We are in Aspen, Colorado at the Jerome Jazz
Festival and I am extremely happy to be talking with Conte Candoli, trumpeter, and man of
humor, as I'm learning quickly. And I should explain that you are in between
sets here at the jazz festival, and you just shook the place up with some Charlie Parker. CC: Well thank you. You know I was waiting to play some bebop
for the last couple of nights, and we had guys up on the stand that were familiar with
that kind of music. Of course I happened to be the leader for
that last set so when you're the leader you get to sort of choose your own tunes. And I was determined to play that, whether
they knew it or not. MR: Well I think it worked. You know the audience that comes to these
things, they're fairly settled in their tastes. CC: Pretty much so, but you know, I must say
in their behalf that they're in my age group too, so I go along with what they want, you
know, the big band era and everything else. And it's nice to see these people, wonderful
people, supportive. MR: Well you've had a marvelous career between
the big bands and bop, and just about everything else in between. CC: Pretty much so. MR: T.V. and so forth. CC: Yeah, pretty much so. I've been honored by the L.A. Jazz Society
in 1990 and that was kind of nice, it was kind of unexpected and so apparently I fill
the requirements that were necessary, to have been in L.A. for twenty years and have been
playing jazz in that area for twenty years. So they honored me that particular day which
was kind of nice. MR: I can recall reading record jackets. And I see your name come up a lot, along with
your brother. And also, Conrad Gotzo. Am I pronouncing that right? CC: It's Gozzo. MR: Gozzo. And a lot of Italian trumpet players. What is that? CC: Well quite by accident I guess. I know Conrad Gozzo and then there are the
other trumpet players, trumpet players like Don Fagerquist, which was a great studio trumpet
player, great jazz trumpet player, but really never got the chance to record that much. But he's on all of Sinatra's records, he's
on all of the commercial records. He was a good trumpet player, and not Italian. MR: There were a few that weren't Italian. Well man, you got with Woody Herman when you
were still in your teens? CC: Yeah. MR: Did you come from a musical background? CC: Yeah I would say. My older brother Pete naturally plays trumpet
and is still playing. We work together quite a bit. But he started first, and my dad was not a
musician per se but he was an amateur trumpet player, and there were instruments around
the house all the time. Tuba, E flat peck horns, and a couple of trumpets. And he worked in the local band and they worked
once a week at an Italian club in the area. And so actually I didn't have to make a decision
as to what I was going to be when I grew up. I knew it was going to be music. So I started out very young. I remember playing - my dad had a little band
and I'd pick up the peck horn and sort of play some time with that. And I must have been, what, five or six years
old, I couldn't even hold the horn you know. And then ultimately I went into playing the
trumpet, after my brother Pete. MR: I think that's a significant statement
you just said though, "Picking up and playing some time." CC: Yeah. MR: Even though you couldn't play a lot of
notes, you were playing time. CC: Pretty much so. You know that's more or less been my trademark
all this time. Many people if they don't, they think it's
up to the drums and bass and piano to play the time but I think opposite. I think it's up to the horn player to establish
good rhythm in their playing. And notes really don't make that much difference,
whether you play a quantity of notes or very few notes, it's where you place them that
counts. It's essentially, as one gets older, it's
what one leaves out that's really important. Because I hear a lot of great musicians coming
up today and they don't know quite what to leave out. But I think it's a lack of maturity and ultimately
if they're really good it will come out. So I've always been that kind of a player. I never played a lot of notes, I never played
really high notes. I did on occasion when I was younger, but
I was always a jazz man in every band that I've worked with. And I kind of like that role. MR: The hot player. CC: Yeah. Pretty much so. I could play some split lead if I had to,
and would help the guys out. But essentially, like you said, I was the
hot player in the band. And that's the way it really started out. MR: Did your brother precede you into the
Woody Herman orchestra? CC: Well actually when I joined Woody's band
I was in my senior year of high school. And they were in Chicago, near my home town
of Mishawaka, Indiana, and they were looking for a trumpet player. One of the trumpet players in Woody's band
either left or got sick or something, and someone said, "Well how about Pete Candoli's
kid brother, Conte? He's supposed to be a good trumpet player
here." So I was recommended, and Pete at that time
was with Tommy Dorsey or Les Brown, I'm not sure. I think he was with Les Brown for a week or
two, and he was supposed to join Woody, but he had to give his two weeks notice to Les
- at that time he had to give two weeks notice. So meanwhile they called me, I took the train
to Chicago, it was like a two hour electric train ride, and joined the band at the Oriental
Theater. At that time they were doing theaters. Bands did that. They'd run the feature film, and then the
band would do a show, a complete show with a comedian or a singer or something, and we
would do four or five shows a day, with the feature film being run in between. So I remember getting there, the band boy
picked me up, we went right to the theater, and it was in the morning. We didn't have to do our first show until
around early afternoon sometime. And Neil Hefti took me up to the dressing
room and showed me the book, the show that we were going to play. And I looked at that, and I really got scared
man. I thought, I don't think I can cut this. Because I was used to playing stock arrangements. When I saw these arrangements, which were
originals, the penmanship is totally different. I could read music, not too well. So Neil showed me the book, we kind of ran
it down with just the trumpet section, and we did the show. And during the middle of the show, Woody pointed
to me. We were playing "Woodchopper's Ball." And I got up and started blowing and my knees
were shaking, they really were. But I was kind of cooling it, and I was doing
my best Roy Eldridge imitation. You know, and apparently I was doing all right
because Woody kept going, "Go ahead," you know, take another one. Where normally a trumpet player would play
a couple of choruses, I played about four or five choruses. And after I sat down, and all the cats in
the band turned around and acknowledged that, I really felt good. I really felt good. MR: Wow. That's a great moment. CC: Yeah, it was. It was a terrific moment. But I must tell you I was actually shaking
in the beginning, I was scared. I didn't know what to expect with these great
musicians there, you know, Chubby Jackson, Flip Phillips and Davey Tough was playing
drums, and Bill Harris on trombone. And in the trumpet section was Neil Hefti,
Sonny Berman, and God I can't remember - that's what happens when you get old, you can't remember
the guys. But it was great. I stayed with the band and ultimately about
a week after, my brother joined the band. And I stayed with the band during my whole
summer vacation from high school and then I didn't want to go back and finish school
but my folks wanted me to, and Woody said, "Go back and finish high school, kid, and
there'll be a chair open for you when you graduate." Well it was terrific. I mean I'd never been motivated like that
in school. My grades were fantastic. I mean from just barely passing, I'm making
like straight A's in everything, all the hard subjects. So everything worked out. I graduated mid-semester, because I wanted
to get back with the band so fast, so I took extra credits and everything else. And I did go back with Woody's band. So it was a great break for me. MR: They were pretty hot at this time, too. This was '43, '45? CC: This was '44. No, the summer of '45, I'm sorry. The summer of '45. Because I stayed with the band for about a
year and then was drafted into the Army. But these were, I can't even describe these
terrific times. Bands were it. It didn't change to singers being it until
just a few years later. Of course Sinatra was one of the few famous
singers at that time, and then it became a singer's world, you know, bands were just
accompaniment. But the big bands were great and what you
see in the media about all the rock bands today, you would see about the big bands. That was it. MR: That they had their own fan club. CC: Yeah. Their own groupies, their own - at that time
we traveled in private Pullman trains, and then of course planes came along a little
bit later. But it was more convenient to travel by train. And there weren't as many one night stands,
at least for the white bands, then. We could play locations. We played hotels for two and three weeks,
and then maybe during the summer we'd make a tour of all the amusement parks that had
big bands with dancing and everything. It was quite a thing to be able to go through
and see this change that has happened over the years. And I remember when television actually came
out, I never thought that I would make my living in that. And I did, doing The Tonight Show for twenty
years in Burbank. I thought television was great, but I didn't
know it would- MR: You didn't think it would affect you. CC: Yeah. I thought oh I'd be with a big band or maybe
with a small jazz combo, and that's it. And now it's like a complete 360. I'm doing things that, since Carson retired
from The Tonight Show in '92, after me being with the band for twenty years, I'm doing
the things that I probably wanted to do. I do jazz parties such as this, I do jazz
clubs, I do record dates. And that's one reason why my wife and I decided
to move out of L.A. We didn't really have to be there. What I do now I could almost live anywhere. MR: Yeah. Because you have to travel anyway. CC: Pretty much so. And I do go in L.A. a couple of times a month
for a recording date or maybe a jazz gig or a gig with a big band or something. And the only thing I miss about L.A. is I
miss the rehearsals at the union there that they have every day. I miss the rehearsal bands, I miss some of
the guys that I used to play golf with all the time. But outside of that, life is pretty much the
same. MR: I want to go back to something you had
mentioned about the white bands able to stay in one place for a couple of weeks or a month
at a time. The black bands didn't have that opportunity? CC: Not too much. They worked and they had to do one nighters
with the exception maybe of Ellington or Basie. We'd all do the theaters, and that was a week
or two weeks. When we did The Paramount, that was a good
gig because it was like three and four weeks, which was unheard of then, for a big band
to work a place for long time, especially a main big band. But another thing is the black bands got paid
by the gig. They weren't on retainer. Because I know Snooky Young, we talked about
his time when he was with Jimmy Lunceford and the early Basie band, and bands before
the Basie band, which I can't remember now, but they got paid by the gig. They'd go out on one nighters, thirty or forty
one nighters, and if they didn't work that night, they wouldn't get paid. So they averaged maybe four, five gigs a week. And of course that was good money back then. You're talking about the '30s, the late '20s
and the '30s and early '40s. If a guy made a hundred bucks a week, man,
that was a lot of bread. MR: What were you making with Woody early
on? CC: Okay when I joined Woody's band in '44,
the summer of '44 I guess, I've got to get this straight, it's either '44 - '45, yeah. The big names in the band, my brother and
Bill Harris, Flip Phillips, Davey Tough, Chubby Jackson, they were all making two hundred,
two fifty a week, which was a great deal of money. And I was making ninety bucks a week. And they were coming up to me asking for handouts. They never had any money. I didn't have any - you know I didn't drink,
didn't smoke, and didn't go out with girls. Like what, I was sixteen or seventeen. And my brother would take care of my laundry
and all that stuff, he'd make sure all that was done. So I didn't have to do a thing. I saved enough money to buy a brand new car. MR: On ninety dollars a week. CC: Yeah. MR: That's great. CC: Unreal, unreal. You've got to remember, when I joined the
Lighthouse All Stars, this was in 1954 mind you, I'd left the Kenton band, we were in
a bus accident, and my wife at that time had broke a vertebra in her back. MR: Was this near Buffalo? CC: No, it happened on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. MR: Oh. On the way to Buffalo? CC: No, we were going between Reading, PA
and somewhere in there. It was a tour. It was a big, ten or twelve week tour with
the Kenton band. I think Dizzy Gillespie was a guest soloist
and Bird were guest soloists. Anyway, we had this accident, and I left the
band and went back home, back in Indiana, with my wife, who was pregnant with my first
child at the time. And she broke a vertebra in her back. She was three months pregnant. MR: Oh dear. CC: Anyway, she was fine. We had the baby and everything, but I stayed
in the South Bend, Indiana area. And after that I was contemplating going to
New York and just seeing what would happen. Work around New York, maybe try to get in
the studios and do jazz clubs. And I get a call from Howard Rumsey, who worked
at The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, one of the first jazz joints in the whole country. And he asked me what I was going to do. I said well I'm getting ready to go to New
York. He said, "No you're not, you're coming out
here to The Lighthouse. You're going to work here." I said, "You got it, man." And I went. I drove to California and got an apartment,
and then sent for my wife and daughter, and I got an apartment, ninety bucks a month,
a nice, big one bedroom apartment. And I was making a hundred and fifteen bucks
a week at The Lighthouse. That's more money than I ever had. It was great. And I stayed there for four or five years,
and established myself as a west coast musician. MR: Yeah, your name is definitely associated
with the west coast. CC: Pretty much. As you know, like all of us, Shelly Manne,
Shorty Rogers, Jimmy Giuffre, Neil Bernhardt, Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker. None of us are from California. Yet we play the west coast jazz. I think the media just put that hype on us. MR: I have a picture here that you might recall. CC: Stan the Man. Oh my goodness. Wow. Buddy Childers, Boots Mussulli - now I've
got to read the caption underneath. I'm not sure where that was. MR: 1952. CC: Back at Club Harlem. You know what? If I remember correctly the club was called
The Clique Club. I don't know why they would put Club Harlem. Because it had a revolving stage. MR: Oh really? CC: Yeah. I think it was The Clique Club, owned by a
mafia guy named Frank Palumbo or something like that. He owned most of Philadelphia. But I do remember this gig. 1952. How about that. Boy that band was a great band. MR: How did you like playing with Kenton as
opposed to Woody Herman? CC: Well I've got to preface what I say here. The first time I joined Kenton was in 1948
and it was the Eager Beaver Band. I wasn't really crazy about that band. I liked Woody's band better when I was with
the band earlier, it was more of a swinging type band. But, as I stayed with the band, '48 was okay,
then I went back in '50 or '51. Then Kenton got people like Gerry Mulligan
to write charts. The personnel was unbelievable. Stan Levy became the drummer. The trombone section were Frank Rosolino,
Bob Burgess, he got Lee Konitz, saxophone, Zoot Sims. That's the '53 band, the one we toured Europe
with and I think they released a couple of things within the last year or two, a couple
of broadcasts that we did over in Europe. That was my favorite Kenton band. That was great. That was fantastic. We did a tour with the Kenton band and strings
once. They called it what, the Neophonic-
MR: The Neophonic Orchestra. CC: Yeah. That was pretty good, but you were really
restricted. You could only play a certain thing you know. MR: Yeah. It was almost semi-classical, wasn't it? CC: In a way it was. It wasn't right for most of us jazz people
who wanted the freedom to be able to play. And I must say Stan did let us play when we
worked concerts and things like that. He presented all of us. Of course he had things written for us. He had Bill Russo write "Portrait of A Count"
for me, and he had Holman did something for Lee Konitz, and they had something written
for Zoot called "Zoot." So that was a good band, it really was. I liked Woody's band - at that time it was
really the best thing going. It was a solid band all the way. And that was before the Four Brothers band,
which unfortunately I never got to work with that band. MR: We should explain your nickname. Because you share it with another pretty famous
musician. CC: Okay. I was with the Charlie Ventura band in '49. And there was an alto player who is in this
picture, Boots Mussulli. He was with that band and I think I'd just
come back from Europe and I had this black winter coat, a wool coat, with a high collar,
and I wore a black beret and I had a very pencil thin mustache. And Boots says, "Man you look like a Count." So he started calling me "Count." And he was the only one at that time. And then all of a sudden Charlie Ventura started
calling me Count and then when I left the Ventura band and joined the Kenton band again,
it was Count. I joined Woody's band and at The Lighthouse,
it was Count. And it's Count right through today. But the one story, before I forget, I wanted
to tell you, I don't know whether you've been to our union in Los Angeles, in Hollywood. MR: No. CC: Okay. There's a restaurant across the street. It's on Vine Street in Hollywood. And I went to the union one day, for whatever,
either to pick up some checks or pay my dues or something. And I walked across the street to have a bite
to eat in this restaurant. I walk in and I heard somebody say, "There's
the Count." And I turned around and I looked, and it's
Count Basie. And you know, you could have knocked me over. I said, "You're calling me the count?" He says, "Yup, you're the Count." I did an about face man. I'm so flattered. He says, "Come on over here and sit down." And we sat down and had some lunch together. What a marvelous man. I regret I never got to play with his band. But I've seen Count, I remember when I was
with the Charlie Ventura band in '49, we were in New York and we worked a club called Bop
City. It was before Bird Land and the Royal Roost
and clubs like that. And it was the Basie band and opposite Basie
was the Charlie Ventura Bop for the People band, which was a good band at that time. It had Jackie Cain and Roy Kral, and anyway
it was a good little band. And I think it was the second night we were
there, I wanted to go in early and hear the Basie band. So I walk in, and the band is playing, and
I look over and I don't see Basie. And I look at the drums, and Basie's playing
drums. The drummer was late that night, and Basie
played drums. I told this story to a lot of cats and they've
never seen Bill Basie play the drums. MR: I never heard that before. CC: And he sounded great. I think he played one tune, and he was into
the second tune and the drummer finally showed up and he gave him a dirty look and went over
to the piano. But he sounded great. He sounded great, man. MR: Well no one ever had more time than Basie. CC: Oh, God. Oh, what a sweetheart he was. A great person. MR: That's really an interesting story. So you made a move to the west coast and you're
playing a few steady years. You got into bop jazz more than anything else? I mean what do you consider yourself at this
time? CC: Well I guess if you had to classify me
or stereotype me, I guess I would be called a bebop player, a jazz type player. But you know it wasn't always that way. I started out, you know I loved Harry James,
you know when I started out. And I got all of his lesson books and all
of his concertos, and I'd try to play that. And then I heard Roy Eldridge and I got everything
that he did - recordings - and copied all of his stuff. You know at that time, living in a little
town in Indiana, I never got to see too many people because nobody came through town really. So I learned from records, very much like
the Japanese or the Europeans, they learn from records. And I played something like Roy, which is
sort of buzz tone that he used to get, and then I heard Dizzy for the first time and
I dropped Roy, and got onto Dizzy and became really a good friend of his. I had a long association with Dizzy Gillespie,
who was just a wonderful, wonderful man. And loved young aspiring musicians. He was great to all of us. And you know I knew him practically all my
life you know. MR: Didn't you get a call to replace Clifford
Brown? CC: Yeah. As a matter of fact that's when I'd just started
working The Lighthouse. Because Clifford died when, in '55 or 6. MR: '56 I think. CC: Something like that. I was working The Lighthouse and I was doing
well on the coast, and when that accident happened, Max Roach called me and wanted me
to come work with the band. And I couldn't leave town. I'd just established myself there pretty well,
and I couldn't leave, so I had to turn it down. I don't know whether I'm sorry I did. As things worked out, they worked out pretty
good. You know I just found out something not too
long ago. I am rehearsing now with Louie Bellson. He's doing a big band album next week in L.A.,
which, the rehearsals, they really sound great. Anyway Louie Bellson told me right before
Charlie Parker died that he had talked to Charlie Parker and he said, "You know I'm
sort of getting myself straightened out now." They were together, I don't know where it
happened. But he said, "I'm trying to get myself straightened
out and I want to get a band together. I want you on the band." And he said, "You know Conte Candoli?" And Louie says, "Yeah." And he says, "Well could you get in touch
with him - I'd like to get him on the band too." This is right, two or three days before he
died. MR: Oh, man. CC: Yeah. He wanted to get himself together, and the
fact that he mentioned me, man, just I mean I'm just elated. MR: That's a great thing to learn. CC: And I met Bird when I was a young kid. I met him in '42. I must have been around 13, 14 years old. And he was working, I went to see my brother
who was working the Hotel Sherman in Chicago with a very good band, the leader you won't
know, a guy named Teddy Powell. But he had people like Charlie Ventura, Buddy
DeFranco, he had my brother in the band, he had a real good band. And he would come home to Indiana to visit
the family for a couple of days, and he went back to Chicago and he forgot his mouthpiece. So he called me and he says, "Can you get
on the next train and bring the mouthpiece?" I says, "Sure." So I got on a train and I brought his mouthpiece
down. And then he introduced me to Charlie Parker. Charlie Parker was playing opposite the Teddy
Powell band. He was with Hot Lips Page. Do you remember Hot Lips Page? MR: Sure. CC: Trumpet player. Charlie Parker was with Hot Lips Page. And his feature number would be "Ko-Ko" every
night. He played "Cherokee." And I heard him, I really didn't understand
what he was doing. It was really too far above me. I kind of liked it, but I didn't know why. Because at that time I was playing like Roy
Eldridge you know? But that's when I first met him. And about two or three years later, I'm with
Woody and we're working a hotel in New York, and Bird is on 52nd Street. And I go in, I see Charlie Parker, and they
were on a break, and Stan Levy was playing drums with him. And Stan says, "Let me introduce you to Bird." And I go back there, and Bird turns around
and he says, "I know you, you're the kid trumpet player. You're Pete Candoli's brother, aren't you?" This is like two, three years later. He remembered me. And I said well man, talk about things that
happened in my life, that just knocked me out, man. MR: Well wanting to hire you, he must have
known you from records then. CC: Yeah. MR: We haven't even talked so far about what
recordings you had made up until that point. CC: That's right. You know I actually when I was with Charlie
Ventura we worked a club in New York called The Royal Roost. And Bird was working opposite. This was 1949. So he heard me play. And I knew him at that time. I didn't know really what he thought of my
playing, and it doesn't make any difference, because he was a gentleman and a beautiful
cat. And I was so inspired by his playing, that
I don't care what he thought about me. He liked me and that was good enough. And then of course later I recorded with Kenton
and in turn some of the other things he heard all of those things. So I can't imagine what would have happened
had Bird lived and I'd had the chance to work with him. As a matter of fact I told Red Rodney that
story. And we talked about it, I remember we were
talking about it. And of course Red Rodney worked with Bird
when he was a kid, back in the old days you know. MR: Wow that's great reminiscing. CC: Isn't that something? MR: The west coast became movieland and T.V.
land too, and you got into the studios eventually? CC: Yeah. I still maintained to play jazz, because working
The Lighthouse - I didn't do hardly any studio work when I worked The Lighthouse, but then
when I left I started, I think I did a tour with Gerry Mulligan in the late '50s, early
'60s. And then I went back to L.A. and Shelly Manne
opened his club, called The Manne-Hole. And I worked there for about two or three
years. And then I started getting the studio work. They did the old Steve Allen Show on Vine
Street with Louie Nye and the man on the street, and all those old characters that were on
the show. And that was really the first steady television
show I had. And then all the variety shows started, the
Carol Burnett, the Glen Campbell the - oh hell - there were about a dozen variety shows,
and they always used big bands. Some of them used the big band with strings. So it was a hey day. All the musicians were working, even the second
and third subs were working. It was great. This was all through the sixties. And at that time The Tonight Show would come
out - Doc became the leader of The Tonight Show band. And they came to California two or three times
a year for two weeks at a time. And that's when Doc, I'd met Doc before that
when he was with the Tommy Dorsey band, and then when he became the leader on the band
he said if he ever came out to California I'd work with him. Sure enough, I was working The Tonight Show
when they were coming out, three or four times a year. And then when they came out on a permanent
basis in the early '70s, I was doing the Flip Wilson Show and I think Smothers Brothers
and a couple of variety shows. I didn't know whether I was going to take
the gig or not, quite frankly, because I was doing well with the freelancing. And then Johnny Audino, the first trumpet
player, he died a few years ago, he said, "You better take The Tonight Show, man, you
don't know what's going to happen with variety shows." Sure enough I took The Tonight Show and then
the variety shows went away. Completely. MR: Thank you, John. CC: Yeah. And then the television was the detective
shows and things like that, and there were no more variety shows. The occasional special, and that's about it. But so, yeah, thank you John, of course. He really changed my life in many ways. And of course that show lasted for twenty
years. MR: I can recall Johnny sitting there, and
looking over there, and saying your name, and he knew all the guys in the band. CC: Yeah. He was great. I'll tell you what, he was a very personal,
private person. But, when it come to the band, he was very
protective of us, man. He would always come and listen to us rehearse,
and he knew every one of us, and always went out of his way to be good to us. You know very few people ever got to see his
home, and where he lives. The band did. Absolutely. He was a great guy. I haven't seen him in the last couple or three
years. I know about two or three years ago, when
Doc and the band, we go out and tour twice a year, with the Ex-Tonight Show band. Our next tour is coming up in January and
I think we're going into Texas and the southwest somewhere - about eight or nine one-nighters. And most of the guys that did The Tonight
Show will be on the band, except Tommy Newsom, he doesn't make the tours. But it's nice to see the cats and get together. But what I was getting at, on Carson's seventieth
birthday, we were on tour. We happened to be in Kansas City. And Doc arranged - he called Carson's wife
and arranged for the band, we were at a rehearsal, to get Johnny on the phone. And when he came to the phone, we played "Happy
Birthday" to him. And he says, "Where are you guys?" And Doc says, "Well we're in Kansas City." He was on a speaker phone. He says, "You mean everybody's there - Snooky,
Conte and Shaughnessy and all the cats are all there?" He says, "Yeah, we're all here, man. Happy seventieth, Chief." MR: That's terrific. CC: It knocked him out, man. MR: And what a trumpet section. CC: Oh, gee, I'm telling you. MR: Do you remember any hilarious incidents
from that, your years on that Tonight Show band? Too many? CC: Yeah there are quite a few. I remember one night Mickey Rooney was on
and he was so loaded it was unbelievable. They had to stop tape. And they canceled the whole show. Oh, Jesus. And that show, over the twenty years, we never
stopped tape. Just like you see it on television, that's
how we do it. And a couple of times we had to stop tape. And if someone says a cuss word or something,
they cut it out, and it's all by computer anyway. But that's about the wildest thing that happened. And I think one time Carson got pissed off
at Streisand, Barbra Streisand, and he told her off. And they had to cut that. Once in a while some guy will come on and
be - oh God, I'm trying to think of that actor that did that movie, his scene was he'd open
a window and he says "I'm sick and tired and I'm not going to take it anymore." News something? MR: Oh, yeah, I know who you're talking about. CC: An English actor. He died the next day. MR: After the show? CC: Yeah, after the show. We taped the show and the show was aired that
night, and the next day he dies of a heart attack. And one when Buddy Rich died. We were rehearsing the show and Johnny got
word that Buddy died. Bam he canceled the show immediately. They put a rerun on that night because Buddy
was one of Carson's favorite people, not just musician. He was tremendous. I don't know if you ever caught any of the
shows that Buddy did, but he was great at the panel with Johnny. He was just, - oh, slick as they come. MR: I guess so. CC: Oh, gez. And they would always - well they tried to
fool him. Like they put a breakaway cymbal on there. You know and he'd hit it and it would break
and fall apart. And it wouldn't stop him. MR: He wouldn't miss a beat, right? CC: He'd start tapping on something else man. Once they tied his foot pedal, where he couldn't
use his foot pedal. So he just worked with his hi-hat the whole
thing man. Oh, talk about genius man, this guy was great. MR: Yeah, he used to do air solos? CC: Yeah. Absolutely. MR: Just play in the air. CC: Yeah. And never rehearse. They'd always have his drums set up. And he knew that they were going to try to
trick him some way, like his snare drum, they put a breakaway skin head on that, the first
time he hit in, choom, it went right through. Bass drum, one time they put the same thing
on the bass drum, pow the pedal went right through man. It didn't make any difference. The way he would do it. MR: That's neat. I seem to recall Cloris Leachman on the show,
trying to sing. CC: Yeah, unfortunately. MR: And she couldn't find her note or something. CC: Oh, gee. MR: And she kept asking the piano player,
who was probably Ross Tompkins. CC: Ross, it was Ross. MR: Poking out the note. She'd go [humms]. CC: She couldn't hear that. Yeah. Well that wasn't one of her things anyway. I don't even know what the hell she was trying
to do singing you know. But a lot of the comedians were funny man. Rickles was hilarious you know. And I'm trying to think of some of the other
comics and off hand I can't recall. But God, the funniest guy is the comic that
had his own club - Rodney Dangerfield. He would, every time he did the show he would,
while the band was rehearsing something, not him, we were just rehearsing a piece of music,
Rodney would come out on stage, of course there was no one in the audience. He'd be wearing this robe, and he'd walk around
the stage, and I had the nerve to go up and I said, "Rodney, what are you doing?" He says, "I just want to get the feel of the
stage." And he's out there and he's got his socks
and they're being held up by what are those things that hold your socks up? Jesus. He looked so funny and he's got this silk
robe on you know, a polka dot robe and he's out there just walking around the stage. And then he does like ten minutes for the
band, of comedy. MR: You're kidding. CC: Oh gez. MR: With those eyes. CC: I'm telling you just special stuff for
us, and all dirty stuff, you know, it's great. God he's got a repertoire that won't quit. You know he always does something for the
band, just especially for the band. If I were to fill up my bio with who I worked
with, there's not enough paper for me to put down everybody that did The Tonight Show. MR: I know. I ran out of room myself. SuperSax you played with? CC: Well we're still working but not as much. You know we did, oh like a dozen recordings
at least. And that was a joy. And we did some real great - our first album
we won a Grammy for, which was great. And I got to see it I think it's at Med Flory's
house, on the mantle. MR: He should loan it out to you guys, and
kind of move it around. CC: Yeah. He might not get it back though. But that's a nice experience. Of course that's a labor of love with the
saxophones, you know, to play Charlie Parker's choruses voiced in harmony. Unbelievable work that they did. They'd rehearse almost every day. And of course there were no subs in that sax
section. If all of them couldn't make a gig we just
didn't do the gig. And it was a joy to work with that band. I've got an album - I don't know if you have
my "Sweet Simon" album. That was done, it was released about four
or five years ago. And I have one I want to give you. Yeah, I've got one up in the room. That is with Pete Christlieb, Frank Strazzeri,
oh God, Monty Budwig, that's the last thing he did, and Roy McCurdy and Ralph Penland,
two different drummers - not at the same time but - and I'm waiting for a release of something
I did just a few months ago for a company called Fresh Sound - the head of the company
lives in Spain and he's got a pretty good catalog. On this one I use Chuck Berghofer on bass,
Joe LaBarbara, drums - it's just a quartet album, and Jan, the Swedish piano player,
and you've got to forgive me, I can't remember his last name - Jan Lundgren. He plays great. And when the producer come up with him, I
said I don't know him. Can't I use somebody I know? He says, "Well do me a favor, listen to this
album, and let me know." And I heard an album he did and he knocked
me out. And he was great on my album, just fantastic. A guy in his late 20s, early 30s, and lives
in Sweden, and comes over here quite a bit to this country. But he's on the CD, and it's going to be called
"Portrait of a Count." And Bill Claxton took the album cover. He's got a million albums - he did the original
Lighthouse All Stars and we re-created that a few years ago when Shorty and Bob Cooper
were still alive. So William Claxton, I think he's got a book
out too. Anyway he did the cover for my album, and
hopefully, I thought it would have been out by now but unfortunately it's not going to
come out for a while. I hope they release it before Christmas anyway. MR: Well I just admire your career. CC: Well that is nice. I like when people come up to me and say I
hear you on certain records and this and that, and I look forward to that. And of course some people say, "Oh you moved
to Palm Springs, did you retire?" And I say well, "No I don't think they'll
let me retire." As long as they keep calling, I'm going to
play. And fortunately I get to play mostly when
I want to play. I do jazz clubs and jazz parties and jazz
concerts and recordings, and in the Palm Springs area sometimes maybe they'll call me in there
with a jazz band for a private party or something. So I keep my hand in there somewhere, and
I practice every day. Gotta blow. 'Cause you know sometimes I'll go four, five
days without working and you can't do that on the trumpet. You've just got to play that thing every day. MR: It's a task master. CC: It really is. You're sort of married to it and you know
the gig actually begins at home. If you have a gig to go to, okay you just
have to prepare, you work out. And my idea of working out is practicing. And then when I get to the gig, I'm ready
for the gig, and then the fun begins. Because it's no fun practicing. I like playing the trumpet, but I hate, sometimes
I get bored practicing, so I look for all kinds of gimmicks to keep me interested. You know I've got a special kind of headset
with a mute where I hear myself. They call it a "silent brass thing." It's kind of nice, you know it's a nice change
of pace. Any kind of thing to get me going, incentive-wise. And therefore I just don't want to lose touch,
while I'm still in the business. I've seen too many guys just forget about
it and the next thing you know they can't get back. You know I've had all kinds of dental problems
over the years, but I've been able to compensate for that. It's a slow change. And where maybe I lack in high notes and everything,
I think I made up as far as ideas and things like that. As long as I keep that going I'm content with
what I'm doing today. MR: Playing some time, like when you were
eight years old with a peck horn. CC: I think it all goes back to that, man. Rhythm sections hate jazz players if they
can't play with time. Oh God, they turn you off right away. MR: Well I'm going to let you get back to
work, and see what you shake up this time with the crowd downstairs. CC: Okay. We've got a set coming up I think, I'm not
the leader on the set but I think I got a little solo spot. And I was talking to Ross Tompkins and we
play this duo thing sometimes now and then and so maybe we'll play one of the tunes that
we played in the past, maybe a Dizzy Gillespie tune if it's all right with him. MR: Well it's been a great pleasure for me,
and a moment I've looked forward to. CC: My pleasure. Good luck with these tapings, and I think
you're doing great for music, and great for history. MR: Well if we run into each other again,
maybe we'll Part Two. CC: All right. Be glad to. MR: We'll sit and make a list of all those
people you played with, including The Tonight Show. CC: Okay. Put that in my bio. And then when I send out a bio it'll be like
sending out a huge package. Okay? Good deal. MR: Good enough.
