We are filming today for the Hamilton College
Jazz Archive. I'm very pleased to have Dave McKenna here,
who has been called a "giant of the piano - greatest left hand of the piano world" and
all that. Is it okay to call you a giant of the piano? DM: No, I mean that's not true. MR: You're pretty tall though. DM: Yeah, but there's bigger piano players,
too. Remember Stan Kenton? How about Randy Weston? MR: Bigger than you, okay. DM: Did you hear about Randy Weston and some
other tall piano player came in and happened to be standing next to Wilt Chamberlain, and
that reduced everything. He's tall, but there are taller folks than
that. MR: Yeah. I don't know if Wilt could even fit under
a piano. Well, nonetheless, you've gotten some pretty
high accolades over the years. And it's a pleasure to talk to you. I've been looking at and listening to some
of your recordings and reading about you. And first of all I'm interested - you've lived through
some significant historical periods in America. DM: Well I don't know. Musically - you're talking about changes in
music I suppose? MR: Actually I was talking more about, I was
curious if your parents talked about the depression for instance. DM: No, you know in that respect we were lucky. When I was a little kid we had good Christmases
and all, because my father worked for the post office. And in those days, that was a great job during
the depression. The pay wasn't great but it was steady and
when a lot of folks were in real bad shape, we were in pretty good shape. Then World War II came and the postmens' salary
was meager then because the factories started paying and the country made a comeback. And my mother, who was sort of a classical
violinist, and a piano player, very good, she had good ears, she played nicely, she
played the tunes of the day, but she had a great ear, all the right chords. I wouldn't call her a jazz pianist, but she
went to work playing in bar rooms and wherever, like weekends with little local bands you
know, to make a little more money. So my mother, she was a very good classical
violinist though, that was her serious instrument. She loved the tunes, the pop tunes too. And I grew up hearing that. But that's digressing a little bit, but so
we weren't so poor. From the time I was eight or nine years old,
until maybe I was ten in 1940 when the war effort started. Then the country got more prosperous and people
were making pretty good money in the mills and factories and stuff. Woonsocket is a textile town you know. Woonsocket, Rhode Island, where I'm from. And then a postman's salary was not so good. Then years later, there was a time in the
sixties when things were going bad, and I was thinking of taking the Civil Service exam
and becoming a postman. Because still - in the seventies it got good. Those guys are taken care of now, they really
earned pretty good money and all the pension goes with it, and the government benefits
and the hospitalization. And that's talking about the post office I
would say. MR: It wouldn't be unprecedented actually. DM: My father was actually a parcel post driver
and I don't even drive a car. I'm like the world's oldest non-driver. MR: No kidding. DM: I never drove. You know in my drinking days it was a very
fortunate thing for me in particular and humanity in general that I didn't drive. MR: You didn't have a license to lose. DM: And then I developed a neurosis about
it and - it's inconvenient living at the Cape. I sort of miss living in Boston and wish I
were back there. MR: You have to get a driver or something,
or someone to- DM: Yeah. Of course on long gigs, the bus goes from
the Cape to the airport in Boston and people meet you at the airport. Like all the musicians were met in Buffalo,
whether they drive or not they're not driving here. And when you go overseas of course that's
even more the case. MR: Was your family affected by World War
II much? DM: Well I had a lot of uncles that were in
the service on my mother's side. And I don't think we were greatly affected
by it, no. MR: But you served in the Korean War, right? DM: Yes. I was drafted right from Woody's band, really,
Woody Herman's band, in 1951. And I took basic down in - I forget whether
they call it Camp Gordon or Fort Gordon, outside of Augusta. And that featured two things, like Signal
Corps and MPs. And I took basic with a bunch of guys slated
to be MPs. And I took the eight weeks Basic and then
they said, "I don't think McKenna's MP material." They pulled me out and I was in a Casual Company
doing KP every other day and loading trucks the other day. So then they sent us overseas and I figured
uh oh, the infantry you know. And they pulled a bunch of us out of Japan
and sent us to cook school. And then I went to Korea as a cook. So I didn't get to play the piano during that. I was in until - I think I went in September
and got out in August, you know, one year and ten, eleven months later. And right away, Boots Mussulli called me,
who I'd worked with just before. When I was 17 or so I worked with Boots, a
very good saxophone player. He's from Milford, Mass, which is right next
to Woonsocket, and he called me and I worked with Boots around home and then Charlie Ventura
called again. I was with Charlie just before joining Woody. I went with Charlie when I was 19, and I was
still 19 when I joined Woody. MR: And you joined the musician's union when
you were pretty young, right? DM About fifteen. The guys on the road, you know I heard Stan
Getz left home to go with Jack Teagarden when he was 15. So it took me until 19 to get on the road. I was an old man. MR: Did you come from a long line of drummers? Seems like I remember reading about that. DM: Yes. Exactly. I really - I don't know my father and his
father and I guess his father before him, I don't know which one it was but I found
out later that one of them was a drummer boy in the Civil War, he marched down south with
whatever that Rhode Island regiment was. And I imagine like certain battles, the drummer
boys like were right in there, you know, right out front. I was sort of proud of them after I heard
that. But I was the first in four, or three generations
at least, and I think four, to not play the drums. Although I had a whack at them with the sisters
in the parochial school I went to. They needed a drummer for their little orchestra. They figured well his father - so he must
be - I couldn't even roll on them. So I was a bad drummer. MR: Well I think you inherited their sense
of time anyway. DM: Well, my father was a great military drummer. He could do a roll with a knife and fork on
the table, the evenest roll you ever heard. MR: Wow. DM: I love listening to snare drum solos to
this day. I worked with a lot of drummers. You know I worked with Gene Krupa, and Gene
played marvelous solos. And I worked with Buddy Rich, and what he
played was unbelievable. But I was in my late twenties, or mid to late,
before I heard Buddy in person. I'd been working but I never ran across him. I was with Charlie and went back with Charlie
Ventura, working somewhere way on the south side of Chicago, and I took a train, and just
couldn't find anybody who wanted to go. I heard Buddy, sat in the Preview Lounge and
listened to Buddy, and wow. The drum solo knocked me out. MR: Small group? DM: Yeah. About 8. A small group then. And then later on I did work with Buddy briefly,
with a small group. MR: Oh, I remember - I have a picture of that. DM: Mike Mainieri, Selden Powell. MR: I'm trying to remember the name of the
album because I remember seeing you in that picture now. Do you like the big band context as a piano
player? DM: Well I was a kid when I was with Woody. And that's the only real big band I worked
with for any length of time. I had a brief stint later on, my pal Dick
Johnson was a buddy of mine, and I did a few gigs with him. I liked hearing a big band, there's not much
for a piano player to do. I think I like small bands the best. And that included solo. But I'm really getting sick of the solo scene
and I went on a sort of a tour, the early part of my tour was working mostly with Scott
Hamilton. And he sure sounded beautiful. We had different rhythm sections but they're
all good. We worked in St. Paul, Minnesota and then
we went to L.A. and then we came back and we did a couple of gigs back east. We did a one-nighter in Toronto. The money was there. Then we did three days, or a couple of days
in Portland and then a week in Seattle. Scott sounded great, and the rhythm section
players were all fine. And I just really enjoyed it. It made me want to work with a little band
again. But economically, I hope it's possible that
I can do that. MR: Yeah, because you have spent just a few
nights doing solo piano, haven't you? DM: Yeah. And my fingers are getting weary. Not that I'm going to be that much help to
a small band, but if the guys - I love working with guitar, too. I love Cal Collins' playing, I love Gray Sargent's
playing. And I like to be in a full band rhythm section
with one or two horns. That's what I'd like to sort of end up doing
if I play. MR: The solo work you did, it was two different
clubs you were at for quite a number of years, right? In the Boston area? DM: Well yeah. One was at home, at the Cape. I had a lot of years at The Columns, but only
one winter were they open, so I had to go different places in the cold of winter, the
real deep winter, and I spent the summers there. Then I went to The Copley Plaza in Boston. That was my longest gig, about nine years. And I left there in June and went to the Cape,
and also on the road sometimes, for the summer. And then went back in the fall. That was my longest gig. And it was a boring gig musically but the
comfort level was so high. I stayed in the hotel. I commuted in the elevator. And like I say it was boring but it was comfortable. And I could walk around Boston - take a cab
or take the subway. I could walk to Fenway Park and I did a few
times, and I could walk to Boston Garden on the few times I was lucky enough to get a
ticket to see the Celtics, when the Celtics were good. And it was good living, I'll tell you. I miss Boston. The Cape is different. It's an hour and a half away you know. MR: What were the hours of the typical gig? DM: Nine to one in those days. MR: And you were pretty much up to your own
devices as far as what you wanted to play? DM: Yeah. I ended up playing really cocktailey music,
which I like, you know I'd just play tunes. And that's what I'll probably end up doing,
even though I'm getting kind of weary of it. But I mean I don't seem, I haven't had that
busy a summer except for the gigs with Scott. I didn't work at the Cape at all except for
a couple of concerts - one in a church that I do every year. And I think we worked with Scott at this club
on the Cape too, a one nighter. That was fun. I think I only worked two or three nights
on the Cape this whole summer. Once with Frank Tate and Howard Alden, in
Woods Hole near Falmouth Community Center. That was fun too. And so I was mostly on the road this summer. MR: Let me go back for a minute to when you
were learning piano and what attracted you to the kind of music that you eventually ended
up playing. DM: Well I always liked songs, the songs I
heard on the radio. I think my mother told me that I went to the
piano and picked out a jingle I'd heard on the radio. And I didn't like it when she practiced the
violin. I didn't have an antipathy to classical music
I guess. But when she played the piano she played tunes
like "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" and "Stormy Weather." She played them very nicely, all the right
chords. And I said hey, I like those. And so I think I started playing those when
I was eight or nine. I'm not sure. Nine or ten anyway. But I used to listen to the radio and hear
a song and mostly I could pick it out, and it went from there. For a brief time I liked cowboy music, you
know, like Gene Autry and whoever, I liked that. And then I heard Harry James' band and was
knocked out by that. Then Benny Goodman, and that's a lasting impression
you know. And then Count Basie and the guys, and Duke
Ellington. I liked it all. And I didn't have a record player in the early
days. There was a station from Boston called the
920 Club. A band would come on every fifteen minutes,
with a lot of the sweet, mickey bands - when Sammy Kaye, Guy Lombardo, or Jan Garber would
come in, I'd switch and try and find a Swing band. MR: It's just like today, you know? DM: I really started out just liking the songs,
and now like it's gone back to that. I'm more of a song player than a jazz player. I love the tunes, corny tunes even, from bar
room songs. I like them all, not only the beautiful ballads. A guy that impressed me, and I didn't think
I would get to like him so much, in the days when I worked at Condon's with Yank Lawson
and Peanuts Hucko, and well Bob Wilber took Peanuts' place and Yank became leader, we
did an album with Clancy, we did a couple of albums. Clancy was the leader on one and Yank was
the leader on the other. And we went out to Jersey in this car, and
Clancy's looking at me, he's quite a bit older you know, man of a thousand songs, he's banjo
player, and he's probably saying oh God, young bebopper or whatever he thought of me. And I'm looking at him and saying, oh, this
banjo picking son of a gun. And all I'd known of Clancy was "A Huggin'
and a Chalkin'" and I didn't like that tune. But when he started singing, he sung in a
tenor voice, which I usually don't like, but he swung so much, the way he did it, and some
of these old songs, he made them just so happy. It was really great, and I just really enjoyed
it. And I think I got to do a couple. I was at a party, I was in the Rockies in
the foothills outside of Denver. There was no piano. Clancy was there and he entertained for a
couple of hours, just picking on that banjo and singing. It was great. There was no other word for it, it was great. So I really like those tunes. Then afterwards a friend of mine gave me tapes
of Clancy with that San Francisco, Lu Watters and the Yerba Buena and all these old songs
like "At the Devil's Ball" like and Irving Berlin tunes from before 1920, and "Peoria"
and songs like that, "Sailing Down Chesapeake Bay." I love those old bar room songs. And I don't like some of the old sawdust on
the floor like banjo playing, Dixieland. Clancy had an aura of truth about him. It was good music. It really was. And so I still have a fondness for the Condon
years. Bobby Hackett used to call that music "whiskeyland." I love that music, I love those guys, Cutty
and Lou McGarity, and Peanuts and Bob Wilber and of course there are swing players, but
it sort of goes together. At first we had Buck Clayton when I was at
Condon's and then Yank Lawson. I loved them both. And the first time I worked was not with Eddie,
it was Bobby Hackett. I had a long association with Bobby Haggart. So Bobby taught me a lot of tunes, too. MR: Was Eddie Condon as much of a character-
DM: Yeah, he was. MR: as the books make out? DM: He was sort of subdued, but he was still
a funny man. And he played. Oh he came up to play a few times. Usually he'd sit and talk with the people. But he played good rhythm and all the right
chords. I hear he only took one solo in his life on
a record, and it was a record with Fats Waller. Somebody told me that, I don't know if that's
true. MR: Did he just play a four string guitar
or something? DM: Wasn't it a five string? I don't know. MR: A ukulele? DM: I'm not an expert on the guitar. I know who I like though. We've got a couple of good ones here. MR: Absolutely. The year when you went to - you've recorded
for a lot of labels. DM: Yeah I did. The first record I made was that first trip
with Charlie Ventura. That was an RCA Victor recording group. And the personnel - Boots went back with him,
Boots played baritone with the man. It was Charlie, Boots, Benny Green on trombone,
a wonderful trombone player, Conte Candoli on trumpet, and Conte was going with Betty
Bennett at the time. She later married Andre Previn. A wonderful singer Betty was, too. You see Roy and Jackie, Jackie Cain and Roy
Kral had left, and then they got another piano player for a few months, and then they called
me. Boots asked me if I wanted it. And Red Mitchell was the bass player. Ed Shaughnessy was the drummer. And at home I very seldom worked with bass
because they were three piece bands, generally saxophone, piano and I'd worked with a few
bass players but they were only semi-pros. And now I'm on my first real professional
day on the road, and this Red Mitchell was a giant of a bass player. And I said wow, this is what real bass players
are like. They're not all like that, but wow, it was
something else. And then Red left, and Woody Herman broke
up the "second herd" they called it, and started a little small band with Bill Harris and Milt
Jackson. Red went to join that. And he went to Cuba to do that. Then Woody worked a couple of other places
with that band and a few months later he organized another big band. They were going to call it "the third herd"
but they never did. They were trying to emphasize more dance music. But originally Red went with the band and
asked me if I wanted to audition, so I went with Woody for a year and a half. We had some good players on that band, but
there were great trumpet players. We had good saxophone players - Bob Graf from
St. Louis, and Marty Flax on baritone, Buddy Wise who came off Gene Krupa's band, and Sam
Marowitz was with the band Bop City when it opened but he didn't stay, it became a three
tenor and baritone band. Marty left, Sam Graf came on and Phil Urso
came on. But the trumpet players were Conte and Rolf
Erikson and Neal Hefti and Bernie Previn had Bop City, then those guys left. Don Ferrara, Lenny Tristano stepped in. Conte and Don stayed and Rolf, and then Doug
Metamie joined the band. Later on Conte left and Nick Travis came on,
and Don Fagerquist. We had great trumpet players, but there wasn't
much for them to play. All the jazz went to the tenors. And Red was the bass player and then Sonny
Igoe on drums, and it was a good experience and I enjoyed it very much. MR: When you talked about first playing with
Red Mitchell and like wow, this is what bass is really like, was it hard for you to stop
doing so much left hand? DM: Oh, no, I didn't do any of that, I didn't
do any of that at all. I wasn't even into that that much then anyway. I mean there was a suggestion when I'd play
at home I'd put in a few, but that came later when I was home between bands and saying something's
missing when I play a tune, so I just started easing into that, I didn't do it consciously,
to develop a solo style at all. I didn't do it that way. But when I was home and playing, in order
to hear, I'd play like a single line, you know, and the right hand I'd play like, that
was what I was into in those days, trying to play like a horn player, and just play
a bass line, and very few chords. It wasn't very pianistic. So later on I got a little more pianistic. Even on my first solo album, that was mostly
what it was - a bass line and playing the melody first and then improvising on the melody
a little bit, and some chords of course, on the ballads. But I tried to get a little pianistic later
on. But some of it was forced, to tell you the
truth. And I don't know what I evolved at. I think I'm trying to de-emphasize that bass
line. De-emphasize it. I like the sort of strumming. It's not stride, it's sort of just playing
like a guitar player. You've still got a bass line, but you stay
on one note more and play chords. I think that's what I prefer to do nowadays. MR: That's got to be - is it fairly strenuous
work? DM: I think so. I never thought so before. But my hands are getting tired and old, and
I'm getting diabetic neuropathy problems and tendonitis in this hand maybe, and just general
slowing up. MR: Well maybe it would be good to play in
a band where you don't have to carry the whole thing. DM: Right, right. MR: Well when you went with Concord Records,
that's been a pretty good label for you, hasn't it? DM: Yeah. It's been a long association. I think it started in 1978 or so. Before that I said that first record was with
Charlie Ventura, and I even had maybe an eight bar solo on one of those sides. It wasn't an album or anything. And then with Woody we recorded, and I think
it was maybe Capitol at first and then MGM, made a few records with him. And then I didn't record. I recorded with Charlie Ventura when I got
out. And my first solo album came about - I think
Don Costa was interested in me anyway, but I played with Urbie Green for an ABC Paramount
record, and the rhythm section had to leave and so Urbie asked me to do a couple of tunes. Maybe one with him and two solos. Something like that. But shortly after I did my first solo album
for ABC Paramount. And I got some bad advice I think because
the good guys, they were up in another category, arranging type people. I think it was Marion Emerson, my great friend,
a brilliant arranger, that said "don't sign with anybody." But the way I was, I was so irresponsible,
I wasn't married and I figured there would always be gigs. I didn't know the music business was going
to change so radically. So I didn't sign any contract. And the critics received that first album
very well, but I didn't record again for about three years, I did that album for Epic called
- dumb name - "Piano Scene of Dave McKenna." I didn't name it, they did. But sometimes I think maybe that was the best
album I ever did, it was just a jam session. I had Osie Johnson, a great drummer, John
Drew the bass player that was with me when I was with Gene Krupa. Both of those guys died early. They were dead about five years later I think,
young men, too. And after that, I don't think I recorded until
well maybe I did an album for a real fly-by-night company called "Lullabies in Jazz." Then it was years before I recorded. It was around in the seventies sometime. When I did record again it was two albums
in one day. One for Hank O'Neil and one for Marian McPartland's
label. And then I did a mess of them for Chiaroscuro,
you know, solo? And one was Zoot. I can't remember what else I did for them. One for Harry Rems label with Al Cohn I think. MR: How's the recording been for you as far
as do they pay you a flat feel to do that? DM: Those people did. I never sold enough at ABC. Remember those were like major labels, ABC
and Epic, my first two albums. And then the others were more or less down
hill because they were little jazz labels, not counting the one that was a complete obscure
thing, Lullabies, that was Realm Records or somebody. Then I did one for friends in Boston, recorded
at Jordan Hall, my good friend Ron Delacasa is a disc jockey up there. That was another obscure one, and I don't
think that ever got outside of Boston much. And then came those Chiaroscuro years. So Concord was, I think they had better distribution
then Chiaroscuro and all that. Concord got to be sort of a small major label. And Concord and I have a royalty agreement,
and it wasn't much at first, but hey, it got quite a bit better, it got okay, a little. I'm not making any fortune by any means. But now there's trouble, and I didn't get
any money this summer, and I don't know, since Carl died there's a whole different management. And so that's a whole different business story. And I don't know what's happening. I don't think I have much longer to go. So if anybody wants to call me and talk about
making records, I'd probably be available. MR: All you record label owners out there. DM: Yeah. MR: Well I like some of your album titles
too, they're creative. You had "No Bass Hit"-
DM: I think that was, I've got to give Carl Jefferson credit. I think he came up with that and "Major League." Those were the two with - "No Bass Hit" was
the first one with Concord, and that was with Jake and Scott. And then I did a solo album shortly after,
and "Major League" was a few years later, and for Concord I did a trio album playing
that Harry Warren music, and I did an album with Gray Sargent, a duo; and an album with
Joe Temperley, a duo; an album with Buddy DeFranco, a duo; a lot of duos; plus the things
I did as a sideman with Cal Collins and Scott and Warren Vache and those things in Japan
and so forth. So I did have, that was my longest record
association, yes. MR: You had mentioned that there was a time
in your life when you were thinking about the post office. DM: Yeah, you know, in the sixties. MR: Okay, that's what I was going to say - is
there a stretch of years that music has been the toughest for you? DM: That was it. I was living in New York in a walk-up and
I was working at Eddie Condon's. I think the base pay was $150 a week, and
it took $25 out of the income, and I think the rent in that walk-up was about a hundred
thirty something, and I had a little kid, a baby boy, Steve, and it was tight. I got a few extras but, you see the guys that
worked Condon's, like Yank and all those guys, some of them were on staff, and they did this
to play music, but they had salaries. But I wasn't on staff. Although Bobby Hackett did get me a little
while subbing at ABC. That was good, that was nice. And in those year's I'd go out with Hackett
some too, you know, little concerts here and there. I had a long association with Bobby. The first was in 1958, and then I'd leave
and come back and leave and come back. MR: That sounds like it'd be pretty tight
to live in New York on that kind of base pay I guess. DM: We moved in 1966, and I think I did better
right away. Because somebody had said to me, look, you
travel a lot anyway to make a living. You can get a plane or bus from the Cape and
go to where you're going. And the kids will grow up with fresh air,
which happened, that really happened. Now I never really dug New York that much,
I never considered myself a New Yorker, but I do l like Boston and I missed Boston a lot,
living in the city for those Copley years. Officially I was living at the Cape but most
of the year I was in Boston staying at the hotel. MR: Well maybe the Celtics will come back. They have a good coach now, we'll see what
happens. Those were the glory days. DM: So Monk, are you doing some playing yourself? MR: Yeah, I'm a saxophone and I tinkle with
piano. DM: Yeah. I understood that, but what style do you favor,
do you like to be playing in a small group, a big band? MR: Well it's interesting because I went through
my kind of contemporary jazz period where I was listening to like Weather Report and
all that. DM: Playing like Wayne Shorter maybe? MR: Yeah. But I've always been a huge Cannonball Adderly
fan. DM: Oh, yeah. MR: He just, for me, he was it, and still
is basically. But now my tastes are really ranging backwards
into the kind of stuff that we'll be hearing tonight. And a lot of it's from doing these interviews
and talking. DM: Do you play clarinet too? MR: Not really. I was one of those people that started on
clarinet but didn't stay with it very long and hard to go back. DM: Do you play tenor and some alto? MR: Mostly soprano and alto. DM: But, oh, sure. So that's why - a Cannonball freak, yeah. He was something else. MR: I got to see him a few times. DM: What about that group with Miles, wasn't
it Coltrane and Cannonball? MR: Coltrane, Cannonball, "Milestones." They recorded that. DM: Man that's something else, huh? MR: Yeah. DM: I went back myself of course, I - you
could say - regressed or something. When you think of Bill Evans and I would be
the same age, and I knew Bill casually for years. And he went on to pioneer a new piano style,
and I guess we weren't that far apart in the middle-fifties. And then I went and started with Bobby and
I realized how much I liked that music. And then hearing the Eddie Condon guys. I got to be a "whiskeyman player" - a bar
room player. And Bill went on to - I sort of lost track
of him for many years because his playing got so complex. I knew how brilliant it was, but then I heard
him, oh man he sounded so beautiful. I played opposite him in Boston, and I played
the intermission, at a club called Lulu's. And then about a year later, at one of those
mini jazz festivals in Seattle there was the Concord band with Scott and Cal and Warren
Vache, and I don't know if Mike was playing bass, I forget, no I think it was Bob Mayes
playing bass there. And the L.A. four with Ray Brown and Laurindo
Almeida and Jeff Hamilton. And Bud Shank. And Bill's trio with Joe LaBarbara and then
Mark Johnson. God it sounded so - it sounded like a symphony
orchestra it was so magnificent. It was great. MR: He even used the Fender Rhodes on a couple
of records. I don't know if you ever heard it. Did you ever have to play on one of those
electrics? DM: Oh, yeah, sure. I played the Fender Rhodes in a band. When I first went to the Cape we had a - Dick
Johnson and Lou Columbo had like a six piece band and they wanted a little rock music,
that the sort of rock jazz type guys can do. The drummer was so loud they had to get me
a Fender Rhodes, or the other one. I think I tried two kinds. I even have an electric piano at home now,
a Korg. MR: Well they've come a long way. But I have to jump on something you said because
I want you to explain it. You said, "The kind of rock that jazz guys
can play." DM: Well you know, we didn't know that many
of the tunes. But the pop tunes had a rock influence. Certain tunes of Burt Bacharach, "The Look
of Love" and all that, we had to play that. And we played "Sunny" and we played some blues
and I guess we played, what was the one that they all did a drum solo on every time? MR: Oh, "Wipe Out?" DM: Yeah, yeah. Things like that. Obvious rock tune. And whatever those tunes of the day were,
everybody played loud, so they had to get me - you couldn't hear the piano - they had
to get me an electric piano. I enjoyed it a little bit. And we played it on some of the jazz tunes
we played too. I recorded on it. That was another local record at a restaurant. It was a good band too. Dick Johnson's a fine reed player you know,
he leads the Artie Shaw band now. And he's made records for Riverside. MR: Well you're such a detective of tunes. And you, like there's some current pop writers
that occasionally attract you, isn't there? DM: Oh, yeah. MR: Michael Franks? DM: Oh, yeah. I dug his tunes. With funny words too, not that I can sing
no words, but he has a strong Brazilian influence too. And that's really my favorite music today. It's funny though, I don't play it, but everybody
likes Jobim and Gilberto, you know, and then I heard some of the others like, oh the Tamba
4, they knocked me out. And then later Milton Nascimento. I didn't like it when he sang falsetto, but
when he's down in his range he's a beautiful singer. He's got the most beautiful voice of all those
guys. Like Jobim didn't have any voice but it was
beautiful. And now I love Ivan Lins, you know Ivan Lins? MR: I have not heard of him. DM: Oh, he's got a rough voice, but he's brilliant. And then there's, I don't know how you say
it - well I like the girl singers, Elis Regina - she was a big pop singer, like the Barbra
Streisand of Naville. She died, they say of an overdose, but Jobim
said on the record, this girl never took dope or even had a drink. She smoked a lot, that's suspicious there. And Gal Costa, she's a big pop star. And now, I'm playing Dory Caymmi I think his
name is, an old, beautiful, beautiful music. But now these new guys, I don't even know
who they are. Did you hear Toots Thielman's Brazil project? MR: Yeah. Nice record, huh. DM: Oh man, all those guys are big singers
in Brazil you know. And I love that music. MR: Yeah. Well the world's getting smaller I think. DM: But on the other hand, then I go back
and say what do you really like? And it's that, or go way back and hear Louis
Armstrong singing and playing. Not necessarily, not those 1920s things, but
the middle ones, the 30s, when he's the "Struttin' With Some Barbeque" and "Thanks A Million,"
and "Even Tide," and "Swing That Music," ooh, was he playing and singing. Even in that record he did with Oscar later,
singing those old standards, you've ever heard that? Wow. Oscar, Herb Ellis and Ray Brown and Ed Thigpen
I guess. And I think most of it comes from Louis, American
jazz - And I like the blues singers too, I like them all. I like my kid's records, I like Van Morrison
a little bit, I even like certain tunes of Paul Simon's, and I always liked James Taylor,
and my oldest kid liked the Stones, he loves jazz too. And who else do I like? I like Eric Clapton very much. I think he's a fine musician. MR: I agree. DM: And as far as the old blues singers, I
like Joe Turner, Big Joe Turner. I wonder if you've ever heard the record he
made with Zoot and J.J. and Lockjaw Davis, ooh, and Count Basie. Yeah. Oh. MR: What was it about Basie that just kept
him for years- DM: People used to ask me in interviews, and
I always used to forget him, I said I liked them all. And I'd mention like the old guys and the
new guys. But I always sort of forget Count. And Bill Basie remains one of my favorites. And they said, "Well come on." Hey, maybe a few notes, but they were off
of the cherry tree you know, they were the right notes. He could stride away when he was younger too. If he wanted to do that, he could do that. "The Kid From Red Bank" and all that stuff. Count could play some piano. MR: If you had to sit down and write a list
of all the tunes that you have in your memory. DM: Ut um. I'm not even a contender for the championship. MR: No? DM: Nope. Jimmy Rowles is gone now, he knew an awful
lot of tunes. Tommy Flanagan knows a lot, Hank Jones. Those guys know - and I think Tommy, he knows
more of the bebop tunes. I sort of only knew the real early bebop tunes,
and I don't know the charts later on. Tommy knows them and he probably knows most
of the tunes I know, and a few that I don't. Hank Jones would have to be - Ellis Larkin,
a very elegant piano player, I love his playing and he knows it. But I don't know. MR: I know. It'd be hard to actually count them, but when
you get on these gigs, at these jazz parties, how do you come to a consensus about what's
going to be played? DM: I don't take part in it, I really don't. They say, "What do you want to play," I say,
"No, what do you want to play." Because I can't, I'm not good at thinking
of tunes. That's why when I started doing a lot of solo
piano, I'd make a little list out and it would be funny, it would be like a jazz band in
the early, early bebop days. Someone would say, "What shall we play?" "Well how about this?" "Oh I don't want to play that, let's play
something else." Well here I was a piano player on my own,
there's a clique, there's the me that made up the list and I'd say oh I don't want to
play that. So I started playing these medleys where a
word association comes either or of composers or of like words, and that gives me a bunch
of tunes to play and I'm not stuck, you know, in between tunes. It doesn't matter, when it's cocktails, like
at the Copley, there was a sort of buzz of conversation, not loud, but nobody really
wanted - the people that wanted to hear me play said, "Dave, will you come once in a
while - we'd like to hear you play under other circumstances" - where the piano is miced
a little bit. So most of them were like content listeners
and I just killed time. At first there was a piano bar there too and
I just talked with the customers and noodle, and that part was easy. But when I have to play and people are listening,
I get out these medleys and it gets me going, and before you know it I've killed half an
hour or three-quarters of an hour, or an hour. MR: Did you ever get a request that you wouldn't
play because - DM: No, if I know it I play it. Even a terrible song. But try to dismiss it quickly, and play it
through and play one and a half choruses. But I'm embarrassed because there are some
tunes that I'm prejudiced against, that I never liked, and I should have learned, and
I have mental blocks about them. "New York New York." When I was at the Copley that was big, and
I had said, "Well if you really want to hear it I've got the music upstairs." Once they said, "Why don't you?" Jesus, I went upstairs in my room and got
it, and muddled through it. And well as Ray Santisi, a fellow piano players
from Boston called it, "Mammaries from cats." It was a terrible song. I hate to put anybody down, but I think Lloyd
- what is it Weber? MR: Andrew Lloyd Weber. DM: Andrew Lloyd Weber - he's knighted by
the Queen, isn't he? And one classical conductor compared him to
Puccini. I think that's a scandal and an outrage. I don't like his songs at all. MR. It's kind of funny because he gets to the
end of the song, and he ended up in a different key than he started with, but he wanted to
go back to where he started, and instead of doing something creative like Irving Berlin
might have or something, he just - clunk - he just put it right back there. DM: Well that's excusable sometimes. Sometimes it's interesting. But I mean even The Beatles, they wrote lovely,
nice little moments in their songs, but it's fragmentary. They're not put together like a Jerome Kern
or an Irving Berlin song. You know, they had a form to them, a shape
to them, it's great. I'm really I guess, reverting to old fogeyhood,
but I mean the new songs, most of them don't even compare. That was a golden age of all those songwriters. And jazz guys contributed some. And you've got to say that one guy stands
out so much, because he was one of the greatest bands of all times - not the greatest - we're
talking about Duke of course, and a different type piano player. I don't play like him, but I think Thelonious
Monk got his early attack from Duke. And being a songwriter of those beautiful
things. He was the most versatile guy - he has to
be way up there in the pantheon. Louis, Duke, Count Basie's first band and
Lester Young - and well Ben Webster, I'm partial to him too. And then Bird and Diz and everybody, and Charlie
Christian, one of the pioneers. MR: What do you think about the state of jazz
today? DM: I don't know much about it. I just hope that these young guys playing
that version of the new jazz and fusion and stuff like that, and then there the classicists
like Wynton - and fine, they're making people hear some of the old songs. I know there's some brilliant players. I haven't got a chance to hear them all, but
I know thank God for people like Scott and Gray Sargent, the young guitar player, and
guys like Cal Collins are still playing the mainstream kind of thing. It doesn't mean they can't be creative within
that. And Harry Allen too. MR: Harry, gee he's so young too. DM: He's playing great. I went - Frank Tate, the bass player took
a band to Ireland and England last November, and Harry knocked me out. I knew he played well, he's far beyond that
now, and then I did a record date with him for a Japanese label in June in New York,
with Michael Moore and Jake Hanna, there was four of us. And I really enjoyed that too. MR: Anybody in particular writing tunes today
that you think may become standards? DM: Well I love Johnny Mandel's tunes, I don't
know many of them, I love his songs. And I'm sure there are other people, I'm not
sure who they - my eyes are watering, I hope that doesn't show - I'm having trouble with
my eyes with the diabetes, and I've got to see a new eye doctor next Tuesday. I hope he's not going to say - well he'll
probably say new glasses, that's enough, but I hope that I don't have to put that stuff
in them every day. I've got enough -
MR: Do you stare at the keyboard when you play? DM: Well sometimes I do. You know sometimes I do it to keep from looking
at the people. Because I wasn't a smiler. But sometimes I stare at the keyboard now,
because I say, hey, what am I doing here, and why did I play that lick and stuff. And maybe I figure if I look at the piano
it will get me back. There were times when I'd look around the
house, and I got very conscious of business. You know at the Copley, when I went there,
when I started business was very good. And when I was there about eight or nine years,
you could see business falling way off. It was probably because I was there so long,
and other reasons too, but as you get older you get conscious of those things. You say hey, no people, you won't be invited
back. And I just did a thing at Tavern on the Green
in New York. I've got to tell you, in August, it was the
worst business I have ever done in New York City. True it was the week before Labor Day week,
and they didn't advertise very much. And some of my friends, like they put the
cover charge on and it was kind of an expensive place, but they did lower the cover. This was terrible. I think I only had one good night in the five
nights I played there - Tuesday - or it was six nights I played there. And I think the only good night was Wednesday
or Thursday, or was it Friday maybe. It wasn't Saturday. And wow, that was panicky. I don't think, even if they ask me I don't
think I want to go back there, I just can't do business in there. I was okay there a couple of times. But that's a wake up call sort of. It's terrible. MR: A lot of good piano players have played
there. You're a good friend of Marian McPartland's. I think she's been there. DM: Oh a lot of people have been there - Tommy
Flanagan, Dorothy Donegan does very well, and I hear even, I don't know how well she
did the last time, but the guy told me that Illinois Jacquet's big band was always a big
draw, naturally. And even they didn't do well this last time. So something must be shaking there. People don't want to go there. The food's too expensive or something. I don't know. It's a serious joint, anyway. MR: I saw Illinois there. It's a pretty big place just for piano it
seems like. DM: I never heard that - yes I did, on a cruise
when I heard that big band of Illinois'. It's good, isn't it? MR: We saw you on a cruise. A few years ago. DM: Maybe it was that one. MR: No it was different. It was in the Caribbean and you were playing
in the lounge there. Well I'm so glad we got to talk here. DM: Yeah. MR: It's been fascinating. DM: Yeah. I'd like to hear you, Monk. Maybe sit in one of these sets. MR: I don't know, I might get thrown out bodily. But I hope you have a good set tonight. I hope that you get home safely. But you won't be driving so-
DM: No. I have to go, I have next week off except
to see some doctors. And then I go to San Francisco for three days. Strange, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday
I'm playing at Ed Moose's out in San Francisco. I love that town, love it. But you can't get comfortable, three days
and then back home. MR: Right. Has the night club business, spending so many
nights in the clubs and bars, has that made for a hard life? DM: Well, I used to love it, of course I used
to drink you know, but I used to like night clubs and bars. But as I get older, it's not that I dislike
them myself, but you know the audiences that are familiar with our music, those people
are getting older. Some of them are gone now, a few of them,
but the ones that aren't gone, they don't go out as much, they don't want to go to a
place where they have a couple of drinks and then drive - they're conscious of it. The young people aren't, they go to a rock
joint and I mean, not so much, I don't say some of them are responsible of course. So it's maybe there should be another venue
I guess. Bring back tea dances at the hotels or something,
you know, something like that. Maybe that'd work. MR: Well dancing was an awful big part of
much of this music. DM: I like - if you're playing like swing
music, you play for dancing. I like playing for dancing. A lot of jazz musicians don't, I do. It takes the pressure off. I was going to ask you, talking about - where's
Hamilton? I don't think I've ever been there? But is Cortland near there? The Cortland apples and all that? MR: Yeah, it's just an hour and a half south
of us. DM: That's south. MR: Yeah. Big apple country. DM: Yeah. Good apples too. MR: Yeah, it's a nice area, as you can see
in our picture here. DM: Yeah. Gorgeous. MR: Nice time of the year. DM: Oh, yeah. In fact it will be for a few weeks, right? The leaves and all? MR: That's right. DM: Probably until, the same season as Vermont-New
Hampshire. MR: Well thanks for sharing your time. It's been a great pleasure. DM: My pleasure. MR: So on behalf of Hamilton College, I'd
like to thank Dave McKenna and we'll be listening tonight. DM: Okay.
