My name is Monk Rowe and we are filming today
for the Hamilton College Jazz Archive in Tarrytown, New York. I'm quite pleased to have saxophonist Carmen
Leggio with me today. CL: Hello, Monk. MR: It's a real pleasure. CL: Same here. MR: I've been looking forward to this time. I understand that your family came over from
Sicily. CL: Right. MR: Did they settle right here in Tarrytown? CL: Yeah, they made a stop maybe in Elizabeth,
New Jersey, some people that came over, and then they settled right here, settled in Tarrytown,
all my relatives, everybody. MR: What was the family business for you as
you grew up? Your parents were-
CL: Uh, family business, it was big family and there was a number of businesses. My grandfather in Sicily, which I never met,
was superintendent of the sulfur mines in Sicily, where the ball is. You know Ragusa was right on the ball. There's the boot and then there's the ball. They were right across from Tunisia. And most of the relatives all worked in General
Motors here in Tarrytown. They worked in General Motors. Now they're breaking it down, they're breaking
General Motors down, but this was the big thing in town, this was the big money maker,
so that's it. And my father, he made shoes and fixed shoes. So that's where I got my soul. MR: Oh, good one - very good one, I like that. CL: Yeah now he was a shoemaker but he started
working at General Motors because they all did you know. MR: Was there a lot of music around the house
in your family? CL: My father, but he was the only one really,
guitar and mandolin. He was the only one. And he played, he wasn't studied. He came over from Italy, they used to have
a group called The Troubadiers. They used to go around and play under ladies'
windows you know, and traveled through Sicily. But then there was other people that they
followed up with a group in Tarrytown, and they used to break into houses at four o'clock
in the morning and the women had to cook them coffee while they played. So there was a lot of music around, but in
my family it was just my father. MR: Did he encourage you to go into music,
or why did you choose music as a career? CL: I think first I chose the violin because
I saw my father playing the guitar and the mandolin, I chose that, or he asked me to
do it. I didn't like the squeaking. I couldn't stand it. So what happened is I was selling magazines,
Liberty magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, and shining shoes, because I took after my
father, all over town. And all I heard was Artie Shaw playing in
the restaurants and in bars and so on. And so I went for the clarinet. I got influenced by Artie Shaw. MR: This was 19 mid-thirties say? CL: No, no later than that. About 1945. Before I went in the service. MR: So you were almost 20? CL: When I did that? You mean when I was shining shoes? MR: No, when you first heard Artie Shaw and
got influenced. CL: Oh you heard it all over the streets. Even if you were two years old you heard it. So no, Artie Shaw, for some reason he impressed
me more than anybody else. Because I went to these different places selling
magazines and so on, and that's all I kept hearing was "Stardust" by Artie Shaw, "Begin
the Beguine" and "Dancing in the Dark," and that's why I picked up the clarinet. So that's all you heard around town. You heard a lot of other things. You heard all the music. But then I learned mostly by playing with
the radio, and I played to "A Make Believe Ballroom" at that time. And I just sat there and played with the radio
mostly. I got a few fingerings from a teacher in school
who wasn't really into it. He showed me a few fingers and from there
on I went on my own. I played with the radio and that was it. MR: And you took up the tenor after that? CL: Clarinet about ten years old, nine years
old; tenor fourteen. And there was a bass player called Primo Rico
that was in town, and we used to have little things going on with the clarinet and so on,
little groups. And he went up to my mother and told her to
please get me a tenor because he saw something in me. So that's when they got me a tenor, my father
and my mother, and I just picked it up and blew it with the radio, and played with groups
around town. Westchester was very big with music, very
big. Every place you turned there was music going
on. MR: It was the Swing Era, right? CL: Right. MR: And you played mostly for dances? CL: Played for everything. Dances, clubs and anything you can think of,
I never closed my mind, I always had an open mind, which is why I can play the way I play. The more you sink into your mind the more
it comes out. MR: Absorb everything that's around you. CL: Absorb. That's it. MR: Was there a point in your life that you
said I'm going to make a living as a musician? CL: That was when I was sixteen years old. What happened, I was doing very good in school,
excellent you know, no problems. I was very good in mathematics. Mathematics has a lot to do with music, very
closely associated. And I had two years to graduate. I turned sixteen, I went down and I quit school. My father didn't talk to me for a long time
after that. I quit school because I knew then what I wanted
to do. I knew because I could tell by what I was
playing and what I was hearing from people coming at me at the clubs I was playing, that
it was there. I don't know how but I knew it was there. So I stopped. Now on my father's death bed, which was about
six or seven years ago, he turned to me and he says, "Okay, you were right." But it's the truth. Because I wasn't interested in college or
this or that, I was interested in what I was doing musically. So that's it. Period. That's how it happened. MR: Now can you recall what the wage would
have been for a fellow working at General Motors back then, and what you were making
on a typical gig when you were still in your teens? CL: There was never big money in jazz. There was better money in weddings and in
club dates and so on like that. But as far as jazz, you know it's funny but
the money is now, like if there's a lot of people playing jazz around here in different
areas. And the money is almost the same as it was
then okay? Jazz is the only one that never got a raise,
it's the only way I can put it. And playing weddings and things like that,
I've done it all but it makes you sick. It's got to be done to make a living, but
I don't have to do it anymore, I'm picky and choosy now. But there's been no raise in jazz, none at
all. MR: Yeah, there's not much money to be made
in the little clubs. CL: Unless you get a hit like Stan Getz or
whoever, like Benny Goodman. If you get a hit you're okay. Otherwise jazz musicians struggle all their
lives practically. MR: Did you have a particular group of people
in Tarrytown that you worked with steadily before the service? CL: What happened, when I was first playing
the clarinet before Primo Rico asked my mother and father to get me a saxophone, also when
I met Primo Rico I met this drummer, Holmes "June Bug" Lindsay, a black fella, and from
there on we became brothers. We grew up together and we played in clubs
all over town. There was a club in Tarrytown called Club
Six. In fact I recorded it on my first album. And so I didn't play clarinet there, I played
the tenor. When I eventually played, we played clarinet,
we called him Bug. They called him Bug and me Leg. And we played around. But then when I picked up the tenor and we
played this Club Six and it was Primo, June Bug and myself. And they used to come from all over to see
us. That's when I realized that something was
happening with me. And so we used to play all over, and there
was a lot of musicians all over that would just intermingle with each other. But again, the money was never good, but it
was fun, it was fun. And eventually I took that group to Washington,
D.C. I'll get into - Keter Betts-
MR: I was just going to say, you played with Keter Betts? CL: Yeah. I brought him to Washington with me, that's
after I came out of the service. I'm jumping the gun a little bit. MR: That's okay. In the service, were you able to use your
music? CL: Yeah. Well what happened is after I played around
with June Bug and Primo, then I got drafted and the war just ended. The war ended July 1945 and I just turned
18 around that time in September. I forgot what it was - no before that. Because I went in the service in 1946 and
came out in 1948. So the war ended. I got drafted, I went and took Basic Training
in Mississippi, Biloxi, Mississippi. And somebody had told me down there to write
to Washington, D.C., the Bolen Field Air Force Band, give it a try and see if I can get there. Because the war was over. And so I did. I can't remember exactly how it happened. And about two days before I was supposed to
go to Japan after the war, my orders came through to go to Washington, D.C. And that was a big turning point because there
I played music. That was where Glenn Miller had his, that
was his base, I forgot if he was a Captain or I don't know what he was, but that was
his, he was a Major or whatever he was. And I got there and they put me in a concert
band. And there was a little solo. I was playing big tone then you know, and
there was a little solo in a waltz, and Glenn Miller was dead by then, but this Major Howard,
I had to take the solo. So I played it and I had a big vibrato, a
big tone you know. And the major stops the band and said, "You,
get out." He said, "Until you learn the concert tone,
how to play a concert tone, don't come back." So meanwhile they gave me all kinds of duties. One was librarian, that's when I handled Glenn
Miller's ex-book for the dance band and so on like that. And latrine duty and anything you could think
of. Finally somehow they put me in the dance band,
I can't remember how it was. And then they started turning around. And that's where I developed my concert tone. Because concert tone has a lot to do with
modern playing, modern, smooth playing. I don't know how to exactly explain that. MR: Well until that point you had been doing
gigs where you were the only horn player for the most part, right? CL: Right. That's it. MR: So you didn't have to worry about blending
with the other guys. CL: That's it. It was always a small group. And that's it. But there, that's where I developed a concert
tone. And there is where there was a lot of musicians
in town in Washington, D.C. at that time. The Swalt brothers, I don't know if you remember
them but they were with Woody Herman's band. A lot of Woody Herman's people were in town. John Eardley, do you remember John Eardley? MR: No. CL: No, see John was a great writer and he
was a great trumpet player. Bill Potts. Have you heard of Bill Potts? MR: Yeah. CL: Okay. Bill Potts called me up. I was in the service. He was living in Washington. And he says, "I have a gig in Harlem, uptown." At that time the whites and blacks could not
mix at all. And that was 1947. And he says, "You want to come up and do it?" It was at night so I put on civilian clothes
and I was playing six nights a week as a civilian and then go back to the base, which I don't
know if it was legal or illegal but I was doing it. And so it was the Bill Potts Quartet. And we were a white band playing Harlem. And a couple of times we had a couple of close
calls that we were told we shouldn't be there. But we were, we did, we played and we were
really cooking, we really had a good group. So when I got discharged, I came home and
Chloe's, it was Chloe's Restaurant and Lounge and she liked what I was doing, so she said,
"Come back when you get discharged, come back with your group." So that's when I got Keter Betts, got June
Bug, my buddy, and Louis Derry was on piano, a piano player from New Rochelle. And we went back and we had lines waiting
to come in and see us. We had to break through our own lines in order
to play. At that time that's when I was honking, you
know playing hard core, big tone, the whole thing. MR: Yeah. I was just going to ask, I wanted to know,
in the Bill Potts Quartet and in this band with Keter, can you name a couple of the songs
that would kind of summarize what you were doing at that point? CL: Yeah. "Flyin' Home," "Body and Soul," these were
the things that were happening at that time. "Satin Doll" was still there and "A Train." All the things that they're even doing nowadays. And "C Jam Blues." All those tunes, we used to - the place would
be packed. Like I told you we had to break into - Lester
Young was in line. There was Shadow Wilson, I don't know if you
remember, they were in line to see us. Around the corner was the Howard Theater,
where all the big bands used to come play, and they'd come in and see us. And we had a cooking group. And the reason it broke up, we were there
17 weeks, six nights a week for five hours a night playing hard, I mean playing hard. And the reason it broke up was because the
lady that owned the place didn't pay the taxes. So we broke up and then we all split up, and
I came back here to Tarrytown. June Bug came back. Keter stayed down there with Dinah Washington
and started playing with Ella Fitzgerald and all that. He stayed in Washington. Louis Derry went back to New Rochelle where
he's still living now. But my friend June Bug passed away in 1959. So that's part of it. MR: This club in Washington where you had
these 17 weeks, you had a racially mixed band, was it any problem with that? CL: When I was with Bill Potts, it was a white
group. When I came back I was a white man fronting
a black group, Keter, Louis Derry and June Bug. And still whites wouldn't dare come up. And at that time still the blacks couldn't
- how do I put it - they were stopped from doing things that were supposed to be done. But by seeing the way we played, and what
was going on, and people looking at us and seeing how we got along, before you know it
the whites were seeping in and we started getting an interracial crowd, because they
saw how we worked on the bandstand. And it was a very important part of my life. And in Tarrytown, all the black people I grew
up with, I used to just say Negro you know, but now they changed all that, but they're
my friends, they just are all my friends. There's no hate between us or anything like
that. But when you go out into the field, then you
get into another story. I've been hurt a lot because they would look
at me like, he's white you know. And that's why I wrote a tune, I called it
"The Heart Has One Color," and I've got it on one of my albums. And it would hurt me because I don't think
that way. So we did change a lot. We changed a lot in Washington, D.C. The whites were coming in. MR: The music has always had a bit part of
breaking that down. CL: Yeah. MR: Now it's around 1950, you started playing,
you got into Birdland in New York City? CL: Birdland came after I left, when we left
Washington, D.C. When the lady didn't pay the taxes, we all
split up. Then I started to - somebody I knew, so I
knew the manager of Birdland so I got to play in Birdland, I started playing in Birdland,
right. I have pictures of that with, I used to play
Monday nights, battle of the saxophones, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and myself and I played there
Monday night with Art Blakey and all the groups. And then I did two weeks with the Kai Winding
group, we did two whole weeks. I've got pictures, not here, which I'll show
you later when you want. In the group was Zoot Sims, myself, Joe Newman,
Billy Taylor, Kai Winding was the leader, Don Lamond, Clyde Lombardi and that was it. We were two weeks, it was just fantastic. Then eventually I got to play there with Maynard. Because Maynard, we were the busiest of all. Maynard and the Miles Davis group, we were
sharing the bandstand, an hour each. And that's when the Miles Davis group was
fresh, John Coltrane and everything. I caught them when they were fresh, because
we were sharing the bandstand. And we had the most weeks there. MR: I wanted to play something for you. See if you recognize this. Do you recognize the applause? There'll be some music here in a moment. CL: Yeah. MR: That's some chart, huh? CL: Oh the band you know. Have you got the whole Mozaic collection? MR: No. Of Maynard? CL: Yeah. This is it. From beginning to end. I was in the original band, and they've got
the whole thing, ten CDs come with this package. And I'm playing throughout it, through the
whole thing, we were the original band. Jimmy Ford, Willie Maiden, and Bill Chase
was on it and so many people. MR: There you are right there. 1958. CL: There's a picture there. We did a tour of the east coast, of all the
big coliseums, and on the bus was the Dave Brubeck Quartet, Sonny Rollins Trio, the Four
Freshmen and the Maynard Ferguson band, and all the producers. And in the middle of the tour we had a day
off. And somehow I caught my finger in the car
door and the pictures there, somebody took a picture of me with that. And somehow, I think it was this one, I played. Then Buddy was helping me lift things up in
the back of the bus and so on. I finished the tour, playing this stuff with
Maynard, don't ask me how I did it, but I did it. I completed - there was another 30 days to
go and I did it. So they have a picture of me, somebody took
a picture of that shot. MR: What was it like to be living on a musician's
income at that time? Was it okay? CL: Terrible. Really. Terrible. You really never ate right, you always had
to look for - I never ate right on the road. I only ate right when I was with Gene Krupa
for two years. For two years we did locations, and the money
was very good with Gene. Then I lived much better. But when you're on one-nighters on the bus
like with Woody Herman, or in cars with Maynard Ferguson and so on, I'll tell you, when I
was with Maynard, the payroll was 120 a week, okay? 1959. 120 a week. And then if you only did two nights you got
paid pro rata. So you had to eat, you had to pay for your
hotel, so you literally were not in good shape with that kind of thing, with the road. It killed a lot of people, it hurt a lot of
people. MR: Because you'd be playing in one place
until late at night, you're probably not staying in a very good joint or whatever. CL: Right. You eat on the run, it was hamburgers or a
couple of eggs, anything that could be affordable to you. But you can never really take care of yourself
that good. And that's why guys used to get out of hand
a little bit you know, just to forget about it. It was - one-nighters, in a big band is not
an easy life. Thad Jones, when I played with Thad Jones
and Mel Lewis it was much better. They paid okay, had a good bus, and it was
better. But when I was with Woody in 1964, we had
a bus that had no heat in it and we're going up through Detroit and Canada and so on, and
the money - a lot of times we would ask for an advance on our pay and you couldn't get
that because the money wasn't coming in properly and so on, so you were starving. A lot of times you were really hungry all
the time. It was a hard life, a very hard life. I loved the music but I don't like the life. MR: Yeah, you pay a real price for doing that. CL: Maynard would travel in cars. We didn't have a bus with Maynard, and that
was worse because you're traveling, especially with Maynard, we did a lot of work in Canada. The ice and storms and it was hard, it was
hard. MR: I guess they call it paying dues, huh? CL: But the only time I really enjoyed anything
was with Gene Krupa for two years. It was a quartet, we stayed at a place two
weeks, three weeks, one week. Got to know people. A lot of times you didn't even have to go
out and eat, they'd invite you to home to eat. Stayed at better hotels and so on. MR: Somewhere along the line, it must have
been fairly early, you said that you learned by listening to the radio and playing along
with it. But when did you learn to read music? CL: That came easy, it came very easy. When this teacher showed me a few fingers
on the horn on the clarinet, just a few, because even up to this day I can't name the scales
for you. I can play them but I can't name them. And then he showed me a couple of things in
the beginning of the book the half notes or quarter notes and this and that. I was very good in mathematics at school. So mathematics was the real thing that helped
me, where I just started counting. I never studied it. I never studied reading. If something said that's two beats or this
is one and a half beats, or that, I'd just count each note for what it was. I didn't look ahead, I just counted each note
as it went. Therefore I was able to play lead tenor with
Woody Herman's band, I played lead alto for ten days with Buddy Rich, I played hard music. Thad Jones' music was the hardest. But just mathematics, counting. I just counted, I never studied it though. Because I could never sit in a room and study. I learned and played, either on the bandstand
or when I was kid through the radio, by playing with the radio. MR: Well talking about scales and that kind
of music theory, when you go to improvise on a tune like "Body and Soul," are you thinking,
is it possible for you to describe what you're thinking as you hit each chord change? Is it mostly just your ear? CL: I don't know chords. MR: Okay so your ear is telling you where
to go. CL: I'll tell you how I do it. I grew up with the melody. That's why, when I played with the radio,
if I heard melody I just started playing around their melodies. So I grew up, I started playing, actually
it happened in the marching band when I was a kid. When I was playing in the marching band in
North Tarrytown, and we had to play marches and I was playing in the marching band and
what happened, a fellow, a trumpet player and myself, while the marches are going on,
we're playing in between the melody and improvising between the notes. So I started off improvising by knowing what
the melody was, which is the most important thing, and improvising in between. And before you know it you take the melody
and you put it on the side, but it's still in your head, then you're improvising all
the way. And this is what I did. I've grown up with the melody. As long as I know what key I'm in, I can play
in any key. I've never worried about keys because I go
for the melody. The melody is what's important to me. And so I'm known to be able to play in any
key and not think about it. So even up to this day I don't know chords. When I had to read them in the big bands,
there would be chords written out, and I would take the first note, the first chord of each
bar and make alternate melodies. The first note of one bar to the first note
of the second bar, and so on. And make a melody. And I was more melodic than guys that were
reading the chords, because I can't read chords. MR: So it's served you pretty well actually. CL: Yeah. I make my own chords. This is why I keep innovating, I keep variating,
because I'm not coming from what's written, I'm coming from where I'm at. So I grew up with the melodies. The melody, improvising in between and that's
it. MR: And in between the big band gigs you must
have returned to this area playing with small groups? CL: Which is what I really like. I've played with all the big bands but I was
never really, really happy. The only time I was really happy was with
Woody Herman because I was playing lead tenor and I was able to play the melody and lead
everything, and I really enjoyed that, playing the four brothers and "Early Autumn" and all
that, it was just, that's when I enjoyed it.. Otherwise the big bands - I'm a small group
player, that's it. MR: When you are in a big band you only had,
if you got a solo it was 32 bars if you were lucky. CL: Right. You had to make it count. MR: How did you feel about the rhythm and
blues that came into the playing of guys like Illinois Jacquet, and that kind of honky-
CL: I grew up with rhythm and blues, that's what I grew up with. So I knew about that. That's when I was playing Chloe's on 7th and
T Street in Washington, that's how I was playing. And then after that Major told me get a concert
tone, then I started working on concert tone - in fact I went back another time. After I finished that 17 weeks, for some unknown
reason I went back to the same place. I don't know how that happened because she
didn't pay the taxes, but I went back with another group and we didn't make it. I was playing cool then. I was playing the concert tone you know. But when I was honking, and playing the rhythm
and blues kind of thing and so on, I used to tear places up, just tear them up. MR: Was there a place to dance in this club
that you played? CL: No. That was just listening. MR: Just listening, huh? Wow. Must have been rocking though. CL: Oh yeah, it really was, yeah. MR: You've managed to get in some T.V. shows,
T.V. work, how did that come about? CL: That was with the bands. In fact I did cable T.V. here which went all
over Westchester with Woody, the Jazz Casual show we did once. Joe Franklin I did on my own about two or
three times, he interviewed me at least two or three times, and Johnny Carson was with
Woody I think it was. It was a number of different people. But mostly I did a lot of cable work too. This last one, which I have the literature
here, went all over Westchester County. It was just through who I was and who I played
with. MR: Basically the work that you've gotten
over the years has come through word of mouth and you kind of establish a good reputation. CL: That's it. I never wanted to be tied down to an agent
or anything like that. I've always done it through word of mouth,
and people know what I can do and that's how they call you. John Bunch - you remember John Bunch? MR: Yes, very well. CL: Okay, John is a good friend of mine. Through him, I met him with Benny Goodman
in 1957, the big band. From there on he recommended me to everybody. He recommended me to Maynard, Maynard came
first, then Buddy Rich, then Woody Herman. He recommended me to everybody. It was like the best word of mouth I had,
he was a good friend you know. We did two albums together. MR: You've worked with some band leaders who've
had pretty strong personalities. CL: Yeah, right. MR: Including Benny Goodman and Rich. CL: No problem. I had no problem. MR: You had no problem? CL: No, I'll tell you why because I did what
I had to do. I never got wasted on the bandstand or anything
like that. Buddy Rich - I liked him very much because
if he had something to say to you he'd say it to your face. But what it was with him is he wanted you
to be up on the bandstand before him, and then he wants to walk up. And he wanted you to be dressed properly,
he didn't want you to drink when you were playing, he was like a perfectionist. And if you did anything out of the way then
he would jump on you. So I always did what I had to do and I never
had any problems. Benny Goodman, the same way. Benny - the people that had the problems with
Benny were mostly the drummers or the piano players, for some unknown reason. He always picked on them. Because I was on Benny Goodman's octet once. You remember Ronnie Bedford, the drummer? Okay, on the octet was Warren Vache, Urbie
Green, Bucky Pizzarelli and Hank Jones, Slam Stewart and Benny. And these three concerts that we did he was
just picking on the drummer all the time. The drum or the piano. But he didn't pick on Hank Jones, but he picked
on the drummer. MR: I have a feeling Hank probably wouldn't
have stood for it. CL: Slam Stewart - I was proud of him, he
made Benny Goodman pay for a seat for his bass on the plane. MR: Oh yeah? CL: He says, "Otherwise I won't go" see? So he had a seat just for his bass. MR: Right. What has been your experience in the recording
sessions with some of these big bands? You usually get a couple of days to make an
album? CL: Right. The album, did you hear "Woody Herman 1964?" "Hallelujah Time" was on there with Sal Nestico
and I. And that was really good. We recorded that the same day that President
Kennedy was shot. We were walking towards the studio and we
heard that he got shot, and when we got into the studio we heard he was dead. The band was very, very soulful. We did that date in two days. But that one day was especially soulful you
know. Maynard Ferguson, his dates usually averaged
a couple of days to do them. And rehearsing ahead of time naturally. But see the band, when I recorded with Maynard
or recorded with Woody or whatever, the things we recorded we were already blowing on the
road so it was straight. It didn't take too much time. MR: Sal Nestico was an amazing saxophonist. CL: Yeah, that's right. Died young. Good person. He wasted himself, that's all. But him and I we were soulful that day. And Les Davis used to play down, as a theme
song, "Hallelujah Time." But that was a good album. MR: Who were some of your favorite arrangers
through the different bands, that you'd like to see their charts coming. CL: Nat Pierce was one. Willie Maiden wrote beautiful. Bill Holman was a great writer and he did
a lot for Woody. I don't know if you heard the one "After You're
Gone" on that album, that was a hard one to play. Don Sebesky was a very good writer on the
Maynard band. And Slide Hampton did a lot of excellent writing
for Maynard. So there was quite a few of them. MR: What's been a stretch of years for you
where you felt were the most difficult as far as making a living in music, and was there
a stretch of years that were the best? CL: The stretch of years that were the best
was with Gene Krupa for three years. I made good money, it was good, it felt good,
we were treated good, the whole thing. MR: Now who was in that particular quartet? Gene and you-
CL: It was Gene, and I took Charlie Ventura's place because he had an ulcer operation, so
I took his place and stayed with him three years. Then there was a change of piano players. Dave McKenna, John Bunch, Dill Jones, Dick
Wellstood and change of bass players, it was Eddie deHass - who else - Benny Moten. Not the old Benny Moten. This Benny Moten came from Tarrytown, my home
town. I met him at the Metropole. I heard about him. See he was the first lead - we were the only
two that left Tarrytown and made a name for ourselves. So he was older than me and he was the first
to leave. I finally met him at the Metropole in New
York playing with Henry "Red" Allen. And then, before you know it we're playing
with Gene, the four or us. And so not too many changes in bass players,
but the piano players there was a lot of changes. MR: And Gene had made his reputation obviously
with Goodman and then with his own big band. CL: Right. MR: Was it economics that caused him to work
with a quartet? CL: That I can't answer, I don't know. Because I don't know what happened in that
stretch. I don't really know what happened then. But we stayed busy with the quartet. In fact, the last engagement I had with Gene,
I went to his house and he opened up his closet. We had to go to Las Vegas, and they were contracting
a big band around us, around the quartet, with a lot of Vegas musicians. So we went into his closet at 10 Richie Drive
in Yonkers, now they call it Gene Krupa Drive, they changed the name. And he pulled out all his big band arrangements,
"Let Me Off Uptown" and "Lover" and all these things. Then we sorted them all out, put them in order
and went to Vegas, and they contracted the big band around us. But to have a band on the road is hard. It was too hard to pay. You were always struggling. Benny Goodman, he wasn't on the road. Once in a while he'll take a band and go out,
then you got paid properly. But if you're steady on the band, like Woody
or this or that, you can't make any money, it's no good. So you can't hold a big band together. You can't. And that was the only time I played with Gene
with a big band, was just before I left him in Vegas you know. And that was it. MR: I can't imagine what some of those fellows,
like in the Basie band and so forth, they did that for so many years. CL: They lived on the road. Yeah. They lived on the road. Now for instance like the Glenn Miller band,
people like that, they are living by the estate. So the band stays busy all the time. They're probably making good money but they
have to stay on the road, you know. But if you're into them bands - I was out
on the west coast with Woody Herman at the Basin Street West right, I did two weeks there. And when it came time, the engagement was
over with, the owners left, disappeared. And so Woody, we had to wait to get paid,
maybe about seven, eight months later. That's the kind of thing. They just disappeared. MR: That's nasty. CL: But the Glenn Miller band has no trouble
because they're going by the estate you know. MR: Right. CL: I don't know, the Basie band is out there,
I guess they're doing good you know, I don't know too much about them. MR: Tell me about how the association with
Thad Jones and Mel Lewis came about. CL: I liked it very much. They were good people. It was the hardest music I ever played in
my life because if you think it's going here it's not, it's going to go here and there. And you can't have a drink when you're playing
with that band because it's hard, really hard music, harder than Maynard's. Maynard's sort of straight ahead in its own
way, but not Thad Jones music, no. But they were good people. Mel did an album with me, it's called "Aerial
View," I don't know if you've ever heard that, it's one of my favorites. And at that time, when I was with Thad and
Mel, the whole rhythm section, Mel, Harold Danko, Ray Drummond and we had a trumpet player,
we did an album. It's a good album. So they were good people, they were gracious
you know. Thad and Mel. And it was good - good buses, didn't fool
around with the money, everything was good. MR: Did you still have the steady Monday night
thing at the Vanguard or was that- CL: Yeah that's still there. I just saw John Mosca took it over now. And I just saw them about a month ago, because
I hadn't been to the city for a long time but I went down because I knew he was there
and he just went to Tunisia of all places, Tunisia and someplace else I forget. But they're still there on Monday nights,
yeah. MR: Did you have the chance to travel overseas? CL: No, I always turned it down. I didn't want to go with the big bands. I didn't want to be - see I'm a small group
player. If I had an opportunity, like with South America,
I went with Gene Krupa with the small group, that was different. But with big bands you're squashed, your subdued,
you can't really open up and blow. And I was really never happy with that. I've done it, but I turned down Woody, Thad,
anybody Benny, they all went to Europe, I'm probably the only jazz artist that hasn't
been to Europe. But I've been to South America with Gene Krupa. MR: Well after a time in the big bands it
must have been a real pleasure to find yourself back with the quartet and do what you were
doing. CL: Yeah. That's what I've been doing recently. MR: Did the popularity of rock & roll, starting
in the late 50s, did that affect your business at all? CL: Yeah. I'll explain that as shortly as I can. 195- around the Benny Goodman time or something
like that, or maybe just before that because that's how the word of mouth came for me to
go with Benny, around 1955 I was playing at the Metropole when all the old time swingers
were winding down, like Henry "Red" Allen, Charlie Shavers and all these people, George
Wettling. All the big names were winding down, and they
would play at the Metropole. And I was playing there with a trio, Marty
Napoleon's trio. Marty, myself and a guy by the name of Gary
Chester on drums. Tony Frampti had the other trio. And he died now, but George Wettling was with
him and he had different piano players, so we were sharing the bandstand. An hour each. And we were there a long time every afternoon. Then at night I was either playing with Sol
Yaged or playing with other groups there and so on. And what happened is Chubby Checker came out
with "The Twist" in 1961, okay? Because the Metropole was jumping, I mean
it was packed and it was jammed and the whole thing. I was playing there with Gene Krupa. I even did a thing with Buddy Rich, he was
playing upstairs in a small quartet before we went to New Orleans. And so the old man, Harriman, he was the owner
of the Metropole, decided to make a switch. So Gene Krupa was the busiest man at the Metropole. He had the most engagements there, just like
Maynard had the most engagements at Birdland, and Miles did. And so the old man decided to bring in some
go-go girls and rock, because of "The Twist" because of Chubby Checker. And so actually it started to turn. Instead of sharing the bandstand with Tony
Frampti, we were sharing the band with a rock band and go-go girls. And that also happened with Gene Krupa. Because later on when I came back, I was still
with Gene in '63 to '66. And in that period there Gene was about the
only one left playing the Metropole, because he was the most biggest draw you know. And so in 1961, yeah that's about right. I was the last group to play with Marty Napoleon. We were the last trio to play the Metropole. And we closed the Metropole because then the
go-go's took over completely, in a day, with the rock bands and the twist. And then I was the last quartet with Gene
Krupa, we closed it out. The Gene Krupa quartet, we were sharing the
stand with go-go girls, the same thing. Eventually it turned all go-go and rock, and
I actually closed the Metropole with Marty Napoleon's trio and Gene Krupa's quartet. We closed it. And that's when I saw, I saw the turning point
right there. It was all starting to change in 1961. That's when my daughter was born, that's why
I never forgot that. MR: Did it worry you? CL: Well, work then, what bothered me was
I wasn't playing. We were having a ball playing and working
and so on. I still had some time with Gene Krupa until
'66. I only started worrying when I finished with
Gene Krupa. Then it was bad. Then I had a hard time. But until around 1966, '67, it was okay. MR: Did the musicians, your compatriots, did
they kind of sit around the bemoan the fact that here comes this, what is this stuff that's
happening now? Were they confused by the incoming music? CL: Yeah everybody had to change. Everybody had to make a change. And you started, well club dates at that time
were mostly swing or tunes, good tunes and so on like that. But when the twist came out, then everybody,
from Peter Duchin on, from all the big bands, from Lester Lanin, they all had to include
rock guitar players or a go-go girl because the ladies wanted to dance the twist because
of Chubby Checker. So they started turning there. And everybody had to learn this new approach
and it was hurting - a lot of musicians didn't want to do it. But in order to make a living and support
their families, they had to do it. But that's when a lot of them got sick about
it, they got pretty sick about that. Because they had to turn their art into a
different kind of area. MR: Well that's a good point. Did you consider - this might be hindsight
- but you guys considered what you were doing to be a form of art back then, is that true? CL: Oh yeah. I'm an artist, yeah. MR: And you thought you were back then too? CL: I'll label it now, but without naming
it, I loved music, I played music. And this turned it all around where you started
going with the club dates and you'd play a few ballads or play a couple of swing tunes
and before you knew it the amplifiers came up and it just tore your heart apart. It killed a lot of musicians. It ruined a lot of marriages, because a lot
of them got so disturbed about it they didn't want to work and then they were starving,
they couldn't support their families. But I had a rough time after I left Gene until,
well for a long time. Because I didn't know how to - I was having
a difficult time adjusting to that. MR: It's curious because sometimes those things
repeat themselves. You know like in the last ten years you've
had a couple of different dance crazes, you had the macarena and the electric slide, and
musicians who thought that they had a handle on things all of a sudden now there's something
new that they had to learn. CL: Now musicians are really in trouble at
this point, I mean to make a living. Me, I'm being picky and choosey. I'm playing the way I want to play or I don't
play at all, that's where I'm at at this point. But right now the disc jockeys took over. You go to a wedding and you'll see a disc
jockey with all kinds of equipment and so on. Even senior citizens - musicians could make
a living maybe playing for senior citizens, and they want line dancing and all that. And so there's so much going on that has nothing
to do with art. Art is all over with, it just is, it's very
rare that you're going to see it. Like you go down and you could see John Mosca
and the Thad Jones band, but it's very rare. As far as the business, making a living, forget
it. I think it's the worst low right now. MR: If you had a son who quit school at 16
to become a musician, would you feel like your father did? CL: I'd kill him right now. No I would put a stop to it because right
now I see little kids going to school and carrying their horns. My tendency is to say please don't. But I won't do that. MR: Well keep it as a hobby. CL: Yeah, whatever. Because there's no security in the business. See I lost my wife and I lost a lot of people
and so on, so I'm alone now. And that's my security. I can pick and choose. But if I had to make a living to support a
family at this time, forget it, not as a musician. No way. There were times after the Gene Krupa thing
where I had a rough time. I was doing some chauffeur work. Because when I quit school at 16 I didn't
go to college. So if I ever had to work in between, it had
to be menial work. Like parking cars, or chauffeur work, and
so on like that. MR: Well you're not alone in that. I know a lot of fellows have had to-
CL: I like cars, that's why I chose chauffering. But you couldn't support a family right now
in the music business. I know quite a few people right now that are
struggling - good, top, good musicians that are struggling. MR: Did your father, you said he didn't really
say until he was on his death bed that you made the right decision, but did he ever come
out and hear you play over the years? CL: Near the end. I did a couple of concerts at the library
and so on, and he saw it. But my mother was really my greatest supporter,
she was the one. But my father was mad at me all this time,
until his death bed, which was amazing. MR: And he continued - you said he worked
at General Motors? CL: Yeah. And then he had his own business, he had his
own shoe repair shop and made shoes. In Italy they used to make shoes, not only
fix them. MR: Did he ever get into jazz music himself? CL: No, no. Opera. His thing was opera. MR: How about the recording scene in New York
City? There were some very busy years. CL: I wasn't in it because I didn't double. I didn't double on flute, I didn't double
on - the people that made a good, excellent living in that are people that double on their
instruments. I have a friend of mine now, his name is Rick
Centolanza, and he plays a show in Chicago in the city. It's got the whole works right there. And me I was never a studier, that's my problem. I grew up playing off the street. I could never sit in a room and study a flute
or this or that. I don't know how to explain it, I'm not a
studier. But I've learned on the bandstand or by listening,
by hearing. I've got good ears, I've been lucky with that. I've been pretty lucky with that. MR: Let me play a little selection for you
here. This is one of your more recent efforts. That's some good late night music right there. CL: It's doing very well too, which proves
the melody sells. MR: The melody sells. CL: Yeah, the melody sells. It's doing very big in Germany and mail order
with this company, and England. They're going to move it into Italy now too. No, you just play the melody very easy. MR: It's got nice back-up too. CL: Yeah, right. MR: Nice musicians behind you there. CL: Yeah Linc Milliman, have you heard of
him? MR: Yes, as a matter of fact he went to the
college I went to. CL: Oh okay. He's on the bass. So he plays beautiful. And Ed Shanaphy is the owner of the company
but he played. He did all the doctoring up of it, and some
additions to it. MR: Right. They do that after the fact? CL: Yeah. MR: You record as a quartet? CL: Right. Then he did surgery. Like "In The Wee Small Hours of the Morning"
if you heard that, he put a town clock to that in the beginning, if you heard the introduction,
which was nice because when I was a kid and we'd come home in Tarrytown, they had a town
clock. And you'd come home at four in the morning
and you're like that, and it would ring. So when he did that it made me very happy. MR: That's curious, you mentioned that it's
doing well overseas. CL: Yeah. Here too, they just got a big mail order company. MR: Maybe you should consider going overseas. CL: I would now, now I would. Because I'm clear, I could do what I want
to do. But I don't want to go - I wouldn't go with
a big band. Some people have been asking me about it. MR: You've had some great associations over
the years, people that have played with you: Jake Hanna. CL: Yeah. MR: Quite a character. CL: Yeah. We did a few albums together. He was on the album for Woody Herman in 1964. My favorite, one of my favorite drummers. He just sat back there and swung you know. MR: He just swung. Are you able to tell a drummer, or if there's
somebody in your band who's not swinging? Can you tell them? How do you tell them to swing? CL: Verbally you mean? MR: Yeah. Is it possible? CL: No I could never do that. I just would go on to find somebody else. But I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. No I don't like to do that. But I know who's who. Because to me, I grew up just playing drums
and myself. June Bug was drummer, he was a drummer, and
Primo Rico was the bass player. But a lot of times June Bug and I, we'd just
play, just drums and myself. And that's where I've always been close to
the melody, and so I never had to depend on piano players or chords or anything like that. I would just improvise the melody. And when he died in 1959, it was very hard
to replace him. Frank Dunlop was the closest in replacing
my friend June Bug. Because Frank can swing. He also handled the Maynard Ferguson band. Because I was with him in the end with Maynard
Ferguson. And he could swing, he could do a lot of interesting
things and back you but he would never get away from the swing. And I did an album, with who was it, with
Cal Collins. MR: Oh the guitar player. CL: The guitar player that did a beautiful
album called "Ohio Boss Guitar" and Connie Kaye was on it. And he just - he didn't want to play any solos,
he just sat back. So I could tell the difference. But I can't go up and say hey, get it. I can't do that. I don't like to hurt anybody's feelings. But drummers are important to me, very important. If I don't have the right drummer, I'm in
trouble. MR: Did you bring some stuff that you wanted
to talk about or show us? CL: Now here's Frank Dunlop. I played with my own group at the Overseas
Press Club in New York and Frank Dunlop was on that. MR: We'll take another shot of this when we're
done too. CL: That was the Overseas Press Club. And then this was John Bunch, this was the
Metropole, remember Ray Burns? MR: Oh now I've heard about this stage, this
very narrow long stage. CL: Right that's it. MR: I'm so glad to see this picture. CL: Yeah. That's what it was. There was an upright piano against the wall. MR: Behind the bar, right? CL: Right. The bar - yeah we were in the bar there, then
there was an opening where the bartenders were and then the bar. And I won't mention names, but one guy, a
trombone player, one day he was wiped out. And he fell and he dangled. Like he was holding on to the bar and his
feet were on the stage. It was too much. I won't mention names, no. MR: It must have been a work out for the piano
player too, with no bass. CL: No. We played without basses. The trios were without basses. So the piano players had to have a good left
hand. See and John Bunch, Marty Napoleon - quite
a few - Dick Wellstood, they had good left hands. This was the Maynard Ferguson. I'll put this back in order. And I can let you have it. MR: Wow. Nice. CL: I have a clip on because there's a couple
of things in there, see? MR: There you go. CL: That was 1959, 1960. MR: Maynard's still out there playing too? CL: He came to my home town, see I have a
clip. That was Birdland. MR: Oh there's Willie Maiden, right? CL: Right. This is the Newport festival I think, this
one up here. And that was Birdland. MR: My. How did you fit that band in there? CL: Well it's the same with the Vanguard. How do you fit a band in there? It's unbelievable. MR: Wow. Neat. CL: Now here's Buddy Rich. I'm finally pulling these out. That's when we did, I did-
MR: You are lead alto there. CL: Yeah I'm playing lead alto. Well this here, the Buddy Rich, this is New
Orleans. That was a quintet. Woody Dennis, John Bunch, Knobby Tote on bass. This here I'm playing lead alto with the big
band for about ten days. And then we did the opening of the Kennedy
Center for the Performing Arts, and I was featured with Bill Watrous, both of us, with
the Buddy Rich band and so on. We did the grand opening there. I just pulled out a few choice things for
you see? And here's the Benny Goodman thing with Bucky
Pizzarelli and myself. And then King Manufacturers who I endorsed
for put out that there. Bucky's still out there playing. MR: Yes. CL: Now this is the one that's going to amaze
you. This is when I played two weeks with Kai Winding
and here's a picture of Zoot, Joe Newman, that's the group there. That's 1952. MR: This is Birdland. CL: The original Birdland. MR: God, so small. Zoot Sims, wow look at that. Is that Billy Taylor on piano? CL: That's Billy Taylor on piano, Joe Newman,
Don Lamond. MR: No music on stage of course. CL: No, no. We played by heart. Now I'll show you something else. MR: Clyde Lombardi. I don't know that name. CL: Yeah. She was around that time. Now this is the Gene Krupa Quartet and then
Doc Severinsen before he was famous. MR: That's Sal Nestico. CL: Right. I played with Mel Torme. And Doc Severinsen on the bottom there before
he was famous. MR: Yeah, oh yeah. CL: We played together in a group with Marty
Napoleon. And then on the other side was the Gene Krupa
Quartet before 1965, on the other side. That's 1965. We're finished, just a couple. Now here's my big band. I have a new sound, the baritone saxophone
front line. Which, I'm doing a concert, I have that here,
I'll give it to you. I can give you that. Instead of the traditional two altos, two
tenors, baritone, I have three baritones, and I'm playing either lead alto or lead tenor
on top of it. MR: Wow, that must be a big meaty sound, huh? CL: Yeah. MR: I'll bet. CL: It's different, and I'm doing that here
November 14th here at Westchester Conservatory. I'll give you that literature. MR: Wow, neat. CL: In fact we're going to record it that
night too. Now the last one is I played with the Al Cohn
band. Al Cohn had a big band. MR: Oh my. Is that Jerome Richardson? No. CL: I don't know. MR: Charlie Fowlkes. CL: Yeah, remember Charlie? MR: And Ronnie Zito. CL: Ronnie Zito. Ronnie is now playing in Chicago. MR: Ronnie is from Utica, right near us. CL: He is? Yeah? I'll see him Wednesday. I'm doing the big band in the city, and he
plays with it. MR: Great stuff. CL: And the last one, this was my own group
at Birdland on a Monday with Joe Puma, remember Joe Puma? He's on it. That's the group then. All and all. Because I was meeting you I got this stuff
out, the last couple of days. MR: Wow. That's good. CL: Otherwise it's been like-
MR: I'm really interested to see this picture of Birdland like that. It puts it in perspective, because there's
a famous picture of the Basie orchestra in there, and the piano is almost out in the
middle of the floor, next to the tables, it's so small. CL: So that's it. And I'll leave you with the updating things
I'm doing this year. SCR Events and Entertainment representatives
did that for me. Now here's the big band thing. You can have these. That's a big band concert, and the Sweet Sounds
of Summer. I'm going to do Connecticut Post Mall with
my own group and SCR is in charge of that. MR: I guess in some respects there's places
to play that you didn't have before, with some of these summer concert series and that
kind of stuff. CL: No. And this is all for you. That's the Christmas album, same company,
and then "Sax After Midnight" with Page 12, and then this is the - this is for you. So you can have that. That's the cable thing I did. That's about it. MR: Well for you the business at this point
is pretty good because as you said you can pick and choose. CL: I'm picking and choosing what I want to
do. And this here just came out, Page 12, this
National Italian American Foundation, and they're representing, they gave me a nice
little article on this, about the interracial thing and the changes. That I can't let you have, I've only got one
copy of that. I'm along with the mayors there. MR: You know there's been some great Italian
jazz musicians. I don't have to tell you that. CL: I know, but that's what we're talking
about, that's what they're talking about here. But they publicized me in this one, but there's
another magazine, The Ambassador where they publicized Bucky's son, Bucky Pizzarelli's
son and Chuck Mangione, who I've met up in your area up there. I knew him when I was with Maynard. MR: Sal Nestico, and Romano. CL: Yeah Sal. And Nick Brignola was on the Woody Herman
band, that's about it. That's for you, what I left there. And Al Cohn's wife Flo, she passed away, gave
me that article. MR: If you were to look back on the albums
you've recorded which was probably your favorite big band? CL: My favorite big band? MR: The recording. CL: That I did? MR: Woody Herman. 1964. Yeah, I didn't do too much recording, well
Maynard naturally was great, everything was great. But well Maynard, a lot of it was exhibition,
technical, technique. But with Woody, we could swing. See I like to swing, and I enjoyed the Woody
Herman band the best, and Benny Goodman. Well I didn't record with Benny though, but
I enjoyed Benny Goodman's book, because it swung. So I really am basically a swing musician
you know. That's what I like. Woody Herman is my favorite though. MR: Is it possible for you to describe, if
someone knew nothing about swing music- CL: I know what you're going to ask me. MR: Could you tell them? What's it mean to swing? CL: That's always been a hard thing to answer. I'll tell you. It has a lot to do with timing, with time. See because the most important ingredient
that anybody can have as musicians first is time. And you can have all the technique in the
world but if you don't have that time, which is, then forget it, it won't swing. So I don't know, it's a hard question to answer. Swing. It's one of the roughest questions. MR: It is. And I rarely get an answer so don't feel bad. CL: Rarely? MR: No. No one. CL: I can swing like crazy, but I can't explain
it. MR: You have to listen to it. CL: And I can go through a million changes,
Latin chords and everything, but I can't name them for you. MR: Well you certainly have it innate in you,
right inside. CL: Swing. You threw me now. That's such a hard one to answer. MR: When you're home by yourself and you're
listening, what do you like to listen to? What do you pick out? CL: Well I'll tell you, again, I can never
sit down and listen to my music in my house. My albums, I have the whole ten CD package
of Maynard Ferguson, and I don't put it on. I've lost a lot of people and I'm coming out
of it now, but I've lost a lot of people, a lot of close ones in my life, so it's to
the point where unless I'm out playing, when I'm home I'm on the couch with the T.V., which
is bad, it's no good. So I should put my music on but I don't do
it. So really -
MR: Well we'll put it on here. CL: I tell the truth. MR: Well this has been a really fascinating
time talking to you. CL: Oh same here, you're very comfortable. MR: Is there anything that I haven't asked
you about that you think you'd like to talk about? CL: I don't think so, no. I think we got it. MR: Now I have to say this is the sexiest
recording I ever heard of "Mean to Me." CL: See and I don't put it on at the house,
but I hear it at other places. My daughter played it at her wedding for dinner
music too. MR: You have grandchildren? CL: No. She just got married. MR: Well somebody will be playing for your
grandchildren I'm sure. CL: No this really came beautiful, this record. I'm recording now, recording a new album now,
with this same company, Good Music Record Company, and what we're doing is piano and
myself and then he's going to add a bass to it and so on like that. And maybe he'll add the drums. But we're coming at it from the piano and
saxophone. I've done a lot of work in my life at different
times with just piano and myself, and just playing tunes. And that's what's so important for jazz, for
music, for improvising, is to soak in all the tunes you can soak in. Don't close you mind, absorb everything, and
so now, that experience is going to help me in this new recording I'm doing because it's
just piano and myself. If he wants he'll probably doctor it up by
putting bass to it or drums or overdubbing it, but he's coming at it from that way. So that's what I'm doing now, and a few other
things. But I'll keep you informed. MR: All right. Well keep it up. It's been a real pleasure. CL: Monk, thank you very much. Thank you.
