophonist Charles McPherson join the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis for an 80th birthday celebration. 8PM, Rose Theater, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Sunday, April 7
Jazz For Kids; Veronica Swift; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
An Evening With Ben Vereen; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Sullivan Fortner Trio - Sullivan Fortner, Piano; Ameen Saleem, Bass; Jeremy ‘Bean’ Clemons, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Jeremy Manasia Quintet; The Zebtet: Music of Saul Zebulon Rubin; Alon Near Trio "After-hours"; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Monday, April 8 Mingus Big Band: Celebrating 10 Years at Jazz Standard; Jazz
Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Manhattan School Of Music Jazz Orchestra: Manhattan Sings; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Vanguard Jazz Orchestra; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Omer Avital Trio; Rodney Green Quartet; Sean Mason Trio; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
Jim Caruso's Cast Party; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Pablo Sainz Villegas; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Tuesday, April 9 SFJAZZ Collective plays Miles Davis; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Julien Labro & The Chanson Experiment; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Steve Wilson & Wilsonian’s Grain - Steve Wilson, Alto Saxophone; Orrin Evans, Piano; Ugonna Okegwo, Bass; Ulysses Owens, Jr., Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Justin Robinson Quartet; Frank Lacy's Tromboniverse; Malik McLau-rine Trio; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
James Carter Organ Trio; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Dizzy Gillespie Afro Cuban All-Stars; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Wednesday, April 10 SFJAZZ Collective plays Miles Davis; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Mason Brothers Quintet; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Steve Wilson & Wilsonian’s Grain - Steve Wilson, Alto Saxophone; Orrin Evans, Piano; Ugonna Okegwo, Bass; Ulysses Owens, Jr., Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Remy Le Boeuf Quintet; Mike Lee Trio; Davis Whitfield Trio "After-hours"; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
James Carter Organ Trio; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Dizzy Gillespie Afro Cuban All-Stars; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Thursday, April 11 SFJAZZ Collective plays Miles Davis; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Mason Brothers Quintet; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Steve Wilson & Wilsonian’s Grain - Steve Wilson, Alto Saxophone; Orrin Evans, Piano; Ugonna Okegwo, Bass; Ulysses Owens, Jr., Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Carlos Abadie Quintet; Jerry Weldon Quartet; Jonathan Thomas Trio "After-hours"; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
James Carter Organ Trio; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Arturo Sandoval; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Friday, April 12 SFJAZZ Collective plays Antonio Carlos Jobim; Jazz Standard, 116 E.
27th St. (Continued on page 14)
CALENDAR OF EVENTSCALENDAR OF EVENTS
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Sherman Irby & Momentum; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Steve Wilson & Wilsonian’s Grain - Steve Wilson, Alto Saxophone; Orrin Evans, Piano; Ugonna Okegwo, Bass; Ulysses Owens, Jr., Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Ralph Bowen Quartet; John Marshall Quintet; Corey Wallace DUBtet "After-hours"; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
James Carter Organ Trio; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Arturo Sandoval; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Saturday April 13 SFJAZZ Collective plays Antonio Carlos Jobim; Jazz Standard, 116 E.
27th St.
Sherman Irby & Momentum; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Steve Wilson & Wilsonian’s Grain - Steve Wilson, Alto Saxophone; Orrin Evans, Piano; Ugonna Okegwo, Bass; Ulysses Owens, Jr., Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Ralph Bowen Quartet; John Marshall Quintet; Philip Harper Quintet; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
James Carter Organ Trio; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Arturo Sandoval; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Sunday, April 14 SFJAZZ Collective plays Antonio Carlos Jobim; Jazz Standard, 116 E.
27th St.
Sherman Irby & Momentum; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Steve Wilson & Wilsonian’s Grain - Steve Wilson, Alto Saxophone; Orrin Evans, Piano; Ugonna Okegwo, Bass; Ulysses Owens, Jr., Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Joey "G-Clef" Cavaseno Quartet; Bruce Harris Quintet; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Arturo Sandoval; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Monday, April 15 Mingus Big Band: Celebrating 10 Years at Jazz Standard; Jazz
Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Monday Nights With WBGO, Yale Jazz Ensemble Featuring Randy Brecker And Wayne Escoffery; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Vanguard Jazz Orchestra; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Joe Martin Quartet; Joe Farnsworth Trio; Jon Elbaz Trio; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
Jed Levy; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Purchase Jazz Orchestra: Conducted by Jon Faddis w/ Ken Peplowski; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Tuesday, April 16 Michael Leonhart Orchestra; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
American Pianists Association Competition Winner; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Tom Harrell “Infinity” - Mark Turner, Tenor Saxophone; Charles Altura, Guitar; Ugonna Okegwo, Bass; Johnathan Blake, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Spike Wilner Trio; Josh Evans Quintet; Malik McLaurine Trio; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
Daryl Sherman "Spring Fever" with Art Baron, trombone; Boots Maleson, bass; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Big Sam's Funky Nation; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St. Wednesday, April 17
April Miho Hazama and m_unit "Dancer in Nowhere"; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Jazz At Lincoln Center Gala - Dizzy’s Club Closed
Tom Harrell “Infinity” - Mark Turner, Tenor Saxophone; Charles Altura, Guitar; Ugonna Okegwo, Bass; Johnathan Blake, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Stephen Riley Quartet; Harold Mabern Trio; Micah Thomas Trio; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
Sheila Jordan; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Hector Del Curto w/ Paquito D'Rivera; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Thursday, April 18 Larry Goldings/Peter Bernstein/Bill Stewart; Jazz Standard, 116 E.
27th St.
Monty Alexander Trio; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Tom Harrell “Infinity” - Mark Turner, Tenor Saxophone; Charles Altura, Guitar; Ugonna Okegwo, Bass; Johnathan Blake, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
New York Jazz Nine; Moutin Factory Quintet; Malick Koly; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
Sheila Jordan; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Terence Blanchard ft The E-Collective; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Friday, April 19 Larry Goldings/Peter Bernstein/Bill Stewart; Jazz Standard, 116 E.
27th St.
Monty Alexander Trio; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Tom Harrell “Infinity” - Mark Turner, Tenor Saxophone; Charles Altura, Guitar; Ugonna Okegwo, Bass; Johnathan Blake, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
George Burton Quartet; JD Allen; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
Sheila Jordan; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Michael Wolff Trio; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Terence Blanchard ft The E-Collective; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Saturday, April 20 Larry Goldings/Peter Bernstein/Bill Stewart; Jazz Standard, 116 E.
27th St.
Monty Alexander Trio; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Tom Harrell “Infinity” - Mark Turner, Tenor Saxophone; Charles Altura, Guitar; Ugonna Okegwo, Bass; Johnathan Blake, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
George Burton Quartet; Brooklyn Circle; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
Sheila Jordan; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Michael Wolff Trio; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Terence Blanchard ft The E-Collective; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Sunday, April 21 Larry Goldings/Peter Bernstein/Bill Stewart; Jazz Standard, 116 E.
27th St.
Monty Alexander Trio; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Tom Harrell “Infinity” - Mark Turner, Tenor Saxophone; Charles Altura, Guitar; Ugonna Okegwo, Bass; Johnathan Blake, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Stranahan/Zaleski/Rosato; Ned Goold Quartet; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
(Continued on page 16)
Hello, my name is David Haney. I am a pianist and composer. In 2012 I took over as publisher and editor of Cadence Magazine. We have the same mandate to present independent free press. We are dedicated to the promotion of creative music. I encourage you to give us a try. You will love the new Cadence.
16 To Advertise CALL: 215-887-8880 April-May 2019 Jazz Inside Magazine www.JazzInsideMagazine.com
Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Terence Blanchard ft The E-Collective; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Monday April 22 Mingus Big Band: Celebrating 10 Years at Jazz Standard; Jazz
Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Purchase Jazz Orchestra With Special Guest Steve Nelson; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Vanguard Jazz Orchestra; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Ari Hoenig Quartet; Joe Dyson Quintet; Sean Mason Trio "After-hours"; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
Roy Haynes 94th Birthday Celebration; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Tuesday, April 23 Darcy James Argue's Secret Society; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Sam Reider & Human Hands; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Gerald Clayton Quintet - Logan Richardson, Alto Saxophone; Walter Smith III, Tenor Saxophone; Gerald Clayton, Piano; Joe Sanders, Bass; Marcus Gilmore, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Gene Jackson Trio; Frank Lacy's Tromboniverse; Malik McLaurine Trio "After-hours"; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
Kurt Rosenwinkel; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Roy Haynes 94th Birthday Celebration; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Wednesday, April 24 Darcy James Argue's Secret Society; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Evan Christopher: The Kings Of New Orleans Clarinet; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Gerald Clayton Quintet - Logan Richardson, Alto Saxophone; Walter Smith III, Tenor Saxophone; Gerald Clayton, Piano; Joe Sanders, Bass; Marcus Gilmore, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Matt Pavolka's Horns Band; Dave Baron Quintet; Micah Thomas Trio "After-hours"; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
Kurt Rosenwinkel; Dena DeRose Featuring Special Guest Artist: Houston Person; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Roy Haynes 94th Birthday Celebration; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Thursday, April 25 Stefon Harris & Blackout; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
“New York, Old Friend”: Songs Of Kenneth D. Laub With Clint Holmes, Veronica Swift And Nicolas King; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Gerald Clayton Quintet - Logan Richardson, Alto Saxophone; Walter Smith III, Tenor Saxophone; Gerald Clayton, Piano; Joe Sanders, Bass; Marcus Gilmore, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Matt Haviland Quartet; Jim Snidero Quintet; Jonathan Thomas Trio; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
Kurt Rosenwinkel; Dena DeRose Featuring Special Guest Artist: Houston Person; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Manhattan Transfer; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Wynton Marsalis and Ken Burns: Country Music - Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis and vocalists Emmylou Harris, Rhiannon Giddens, and Marty Stuart perform country hits. Plus get a sneak peek at Ken Burns’ latest documentary, Country Music. 8PM, Rose Theater, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Friday, April 26 Stefon Harris & Blackout; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Kenny Barron Quartet; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Gerald Clayton Quintet - Logan Richardson, Alto Saxophone; Walter Smith III, Tenor Saxophone; Gerald Clayton, Piano; Joe Sanders, Bass; Marcus Gilmore, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Christopher McBride; Noah Preminger Quintet; Corey Wallace DUBtet "After-hours"; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
Manhattan Transfer; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Wynton Marsalis and Ken Burns: Country Music - Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis and vocalists Emmylou Harris, Rhiannon Giddens, and Marty Stuart perform country hits. Plus get a sneak peek at Ken Burns’ latest documentary, Country Music. 8PM, Rose Theater, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Saturday, April 27 Stefon Harris & Blackout; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Kenny Barron Quartet; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Gerald Clayton Quintet - Logan Richardson, Alto Saxophone; Walter Smith III, Tenor Saxophone; Gerald Clayton, Piano; Joe Sanders, Bass; Marcus Gilmore, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Christopher McBride & The Whole Proof; Noah Preminger Quintet; Philip Harper Quintet; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
Kurt Rosenwinkel; Dena DeRose Featuring Special Guest Artist: Houston Person; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Manhattan Transfer; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Wynton Marsalis and Ken Burns: Country Music - Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis and vocalists Emmylou Harris, Rhiannon Giddens, and Marty Stuart perform country hits. Plus get a sneak peek at Ken Burns’ latest documentary, Country Music. 8PM, Rose Theater, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Sunday, April 28 Stefon Harris & Blackout; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Kenny Barron Quartet; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Gerald Clayton Quintet - Logan Richardson, Alto Saxophone; Walter Smith III, Tenor Saxophone; Gerald Clayton, Piano; Joe Sanders, Bass; Marcus Gilmore, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Chris Byars Original Sextet; JC Stylles Group; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
Ken Peplowski Big Band with Special Guest John Pizzarelli; Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Monday, April 29 Mingus Big Band: Celebrating 10 Years at Jazz Standard; Jazz
Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Temple University Jazz Band With Terell Stafford And Marshall Gilkes; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Vanguard Jazz Orchestra; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Ari Hoenig Trio; Kennci 4; Jon Elbaz Trio "After-hours"; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
Natalie Douglas "Nat Sings Nat: The Songs of Nat King Cole" With Mark Hartman; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Tuesday April 30 International Jazz Day - Camille Thurman With The Darrell Green Trio;
Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Joe Locke Group + Special Guest Raul Midón; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Gilad Hekselman; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Steve Nelson Quartet; Abraham Burton Quartet; Malik McLaurine Trio "After-hours"; Small's, 183 W. 10th St.
Frank Catalano Quartet; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Wednesday, May 1 Gilad Hekselman, guitar; Mark Turner, tenor sax; Rick Rosato, bass;
Obed Calvaire, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Willerm Delisfort; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Fleurine & Boys from Brazil New Album Celebration: Brazilian Dream With Special Guest Brad Mehldau; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Karriem Riggins Live; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Thursday, May 2 Gilad Hekselman, guitar; Mark Turner, tenor sax; Rick Rosato, bass;
Obed Calvaire, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Bruce Forman Trio; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Chris Potter Circuits Trio featuring James Francies and Eric Harland; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Emmet Cohen Trio; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Bill Frisell Trio ft Tony Scherr & Kenny Wollesen; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Friday, May 3 Gilad Hekselman, guitar; Mark Turner, tenor sax; Rick Rosato, bass;
Obed Calvaire, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Houston Person Quartet; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Chris Potter Circuits Trio featuring James Francies and Eric Harland; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Emmet Cohen Trio; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Bill Frisell Trio ft Tony Scherr & Kenny Wollesen; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Saturday, May 4 Gilad Hekselman, guitar; Mark Turner, tenor sax; Rick Rosato, bass;
Obed Calvaire, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Chris Potter Circuits Trio featuring James Francies and Eric Harland; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Emmet Cohen Trio; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Bill Frisell Trio ft Tony Scherr & Kenny Wollesen; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Sunday, May 5 Gilad Hekselman, guitar; Mark Turner, tenor sax; Rick Rosato, bass;
Obed Calvaire, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Akiko/Hamilton/Dechter; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Chris Potter Circuits Trio featuring James Francies and Eric Harland;
(Continued on page 17)
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17 To Advertise CALL: 215-887-8880 April-May 2019 Jazz Inside Magazine www.JazzInsideMagazine.com
Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Simas & Amorim Duo CD release concert; Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Bill Frisell Trio ft Tony Scherr & Kenny Wollesen; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Monday, May 6 Vanguard Jazz Orchestra; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Mingus Orchestra: Celebrating 10 Years at Jazz Standard; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Milos; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Tuesday, May 7 Antonio Sanchez with Chris Potter, saxophone; Donny McCaslin,
saxophone; Scott Colley, bass; Antonio Sanchez, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Sax & Taps With Dewitt Fleming, Jr. & Erica Von Kleist; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Duchess; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
David Murray with Saul Williams; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Maceo Parker; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Wednesday, May 8 Antonio Sanchez with Chris Potter, saxophone; Donny McCaslin,
saxophone; Scott Colley, bass; Antonio Sanchez, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Essentially Ellington Alumni Band; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Duchess; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
David Murray with Saul Williams; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Maceo Parker; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Thursday, May 9 Antonio Sanchez with Chris Potter, saxophone; Donny McCaslin,
saxophone; Scott Colley, bass; Antonio Sanchez, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Juilliard Jazz Orchestra: Music Of Duke Ellington; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Jeremy Pelt: Jeremy Pelt; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
David Murray with Saul Williams; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Maceo Parker; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Friday, May 10 Antonio Sanchez with Chris Potter, saxophone; Donny McCaslin,
saxophone; Scott Colley, bass; Antonio Sanchez, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Jeremy Pelt: Jeremy Pelt; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
David Murray with Saul Williams; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Maceo Parker; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Saturday, May 11 Antonio Sanchez with Chris Potter, saxophone; Donny McCaslin,
saxophone; Scott Colley, bass; Antonio Sanchez, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Jeremy Pelt: Jeremy Pelt; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
David Murray with Saul Williams; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Maceo Parker; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Sunday, May 12 Antonio Sanchez with Chris Potter, saxophone; Donny McCaslin,
saxophone; Scott Colley, bass; Antonio Sanchez, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Jazz For Kids; Jeremy Pelt: Jeremy Pelt; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Ken Peplowski Quartet: Featuring Special Guest Vocalist Nicole Zuraitis; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Maceo Parker; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Monday, May 13 Vanguard Jazz Orchestra; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Monday Nights With WBGO: Terraza Big Band; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Mingus Big Band: Celebrating 10 Years at Jazz Standard; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Amanda Brecker; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Tuesday, May 14 Seasons Band - Ben Wendel, saxophone; Gilad Hekselman, guitar;
Aaron Parks, piano; Matthew Brewer, bass; Eric Harland, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Bill Charlap Trio; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Michael Leonhart Orchestra with Special Guest Nels Cline; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Curtis Stigers with The Birdland Big Band Directed by David Dejesus; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Dizzy Gillespie Afro Cuban All-Stars; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Wednesday, May 15 Seasons Band - Ben Wendel, saxophone; Gilad Hekselman, guitar;
Aaron Parks, piano; Matthew Brewer, bass; Eric Harland, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra with Special Guest Kurt Elling; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Curtis Stigers with The Birdland Big Band Directed by David Dejesus; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Dizzy Gillespie Afro Cuban All-Stars; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Thursday, May 16 Seasons Band - Ben Wendel, saxophone; Gilad Hekselman, guitar;
Aaron Parks, piano; Matthew Brewer, bass; Eric Harland, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Gil Evans Project directed by Ryan Truesdell; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Curtis Stigers with The Birdland Big Band Directed by David Dejesus; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Eric Krasno & Friends w/ special guest Lisa Fischer; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Friday, May 17 Seasons Band - Ben Wendel, saxophone; Gilad Hekselman, guitar;
Aaron Parks, piano; Matthew Brewer, bass; Eric Harland, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Gil Evans Project directed by Ryan Truesdell; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Curtis Stigers with The Birdland Big Band Directed by David Dejesus; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Eric Krasno & Friends w/ special guest Lisa Fischer; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Saturday, May 18 Seasons Band - Ben Wendel, saxophone; Gilad Hekselman, guitar;
Aaron Parks, piano; Matthew Brewer, bass; Eric Harland, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Gil Evans Project directed by Ryan Truesdell; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Curtis Stigers with The Birdland Big Band Directed by David Dejesus; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Eric Krasno & Friends w/ special guest Lisa Fischer; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Sunday, May 19 Seasons Band - Ben Wendel, saxophone; Gilad Hekselman, guitar;
Aaron Parks, piano; Matthew Brewer, bass; Eric Harland, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Jazz For Kids; Gil Evans Project directed by Ryan Truesdell; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Pete McGuinness Jazz Orchestra "Along For The Ride" CD Release; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Eric Krasno & Friends w/ special guest Lisa Fischer; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Monday, May 20 Vanguard Jazz Orchestra; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Berklee Masters On The Road With Special Guest Melissa Aldana; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy
Mingus Big Band: Celebrating 10 Years at Jazz Standard; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Andy Farber; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Marcus Machado & Friends; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Tuesday, May 21 Trio Tapestry - Joe Lovano, saxophone; Marilyn Crispell, piano;
Carmen Castaldi, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Gil Gutiérrez; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Dr. Lonnie Smith with The Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Brandee Younger & Friends with Special Guests TBA; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Wednesday, May 22 Trio Tapestry - Joe Lovano, saxophone; Marilyn Crispell, piano;
Carmen Castaldi, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Gil Gutiérrez; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Dr. Lonnie Smith with The Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Brandee Younger & Friends with Special Guests TBA; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Thursday, May 23 Trio Tapestry - Joe Lovano, saxophone; Marilyn Crispell, piano;
Carmen Castaldi, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Melissa Aldana Quartet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Dr. Lonnie Smith with The Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Chris Dave & The Drumhedz with Special Guest; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Friday, May 24 Trio Tapestry - Joe Lovano, saxophone; Marilyn Crispell, piano;
Carmen Castaldi, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Melissa Aldana Quartet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Dr. Lonnie Smith with The Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Chris Dave & The Drumhedz with Special Guest; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Saturday, May 25 Trio Tapestry - Joe Lovano, saxophone; Marilyn Crispell, piano;
Carmen Castaldi, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Melissa Aldana Quartet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Dr. Lonnie Smith with The Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Chris Dave & The Drumhedz with Special Guest; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Sunday, May 26 Trio Tapestry - Joe Lovano, saxophone; Marilyn Crispell, piano;
Carmen Castaldi, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Melissa Aldana Quartet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Greg Ruvolo Big Band Collective; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Chris Dave & The Drumhedz with Special Guest; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Monday, May 27 Vanguard Jazz Orchestra; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Arianna Neikrug; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Tuesday, May 28 Mark Giuliana Quartet - Jason Rigby, saxophone; Shai Maestro,
piano; Chris Morrissey, bass; Mark Guiliana, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Fred Hersch Duo Invitation Series with Kenny Barron; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Alan Broadbent; Jazz Masters Play Ornette Coleman with Tom Har-rell, Donny McCaslin, Ben Allison, Steve Smith; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Roberta Gambarini Quartet; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Wednesday, May 29 Mark Giuliana Quartet - Jason Rigby, saxophone; Shai Maestro,
piano; Chris Morrissey, bass; Mark Guiliana, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Fred Hersch Duo Invitation Series with Julian Lage; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Alan Broadbent; Jazz Masters Play Ornette Coleman with Tom Har-rell, Donny McCaslin, Ben Allison, Steve Smith; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Roberta Gambarini Quartet; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Thursday, May 30 Mark Giuliana Quartet - Jason Rigby, saxophone; Shai Maestro,
piano; Chris Morrissey, bass; Mark Guiliana, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Fred Hersch Duo Invitation Series with Kurt Elling; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Alan Broadbent; Jazz Masters Play Ornette Coleman with Tom Har-rell, Donny McCaslin, Ben Allison, Steve Smith; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.
Kenny Garrett; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
Friday, May 31 Mark Giuliana Quartet - Jason Rigby, saxophone; Shai Maestro,
piano; Chris Morrissey, bass; Mark Guiliana, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.
Fred Hersch Duo Invitation Series with Drew Gress & Billy Hart; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.
Alan Broadbent; Jazz Masters Play Ornette Coleman with Tom Har-rell, Donny McCaslin, Ben Allison, Steve Smith; Birdland, 315 W. 44th
Kenny Garrett; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.
“Some people’s idea of free speech is that they are free
to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back that
is an outrage.”
- Winston Churchill
18 To Advertise CALL: 215-887-8880 April-May 2019 Jazz Inside Magazine www.JazzInsideMagazine.com
5 C Cultural Center, 68 Avenue C. 212-477-5993. www.5ccc.com
55 Bar, 55 Christopher St. 212-929-9883, 55bar.com
92nd St Y, 1395 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10128,
212.415.5500, 92ndsty.org
Aaron Davis Hall, City College of NY, Convent Ave., 212-650-
6900, aarondavishall.org
Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, Broadway & 65th St., 212-875-
5050, lincolncenter.org/default.asp
Allen Room, Lincoln Center, Time Warner Center, Broadway and
60th, 5th floor, 212-258-9800, lincolncenter.org
American Museum of Natural History, 81st St. & Central Park
W., 212-769-5100, amnh.org
Antibes Bistro, 112 Suffolk Street. 212-533-6088.
www.antibesbistro.com
Arthur’s Tavern, 57 Grove St., 212-675-6879 or 917-301-8759,
arthurstavernnyc.com
Arts Maplewood, P.O. Box 383, Maplewood, NJ 07040; 973-378-
2133, artsmaplewood.org
Avery Fischer Hall, Lincoln Center, Columbus Ave. & 65th St.,
212-875-5030, lincolncenter.org
BAM Café, 30 Lafayette Av, Brooklyn, 718-636-4100, bam.org
Bar Chord, 1008 Cortelyou Rd., Brooklyn, barchordnyc.com
Bar Lunatico, 486 Halsey St., Brooklyn. 718-513-0339.
222.barlunatico.com
Barbes, 376 9th St. (corner of 6th Ave.), Park Slope, Brooklyn,
718-965-9177, barbesbrooklyn.com
Barge Music, Fulton Ferry Landing, Brooklyn, 718-624-2083,
bargemusic.org
B.B. King’s Blues Bar, 237 W. 42nd St., 212-997-4144,
bbkingblues.com
Beacon Theatre, 74th St. & Broadway, 212-496-7070
Beco Bar, 45 Richardson, Brooklyn. 718-599-1645.
www.becobar.com
Bickford Theatre, on Columbia Turnpike @ Normandy Heights
Road, east of downtown Morristown. 973-744-2600
Birdland, 315 W. 44th, 212-581-3080
Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd, 212-475-8592, bluenotejazz.com
Bourbon St Bar and Grille, 346 W. 46th St, NY, 10036,
212-245-2030, [email protected]
Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery (at Bleecker), 212-614-0505,
bowerypoetry.com
BRIC House, 647 Fulton St. Brooklyn, NY 11217, 718-683-5600,
http://bricartsmedia.org
Brooklyn Public Library, Grand Army Plaza, 2nd Fl, Brooklyn,
NY, 718-230-2100, brooklynpubliclibrary.org
Café Carlyle, 35 E. 76th St., 212-570-7189, thecarlyle.com
Café Loup, 105 W. 13th St. (West Village) , between Sixth and
Seventh Aves., 212-255-4746
Café St. Bart’s, 109 E. 50th St, 212-888-2664, cafestbarts.com
Cafe Noctambulo, 178 2nd Ave. 212-995-0900. cafenoctam-
bulo.com
Caffe Vivaldi, 32 Jones St, NYC; caffevivaldi.com
Candlelight Lounge, 24 Passaic St, Trenton. 609-695-9612.
Carnegie Hall, 7th Av & 57th, 212-247-7800, carnegiehall.org
Cassandra’s Jazz, 2256 7th Avenue. 917-435-2250. cassan-
drasjazz.com
Chico’s House Of Jazz, In Shoppes at the Arcade, 631 Lake Ave.,
Asbury Park, 732-774-5299
City Winery, 155 Varick St. Bet. Vandam & Spring St., 212-608-
0555. citywinery.com
Cleopatra’s Needle, 2485 Broadway (betw 92nd & 93rd), 212-769-
6969, cleopatrasneedleny.com
Club Bonafide, 212 W. 52nd, 646-918-6189. clubbonafide.com
C’mon Everybody, 325 Franklin Avenue, Brooklyn.
www.cmoneverybody.com
Copeland’s, 547 W. 145th St. (at Bdwy), 212-234-2356
Cornelia St Café, 29 Cornelia, 212-989-9319
Count Basie Theatre, 99 Monmouth St., Red Bank, New Jersey
07701, 732-842-9000, countbasietheatre.org
Crossroads at Garwood, 78 North Ave., Garwood, NJ 07027,
908-232-5666
Cutting Room, 19 W. 24th St, 212-691-1900
Dizzy’s Club, Broadway at 60th St., 5th Floor, 212-258-9595,
jalc.com
DROM, 85 Avenue A, New York, 212-777-1157, dromnyc.com
The Ear Inn, 326 Spring St., NY, 212-226-9060, earinn.com
East Village Social, 126 St. Marks Place. 646-755-8662.
www.evsnyc.com
Edward Hopper House, 82 N. Broadway, Nyack NY. 854-358-
0774.
El Museo Del Barrio, 1230 Fifth Ave (at 104th St.), Tel: 212-831-
7272, Fax: 212-831-7927, elmuseo.org
Esperanto, 145 Avenue C. 212-505-6559. www.esperantony.com
The Falcon, 1348 Rt. 9W, Marlboro, NY., 845) 236-7970,
Fat Cat, 75 Christopher St., 212-675-7369, fatcatjazz.com
Fine and Rare, 9 East 37th Street. www.fineandrare.nyc
Five Spot, 459 Myrtle Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 718-852-0202, fivespot-
soulfood.com
Flushing Town Hall, 137-35 Northern Blvd., Flushing, NY, 718-
463-7700 x222, flushingtownhall.org
For My Sweet, 1103 Fulton St., Brooklyn, NY 718-857-1427
Galapagos, 70 N. 6th St., Brooklyn, NY, 718-782-5188, galapago-
sartspace.com
Garage Restaurant and Café, 99 Seventh Ave. (betw 4th and
Bleecker), 212-645-0600, garagerest.com
Garden Café, 4961 Broadway, by 207th St., New York, 10034,
212-544-9480
Gin Fizz, 308 Lenox Ave, 2nd floor. (212) 289-2220.
www.ginfizzharlem.com
Ginny’s Supper Club, 310 Malcolm X Boulevard Manhattan, NY
10027, 212-792-9001, http://redroosterharlem.com/ginnys/
Glen Rock Inn, 222 Rock Road, Glen Rock, NJ, (201) 445-2362,
glenrockinn.com
GoodRoom, 98 Meserole, Bklyn, 718-349-2373, goodroombk.com.
Green Growler, 368 S, Riverside Ave., Croton-on-Hudson NY.
914-862-0961. www.thegreengrowler.com
Greenwich Village Bistro, 13 Carmine St., 212-206-9777, green-
wichvillagebistro.com
Harlem on 5th, 2150 5th Avenue. 212-234-5600.
www.harlemonfifth.com
Harlem Tea Room, 1793A Madison Ave., 212-348-3471, har-
lemtearoom.com
Hat City Kitchen, 459 Valley St, Orange. 862-252-9147.
hatcitykitchen.com
Havana Central West End, 2911 Broadway/114th St), NYC,
212-662-8830, havanacentral.com
Highline Ballroom, 431 West 16th St (between 9th & 10th Ave.
highlineballroom.com, 212-414-4314.
Hopewell Valley Bistro, 15 East Broad St, Hopewell, NJ 08525,
609-466-9889, hopewellvalleybistro.com
Hudson Room, 27 S. Division St., Peekskill NY. 914-788-FOOD.
hudsonroom.com
Hyatt New Brunswick, 2 Albany St., New Brunswick, NJ
IBeam Music Studio, 168 7th St., Brooklyn, ibeambrooklyn.com
INC American Bar & Kitchen, 302 George St., New Brunswick
NJ. (732) 640-0553. www.increstaurant.com
Iridium, 1650 Broadway, 212-582-2121, iridiumjazzclub.com
Jazz 966, 966 Fulton St., Brooklyn, NY, 718-638-6910
Jazz at Lincoln Center, 33 W. 60th St., 212-258-9800, jalc.org
Frederick P. Rose Hall, Broadway at 60th St., 5th Floor
Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, Reservations: 212-258-9595
Rose Theater, Tickets: 212-721-6500, The Allen Room, Tickets:
212-721-6500
Jazz Gallery, 1160 Bdwy, (212) 242-1063, jazzgallery.org
The Jazz Spot, 375 Kosciuszko St. (enter at 179 Marcus Garvey
Blvd.), Brooklyn, NY, 718-453-7825, thejazz.8m.com
Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St., 212-576-2232, jazzstandard.net
Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St & Astor Pl.,
212-539-8778, joespub.com
John Birks Gillespie Auditorium (see Baha’i Center)
Jules Bistro, 65 St. Marks Pl, 212-477-5560, julesbistro.com
Kasser Theater, 1 Normal Av, Montclair State College, Montclair,
973-655-4000, montclair.edu
Key Club, 58 Park Pl, Newark, NJ, 973-799-0306, keyclubnj.com
Kitano Hotel, 66 Park Ave., 212-885-7119. kitano.com
Knickerbocker Bar & Grill, 33 University Pl., 212-228-8490,
knickerbockerbarandgrill.com
Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard St, 212-219-3132, knittingfacto-
ry.com
Langham Place — Measure, Fifth Avenue, 400 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10018, 212-613-8738, langhamplacehotels.com
La Lanterna (Bar Next Door at La Lanterna), 129 MacDougal St,
New York, 212-529-5945, lalanternarcaffe.com
Le Cirque Cafe, 151 E. 58th St., lecirque.com
Le Fanfare, 1103 Manhattan Ave., Brooklyn. 347-987-4244.
www.lefanfare.com
Le Madeleine, 403 W. 43rd St. (betw 9th & 10th Ave.), New York,
New York, 212-246-2993, lemadeleine.com
Les Gallery Clemente Soto Velez, 107 Suffolk St, 212-260-4080
Lexington Hotel, 511 Lexington Ave. (212) 755-4400.
www.lexinghotelnyc.com
Live @ The Falcon, 1348 Route 9W, Marlboro, NY 12542,
Living Room, 154 Ludlow St. 212-533-7235, livingroomny.com
The Local 269, 269 E. Houston St. (corner of Suffolk St.), NYC
Makor, 35 W. 67th St., 212-601-1000, makor.org
Lounge Zen, 254 DeGraw Ave, Teaneck, NJ, (201) 692-8585,
lounge-zen.com
Maureen’s Jazz Cellar, 2 N. Broadway, Nyack NY. 845-535-
3143. maureensjazzcellar.com
Maxwell’s, 1039 Washington St, Hoboken, NJ, 201-653-1703
McCarter Theater, 91 University Pl., Princeton, 609-258-2787,
mccarter.org
Merkin Concert Hall, Kaufman Center, 129 W. 67th St., 212-501
-3330, ekcc.org/merkin.htm
Metropolitan Room, 34 West 22nd St NY, NY 10012, 212-206-
0440
Mezzrow, 163 West 10th Street, Basement, New York, NY
10014. 646-476-4346. www.mezzrow.com
Minton’s, 206 W 118th St., 212-243-2222, mintonsharlem.com
Mirelle’s, 170 Post Ave., Westbury, NY, 516-338-4933
MIST Harlem, 46 W. 116th St., myimagestudios.com
Mixed Notes Café, 333 Elmont Rd., Elmont, NY (Queens area),
516-328-2233, mixednotescafe.com
Montauk Club, 25 8th Ave., Brooklyn, 718-638-0800,
montaukclub.com
Moscow 57, 168½ Delancey. 212-260-5775. moscow57.com
Muchmore’s, 2 Havemeyer St., Brooklyn. 718-576-3222.
www.muchmoresnyc.com
Mundo, 37-06 36th St., Queens. mundony.com
Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Ave. (between
103rd & 104th St.), 212-534-1672, mcny.org
Musicians’ Local 802, 332 W. 48th, 718-468-7376
National Sawdust, 80 N. 6th St., Brooklyn. 646-779-8455.
www.nationalsawdust.org
Newark Museum, 49 Washington St, Newark, New Jersey 07102-
3176, 973-596-6550, newarkmuseum.org
New Jersey Performing Arts Center, 1 Center St., Newark, NJ,
07102, 973-642-8989, njpac.org
New Leaf Restaurant, 1 Margaret Corbin Dr., Ft. Tryon Park. 212-
568-5323. newleafrestaurant.com
New School Performance Space, 55 W. 13th St., 5th Floor (betw
5th & 6th Ave.), 212-229-5896, newschool.edu.
New School University-Tishman Auditorium, 66 W. 12th St., 1st
Floor, Room 106, 212-229-5488, newschool.edu
New York City Baha’i Center, 53 E. 11th St. (betw Broadway &
University), 212-222-5159, bahainyc.org
North Square Lounge, 103 Waverly Pl. (at MacDougal St.),
212-254-1200, northsquarejazz.com
Oak Room at The Algonquin Hotel, 59 W. 44th St. (betw 5th and
6th Ave.), 212-840-6800, thealgonquin.net
Oceana Restaurant, 120 West 49th St, New York, NY 10020
212-759-5941, oceanarestaurant.com
Orchid, 765 Sixth Ave. (betw 25th & 26th St.), 212-206-9928
The Owl, 497 Rogers Ave, Bklyn. 718-774-0042. www.theowl.nyc
Palazzo Restaurant, 11 South Fullerton Avenue, Montclair. 973-
746-6778. palazzonj.com
Priory Jazz Club: 223 W Market, Newark, 07103, 973-639-7885
Proper Café, 217-01 Linden Blvd., Queens, 718-341-2233
Clubs, Venues & Jazz ResourcesClubs, Venues & Jazz Resources
— Anton Chekhov
“A system of morality
which is based on relative
emotional values is a mere
illusion, a thoroughly vulgar
conception which has nothing
sound in it and nothing true.”
— Socrates
19 To Advertise CALL: 215-887-8880 April-May 2019 Jazz Inside Magazine www.JazzInsideMagazine.com
Prospect Park Bandshell, 9th St. & Prospect Park W., Brooklyn,
NY, 718-768-0855
Prospect Wine Bar & Bistro, 16 Prospect St. Westfield, NJ,
908-232-7320, 16prospect.com, cjayrecords.com
Red Eye Grill, 890 7th Av (56th), 212-541-9000, redeyegrill.com
Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 East Ridge, parallel to Main St.,
Ridgefield, CT; ridgefieldplayhouse.org, 203-438-5795
Rockwood Music Hall, 196 Allen St, 212-477-4155
Rose Center (American Museum of Natural History), 81st St.
(Central Park W. & Columbus), 212-769-5100, amnh.org/rose
Rose Hall, 33 W. 60th St., 212-258-9800, jalc.org
Rosendale Café, 434 Main St., PO Box 436, Rosendale, NY 12472,
845-658-9048, rosendalecafe.com
Rubin Museum of Art - “Harlem in the Himalayas”, 150 W. 17th
St. 212-620-5000. rmanyc.org
Rustik, 471 DeKalb Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 347-406-9700,
rustikrestaurant.com
St. Mark’s Church, 131 10th St. (at 2nd Ave.), 212-674-6377
St. Nick’s Pub, 773 St. Nicholas Av (at 149th), 212-283-9728
St. Peter’s Church, 619 Lexington (at 54th), 212-935-2200,
saintpeters.org
Sasa’s Lounge, 924 Columbus Ave, Between 105th & 106th St.
NY, NY 10025, 212-865-5159, sasasloungenyc.yolasite.com
Savoy Grill, 60 Park Place, Newark, NJ 07102, 973-286-1700
Schomburg Center, 515 Malcolm X Blvd., 212-491-2200,
nypl.org/research/sc/sc.html
Shanghai Jazz, 24 Main St., Madison, NJ, 973-822-2899, shang-
haijazz.com
ShapeShifter Lab, 18 Whitwell Pl, Brooklyn, NY 11215
shapeshifterlab.com
Showman’s, 375 W. 125th St., 212-864-8941
Sidewalk Café, 94 Ave. A, 212-473-7373
Sista’s Place, 456 Nostrand, Bklyn, 718-398-1766, sistasplace.org
Skippers Plane St Pub, 304 University Ave. Newark NJ, 973-733-
9300, skippersplaneStpub.com
Smalls Jazz Club, 183 W. 10th St. (at 7th Ave.), 212-929-7565,
SmallsJazzClub.com
Smith’s Bar, 701 8th Ave, New York, 212-246-3268
Sofia’s Restaurant - Club Cache’ [downstairs], Edison Hotel,
221 W. 46th St. (between Broadway & 8th Ave), 212-719-5799
South Gate Restaurant & Bar, 154 Central Park South, 212-484-
5120, 154southgate.com
South Orange Performing Arts Center, One SOPAC
Way, South Orange, NJ 07079, sopacnow.org, 973-313-2787
Spectrum, 2nd floor, 121 Ludlow St.
Spoken Words Café, 266 4th Av, Brooklyn, 718-596-3923
Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, 165 W. 65th St., 10th Floor,
212-721-6500, lincolncenter.org
The Stone, Ave. C & 2nd St., thestonenyc.com
Strand Bistro, 33 W. 37th St. 212-584-4000
SubCulture, 45 Bleecker St., subculturenewyork.com
Sugar Bar, 254 W. 72nd St, 212-579-0222, sugarbarnyc.com
Swing 46, 349 W. 46th St.(betw 8th & 9th Ave.),
212-262-9554, swing46.com
Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, Tel: 212-864-1414, Fax: 212-
932-3228, symphonyspace.org
Tea Lounge, 837 Union St. (betw 6th & 7th Ave), Park Slope,
Broooklyn, 718-789-2762, tealoungeNY.com
Terra Blues, 149 Bleecker St. (betw Thompson & LaGuardia),
212-777-7776, terrablues.com
Threes Brewing, 333 Douglass St., Brooklyn. 718-522-2110.
www.threesbrewing.com
Tito Puente’s Restaurant and Cabaret, 64 City Island Avenue,
City Island, Bronx, 718-885-3200, titopuentesrestaurant.com
Tomi Jazz, 239 E. 53rd St., 646-497-1254, tomijazz.com
Tonic, 107 Norfolk St. (betw Delancey & Rivington), Tel: 212-358-
7501, Fax: 212-358-1237, tonicnyc.com
Town Hall, 123 W. 43rd St., 212-997-1003
Triad Theater, 158 W. 72nd St. (betw Broadway & Columbus
Ave.), 212-362-2590, triadnyc.com
Tribeca Performing Arts Center, 199 Chambers St, 10007,
[email protected], tribecapac.org
Trumpets, 6 Depot Square, Montclair, NJ, 973-744-2600,
trumpetsjazz.com
Turning Point Cafe, 468 Piermont Ave. Piermont, N.Y. 10968
(845) 359-1089, http://turningpointcafe.com
Urbo, 11 Times Square. 212-542-8950. urbonyc.com
Village Vanguard, 178 7th Ave S., 212-255-4037
Vision Festival, 212-696-6681, [email protected],
Watchung Arts Center, 18 Stirling Rd, Watchung, NJ 07069,
908-753-0190, watchungarts.org
Watercolor Café, 2094 Boston Post Road, Larchmont, NY 10538,
914-834-2213, watercolorcafe.net
Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall, 57th & 7th Ave, 212-247-7800
Williamsburg Music Center, 367 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
11211, (718) 384-1654 wmcjazz.org
Zankel Hall, 881 7th Ave, New York, 212-247-7800
Zinc Bar, 82 West 3rd St.
RECORD STORES
Academy Records, 12 W. 18th St., New York, NY 10011, 212-242
-3000, http://academy-records.com
Downtown Music Gallery, 13 Monroe St, New York, NY 10002,
(212) 473-0043, downtownmusicgallery.com
Jazz Record Center, 236 W. 26th St., Room 804,
212-675-4480, jazzrecordcenter.com
MUSIC STORES
Roberto’s Woodwind & Brass, 149 West 46th St. NY, NY 10036,
646-366-0240, robertoswoodwind.com
Sam Ash, 333 W 34th St, New York, NY 10001
Phone: (212) 719-2299 samash.com
Sadowsky Guitars Ltd, 2107 41st Avenue 4th Floor, Long Island
City, NY 11101, 718-433-1990. sadowsky.com
Steve Maxwell Vintage Drums, 723 7th Ave, 3rd Floor, New
York, NY 10019, 212-730-8138, maxwelldrums.com
SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, CONSERVATORIES
92nd St Y, 1395 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10128
212.415.5500; 92ndsty.org
Brooklyn-Queens Conservatory of Music, 42-76 Main St.,
Flushing, NY, Tel: 718-461-8910, Fax: 718-886-2450
Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, 58 Seventh Ave., Brooklyn,
NY, 718-622-3300, brooklynconservatory.com
City College of NY-Jazz Program, 212-650-5411,
Drummers Collective, 541 6th Ave, New York, NY 10011,
212-741-0091, thecoll.com
Five Towns College, 305 N. Service, 516-424-7000, x Hills, NY
Greenwich House Music School, 46 Barrow St., Tel: 212-242-
4770, Fax: 212-366-9621, greenwichhouse.org
Juilliard School of Music, 60 Lincoln Ctr, 212-799-5000
LaGuardia Community College/CUNI, 31-10 Thomson Ave.,
Long Island City, 718-482-5151
Lincoln Center — Jazz At Lincoln Center, 140 W. 65th St.,
10023, 212-258-9816, 212-258-9900
Long Island University — Brooklyn Campus, Dept. of Music,
University Plaza, Brooklyn, 718-488-1051, 718-488-1372
Manhattan School of Music, 120 Claremont Ave., 10027,
212-749-2805, 2802, 212-749-3025
NJ City Univ, 2039 Kennedy Blvd., Jersey City, 888-441-6528
New School, 55 W. 13th St., 212-229-5896, 212-229-8936
NY University, 35 West 4th St. Rm #777, 212-998-5446
NY Jazz Academy, 718-426-0633 NYJazzAcademy.com
Princeton University-Dept. of Music, Woolworth Center Musical
Studies, Princeton, NJ, 609-258-4241, 609-258-6793
Queens College — Copland School of Music, City University of
NY, Flushing, 718-997-3800
Rutgers Univ. at New Brunswick, Jazz Studies, Douglass Cam-
pus, PO Box 270, New Brunswick, NJ, 908-932-9302
Rutgers University Institute of Jazz Studies, 185 University
Avenue, Newark NJ 07102, 973-353-5595
newarkrutgers.edu/IJS/index1.html
SUNY Purchase, 735 Anderson Hill, Purchase, 914-251-6300
Swing University (see Jazz At Lincoln Center, under Venues)
William Paterson University Jazz Studies Program, 300 Pompton
Rd, Wayne, NJ, 973-720-2320
RADIO
WBGO 88.3 FM, 54 Park Pl, Newark, NJ 07102, Tel: 973-624-
8880, Fax: 973-824-8888, wbgo.org
WCWP, LIU/C.W. Post Campus
WFDU, http://alpha.fdu.edu/wfdu/wfdufm/index2.html
WKCR 89.9, Columbia University, 2920 Broadway
Mailcode 2612, NY 10027, 212-854-9920, columbia.edu/cu/wkcr
ADDITIONAL JAZZ RESOURCES
Big Apple Jazz, bigapplejazz.com, 718-606-8442, gor-
Louis Armstrong House, 34-56 107th St, Corona, NY 11368,
718-997-3670, satchmo.net
Institute of Jazz Studies, John Cotton Dana Library, Rutgers-
Univ, 185 University Av, Newark, NJ, 07102, 973-353-5595
Jazzmobile, Inc., jazzmobile.org
Jazz Museum in Harlem, 104 E. 126th St., 212-348-8300,
jazzmuseuminharlem.org
Jazz Foundation of America, 322 W. 48th St. 10036,
212-245-3999, jazzfoundation.org
New Jersey Jazz Society, 1-800-303-NJJS, njjs.org
New York Blues & Jazz Society, NYBluesandJazz.org
Rubin Museum, 150 W. 17th St, New York, NY,
212-620-5000 ex 344, rmanyc.org.
“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world
and moral courage so rare.”
— Mark Twain
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20 To Advertise CALL: 215-887-8880 April-May 2019 Jazz Inside Magazine www.JazzInsideMagazine.com
Interview by Eric Nemeyer
Photo (right) - Cover of album Beyond Now
JI: Let’s talk about how your experiences
with vibraphonists Gary Burton and Mike
Mainieri and the contrasts between working
with each of them.
DM: Well, with Gary Burton, as I was saying
earlier, I started playing with him when I was
chosen for a student group that he took on a
Jazz cruise when I was a junior at Berklee and
then my last year, I joined his band and toured
with him pretty regularly for the next few
years. The thing that was great was that he
was really clear about what he wanted musi-
cally and what my role in the band was. Be-
fore I played with him, I was used to sort of
playing tunes, a lot of rhythm changes, blues,
modal tunes, etcetera … playing really long
and really open. In his group, it was a very
structured environment musically. He gave
me a clear role in terms of what to do during
the melody, what part of the melody to play.
When it came to soloing, it wasn’t kind of an
open ended thing. He would say, “Okay, play
a couple of choruses on this tune.” You would
kind of have a general idea what his expecta-
tions were in terms of your role in the group
basically. It was a good discipline for me be-
cause I was so used to playing really long and
taking a few choruses to warm up to a solo
and basically with him, if I knew I only had
two choruses, I knew I had to get right to the
point and sort of cut out the superfluous infor-
mation.
JI: It’s funny that you
mention that. I heard
Gary speak years ago
at some seminar. He
explained how when
he worked with
George Shearing, he’d
get one chorus per
solo. Initially, when he
started playing with George Shearing, he’d
start playing a solo and before he knew it, it
was over, and he hadn’t said what he wanted
to say. He said the limited amount of space he
was allotted to solo, gave him the opportunity
to polish his statements into very concise,
single choruses.
DM: Exactly. That’s what playing with Gary
really helped me become aware of and start
doing. The other thing … he played tunes in
different keys than I was accustomed to play-
ing them in. You know, I was used to playing
blues in Bb, F, C, and so on and so forth. We
used to play a James Williams’ song called
Soulful Bill and the song was basically in B
and it moved around, a really great tune. Ini-
tially it was like, “Wow.” I was so unaccus-
tomed to playing in those keys. This was good
training to get used to playing in different
keys.
JI: And then with Mike?
DM: With Mike Mainieri, I was a few years
older and had more experience. The thing
with Mike was it was sort of wide open but he
was clear with me with what my role was. He
wanted me to be sort of upfront, taking charge
of the band, and playing strong. In that sense,
it was clear. In terms of how I did that, wheth-
er it was one chorus or fifty choruses or what-
ever, that was pretty much up to me. The
thing that was really great about that gig is
that I had grown up as a fan of that band,
Steps Ahead, and Mike Mainieri. Michael
Brecker is such a great player and he played
with Steps Ahead. I just loved those records.
Here I was, years later, playing those same
tunes that I had grown up listening to and I
guess it was a really great experience for me
because I felt like, “Here I am and I need to
play these tunes in a way that’s original. I
can’t just play these tunes and try and sound
like Michael Brecker.” It’s nothing against
him because I absolutely love what he did on
those tunes. Here’s something where I really
need to try and fill this role and do it in a real-
ly personal way, strongly, with a lot of author-
ity. It was a great challenge. I think the ten-
dency for me when I was playing “Pools” for
example, I was hearing the recording that I
had heard as a teenager 300 times in my head.
I had to let go of that and try and find a differ-
ent way of playing that tune that was still go-
ing to have a lot of energy and where I could
do my thing. It was really great for me in
terms of forcing me to come up with a way
that felt original to me of playing on those
tunes.
JI: What saxophonists have influenced you
the most and why?
DM: Over the years there have been a lot of
saxophone players in whom I’ve immersed
myself, and developed an interest for various
reasons. When I was just starting out, I think
John Coltrane was my first big influence. Lis-
tening to him play, it felt so spiritual and emo-
tional and it was just so amazing and over-
whelming to me. I loved his sound and I was
drawn to him from such a young age, age, 12,
13, whatever, and I just listened to him exclu-
sively for such a long time. I listened to some
“Bird” [Charlie Parker] and some Sonny
[Rollins] but for the first four, five, or six
years I was playing, I was listening to “Trane”
all of the time. It’s hard to say if there was
one thing that drew me to his playing but his
sound, his lyricism, the emotional intensity of
his playing really grabbed me. I listened to
Trane a lot for awhile and when I was in high
school, I think I started getting into Brecker.
This was the time when I was listening to
Steps Ahead a lot. In ’80 or ’81 the Metheny
record had come out and his sound on that is
so amazing. He plays so great and so lyrically.
The intensity with which he played and the
sort of “virtuosic” ability he had, and the
sound being so clear, and so compelling to
me, I think that really drew me to his playing.
So, I checked him out for awhile. Then, I
think when I got to Berklee, I started kind of
expanding and checking out different guys. I
went through a period of really listening to a
lot of Joe Henderson and it’s hard to say why.
He’s such an amazing player on so many lev-
(Continued on page 22)
Donny McCaslin Lead A Balanced Life
INTERVIEWINTERVIEW
It was a good discipline for me because I was so used to playing really long and taking a few choruses to warm up to a solo and basically with him, if I knew I only had two choruses, I knew I had to
get right to the point and sort of cut out the superfluous information.”
22 To Advertise CALL: 215-887-8880 April-May 2019 Jazz Inside Magazine www.JazzInsideMagazine.com
els. He’s an amazing composer and just the
sound and the way he constructs his melodic
lines is so ingenious to me. Stan Getz I got
next to for awhile because the warmth of his
sound, his lyricism, the clarity of his melodic
lines, his feel. Somebody who had a lot of
influence on me is Wayne Shorter. Certainly,
as a composer, one of the greatest composers
of the 20th century for me. I learned a lot of
his solos from records like Witch Hunt and
Juju. It’s so hard to put into words. He plays
like a composer. I think that’s what really
drew me to his playing. He’s such an impro-
viser. That actually reminds me of something,
something really valuable I learned playing
with Gary. Gary talked a lot about thematic
development as an improviser. Prior to play-
ing with him, I hadn’t really checked that out.
He sort of really harped on the thematic de-
velopment issue and I really learned a lot
from that. So, later, when I was really check-
ing out Wayne, I found that in his music. I
loved it so much and I continue to. I’m listen-
ing to his live record that just came out and
loving it. Then, I spent a lot of time with Son-
ny Rollins. Again, thematic development and
the swing is so strong with him. I just can’t
get over how much I love his feel, his time
feel. There’s a solo he plays on the music
from that movie Alfie. There’s this one ver-
sion where he takes this incredible solo. It’s
probably the most swinging thing that I’ve
ever heard in my life.
JI: I like his solos on Sonny Rollins on Im-
pulse and of course the classic Saxophone
Colossus and Tenor Madness. By the way,
you’re talking about Joe Henderson’s time.
You’re probably familiar with Four, the al-
bum by Joe Henderson and the Wynton Kelly
Trio Live at the Left Bank in Baltimore, 1968.
DM: I learned the whole solo from Four. It’s
unbelievable.
JI: Yeah. Did you write it out?
DM: I don’t think so. I haven’t listened to it
in a long time. That’s one of my favorite rec-
ords of life. That’s one of my desert island
records. That’s Joe Henderson at his best.
JI: The second volume, too.
DM: Yeah. I have that. I like the first one
better.
JI: Yeah, I do too.
DM: The second one’s great. Should I contin-
ue on the saxophone player thing? I could
keep going and going.
JI: Yes.
DM: I also love Jan Garbarek. There’s a rec-
ord with the band and Keith Jarrett called Be-
longing. That’s just one of my favorite rec-
ords of life. I think what was so compelling to
me about Jan Garbarek, as a kid, and what
continues to be, is his sound and his lyricism.
He has a sound as big as a house and he’s
such a lyrical player. I just loved it. I still love
it. I love Lester Young. I spent some time
with him. I think it’s just, again, his lyricism,
his swing, his phrasing is just unbelievable.
I’m probably forgetting people.
JI: You don’t have to name everybody.
DM: I could go on and on. That’s probably
enough on that subject, right?
JI: We can publish an extended version on
the web or something. What is it that inspired
you to become serious about music?
DM: For me, it was a natural path in that my
father was a jazz musician. My parents were
divorced. I’d see my father once a week. He’d
pick me up Sunday morning. We’d drive to
downtown Santa Cruz, to the mall. I’d help
him set up his Wurlitzer piano, his vibra-
phone, and his marimba. I’d set there for the
better part of the afternoon and he’d play with
his band called Warmth. They’d play from
like noon until 4 o’clock depending on the
weather and how many people were there.
Then, we’d pack up all of his stuff, put it in
his car, and then we’d go play basketball,
throw the football around, play baseball, de-
pending on what season it was sports wise. I
grew up with him as a big influence on my
life, of course. When I started playing around
age twelve, music came to be pretty quickly.
It just felt right…how can I say this? I didn’t
even have to think about it. I started playing, I
was taking lessons, I was into it, I was enjoy-
ing it. Before I knew it, I could tell that music
was what I wanted to do and it was at a really
early age.
JI: What’s the motivation and inspiration that
drives your career today?
DM: It’s the joy of participating in something
that I love. I love music so much. It’s such a
joy to participate in it because music has such
a healing and cathartic power and can be such
a powerful thing for people. I almost feel that
it’s sort of a ministry thing, like my way of
participating in spreading God’s love and
mercy and passion to the world by being a
musician and trying to express that musically
and getting that vibe out there, that light out
there through music. The motivation for me is
that, I would say. It’s partly selfish in that I
love music so much and I love playing and I
think it’s really important and vital thing to
society and to the world. I also feel like it’s a
ministry thing. God has given me this gift and
I want to do something with that, I want to try
and spread that light into the world and that
(Continued from page 20)
Donny McCaslin
“Gary talked a lot about thematic development as an improviser.
Prior to playing with him, I hadn’t really checked that out. He sort of really harped on the thematic development issue and I really
learned a lot from that. So, later, when I was really checking out
Wayne, I found that in his music.”
23 To Advertise CALL: 215-887-8880 April-May 2019 Jazz Inside Magazine www.JazzInsideMagazine.com
love through music.
JI: Has developing your own sound been an
intuitive process?
DM: Yeah, I mean, for me, I spent a lot of
time absorbing other musicians. In college I
was just inundated with information: tran-
scribed solos, transcribing solos, listening to
records, hearing other players that were my
peers and what they were into. I felt like dur-
ing that period of my life, I was experiencing
the entire spectrum musically. Even after I got
out of school, it felt like that for awhile. I
moved to New York and I would go out to
clubs all of the time. One night I would go to
a club and hear somebody play and go,
“Wow, I want to sound like that.” The next
night, I’d hear somebody who was playing a
lot differently and I’d also want to play like
that. It took me awhile to keep filtering all of
this different information. As I was filtering,
there would be certain things I would latch
onto. Certain things that grabbed me in my
heart and soul, about something rhythmic or
whatever. I would latch onto that and try to
develop that. I guess, slowly but surely, my
own identity emerged through this process.
JI: Did you take conscious steps to try and
create an original sound or your own voice?
DM: Yeah, I took some conscious steps. I
would think about, “What can I work on?”
Specifically speaking, I remember one time
working on these intervallic exercises that I
had to do to pass my proficiencies at Berklee
and I remember thinking, “Playing my scale
in sevenths…wow, this is kind of cool. I don’t
hear a lot of people playing these wide leaps
as part of their melodic language so this is
something that’s a little different. I like doing
it. Let me take this concept and roll with it.”
So, what I would do, was take that and as I
would practice a song I would say, “Okay, for
the next couple choruses I’m just going to
improvise using the interval of a seventh.” A
major seventh or a flat seventh or whatever. I
would pick an interval and only allow myself
to use that interval as I would work through
the changes for a few choruses and then may-
be I would change it up and do a major ninth
or a minor ninth or something, and kind of
keep that idea happening. I would consciously
latch onto things like that and then try to bring
them to fruition by working on them in a crea-
tive way.
JI: Great approach. Would you talk a little bit
about the things that you’re currently doing?
DM: Sure. For the last couple of years, I was
touring primarily with Danilo Perez. It was in
a group called The Motherland Project. It was
Luciana Souza on voice, Essiet Essiet on bass,
Adam Cruz on drums, and of course Danilo
and myself. That was pretty much my gig for
the last couple years and then we stopped
playing for awhile. Danilo is playing with
Wayne Shorter, and he’s back to doing some
trio stuff. Since then, I’ve been focusing on
my own group. I’ve been playing maybe once
a month in New York with my quartet or my
trio, and then I’ve been doing various side-
band projects with different people. Last
night, I played with David Binnie, who has
this project…basically, it’s rhythm section
and 5 horns. He’s playing alto but he’s also
doing some live samples. He’s just a really
great writer. So, I’ve been working with him
for at least ten years now on different projects.
I play as a sideman in his group. I’m just con-
stantly doing different projects. I’m playing
with Santi Debriano. He’s a bass player, origi-
nally from Panama. We did four nights a cou-
ple of weeks ago. It’s just been a bunch of
different freelance, sideman dates.
JI: Talk about Lan Zhang.
DM: Lan Zhang is a great group and it’s hard
to get everybody together. Everybody’s so
busy. Scott Colley, the bass player, has just
been on the road constantly, as has Kenny
Wolleson, and I’ve been real busy, and Dave
has been busy, too. Definitely a great band.
It’s a cooperative band. We have a couple
CDs out, and we’re hoping to do another one
within the next year or so. We did a gig that
was probably the first gig we’ve done in about
a year. It was totally killing. It’s a really spe-
cial group. If you can imagine, just logistical-
ly getting everybody in the same place is hard.
JI: Who are some players that you might like
to play with?
DM: Dave Holland. Yeah. I love his music. I
just saw his big band in New York a couple of
weeks ago. It was totally killing. A lot of my
friends play in his group. I’d love to play with
him and John Scofield. Let me think. I love
to play with Danilo, I love playing with him. I
hope that continues. I love Kurt Rosenwin-
kel's playing and I love his writing. I did a
tour with him a couple of years ago with Bri-
an Blade’s band. That was an amazing experi-
ence. I hope that I get to tour with them again.
He’s one of my all-time favorite musicians.
Who else would I like to play with? It seems
like there are so many.
JI: You have a couple of albums, one on Nax-
os and one on Arabesque, Scenes From
Above. What was the difference between
those two albums and the labels?
DM: Well, the difference was the one on
Naxos, that was produced by David Baker,
you know, and basically, they wanted a
straight ahead type of record. I picked tunes
and put together a group that I felt would best
be able to represent that side of my musical
personality. In terms of Scenes From Above,
that was more of an original music project. I
felt like I had the green light to do basically
all originals…I did only one standard on that
record, the rest are all originals. I was able to
do something more edgy where a bigger part
of my musical personality was there at this
(Continued on page 24)
“It’s such a joy to participate in it because music has such a healing and cathartic power and can be such a powerful thing for people. I almost feel that it’s sort of a
ministry thing, like my way of participating in spreading God’s love and mercy and
passion to the world by being a musician and trying to express that musically and getting that vibe out there, that light out
there through music.”
Donny McCaslin
24 To Advertise CALL: 215-887-8880 April-May 2019 Jazz Inside Magazine www.JazzInsideMagazine.com
“”The greatest discovery of any generation is that human beings
can alter their lives by altering the attitudes of their minds.”
- Albert Schweitzer
moment. Does that make sense? Basically, it
was more of an original music project. I just
went for it with that.
JI: If there is one for you, what’s the connec-
tion between music and spirituality?
DM: Yeah, I would say as a Presbyterian, as a
Christian, my faith is integrated into every-
thing that I do. There’s a strong connection
between that and music because I see music
as a spiritual thing. I’m trying to live every
moment being connected to God, whether I’m
playing basketball, or doing yoga, or playing
at the 55 Bar, or practicing. The spirituality,
the faith thing, is a big part of everything that
I do. Yeah. That’s basically it.
JI: What words of wisdom have you received
from a teacher or mentor that you can share
with us or is there a quotation that inspires
you?
DM: Now, of course, I could say more about
the spirituality and jazz thing. Should I go
back to that? I see music as my way or partic-
ipating in that. To me, when I’m listening to
something I really like, it’s an expression of
love. It’s so great and so exciting and I feel
like that kind of comes from God. There’s a
connection in terms of how I try and reflect
that into the world through music. In terms of
words of wisdom … I can’t remember where I
heard this, or if it’s something that I just came
to learn over there years…I think music…It’s
important to be diligent about practicing and
preparing yourself. Maybe it was Dave Lieb-
man who said something about this…
basically, if I’m going to practice one day a
week for ten hours, and then nothing the rest
of the week, I’m not going to get as much
done as if I worked 45 minutes or an hour a
day and really stayed focus. That’s been my
experience. It’s really important to work dili-
gently on the process of improving yourself as
a musician and as a human being because they
sort of go hand and hand. One thing that
Danilo has said to me that has inspired me a
lot lately is, “Don’t be afraid to take on differ-
ent roles in a band.” What the means for me is
just because I’m the saxophone player doesn’t
mean I have to always play like a saxophone
player. He was encouraging me a lot to dream
and think like an orchestrator a lot while I’m
improvising. I’ll be playing and all of the sud-
den, maybe I’ll start to hear a flute thing or a
bass thing or a drum thing and not being
afraid to just go for that. That’s really helped
to open me up I think a lot in my concept of
improvising. Thinking like an accompanist, or
thinking like a bass player. That’s something
that I think has carried a lot of weight with
me.
JI: What’s the relationship of listening versus
playing while you’re performing?
DM: Yeah. The more experiences I have and
the more I grow as a musician, the more I
listen, the deeper my listening is. Now, when
I’m in the middle of playing a gig with a
band, I’m really trying to completely listen to
everything that’s going on. As I’ve grown
musically, my ability to listen and take in eve-
rything has grown. When I’m playing, I’m
listening intently to everything around me and
just trying to be part of the ensemble more. I
think when I was younger, I felt like it was
my responsibility always to lead and always
to be in the forefront. Now, I see it differently,
and now I just try to participate in the ensem-
ble, and add colors to the ensemble in a way,
and not always thinking like a soloist, but just
listening to the overall vibe of the music and
how can I fit into that in an interesting way.
JI: What do you think is the most important
non-musical thing that a musician needs to
embrace to be happy?
DM: For me, I would say, “Well, it’s God,”
but that’s connected to music for me. Ulti-
mately for me, the peace and the sense of sat-
isfaction in life comes from my spiritual rela-
tionship with God so for me that’s what that
is.
JI: When we played together, we sat around
watching the Yankees in the World Series.
Are you a big Yankees fan?
DM: No, I’m more of a San Francisco Giants
fan.
JI: Is there anything that you’d like to add,
Donny?
DM: What else would I add? One thing that I
found is that leading a balanced life is really
great. Trying to get some exercise, eat healthy
foods, you know, that stuff has really helped
me to be a better musician. Going to a thera-
pist, dealing with issues. Leading a balanced
life is really important to me. I know a lot of
guys who just do music all of the time and are
really successful. For me, taking the time to
take care of myself on all levels of life is real-
ly, really important. That’s just really, really
important and the benefits of that, I’m seeing
play themselves out not only in my career in
music but in my whole life. Figuring out what
my needs are and taking care of that. To live
in New York, and dealing with all of that, and
being a jazz musician anywhere is such a ran-
dom, alternative lifestyle. By trying to put
myself on the path of how to fulfill that, and
doing the best I can everyday, that’s really the
most important.
(Continued from page 23)
“It’s really important to work diligently on the process
of improving yourself as a musician and as a human being because they sort of go hand and hand.”
Donny McCaslin
25 To Advertise CALL: 215-887-8880 April-May 2019 Jazz Inside Magazine www.JazzInsideMagazine.com
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By Eric Nemeyer
(Continued from the previous
issue of Jazz Inside)
JI: When you went to Berklee, what were the
challenges and benefits that you experienced?
EW: I was playing all the instruments. By the
time I got to Berklee, I had taught myself flute
and clarinet, and then I was playing saxo-
phones. When I started taking lessons at Berk-
lee, I was studying with Joe Viola. He decided
to teach me oboe. So I took oboe lessons for
the year and a half or so that I was at Berklee.
I was playing in Herb Pomeroy’s band and
playing in bands and playing in clubs. I was
working every night. We had an R&B band
with John Tropea. It was John Tropea’s band.
We had a great singer named Nate Pruitt, who
is in San Jose now. We use to work in the
Combat Zone, in Boston. We used to work in
these clubs where we were doing all these
Wilson Pickett and James Brown things – “I
Got You” and all of that stuff. That’s what we
were doing every night. And then on the
breaks I’d be doing my homework. I’d be
sitting there at the bar trying to do my home-
work on these gigs. Then I’d have school the
next day. That’s what I was doing at Berklee,
and practicing and studying. Then about a
year and a half,
my second year
back, I had the
opportunity to
join Buddy
Rich’s band. But
I was listening
and playing all
the time.
JI: How did your
association with
Buddy develop?
EW: Buddy Rich’s band was in town and
they were playing in a place called Lenny’s
on the Turnpike. It was a very well known
jazz club at the time. Gene Quill was in Bud-
dy’s band at that time and he just decided to
quit and come back to New York. So he quit.
They were in a jam. So the band manager, a
young guy, trombone player, called Phil Wil-
son to ask if there was anybody that could
help him out. They wanted to get a kid for a
couple of weeks because they could get a real
player later. I was the kid. I went out with
Buddy and I was supposed to be there for two
weeks, and I was there for two years. That
was their first tour. They were on the tour for
their very first album, which was the one with
“West Side Story.” So they were on that tour.
That’s when I joined them. I think I did three
or four albums with Buddy. We did some
band albums and then we did a very interest-
ing album with Alla Rakha and Buddy. Alla
Rakha was a tabla player who played with
Ravi Shankar for so long. So a lot of interest-
ing things like that. Buddy was a wonderful,
wonderful player and he was 100% for the
music. There are all of these legendary stories
about the Buddy Rich tirades. But the thing is,
I never saw him go off for no reason. There
was always a reason. Somebody did some-
thing, or somebody didn’t take care of busi-
ness, or somebody showed up and they were-
n’t prepared to do the gig, as so he would go
off. I think he got an adrenaline rush from his
anger. Once he got going he had trouble stop-
ping. After he made his point, then he would-
n’t be able to stop and then it would get kind
of strange. But he never just went off. There
was a reason. I had a very good experience
with him. He was 100% for the music, I was
100% for the music. I was playing lead alto at
the time. I was practicing all day and going to
the gig. One of his sayings was, “Out of a
twenty-four hour day, all I need from you is
four hours of responsibility. Whatever you
guys do the other twenty hours of the day is
fine, as long as you show up and do the gig.” I
had a very good time with that band. I discov-
ered California. We went there to do a TV
summer replacement show on CBS, the Away
We Go show. Buddy Greco was on it and
George Carlin too, when he was still doing the
Hippy-Dippy Weather Man and all of those
things. We were there for thirteen weeks do-
ing that show. I started playing in rehearsal
bands and meeting people in town, and so
when I left Buddy’s band I decided to move to
Los Angeles rather than here. I just really love
the mountains; I like the feel of it. I like the
hills and stuff. When I moved there, I walked
right into the middle of the studio scene. I
didn’t even know what the studio scene was. I
didn’t even know what it was to be a studio
musician. I figured I’d just move to LA and
probably play with groups, try to do some
group things. I got there and I started subbing
in for recordings and films for people who
were very established and were so busy that
they sent subs to rehearsals and stuff like that.
So I started out subbing for Buddy Collette,
and meeting a lot of the people that were do-
ing quote-unquote studio work. I got involved
in that for like, twenty-five years. [laughs]
JI: You mentioned before that Buddy used to
get himself angry and that would give him the
adrenaline rush. Steve Peck, who was Bud-
dy’s manager in the seventies, said that Buddy
used to eat a couple of chocolate bars before
the gig to really get that sugar rush, in addi-
tion to the anger rush.
EW: [laughs] His favorite saying used to be,
we’d be backstage getting ready to go on to
do a TV show or a concert, and he’d go,
“Swing, or I’ll kill you!” [laughs]
JI: When you were rehearsing new arrange-
ments with the band, how did that work?
EW: Well, he didn’t read. We’d be in a club
and we’d have a new arrangement, we would
play it and he’d sit in the audience and listen.
(Continued on page 28)
Ernie Watts Always on the journey
INTERVIEWINTERVIEW
“Gene Quill was in Buddy’s band at that time and he just decided to quit and come back to
New York. So he quit. They were in a jam. So the band manager, a young guy, trombone player, called Phil Wilson to ask if there was anybody
that could help him out. They wanted to get a kid for a couple of weeks because they could get a real player later. I was the kid. I went out with Buddy and I was supposed to be there for two
weeks, and I was there for two years.”
27 To Advertise CALL: 215-887-8880 April-May 2019 Jazz Inside Magazine www.JazzInsideMagazine.com
Er-Er-
nie nie
28 To Advertise CALL: 215-887-8880 April-May 2019 Jazz Inside Magazine www.JazzInsideMagazine.com
He’d just sit in the house. He’d listen. We’d
play it again. He’d listen. He’d say, “Can you
play that section back there?” We’d say, “Oh
yeah, that’s letter C.” That might have been
something that was in an odd time, or had
some breaks or something. We’d play that
section and he’d listen, and then he’d get up
and play it.
JI: Were you interested in writing or arrang-
ing for big band at that time?
EW: I never wanted to arrange. The thing that
I always wanted to do and the thing that I’m
still working on is just writing good tunes. I
always had the concept of, I wanted to play
my own music, and if you want to your own
music, it’s got to start with the tunes. So I was
always interested in writing good tunes and I
was always listening to people that know spe-
cial kind of things. Like, Horace Silver had a
sound; Oliver Nelson had a sound. Seeing
what was there, the tools, things that were
going on intervallically. I’d practice and I’d
write. It’s funny how you learn a lot of tech-
niques, you learn a lot of science, but when
you get ready to do the music, you just do the
music. And I write when I practice. When I’m
practicing, I hear things and I write those
things down. Then I’ll fill in the harmony and
the bass notes. It’s just something that I can’t
get because I have absolutely no piano tech-
nique because when I was at Berklee, instead
of doing my piano/keyboard, I was practicing
and doing gigs. I’m miserable on the key-
board. I do everything I can, and then to fill in
the harmony, I work with the piano player I
play with in my quartet, David Whitman. We
work together to fill in the harmony and bring
the composition together. He hears harmoni-
cally the way I hear, so if it’s something that I
can’t play technically, he just says, “Oh, that’s
this.” He lays it in and that’s right. I work a
lot with him.
JI: You mentioned that you didn’t listen to
other saxophone players. Experimenting with
the sound of musicians who play instruments
other than your own enables you to get away
from the clichés of your own instrument. Do
you look to non-sax players for inspiration?
EW: There are things that every instrumental-
ist does that are indigenous to their instru-
ment. The way your hands go on the instru-
ment, the things your hands do on the saxo-
phone, are similar to things that other people’s
hands do on the saxophone. Same with trum-
pet – the things that a trumpet player’s hands
do on the trumpet are similar. To open up
your melodic concept and get away from
playing the instrument to play music, it’s very
enlightening to hear other people play. When
I hear Michael Brecker or any other saxo-
phone player play, I know what they’re doing.
I know what the keys are, where they’re over-
blowing the fifth, when they’re doubling up
stuff. Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, anybody.
When you study the saxophone for four years
and you hear somebody play the saxophone,
you’ve got a pretty good idea of what the
guy’s doing. But when you study the saxo-
phone for four years and then you listen to
Keith Jarrett, or Herbie Hancock, or Alan
Broadbent, you say, “Oh. It’s the same tune.
It’s the same set of chords, but there’s a whole
other way to come at this stuff.” That’s what
I’m doing. I’m very interested in coming at
harmony in another direction and getting
away from being a saxophone player to being
a musician. I’m a real good saxophone player.
Sometimes I’m not as good a musician as I
would like to be. So I’m working on being a
better musician. And that encompasses all of
that stuff.
JI: Your level of humility is astonishing com-
pared to the level of musicianship that many
people perceive you really have.
EW: We’re always on the road. We’re always
on the journey. Nobody else is in your head
but you. We all see the world through our
eyes. We all have our individual view of what
it is, of what we are. We’re always trying to
get past ourselves. It’s like when you study,
you practice and you focus and you concen-
trate and you’re doing all of these things, we
get very much inside our heads. When you
play, you have to let all of that stuff go. When
I get up on the bandstand to play, it’s like I’ve
never played music before. It’s a new slate.
So all the things I’ve practiced, all the things I
work on, all the things I’m doing, I try to for-
get about and then become a part of the mu-
sic. When we play, we become the music.
These tunes are not something we’re assault-
ing with our prowess and technique. When we
play, especially with great people, you be-
come the music. The whole thing becomes a
picture, and then you’re a part of the picture.
That’s the thing that I keep reminding myself
of. It’s an academic puzzle at home. If you’re
working on the dominant 7th flat 5 scale, or if
you’re working out the relationship between
the dominant 7th flat 5 scale and the minor
with the major 7th, and the relationship is a
fourth – it’s the same scale but a fourth away.
Okay, you do that stuff when you’re home.
When you’re up on the bandstand, you’re not
thinking about, “Okay, well I’m going to do
this minor-major seventh scale here. Here
comes the ii-V. Or I can do the diminished
scale on the minor ii-V.” No. You don’t have
time to do that. That’s what I tell the kids
when I do a clinic. You have to be familiar
with all of those things and you have to know
your instrument because improvisation is
spontaneous composition. Spontaneous com-
position is like speech. It’s like talking or
singing a song. If you’re having a conversa-
tion with somebody, you don’t think about
where you’re going to put your tongue to an-
nunciate the t in the word the. If you had to do
that, the conversation would be over before
you could get a word out. It’s the same way
with playing the instrument. All of these
(Continued from page 26)
“We [the Buddy Rich Big Band] went there to [L.A.] to do a TV summer replacement show on CBS, the Away We Go show. Buddy Greco was on it
and George Carlin too, when he was still doing the Hippy-Dippy Weather Man and all of those things. We were there for thirteen weeks doing that show. I started playing in rehearsal bands and meeting people in town, and so
when I left Buddy’s band I decided to move to Los Angeles ... I walked right into the middle of the studio scene. I didn’t even know what the studio
scene was. I didn’t even know what it was to be a studio musician.”
Ernie Watts
29 To Advertise CALL: 215-887-8880 April-May 2019 Jazz Inside Magazine www.JazzInsideMagazine.com
things you have to know. You have to have
them hard-wired. Then you forget all about
them and you tell your story. You make some-
thing beautiful. That’s why we’re here. We’re
here to make something beautiful. We’re not
here to do math puzzles.
EW: Until I went to Berklee I played totally
by ear. I did pretty well, until there was a
modulation or there was some kind of har-
monic difference that happened and I might
not be able to pick it up. When I went to
Berklee I was taught my chord-scales. When I
went to Berklee, I was taught, or I learned, or
I looked at it and I figured it out, that every
chord has a scale. If you learn every scale for
every chord, it’s impossible to play a wrong
note. So on a scientific level, after that point
improvisation becomes an elaborate game of
multiple choice. And I’ll do that with the kids.
I’ll take a mixolydian scale, and I’ll play the
chord and I’ll play the scale, and then the
rhythm section will play, and I’ll just play
anything. But it’s in the scale, and so it’s cor-
rect and it makes sense. Then I talk to them,
“And this is also because, you know, five or
six years of listening to nothing but John Col-
trane records.” My brain was programmed to
hear melodically that way anyway. Even
when I was playing random, I was coming
from melody. Just like Trane. When Trane got
to the point of being tonally free, that was
after all of those Prestige records, playing and
recording hundreds of records. Then he went
to Atlantic and it was all of that concentrated
work through that period of “Giant Steps,”
and the “Giant Steps” reharmonizations of
“Body and Soul” and “But Not for Me.” By
the time he got to Impulse records, his whole
consciousness was totally steeped in harmony
and melody. So no matter how free you think
you’re getting, after that kind of background
it’s still going to be rooted in harmony and
melody. That was the problem that came up
with all the “new thing” guys—all of those
young guys that came out of nowhere. They
were doing all of this free music in the sixties
and it was just really out there. The thing is
that it didn’t hold together because it didn’t
have the basis of discipline. Freedom through
discipline.
JI: That’s it. Coltrane went from being an
early fumbler through difficult chord changes
to fully assimilating all of this vocabulary,
building a foundation to impart his own form
or structure when there was none. A lot of the
people that have come afterwards in free jazz
were playing out of tune or had bad technique.
You can use those kinds of effects, but you
can’t rely on them to pass off your inability to
play as art.
EW: You should be able to play “I’ve Got
Rhythm” and the blues. That’s the first thing
you teach the kids in school. You teach them
to play the blues and then after learning the
twelve-bar blues, the next thing you teach
them is “I’ve Got Rhythm” – rhythm changes.
The basis of harmony and the things that
come out of that, a lot of it is related. When
you teach the kids the blues, they’re learning
the blues scale; they’re learning how to play
on the mixolydians; they’re learning about the
feeling of the blues. And “I’ve Got Rhythm”
is the beginning of ii-V motion and playing
through keys. It’s like, you can’t break the
rules if you don’t know the rules. [laughs]
JI: How did your association with the Tonight
Show develop? Did the stability that comes
from playing in a situation like that afford the
opportunity for a lot of freedom in developing
your music further?
EW: Well, I think I’ve been very blessed be-
cause I’ve just kind of stumbled upon one pot
of gold into another pot of gold. My life has
always been like that. It’s basic – I really love
music, I practice, I worked on my music. I
learned how to play the other instruments
fairly well. So when I went to Los Angeles, I
started doing so-called studio work: I started
playing on records, films, other TV shows. At
the same time I moved to Los Angeles in
1968, Motown was moving from Detroit to
Los Angeles. I started playing in all of their
horn sections – Marvin Gaye, The Commo-
dores, The Temptations, all of the Diana Ross
stuff. All of those people that came out of that
thing – the Jacksons, when Michael was
twelve years old. All of that stuff. I was in
those horn sections, playing flute, clarinet,
piccolo, saxophone, playing a little saxophone
on the fade. I got very successful at doing
that. When I was with Buddy Rich’s band, we
played here at a club downstairs in the Empire
State Building called Riverboat. While we
were there, Doc Severensen came in. I met
Benny Goodman – he came in. A bunch of
great people came in to hear Buddy. I think
from that, when I was in Los Angeles and the
Tonight Show came out to Los Angeles – they
would come out for two or three times every
year for a couple of weeks at a time – I be-
lieve that Doc asked for me. I started playing
in that band when they were here two weeks
at a time. When they moved to California
permanently, I was asked to be in the band
permanently.
JI: When you were on the Tonight Show
band, how did that impact your creative pur-
suits?
EW: Well, you know, all of that music – the
Tonight Show band, record dates, all of the
studio work – was at a high level. I learned a
lot about the music business. I learned a lot
about playing my instruments in tune. I
learned a lot about showing up on time, be-
cause when you had a 9 o’clock in the morn-
ing for a fill-in for one of these guys, and
there’s an 80-piece orchestra, at 9 o’clock, the
tape starts rolling and it starts costing them
$30,000 a minute or whatever it is. So you
learn to be on time. You learn punctuality. So
I learned a lot about the music business and
the craft of music. On the side, I always had a
quartet. I always played in little clubs. I was
always working on my tunes. I was always
listening and practicing. It got to a point
where it was time to turn the page. And that
(Continued on page 30)
“We’re always on the road. We’re always on the journey. Nobody else is in your head but you. We all see the world through our eyes. We all have our individual view of what it is, of what we are. We’re always trying to get
past ourselves. It’s like when you study, you practice and you focus and you concentrate and you’re doing all of these things, we get very much inside our heads. When you play,
you have to let all of that stuff go.”
Ernie Watts
30 To Advertise CALL: 215-887-8880 April-May 2019 Jazz Inside Magazine www.JazzInsideMagazine.com
xxxxxxxxxx
was another one of those things that worked
out perfectly.
JI: Did you find that studio work was com-
posed of 98% boredom and 2% terror?
EW: Yeah, they used to say, “98% boredom,
2% sheer terror.” [laughs] Usually the 2%
sheer terror is because of someone’s incompe-
tence. The 2% sheer terror is because the
composer didn’t study orchestration, so he
wrote a clarinet part that should have been a
piccolo part, and then you’ve got to play it –
that’s the 2% sheer terror. Henry Mancini
wrote beautiful books on how to write great
music and not kill anybody. [laughs] I had all
those experiences. The thing with me was the
studio work did not fulfill my daily minimum
requirement for creativity. I got to the point
where I just didn’t want to count rests and
read parts anymore. So it all evolved together,
really. Around 1981, the synthesizers came in.
Before that, I could do three record dates a
day and a TV show. The synthesizer thing
came in and all this multi-section work got cut
out. I was known as a soloist then, because I
had been playing solos on a lot of pop rec-
ords. I was still fairly busy on the solos, be-
cause some of the sessions I’d go to, the only
acoustic instruments on the whole project
were me and the vocalist, the artist or group.
At that time the session thing started to slow
down. I was getting more interested in doing
my own thing. I met my manager around 1983
and we set up a program to do college con-
certs and clinics. That’s when I started to do
my college concerts and traveled. After that –
I think it was 1986 – I met Charlie [Haden]
and we started playing together. We did a few
tours with Pat Metheny. After playing with
Charlie and Pat Metheny and really playing
all the time with great players, it was time for
me to turn the page. I couldn’t do any more
studio work. It was time for me to go on. So it
worked out perfectly, because the work
slowed down anyway. It was time for me to
turn the page – I knew that. These beautiful
creative environments came up with Charlie
and Pat. In 1986 I sold my house in L.A. and I
moved to Colorado because I figured I would
take myself physically out of the scene so that
I could create more time for myself to study
and grow. If you’re busy in the studio scene
and you say you’re going to take a day off to
practice and write, you take that time and you
set it aside, and you’re getting ready to sit
down and practice and write, and somebody
calls you up for a McDonald’s commercial,
you’re not going to say, “Well, I’m practicing
and writing today.” You’re going to say,
“Okay.” So you get in the car, and you go and
you travel in horrible traffic, and you try to
find a parking place for fifteen minutes. Then
you go in the studio and you sit around till
they wait for you to do your two minutes.
Then you do your two minutes and you have
to find your car. By the time you get back
home from doing a jingle, it’s five hours out
of the day that’s gone, you’re so depressed
and you feel so bad, all you really want to do
is crawl under the bed and cry. You’re burnt-
out. You’re burning and you’re unfulfilled. If
you want to do it, you do it. If you don’t want
to do it and you do it, it’s twice as hard. So I
moved to Colorado. I bought a little house
right outside of Aspen. I’ve had that little
place for thirteen years. What would happen
is the contractors would call me and I would-
n’t be able to do it because I’d be out of town.
When the contractors call you three times and
you can’t do it, you’re dead meat anyway –
you’re gone. I always used to tell everybody it
takes everybody three days to know that
you’re gone, but it takes three months for
them to know that you’re back in town. You
go out of town for three days, and for three
months when you’re back, people were say-
ing, “Oh! I thought you were out of
town.” [laughs] So I sort-of took myself out of
town. And from that, it gave me a chance to
evolve and start doing more playing and tour-
ing. I started going to Europe again. I started
going to Japan. I got so busy traveling that I
didn’t have any time to be in Colorado. I was
never there so I sold my place in Colorado
and I moved back to LA and bought the condo
that I had been renting. But by then, I was
already out of the food chain.
JI: You did a number of State Department
tours to Africa, for example. Could you talk a
little bit about that? There are a lot of people
going to Africa. It’s kind of an exotic trip. To
go with a group like Oliver Nelson’s band,
which was all great players playing great mu-
sic, the combination of the scenery, the travel,
and the music must have provided you with
some extraordinary perspectives.
EW: That was in 1969. It was the Blues and
the Abstract Truth band. It was a wonderful
tour. The music was great. It was very inter-
esting because we were in what was French
West Africa and they were just beginning to
turn all the countries back. We were in Sene-
gal, Chad, Mali, Niger, and Cameroon. We
were in Niger and you could just walk out of a
concert and walk out into the desert, where it
was totally quiet and dark. It was to me the
quietest place; it was deafeningly quiet, be-
cause when it’s quiet here it’s not quiet. It’s
never quiet here as long as there’s an electri-
cal outlet and something is plugged in, there’s
a hum. There’s always a hum, no matter
where you in our culture – unless you go out
in the middle of the desert or Alaska. So it
was the only I think I’ve ever really been
where it is truly quiet. I mean, it’s frightening
[laughs].
JI: Could you talk about your association
with Charlie Haden, who is himself a sensi-
tive and soft-spoken individual? How did his
music gel with what you do?
(Continued in the next issue)
(Continued from page 29)
“When Trane got to the point of being tonally free, that was after all of those Prestige
records, playing and recording hundreds of rec-ords. Then he went to Atlantic and it was all of that concentrated work through that period of
“Giant Steps,” and the “Giant Steps” reharmoni-zations of “Body and Soul” and “But Not for Me.” By the time he got to Impulse records, his whole consciousness was totally steeped in harmony and melody. So no matter how free you think
you’re getting, after that kind of background it’s still going to be rooted in harmony and melody.”
Ernie Watts
31 To Advertise CALL: 215-887-8880 April-May 2019 Jazz Inside Magazine www.JazzInsideMagazine.com
Interview By Eric Nemeyer
JI: Talk about the highlights of the Jazz and
Popular Song Series at Jazz at Lincoln Center.
MF: Well, it seems like a natural combination to
me in that so much jazz is formulated from or
based on American popular song. Yet, I find
that, generally speaking many programs that
have been devoted to jazz don’t ever
acknowledge the participation or importance of
the songs and the songwriters themselves. For
example, Ken Burn’s series on jazz does not
mention any American popular composer other
than Duke Ellington. There is no mention of any
other songwriter. That’s a ten hour series with
not one mention. So I think that is fascinating
and yet what would these guys be playing if they
didn’t have American popular song - either the
songs themselves or the various things that have
been created based on the changes of all these
songs, like I’ve Got Rhythm” or “How High the
Moon” or another obvious ones like “What is
This Thing Called Love”. So I first met Wynton
[Marsalis] at a Jazz At Lincoln Center benefit at
the Apollo several years ago. The performance
of course, was wonderful as always, but I was
very impressed with talking to him afterwards
when he started talking about his commitment to
keeping jazz alive for young kids—keeping it
going- spreading the word- propagating the
world of jazz in a way that is completely reso-
nant with what I want to do with American pop-
ular song. They’re both forms of music that are
not mainstream and that the only way these art
forms survived is through the sharing and the
education of younger people. So that’s the first
thing that I felt a bond with him about and then
we became friendly and I was approached by the
people at Jazz At Lincoln Center asking if I
would be interested in putting together a series
of programs that would celebrate and look at the
connection between jazz and American popular
song. Of course I was thrilled to be involved for
all the obvious reasons and that’s how it began.
JI: It’s interesting that you mentioned the im-
portance of popular song in the jazz lexicon
because as a player and composer arranger my-
self, one of the big things that less experienced
jazz players fall prey to and one of their chal-
lenges is that the melody seems to be nothing
more than a jumping off point where as really
the greatest improvisers have always been the-
matic improvisers developing the melody in a
very prolific kind of way. Would you like to
chat about that for a second?
MF: Sure. Who was the famous sax player who
stopped in the middle of a solo and was asked
why he stopped and he said, “I forgot the
words”? I can’t remember who it is but it would
make it a much more significant anecdote. Many
of the instrumentalists know the lyrics of the
songs because it is part and parcel of the creation
of the work. And so sometimes the words spur
the composition of the melody or gave them an
identity - a further identity if you will. The songs
themselves, even in jazz solos, are inextricably
linked - the words are inextricable linked to the
music. I remember George Gershwin’s long time
girlfriend, Kay Swift, who was a marvelous
composer, told me that one time she complained
to George that Ruth Etting in a Broadway show
in 1930 or ‘31 was mangling her song. She said
Ruth was singing it straight through in the first
chorus and then it became unrecognizable and
George said, “Just be grateful that she sings it
straight in the first chorus. “ A lot of people
don’t have the respect for the melody and it’s
not necessarily that you have to adhere to the
melody, but if you know what the melody is,
then you can make more brilliant choices in
what the improvisation is going to be because
knowing the melody and knowing what the orig-
inal changes are is knowledge and knowledge is
power. So it really is essential to me when I
learn something to learn exactly what it was the
writers wrote, and then make any changes or
substitutions or whatever. It’s so interesting
when you go back and look at the original songs,
the melodies are not anywhere near the way
people do them. It’s like “Lover Man” – the
original melody is a little different from the way
Billie Holiday does it and everyone does it like
her. It’s things like that that are just interesting
and not amusing but they become part of the
lexicon. But if you know the way it was origi-
nally written then you think, “Oh my god, that’s
something that Billie Holiday improvised and
maybe it’s better than the original but it’s still
valuable to know where it came from”.
JI: And of course so many people toss out the
theme that comes right before the well known
melody which is in some cases is a really fabu-
lous piece of music that just gets thrown by the
wayside.
MF: Yeah, you’re talking about the verses of the
song?
JI: Yes, I’m sorry- I meant the verse.
MF: Absolutely. Ira Gershwin said that they
worked as hard on the verses as they did on the
choruses. It’s valuable stuff. The thing that I find
wonderful about my favorite jazz artists is how
they can be faithful to the original intention of
something and yet be so fresh and original in
their own right. Having spent a lot of time with
song writers I know how important the chords
were that they chose. For example, “Love is
Here to Stay”. A lot of times I’ll hear people
play, if it’s in the key of F, they will do it in a
C7 arpeggio and they will play single notes, “c d
a f”, and then they will do the G7 chord - but
there’s three chords on those first three notes –
three gorgeous chords that are in the music, and
when I hear that song played that way and then
they hit that first chord, they have already lost
me because they left out the best part of the
chords for me. Those notes were important to
those guys.
JI: Of course, there’s no shortage of reharmoni-
zation in the jazz world when it comes to popu-
lar tunes.
MF: Well that’s one of the things that keeps the
tunes fresh and keeps them alive - all the things
that can be done with them. That’s the great
thing about jazz because jazz gave people per-
mission to incorporate those elements in other
types of music. What I mean is that the greatest
pop records of the ‘50’s and 60’s, like Nelson
Riddle, Billy May or whoever you want to
choose, they all had the greatest jazz players
like, Sweets Edison, Buddy DeFranco and all
these people doing these amazing jazz solos so
the general public that would listened to mood
music in those days would say, “Oh I don’t’ like
Jazz but I love Mantovani”. They were listening
to jazz, they just didn’t know it and it was those
elements that made them love those songs.
JI: Someone said that the only reason people
don’t like jazz is because they haven’t heard
good jazz. They’ve heard something that doesn’t
really make much sense. And it’s like anything,
if you hear something of quality, you are going
to resonate with that no matter if it is a piece of
artwork, painting or great music.
MF: Absolutely, I agree 100%.
JI: Could you talk about each of the four themes
for the upcoming May and June series and the
featured performers and supporting cast, briefly?
MF: Not without a piece of paper in front of
me! [Laughs]
JI: [laughs] Do you want be to prompt you?
MF: Yes, but I know the first one [series] is
Ellington.
JI: Yes, I Got It Bad and features Montego
Glover, Sam Harris, and Lillias White.
MF: Coleman Domingo had to drop out. There
will be a fourth male who we will know about in
Michael Feinstein
On jazz and popular song
INTERVIEWINTERVIEW
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xxxxxxxxxx
the next couple of days. Ellington of course was
the natural way to start this series because he
traversed very easily between the worlds of jazz
and popular song, And so this will be a compen-
dium of his songs with the emphasis on the sing-
ers and the lyrics which will hopefully give the
people a further perspective of Ellington as a
songwriter. His granddaughter, Mercedes Elling-
ton, told me that he didn’t like people to depart
from the melody of the songs when they were
sung - which I found shocking. But she insisted
that was the way he felt. He liked people to sing
them the way he wrote them, at least once
through – just like George Gershwin said. So the
program will be a variety of some well know
things – it’s always important to give people
what they want – and then there will be a num-
ber of lesser known Ellington things. One of the
things about Ellington as a song writer is that it
is probably one of the most vastly under-mined
bodies of music I’ve ever encountered. When I
start looking at the number of songs that he
wrote, it’s dizzying.
JI: Yes, over two thousand.
MF: One of reasons that there are so many is
because he would write an instrumental, Colum-
bia Records would send them to the lyricist who
was under contract at that time, to his publisher,
and the lyricist would name the instrumentals in
many instances. Ellington didn’t have names for
some of them—it was Don George or Bob Rus-
sell—they would name them. Then they would
choose the ones they thought could become pop-
ular songs. And so they would pick ones that
they felt could be adapted and then they would
write a lyric for it. Of course now that is differ-
ent from when Ellington was writing a Broad-
way musical—when he wrote Beggar’s Holiday
and truly collaborated with John La Touche and
wrote a Broadway score. Consequently, those
songs have in many instances more emotional
depth to them because they were written for plot
and character and for specific situations as op-
posed to somebody just taking a melody and
coming up with an idea for it. When Marshall
Barer wrote with Duke Ellington—his very last
Broadway musical called Pousse Café—it was
five years in the making because Ellington was
on the road touring and Marshall would get to-
gether with him every several months and they
wrote, he said, eighty songs, a couple which are
now lost. There are some gorgeous things in that
score so we’re going to do a couple of those.
That show, five years in the making, lasted three
nights on Broadway. So it will be a cross section
of some of the theatrical things that Ellington
wrote and then a selection of familiar and un-
known popular gems.
JI: That’s fascinating. All the un-mined material
that is in the archives that Mercedes and his
family have.
MF: They preserved as much of it as they could.
JI: The next event is More Than A Song: The
Music That Integrated America and that’s in mid
May, hosted by you and featuring Quentin Earl
Darrington, Allan Harris and Karen Ziemba.
MF: This is going to be an interesting show and
it’s the hardest one. It’s the greatest challenge to
put together because it’s about black and white,
songwriters and performers, and how music
integrated our country. That is one part of the
evening. The other part of the evening will be
comprised of songs that addressed social issues,
being it poverty, racism or you name it. There
are so many songs that were written in response
to things that were happening in our country. Or
songs that someone was inspired to write that
they felt needed to be said and change the face
of our country, or in some cases a song like “We
Kiss In The Shadow”, which became an under-
ground anthem for gay people because what that
lyric said was the way a lot of gay man and
women lived their lives. So it’s taking these
songs and putting them in a context that looks at
their broader significance. The approach to the
Broadway material is on several levels really
because what was happening on Broadway in
the teens, ‘20’s and 30’s was a time when our
country was going through extraordinary chal-
lenges in the racial perception of a country and
the business of music was colorblind. A black
man could write a song and it could become a
big hit because there was no racism possible in
that sense. That is one of the wonderful things
about the music business and that is why the
Jews got into the music business in the late
1800’s because it was a business they could go
into where there was no prejudice in being in-
volved, and get opportunity in employment.
There were opportunities for writers on Broad-
way and eventually integration on Broadway
with Ethel Waters and things started to change.
But it was through the music and songs like
Irving Berlin’s “Supper Time” or Fats Waller
and Andy Razaf’s, “What Did I Do To Be So
Black and Blue” that addressed issues in a way
that people could accept.
JI: The Jazz & Popular Song the Family Con-
cert is with I Got Rhythm: The Common Roots of
Popular Songs and Jazz, and of course you will
be hosting that again.
MF: Yes, it’s going to be a fun concert because
that concert will be about songs that were writ-
ten for Broadway or stage but have become jazz
standards. Like, “I’ve Got Rhythm”, or “How
High The Moon” or “April in Paris” or” All The
Things You Are”. What we are going to do is
perform these songs somewhat in the original
context and then do jazz improvisations on
them. So people will get to hear, “How High
The Moon” with the verse and hear it sung sort
of straight the way it was done on Broadway
which was a scene in a revue which took place
during the London blitz when two lovers were
together and they thought they were going to be
killed, and their lives were endangered. That’s
what that song is about and so to hear it that way
and then to move on and to hear how it evolved
– that to me is going to be very exciting. It really
will show the history of this music and how it
has evolved in a very short span.
JI: The fourth in this series is, Sweet and Low
Down: How Popular Standards Became Jazz
Classics.
MF: That’s really the same thing.
JI: So it’s an extention.
MF: Yes
JI: In that one Wynton is playing and Barbara
Carroll is going to be there. You’ve recently
done an album with Barbara Cook, Cheek To
Cheek. Would you like to take an opportunity to
speak about the development of that album?
MF: Well, they are all great and extraordinary
musicians. Lee [Musiker] did an arrangement of
“I’ve Got You Under My Skin” for Barbara
Cook that is rhapsodic. John Oddo is fantastic
the way he writes for small group in the tradition
of the great arrangers and as we spoke before,
puts great jazz solos in the midst of these pieces.
The experience of working with Barbara was
wonderful because she’s all about the lyric and
she’s a soprano who is now 83 and is amazing.
She loves jazz and she loves to have the sound
of jazz in her arrangements. The recording itself
was done live at the club. We recorded five
shows and just picked the best takes. It was a
great honor to work with her.
JI: What are the challenges in diversifying your
focus into these many involvements that you
have, such as Artistic Director of the Palladium
Center in Indiana, Feinstein’s At The Regency,
recording, The Jazz At Lincoln Center Popular
Song Series? What kind of support team do you
have so you do not have to move al the chess
pieces around by yourself?
MF: I have a wonderful support team because I
am lucky enough to know that I can’t do every-
thing by myself and if an opportunity comes I
only accept it if I think I can do a good job,
hopefully. The support system I have is great.
There are two assistants that are with me
fulltime and then there is a full time road manag-
er who takes care of all the technical require-
ments for concerts.
Michael Feinstein
“”A man’s character may be learned from the adjectives
which he habitually uses in conversation.”
- Mark Twain
34 To Advertise CALL: 215-887-8880 April-May 2019 Jazz Inside Magazine www.JazzInsideMagazine.com
Interview and photo by Ken Weiss
Chico Hamilton, born September 21, 1921 in
Los Angeles, CA, has spent 75 years behind the
drum set, playing a wide-ranging assortment of
jazz styles, including r & b, fusion, advanced
hard bop, big band and the avant-garde. Ham-
ilton is a subtle and creative drummer who
views the drums as a melodic device more than
a percussive one, and is best known for his role
in Gerry Mulligan’s piano-less quartet (1952-
53), a group that included Chet Baker and be-
came a leader of the Cool school of jazz, the
series of quintets that he led during the mid-
‘50s –mid-‘60s which featured an unorthodox
mix of jazz and classical instruments, and for
his ability to “discover” young talent such as
Eric Dolphy, Larry Coryell, Steve Potts, Arthur
Blythe, Steve Turre and Eric Person. This inter-
view took place at his New York penthouse
apartment, a stone’s throw from the United
Nations building.
Jazz Inside Magazine: Your first name is real-
ly Foreststorn, that’s not a name you hear every
day. Where did that come from?
Chico Hamilton: My ethnic background is
Mexican, Apache Indian and German Jew. I’m
also Swedish and my great-grandfather was
some kind of African chief. He was an ex-
tremely wealthy man and when he passed
away, he gave each of his grandchildren
$68,000 cash. My father didn’t take his because
he ran away from home, I was pissed at my
father. [Laughs] I was born in Los Angeles,
California but I’ve been in New York since ’66.
JI: You turned
90 this past Sep-
tember. That’s a
huge milestone,
especially for a
jazz musician. It’s
a sad fact that
many of your
peers died half a
lifetime ago.
CH: God willing and that’s a milestone for
anyone. Man, I got an address phone book over
there and every last person in that book is gone.
I attribute my longevity to my daughter, she
keeps me on the ball, she kicks my ass if I don’t
do right.
JI: What concessions have you been forced to
make due to your age?
CH: Right now, I’m trying to put on some
weight, I’m too thin, I’m just skin and bones, if
I can put on 5 pounds I’ll be pleased, but it’s
hard.
JI: How often are you performing these days?
Are you limiting your travel?
CH: We’re playing on a regular basis at
DROM here in New York. I still rehearse eve-
ry week but I can’t fly anymore because of
health issues. If I go to Europe, I will take a
boat. I like boats, the first time I went to Europe
was on a boat. I was with Lena Horne, have
you ever heard of her?
JI: Yes. You recently had some new work
come out. I listened to your Revelation CD
which I found to be very uplifting. Was that a
goal of yours or is that coming out of how you
feel about life today?
CH: That’s the way I write. I think it’s good
music, that’s all. You have to understand some-
thing, I don’t write music for people, I write
music because I feel and believe that music is
one of God’s will and God’s will, will be done.
That’s what I believe and when you don’t write
music for people, you don’t get your feelings
hurt. You can’t please everybody. Dig?
JI: Was there a time that your feelings were
hurt because people didn’t like your music?
CH: No, my attitude was that they lose. I came
up with Gerry Mulligan and that was our atti-
tude.
JI: Your drumming on the new recording fea-
tures you way more up front in the mix than
your early recordings. It’s now easy to hear
everything you’re doing.
CH: That’s because I mixed it that way. I got
an engineer that understands how to record for
drums. I don’t use no pillows or blankets or
nothing, just pure drum.
JI: You wrote fourteen of the 22 compositions
covered on the new recording. Are you writing
all the time or do you gear up when it’s time to
record?
CH: Every time I can get a thought. The one
problem with that is that you’re writing some-
thing and all of a sudden you say, “Shit, I heard
this before,” and then come to find that I had
written the same kind of phrase, but that’s the
price you have to pay. I keep my theory book
and study every day.
JI: Where do you get your inspirations to
write? Are you constantly listening to the
sounds around you?
CH: No, you know how I made my money? I
did commercials and doing commercials I made
it a practice not to listen to the radio. I didn’t
want to be influenced by anybody, I wanted to
stay original and so far it’s worked.
JI: What’s the best advice you were given
during your career?
CH: The best advice was save your money.
I’ve never had a problem making money be-
cause when I was a kid I used to take my shoe-
shine box and make a nickel a shoe. I made
enough money then to buy my first set of
drums by shining shoes. Dig?
JI: I understand your first job was performing
in the Tarzan movies.
CH: Yes. Where I grew up, there were no
more than five or six black kids and (actress)
Dorothy Dandridge’s mom used to get studio
work for the kids before the studios were big.
She’d collect us kids and put us on a truck and
take us out to the location and if you got paint-
ed they paid you $14 and if you didn’t get
painted, they paid you $7 a day. We used to
stay hidden so as not to get painted because (Continued on page 35)
Chico Hamilton Just be yourself
INTERVIEWINTERVIEW
“The best advice was save your money. I’ve never had a problem making money because when I was a kid I used to take my shoeshine box and make a nickel a
shoe. I made enough money then to buy my first set of drums by shining shoes.”
35 To Advertise CALL: 215-887-8880 April-May 2019 Jazz Inside Magazine www.JazzInsideMagazine.com
once you got painted, that was it. They couldn’t
use you no more, they couldn’t use the same
face. We figured out it was best to hide. This
will all be in my autobiography that I am work-
ing on. I’m going to call it All The People That
Made Me Famous.
JI: Please talk about your personal take on
drumming. You’ve had a unique style from the
start, emphasizing subtleness, brush strokes and
layers.
CH: I’ve always thought of my instrument as
more of a melodic instrument as opposed to a
percussive one. I heard melodies that needed to
come out.
JI: You’ve said in the past that Art Blakey had
a big influence on you yet your style is differ-
ent from his hard percussive approach. What
did you pull from Blakey?
CH: Until I heard Blakey, I’d never heard
anybody play like that before. He wiped me out
when I heard him in Billy Eckstine’s band. I
never heard anybody keeping the time going
and dancing with the left hand and the bass
drum. He did that until the end.
JI: What did you learn from studying drums
with Jo Jones?
CH: Jo and I were very close but I didn’t study
with him. Strangely enough, we never talked
about drums, we talked about the world. He had
a lot to do with me formulating my life. I met
Jo when I was 16 years old. The first thing he
said to me was, “Stay in school.”
JI: You were about 8 years old at the start of
the Great Depression (1929 - 1939). How did
your family handle it and did this catastrophic
event have a lasting effect on you as a musi-
cian?
CH: We all got out and worked. My mother
raised chickens and we had a garden of fresh
vegetables. That’s how you lived at that time,
everybody was poor. It definitely affected me.
JI: Some of the liner notes to your recordings
make note of your strong religious foundation.
When you chose to play jazz back in the day,
jazz had a sinister connotation in the minds of
many. Was this a difficult decision for you and
did you encounter any backlash from your
community?
CH: You mean a sinner connotation. I didn’t
give a shit about them. My brother was an actor
– Bernie Hamilton (Captain Dobey in Starsky
& Hutch) – and some of my mother’s friends
would come over to the house and Bernie
would be lying on the couch reading poetry or a
script and they used to tell her, “Pearl, why
don’t you make that boy go and get a job?” She
let us do what we did.
JI: You’ve been a part of many great bands
over the years but the most impressive one was
your first at Jefferson High School. You were
in a band with schoolmates Dexter Gordon,
Illinois Jacquet, Charles Mingus, Buddy Col-
lette, Ernie Royal and Jack Kelso.
CH: Orchestra, use the word orchestra. I hate
the word band – cigar band, rubber band. We
used to rehearse in my wife’s brother’s house,
he played trombone and that’s how I met my
wife. All those guys in the orchestra ended up
being giants.
JI: What was Mingus like as a youth?
CH: Crazy, he was a crazy MF’er. I don’t
want to tell any stories about him. He and my
wife went to Sunday school together. We were
cool together.
JI: You spent time with many of the great
band leaders in jazz history. I’d like to ask you
about a few of them. Please talk about what
stands out for you about them and also share a
few memories about Lester Young.
CH: Pres was a giant, an original in more
ways than one. He never swore, he came up
with his own language. He would say “Mother
tucker” in place of MF’er and “Ofay” was his
phrase for white people. I loved him, he was
my hero. I started smoking cigarettes, the same
brand he smoked because of him – Tareyton’s.
He was a very independent man.
JI: How about Count Basie?
CH: He wouldn’t let me shoot craps in his
band. I learned how to use dice when I was in
the Army and in the tour bus I used to win all
the money until he said, “You don’t play no
more craps on my bus.”
JI: Were you cheating?
CH: No, I know how to roll.
JI: How about Nat King Cole?
CH: Nat played at my wedding. We were good
friends, he was a beautiful man, a dynamite
human being. He played unbelievable piano.
JI: Slim Gaillard
CH: He was a funny dude but he was a genius.
Anything he touched, became musical. He’d
kick his feet on the piano and get a good sound.
JI: Duke Ellington
CH: Duke was Duke. If you wanted to say yes,
Duke could make you say no. If you wanted to
say no, Duke could make you say yes. He had a
gift for gab. I was influenced by four people –
Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Luther Hen-
derson and Gerald Wilson. That’s where I got
my musical development from.
JI: Can you say something about Lena Horne?
CH: Yeah, I thought she was a witch, she was
something else. For example, she could hold up
her arm and move it and it would look like her
whole body was moving. She had rhythm and
movement down perfectly.
JI: You spent time with both Lester Young
and Billie Holiday. Many have questioned the
nature of their relationship. Do you know if
they had a romantic relationship?
CH: Hell if I know? He introduced me to the
lady.
JI: You first came to national prominence as a
member of Gerry Mulligan’s piano-less quartet
in 1952. There’s varying reports as to why
there was no piano in the band. What’s the real
story behind that? (Continued on page 36)
Chico Hamilton
“Jo and I were very close but I didn’t study with him. Strangely enough, we never talked about drums, we talked
about the world. He had a lot to do with me formulating my life. I met Jo when I was 16 years old. The first thing he said
to me was, ‘Stay in school.’”
36 To Advertise CALL: 215-887-8880 April-May 2019 Jazz Inside Magazine www.JazzInsideMagazine.com
CH: There were no piano players around. At
that time, all the piano players had their own
thing going on.
JI: What was your first thought when you
heard there was to be no piano in that band?
CH: It didn’t bother me.
JI: There’s not a lot of talk about Gerry Mulli-
gan these days, what can you tell us about him?
CH: Gerry was a strange dude, I’m just the
opposite of him. If an audience member was in
the joint making noise, he’d stop and chastise
them. If I’m playing in a joint, you make a
noise, shit, I’ll just play softer and someone
else will say, “Cool it.”
JI: The Mulligan band was considered to be a
leader of the so-called Cool School or West
Coast Jazz scene. Was this form of jazz a delib-
erate movement away from the hard-driving
East Coast approach to Jazz?
CH: The West coast was on the West coast,
the East coast was on the East coast.
JI: The first Chico Hamilton Quintet was
formed in 1955 and set new ground combining
classical elements with jazz. You added the
cello of Fred Katz to Buddy Collette on flute,
Jim Hall on guitar and Jim Aton on bass. Why
decide on this musical assortment?
CH: The bottom line is that we just happened
to be five people in the right place at the right
time.
JI: You weren’t looking to do something dif-
ferent?
CH: Play in tune.
JI: Eric Dolphy got his start with you. How
did you find him?
CH: He went to school with my brother Ber-
nie.
JI: How did your listeners take to his playing?
CH: Some did, some didn’t. I didn’t care what
people thought.
JI: What can you say about Eric Dolphy the
man?
CH: He was one of the most beautiful human
beings I have ever known in my life. He was a
dynamite dude, man. Very professional, gentle,
the most professional musician I have ever
known.
JI: You put out an album in 1966 called The
Dealer which has a cover photo of you smok-
ing a cigarette and looking mean. Drugs cer-
tainly were a big problem in jazz at the time,
why use this image and name the album like
that?
CH: I think (producer) Bob Thiele came up
with that. I would just record and forget it. I
didn’t want to have anything to do with it after
I recorded it, not with the liner notes or any-
thing.
JI: The Dealer included Archie Shepp playing
piano on his original tune “For Mods Only.”
It’s odd that Shepp, a saxophonist, would play
piano as a sideman for you. What was behind
that?
CH: He was a good piano player. It wasn’t my
idea, it was Bob Thiele’s idea.
JI: Throughout your career as a leader, you’ve
continued to feature guitar in your band instead
of piano, why this longstanding commitment to
guitar?
CH: Because the way I played, I did all the
dancing. Keyboard would lock you in, guitar
can sustain.
JI: You’ve proven to be one of the best talent
scouts/mentors for young jazz musicians in
history – along with Art Blakey and Betty
Carter. A few of the musicians you’ve given a
start to are Eric Dolphy, Larry Coryell, Steve
Turre and Eric Person. How do you discover
future stars?
CH: It works both ways, they discover me, I
discover them. If I’m looking for a new player,
I put the word out and the next thing you know,
my phone rings. The bottom line is that the
musicians know I didn’t come to see a circus
because they know I am the circus.
JI: You were quite the Hollywood tycoon in
the mid-‘60s, forming a commercial and film
production company. How did that get its start?
CH: It started right here in this room. I started
it for money and I got it off the ground by hus-
tling.
JI: Did someone approach you at first or did
you just see the opportunity?
CH: I got a call to do a Spring cigarette com-
mercial while I was in England and I came
back here to do it. It was when cigarettes were
on the air. I wrote the music (sings ‘Spring is
better’), I produced it, I recorded it and I pub-
lished it and I think it came to nearly about
$35,000. I just stayed right here and got into the
business with Chico Hamilton Productions. I
went on to make commercials for Volkswagen
and a zillion others. That’s how I built my
house.
JI: Did your fellow musicians criticize you for
“selling out” by making commercials?
CH: They wished they could do it. I recently
dissolved that business.
JI: You also did some scoring for movies such
as Sweet Smell of Success (1957) and Roman
Polanski’s Repulsion (1965). What was your
experience doing that?
CH: Roman Polanski never forgot why he
hired me. I didn’t know at the time but, they
had followed me all over the country for 6
months to find out whether or not I was into
dope before they gave me the part.
JI: You co-founded The New School jazz pro-
gram in 1986. What do you stress to your stu-
dents?
CH: It’s hard to become professionals in their
craft.
JI: Any concerns about churning out young
musicians to a steadily declining job market?
CH: Well, it’s always been like that, hasn’t it?
JI: How do you handle the student who may
not seem talented enough to succeed in the field
of music?
CH: He’ll find out sooner or later.
JI: You were named an NEA Jazz Master Fel-
lowship in 2004. Drummer Roy Haynes pre-
sented you, what’s your relationship with
Haynes?
CH: We’re good friends.
JI: What’s been your proudest moment?
CH: I married my wife.
JI: You mentioned earlier that you’re working
on an autobiography, when will that be availa-
ble?
CH: When I’m done working on it. What I
wrote first had too many cuss words in it and I
was told that kids are going to read it so I’m
redoing it. I’m leaving out all the four-letter
words.
JI: Any final comments to make?
CH: Just be yourself.
Chico Hamilton
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