Carol Kaye: Session Legend Interview (full)

[Music] [Music] [Music] there's a steel guitar salesman that came around to the projects in my mom have saved up for pennies and I I'm I mean I was working after after school I was cleaning apartments and babysitting and doing what I could and at the age of 13 this the Traveling Salesman I mean with a steel guitar said for I mean for 10 bucks you can buy this little steel and get about two or three lessons well she had tip ten bucks so she gave it to the guy and I got a little steel so I got this little steel and I could play music you know and it really enriched my life you know and then I went with the girlfriend over with her because she was taking guitar lessons from front from a man by the name of Horace hatchet in Long Beach she was wasn't too far away so so I rode with her and I took my little steel guitar and he knows me and he said can you play that thing I said yeah so I played a little bit he says hey listen you you come work for me because he knew I was pretty poor the way I dressed everything he said you you come you come work with for me and I'll teach you a little bit of guitar you can use one of my guitars and like that so he gave me a job and so within about three months I mean I was teaching for him and then about three or four months I mean I was out there playing gigs like flying home Bob up playing that gun my first lesson with him was t4 - see - that's two five one business or blue skies smiling at me you know that kind of stuff little three and four voice course and I'll learn how to form my chords which was the music of the day I grow up with them is he doesn't mean that you can play it you have to learn the skills so he taught me a few things and he taught me how to write music and transcribe and taught me how to teach and so I started teaching right away and then I was out there playing gigs around Long Beach you know so at the age of fourteen to be able to work and make money doing something that you love to do but put putting food on the table and and and taking care of your mom that's the best that that good answer every napkin you know so I'm married young and I was out on the road with the big van my husband was a bass player and I was the guitar player with the big band and we traveled all over and I got tired of that after about a year and a half and I want to get back to my baby and so and so I I left the band broke down on the road and when I broke down I heard that the guy had died and I felt so badly that the band leader had died you know and I didn't know until later on that he died as a result of I mean he's the older man but but a very very important man the very fine trumpet player from the 20s then he died because of some girlfriend or so anyway anyway it wasn't my fault that he died it's amazing cuz I just took off [Music] so I had another baby in them then then I divorced that husband and I kept hearing this bebop you know all that kind of stuff so I was out there playing it with the black groups and the black nightclubs and black Mike was in the south of LA were hot I mean I mean it was hot jazz it wasn't the cool West Coast sound it it was where the guys from New York loved to come to play you know in the black Michaels and what white people were welcomed but there's only a few you know not I would come in and sit in and play with them and then I was working a lot but I had to do a day job too so I was working day times and and then playing jazz gigs at night and then all of a sudden a guy walked in the club in 1957 he said you want to do a record date and I'd really didn't want to but rock and roll was coming in and taking over the jazz clubs and all of a sudden you could see the handwriting on the wall jazz wasn't gonna live much longer and it was the pop music of Los Angeles I mean it you'd go anywhere and listen to jazz but then I started to say okay okay I'll do the record date and it was for Sam Cooke and playing you know just background fills and everything for Sam Cooke Richie Fallon's kind of fun you know and it paid real well I get more on a record date than I would the whole week of working a day job so I mean so it was a no-brainer so to take care of my mom and my two kids and myself I did studio work and I thought I could still keep doing the jazz even though you knew once you start doing studio work your place in jazz was gone you know because you're doing simple stuff like or that kind of stuff that's a little different then [Music] a little different y'all do you know that guy so I got tired of that doctor well but anyway well I was doing doing a lot of guitar gigs tried marriage another time he had a third kid and and that marriage didn't work out and then all of a sudden the bass player didn't show up on a date one day and I I'm at capo records playing guitar and they put the bass in my lap how do I do this here without ok so here I am someone loaned me their bass and I'm going like this [Music] there was a little bit of prejudice against women there were no women in the rhythm sections back then uh you you I mean you saw a woman play heart I mean there was a woman in the string section but I think just one nowadays as more than half you know are women but back then there weren't any women but uh but I didn't think that way I said well I'm the guitar player I'm gonna go I mean go make the money $1 $2 $3 whatever they want I'll do it then that's the spirit that we all have I knew that there were women out there who were playing with the men back in the 40s and the 50s but the guys that I admired were the ones that were playing the bebop and they were mostly men to who who were playing the way that I admired you know so I you know I you you you got trained in your musical notes your chordal tones and you heard it and you could play it and it wasn't as hard as you think [Music] as a bass player you have to play all sounds with a flick of the knob or something you know I could get I could get a thin sound or or a bassy sound doesn't sound like a pick right thing but if I turn that off and turn this on so it's not a sound it's not one sound you're capable of playing all kinds of sound I think I think what they meant to feel the feel was important and the feel is gotten by working with this when I got on a date one time and I was pretty new to to playing bass you know I didn't even think about time sense or technique because this is a tough instrument to play I mean this is not a guitar where you you play a lot of fast stuff and quick quick quick fingers just takes a lot of strength to play and back then I used to keep the strings yay high because the Fender bass was not a great instrument say you know but it got a certain sound that no other instruments got so you did sometimes when I traded in the Fender bass just to get new strings I'd have to put a shim in the neck or something you know cuz it make it playable better you know yeah I mean just like with I mean with the demo bass guitar those are so it's crappy little instruments you had to put in new pickups and bridges and that was a piece of crap you know so you had to make it playable but it got a certain sound saying that's what the Fender bass did I'm not saying the fenders like the damnable bender was a good base for what it could do you know but it's a certain sound and then you learn how to mute so that your sounds were better because the mute cuts out the Overtoun bad overtones and undertones which was ruin yourself you you have to invent lines that will fit that tune that music it could be very simple lines it could be complicated lines you know I was always accused of over inventing put playing more notes than necessary so I had be careful but when I worked for Motown it was easy to go [Music] you have to have an excellent sense of time when I got on this date with Errol Palmer one time he said Carol you sound great I said oh thank you you know I had gotten a little cocky attitude because I knew the bass was the answer to to my being happy in the studio work making a lot of money and enjoying play you know so I was cocky as hell no and he's saying but you're rushing and I listened to the play guys and now I'm not rushing I'm not resting but I really listen I thought he was right he was right so I went home and practiced on the bass to the metronome just like we did in the bebop jazz on the time like 1 2 1 2 3 and you could be close but unless this feels like it's grooving you're not in it it took me 2 or 3 days to get in on all styles of music once I got in unlocked in then my sense of time was immovable [Music] when I got am amazed I thought gee I just specialized in bass I only have to carry in one instrument not four or six of them and then it's more fun cuz I can create what I hear is not being played you know and I heard bass as this foundational instrument for rock and roll and soul music and all that and and and I'm very Latin American music conscious you know Samba music and all that stuff and I heard it I heard licks as Samba licks you know like for instance didn't buy about that dude on the timbale Samba see some is you know and that's the accent all of a sudden this fella by the name of Earl Palmer who cool was my best friend back there that that's Earl who played drums on the Richie Valens and and a lot of the Phil Spector things that's that I mean that's Earl Palmer and made that that did this together I did Pamyu it on that then this was called a mute here yep a mute sounds fortress to do work so that you don't get the overtones until so anyway so Earl one day in 58 he went let me let me get back to the guitar he he did something on drums he brought a beat that was later called the swamp beat but it's really the Boogaloo beat on guitar he did something like we'd be on a date doing this [Music] yawn time back but to do a little touch of double time so yeah that's the building life you listen to Latin American music there's the claw be that that that that that that and that I mean and that's been around for us for a hundred years or so you know so that you just don't pop up and play rock and roll music and out of nowhere there's there's always some influences yeah so so anyway so I started doing that then I added that kind of stuff on the bass [Music] Leigha play it on the bass and you can hear it so that's where a lot of my lines came from and nobody else was doing that and and I did it with the pic but most of your early Fender bass players first of all when I start playing guitar you had Ray Pullman who did the Fender bass he played it with either his thumb you know or with the pixi because he happen to be a guitar player too so there's the kind of lines that they played back then [Music] Sonny and Cher Sonny and Cher had this tomb and it was a one chord tomb and here's what the bass player was playing now now at the time I was playing a demo bass guitar which is not a basis I mean it's like a guitar but with a lot of click you know that kind of I can't do it on the fenders anyway and the beat goes on and the beat goes one chord man and we have we're in trouble here you know so the piano player tried to play something and other people tried a few little licks and the third lick I'd tried to play invent was there's a key key of F he gave that to the Fender bass player and you hear me play it with the QuickBase the the daño bass guitar with them and the beat goes on the data noting tune became a huge hit I said yeah mostly the bass line I got it got it so when I accidentally switched to bass in 63 then I started to inventing all kinds of life which is what you do in jazz everybody invents all the time according to what is needed for the music so Rock Row is easy for us we had to learn how to dumb down though because you had some hot jazz players playing D baby babe it for hours da da but you know you just thought $1 $2 $3 $4 you know you went home to your kids you made about five or ten ten times as much as if you were on the road you know so so so if it was a lot of respect and a lot of things so that's how I got into playing bass in three I mean in three short short sentences [Music] well when you know these jazz notes and create anything from them you know so you know that's that's jazz patterns when you have a chord now let me get in get to the guitar because it you can hear it on the chords with the guitar in jazz they they took the simplicity of the Dixieland which is played this way with these quick court'll notes okay so like the herb alpert stuff I mean that I mean that that was Dixieland right I played this on the tall string [Music] sofa but do bidi but okay that was Dixieland you're using these horrible notes now the bee-boppers were with the big bands you know like like the Duke Ellington down the cab calloway ban even a Benny Goodman ban and like that they they heard the way that the arrangers and the orchestrators would arrange the riffs and the band for instance so that this thing Benny Goodman I start playing this here's your bridge go see you hear this as a diminished chord you you you won't find these chords in in rock and roll and that's that's why the gap now in the learning because you have people from rock and roll that never had to learn which is where the bebop comes from yep then you take the g7 any seventh chord or G 13 or flat five anything you can all you need to do is add a flat nine if it becomes a diminished chord so those two chords are the same so the day of wine and roses on plaintiff d7n slide into the e-flat diminished well you got your parallel force you got all these patterns you can do better based on the definition or it's a d7 chord you can make it an Augmented with the Augmented run see see all that kind of stuff so you have all those choices and if it's a minor good but then you got that choice or you can stack your try us do the bird lick repeat it on the flat 5 you know you can add that flat 5 to so you you know these things if you know your chordal notes this is not being taught today now when you're writing a song you don't have to play jazz to write a song but you need do need to know these chords these [Music] Laura better be by the buh-buh-buh for instance when the greatest songs ever written but sometimes I wonder wise men the baby people do didi there's your quarter notes the whole song is written on those it's if songwriters don't know those chords they're not gonna write those songs they're reading signs like that none of the three notes are for knows yeah well that worked one time when you can make the you can make a million dollars in the rock band by playing three chords yeah those times are different now about 5,000 and um and there's quite a few of them then that teach you no but I didn't teach him jazz I taught him the music that they needed to to play to make money you know because you couldn't make money at jazz until about 1985 it start coming back so I started teaching jazz a little bit but by the nineties it especially with people like - I mean Diana Krall people like that Harry Connick jr. started coming back and and then 9/11 happened I'm sorry to use this as an example but 9/11 happened all of a sudden that was gone people wanted real music and that was standards and they start using standards in the movies and it was standards that brought in jazz cuz it was standard you know like for instance you play it - yes very well nobody a bit of the dog that became butter butter de nada you see what I'm doing the major chord I can move it around on the coral scale that's what you see I'm working off the course like for instance you got just friends lovers no more you can take that whole chord move it up see there it is that's the C major C minor just friends now B minor is the same as G loveita V using back cycle C you have to know that two Tunes go in a cycle - my teacher used to teach this he didn't quite name it a cycle but the jazz player is always talked about the cycle for instance but by that Bey Bubba F sure goes to be those two he goes to a cycle you know one thing you know your cycle it is like doing I mean doing the multiplication tables if you know your multiplication table you can do math right cycle is that see for instance you are f goes to B flat goes to E flat goes to goes to D flat changes a cycle moves up a fret goes to D goes to G goes to C C goes to F goes to B flat goes to E flat flat five goes to a flat nosed up another fret goes to a to the D do the G get moved down to even if most of those chords are cycle if you know your cycle you know what tough tune like I mean like all the things you are rock players when I first teaching this stuff it blows them away but after two-three lessons they're getting up and within four or five lessons they're out there playing jazz gigs now you can't tell me it's not easy it is easy they have to forget these a no scale you know because that you have no scale guys that try to teach you you play this note scale over that chord this mill scale no you play the card here's the court so what's wrong with learning those notes [Music] when you're working in studios it's not about personal ego or I'm right or you're wrong anything like it's working together as a whole you do everything you can to get that product out because if you fail you might not work next year we had a good attitude you have to have a good you have to be there on time if you weren't on time to a record date the the Musicians Union could find you if they went overtime you'd be responsible for so everybody was on time there's a lot of smoking going on because everybody's bored you're talking about musicians who had to dumb down to play the rock I'm not not saying that's a bad thing but it was our job to get a hit for everybody it doesn't matter if we like the music or not you you have no feelings about it you you took the challenge of being able to create a simple line that was the fun of it you you created a simple line to make that tuning pop when that tune could pop you knew you had something you know when when we do a take and the hair on the arm would stand up I said that's the take and it was to take you know so you you you always now toward the middle part of about 64 65 at when I've been playing bass well arrangers were writing more and then people like glen campbell who i sat next to what was that wonderful player my god I mean he could play it play that guitar you know he was good on and his ears were excellent so he started asking me says how do I play this skill he couldn't read much he could read chord charts and simple part but the tougher stuff so anyway so then I didn't see him for a while and then I'm working for him because he's a star sing he started but anyway but you you had the site read but at the same time for bass players you had that had to still invent lines on top of the written lines for instance the Bernadette that was written I added a couple notes but the middle part was [Music] something like that it was written like that so I added notes like so I added the note and it and it made it cook more but you do it according to what's going on around you and yeah that there there is comradery when things started to gel we'd look at each other like yeah this is fun you know or it was one of those dates where you're you know I mean which we call the ditch digger dates it's like you you literally fall asleep plans sometimes you know but but you're you're grooving but after a while you get sold I mean irritated cuz you're losing five you losing a lot of sleep you're getting at the most five hours sleep a night for years by 66-67 we were jumping at each other's throats that means that sometimes you know so some of the some of the sarcasm started happy in what I mean in one one I mean one liners you know so somebody be swearing herself do you know so I'd swear back oh okay well she she means business you know so yeah you know I mean don't don't give me that crap you know like it so you know but it was like us against them in the booth the guys in the booth got younger and younger and younger is that it you know cuz it was really uncut Mike Curb III knew when he's about 18 years old all dressed up in a suit didn't know beans about music but we we'd gotten hits anyway we used to say that we'd get him hit in spite of themselves but they learned see they learning and so we got kind of a nice I mean camaraderie Co going with them too that they learn to trust us they have no idea that they I mean they were using some of the greatest jazz players in the world cuz we used to say don't don't tell him we play jazz you know [Music] I've never jazz Vega at the prison up up in the middle part of this I'm in Southern California and and then there's a kind of short short guy that came came up to me when I was playing some bebop jazz he says do you do record date such as though yeah i'm doing record dates now and and and so he had me come over to his house i met his mother like that and she seemed pretty nice he says well how about this kind of dance oh yeah that's nothing I do that all the time so he started hiring me to do I mean record dates on guitar first in the first data have that was a hit was that zip that he dude I'm just playing guitars ain't ain't just some chordal stuff you know then it was you've lost that lovin feeling I played played on guitar and and then it was bass after that for him with em tied with the Righteous Brothers and all that kind of stuff you know he had this wall sound going and some of the guys really liked him other guys didn't like him he he was kind of into the strength thing you'd go see a shrink and here's a typical example of somebody that very young got very rich and everything but he he was very bright he invented a lot of typing techniques and recording that bouncing things vent back and forth and Phil Spector was the first one that used earphones in the studio he's the first one to get those big I mean big baffles going there to it ghosts are seen so I mean so we'd record with him and he'd do he'd beat us down but 33 takes on one tune for three hours with the other people we could do half an album in three hours but with him he just do one one two and so I mean kids like Brian Wilson was hanging out and and I did that that date for four I mean for Tina Tina Turner on they they use ray Pullman and myself and Fender bass they had a string bass on that too so [Music] though you know suffered deep deep deep that's something like that I forget what it was you know anyway so they did a lot of date dates for him but at that time we did that the wall of sound was kind of had run its course you know and that was that and there were other two then the Beatles came out and we did a lot of copyright records on the on the Beatle even did some jazz albums with Bud shank and people like that doing Beatles tunes with jazz you know but on Fender bass Howard Roberts did his fusion type of things own so and and in 65 I could feel my hands starting to change because the plane a lot of heavy bass you know I'm doing Motown - you know stuff like that and Bernadette and so the tip thing kind of came in vogue everybody had used to pick then you know but but III became first call which is good because I could invent I was on time they they didn't have to hire three bass players that they just hired me one you know that kind of thing and I did some Nancy Sinatra things too but I mean but that's Chuck Berger offer that did and that thing on boots and I join him on the bottom so forth you know then Mission Impossible and the and the other TV shows you know and and The Supremes things you know we were just doing like March music so far as you know that kind of stuff and and so a bunch of thing and then I started doing a lot of film calls but the music had evolved it was changing it was quickly going from three tracked a four track in the studios to eight track to twelve track and then I went to sixteen track and this is all in about two or three years and it was the beachboard time Mendon and Brian Wilson the first date or two I would work for him I played I mean guitar I was still doing guitar on some of the dates and then that was base after that you know he wrote all his music but he'd bring it in and you could tell he wasn't schooled at all some of the stems were on the wrong side of the notes you know and he riding a key of C sharp and odd key of B or something like that odd keith's but he did write all this stuff like help me Rhonda kind of stuff good vibration [Music] when you plan though on on stuff like that that's that's sensitive you have to watch out what string to use on the bit on the bass you can't go say you can hear the sound difference so okay California Gurls is another one I did with Brian with the fun pivot your brain goes with the thumb I'm a teacher so I teach all this stuff your brain goes with the thumb if you're ever moving your thumb around you can't play it's just impossible so with the right technique and the right strings flat-wound strings muting and and the ideas from portal notes but playing soul and rock you're only playing some different flat 7 3 6 that's all you need that this great Charles I did something for Ray Charles that was it was written like this [Music] so I played that for a minute didn't swing so I started doing [Music] but baby see put more action in all of this is octaves on the Blues notes if you don't know those notes you can't invent those patterns you know that's why you have a lot of punk rockers that just drone on one note I mean they're I mean they're lucky to play excuse me little caddy here there's something I did for Ray Charles the only thing that he I need help with was the intro the tune was like [Music] and we wound up doing so you know so it was it had Glen Campbell on it it's kind of a country feel on it but they're very funky and and there's another one where I got on a date with Mel Torme and he was singing to this tune I didn't know the tune at all but it was with a big band big band was there and the drummer fine fine drummer Jay I mean jazz drummer but sleepy I think he's been on the road or something with Mel Torme so we're I'm playing a very simple line which is called for for the kind of tune it was it was naughty dad [Music] they do for slowing down [Music] and fill the van the guys in vans say hey Carol do something over there so here's here's what I did down here [Music] things like that you know and so the drummer woke up and so I went into the booth on the playback neighborhood they were listening to us okay now now we can do it it's that's it I said no that's a B so all the way through you you don't want to use that never see Mel Torme he's gonna not eat I'm here I'm playing balls out on the on the bass like that and they said no that's it that's the taste so I went home thinking oh I sure believe that one you know because that'll never be a hit that happened would be a big hit and it was the most money-making thing that Mel Torme ever had so sometimes you're wrong you know I come from an era where you had to be a good singer too I mean to be a I mean a good entertain look at Al Jolson how what a great singer he was now I used to go see his movies when I was a kid I go like when April showers dah dah dah dah Danny Bob either they did they didn't mind that I don't you know all that stuff and I was so excited as a kid I said yes I want to do that I want to do that I want to play music I want to sing music it was so exciting to see he could sing though today you have machines that can put your vocal in tune you don't have to be a singer you know or you can just stand up there and mouthing your okay you know so that that's not right that and and you know what I think the general public is sick of it too I hear nothing but what happened to the music these days and yet people are talking about God has turned to crap and yet it still goes on like it like no I don't know what the outcome will be but I do know that Latin American music and I preach I'm me and I predicted this Latin American songs are the most beautiful love songs in the world it began in Havana the other day you know I mean Michael Buble did did a Latin tune and put him on the top and everything and he's sing it right - but the Latin American song and I knew that Latin American music is gonna be the music and it is today it's the only music out there that makes sense that has love songs and it's exciting Sambas and all that stuff just like the entertainment stuff that you have dancing and all the nudity and all that stuff listen Lena Horne could get up and sing dressed from here down to her toes and she would move slightly very slight and the guys would get hot from that they didn't need viagra back in the 40s you know what's going on today well there's a lot of that crap going on - you know it's because men feel men feel insecure so they try to make women the objects of their fantasies and the story as far as I'm concerned sorry if it gives you joy in your life it gives you it gives you a soul as so feeling that there is there is a God somewhere that there there is something in charge to help us if we just reach in ourselves and find that beautiful soul that's in there and music helps you find it I'm sure that you know does the connection that music it I mean there's a communication that happens when you play jazz and I noticed that when I was out on jazz gigs I'd be playing and I could feel the person's joy that heard and they fed me and I fed them it was a communication type of thing back and forth I'm sure that rock Clara's get that when they play rock rock gigs - you know it's just that the music that brings people joy feeds the spirit that we we all need to be fed except we need the music now to pull out of this crap we're in a lot of crap right now and ji mean and the just like the 40's we need we need the music because I mean if the 40's hadn't happened with all that great music who who'd know how the wars would've ended you know the music kept us all together and they kept us together in the 60s - [Music] my feeling about it is that I saw the prices of CD rice I saw the Union scale gift aisle up in the clouds is like my god I mean it it was okay when we were making it we worked hard for the money but back in the sixty did day and night you know we didn't have to work that hard but we didn't want to say no to anything because it could have stopped - Union scales went up I'm sure that the that the studio scales went up everything went kind of sky-high because it was like the Golden Goose and I think the price of the CDs went sky-high and so people didn't want to spend that much for a CD and I think that they figured out a way to steal them you know and that's what happened so it did start with a bad idea of to raise prices and raise prices sky-high why do that my god you have a public out there nurse it along you don't have to overcharge them but that that's what started and piracy when it got in the school thing where you the pressure was on the students to pass and to get good good grades it no matter what you did you know cheat if you have to but get that grade so you can get in the school of your choice after that and stuff like that so I think the the morals came down so and and then that they felt like it was their right to steal me I've been fighting as piracy myself and it reduced my income in half and nf at least in half or more because I get online about six months ago and I see oh my god all my books are being downloaded one book this one here and the CD it was over thirteen thousand times and this book and the CD only sells for 18 bucks it's not it's not it's a low price but but with this one book alone I've lost thousands and thousands of dollars see so it hit me hard then I realized I mean piracy isn't just a few records it's it's killing the industry so I don't know what the answer to that is that to me is rationalizing thievery if they they would like to think that they're God's gift to to the general public and the general public then the educate the public to say this is not stealing you can have it it's not fair use that there's some some cases that a anm went to court over about it's not fair use of all free I mean fair use is if you make a cartoon about it or something you know and and and you're handling it that way when you're out and out stealing books that are copyrighted and you're not buying them what why stealing my stealing that's not you you have people saying that it's okay to do that when it's not because they think that they have a right to your stuff but I mean you might as well have a looter come in your home and steal your your furniture that you worked hard for ah I worked hard to write these books it this came from my note I sell them at a decent price and and see them stolen and then and then I I sent some message to a guy who did have a website that was down I mean downloading my stuff yeah and he put up a slanderous thing saying oh she's this and she says she's just no lady I mean she she I mean she gonna die soon anyway so what I mean that means so why is she complaining I love care okay I'm gonna practice from it this book it's you're a thief and you'll never get help from me ever I think it is a lack of regard because they're unknown and they're unseen I mean people don't know them I mean they're gonna do what they want to do but I do think if it's a lack of moral to I think that the public needs to be educated now over in Europe in Russia Denmark a lot of other countries for it for I mean for a musician of my standing they give you a house to live in you know I mean that they treat you with respect and like that I don't see that here I mean you've got the Kennedy Awards you know for four I mean for a select few but I think that this country idolizes stars so much and I think it's a self-image problem that that started in the 70s the I mean the the me first generation and I think it happened because of the Vietnam War you know pity people rightfully said I don't want to go to war I don't want to die for something that that doesn't seem you know it seemed like to me at the time that I mean that we were being invaded by communism well we've always had that threat you know but I think it started back then in the 70s and it kind of kept up it's important to raise your children to think good of themselves yeah but I think that we've I mean we've kind of gone past a point with that where people think that they're entitled to things that are not theirs I just couldn't stand the play cardboard music anymore it all sounded like crap to me and I just I just couldn't do it that's 68 I mean 69 I didn't want to work for Motown anymore and and by the way Berry Gordy's a very nice man I liked him and we kind of stayed in touch to say hello and everything it wasn't it wasn't very great there's a lot of people out to blame him for everything but he was a nice man to to us musicians it's other things that happened with multi know I didn't want to play rock and roll anymore and so I quit to go teach didn't have arthritis then that that was later so anyway so I went to teach and write my books and I was gone for about seven eight months and then I came back and I turned down all the rock dates then and so I only took what I wanted to take and I kept going with them with the movie scores and the TV shows like Michigan I'm not Mission Possible and I did mention possible in 65 - Hawaii five-o I mean kojak's straight I mean streets of San Francisco I love that one I I'm a Kirk Douglas fan I mean and the C hit his son my name Michael Douglas on the screen oh my heartbeat you know so anyway so so put playing music for those things we're fun and then all the films like Airport and Thomas Crown Affair and all those kind of great great film school you're working for the life of Quincy Jones John Williams that David Grusin all these these great great genius composers every day and you're the bass player of 70 pieces every day you know what I mean you hear that music you next to the strings that what what a thrill that was but even after a few years that I got tired and I went up to play some bebop jazz with with which you'll pass and then with Hampton hots and this time it was on bass with Hampton ours and it was wonderful we're in Columbia Records studio D the small studio where I mean where we chuck the Andy Williams things I did Andy Williams there met Mel I mean Mel Torme and it even the old sea snail hips it's you know there anyway it's a good great studio I love the studio but he had originally cut a guitar track and he was rushing and dragging we were trying to add now you had Pete jolly you had John Guerin on drums and you had that I mean dance butum ER on guitar these are and Victor Feldman the top jazz players in town on that date and here we are doing something very very dumb he turned off the lights lit the candles and there is a long hair look like he's on stage you know like like like the anyway and demonstrating how the two men with the floor show well you know we tried for hours to add ourselves to the you know temple and go up and down and I finally said listen now I'm the one that rolled out the chart courts rights right so I kind of like two charts and I said well listen you know we could really do a good hit hit for you if you let us cut a fresh track from start and then you add yourself later on so he turned around and said to me so he said well my bass player can play with me and I said and I said well I started packing up I said you better get your bass player because we can be here all night and I've got a seven o'clock fifth film call tomorrow morning and I have to go I'm sorry you know they said well you're all fired there's something like that but but what what started it beat slightly bored before yes we said well what's wrong with the track he says well it's like trying to tell him that if I mean per sprint doesn't work right you know it's like well your sense of time is going up and down you know and we just can't play with this and that's what when he said well my bass player can play with me you know so and then when he was throwing his hair around Dennis boomer was grinning and so I kind of have to grin and that's when he stopped is anyway it got off to them so we all packed up and went outside as soon as we went out the door that guy said you were great Carol you were gay nobody helped me though I'll fill them in - I mean chicken we used to kid about wouldn't it be fun if we could just mail our partying or something like that and that's what you can do these days you know you can do a hook-up and record for somebody in the UK or something there's good and bad about that first of all I'm a digital fan you know people will buy vinyls because they say the sound is better and I say no it's not I I like the I mean the digital sound and yes you can get the natural instrument sounds if you know what you're doing but a lot of these young engineers I mean they got all these sliders and they're gonna use everything they can't and they ruined the old old records they'll they'll make the trumpet sound like like like I mean kazoos and then the drums will sound like a pop I mean popular machine yeah cuz they got all this stuff they can add on it and I'm sorry that's not the sound of the big bands of the 40s and 50s and they ruin it so I'm like I'm a digital sin but I do believe that at least some of the band should play together because it's bouncing back and forth between the I mean the horns and the rhythm sections you know I mean you don't need the strings no I mean because they used to overdub the strings but you do need the rhythm section with the horns for I mean for the ideal date used to be back in the 50s that the jazz players couldn't read and know the music Hampton Haws I would take him as Stevie Wonder tune I said hey listen to this tune and he was struggle to kind of read and I'd kind of hum it and he got it from more from my humming that he couldn't read you know that that's not to say that that that you're a better jazz player if you can't read no you got a mean Duke Ellington my god look I mean look at what he did he wrote his music and look at the richness of his music I think it's important to do it all and especially if you're a bass player but I guess it's so easy to read on bass yeah I mean guitar is the toughest instrument I'd say to learn how to read on because of the different fingers but piano you've only got one choice there's only one note that sounds like that that shouldn't be that hard to learn how to read on piano you know so but it's important you know like you say to be what well-rounded to study the the jazz patterns to get your ears open so you can hear all kinds of sounds get your chordal tones together don't don't practice the no scales too much you know you know it's important to get your core music modern music functions cordially so I mean so you you need to know what what the changes are and you're not gonna find it from notes scale so you need to find it from these notes saying which is every other knows ya chords are in numbers to their of when you have a B seven flat five you better know word that fifth is because you have to flat the five you know it doesn't say be a b7 with an F in it it won't say the F it'll say flat five C so it's important to to to get your system going like that and and it's in and it's easy to learn well well only because I need to make a living from my family and then and then soothe my my family grew up then I got back into jazz more um when you look up people say oh yeah I wish I could have done all that you have done well I'm proud of the work that I did too and I'm glad that it makes people happy but that wasn't really my first choice to do what I had to do some of it yes I did enjoy I mean the Joe Cocker feeling alright not feeling too good myself that is one of my favorites memories that you know that I love to do Ray Charles hips and some of the Beach Boys things yeah yeah they were fun but in back of everything that you love to do there's about ten that that you just kind of like we're asleep on or something you just did it you know but you that that that body of work is it was a lot of work and a lot of hard things so sometimes I get angry that that I did work so hard on the basic if I want it I mean I get back to guitar and being the age I am now I'm grateful for being able to play again you know because there for a few years I couldn't play I I mean I had a damage to jaw joint that was operated on twice and then and then I could play again but a lot of years I couldn't play there so so I got mad that that I had to do a lot of record dates that I didn't like to do but but now you have to I mean you have to forget the bad in your life the people that that the crooks and all this kind of you have to forget that and move on well thank you yeah Carol this is great I'm proud of my kids though to see in spite of all the work that I did my kids were there I mean they they were excellent kids I'm lucky that way I had three three wonderful kids you know this is not my eldest daughter right here and that's a Earl Palmer that I mean that's not my my buddy mm-hmm I've never seen a photograph of her all taken he started so much in the studio's you know he when he played white rock and roll you you think he was a white guy yeah even thanks nothing right but yet play some great jazz to see you know and it was so much fun to work for it he was feisty you know he was no no no sweet-talking guy he was a tough guy you know but but he was a wonderful man to be with you know and and so and so I love his kids too and he and he he's the one that put the drumsticks in my son's hands to learn how to play and I mean and my son is still out there playing drums you know because of Earl Palmer well time he was of the old school which time was very important time was equipment priority if you didn't have time good time then you were not a musician you know it was that simple and the the people especially the giant jazz guys were I mean we're the the finest drummers in the studios and they went on to do the the film work to the the film TV show and the movie worked and because he had that time sense and he had fun I mean some great technique to any capitals drum sound he told me one time when he's playing drums that when he plays drums he he composes the notes on the drums like I mean like oh I mean like a composer writes music that that's why he thought about drums too you know so and he came up with those paradiddle that bothered you to do that you did it to do well see that that's for wrecked on bump but baby do didn't bother to did it did it done don't see that those accents are from ragtime you know and and then went on to the extent that he came up with those pair of deals and so I'd do that on the bass - like for instance - slicked I play sometimes same there it is or the the I mean the line that I played on the last train to Clarksville something I did something like that see that that's that accented thing and so he started that too so I anything but Bobby Darin that that's Earl Palmer or miss impossible of course he's on that a lot of the Ray Charles hits and the I mean and the Henry Mancini stuff that's that's all probably greater a promise I've learned as I went see my but my teacher was a graduate Kakuma lot of the finest school in in America and it was the Eastman School of Music he got into the twelve-tone stuff was I mean he even learn I mean learned from Schillinger himself you know so and then it was out of a real play I mean playing guitar with the with some big bands and and some stage shows and like that in the 30s then he went to the World War two and they came back and he started teaching what one of his prized students with Howard Roberts one of the greatest jazz guitarists in the world you know and we all know about Howard George Benson loved Howard Roberts he idolized him first thing George asked me says tell me about Howard Roberts he wanted him to about Howard see okay I mean Kevin Eubanks like what liked Howard Roberts so he said you have no idea how much he influenced yeah I mean guitar players back east there you know that there's a divide between East Coast and West Coast but when I played played bebop out here with what the groups out here I I've met and played with a lot of those sax players from Becky's they were coming out here Hampton Hawes was like the king of the pianos earlier had he been that back east he'd have been world I mean famous but he's the one that got these substitute chords going like you are instead of doing anyway buh-buh-buh-buh-buh buhbuh day so he started a whole new bag about substitute cards and so you learn you can play the study say da vida dude so forth you know so he started that he was Miles Davis's favorite piano player yeah I was tough and they knew I was tough because hey you know when you come from where I come from and you grow up tough you know you have to go to work you have to take care of your family you have to go play play play bebop jazz you know but I was welcomed down in the south part of Los Angeles they have some beautiful nightclubs down there where jazz was the King C in the 50s and sure it was a little bit rough at times but not like it is now my cat people dressed to the nines to go hear jazz and and they were wonderful I felt safer down in South LA that then I did in my apartment in North under I mean North Hollywood you know so that that's how wonderful that it was to go down there not not today of course there's a lot of drugs and stuff down there listen you had a ton of great West Coast musicians they were not cool West Coast they were hot Joe main II was playing Hampton hast I'm talking about black and white working together in the 50s and loving it we lived in separate areas yeah but but whites were welcomed down down there and it got to be that that that that black folks for what I mean we're welcome up in Hollywood too so there was a a brotherhood between the whites of life and that that carried over into the studio work to see because it was black and white and you don't even think about black and white when the riots happen I thought oh that's right Earl's black he has to go home that way I go home I had to think for a minute you know I you forget about all that stuff when you're playing music together especially in jazz you know but it was a happy time no one made much money yeah you couldn't raise a family on jazz you had to have your wife work in my case I had to get a day job so I work double duty I think that people who are witnessing the events of today we're paying for the garbage that that that we don't picked up you know we're paying for a lot of stuff we're paying for a lot of more I mean more I mean lack of morals and we need to retrench a little bit to get to get our moral centers that when I was poor and I was hungry I was in a store and walking by grapes now I could have reached over and gotten a grape but I knew that that would be stealing you know I I knew as a kid that I could go out eventually and work and get the money to buy the grapes see he is really for the mutant I mean was really for the music Bobby Darin was too I mean Bobby Darin could could play drums too you know he loved her Brown long Cadillac yeah old Cadillac visa yeah good man I laugh about Earl you know you know because Earl was a charming guide the women just loved him see so he he had a he had a speaker with a sigh I'm the only woman you've never had or I had the teasing with that very strong man very strong and you see where he grew up but I'm I mean he's from New Orleans you know and he grew up there and and he's a man's man you know he was a good person really good good father he loved his kids and he was good to his wives too you know he married a few times but you know he just he just wanted to love you know he was a good man [Music] music is it is the thing that that enriches us all you know it's not just the person you know and I think it goes back to that me first thing in the 70s I think that we're just all a little selfish it into her own own little thing and it takes tragedies like the Gulf spill or not I mean 9/11 and make us all realize hey we're in this all together we're on this whole world together if this world doesn't make it we're gone we're history you know so it's important to to to to get out of your shell and get around other people and enjoy music [Music] there's a tune that I composed one time I was to cut an album with Hampton Hawes and and I had a so I did [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: The Snapshots Foundation

Views: 1,982,593

Keywords: Carol Kaye, Session Legend, Bass, Studio Bass

Id: q4JWqK6r6N4

Length: 70min 36sec (4236 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 13 2013