My name is Monk Rowe and we're in the Fillius
Jazz Archive with Denis DiBlasio, monstrous baritone saxophonist and jazz educator.
DD: I already don't like where this is going. MR: Okay. Well we'll see if we can get better.
DD: All right. MR: You know I appreciate the fact that you've
been sort of walking around this space and ooing and aahing. Like you've got the lineage
and you know. DD: Oh this is holy ground here.
MR: Do you find that the roadwork you did with Maynard and whomever else affects your
teaching? DD: Oh yeah, oh gosh yeah, yeah, yeah.
MR: How so? DD: Well the - when I'm teaching I'm always
thinking I guess, without being conscious of it, like what happened on the road. You
know? Just like little things like being on time, something like being on time, right?
So we're teaching these students about showing up and without the road it's just you're late
for class. That isn't - that's not cool. But with that experience that I've had is that
you could get fired for this, you could lose your whole job for this. Musicians who are
successful they're like notorious for like being on time. Especially if you're a drummer,
you know, an 8:00 job, you're there at 6:00 trying to deal with steps, you know that kind
of thing. And that whole aspect of - and that's just one example, but yeah, I tend to look
at it very, yeah, I bring a lot of what I - I mean I can't separate it. So a lot of
what I'm teaching the kids, being on time, make sure you play - like Maynard had two
great quotes. He said when you get on the band, you have the road manager get you and
tells you all the rules and then someone else tells you something else and this is how things
are going to be, and then Maynard comes in and he goes, "All right everybody" you know
he had that, remember the Penguin in the old "Batman" movie, like he was doing helium?
You know he went aht-aht-aht, you know he sounded like that. That's how Maynard used
to sound. So Maynard would come in, "All right guys, the two rules are be on time and play
your ass off." All right, meeting's over. You know? That was it. And then what happens
is you know that's very sure, but as you're out there and you're saying that that's everything
really. You've seen guys get fired because they don't play well or because they don't
show - you don't show up there's big consequences to that. If somebody hires a band and they
want 15 people and the person is late going up they breach a contract because they only
count 14 and don't have to pay you. Because somebody's late you know, it's huge. So you
don't realize that as a kid. So when I'm teaching, that kind of thing and others.
MR: Well that makes sense with, on your website I saw you chose three adjectives to describe
your teaching and what you want to get across, and one of them was relevance. And that caught
my eye because I think you can learn a lot of stuff in academia that may not apply when
you get out in the real world, and so teaching something relevant to a jazz musician I think
is important. DD: Yeah I think so, sure. Because it's so
- well you just don't know. They don't know what things like sight reading, things that
are really going to matter. Getting along with people, getting along with people, accountability,
I think I know now what you're talking about. Yeah. But I remember one point when I was
off, someone was saying if you could kind of bring it all down and haiku it all, you
know? Get it all down to a little, like these nuggets. Almost anything I've seen being out
on the road and teaching, you can almost get reduced to these three things: accountability,
like are you on time and that kind of thing; can you play, that's the main, you have to
be able to play your instrument, whatever it is; and can you get along with people,
something you learn by the time you're like in first grade, even before. So those three
things. So it's like accountability, can you play whatever the job is, and do you get along,
like with people skills. Because when I've seen people be successful they're usually
good at all of those, or really good at at least two of them, and when I see people get
fired, not just from the road but anywhere, it's usually because of one of those - somebody
you can't rely on, they don't show up, they're not dressed right, they won't show up for
the job, or they just can't - I've seen people actually keep someone who can't play as well
if they get along and they're always there. It's almost like the playing could almost
take the back seat if the other things are - but I've seen great players that just would
get fired - the thing about the road is you don't - you have to really mess up to get
fired off of Maynard's band. What they'd do is he'd take so many breaks in between tours,
you just might not get asked back, you know what I mean? So if you do three tours a year,
if there's only two weeks left of a tour, well you can finish that out and then you
might not be on the next one. And that's another reality is that no one comes and yells at
you anymore. When you're in high school or something if you're late and you get yelled
at, that's a warning. Because when you get out there no one has to yell, the phone just
doesn't ring. You're looking at the phone. "Come on. Come on." And it's not doing anything.
So that's another thing that's - and I tell them all these types of stories, just like
we're talking here you know, and that tends to make more sense to them. Like we were talking
earlier about them just like teaching and when I tell them a story they tend to get
it a little bit, I think that somebody said the brain remembers something that's linear,
like a story, instead of just like a basic fact. So that's why the whole story thing,
I'm using it more and more. That's why this stuff you're doing is so great because it's
just like stories. I know this isn't about you, but.
MR: Well when you got on Maynard's band, were you thrown into playing situations that you
didn't feel you were prepared for? I'll give you an example. I saw a video when you were
with him and you guys - it was an outdoor thing on the stage and you were playing "Salt
Peanuts." DD: Oh that's in Japan. In the summer.
MR: So you're up there playing this outrageous solo and then you started scat singing and
then the whole band stopped and you're scat singing in front of what sounded like a pretty
large audience, by yourself now. What's my point? I was thinking that probably you're
not described as a shy person, and I think it has something to do with your personality,
the fact that you could get up there and do that. What do you think?
DD: Was that a question? Oh okay. MR: I think the question is -
DD: Yeah, there's a certain amount of yes to that I think yeah, but Maynard was, I mean
this is a lot about Maynard but there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about
this guy since I've been off the road because it was such an influence in a lot of different
ways. So going back to that being ready for it, a friend from Miami, when I was going
to school in Miami, was on Maynard's band and he called and - I was finished my graduate
program studies down there and I was going to stay in Miami. I wasn't going to come back
to Philly, I was kind of involved with the jazz scene a little bit and now that school
was over I could get involved more and I had some friends that played with some of the
Afro-Cuban groups down there. I was going to stay down there. And a lot of the guys
were from either like the Eastman area or North Texas State or Miami, so this Miami
crew would come back to Miami from being on a break from Maynard's band. I would see these
guys on and off. And one fellow, Eric Traub, great tenor player, he just passed away.
MR: I know him. DD: You know Eric?
MR: He went to Fredonia. DD: Yeah. Oh. Well he was the one who got
me on. Eric came down and he had that - he was a great player. And he said, "Look, they're
going to be looking for a bari player, and I had a tenor, I didn't even play bari. And
I said okay. All right. I mean this is a whole, stop me whenever you want because I'll just
keep talking. But I made a tape. I had a Jamey Aebersold play along, "Paying Dues." It was
the one where he wrote his own melodies because he didn't want to have to pay royalties, so
instead of "Body and Soul" if was "Flesh and Spirit," or "What is this Thing Called Love"
and it was called "What is This." Or whatever. Anyway I made a - I had an upswing, a funk
track and a ballad, because I knew Maynard's band was about energy. I borrowed a baritone
sax from this fellow Tom Moon, who was a great bari player. He wrote that book, 1,000 tunes
you should hear before you die, you know, those books. Anyway he's a friend of mine.
I got his bari, I borrowed it, I made a tape, boom, sent it out. Then I get a phone call
and it's - the offer says well we heard the tape and Maynard would like to have you come
out. In ten days we're going to start in West Allison, Minnesota, maybe, or I forget where.
Anyway so I was like whoa, okay, so this was for bari. So I had to buy a bari, pack up
and move everything back home to Philly in ten days. And the whole time, see you know
what the problem is, Monk, every time I say something there's like a branch of another
story that shoots off and I'm trying to self-edit myself so I can get to some point here. But
anyway I got on the band. I cut out five other stories to get there. But I got the audition,
I got on the band, and when I was on the band I was - I'd show up and you know you kind
of meet your roommate and we're going to have a rehearsal because we have a bunch of new
guys. So to your question of are you ready, out of school, and we set up and we're going
to read this, and you're meeting some of the guys like I don't really know anybody so you
sit down in your chair and everybody hands out the music. And the first thing we played
is "Blue Birdland" [scats] and that's his walk-on thing. And I'm looking at it and saying
there are eighth notes, okay, this isn't going to be that hard. Like I could read eighth
notes. The whole time I'm worried about like what you're talking about, like what makes
this something special as opposed to like a great college group or something. What's
this about? Like what's Woody's band about, and Basie, and Duke, and you know, Buddy's
band. What makes that band that band? So we start playing it and Maynard walks in and
I see him, and he just comes in and he's talking. I didn't even meet him yet and he's like,
"Hey guys. Yeah all right let's just stop. Let's just play." And I'm saying what kind
of guy sounds like the Penguin in Batman? What the heck? So anyway we play this thing
and I'm thinking this doesn't feel good, this feels good but a real strong good. It's a
deeper groove. It's G blues but it's like whoa, whoa, whoa, this is feeling okay. So
then the band comes in, and there's some new guys - so it isn't ragged but it was like
okay, this kind of feels good. It feels like what you would have if you were in a band
that was playing together for a while already. The very first read. So I'm like whoa, okay.
And then he comes in, like [scats] and I was like what was that? I'd never heard that.
I never heard a sound that had that everything in it. It was like what we talked about earlier
about Cannonball. He just hit an E above the staff or something and it was so - it had
a personality to it. He didn't play any other note. He pegged a note. Because the note fell
like a couple of things. It had stuff in it, it had a chord to it, it was kind of like
baked, like the outside skin of it was like baked-in sizzle and the note had a tendency
like it felt like it was going to shoot up if he didn't contain it. It wasn't just sharp.
It had this like, what the heck is that. And it goes zhooom and he let it go. Whoa, whoa
man. He didn't play anything yet. He played like two notes and already I graduated, and
I was like holy smokes. And so there was a commitment that was different. And it didn't
have to be like the highest note, or it doesn't have to be the loudest note, but it was kind
of like a total commitment to that note. Like every time he played I really felt like - I
notice it in Buddy, I noticed it when I saw Bill Evans play in Philly at it used to be
the old Showboat, it was called the Bijou, Bill Evans doing a ballad, Jimmy Scott singing
a ballad, McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones. There are certain people that whatever they do,
even though technically you could write it out it's so simple. But the commitment behind
it when you hear it, there's something in it, they play like they're going to die tomorrow.
They play like this is the last - that saying, this is the last day I might play is like
a real thing with some of these guys. And you know like I saw Sonny Rollins and I couldn't
believe it. It was like wow, you can do that? You can play - and then you can analyze oh
he's playing in C pentatonic on A minor. That's not it. That's the back door thing how you
can analyze it. But hearing Maynard play this note, and you could see - and a lot of guys
could play high. But this one pitch had like four things going on at the same time. And
I was like holy cow. And it was joyful, that was another thing. Question two? Just please
laugh will you so the people don't know it's not just myself here.
MR: They're laughing with us. Not at us. But when you said that, I got this image. When
I listen to Cannonball, and it's funny that "Mercy, Mercy" of course was a funny tune
for him because he didn't even solo. But when he played that [scats] that note, like you
described it, even though you can't describe it. But you did pretty well.
DD: It's a thing. The pitch itself has chapters in it. You know? And I don't know if they're
trying to do that but I think it's a result of a certain kind of commitment, and it doesn't
have to be like when Bill Evans does a ballad, that's like some deep, it's like wow. It's
like a depth as opposed to, well I don't know there's this kind of depth that I felt with
it. And the band caught it, and the bass player would lay it down a little stronger, and it
kind of spread. But it kind of spread from him when you have a playing leader like that.
And as the tour got on it was even better. But I remember, talking about sound, I did
a thing one time and it was a Maynard tribute and I was able to play next to Don Menza.
So we started talking about like big sounds and said who did you hear that had the biggest
sound, and without even skipping a beat he says Gene Ammons. I said really? Because I
never heard Gene Ammons live. He says you walk into a club and Gene Ammons could be
around the corner playing acoustic and you think the sound is coming from behind you.
It's just so huge, big. But it's more than just loud. It has that, whatever that is.
I still don't know what it is, but I know it when I hear it. That's why I was talking
about Jane Ira Bloom. She plays a beautiful note on soprano and it's like that's it.
MR: But that's what makes those people stand out, because you can't say what it is. And
to me that's like the magic of it. You can only analyze things so far, at least in my
opinion. DD: Well I think you can analyze, I think
that's all you can do is analyze it, and that's okay and that's good, but I think all that
is in service of the sound that we like. And if we're not listening a lot then we can really
fall in love with the analysis. And you know, you write books on analysis. Half of them
are mine. But it still doesn't get you, when you hear, the man didn't do anything. He played
an E. You know? And Bill Evans, who was telling me a story about it was Bill Evans birthday
and a bunch of - Harold Danko maybe, Andy Laverne, a bunch of guys were at Bill's apartment
and they all played a tune, they were sitting around just having some drinks while they
had this upright and each one played a tune from Bill, and maybe five guys - maybe McNeely
was telling me this, I forget, when we did these Jamey camps. Anyway they all played
it and then Bill gets on the same piano. But as soon as he touches it they all look at
each other like what just happened? All of a sudden the sound's different. Same piano.
Like Bill's touch or his intent or is it a - what is that? You can't put that in a book.
You can't make money selling that in a book. That's a thing. And I think a lot of it's
in telling where are you coming from. So I love Yusef. Yusef Lateef, his sound, I mean
his tenor sound on those Cannonball things are just great. But I was reading, there's
a biography about him and I remember reading or I read somewhere, or maybe I was talking
to someone who studied with him when he was in Amherst. And he got into the mouthpiece
thing. And he brought a couple of different mouthpieces to Yusef. Yusef will you listen
to this? Maybe four mouthpieces. He goes, "Oh yeah, sure." And the student puts it on.
It's a student telling the story and he plays it for Yusef and Yusef says, "That has a nice
core." Then he puts a different one on and he plays it for Yusef. And Yusef says that
has a beautiful warmth around it. And he puts another one on and he goes, "That has" I'm
paraphrasing - "that has a darkness that's very wooden, like it's coming from nature."
What he wants Yusef to say is play that one. And everybody else it's brighter or darker,
but Yusef just is this has this, this has that. So after he plays all four he says,
"Yusef I want you to tell me what do you think." And Yusef goes, "Well they all have different
characteristics that are all beautiful." In other words Yusef isn't - if you ever check
out his blindfold test he looks for something good in everybody. He's not - I love him.
So anyway the student says, "Well Yusef, when you're" here you go, talk about where people
are from and when you hear people and you're thinking what is that thing that they're doing
that I hear but I don't know what it is. Is it intent or whatever? So he goes to Yusef
he says, "I'm doing these four mouthpieces for you and you know you're not helping me."
And he goes, "They all have their own thing." He goes, "What are you looking for." He goes,
"What is it that you look for in your mouthpiece." And he goes, "I'm thinking of creating the
feel of a mother embracing her child." Whoa. So is it the link? You know. Like whoa. So
I think sometimes people are coming from such a different place. And if you really can park
yourself like in that, and then you play. So when I heard that I went back and I listened
to Yusef and there's a certain warmth about everything he does. Even if he plays oboe
or he plays some instrument, there's an approach or an intent or there's something. And maybe
is it the intent that you pick up that you kind of can't grab maybe. You know what I
mean? But that's a whole thing. And when you see people like Maynard play, you know, he
just loved it. Maynard would play trumpet on anything. He could write a rock tune. He
played that "Rocky" thing every night. You know? [scats]. But he loves playing the trumpet
so much that he just wants to play the trumpet. He'll play that tune over and over every night
because he loves the trumpet. It's almost like everything else is secondary. It's just
the joy of playing trumpet. So we would look at the book and he'd say, We could use a bebop
tune" to even out the set, so you don't have too much of one thing. And he just wanted
to play. MR: Did you want to, after that period of
your life was over, did you feel like now I should change my sound because I'm not playing
in a pretty powerful band. Now I'm going back to a smaller group thing, should I change
my sound or did you just go with what you already had?
DD: No. I had to figure that out. Once I realized that band played that way. I mean every band
has their - especially if you have a playing leader like Buddy's band had a sound because
of the way Buddy played, Maynard had a sound, Basie's, with Freddie Green. They all had
their sound. So once I figured out how to play with that - and I enjoyed that energy
kind of thing, so that energy thing was always something that really fit. It was a good fit
for me because it didn't feel like - Maynard liked a happy band you know and I like to
be happy. It was energetic at times and he would always give me like a solo, a mellow
moment if you wanted it, for everybody. So no I didn't change. Kind of when I was playing
tenor I always liked a big sound like a Dexter and Sonny Rollins, and the guys that filled
it up. And I guess I think I kind of heard lower. I had the subtone thing. So when I
played bari it felt like it fit. But I think it was - no, it didn't really change anything.
I figure if it did anything I kind of found what I liked you know.
MR: I think you and I had a shared experience when we were younger and that is hanging out
in record stores and flipping through the things and trying to make your choice. Where
did that desire come from? DD: I don't know. I think it was, when I think
back the earliest thing that I can remember was that it was something that was fun. You know
what I mean? Like sports were fun. Other things - the music was fun, I had friends that were
fun, but I do remember being - my parents, my mother was a cook like for a hospital,
came from a big Italian family. She cooked for like ten people, and she can't cook for
like less than twenty people, it's just like impossible. And my dad worked in the construction
area putting gas lines in, like in developments and stuff. So when they came home they were
really tired. You know they worked. And I remember they would put music on. And as soon
as they would put music on, it was usually some kind of jazz, like big band stuff. My
dad loved Boots Randolph, big sound. I didn't know Boots Randolph came from Coleman Hawkins.
You know? If you listen to Coleman you can see where he was copying it from. You know
Coleman wasn't getting it from Boots, but you know all that subtone thing. I mean if
he wasn't playing Yakety Sax and all that, but just that big sound. My dad loved it,
jazz. And they would actually like kind of dance in the living room to like [scats].
So my dad was in his construction clothes, my mother came home from the kitchen, and
I'm a little kid sitting on the couch just looking at them thinking well this is fun.
This is fun. This is happy. So you kind of associate, I guess, the sound, what the feeling
was, and then I remember I think it must have been Duke's band, I couldn't remember, the
TV was black & white, and it was a shot from the bari player to the piano player, so it
was either like Count Basie or Duke or something that was on TV. And my dad came home and I
remember I'm sitting on the couch watching this and my dad was sitting there and just
came home and took his boots off and it was winter and he had that insulated underwear
that they used to wear. And he's just watching the TV and my mother's cooking in the kitchen
and this band is playing. And my dad's looking at the TV and he's talking to it. You know
like [scats], get it. And I'm like, "Dad's talking to the TV." It sounds cool, mom's
cooking something good, he's happy, this is good, so it all became a thing. So I think
to me it was always like a tonic you know. I mean I'm not conscious of that, but you
know so at one point when I wanted to play an instrument, I wanted to play sax because
in the window of the music store there was an alto and it was shiny. It was shiny because
the window of the building, the orientation of the building is the sun would go down and
the time I would walk by it would be at night so the sun hit the alto sax around 5:00 and
it would shine. And the guy who put it together, where you put your thumb he put a nickel.
An Indian head nickel. And you could just see it. I thought oh my gosh, I want one of
those because it's shiny and it comes with a nickel. So we go in and the teacher said
- oh you're going to file this interview, Monk. So what happens is I go in and I says,
"I want to play sax." And I go in the music store. And the guy says, "Ah you should play
clarinet first. You should do clarinet." And I was like, "But it's not shiny. It doesn't
have a nickel on it." And my mom's like, "Well do you think that's a good thing to do?" And
it turns out, best thing ever. But I wanted the saxophone. He goes, "Play the clarinet
and saxophone's going to be a lot easier to go to." And I was like okay. So the clarinet
I had was one of those solid metal jobs, maybe he just wanted to get this thing out of the
shop or something. And I played it, and sure enough, well you know, if you're teaching
that, if you're teaching that, if you just learn sax and go to clarinet, oof, it could
be a nightmare. But I did that. And then when I had the saxophone it was it. But it was
always a fun thing, you know, it was always - my folks just liked to hear me play it and
I was never pressured. It was just a thing that was fun like anything else was fun. But
I always associate it with that fun thing. And then when I went to college you get in
these little camps like who likes who and you know who doesn't like who - if I don't
like the guy you like but you don't like who I like, but then you get a little balance
there for a minute. Then when I got with Maynard, Maynard liked everything. Maynard almost liked
music like I liked it when I started. It was almost like Mufasa, the circle of jazz life
I guess. MR: Well said.
DD: But you know he was there, "Maynard, who do you like?" "I like everybody: Bunny Berigan,
Clifford, Mitt Whitman's great." He liked everybody. So I was like oh my God, so you
don't have that disease that I just - you know what I'm talking about.
MR: I do. So when you got to a point and you started listening to music that wasn't necessarily
fun but was more intense and emotional, like some of Coltrane's music. It wasn't happy.
Did it take you a while to get into it or did you just open up?
DD: No I mean I listened to everything. I was listening to just about everything. I
knew that I mean by the time I was even in college I knew that there were some recordings,
because I already went through it quite a few times where maybe I didn't like something
and six months later I did. Did I do this? Did I mess this up? Yeah. You know, so sometimes
Coltrane always felt like it was really deep, spiritual thing to me. Coltrane wasn't - I
mean here we go again with intent and approach. If you look at the inside notes of "A Love
Supreme" you know, it was like Bach. To the glory of God everything he wrote he signed.
So if that's your intent you sense that's what it is. Whereas someone else you would
feel something different. But it was really changing, jazz was changing. You had fellows
that still played swing and the guys that played Dixieland and then the guys that played
big band and then the guys that played bebop, and you had the hard bop guys then you had
the cool fellas, and this is at the time when people are starting to play out a little more,
a lot of melodic minor stuff, playing both side of the tune key-wise. There was all these
techniques that were being used. So a lot was happening. But I felt that going to the
University of Miami was great for me because a lot of my harmonic questions were answered
there, because they had great teachers. They had people like Gary Lindsey, Vince Maggio,
Ronnie Miller - I'm leaving a bunch of guys out, but to get this sound you do this. You
still have to make art with it. You still have to create and say something with it.
And they would being people in. Like Liebman would come on. Man Liebman, what a teacher.
Liebman is - someone asked Dave, "You know when you play over a pedal where do you go?"
I'll never forget this clinic. He came in and I was so intimidated. I mean he was so
nice but you know Dave is confident. Dave's great. He's coming in and boom here it is.
And if you're a little shy the wave's going to come right over you, boom, it's going to
keep going. So Dave's up there and he's playing and half the guys are like what's he doing,
what's he saying. So Dave is trying to teach everybody what he's doing so you can follow
it. So someone says, "Like what do you do when you play over a pedal." He'd just finished
playing a tune. He goes, "Well you could do a lot." He goes, "You could link some triads."
He goes, "So pick a pedal." And someone says, "E." And he goes, "All right, give me a triad."
And somebody says, "E triad." And he goes all right, all right, that's good. He goes,
"Give me another triad." Somebody says, "B." He goes, "Not good, because B and E spell
a larger E chord. Wrong triad. Give me another." And he goes, "I did something wrong." You
didn't do anything wrong. "Give me another one." Somebody says, "F." He goes, "Good.
F. Give me one more." And I don't know they give him another. So he goes, "Okay here's
E" [scats] here's F [scats] and here's like A [scats]." He goes, "Okay I want to play
over this pedal and I'm just going to link these three triads over and over again." Okay.
And the guys comes, and Dave's like [scats] starts easy [scats] and you get it, [scats]
he starts to rhythmize it and stretch some things out. And it's the sound that I've been
hearing that I never understood. It took three minutes. And that's when I realized there
are teachers that are just as heavy as there are players as heavy as they play. For years
I'm trying to figure that thing out, and Dave explained it. I mean I was ready to understand
it and I heard that thing but I was questioning it. I was always trying to analyze it, well
how does this fit over a G minor. The point is it doesn't. That's what you're going for.
So Dave would explain it and do it, and I was like, I would actually get mad because
I thought if I would have known this five years ago I could have done it. I mean he's
such a strong teacher and that's when I realized that, and when I taught at Jamey Aebersold
camps I met people like Dan Hurley and Jerry Coker and David Baker and Jamey. I mean some
of these guys could teach like at the level of the way some people play because they can
explain it so easy. So it's almost like a Mount Rushmore of jazz educators that I have
in my head. And I borrow their stuff, I taught at those camps, I see the way they teach,
and I'm just stealing everything and I'm just dumping it on my students.
MR: Yeah. Don't call it stealing. Call it research. That's a Jerry Dodgion.
DD: Research. That's right. I'm investigating and I'm discovering it and hence I can share
it. MR: But you're funny, you just said something
about, "It didn't fit." And I was looking at something that you did, and I don't know
if this is the first time ever but - DD: What the heck is that?
MR: This is Rhythm changes and the compositional device that you are riffing on is Messian's
Mode of Limited Transposition #3. Do you recall this?
DD: Do I have to call security? You pulled that off of that?
MR: Yeah. DD: You're a detective. This is like "This
is Your Life." MR: Well I'm asking about, this is minutiae
but you've got this line going up, you've got B flat to G 7 and then there's this line
going up [scats] and it lands on a G flat under the G 7 chord. Okay so explain that
to me. Why can you do that? Why can you have a G flat?
DD: Did you pay for the course? No so here's the thing. If you look at - let me back up.
So we're going to talk about this stuff? Okay no I'm good with it. I'm good, this is fine.
We'll come back to this but let me explain something to you. So I had this book of Michael
Brecker solos, and I'm looking at this thing and I'm trying to analyze it. Man, I am looking
at this thing and there's D minor and Mike's not playing anything in D minor. And I'm going
what the heck is he - so I'm looking at E flat and I'm trying to figure G flat. Well
that's the flat 9, that's the plus 9, and this, that, that. And I'm thinking, I'm using
the - I'm trying to ram a technique from column B into a column A understanding, right? So
I'm trying to pull all this stuff over. Then we go play North Texas State, right? And Rich
Madison was one of the guys who taught there. Rich Madison, great educator. He passed away.
But we were at this house and eating, and I said, "Rich, I'm looking at this solo and
I can't figure out what Mike is doing. Mike is playing on this D minor and -." And he
goes, "Oh no, it's simple." I go, "It is?" I'm killing myself trying to figure this out.
And he goes, "No, no, no. Mike knows both sides of the tune." I said, "What are you
talking about?" He goes, "Look at a tune like it's a sandwich. Okay?" Look at a tune like
it's a sandwich. Now you don't get this but once I explain this, it's like a Liebman thing,
you'll think oh is that what it is. So he says, "Look at a tune like it's a sandwich."
Let's say you want to play "Take the A Train" in C. Well the middle of the sandwich, whatever
it is, it's tuna. The tuna is in the key of C. Well you learn it also in the key of C
sharp and you learn it in the key of B. So you learn the tune in three keys. You don't
learn it in one. And then what you do is as you're playing in one you just slide up to
the next key because as soon as you do that it's going to be dissonant and then you come
back when you want to resolve it. So you can pull dissonance from any spot you want based
on when you go up or down a half step and come back in. So I said, "Wait a minute, you
mean everything I've been trying to figure out for four months is really just -." He
goes, "Yes. Some people call it planning, some people call it sidestepping." He goes,
"But what it is it's a way to create tension." So instead of trying to get a chord and alter
it and build it more and get on the top and lower the 13th and do all that, there's a
whole other technique that isn't like that, it's superimposing stuff that doesn't fit,
because it's tension. You want tension. So any time you want tension on any chord you
can just slide up and come back. Because the thing about Mike is his technique is so great
he doesn't miss when he scoops up and scoops back down. When you come back, as soon as
you come back in you resolve it, there's resolution on any chord. So I was like wow, now that's
easy to understand. What's that, it's another three minutes, right? Now to do it and practice
it is a whole other thing, but to understand the concept, like Dave was doing in Miami,
was that's what I mean so I'm seeing these great teachers just, I'm knocking myself out
trying to figure this out because this is a whole different kind of theory. This has
nothing to do with altered chords, you're actually playing in another key. He goes,
"That's Bartok. Bartok would write string quartets where he would write the first violin
in G Aeolian, and second violin in F whole tone, the diminished scale from the viola,
and the chromatic scale from the bass. They share the same shape but they were all - he
said, "We borrowed all that stuff from the twentieth century guys." So what was happening,
as the twentieth century guys were playing with harmony, we're in there steal - researching,
and we're doing that, and at the same time Stravinsky is coming to check out drummers,
jazz drummers. He wrote the thing for Woody Herman's band, "Ebony Concerto," you know.
They're getting rhythms from us, we're getting harmonies from them, and you could hear Miles
doing some of that stuff early on where you just play like in another key. So he goes,
"It's a matter of dissonance." So instead of playing the changes and grabbing these
different alterations in the changes, just learn it in two other keys and whenever you
want tension you slip and you come back in. When you're in another key you've got to make
something happen. You have to be melodic, but that's what makes it kind of glide. So
when that happens, I said, "Well then those are completely different rules now." Right?
Aren't we talking about - well he said, "It's like twentieth century harmony applied to
tunes." So when he said that I was like whoa. Okay. So then I started looking into that,
and then the people who are on the forefront of like the breaking, not the traditional
jazz playing but like in your interview with Snooky and Gerald Wilson, where he says, "Jazz
is in a state of constant evolution and revolution." Man, that's got to be put in gold and put
over - these people don't know that I'm in your office with everything you've done here
on these interviews, and that's where we are. This. This is ground zero for that. But what
happens is you get this okay to use these techniques which change the game of harmony.
So this Messian, now with that in mind, guys are doing all kinds of things. I remember
at a Jamey camp, and they, listen to this, superimposing chords on top of other things.
But I remember years ago, the trumpet player, great trumpet player, Tim Hagans, great trumpet
player. And we were outside, this was maybe thirty years ago. And he's [scats] and I was
with someone, and I says, "What are you doing Tim?" And he goes, "Ahh" [scats] and he's
working on something. So he was doing something, and Tim was ahead of everybody. And I forget
who I was with, George Bouchard I think. He said, "Tim what are you doing?" And he goes,
"I'm trying to figure out how to use the first four bars of 'Stella By Starlight' over B
flat blues and then resolve at a fifth bar. And if you can create properly over it and
get a great shape, you get this great line. And in his head he's hearing this. And then
you hear him play and it's like whoa. So if you don't know what they're working with it's
all a big mystery. But a lot of it can be explained by someone who can explain it like
a great teacher. So this Messian scale is a scale that a lot of guys like to use. That
scale was, I think it's third mode. That's C-D-E flat-E-F#-G-A flat-B flat -B. It's a
nine note scale. And when you use that scale, no matter what chord you pick, there are a
larger percent of notes that are in the chord than out of the chord. And depending on what
you lean on and how you resolve it and what you stress, it gives your playing a sense
of like a gyroscope, like wobbling in the harmony. You're almost out but you're not
out long enough, it comes in. So if you play that scale over the C blues you'd be over
- it's almost like a drunken - and you can control it. You could be in and use the out
notes as approach notes, or you could emphasize the out notes and lean on them more and make
it wobble more. So it's kind of like - what's the theory of that scale? The theory I don't
know. The wobble theory I guess. When you use it I guess it'll tend to make it, and
I think Lovano messes with it sometimes. And now a lot of guys are using it. But when I
teach this to graduate students, if you heard the tune, if you listen to that recording,
because all those tunes are recorded, we recorded them all. You'll hear this - it just has a
tendency to like well what's that tendency? Are you thinking every little wobble? No.
You're using a scale that will knock you out but brings you back. I don't know does that
make sense? MR: Yes. Thank you. If you were playing on
"Stella By Starlight," a tune that I always found pretty challenging, can you describe
what's going on in your head as you play or the instant before you choose what to play?
DD: I think sometimes. I think the more I play something the less I'm thinking about
it. You know? I think it depends on where I'm at with the tune or what - if I'm trying
to do something different with it. But when I start a tune I don't know - I remember that
tune. I had a whole thing with that tune. Because you know how some tunes have one scale
that can fit over everything? You know a blues, not that you have to do that but you certainly
can - "Summertime" there's certain tunes that you can play a certain scale and it'll fit.
"Softly as in the Morning Sunrise." They call that bracketing, where you bracket the scale
over the whole thing. But "Stella," there's nothing about "Stella" you're going to bracket.
You know, the third measure you're going to get hurt because it's not related to anything.
So there's some tunes you're just not going to fake it. So and I remember learning that
tune. The first thing is, when I first learned it I thought of everything. Because you could
play around the melody and gradually get away from it, but when people play that tune there's
a lot more than that going on. You hear people dig deep into that too, because that tune
has like every possible chord you could find except I think a diminished, and you can even
squeeze that in somewhere if you cheated. So when I learn a tune, like when I started
that tune it was like I kind of equate it to like a neighborhood. Like the melody is
the main drag, so you don't get lost. The main street through the neighborhood. Then
you start looking at the roots of the chord and what the qualities are, like 1-3-5 maybe
1-3-5-7, and that becomes more like the side streets. And then once I get comfortable with
it then you know maybe you think - some guys think the scale that fits the chord, some
guys think I'm just going to hit a certain note when the chord comes up. Other guys will
apply like pentatonics to it or whatever. There's a whole slew of approaches you could
teach. But the more time I spend with it the less I'm thinking about it, to the point where
you spend so much time in it it's like that neighborhood - you've spent so much time in
it you know when people go to work and you know when people are home, and you know when
you could break in their house and steal their TV because that's how well you know the neighborhood.
MR: Nice analogy. DD: You like it? Yeah. I have tenure.
MR: Did you ever have, let's say a jam session experience or somewhere where you were really
embarrassed? DD: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. In Miami, well when
I started playing my very first lesson was with the metronome. Teacher had me with a
metronome. So I didn't know that music lived without a metronome, my very first lesson.
So I always worked it out. And I guess my time was pretty okay, you know I just was
used to it. And I drilled all these different scales. But when I would solo I would play
the scales that felt good. I played D and G and C on sax, they all kind of feel the
same until you get into D flat and that when you start using those side keys, right? So
I would just play the scales that felt good because it felt good, so I'm thinking I must
be doing it great because I feel pretty darn good. And we were doing this jam session and
I asked the guy who was my roommate, and this was kind of late because I really didn't have
- I had good instruction on the basics of the horn but I didn't know kind of what I
was doing. I would play along with records. Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt, "Blackbird,"
you know you could play one scale over that so I found out what the scale was, I'm going
I can play like Sonny Stitt. You know? So I asked a friend of mine, I said, "Tell me
about my playing. Be honest with me." I was feeling so good. I said, "Be honest with me,
tell me about my playing." And he says, "Well," you know he does that, which is like now I
realize that that's a wind-up for the pitch. He goes, "Well you have good time." I said,
"All right, okay" the metronome, thanks. And he goes, "And you have a lot of energy." And
I'm thinking all right that's just complex carbs, that's all that is. And I'm thinking
- and he goes, "You play more wrong notes than anybody I've ever heard." And I was like,
"What?" He goes, "Yeah," he goes, "you have a lot of energy and you have great time,"
he said, "you have no idea what you're doing." And I'm thinking what do you mean? You know?
What do you mean? And he goes, "You just play what feels good. You don't play what fits."
I said, "What are you talking about?" He goes, "I told you, you play wrong notes." So I started
to tape myself. And I was - because G feels great on the sax, right? G, G major scale
feels great. I'm listening to myself. The band goes to A flat, man I'm riffing it up
in G. I was like oh my God. I started to tape it. And I was like, I was shattered. I was
shattered. If I thought I was a legend then, now I'm really a legend. I'm thinking oh my
God. So I started to tape myself and I realized boy he was right. Like don't ask the question
unless you really want the answer. And I didn't want the answer but he gave it to me anyway.
I didn't think he was going to be honest like I asked him to be. So I started to tape myself
and I realized oh my God, and nobody is saying anything. My degree was in writing, not playing.
So I would just go and jam. And in the jam session, nobody's there to teach, they're
there just to play and have fun. So I was like oh my God I stink. And I stink with good
time. Which means - and I have a lot of energy so I'm putting in more wrong notes than most
in the shorter amount of time. So I started to tape myself and I said, I'm not going to
play anything unless it's right. Unless it fits. And I had the play along records and
I remember I would tape myself and I did it on "Stella" because "Stella" - did you notice
before I figured out what the chords were that "Stella" the F major scale fit over the
whole thing? MR: I'm going to use that.
DD: Well you've got a lot of work with that. So when I realized what was going on I tried
it with "Stella" and I had a slow track and it was like E F diminished - A 7 - and I was
like two-three-four - E two-three - here's A two three. And I would listen and I would
play like a chicken like plucking at a piece of corn like every five seconds, but I wanted
to make sure it was right. And then I realized wow, I'm like neglecting the harmony. And
it was embarrassing, but that wasn't a minor embarrassment. That was - that messed me up.
Now that really messed me up, which is what you need.
MR: Did you go to the piano at any point to like see the chords?
DD: Yeah because actually when I went to graduate school it was for arranging and writing. Composition.
And everything was at the piano. And that changed my whole playing, that whole thing.
In fact someone told me that whole scale fits the chord thing actually started for arrangers
and it was never like an improvisation technique, it was kind of grabbed later and used for
improv, which is - and that's when I realized if I was going to create a voicing on C minor,
and this is the mode that fits it, then okay then when you improvise on it it fits. So
a lot of my playing was straightened out from understanding of harmony, which came from
arranging. MR: Okay.
DD: Because you can't like ear-arrange too much.
MR: I was just going to ask you if you - can you sit at a desk and write a chart and pretty
much know what it's going to sound like? DD: Yeah. Yeah I mean there are certain things
- if I want to try something different I would go to the piano. If I - but yeah, maybe, because
you learn certain techniques and you use them and you know they're going to work. But if
you're going to try stuff, for me, the piano opens it up - opens it up. And I've been in
conversations with people that say, you know don't use the piano, other people use the
piano. And this Gil Goldstein put out that great book The Jazz Composer, he interviews
about twelve people in the back - Randy Brecker, I think Pat Metheny and a bunch of guys. And
it's funny because one of them will say I don't use the piano because if I don't use
the piano it frees me up. Next person: I love to use the piano because when I use the piano
it frees me up. So it's all this kind of stuff. And I had that conversation with somebody
and somebody in the classical area, and they said well Stravinsky used the piano. Stravinsky
used to compose at the piano. And he got into the same conversation. So apparently this
is like a conversation that's been going on since this thing has been invented. And Rach
- not Rachmaninoff, Rimsky, Rimsky Korsakov was Stravinsky's teacher and the way it was
explained to me was Stravinsky goes to Rimsky and says should I use the piano, should I
not use the piano. And Rimsky says, "What are you talking about?" I mean he doesn't
sound so South Philly as that, but he goes look use the piano. You like it, so use it.
Who cares? Just figure out your way and like develop it. What are you worried about these
rules and these conversations for. Because he would play until he found an idea then
he would lock it in and develop it. But - so for me I like the piano, especially since
for me I feel like it opens it up, plus I like it. It kind of relaxes me a little bit
to just do it. But I've written things before, because I know they'll work, and they work,
and that's okay. You know but I'd rather play at the piano until I get to a certain point
with it. MR: I'm going to veer off to another subject.
For you are there good old days of jazz? Are there times that you felt like gee I think
I would have liked to have been a player then. DD: Oh well, now you're talking a whole other
thing. Yeah. Well I guess, yeah. I mean it's - I mean I'm teaching right now. I love teaching,
and I'm playing and I do like - I love what I'm doing. I love what's going on, I love
when I get a chance to play with the people I play with. But I remember being with Maynard
- I'm going to keep going back to Maynard because there's so many stories, it's like
you're talking five years of stories of things that he said, and he had the Birdland Dream
Band. And I said, "Boss, you know everybody's talking" - because he goes "Why are you guys
always talking about New York?" We were on the bus. He goes, "Why are you guys talking
about New York all the time?" I said, "Well that's where we're going to go." He goes,
"Everybody's talking about it." He goes, "I know that's where a lot of guys are," but
he goes they're all - everybody's talking about New York like that era is still going
on. He's talking about Birdland and Three Deuces and Cotton Club and all that. And he
says, because that whole thing lasted about eight years. It didn't even last ten years.
And he says, "And I caught the last two years of it." He knew Bird and all, because he had
the Birdland Dream Band at Birdland. And he says, "It was kind of the end of that, and
then guys were going to Europe." You know Dexter went to Europe, Johnny Griffin went
to Europe, Maynard went to England. But he says he caught it and so to him you know that
thing was over and whatever he was doing was like the new thing. But I guess those of us
who grew up listening to those Blue Note records and you know we love all that, you tend to
think New York is - I mean still you're never going to find a place, maybe L.A. where there's
so many great, great, great players. But you're talking about that scene. And he says, "I
saw it when it was kind of wrapping up also." And he goes, "So it's -" So I felt that we
would play and when I was really a baby I mean I can remember this, I don't know if
I was a baby, maybe I was a little past babyhood, I was in the little kidhood. And my parents
took me to see the Basie band with Judy Garland at the Manhattan Music Center. And my mom
says, "See that lady in the red dress? That's Dorothy." And I was like, "Really? It doesn't
look like her" you know. But anyway so she sings "Over the Rainbow" with Basie's band.
So I heard that. Now with Maynard we would still meet up with, I met Basie while Basie
was playing with Basie's band, you know, before, because the band kept going afterwards. But
you know I was introduced to Basie. We played a gig together. I met Woody, through Maynard,
Buddy, all these bands were still out doing it. But it was kind of leaving the room you
know. But they were still playing, like the playing leaders, Buddy, they were still playing
and they were still playing great, but you didn't really know that the end of that era
was kind of coming, even though you could see it. When you're in it it looks like it's
kind of diminished. Looking back now these bands that would go out and you could play
in these bands, they're not you know they're just not around for people to do that. So
I felt that that era that I look at, like I'm looking at this photo of "A Great Day
in Harlem" with everyone on the steps - that was an era that I think all of us with we
could have been around you know. And when they talk about it, when Sonny Rollins talks
about how he was right down the street from Coleman Hawkins, I mean that have been - we
just dream about what that must be like you know. So yeah, I think we would all like to
be in that era and I just felt like I was lucky to meet - when I look at that photo
there's quite a few guys in that photo that I've actually met. But when I think about
how lucky I was to meet a lot of these people through Maynard's connection with that era,
I just feel like aww, we did miss the era. But I'm not dying too - and I don't want to
go down that road because it's not a happy road. But it is something - I don't want to
say I don't think about, but it is something I think about.
MR: Do you have jazz majors? DD: Yeah.
MR: So are you able to give them advice on what their possibilities are after they graduate?
DD: Oh yeah. Well the ones that are serious we usually have a talk right around the sophomore,
junior year. And it's different for these - the age that we're teaching now than it
was for us. The advice that I - they can't do what I did, because what I did doesn't
exist anymore. You know you go out in the big band, maybe get a name. I mean almost
everything that happened to me happened because I was on Maynard's band and I maybe took advantage
of it afterwards, doing these clinics and all this business you know. It all came because
people saw me with that band and you know then you're able to keep it going. Most of
us that have been on the bands, a lot of them, like when I think about the people I know
who are doing things now, they either were with Count's band or like Duke's band or Woody's
band or Stan's band or Maynard's band or Buddy's band, you know? And when these guys leave
they either go to Chicago, New York or LA for the most part, and there's pockets of
guys, and they've all had that kind of experience, so - but now that whole band thing doesn't
exist. So - and I don't want to say it shouldn't, it just doesn't. It is what it is. But when
a student starts talking now about you know what am I going to do when I get out, I get
them in my office and we look at YouTube. And I talk to them about how certain people
have to - well you have to kind of design your own life. There's nothing that you're
going to go to and join and that's going to be your life in jazz. You know it's not going
to exist. However, you look up - look at some of the people who are creating their own thing,
and I'll pull up you know Leo Pellegrino? Too Many Zooz? He's a baritone sax player.
He's playing. MR: Yes.
DD: And so I'll pull that up. And I sent him a neck strap because I'm concerned he's jumping
up and down. But I said, "Look at what he did." Now no one would think you're going
to make a living doing this. But he put this up. Social media is a big part of it. You
know you get your stuff out there. You have to develop your own audience. You develop
your own audience so your audience comes and sees you, where before you would play a gig
to sell your CDs. Now you're giving away CDs to hope they come to your gig kind of, because
you have to have, how do you develop your audience? You've got to have an online presence.
It's all the stuff that didn't exist before. Have a website. People start to follow you.
People ask you questions, you answer them back, you have to be - and I have a couple
of students that have gone out and been successful but part of the work is this online activity
that is very much a part of it all. In fact I've asked, we have a Music Industry major
at our school. And these guys that teach it like they're all about this thing. They're
all about this online thing. And I asked one of the guys, I said, "How do you get a record
deal these days?" Because the record deal thing the way it used to work was different.
You know you have a name like Sal Nistico. Played with Woody Herman, great tenor player.
Sal gets off the band, Sal's got recordings, ooh let's follow Sal. That's over. How do
we do this. And he goes, "Well the first thing the rec" - I said, "What would the record
companies even do?" He says, "If you came to a record company" one of the guys told
me that the record company is going to look at your social media to see how many followers
you have. And if you have enough followers then I'll just create a real nice slick video
for you and we're just going to post it on the followers that you've already made and
there's your audience. So if you have enough followers you're apt to get a record deal,
not that the music isn't that important but it's almost not as important as how many followers
you have. Nobody's going to listen to it to say man that's great tenor playing. They're
going to say who's going to follow you? Nobody. Well then we're not interested. So I think
wow, that's a whole change. But they need to know that. And as a teacher teaching something
that is like an art form, and the society around it is changing so quickly you can't
look at it like the way it used to work. But it's do-able and there are some kids doing
it. So some of my students they get on it, it's not that foreign for a lot of them, and
they have a big presence. Because now it used to be the club would advertise it and you
would go and play and you know you get paid and hopefully somebody would show up. But
now they want a guarantee that you're going to bring your peeps to the gig, right? So
you have to guarantee like 35 people before you get - but for some kids it's not a problem
because they're active on the social media. And that's a thing that never happened - that
didn't even exist before. And when I had to learn that, I won't say it was a bitter pill
but it was so opposite of how I came up. But we talk about it and we look and Colin Stetson,
this guy that plays bass saxophone and he sets up a loop, he does these concerts - it's
great playing. It's unbelievable playing. I never heard it. I put it up there and I'm
showing - I have about five different people that I show my students look at what they're
doing. This is what you have to do if you want to have a future in it. Because what
I did is gone. It's not a bad thing, it's just what it is.
MR: Fascinating, conversation Denis. DD: Oh. I feel like I put a big downer on
it. MR: I've seen you in pictures with Gary Smulyan.
DD: Gary. One of my favorites. MR: I wanted to read something he said, and
then see maybe you can top him like a battle. Like a baritone battle. He said, "There's
this misconception like oh I'm a jazz man, I play what I feel, man. And that's not what
it is. Jazz is four things you have to hook up. What you think, what you can hear, what
you can feel, and what you can execute on your horn.
DD: Yeah. Well there's no battle there. MR: There's no battle there.
DD: No, yeah. MR: He said it well.
DD: Yeah. You have to - I taught at so many camps and I'm watching these guys teach, these
Jamey Aebersold camps I keep coming back to this, because there's so many - because it's
small group and there's like 70 teachers. And I'm watching everybody teach and I'm thinking
what's the similarity. Because you know some people they copy Clifford Brown and that's
all they've done, and they sound great. Or they do the scale fits the chord thing, and
they sound great. Or somebody's crazy about pentatonics, and they sound great. And another
guy will hit approach tones, like guide tones through the tune and it'll agree with that,
and they'll sound great. So there's all these different like spokes to get to the hub of
the axle, you know, of the wheel. And I'm looking at this thing and I'm thinking what
is it that's common with all these? Because if you look at the approach you think you
have a learn a million different things. And really you have to learn just a few pretty
deeply, so you can work it, so you can express yourself. Ultimately it's about saying something.
And the things that I realize are the same with everybody is one you have to play your
instrument. Anybody who can play this music can play their instrument. You have the chord
scales down, like that technique, have that down. The second thing is you've got to listen
to this music, which means an awful lot, more than just listen to it, like the syntax and
you know somebody says oh it's D Dorian. Okay, I'll use D Dorian. No, no, no, listen to Miles
play "So What." That's how you use it. So you can understand the theory of it like that,
but to carve something like that out [scats] to carve something like that out that's now
famous, that's - you have to look at that. So it's listening to the music, knowing your
instrument, and then applying everything to some kind of song. Otherwise it's - you have
to apply it to like a song. That's the thing that I found to be the same. Every - some
guys do classical, then they learn jazz. Some guys never do classical, they just work on
their scales and then they sound great. But without listening nothing works. Without playing
it nothing works. And without learning to apply it to the tune nothing works. But you
know Gary's right. And there's a lot of - the guys used to do the Jazzmobile. See I'm going
to mess this up because - I don't want to ruin this. See I have to - for me to tell
it to you I have to curse and I don't want to do that.
MR: Maybe we could put in a beep. DD: Would you? Can you do that? Oh all right.
So this is how the story was told to me. So the guys are doing the Jazzmobile in New York.
You remember the Jazzmobile that rode around New York?
MR: Yes. Billy Taylor. DD: Billy Taylor. I think it was Frank Foster.
Maybe it was Ronnie Mathews, I forget who was on it it was a quartet and they're playing
and they're going around. So this story was told to me like two or three different times.
So they start playing "I Got Rhythm" right? And so it's Frank Foster and you know Frank
Foster, Frank is so great. He just tears it up. So some guy, now this is the story how
it was told to me. So some guy gets up with the tenor and he just hops up there and of
course you know now Frank's in a weird place because you going to throw the guy off? The
whole neighborhood's watching, they're all screaming, so he's stuck you know? All right.
So he gets up and he starts doing the purging thing. So Frank's probably like [scats] just
playing it. This guy come up [scats honk]. Squeeking and everybody's screaming and yelling.
So you know I could just see the bass player, oh here we go, and Ronnie's like help me,
get me to the end of this. And so when it's over and the crowd's screaming and it was
just a bunch of - so one of the guys in the band says, "Man what were you doing, man."
And the guy says, "Man I was just playing what I was feeling." And Frank says - this
is the way it was told to me, Frank says, "Next time feel something in B flat motherf---."
Now that's how it was told to me. So beat me will ya. But that's kind of it. Because
these guys are just oh I'm just going to feel it, or it's just this - no it's a lot of work,
it's a lot of work. Working on this, and Wynton talks about it too, it's if you're willing
to do the work, the solitary work of just over and over again and over again and over
again, it's like pushing a Cadillac up a hill with your forehead. You have a gain every
inch of it, especially if you go to the keys you don't know. You know? So you know these
great players are great practicers. That's the thing. Who was saying? I was talking to
David Baker. Boy Dave was great. He says, "You know what? Anybody can play like Coltrane.
Anybody can play like Coltrane, all you have to do is practice like Coltrane." Not everybody
can practice like him. Not everybody can practice eleven hours a day on F minor. Bobby Shew,
great trumpet player was with Woody's band when Woody's band and Coltrane's group was
traveling Europe. So they were in a hotel. And in the morning Bobby's telling me the
story. He has photos of it. I'll send them to you. Bobby comes out and he's in the lobby
and some of the guys in Woody's band go, "Hey, John's practicing in the boiler room." So
he looks down there and there are two or three guys in the sax section just watching John.
"John do you mind if we watch." And he goes "Yeah, sure." John's real sweet. You know
John was a sweet guy. And John had a couple of jugs of water, he was in his tee shirt,
and he's in a boiler room with all this stuff going off. And they had a tape recorder, and
he was doing his multiphonic thing then, before anybody knew what was going on. So here's
John who's done like "Giant Steps" and played with Miles, and all the tenor players love
him and know him and all the sax players love - and now they're watching him and he's like
[distorted sounds]. And they're like what's he doing? Like they don't know what he's doing
because he's already like miles ahead of everybody. So this was like nine in the morning. So Bobby
goes and he takes a look and he goes oh. So Bobby goes out, meets some guys, they go eat,
they go walk, they go sightsee, they're checking out some things. You know I think they had
lunch somewhere. And when he comes back about like five o'clock or six o'clock, and as he
comes back in the lobby guys are like running back and forth in the lobby because they're
- "hey got to go check out John." He goes, "John what?" He's been here since nine o'clock.
So Bobby goes what? And so Bobby goes and he looks, and now the whole sax section and
the word's out, John's working on something and he's like soaking wet from the [distorted
sounds], eleven hours. And later on it was like he was working on G minor, he was working
on like what is he going to do - he's working on some stuff to do over "Afro Blue" because
when they played that tune it would go like three hours. So that's what I love, because
it makes these guys human. I mean you know it's not that they just played great, or it's
not that all of a sudden they woke up and everything was great. No they worked for it.
Sonny Rollins like practices, he's got notebooks all up - everything he's trying to work on.
They'd rather skip the gig. When Trane lives in Philly some guys would come to pick him
up for a gig you could hear them practice. You'd knock on the door and he'd stop playing
because he didn't want to go. It was like a jam session and he didn't want to go. They
were like "Come on John, we hear you." He was just quiet. "John come on." Oh let's go.
And they would go and then you would hear him practicing again, because he's going for
something. It was more than just pra - that's not practicing. That's searching for something.
That's a quest. And we played with McCoy in Japan and that video you saw at that outdoor
festival that was a thing. We took a train with McCoy and Al Foster and Eddie Gomez.
And we were riding on the train with him to that spot we were playing in Japan and McCoy
was right here and said, "Was John - did you guys talk about the music, do you mind talking
about it." And he goes oh no. McCoy was a sweet - he said, "John didn't talk about it
much at all, he just started playing. He put the right guys together" and he said, "he'd
just practice all the time." Jimmy Heath says the same thing. Bobby Shew said on the plane
Trane had a broomstick that was cut with buttons on it and he'd just do this thing. So when
you hear Trane, a lot of people, oh yeah, I'm playing like Trane. No you're not. No
you're not. You copied a lick. MR: Okay.
DD: You know what I mean? This guy's in another thing. But it was - I don't even remember
what you asked me. MR: Whatever it was, it was a good answer.
So I enjoyed this a lot. DD: Oh well thank you, Monk. I mean - make
me look thin, would you? Can you help me out? MR: We'll see if we have some magic on that.
Okay? DD: Well I hope it came off okay. I appreciate
it thanks, man. This was great. And thanks for doing what you're doing because like I
said before, these interviews you're doing are great and it's going to be worth more
as time goes on you know. And already you have some priceless things in there.
MR: All right. Thanks for adding to them. DD: Oh my pleasure. Thank you.
