JW: Africa. I will never forget the trip to Africa with
Clark Terry. CT: Oh, I shall always remember that too. It was marvelous. JW: One experience I must talk to you about,
because to me it was thrilling and the dichotomy of it just killed me. The Africans decided in Lagos, after we did
our concert, that they were going to entertain us with the African orchestra there. CT: At the Greener? JW: Right. In Lagos. No it wasn't the Greener. No they were just going to entertain us. They were going to play for us, the Africans. CT: Oh, I see, oh yeah. JW: And who was the kid that you had out of
Westwood, on drums? CT: His name was Adams. JW: Adams, yeah. Here we were in Africa and I was in charge,
and I went up to the microphone and asked if Mr. Adams would come up and please play
with the Africans. Only in Africa. They couldn't find their drummer. CT: This was a Caucasian drummer we had. JW: You had a what? CT: No, the drummer we had, David Adams, was
a Caucasian drummer. He was the only Caucasian in the whole group. He had a drumset. This is funny. JW: Yeah, and the Africans were going to entertain
us but they couldn't find a drummer. So they wanted to know if they could borrow
ours. So here we were in Africa and they were entertaining
us, only they had a white drummer who was very, very happy. And the man there who was the ambassador I
think he was to Lagos, right? And we did the television thing. He asked if he could sit in. Playing trumpet. CT: But the title of that was "He's not our
regular drummer." JW: When we got there, that was the cutest
thing in the world. We were taken to a Holiday Inn as I remember,
and everybody got jugs of water, Evian water. And we went upstairs and turned on the tap,
and would you like to tell them what happened? For the next day or so? CT: Yeah, it was a situation where one time
during 24 hours, one period, for about maybe an hour or an hour and a half, they'd turn
on the water. And you had to wait by that time, to make
sure that you brushed your teeth, shaved, took a bath, flushed the toilet, and do everything
all in this short period of time. Because once that stopped, you're off until
the next 24 hours when it comes back again. A drink of water, brush your teeth, whatever,
it didn't matter. And there was no water whatsoever until that
one period rolled around again. And that was kind of a trying situation, wasn't
it? But we managed, didn't we? JW: Yeah. We survived it. In fact I mean your great sense of humor came
in very handy. Because he was writing, and he wrote to his
family. CT: They used it officially too, you know? JW: I know that. I noticed that they did. In the journal that he was writing he wrote
his family and said "just call me Chief Funky Butt." CT: What else? JW: In music, people don't know it all the
time, but if you hear [scats] - CT: "Buddy Bolden." JW: Yeah, yeah, yeah [sings] "Funky Butt,
Funky Butt, take it away." CT: Yeah. Happy times. JW: I remember you playing in St. Louis years
ago. CT: Ah, I'll never forget it. JW: And, what's that club? CT: Club Plantation. JW: Club Plantation. With Hudson's band, wasn't it? CT: Yeah. JW: George Hudson. CT: You came through there with Joe Wilson's
band I think. JW: I came through with Joe Wilson. With Ella Fitzgerald. CT: We used to play softball in the park every
morning. We'd get off at like four or five o'clock
in the morning - JW: I wasn't in shape. CT: Yeah, you were in shape. You were hitting home runs until you -
JW: Pulled a muscle. CT: - made a mistake at the plate, and relatively
speaking about the size that we are now, he was about that much more bigger than me. JW: I wasn't that much bigger. CT: I mean we were both smaller, but you were
heavier than I was. I was about 130, 125. JW: You were?
CT: Yeah. JW: I didn't realize you were that small. CT: I was thin enough to ride a rooster. And, I don't know is that the story you were
about to tell? When you swung at the plate and swung the
ball at the plate and missed. JW: And crumpled up at the plate. CT: And I picked him up and carried him. JW: In his arms. And carried me to his car. CT: I thought about that Father Flanagan thing. JW: Yeah. He ain't my brother - no, he ain't my brother,
he's just heavy. Yeah, and then took me to call the doctor,
and the doctor came and taped me up and I went on back to work that afternoon. I mean no, I went back to work that night. CT: Yeah. We've been brothers ever since. But we were tight long before that even. JW: Oh, yeah. I was thinking about, long before then I came
through there with, let's see in '43 I came through the first time, with Lionel Hampton. And then you, they was telling us about this
trumpet player who played lead and also was the best soloist they had, which, you were
doing it all about that time. CT: Oh, with George Hudson's band? JW: Yeah. CT: Oh, yes. JW: Yeah. You were doing the whole thing. I sat back stage. You didn't know I was back there in the kitchen. They didn't allow us out front. CT: That's right. If you were back there, you had to be in the
kitchen. JW: I wanted to hear the band. CT: You came up the stairs in the back. [off camera direction]
JW: You mean you don't want me to look hip? I had it up on purpose. That's the look. I'll tell you what, you know why white guys
play golf? So they can dress like black guys. Yeah. This is it. Can you see it? Is it cool now? L'il Lord Fauntleroy. CT: Yeah. You can never be too hip. Two hips are very uncomfortable. [sings]
[Clark Terry and Joe Williams sing a line] JW: What am I to do? CT: What am I to you? JW: Jack Sheldon has that out now. CT: Really? JW: Yeah. What a good arrangement. You know he's got an excellent concept. I was thinking about even before then, and
also you were in the Navy during the war. CT: Yeah. '42-'45. JW: A great Navy band. CT: Yeah, it sure was a good band. JW: Did you go to Great Lakes at all? CT: Yeah, that's where we were all the while. Period. JW: Well you were up there with Gerald Wilson. CT: Gerald Wilson, Willie Smith, Flocks McConnell,
Big George Matthews, Joe Bardussen, Ernie Wilkins, Jimmy Wilkins, Jimmy Kennedy, the
whole smear, man. Paul Campbell, super human. We had quite a motley crew there. JW: But it was a great band, because you came
through Chicago and played at the Grant Park. I saw you there. CT: Yeah, we used to do a lot of things in
Chicago. JW: And you broadcast from the Great Lakes
and had the greatest football team in the world. CT: Yeah. With Buddy Young and Motley. JW: Marion Motley and Paul Brown was the coach. That was the first I heard of him. I didn't hear of him while he was at Maslyn,
Ohio. But I heard of him when he was coaching up
there. CT: We also had great baseball, because we
had Screwball Rollin and Robin, the pitcher? JW: Roberts. CT: Robin Roberts, yeah. JW: Well that was before Robinson so I knew
then, I knew more about the Negro leagues, and I followed them very closely because of
the Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago Defender and the black publications that I read voraciously,
as I read the white publications as well. And the Cubs were perennial losers. And the White Sox was just as bad over there
as the Yankees. CT: That's when they had Oreste Minoso, wasn't
it? JW: No, I'm talking about before that. I'm talking about during the war now. It wasn't until 1946 that Jackie Robinson
became a Dodger and they began to draft fellows from the Negro leagues. CT: Well you know that's when we had two Navys,
you know, we had the white Navy and the black Navy. Remember that? JW: No I don't. CT: Well our camp was Camp Robert Smalls,
and all of the black enlisted men in the Naval services were relegated to this camp. And there were six other camps, Caucasian
camps you know, so we were all there in our little space you know, in our little camp,
Camp Robert Smalls, and we had a commander who was a banjo player, who was the most notorious
banjo players of that era, by the name of Eddie Peabody. JW: Commander Peabody. CT: Commander Peabody. Now he -
JW: He could play. CT: Oh, yeah, he could play, but he was still
sort of in development in those days. And he had the grand idea that since he was
there surrounded by all these black musicians that it would be a good idea to start a minstrel. So he wanted us to -
JW: He was going to start a minstrel? CT: Yeah. And we rebelled, almost to the point where
we were going to be charged with treason. JW: Treason - or mutiny. CT: Or mutiny or whatever. He wanted us to do all this you know, with
the white gloves and the big bow tie. JW: And the black face. CT: Yeah. And we refused to do that. JW: Eddie Cantor and the guys were still doing
jokes and that kind of thing. CT: It was funny though. We had one commander who literally hated black
people. He came through the barracks every night to
make sure that everything was in order. Anything that was out of order was referred
to as a "holiday." If there was a speck on the window he'd say,
"get that holiday off of there." If there was dust on the floor, that's a holiday. If your boots weren't laced right, it was
a holiday. So he'd come through looking for holidays. And any little thing that would go wrong,
in the middle of the night, they'd say, "all right hit the deck." Everybody would have to get up, go out on
the grid iron, and march you know. So one time he was an ex-pug, you know. And he was so into what he was doing, and
he hated black people so much, he made the mistake of choosing one of the guys that picked
him out, he said "you" it was a big dude, and so he thought he could just kick him around. So he just realized that this guy was one
of Joe Louis' sparring partners. So he said, "you! You think you're tough, come on over here. Put the gloves on here." He put the gloves on and he started, and he
gets it, and the whole barracks was [cheers], we poured water on him. JW: How we won the war. CT: The Battle of Great Lakes. Sometimes he would make us go out in the middle
of the night to march just for the heck of it because it was his way of getting back
at us. And we had figured up a little way to escape. Because we would walk to the end of the grid
iron and there was a little hole we cut in the fence, so every trip around, one or two
would disappear and go up to Waukegan. JW: Oh, my God. CT: And have a great time. But by the time he was finished marching us
around he'd end up with maybe 16 troops or 18, you know, out of the whole barracks. JW: I think you should write that story sometime,
man. I mean - Daddy what did you do in the war,
you understand? Yeah I fought prejudice. CT: Fought the Battle of the Great Lakes. JW: But I'll tell you something, I've got
a story for you though. It's funny how experiences and things that
you do come to you. I was working at a place called The Silhouette,
which was on Howard Street, with the northern boundary between Evanston and Chicago, Illinois. The Silhouette, all the Naval officers from
Glenview Naval Air Station used to come in there all the time. And occasionally some merchant seamen would
come in. But the Glenview kids, they were in all the
time. And there was one young redhead Irishman,
he used to sit there at the bar and his head would be down like this, and he'd listen to
what we were doing. It was with Adam Lambert and the Six Brown
Dots as I remember, or Five Brown Dots or something. And we'd finish and he'd take his drink and
have a drink maybe, look up, nod his head. That's all he'd do. He never was demonstrative or anything. Some of the guys during the break would go
back over the dance floor, and they would practice diving. They would, you know, dive in the air and
crash on their stomachs or however they wanted to land, you know. But he wasn't very demonstrative at all. He was very cool. So one day I walked in the club, one night
rather I walked in the club after I'd been out to get a bite to eat. And I heard this noise behind me and I turned
and I looked and there was a guy on the floor. And there was another one there. And he hit this one too and floored him. And I dropped my coat on the floor, and nobody
had bothered me so I couldn't hit anybody you know. I was over there practically by myself, that
far north. And so I found out later what had happened. These two young men are from Mississippi,
and when I walked in one of them said, "what is that Nigerian doing in this white man's
place?" You know. Of course they didn't have enough education
to know how to say the word "Nigerian." And it all looks the same to them. "Ni-garr, Nee-garr" and all of that, you know. And he said, "what's he doing in this place?" And this kid, who I found out later on was
a middleweight boxing champion as well as a Naval flyer, he got up and floored both
of them and sat down, and the next thing I knew somebody came and drugged them out, and
I said okay, all right. So I mean all of them didn't hate us. We had the respect of quite a few as well
along the way. Young men. CT: You know, Joe, I think that some of the
people who will be looking and listening to this wouldn't believe some of the stories
that we could tell them about the bigotry and things that we have had to endure in our
lifetimes in traveling in the south. And I'm not so sure it was a good idea to
bring it up or not. What do you think? JW: I don't know about, as long as it's natural. I think of the positive things that happened. There were negatives of course. I have been attacked. The night Joe Louis beat Max Baer in Chicago
I was attacked by four or five white guys with baseball bats and you know. But they didn't run very well. I ran until I could only hear one set of footsteps
behind me, and I turned and looked. So I slowed down a little. Nobody ever caught me. But that's one thing. But it never changed the way I am. CT: There you go, absolutely. JW: Because three years later at least, I
was singing on 47th Street at the Warwick Hall with Johnny Long's Orchestra. And when I came out, and it was about five
in the afternoon in the summer, and some white kid was riding a bike on 47th Street, and
about four or five black guys smashed him off his bicycle, and went and took the bike
and rode off. And the rest of them were beating him up on
the ground, you know. And I walked across the street and I stopped
it. I said, "hey, leave him alone. Get up, kid, come on." And he walked on, bloody, he walked on down
the street. But he turned to look to see who it was that
- CT: That saved him. JW: Yeah. You got his bike, what do you want? You got the bike, right? What do you want now? And that was on 47th Street between St. Lawrence
and Vincennes. It never changed me, the fact that I was attacked
by a group of other guys that didn't know what the hell. CT: It never made you reach the point where
you hated people, hated Caucasians, because hate is too important an emotion, right? JW: And not only that, really, I was just
thinking this morning, I've got to go do something, I've got to go down to the 700 Club to do
a thing. And I was thinking of the many things I've
read that made me the way I am. For instance there was a book, I think it
was called This is My Brother, but I'm not sure, and on the first page of that book was
- because hate is legislated, written into the primer in the Testament. Shot into our blood like vaccine or vitamins. You know? Because our days of time, and it goes on to
say, because our days of time and black timeless sucks us in without a prayer or with one long
last look. You see I need love more than ever now. I need your love because your face, or your
lips are warm, or something like that, and God is made for the eyes like yours. I need your love more than ever now. You know, that kind of thing. Love has always been the key. It was the key when I was a kid, when I was
a kid going to school, going to church, and the minister said "God is Love." CT: Yeah, that's true. JW: God is Love. Yeah. Okay. Now you can understand all these miracles
that come about because of love, man. The miracle of life itself, you know? CT: But even before you figure that out, Joe,
there was something - JW: And we're supposed to be in His image. CT: Yeah, that's true. There was something within you that motivated
you to not succumb to the principles or tactics that make you hate people. I'll give you a similar - relate a similar
incident. I'm traveling in the south, in Meridian, Mississippi,
and I was with a carnival act, Reuben and Jerry Carnivals. So we went in the deep south for winter quarters. And while playing this show during the week,
they always hired somebody in the city as a hired hand to keep law and order on the
midway. And the black show was always at the end of
the midway. So this cat comes through, now this was closing
night, and we are getting ready to go pack up the crew, pack up all of the equipment
and the crew puts things together, we get on the train and we have our own train and
we went on to the next place. So I'm waiting for the drummer, Marvin Wright,
who was a good buddy of mine, to pack up his drums, and while waiting for the drummer to
pack up his drums, he had met a lady during the week, and she was of fair complexion,
and you know what the situation down there with the -
JW: Almost white you mean. CT: That's right. So I'm standing there with Marvin's lady friend,
waiting on Marvin to unpack his stuff because the Mills Blue Rhythm Band was playing in
town that night, so we're going to that. Well here comes this little cat, and I'm standing
there. He said, "what are you doin' standing out
here after the lights is out, Nigerian?" So I said, "well I'm waiting on the drummer,
actually." "You with this here show, boy?" I said, "yes, I am." He said, "what'd you say?" I said, "yes, I am." He said, "do you realize what you said?" I said, "well you're asking me a question,
and I answered it," probably, I thought. He said, "did you realize that you said 'yes'
to a white man?" And that's all I remember. I have a blackjack at home right now, to remind
me of this - one of those lead things, covered. JW: He hit you? CT: Did he hit me. Right here man. Bamm. And my head got so big, I don't know what
happened after that except what I was told by the train crew. Now this is an example, I could have, that
could have motivated me to hate Caucasians the rest of my life, but it didn't. JW: He could have killed you. CT: But what happened, he left me laying in
a puddle of mud and the work crew was all Caucasian. They picked me up, took me back to the show
trains, and by the time they got back this dude comes back with about 20 people with
axes and sledge hammers and chains and saws and picks and shovels and everything. Said, "where is that Nigerian we left laying
down there in that mud?" And the Caucasian said to him, "oh he was
some smart aleck, we just kicked him in the pants and sent him up that way." So they ran up that way looking for me where
in reality I was back here in the show train. So that's one hand washing the other. And this is long before I realized the importance
of love and was motivated by love after that, but this was something within me that helped
me to balance out decency and right from wrong. JW: There's good guys and then there's other
people who care. Most definitely. CT: We're talking about [inaudible]
JW: You know we've had a lot of that stuff happen. But it never, it does affect the music in
one way - CT: Makes you keep on keepin' on. JW: Yeah, but if you are doing a sad song,
a sad thing, I think it puts another feeling into what you're doing. CT: Absolutely. JW: When you realize that they- for no reason
- CT: Do you know this is a very, very important
ingredient in the perpetuation of the craft of jazz, and this I got from, you just reiterated
the same thing, that people have said, like Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Budd Johnson,
Buddy Tate, they all knew the lyrics to every tune that they played. And they said that if you -
JW: Right. Lester Young. CT: That's right. If you know the lyrics to the tune, you can
express it in a much more meaningful manner then if you don't know the lyrics. For instance, here's a kid going to play "I
Love You" well you says [sings] you wouldn't say to a girl [angrily] I Love Ya. You think she's going to believe that crap? She ain't going for that. But she'll sit there like, [sweetly sings]
"I Love You" it might get across. It's very, very important. JW: I think Roy Hargrove, ah, he thrills me. He's one of the young people coming along. I was at the IJEA, the jazz educators you
know, and he played [scats] "The End of a Love Affair," and he got to the line like
[scats] "and the songs that I request/are not always the best/but the ones where the
trumpets blare" and it was so soft and pretty like -
CT: He was singing the lyrics. JW: I looked at Jon Hendricks, and I looked
at the Judge [Milt Hinton], the Judge was there, and we all, the three of us we were
honored that year. I said, "where do these young people get this
kind of concept? Wait a minute. Hold it." You know? It brings tears to your eyes and gives you
goose bumps. CT: Well you know he's a very special kid
to me because my wife Gwen knows his mother very well. And she headed up a program called STAR, Students
Targeting Adult Responsibility. And they were basically responsible for his
education. They've gotten funds from different sources,
now even I kicked in a few bucks, and sent him to Berklee, you know? And he's still at Berklee, so he came up the
hard way, and he came up the soulful way. JW: Didn't he? Because it shows. Johnny Pate, whom you know of course, from
Chicago, Johnny lives in Las Vegas and he has a radio show on the UNLV station. And he plays Johnny Griffin's thing with Roy
Hargrove, often. And I'm so thrilled that he's getting some
airplay and some attention, because for a while there, I thought that Wynton was the
only trumpet player. CT: Well there's several of them out there. JW: I know. CT: Nicholas Payton, that's my favorite. JW: Yeah? CT: Yeah. JW: There's always been several people somewhere
who could blow. And they'd rave about everybody else and there
you were in St. Louis you could blow, you know. As soon as the Duke got you out there, expected
you out front, said, "get 'em." But the first person that Duke Ellington said,
beyond category, and I have Duke saying this on tape, he was on a radio broadcast and he
said, "oh Clark Terry, oh yes, Clark Terry, Clark, yeah, well Clark can play everything
from way out bop, bebop to Dixieland. He can play everything and in between there,
and I just call him a man beyond category." CT: Yeah, I remember when he used to do that,
yeah. JW: You were the one that he started that
with. CT: Yeah, that's a great subject there. We could talk forever on that one. I like to borrow one of his favorite phrases,
which happens to be one of mine. He was always very quick to let you know how
he evaluated a situation, and he would always say, "well you know me, I'm the most easy
person in the world to please. I'm very easy to please, just give me the
best." I love that one. JW: And the other one I love of his, is, "I'm
not going to let you or anybody else make me lose my pretty ways. I will stay constant. Straight ahead." CT: Yeah, he was always very, very pleasing
when ladies saw him come around. The ladies were always happy to see him because
he would always make a lady feel great, man. He would always walk up and say, "hello, whose
pretty little girl are you?" Or if he saw her the second time, "gosh you're
prettier today than you were yesterday." JW: My wife and I took a friend to see him,
her best friend. And he pulled this on me, you'll love it. The girls were sitting together and I was
sitting on the aisle. Well Paul Gonzalves was playing, he was what
they call a strolling violin. He's got his horn, he's going down now, and
he's playing "Laura" on his horn. And so he gets to me and he sees me and he
goes - he's blowing and everything, and he gets back on the stage and he leans over and
he whispers, and you've got to know Paul and Duke Ellington. So he leans over to Duke and [whispers]. And Duke says, "ah, yes, yes, yes, yes. What was that you said?" Now Paul's going to get exasperated with Duke. That in itself is the situation that you're
looking at, if you know what you're looking at, he is going to get exasperated with Duke. So he whispers, "Joe Williams?" "Ah, yes, yes, yes, uh huh. Joe Williams? You mean our Joe Williams? Of Count Basie fame? You mean he's lending his aura to us tonight? Where? Not really?" CT: All the while he's doing the strolling
violin bit? JW: No he's through playing now, and they're
supposed to get on to the next number. And this is while they're trying to get to
the next number. So Duke is stalling him, playing him like
a violin, really. Then, I mean he had a topper for it. And so then finally Duke looked and he says,
"where?" He says, "out there in the audience." He says, "ah, yes! You mean the fellow sitting out there with
Jill?" I fell in the aisle man. I laughed, man. And her best friend Bitsy says, "if you think
this isn't going to get back to England, you're sadly mistaken." Oh I love it. So now we go upstairs and he's got this room,
you've got to see this bedroom. A canopy with a pink chiffon overhead and
a mirror over the bed and like that. And he comes out and he gets Bitsy by the
hand and he's holding her hand you know. He says "my dear, did they tell you why they
brought you here tonight?" And sit there and held hands with her on that
couch you know, for the entire time that we were there. CT: He was something else. JW: And they talked and everything, turned
that charm back on you know. He was a monster boy. CT: He used to have another saying that I
crack up every time I think about it. He used to say to us that invariably all the
weird and weirdest characters would seek him out, would always come, so you'd see strange
people coming around the bandstand, coming up saying "hi there, which one of 'em is Dukey
Wellington?" And, "what's the piano player's name?" You know they would always seek him out, so
he would always say, "they come from miles around and they seek me out." And every time one of those situations was
about to happen, he'd hit a little of this [scats] and say, "miles around." And we'd look up and there's a weird cat making
his way to the bandstand. "Dukey Wellington." JW: Basie had his little thing too. CT: Oh, yeah. JW: Beep beep! Oh, Lord, they had their signals together,
didn't they? CT: Yeah, between those two beautiful people,
we could write books and talk for ages. I have to tell you my favorite Basie story,
and I've told this many times, but when we were with the small group after he broke up
the big band - JW: Yeah, yeah. CT: Yeah, you know, what am I telling you? Well we're playing Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania,
and this was during a period when we were not allowed to stay in the big hotel, we were
relegated to the homes of Miss Brown, Miss Jones, Miss Green and so forth. JW: Oh, those were the good old days. "Have you had your breakfast?" "No, M'am." CT: So we were in Miss Green's or Brown's
or somebody's home, and she said "well I've got one room left and I've got two beds in
it, and one is a big bed and one is a little bed, and I can take two of 'em." So he says, so Basie and I are the only two
left. So I'm going there with Basie, and the big
bed is in the middle of the room, a huge bed and he's got that. And my bed is a little slab up against the
wall you know? So I said okay, it's beautiful. At least it's some place to sleep other than
the basement of the police station. So here we are, now Basie can't get to sleep
with the light out. JW: I know, yeah. CT: He had to have that light on. And he had to read his comic book every night
and he'd laugh, ah, ha, ha, ho, ha, ha. And so I said, well I couldn't go to sleep
with the light on. So I said well I know what I'll do, I'll just
play possum and wait until I hear the comic book hit his belly. Then I'll know he's asleep. Well I should preface this by saying that
it's always customary for people when they go to bed, they do, we all do, empty our pockets
on the dresser, you know, and undress and put the pajamas on and go to sleep. So I had put all my things there and Basie
put all his things on the dresser. We didn't have that far, just the little table
top that we put our stuff on. So the light is right by this little table
top, and so I had to get up and go over, and when I heard the book go "plop" on his belly,
I eased over to the light and grabbed the chain and pulled the chain. Now the minute I pulled the chain, before
I released it, he starts turning in the bed saying, "put it back." I was never sure whether he said put the lights
back or whether he [inaudible]. JW: Oh Lord. "Put it back." CT: "Put it back." JW: Roommates. Sonny Payne, when I joined the Basie band,
because I had a lot of roommates. I had Snooky Young while we were in St. Louis. Snooky and I were roommates and we shared
a bathroom with Melba Liston, who had the next, she had like the adjoining door and
the bathroom on her side and on our side. CT: Like the Southway in Chicago. JW: Oh, God, the Southway in Chicago. I mean when the Southway was really the Southway,
it was all white. CT: Oh yeah? JW: Oh, yeah. CT: The Southway Hotel? JW: Sure. In fact everything -
CT: 60th and South Parkway? JW: Oh yeah, it was all white. CT: I didn't know that. JW: You know they didn't build that for us. CT: No, but I didn't think that came into
existence - JW: No, we get hand me down... do you think
that the Braddock in New York - no, we'd never have - the black man didn't build no - if
they did, they did it in Chicago like Ford built Roberts. But the rest of what we had was hand-me-downs,
you know like the white folks moved out - CT: Yeah, that's true. JW: And we moved in, you know? All of that. CT: Urban renewal or Nigerian removal. JW: Or whatever. Yeah, whatever, you know. But we had nice places though. We had very nice places and they kept them
very nice. Because in its time I remember South Park
was Grand Boulevard, and it was beautiful. CT: That's where the Grand Terrace was. That's why they call it Grand. JW: The Grand Terrace was on Grand Boulevard,
between 39th, not 39th, Oakwood Boulevard and 40th Street. CT: Yeah, which is where the DeSalvo was. Oakwood. JW: That was down -
CT: Toward the lake. JW: Toward the lake, yeah. That was heavy. But even those, and the Pershing, all those
were white hotels. And so anyway, you were talking about the
Southway, that was, I lived at 61st and Indiana in the new apartment block, and we had white
janitors and what have you, because no blacks were in the Superintendent's Union, you see. But the Southway Hotel, oh, none of that was
- it was really south, deep south. And the school I attended, Sexton, which was
between 61st and 60th Street on Champaign on one side and Langley on the other, and
I graduated from Sexton. I tell you I think it was Austin Otis Sexton,
A.O. Sexton, that's right, Austin Otis Sexton Grammar
School. And when I went to that school, I think I
was the only bro' that was there. The only black cat that was in that then. Later on I was getting, of course, in some
neighborhood change, and finally Lurlean Hunter wound living across the street from the school. CT: Lurlean was my cousin you know. JW: Yeah, I know. Lurlean lived across the street from me at
6153 Indiana. She lived across the street in the building
the [inaudible] is on, and she lived upstairs with her mother, and I forget, I was ten years
old or something like that, but I chased her in the house one day, upstairs. Because we called her String Bean. CT: Yeah, she was skinny. JW: So we get in there and her mother is in
there and she says, "hi, darlin', what'd you want?" And she says this to Lurlean. She says, "what are you going to do to Lurlean?" I said, "I'm going to hit her." And she says, "oh, baby, don't" and she put
her arms around me. "Don't ever go to somebody's home and frighten
them like this." I said, "no, Ma'am?" She said, "no." I said, "okay." And I said, "Lurlean, see you outside." Silly. CT: That was her big downfall. She was such a mama's girl, she couldn't leave
mama. She was a great little singer. Most people will remember her will remember
back to the Campbell's Soup commercial, "mmmm good, mmmm good, that's what Campbell's Soups
are, mmmm good." Remember that? JW: You know it took me a long time to figure
out who ... she sounded like an extension of Ivie Anderson, you know, really, a real
extension, because she was smooth. We sang with Johnny Long's band together you
know. CT: Did you? JW: Yeah. We did the dancing, we'd dance in between
numbers when we weren't singing, we'd dance together. CT: I thought you were going to say Les Hite. She used to sing. JW: No. I worked with Les, but she wasn't with him. He had let's see what is it, Bobbie somebody
was playing piano with him, a girl, a black girl named Bobbie something. And I've forgotten the girl singer he had,
but when he came to Chicago, he had T-Bone Walker with him at the Regal Theater I remember,
but I worked with him up in a place in Delavan, Wisconsin called Lake Vaughan during the summer
one summer he was up there. I was the head waiter, I was a waiter up there
at night, and in the daytime I was the porter, and I was cleaning up. I was going through a bad time with a love
affair. CT: L'il Mama. JW: No, no. This was my first lady, my first love man. She was putting me through it and I was going
for it. So I was working two jobs, saving money. I learned a lot, oooh, the lessons I learned
from that man. You know like my parents, they laid it on
me during that period because I had two or three hundred dollars, this was 1940. And I had two or three hundred dollars of
my own, so I gave the money to them, "here, hold this money for me." And they told me, keep my own money. CT: It's a good lesson. JW: Go ahead. CT: When you mentioned that Lurlean sounded
a little bit like Ivie Anderson, it made me think Duke Ellington always said that his
idea of the perfect singer was one who sounded like Ivie Anderson and looked like Lena Horne. JW: Yeah. But he dressed his ladies for us. God, those shear sheaths they used to wear,
with no decoration at all, not even pearls. There was nothing. And it reminds me what his father, I understand
used to say, "my, you sure make that dress look pretty." That kind of thing. His daddy was slick too. He knew what to say. But that was Duke Ellington. Of course we could talk for a year. CT: Oh, what a marvelous person he was. I learned so much from him, I'm sure you did
too, we all did. Just in the process of osmosis, being around
him there's so many things that just rubbed off on you that you wouldn't even have been
aware of at that particular time until you needed the situation, and you'd say, what
would maestro have done in this case, bing, it comes in just like a tape. JW: I had him, I had Andy Kirk as well. CT: Oh, Andy, yes. JW: And I'm talking about smooth as silk. I heard Andy say, "well, I don't think I need
pot, you know." I said, "I think I like this cat man, I don't
think I need pot," because about that time there was a joint party every day. You know, every day. And just like that, he did the same thing
with tobacco, though. Yeah, one day I said well I think I've had
this. I finished this pipe, put the pipe in the
ashtray and I haven't had any tobacco since either. One of these days I'm going to do that with
girls. MW: I'd like to ask you a couple of questions. You've been saying some things for particularly
for the students in my class I think is absolutely marvelous, incredible, because you talk about
experiences not once have I heard you mention anything that's got to do with music theory. CT: Music and theory. MW: It seems like the music comes from some
place much deeper than that. Then it eventually will involve your note
choices. CT: You've got to remember, Mike, excuse me
for interjecting this, but you have to remember that years before people who came into this
field, years before they knew anything about theory or harmony, composition, counterpoint,
etc., they gave in to their feelings. And they were indulging in, for lack of a
better term they called it "get off." This is long before the term "improvisation"
was coined, you know before it was in the dictionary, pertaining to playing music you
know. They used to call it "get off," which simply
meant that the first chorus you played a melody, and thereafter you'd use the melody as a guidewire
to simply superimpose extemporaneously a melody around this given melody. So that's what it became "get off," so you
"get off" the melody. Even then the guys were giving vent to their
feelings and expressing themselves and they would use certain things that would help them
get from point A to point B. First of all the one thing that we teach our students today,
and I'm sure you do too, regardless of how much theory or harmony or counterpoint or
composition will get in their brain, they've got to know when to use it. They've got to listen for when to use it. Or how to use it. But there's a zillion educated fools walking
around the street today. Heads loaded with something they don't know
how to use it, don't know where to use it or when to use it. So this is a lesson that we try real hard
to get our students to understand. Back in those days, they didn't know anything
as you mention about these technical terms. They had nobody around to teach it. But they were determined to give in to their
feelings and express themselves, and "get off." So what'd they do? They played the blues as the main vehicle,
they played the blues, and they played the standard tunes, and then superimposed melody
around it. But on the blues they figured out a good way
to give vent to their feelings is that somebody had to change the melody, even without knowledge,
to figure out, there's the tonic, that's the one; then you go up the scale, one two three,
that's the third, they'd lower that a half-step, that's the minor third; you go up one, two,
three, four, five, lower that, so you've got a tonic, a minor third, a flatted fifth, and
they didn't know then that it constituted a half diminished. They couldn't care less, you know. All they knew is they called them the "blue
notes." "Man you've got your blue notes?" "Yeah, baby I've got 'em down, I'm working
on F sharp now, but I'm going to have that tomorrow." But they looked at them as the blue notes. And right today, you take a class, and you
take your rhythm section or your just play the bass along and tell them to play one note. [scats] Any kind of rhythmic pattern they
want. Then the next, you tell them to take the two
notes, the tonic and the minor third [scats], then the next time, take the flatted fifth
and the minor third [scats]. Now you can't pick out more beautiful and
important notes in playing the blues than those three. Then you go into your seventh. And pretty soon they reach the point where
it's almost - we use this for discipline, too. That's all. Just that one note, those two notes or those
three. Because after a while they begin to hear all
of the relative notes that constitute the scale, you know, and then they're going to
hear the four, they're going to hear the flat five, some people call it the augmented seventh
the flat sixth, the major seventh, the nine, the flat nine, the thirteen, and all of them,
they'll hear the whole scale then. But after a while, for a period of time, they're
going to be involved with playing those blue notes. The blue notes. The tonic, minor third and the flatted fifth,
and they got it. And if you find a cat whose pretty well-endowed
in playing the blues with those three things in mind, he'll listen to these things, all
these things. JW: Yeah. But you sing that thing and play that. And while that's going on, another cat says
hey, let's do this thing over here. [scatting]
CT: Yeah. Now that's after a while they can hear all
that, 'cause then they've got them to take it to what the saxophone has in mind. You can hear all of that. [inaudible]
JW: But muted though. [scats]
CT: Discrete. Any kind of rhythmic pattern they want. False fingering, or octaves or shakes, fall
offs, or riffs or doits or whatever, a lot of the things that are incorporated in the
Italian diction we can't use in jazz. They won't express it very well. You can't hardly say to a cat on the bandstand
"let's play some 'largo blues.'" We have some far more descriptive terminology
that we use. JW: What is it Ed would say? Hey, let's do our thing, and he says "listen." CT: Yeah, that was his pet word, listen. He would use discord to get your attention,
and then say, "listen." So we used to figure, does this cat think
we're deaf or something? And pretty soon he would let us know. All he was concerned about was total listening. And he would say it isn't funny. He wanted to make sure that you are aware
of everything that's going on, what your little part that you're contributing to the overall
performance, what it means. I use this joke as a good way of relating
to people to get them to understand what Ellington meant by listening. Two tuba players met in the supermarket one
day after their day off. And one said to the other, "what did you do
last night?" He said, "oh, the old lady dragged me out
to the opera." "Yeah, what'd they do?" "They did 'Carmen.'" "Yeah?" he said, "yeah, that's the one we
enjoy so much in measure 356 where we go 'boom, boom, boom, bo bo bo bump." He said, "yeah," he said, "do you know what
the rest of them idiots were playing?" He said, "no." [sings the "March of the Toreadors"]. So that is a good lesson as to how, they were
so concerned about how this cat didn't even know that that was the harmony, you know? All he knew was boom boom. And so often we go through scenes like that
where we are totally oblivious to what is going on with - what their little part means
to the overall performance. JW: That's my first statement when I go into
schools to talk to a class. If you can't hear everybody else in this orchestra,
you are playing too loud. And they'd look at each other, what? Because it opens up a whole new vista for
them, and a whole new world. That's my opening statement. And I use his, I use Clark's words so many
times in talking to students. I tell them and I quote him, I say, "Clark
Terry said -" man when we went on a tour together and we were doing the school and he had a
high school group then and he said "listen, don't be afraid to imitate somebody. All of us started by imitating somebody." CT: Absolutely. JW: You see you go from imitation to assimilation,
from assimilation to innovation. CT: To innovation. We call them the "ation stages," you've got
to go through them "ation stages." Everybody imitated somebody as the first step. The first cat didn't hear nothing but railroad
tracks. He imitated that [scats]. Or whatever. You've got to imitate something. JW: He brings expression, and it sounds like
a train. Now, what else do you want? MW: Oh, the thing I was going to say that
I thought was so fabulous is that these sounds find their way into your repertoire of expression,
and the emphasis is expression rather than execution. You know there's a lot of people today, because
there's a lot of method books written on jazz, who can play the notes, but no authenticity
seems to arise from those myriad of notes. You know, it's not about just your ability
to how fast or how loud that you can play. CT: Absolutely not. MW: And one other thing I wanted to ask you
all is where do you see anything in our present American culture and particularly African-American
culture, that seems to be spawning new life to breathe back life into this aural culture. And you mentioned Roy Hargrove, and I'm pleased
by that too. CT: Well there's a lot of young players who
are doing it. JW: Josh Redman. CT: A lot of little Nicholas Paytons or the
little guy that wrote what's his name's book - what's that guy that wrote that, the little
black director. MW: Spike Lee? CT: The cat that wrote the score for his - what
was his name? MW: Blanchard? Terrance Blanchard? CT: Blanchard, Terrance Blanchard. People like him. There's tons of them out there. And I have an opportunity to run into them
being involved in jazz education, I know a lot of them. So I would like to say that the whole situation,
people used to say that jazz was dead, it never was even sick. People's minds were. It's very, very much alive. JW: Yeah. [pause]
CT: Joseph, I've got a Basie story. JW: Count Basie? CT: Yeah. I don't know if everybody knows about this,
but when I was with the Basie band, and when I left the Basie band to join Duke, you know
I left, well we had kicked it around a little bit and he had sent his scouts around, John
Sully, Al Sully and Evie, all the people would come around, and Joe, his little - Joe Morgan. He said "you want to join the band?" And I used to like his little hat that he
used to wear. And he said "I'll get you a hat like this
if you'll join." So finally we talked about it long enough
and I finally decided well I think I'd like to join Duke's band. This is when, at this time, Basie was down
to a quintet. So we were working in Chicago -
JW: At the Brass Rail. CT: At the Brass Rail, right, yeah. So Duke finally he comes around and he says
"yeah, I'd like to discuss things with you." So he says, "okay." He says, "but we can't do it out in public,
so later on I'll have to come to your hotel." So I says, "okay, I'm at the Southway." He says, "all right, I'll come by and I'll
call you when I get in the lobby and I'll hurriedly get out of the lobby and meet you
in your room." So I says, "okay." So he comes to the hotel, and he calls up
and I says, "oh, all right." So he says, "I'll meet you on your floor and
I'll meet you at the elevator and show me where it is." And I says, "all right." So Duke gets off the elevator about the same
time I come out my door. And just as I walk out of my door and Duke
steps off the elevator, and next door to me is Freddie Green. Freddie Green opens his door and steps out. He says, "woah," and went back and slammed
the door. So of course Duke and I went on with our business. But that night on the gig, Freddie, I walked
in and you know, Pep would look at you like this, he didn't even say hello. "If you don't you're a fool." So the funny thing is, the conversation with
me and Duke, he says, "well now we've agreed on the bread and everything," and for me it
was a big bread in those days. 'Cause I was making with Basie $125 a week,
and the last part of my stint with the Basie band I got a raise, $15 raise, so I'm making
$140 a week. And Duke says, Duke would give me $225 a week. JW: All right. CT: Oh, man, that was great big bread for
me, you know, 'cause there was cats in there making three and four and five, but I didn't
know it. But to me, that was big bread. So that day he says to me, he says, "well
you know, it's just not proper protocol for a person to snatch somebody out of his buddy's
band. So we'll have to strategically work this out." I said, "okay, what do you suggest?" He said, "well I'll tell you what I think. I think you should maybe just get sick and
tell Bill that you're going to go home and recuperate and while you're home recuperating
I'll put you on salary." Yeah? Wow man. Ain't no better deal than that. So I went back and told Bas' that I put my
notice in, I said, "no Bas', I'm just not feeling good, I just need to go home and just
get on." And he said, "okay, well when you get yourself
together you can come on back, because this is always home for you." So I said, "thanks, Bill, I appreciate it
very much." So I went home, I'm on salary, and right away
the first check, wham, so before I get home, you know? So this went on and on until the band just
happened to come through St. Louis, three months later, I'm on salary for three months,
and they're coming through St. Louis playing the Kiel Auditorium on November the 11th,
Armistice Day. And I just happened to join the band. That was a big show with Sarah Vaughan, Peg
Leg Bates, Patterson and Jackson and all them from the big show. I don't know if it was '51 or '52. But anyhow, I left and went with the band. I stayed with the band for almost ten years
you know? And years later, I went up to the Carnegie
Hall when Basie was already sick and he had to take a little side elevator to ride up,
this was before they installed the thing that they've got there now. And I went backstage to see him and I'm standing
at the top and he's coming up and I said "you know one thing?" And he said, "yeah, so what's that?" I said, "I have a confession to make to you,
something that's been bugging me for years and years." He said, "yeah? what is it?" I said, "when I left the band you know, I
told you I was sick and going home," I said, "I wasn't really sick." He said, "um humm." I said, "the reason I did that is because
Duke had made me an offer I couldn't pass up." He said, "um humm." He said, "why do you think I took the raise
back, you think I didn't know that?" All these years I've been bugged. JW: You're beating yourself to death. CT: Yeah. Hanging out the window, and finally just gave
up and let go and he was that far from the ground. JW: Basie. Boy it's funny. On the bus. That bus was something. I wasn't with the band at this time, but John
Williams who was still with the band told me this story. He came in after Poopsie you know. And he had the gig and was doing all right,
when suddenly, Basie let him go. And Charlie Fowlkes came back. So later on, he came back after Charlie died,
he came back to the band. So he asked me, "what happened?" He says, "really, me and you, 'cause you know
I love you, and wasn't my work satisfactory?" And he says, "yeah, your work was all right." And he says, "yeah." CT: This is John, talking to Basie? JW: Talking to Basie. So he says, "well, Chief, what happened?" And he says, "well you remember the night
on the bus when you all thought I was asleep, and you called me a mother fucker?" CT: He called him a melon farmer? JW: A melon farmer, boy. Says, "Oh Basie that melon farmer." He said I didn't even move, I just said um
humm. So when he got a chance he said, "oh Chief,
gee whiz." Basie was full of them though. Cats would get on their high horse you know,
the musicians. CT: You couldn't pull no wool on him. He knew everything. JW: Yeah. They'd get on their high horse and doggone
it, they'd start talking crap. Basie would wake up and stop the bus. He would stop the bus, and Basie would reach
up and get his little brown sack over his head, and get his fresh fruit, he had a little
sack over his head, or he might have a sandwich in there. Fruit, what have you. You know he'd reach up and get an apple and
go - crunch - take a bite or two out of it and go back to sleep. But anyway Basie stopped the bus and he'd
reach up and get his little brown sack. Then he'd get off the bus, and say, "all right,
you can go ahead now." "Oh, no, Bas', wait, wait, wait a minute." "Oh? You mean me? Well I thought you best just go on without
me, you understand." "Oh, no, Bas.'" Shoot he'd just stop the bus and get off and
say "you got it - go ahead." He was so funny. I, when I left him I got a group together
you know. So my mother had a stroke in Chicago, and
I flew into Chicago to spend time with her. And I checked into the Manor House, and who
was in there but Basie. CT: Yeah, that was his favorite place man. JW: And I was in the room that he was in when
I talked to him about joining the band. You know? That's a story in itself, you see, me coming
and joining him. I talked to him and he said, "why don't you
come with me and see what people all over the country think of your work?" He said, "you're the top singer in the Midwest
right now, in Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis and Buffalo." Even because I was working at the Moonglow
for six weeks a year or something like that. He said "but" he said "in a little while,
somebody'll be saying, "hey, you hear Shorty over there singing? Shorty over there, the men's room attendant,"
he said, "you heard him sing? man oow wee." He says, "somebody else is coming," you know? He said, "why don't you come with me and see
what people all over the country think of your work?" And, "I can't give you what you want or what
you need, but I can give you something." So you know what he gave me, $25 a week. But when I was working with you and him and
the quintet, he would give me $50, which was something. CT: I'll never forget that period. JW: As bad as me? CT: Joe Louis and who was that -
JW: Ezzard Charles. CT: Ezzard Charles was fighting for the heavyweight
championship. JW: So me and Basie, and Freddie Green, everybody
- CT: He was the only one that says -
JW: He's ain't got no business in there with that snake. CT: Are you kidding, man, me and Basie and
Freddie, we'd load his whole salary and more, he'd load it up and we'd bet and Ezzard Charles
creamed Joe Louis. JW: Hey listen, and you know how I got paid? Each one of them. [whispers]. CT: We didn't believe it. We paid him begrudgingly. JW: Melon farmer. There was many melon farmers at that time. 'Cause at that time, there were two things
that were mortal sins. One was Joe Louis and the other was the Yankees. You were pretty safe betting money on any,
in those days, they just took out whatever. CT: That was the '40's wasn't it Joe? JW: No, it was the '50's. It was the late '40's. Late '40's when Joe began to decline. Because I remember it was 1950, Christmas
of 1950, or a week or two before that I left you guys down there at the Brass Rail and
I went to work at Club DeLisa for the first time. In Chicago. CT: Red Saunders. JW: Yeah, with Red Saunders. CT: Lurlean. JW: Lurlean, yeah, she was there. CT: Sonny Cohn. JW: Yeah, Sonny Cohn. CT: Nick Cooper. JW: Jesabella. And that front line, he had Washington on
saxophone and wound up with [inaudible] playing lead. CT: What was Mr. Low Blow's name? What was his name? JW: Mack Easton, baritone player. Yeah. But he had Ed Cytouff playing in there, Johnny
Avant and Cytouff the two trombones, but two trumpets, two trombones, and four saxes. Yeah, four, I think it was four. Four or three. And the piano, bass and drums, and guitar
sometimes too. CT: What was the piano player? JW: Washington. CT: Washington, yeah. JW: A very good piano player. CT: Sure way. JW: Arranger, too. He was really fine. But Basie, he was the cutest thing. As I tell you, I went home, and this is 1961
or '62, because my mother had a stroke. And Basie was in the same hotel with me, with
us. And I had a phone call from the fellows, the
musicians. It seems going into Canada they'd been stopped
and one of the guys they had Crip. Crip said they went through all your luggage
and everything. And he said man when they came to that soap
powder you had, they would buy Tide and put it in a plastic bag, instead of having a box,
they'd put it in a plastic bag and throw it in the bottom of my suitcase. Because I washed my underclothes and my shirts. I had those shirts that you could wash and
hang up, wash and wear you know? And he said boy they found that and they said
"ahhh, what have we here?" You know they opened it up and went [sniffs]. But it turned out that one of the - go ahead
you wanted to say something? CT: No, I just was going to point out that
one time I had a big sack full of dirty laundry, and they were very inquisitive. And I said "look and see what's in there." And they were a little bit unhappy after digging
through my soiled underwear. JW: Well that's standard operating procedure. Ladies know how to do that. They know how to pack, you know? But somewhere or another they were traveling
in Europe with a group. And Norman Simmons tells that story, and the
people stopped him, customs stopped him and wanted to go in the bag. And he said this chick she opened the bag
and starts throwing out dirty, wet pants, and [inaudible]. And he says, "oh, no ... no, no, no, no, it's
all right." CT: I've got to tell you one of my favorite
Basie stories. You know Basie, he loved ham and cabbages
you know. JW: Oh, Lord, I do too. CT: Who doesn't yeah. But he loved them with a passion. So one day when I was with Duke's band at
the time, and his band was playing Birdland and we're playing, remember the club upstairs
called the Band Box? JW: Yes. CT: And the same time. So we're in the Band Box with Charlie Parker,
Duke Ellington and downstairs is Basie. You might have been down there with him. But anyhow, I used to snitch a ride home every
night with Catherine, Basie's wife used to pick him up and they had to pass by my house. So I'd ride home. So during the conversation on the way home
we'd talk about everything that had happened with the band over the years that I was with
him. So this particular day, and knowing that he
loved ham and cabbage I said, "Bas' I hate to tell you this, man, but we had ham and
cabbage today, man, and it was so good. And I'm going to go home now and go upstairs
and heat it up and wail on it before I go to bed." So he said, "um humm" and we started talking
about other things. So when we got to my house the light just
was just before daybreak, you know, you know you get out of there -
JW: Yeah, Birdland, 4:00. CT: Yeah. So I get out at the corner and I walk across
the street and I say "good night Katie, goodnight," and I walked across the street and I thought
I heard a car driving, and all of a sudden I heard [tapping nose]. He was coming across the street. I looked around and I says, "you've got to
go to the bathroom?" He says, "um humm." He said, "if you think you're going to go
up there and heat up that ham and cabbage without me you're out of your cotton picking
mind." He went upstairs with me man, and we heated
up the ham and cabbage, and he ate it and he put his feet up on the coffee table and
went [snores - went to sleep. JW: Yeah, he could sleep around us. I remember another wonderful afternoon. We used to play up in Philadelphia, we played
Pipps. And we'd start there by playing a Monday matinee. So you know we'd be off then for several hours
before the evening performance would start at 8:30 or 9:00, 9:00 at night started the
evening performance on Monday. So Earl Hines is home, in Philadelphia, with
his wife and they had us over for dinner, the Basie band. They had this long table set up man, with
greens, corn bread and ham hocks and corn and all kinds of marvelous things. And I've forgotten what the dessert was, whether
it was sweet potato pie or lemon cream pie or whether it was pie with strawberries, but
it was a delicious looking thing. We're sitting there eating, and here comes
Basie standing around, you know Basie, he had a drink, he had some scotch, he used to
drink scotch in those days, and he'd take a drink of
his scotch and his dessert. He always ate his dessert first. Oh they had beans too, red beans and rice. He'd eat his dessert first. And we're sitting there eating dinner. Then he'd sit down and have his dinner. But he'd eat his dessert first. He was the first person I saw to do that. It's not bad either. CT: I never tried it. JW: 'Cause you might, at least you're not
too full when it comes to - you don't eat too much either, maybe. But he didn't miss dessert. But anyhow, the guys were having problems
and they told him, one of the guys, in fact two of them, weren't even allowed to go back
in to Canada. CT: Oh yeah? JW: Well when they catch you up there on a
narcotics charge, then you're not allowed back in, that's all. Two of the guys had been through that. They shall be nameless, but like so now I
get this phone call, and I said well, I'll tell you what to do, call John Levy and tell
John to get ahold of Jimmy Jones and the bass player, Sproles. CT: Victor. JW: Yeah Victor Sproles and Jimmy Jones come
up to sub for them, you know? And I hung up, and I told Bas', because Basie's
lying at the foot of my bed, I said, he said "what was that?" I said, "oh the cats had problems up there,
couldn't get into Canada where the gig is." He said, "why don't you tell them to kiss
your ring and get yourself a piano player and go on about your business." He said, "you know, that's all you need is
a piano player. You don't need all that other headache." CT: You mean to go into Canada? JW: To work. Period. CT: Oh. Period. Is that when you started the group with Jimmy
DeForrest and them? JW: No, no, no, no. I'm not calling any names. Jimmy DeForrest had nothing to do with it. Jimmy went up, Sweets went up, I told you,
we replaced the piano player and the bass player. But no names. Didn't I tell you? Okay. And we went up there and did a week. CT: One and one is eleven. I can figure that out. JW: Anyhow, but Basie had said by the way,
"you ought to tell all those people goodbye, and get you a piano player and go on about
your business at your concerts, and do what you've got to do." And he was so right. But I liked that, I like to tap my foot and
I love to hear, I love to share the spotlight too, man. Somebody that can play. Somebody that can swing. Oh my God, such a feeling. You can't, there's nothing, you can't express
it. CT: Absolutely. JW: It just happens, you know, it lifts you
completely off the ground. Levitates you. CT: I see you've got your two iron there. JW: Oh this, yeah. It's my traveling stick. CT: How's your game these days? JW: Lousy. But it's going to be better. I think my swing is going to be better than
it's ever been. Really. Yeah. You learn more. CT: I heard about that game you played one
day with, I think you and Billy Eckstine and all of a sudden a bear came up and tapped
you, you were just getting ready to drive when a bear tapped you on the shoulder, a
talking bear too, and said, "do you mind if we make this a threesome?" And you and B. looked at each other and said,
"I never played with a bear before but okay." So you teed off and he teed off and the bear
teed off, 450 yard drive, off to the left, that far from the cup. You and B. couldn't understand it. And they didn't believe it. So they got on in about three, and it came
time for the bear to putt out and he took his putter, 450 yards down way to the left. That's a lie of course. JW: I know that's a lie. I have the greatest golf story lie that you
ever heard in your life, you know if you were to do that kind of thing. It's got nothing to do with Basie though. CT: Well that had to do with you. JW: Yeah. No this Scottsman, he comes to the clubhouse
and he says "Stuart!" "Yes, Mr. McGregor?" "Give everybody a round of drinks on me." He says, "what?" He says, "Give everybody a round of drinks
on me." He says, "begging your pardon, Mr. McGregor,
you've been a member of this club for 15 years and you never bought a drink for anyone. Suddenly a round of drinks for everyone?" He says, "yes!" He says, "well what's the occasion?" He says, "well today I'm 83 years old and
on Thursday I'm marrying a young girl, so give everybody a round of drinks." He says, "all right Mr. McGregor." So he gives everybody drinks and about seven
months later the old man comes in and says, "Stuart! Give everybody a round of drinks on me." He says, "ah, Mr. McGregor, and what's the
occasion this time?" He says, "my wife just presented me with a
seven pound bouncing baby boy. Give everybody a round of drinks." He says "Mr. McGregor, don't you realize it's
just seven months since you said you were about to be married?" He says, "yes. Two under par already and me with a wimpy
shaft." CT: I like it. JW: They say the cats gave Basie a beautiful
set of clubs, they cost a lot of money in those days too, about four or five hundred
dollars. CT: Did he ever play? JW: He never did play. Not one time. Freddie Green used to tell me about that. CT: And his house in the Bahamas was right
on the golf course. JW: Right. Well you know where he got inspired to do
that, don't you? CT: What, buy the house? JW: Yeah. CT: Oh, yeah, I know. JW: How? CT: When he went down there, when Catherine
went down on a junket and she saw ... JW: No. He came to Vegas and came by my house, and
he said "you son of a gun you did it, didn't you?" 'Cause my house overlooked the thirteenth
green and the fourteenth tee and the fifteenth fairway going up that way and at the fourteenth
was a water hole, but the fourteenth going across the water that way. CT: That's where you live now? JW: And the fifth was coming across the water
that way. No I sold that place. I sold that and bought a bigger place. CT: Well I thought he got the idea, he came,
Catherine came down on a real estate junket and I had bought a lot down there. So they were showing them around, right across
from Stone Crab. So they were showing them around and they
said, "this lot over here, you probably wouldn't know him but it belongs to a jazz musician
named Clark Terry." Catherine said "who?" So the next week she went back down there
and they were having a sale, and they were trying to put out all the undesirable characters. Findlay. JW: Jimmy Findlay. CT: Yeah. So all the undesirables had congregated there. They were going to make that the dope center
of the world, and they had this big fellow by the name of Skiboo, who was like an alloy,
he could pick up this table with one hand and throw it through that window. And when they found out that this was about
to happen, Findlay put all of them off the island. And they had to sell whatever they had, or
allow some bohemian to have 51% control. So this guy had just built this beautiful
house down there, with gold door knobs and about eight bedrooms and so forth, with a
small swimming pool right on the golf course. And that's when the Captain saw this house
and he said, "that's it." He bought it for a steal. JW: No kidding. CT: Yeah. JW: Isn't that beautiful? CT: Yeah. Absolutely. JW: He told me later on, he says, "yeah, I
got one too you know." I said, "oh, yeah? Okay." He's so beautiful. He was so special. You know what I loved about him, what I learned
from him? He'd sit there at that piano and the orchestra
was here and the orchestra was over here to his left really. With the bass here, drums up there and Freddie
Green right here, and the orchestra all right here, and the audience out there. And he'd be playing you know? And somebody would make a stone bluey. Somebody would, and Marshall would smile,
and Basie would get up and say, "hey, how you doing? Good to see you." He never heard it, never pointed, he never
looked to see who made the mistake, and I loved that. I figured, I said yeah - I'd watch him do
that many times. He never saw anybody make a mistake. But he heard if you contributed something
that was unusual, that was good. And you learned from that, I mean like it
goes with - the good always outweighs the bad you know? CT: Yeah. We had a tune that we played, and on the end
of it went like [scats]. Well Sweets was really the one that went [scats]
he hit that note, and Basie loved it. He said, "keep that in, keep that in, devil." JW: I know he cracked up, he laughed. CT: Ever since then, every time we played
[scats], Sweets would stand up and take his big solo. But I'll tell you about this cat, Basie, he,
although Ellington was more endowed with harmony and theory and so forth, Basie was the king
of the motherwar as far as tempo, and he taught us all the greatest lesson in the world and
that is the utilization of space and time. All the musicians in the world, and they say
he learned it through the medium of just socializing at Kansas City at the Cherry Blossom and the
little places where you would have people sit, in a small room like this where you would
have gingham table cloths and he'd play a little bit with Jo Jones and Walter Page or
Freddie and The Fiddler, or whoever was there, and he'd go socializing. Bing-a-dink and he'd go over there socialize,
"yeah, baby, how you doing?" Bing-a-dink, go over there and have another
taste over there and have two or three tastes. Meanwhile Jo Jones and Biggun are still going
[scats]. And he'd come in and [scats]. So he was so endowed with rhythm and utilization
of space and time, so he knew exactly the way a tune should be before you played it. Now the one, the best example is when Neal
Hefti was writing for the band, he brought in a tune and passed it out, and Basie played
it and Basie shook his head. He said, "what's the matter, you don't like
the arrangement, Chief?" He said, "no." He said, "what's wrong with it?" He said, "the tempo." Well the tune was about here [claps]. So he said, "well what do
you think it should be?" "About here" [claps slowly] Well the tune
was [scats]. He brought it in to be [scats]. JW: That was "L'il Darling." CT: He heard it. Right away he said, "uh oh." And look at the result. If he'd a kept it up there it would have just
been another also ran too. JW: And you're talking about [inaudible] I
mean "Cute." CT: Oh, yeah. [scatting]
CT: Yeah, he was the king of space, time. JW: Yes he was. CT: We learned a lot from him. JW: Yeah. I remember the first job we played. The very first job we played when I joined
the band. We left New York and we went down through
Norfolk, Virginia. We stopped in Washington, D.C. and got some
hot smokes. CT: Hot links? JW: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hot links and half smokes. And by the theater there, and then continued
on down to get Howard, then continued on down. And we got there and that night all this Navy
brass was there and it was an officer's dance. And the old man sit down at the piano and
started noodling, and finally opened up. And you know what he opened up with? CT: What? JW: "What Am I Here For?" [scatting]
JW: You know? I said uh huh, okay. [scats]
CT: I don't know if you remember this, but some years ago, right after the band had hit
its lowest ebb, we were in the Strand Theater with, in those days, the picture got the top
billing. "Key Largo" with Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey
Bogart and Count Basie and Billie Holiday. It went down like that. So Basie's band was kind of in a bad slump
because that was right after we had started back up after the small band. JW: With Mecks and Banter? CT: No, not at that particular time. Eli. Lucky Thompson was playing. JW: Oh, yeah? CT: Walter Peacock, Lucky Thompson and the
[inaudible], and Woody Wood and a strange type of band. So he was saying "I need an alto player and
a trombone player." So he would always come to me when he needed
somebody so I said "okay." So he's in the steam, you know in the Strand
Theater then had this big steam thing. He was in the steam bath with his head down
there so he couldn't hear. So I made the phone call from his dressing
room to St. Louis. "Hey Ernie, you want to come join Count Basie?" "Oh, man, don't be kidding with me." "No I'm serious, I have to do it in a hurry,
because when the steam bath goes off I'm dead." So he says, "yeah, okay, yeah." So I says, "well come, get Jimmy." "Jimmy too?" he says. I says, "yeah, bring Jimmy too. JW: Trombone player too. CT: So he came and went to the flea bag where
I was staying, there on 47th Street, and I checked them in. The next day I told Basie after he come out
of the shower, I said, "Basie, I got your players all in line." I says, "they're out on the road right now,
but they'll be back tomorrow." So I brought them in and introduced them and
this was backstage at the Strand, and I said to him, I said, "this is Ernie Wilkins, an
alto player." Ernie never played alto in his life. He borrowed an alto from a church player and
it was all wrapped up in rubber bands and cellophane, but I knew that he read well enough
and had good enough sound, and sitting next to Marshall he'd do good. So he - I introduced him to him and to Jimmy
and I said "now this cat here, in case Mundy and Bootwhip - James Mundy and we used to
call him Bootwhip - JW: Hardy? CT: Yeah. Buster. I said in case Buster and -
JW: In case Sweets kills Buster? CT: Yeah. Sweets. I don't want to say that. But in case Bullwhip and Mundy, I call him
Tuesday, in case they get too busy, I says, this cat can write, he can help him out. He says, "yeah?" So to make a long story short, he said well
his first assignment was to write something for our new singer. So he wrote [sings] "Every Day" and the band,
you remember that? The band catapulted from the lowest ebb back
to the top and it's been there ever since. All because of that one thing that he wrote
for you. Remember? JW: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's true. CT: That's a fact, yeah. JW: That thing, and the other side too, "The
Comeback." Foster wrote that. Everybody stole from that. CT: Oh, yeah. JW: I used to hear commercials. [scats]
CT: But I never forgot that. You put it right back up there, and it's been
there ever since. JW: Yeah, that one lasted. It still, "Every Day I have the Blues" I
do it now. All right. Clark Terry. The man that Ellington said - and Ellington
was never wrong, believe me - he said he was "beyond category." And I am most grateful to be able to call
him friend. CT: Well I'll tell you Joe, I've had the pleasure
of being a friend of yours and very close associate of yours for a very long period
of time, and I'm looking forward to continuing. So God bless you and straight head, and all
the best to you. JW: Every Day. CT: Every Day. JW: All right. (c) Fillius Jazz Archive -18-
