My name is Monk Rowe for the Fillius Jazz
Archive, and I'm in Utica, New York talking all the way to Switzerland with Alvin Queen,
drummer extraordinaire. Welcome. AQ: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to see you again, it's a pleasure
to be back on one of your programs under your shows. MR: Thank you. I was doing a little math. First of all did you know that you and I are
only two months apart in age? AQ: Yeah? MR: I was born two months after you were,
and I was thinking that you've been a professional musician since your teen years. How does it feel to have that sort of yanked
away from you in this present time? AQ: Well you know what bothers me more than
anything else, Monk, is that it was yanked away from me before that with the elderly
musicians who taught me and who brought me up, and you were in it at the middle of that
time because that's like almost twenty years ago. And they've been leaving slowly, as they've
been leaving slowly as the time has moved on. So you know I spoke with Johnny Griffin's
wife a couple of times. And I said you know my phone used to ring
all the time, and I said I don't understand that because it was Benny, Billy, Jimmy, Woody,
Sweets, Buddy Tate, Al Gray, I mean this went on all day long. And after a while it stopped ringing. And to make a story short she told me that,
"Alvin, they're gone." MR: Yes. AQ: And that put me at a whole nother level. You see? MR: Right. That's exactly why we started doing this oral
history project, in 1995. Our founder was a fan of all those gentleman
that you mentioned and he would go to these annual jazz parties in the U.S. and every
year there would be someone missing who had passed away. And so that's why we started this. Now but you are versatile enough that you
can play with a band full of twenty year olds. AQ: Oh yeah. MR: So you mean they're not calling you? AQ: Well no, you know a lot of times the whole
thing is, when you're a mentor they don't deal with the mentor, they keep it in the
family as a use. So it's like a mentor might tell a truth and
destroy everything, you see? And it's just that I get calls now, but I
get calls to represent really the concert, because of the background and the name. But it's following all the rules now you see? So it's like I got something out of all the
older guys you see, but now the younger guys, if they're honest, they want to get something
out of you, you see? So that's what happened. So it puts you in a whole nother balancing
category, you see? MR: Yes. And I think there's a thing about a younger
musician's thinking, "Oh I couldn't call him to play, he's on a whole other level than
I am," when in fact at any level everybody is always looking for work. I remember thinking that along the way here,
these people that were older than me and better than me feeling odd about calling them, when
in fact, you know, a gig is a gig. AQ: That's it. That's it. Your experience came from the gig you see? So you were willing, I remember Horace Silver
told me one time, Horace said, "You know Queen," he said, "man when you played with Art Blakey
you didn't care if you were going to get paid, and get paid or not you wanted to go back
and get some more of what you got from last night. You see? That's how interesting it was. MR: If you were working with a group of younger
musicians and you're sort of in a position where you can be a mentor, what kind of things
might they do on stage that would aggravate you enough to take them aside and straighten
them out? AQ: Well the thing about it, what happens,
you have to have a brain. And you have to develop, you have to develop
a sense of hearing, who you love, who you'd like to be like, whatever it is. Okay? Big bands are great, all right? They have the music to read and everything. But if you notice when you go back and you
saw, even Joe Morello or you saw Dave Brubeck or you saw Art Blakey, you saw John Coltrane,
or Miles Davis. They were interested in playing. They were not interested in reading. You see? And the problem what has happened is that
school is very very good. Education is very very good. But it's another education from that bandstand. You see? And that's where you need the mentors. You need the mentors to say, "Remember the
part. I don't want you to read the part, I want
you to remember it." You see that's - the magnetic brain to it. Because otherwise you know the format will
always be there. That's not going anywhere. So you don't have to worry about that. You have to worry about making music out of
what you've got, you see? And that's the whole thing. You have to listen for a sound. You know I want a sound. I remember Art Blakey and I remember Max Roach
and I remember Buddy Rich, I remember when I was kid I even saw Cozy Cole and Gene Krupa
at the Metropole. And they said, "Get the kid a cold cola." And I had a chance to see what they were patting
their feet, what they were doing. I learned how to tune a drum head. I learned the sound in my ear, you see? I didn't learn by a piece of music. I learned by a sound and a certain feeling. And this is what - see the most unpopular
thing, what is missing today, if you didn't have a gig you worked a hotel lounge and you
had to play all American Standard Songbook because you had to play music which the audience
was familiar with. And that is missing. Because I can put two sets of music together
at a dinner table if we all know the standard tunes. MR: Right. AQ: You see so that's one of the problems
we have and it's just that you know to turn it around I don't know, after John Coltrane
and after Tony Williams, everybody was free to play. And then you have a challenging thing where
it might be on the bandstand, everybody's trying to do something and you've got to learn
how to accompany. You see? MR: Yes. That's right. AQ: If you're the soloist then I've got to
learn how to give you time and accompany you, you see? So these are things which the mentor puts
in place. So that's one of the parts of what's missing. MR: Okay. So are you in Geneva? AQ: Yeah. MR: Okay. How do you feel about - you know I did a little
snooping around on the internet like what is the situation with covid-19 in Switzerland,
and I couldn't really tell comparative to ours, how do you feel about how your government
has handled this pandemic? AQ: Well the government has handled it wonderful
because they were coordinating hands. And Geneva has four - three, four borders. It has German borders, it has Italian borders
and it has French borders. And the Chiasso is where it originated, in
that area. You see? But Italy, those are all the cities in the
north and the younger people went from those cities into Milano. They worked and brought it back into the villages,
and the older people died there. But what they really do in Europe, they shut
down everything. They just shut it down. It goes to a certain degree and then they
shut it down. They're getting ready, a second wave is heading
this way now. So what they've done is said the British,
a lot of British people own property in Spain, and a lot of them go there for the summer
vacation. They went there, now they came back to Britain
to go to work and they're put under 14-day quarantine when they have to be at work you
see? So it's popping up but they are maintaining
it, little by little. But it's coming up in Switzerland too. MR: Over here in the states there are a significant
number of people who object to being told that they can't do this or that they really
need to do this, and they cite our inaliable rights as a reason. I guess the question I'm trying to form, let's
say in Switzerland, are citizens in Switzerland more likely to do, follow government directions? AQ: You have to. It's no way out. MR: Why? AQ: Because the penalty would be over five,
ten thousand dollars. MR: I see. AQ: It's mandatory. Now we have to - all the public stores, before
we didn't have that. Now any public store, any place you go it's
mandatory you have to wear the mask. And if they catch you the fine is so big that
you prefer to wear the mask. MR: Do you have people causing - I mean every
day we hear these stories about someone comes into a convenience store here somewhere in
the country and they're told to put a mask on or they can't buy anything, and they blow
up and cause a ruckus. Would that happen in Switzerland? AQ: It would happen in Switzerland but it's
more like an imitation of something like would happen in America. It's not - this is more of a diplomatic type
of - you know, the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, everything is here. So you've got more people who, if anything
are still children or something like that, imitating or watching TV or something like
that, but they don't have that here. They have poverty lines for food but most
of the poverty lines, a lot of them are illegal people, what came from Algeria, across the
Mediterranean, refugees. They call themselves refugees. But that's where the problem would be at. But most of the time they're not going to
have that you see. MR: Well you've spent about half of your life
in the United States and about half your life in Europe, that's a rough estimate. As an observer and - what do you and your
family and your friends - do you have an opinion about what's going on in the United States
politically? AQ: Oh yeah, well politically, that's a time
bomb. I was in the first time bomb, 1968. I was picked up, I was locked up, okay, during
the Martin Luther King, the burning - I was in there, okay? And what's happening is, I had a good friend
of mine giving me a call and he says, "Alvin what do you think, one guy?" This is all about one guy. I says, "No, that's about 400 years of oppression." That's what that's about. And it's just that everything, when you really
look at it it's a mental state - it's a foot or knee in the neck in the collar, you see
what I'm talking about. And it's changed that you have to break out. And that's why so many musicians ended up
in Paris. So many ended up in Paris because they were
treated right, they had great opportunities, and the doors were open. But now, twenty years later everything crosses
the ocean and comes the other way. So you know, so when you know about history
and you look at life a little bit, you begin to appreciate it and you begin to understand
it. But we are at a stage, now it's a turning
point. This is a turning point. I don't know if we will see it completely
but it's a turning point and it's a turning point for all of us and for the musicians
and the younger musicians and, you know, I love them. I love them. Now is the time to sit down, talk, take care
of business and wake up. Stop thinking about only playing. Start thinking about organizing something
for your life you see. I came here and I organized a record company
and I organized twenty titles for a record company. I took a salary out of my record company and
I paid based on that salary for over thirty years which brought me a pension. You see? So the thing - it's not about just being on
the stage. You see? MR: Yeah. That was some good forethought. I might as well stay with the tough questions. AQ: I appreciate that. MR: I know you like a challenge. Do you have a personal view on why this pandemic
occurred in 2020 at this moment? AQ: Well there's a lot of distortion on earth. It's not all - you can't, see the first thing
you can't see everything from America, and there's a lot of people in North America that
know more than people in the south of America. Okay? You can go to Alabama, you can go to those
states, a lot of them wouldn't even know what's going on. But you have pollution, you've got destruction,
you've got military weapons. You've got all kinds of stuff. And it's all over the world. You notice that it's not only one country
exploding and coming apart, it's all of them are coming apart you see? It's like I watched Europe come apart. When I came to Europe I came to Europe with
Charles Tolliver and I did stuff with Benny Wallace, Eddie Gomez and all of them. And Duke Jordan was there, Tony Scott was
there, and when they had the East Berlin wall. Okay? And when you played Berlin, you played the
festival, you sat on the stage but you only saw the wall. Everywhere you looked was this wall. And then you noticed, I noticed that in the
90s when it changed. I was walking down the street in Munich, Germany
and they took one lane for all the old little slow Russian cars, and the German cars, the
Mercedes Benz, were in the fast lane. So they were giving them 100 Deutsche marks
for the money they came in from the east. And I said for me, a western person, wow,
this is strange. Because I was never into west going east. Never you see? And I saw how the Germans started integrating
after they had been separated over fifty years. They started integrating again and Germany
started changing. Started changing. I saw this all over Europe. Borders. They had borders when I came here - you know,
four police officers and passport checks and stand up, and they did everything. And once they opened up to the EU everything
started moving around. So I think based on the virus I think it's
pollution, epidemic wave from the earth, the ozone. I think it's all combining from that and I
think when they always say we are to the end, who makes the end? Who brings us to the end? It's the human being you see? That's the one that brings us to - you know
the chemicals, you can look at the plants. You know we have Ciba Geigy here. Okay? One of the biggest pharmaceutical medicine
makers. You look at New Jersey, look what's going
in the air. Look what you're breathing you see? And I don't believe that it's one virus. I believe it's a combination of many things
going on you see. And it's just that we are human beings but
what's going on in the earth is getting smarter than who we are. MR: I see. AQ: We can't figure this out. And that's why they're looking for different
vaccines and they - they have one for the flu. That's not a problem. But what do you do now in the fall with this
virus going on and the flu too. That's how I started. I started in February with the flu. Then I started with a cough and then my wife
says go to the doctor, I says no. And I went to the doctor and that's when I
didn't even know what he was doing when he stuck this thing all the way up my nose. And he says, "No you don't have covid, go
back home. It's the grip or the flu or something." I was in the gym. That's how I got it. MR: I see. What role - do you have a faith in a higher
power or faith in human nature or neither of the above. AQ: No I have faith in the higher power. MR: Okay. AQ: There's something that's stronger than
man. MR: So how do you address that higher power
when you think about what is happening? Do you think that it's directed from that
to give us a lesson? AQ: I think I'm seeing that. That's - I think that from my opinion, I don't
say what anybody else but I was brought up in the Holiness Church and then I came over
here and then I started studying the spirituality of the human being. Day by day, step by step, moral inventory. I went through all of that and you know you
see the problem is man doesn't want to come to believe in anything stronger than him. When you look at the human being from a certain
distance up he's an ant, just like you would look at an ant on the ground. He's a very small insect. You see? And the thing about it, the only way you can
grow in life, you've got to believe in something. It's the only way. And when ego gets in the way, ego destroys
your life. That's a part of it. You see this in the artist world. It's all over the place. Artist's world - when you bring ego on the
bandstand it destroys the creation of everything else. You see? So that's why you have to sort people out. I read people. I look right through them. Who are you, are you a gentleman, are you
ready to deal with what I've got to deal with. That's all I say. If you're not ready go, I have to find somebody
else who's ready. You see? But I believe, I grew up on the belief and
that's what guides me to the next step in music. The road is not the way you think it is. It's - you're going to see a rough road and
you're going to say, "Does God do this to me?" He makes it complicated for you to figure
it out. That's to use the brain, you see. MR: Yeah. Thank you for that. What kind of things - have you ever turned
gigs down because you learned that the person calling you, that you basically just didn't
want to play with them? I'm not looking for names, but I'm wondering
what would cause Alvin Queen to pass on a gig because of a person's personality or demeanor? AQ: Well it's before the whole fact of being
dominated. You know the whole fact that no man wants
to be dominated, no man wants to be knocked down, you see? I mean I had the experience with Oscar Peterson
and everybody said yeah, Oscar, a real tough guy, really so-and-so. In the end I loved him. I had to problem with Oscar you see. And I remember I got a call from Niels Pedersen
and Niels asked me he said, "Alvin, I want you to join the group." And you know I've dealt with Ray Brown, I
dealt with all of them, and it's heavyweight. It's really heavyweight. And I said, "No I don't feel like going through
this, I don't feel like going there. You've got to stand up you've got to do this. But I found out, my parents always taught
me, "I raised you right and when you stand up don't be nasty. Be nice and say, 'Sir look, I have a right
to say what's wrong or what I think is right' like that." And I could see all over that. I saw, really I began to learn Oscar from
the inside. He had a heart good as gold. He was just the sweetest person in the world
until you betrayed him. So it was just that. You know it's why I don't like certain - see
we come up in a society, America is a society. It's like school. There's always a bully in there. There's always somebody pushing the kids. Always somebody, yeah you've got to fight. Man, you don't have to fight to live on this
earth. Most people who is in the street, okay, the
street sometimes God, you have two directions. You have a good one. I used to always say the higher power is in
the middle. You've got the demon, the devil on one side,
you've got the angel on the other side. You've got your choice do you see? And when you take a certain choice and you
start challenging things and you go to prison, the challenge you have in prison is nowhere
like the challenge you have on the outside. Your freedom. So you know you have that in the music too. You have that in the music. And if you don't stand your ground people
will step all over you, they'll just do what they want to do to you. But there's a lot of gigs that I didn't go
to. You know I never been a real sight reader. I learned on the bandstand. I learned in the church. I learned in the chitlin circuits. That's where I learned. You know, with Wild Bill Davis and Bill Doggett
and I learned as children. You know and my biggest thing, what they did
to me years ago, they yelled and screamed at me. You understand what I'm talking about? "Don't worry about nothing, just listen, listen. Follow and listen." And I said oh man, you know, if you saw them
turning around, even with Sweets or Lockjaw, "Keep the time, keep the time man, what are
you doing?" You know you're trembling. You're trembling and I remember I had Sweets
take me in the band room one time. He said, "I want to see all older guys," he
said, "I want to see you in the band room." I said, "Uh oh, I looked at the rest of the
band and I said, "see you all later, I know it's over. I'll see you on the next gig 'cause I'm fired." I come in the band room and they said, "What
was that all about?" I said, "What do you mean what's this all
about?" "Dropping those bombs, dropping bombs all
the way. Keep the time. I don't want to - I'm going to take those
tom-toms away. That's what I'm going to do." You know so I said, "Well evidently I'm fired
so-and-so." "Be back here tomorrow night 8:30 with your
necktie. That means try again but remember what I said. MR: I remember reading a quote from Lester
Young, like no bombs just tickety-tickety or something like that. AQ: Yeah. Titty-boom baby, Titty boom. You know? That's what happened when the drummers, Elvin
was there, I was there in 1963 when they recorded "Live at Birdland." And Elvin influenced a lot of drummers, and
then Tony Williams influenced a lot of drummers: Buddy Rich used to say when Tony came on,
"Oh yeah, great drummer, flounder, flounder. Lightweight. Flounder." MR: Oh. AQ: But Buddy, he loved Art, he loved Elvin,
he used to come by all the time. But you know the main guy with that was Jo
Jones. Papa Jo. He was the guy. You see? But it's timekeeping. I mean that's the problem I have today. You see? Everybody's got something to say but there's
no definition to the time. The people who remember used to dance. MR: My dog is keeping time right now. AQ: Oh that's great. I used to have, I've been into breeding them
for about thirty years. I went from the whippets and then I had just
poodles. I had to just put them to sleep. They had gotten old. MR: That's tough. AQ: That's your best friend. MR: I want to get a sense of - I have a little
anecdote from a marvelous piano player who grew up in Italy, his name is Rossano Sportiello. AQ: I know him very well. MR: Yes. Well he relocated to the U.S. and couple of
decades ago and he told me when he was young and everybody was trying to learn to play
jazz, if they did particularly well one night the biggest compliment is to tell the other
person, "Tonight you sounded like an American." So I'm wondering in the present time, is sounding
like an American something that European jazz musicians aspire to? Or is that sort of old fashioned now? AQ: Now that's what they call it is European
jazz now. European classical jazz. That means another form. But to be inspired by the music - I had Sportiello
on the stage once. I had him on the stage. And he says, "Yeah, you know, on this tune
I want you to play the brushes." I said, I want you to sit down. Sit down and listen. See? The whole thing about it, Europeans, a lot
of them don't understand that I learned how to accompany a singer. I learned how to accompany a solo. I know when to put brushes, when not to put
brushes, I know when to ritard, I know I hear it by - I remember I did a gig once with Bobby
Brookmeyer. And he said, "Queen, you'll hear the tempo"
or "I'll give you the tempo." I never saw any hands. He did it with his mouthpiece and his tongue. And bam I was right on it. You see what I'm talking about. Professional people put you on the spot. They would never get up and tell you what
to do. If so it's discussed in the band room. Or they would tell you the first twelve bars,
Alvin, is in Latin, on the bridge swing me, okay? When we go after the bridge, go back to the
Latin, okay?" But Alvin, once we get into the solos, no
Latin, straight all the way until the last solo. At the end of the last solo, okay, you put
a period on that, and then we'll come back in with the head. And the safe zone to all of that, this might
be a recording. You've got six minutes to get in, six minutes
to get out, but be in time, okay? I had problems with drum solos and I asked
Elvin, "Elvin how could I - how could I - every time I play a drum solo the tempo is speeding
up." He says, "Hey if they let you play a two chorus
drum solo, play one in time and sing the melody to yourself. You're setting it up for those horn players. You see? If you're playing it too fast they can't play
it that fast or sing that fast. But you're singing it and you're dancing with
the rhythm. As long as you're singing it in your solo
they can hear what you're doing. You see it's the communication. MR: Yeah. It sounds like something every jazz education
major ought to get from you. AQ: Well the whole thing about it is I do
workshops in the schools and I always talk to all the students in there and I say, "You
know one thing I know you can read, you can write melody, harmony, sometimes you don't
know what to do with the harmonies." Okay? I said, "But one thing I want somebody to
make a statement, what are you looking for from me?" And they come up with it every time, it's
bandstand language. "Mr. Queen, what do I do when I come to join
you or when I come to join a band?" You see? And that's why, no one's going to play your
music. What makes you think you're so popular? You see what I'm talking about? But if you listen to all the famous jazz records,
go back through the Shelly Manne and go back to "My Fair Lady" "My Favorite Things" "Nature
Boy" "Bye-Bye Blackbird," "Gone with the Wind." These are all movie themes. "Poinciana," Ahmad Jamal. They're all coming from movie themes. And if you learn, I tell them learn, they
go Europeans say oh that's corny. I say, "No, you'd better learn the All American
Standard Book buddy." Because you go to people's gigs and they're
not going to play all your music. They'll play one song. They're not going to sit up there - why would
I go rehearse a guy for seven hours to play only his compositions? I mean it doesn't make sense. You see? So that's really how I look at it. But I take to these workshops, I try to take
bandstand language. Not to disrespect the professor or whatever
it is, but the thing about it, these guys are expert at teaching but are they expert
with the bandstand? Do you see what I'm talking about? So what I'm saying, I'm going to help you
put something from this bandstand in what you do and you could see how it gels, how
it works. MR: I'd like to wrap up with, this could be
a tough question, do you see anything positive potentially coming out of this pandemic and
this current situation we're in? AQ: Well the whole thing, once again we've
got to be creative again. The musicians have got to really take a look
at it. It's not going to be what we expected, see? Everybody thinks in their mind tomorrow it's
going to be okay. But it seems like we'll never get to tomorrow
you see. It's a lot of tears, it's a lot of emotion,
it's a lot of growing stage all over again, even for the nightclubs. Even for the small nightclubs. The jazz musician gets hit the worst because
he doesn't have anything to govern it on. The Broadway musicians, okay they have a little
union, or classical, or whatever what's got their back. But what happens to a guy who is used to paying
his rent on everyday gigs? All those were wiped out overnight you see. And the pain - and I understand the pain of
it. I see the pain, but the only thing I could
say is we have to work this out. Because, Monk, we've never been there before. I've never seen this in the 70 years of my
life of breathing. I've never seen anything like this. You see? So it's about really putting it back together. And I don't know what it is but I was just
telling my wife, I said, "You know one thing, I've done four interviews in one month. I've never done that. I have never done that." You know? And it's just that it's based on some of the
older music. Because I've gotten pretty relaxed. That's what I do. I go out when I want to go out and I do what
I want to do. So it's just that, but you know I'm willing
to work with any of those because the thing about it - I don't think the government's
going to work with that. I think it has to be a group of people which
gets together, the Jazz Foundation and things like that, to work with them to try to build
this thing back up. MR: Well I had a feeling you'd have some important
things to say and I'm glad we reconnected and maybe we'll do this again down the road
and we'll revisit some of the important moments from your past. So I want to wish you the best. I'm going to stop the recording and then we'll
just say good-bye. AQ: Well stop it. Bam. MR: Bam. I need a bam. That's right. Thanks a lot Alvin. AQ: But it's a pleasure talking with you. Anytime. You can get to me anytime. And you've got something to say don't even
worry about it. Just let me know and bam we'll go on line
and we'll start talking, we'll start chatting. I hope I was able to help you. MR: You were, right on. AQ: You know I hope I was able to help you
because you know I'm way over here, I'm in Switzerland, I'm not in the middle of New
York with it. And over here everything is shut down anyway. But they have locals. The problem Europe has now is that international
musicians can't come in. MR: Right. AQ: But the Copenhagen Jazz Festival, they
had that with the local musicians. They had that and they had stuff going on
- they're playing but you don't have the Americans here. They're not here you see. MR: All right we're going to take a short
break and we'll be right back. AQ: Thank you. MR: Okay.
