Don Menza Live On The Jake Feinberg Show

anyway they got to practice today and I would not have a child but you know I talk about this all the time and I'm very fickle when it comes to tenor players that I've listened to in the early years like I was 15 when I started playing 14 15 years old and first record I heard was Coleman Hawkins and I still remember that that sound that beautiful sound that he had and and and of course the record was body and soul I know it's um I still like to do that once a night I pay homage to the Cohen Hawkins the next enter player I heard was staying gets and I wanted to play that way and I couldn't understand they were both playing the same mouthpiece and had to completely same horn same up he's two completely different sounds and then I heard gene Hammonds and to this day I think I think gene Evans is still my favorite ballot player but he could play fast he could play as fast as Sonny Stitt and I I heard those two guys together when I was growing up and one of the first songs that I learned was from gene Hammonds it was like my foolish heart [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] folks welcome to the Jake Feinberg show we're here in North Hollywood California with absolutely shaman musician and beautiful cat Don Menza welcome to the Jake Feinberg show my pleasure you may ask you a question the audience tuning in them I want you to talk a little bit about of the weight legi and the black unions the jam session that used to go on in Buffalo when you were younger can you talk about how those guys accepted you and actually more to the point what was it like having separate unions I wasn't even aware of it I mean we were allowed to go to any other black clubs and the black musicians all played most of them that played in that in the jazz club in Buffalo most of them on the white clubs were black but I didn't really ever experience that that black-white controversy or or segregation thing until 1955 on I joined the army but I remember going to the black musicians Club in Buffalo the first time and I went up there to play and there was the drummer from Buffalo oh my goodness I always forget his name yeah no you it'll come to you anyway Frankie Dunlop frankie demo thank you very much yeah I remember going up there and I played a song and he says and everybody's yeah yeah I'd done you know it's okay but you got to learn if you want to come back here and play again you learn it learn it the right way find the changes play the right chord changes and he said one of their records go out there and find there were no nobody was teaching jazz in 1950 to 1951 1952 when I started playing and so I went out and I went to the local record shop and I said I need a record of a jazz record and I can't give you anything but love and lo and behold it was unanimous John I I went home and I learned that record by heart I still know most of it you know but it took me about a month and I transcribed it and I went back I only played three courses I played one course of the melody two courses of stretching out but I did it note for note from the record and they all came to me said yeah man that's it you know they were very encouraging and and so whenever I wanted to play I would go to a session I went there it was Sunday afternoon mmm late Sunday afternoon he usually started about 5 or 6 and I had to be out of there by 8:30 or 9:00 and my mom and dad would come up pick me up and that was it I wasn't old enough to be in there and like I tell this story over and over again my mother was very very upset about the fact that I wanted to be a jazz saxophonist or a jazz musician period she said yeah well I was like what 16 17 years old and she told me she had my uncle was that one of my uncle's was a doctor my dad was a electrical engineer and all my uncle's were like professional men of sorts none of them into music I was the first musician of the family and I remember them one afternoon she's a doddle come here I said ah what did i do no Donald yeah so I sat down at the kitchen table and three of monocles came in trying to talk me out of this saxophone thing I said that's what I want to do I want to play the saxophone they talked to me for an hour and finally they left and I remember looking at my mother and saying he's your problem you know my mother looked at me she said listen you don't want to do that you're gonna wind up in smoke-filled places where there's they smoke dope draw its rugs and loose women and I said really sounds about right to me people that actually could you could you play a little bit people just ask him for body and soul can you play a little bit of body and soul body and soul : the what the one that I remember the most was the more than more than the original 39 recording the classic one and I see a victor is the rainbow record hmm and from 1940 41 that's called rainbow mist and Hawk says it's it's infectious I I can't do it too much because then it takes me a week or so to get out of it really get that high off oh yeah it's so it's it's addictive to play that way I mean [Music] yeah he was wonderful can you talk about the first time you played Birdland did you go to Birdland play Berlin was 1959 I was on the Elbe little band and this is an interesting story it was my last night on it and I'm an opera fan and the great tenor vocalists tenor from Sweden you see Berlin was was singing a recital in New York is kind of get all recital which there's a record of thank God but I wanted to go see him and L wouldn't let me often at night early anyway my feature on the band was Cherokee and I was playing the King super 20 then and there not nothing the most stable Horan sign strongest hards ever made the post used to come off anyway I'm in the middle of the second or third course and the one key this key right here fell off the horn and I just stopped it I looked at I decided laughing you know picked up the key and I'm holding the key and all of a sudden I feel this this hand on the back of my my shoulder from behind I turned around it was Illinois Jacquet and he's handing me this hard to play how about that for baptism under fire going back to what uh but your mom was trying to talk you out of was that yes let me ask you though the the you know I was not even close to being birthed and I'm just wondering about that fact that you kind of I mean you know you played around with certain things but was there a divide between the people that were using junk and people that were sober well I was very sober for a very very long time I dabbled with some smoke sure later but that was about it and a little bit of alcohol I never considered myself an alcoholic I I don't think that it was I was always afraid of it I saw what it did to good friends and I saw what it did to great musicians it was mind-enhancing or it had nothing to do with that it was it's addictive that's it after a while you need it not to play but those guys used to practice that way so one ain't weight when they went out to play they made sure that they were I and that's that was that's really a drag and I I don't want to get into like who it was or or but I was afraid of it very much and I'm glad I'm glad I had a great deal of respect in fear of it mostly fear fear because you saw people becoming roadkill oh yeah they were it's not good what was there a situation where people said where they you weren't trusted because you weren't on John well there were there were people that were to really put down all those guys that did it and I don't want to say no no I don't want to say most of the guys that I that I liked had dabbled with it or were hooked her words were addicted but it's almost that way it was true and I it's not fair they I said look past that I don't care I don't care about that listen to what he's playing and junk didn't make him do that junk eventually got made them get out of it it's a long story it's a long and it's a neverending story right I mean it's you know it's a combat Journal said you you uh this is really important how what was the first time that you really had to learn to play a song and every key Jackie buyer used to have lessons at his apartment at Berkeley Mark Levine would come over and play piano and Jackie would play drums and he'd say let's play Cherokee in all twelve keys you know what I didn't know about that I knew Jackie from the I knew Jackie from the Maynard Ferguson days we were on we were on that band together you were in the band with Jackie oh yeah oh yeah Jackie and I were like rather good friends and he-man no I just came in okay yeah anyway we were we were good friends Jackie was and he was always rather encouraging he made a big influence on me as far as my writing was concerned he I loved some of my probably my favorite charts on that bed with Jackie Byers over they might other one was extreme what were they like well me what got you off about it was different it was different and so exciting armonica Lee and rhythmically I mean it was it was a lot of energy and that's what I was about knows you know that's what I I mean it wasn't the most serene kind of charts there was a chart that he wrote called extreme there was another one lucky day it was and it was Jackie was wonderful and again he was like sort of I want to say the loneliest monkish in his plane and even in his writing but it was great that's an interesting allusion to analogy to felonious but so I mean we're gonna it was he was you know he played that way and it was it was really great I loved I loved his plane and his writing yeah do you so you didn't have like like where Mark Levine would fall apart you know play in the key of D playing Cherokee or something like that and then Jackie would say okay now you know what you need to do come back next week how where did your ears don't get unlocked on the bandstand the most was it with Maynard no it was it was the times when I showed up someplace and somebody want her to play a tune that I thought I thought I knew but they were doing it another key and I still do that I go upstairs and I learn tunes and in three different keys and four different key I don't I don't care but most of the times that I go out to play now it's just me and I forced myself to learn songs in different keys and I had an advantage because I'm a Julie Ann Alto Blair mm-hmm it wasn't a tenor player so I had to learn all the songs and I thought I knew and I also a tenor and so in the same concert pitch I had to learn them in the other key so now I knew them in four keys because Alto if I played alto I knew it on the tenor key on alto and if I played tenor I knew it on the alto P on tenor and pretty soon I saw the relationship with all of it and started to do it and there was it was there can you talk about an example of a time in in a group setting like early on when somebody when you thought you knew a tune and they it was in a different key and not really but it was rather embarrassing after C no I you know the stories of Sonny Stitt you know he used to do that talk about that this is really important Charlie never rest in peace talked about that a lot but I want you to Sonny would always Sonny would always say yeah I see you got your own man gonna sit in that come on what do you wanna play and didn't take well let's play I got rhythm they'd say okay let's do a guy I got rhythm in a not b flat and Sonny would play it like he was in his normal key and and he was I mean I remember red Hollow he told me a story and I was there that night I witnessed it they were playing chins or not Chin's but the Chinese restaurant house name down and towards the airport here and I went down cuz I knew Sonny was in town and I knew that red was going to play with him this was right after Gene Amin's day Wow and I went down there Sonny said now we're gonna feature red Holloway alto saxophone playing a ballot of his choice and he played April April and Islands oh yeah April in Paris and as he's finishing and he sounded wonderful as he finished in Sonny's came out with his alto and plated red I could see red was a little embarrassed and I'm I went backstage to talk to red and he's looking at Sonny he said Sonny why did you do that to me and said he said what do you mean he said man you made me look bad I thought we were friends he says we are off the Bad Santa under Bandstand I don't have any friends Sonny Stitt Don mens a live on the Jake Feinberg show just having a ball what do you think about the word jazz I mean you're a Bebop or at heart and you consider yourself a bebop ER but tell me about the word jazz and you're big you go you ask someone with jazz is today you get 15 different definitions of it I'm just trying to figure out it's it's a beautiful way to express yourself to to play it has nothing to do with current trends or popular music right or or how do you look on stage I remember the first time I saw Charlie Parker I was shocked he came in the bottom him it was a beautiful supper club in Buffalo what strings he came on his shoes roll money the bottom of his pants were wet from the rain came out there and luckily the man of the spotlight had enough sense and he zeroed in on the horn and bird and he sounded sick but the next day I heard all kinds of criticism of him yeah man muddy shoes and I said close your eyes and listen it was still superficial though he was getting criticism superficial criticism oh yeah always always too bad but jazz so yeah let's get back to that cuz you said it's not about pop well I'm talking about classic Jeff I know people that say yeah but that's old-fashioned really I'm old-fashioned and I want to play that way what is awkward what is old-fashioned what are the values values of old-fashioned it's like Coleman Hawkins not bias so Sonny even early Sonny Rollins sheen and Sonny Stitt all those beautiful players old a Charlie Parker then old fashioned show me somebody that plays that good and that creative and that soulful know if that's what's missing is the soul and I know that's why and I'm curious because we're not for me to our first interview back in 2011 and you talked about in academia the assembly lines they're churning out you know the yeah it's a factory and everybody sells the same right this is a story that Sonny Rollins told me about meeting James Moody and benny golson in the San Francisco Airport they were all going in different directions somebody was just coming back from Japan somebody was was flying to Mexico sit here and said the other guy was going to New York and they sat down for a minute and talk to each other and I don't know who asked the question and don't ask me for sure who gave the answer but they what do you think all the newly players he said no man you know they're they're well school then everything beautiful sounds and everything he says the good news they have a lot of technique and somebody wanted the other guy said the bad news is they got a lot of technique well that's this I couldn't ask a better person because when you talk about facility we're talking to a you have no no I don't I'm not one of these guys I don't have perfect pitch I don't have Total Recall right I worked very hard to learn everything I know and I don't consider myself a technical wizard there are a lot of things that I don't like to play a lot of keys I don't like but I keep working on it you know I made you to know where my toes still kicking ass no but I think more to them okay but you can play you have a great vocabulary and I think that the question is when did you realize when did you when did you start baring your soul the same way bird did that night at the supper club was it was it he was it in Germany in the war was it after you know it happened none buddy Richard band I'm talk about it it happened nobody's been I remember the first night I played with buddy we were in the studio I was just filling in for Jake Ari then for god knows what but but he came to me Nisa mate who and I I wasn't there to impress anybody it wasn't my job I was just gonna play who I knew what I knew and when I came back from Germany I had my chops were a good shape I was playing almost every night every day every night I was and I didn't practice there because we weren't allowed to in the apartment building so I went out and played and practice on the band scene and it was wildly the sound had increased songs that I knew I saw the relationship between different keys and everything and I learned how to listen more it was and when I got on buddy's band that first night that first afternoon every her still hear what he called he heard me playing 1 2 and he said hey guys pull up the souther 2 and he called it faster than I'm used to and I said oh yeah but that's not a plane and he came over to me and he say man who are you I said I know you said you said that bad buddy I said you know I said I'm not one of the kids from Berkeley or whatever I said but I said I never enjoyed your playing a long time I saw you with jazz at the Philharmonic when I was 15 16 years old and I never had to like prove anything to anybody and he loved my plane no matter what he called or what chart came in yeah always point to me and I could play it and I could oh it was a good ballad player I had to learn it like I said from the real balladeers from saying gets from gene omens and Sonny Rollins or Coleman Hawkins you know I was never really a huge fan of I never tried to get get into the the Coltrane trip and I considered that a trend but I love this plane well just for me for non musician because you're what was the high gear Sonny Rollins and Coltrane and I obviously different time and they're different they evolved at different times but you felt they were they above together they about together I mean but I'm say your sound changed over time and there and I'm just trying to figure out can you train Jenny maintained the same so for a long time Sonny didn't how did Sonny change his own Sonny changed his own the early Sonny record he was a huge huge Lester Young earliest a blessing young and Coleman Hawkins fan and then and then came the well sang tenor madness album was the first album that he made where you could really hear Sonny they used to call Sonny in New York they would call him Sonny no sound give me a break man that sounds so beautiful listen to tenor madness oh my god and then came the saxophone Colossus record and all the ones after that and it's just it's crazy it's it's it's so infectious to think and his time was impeccable you know even the early years he had that beautiful time that it seemed like no matter how fast he played there was this much space between notes I hear other guys play fast and their notes all run together Sonny had this thing where there was space between them he was incredible but staying against too but Sonny's so and then came the bridge and the sound changed completely I mean he just it's a whole other sound it was he he changed the set up that he played on the instrument it was you know and of when I first heard it I said they say the Sonny oh you know and I first I didn't like it and then I did and then our man in Nevada or a man in jazz where he played all the boys from over there my god oh yeah there was one with Bob Crenshaw and Candido on it was a trio is ridiculous oh it's just it's unbelievable I knew Bob Crenshaw - from the New York days oh Maynard's man and but Sonny was and then okay after that then came okay I had enough of that let's do the trio album he went back to that started put a different mouthpiece on and different horns and there's a live album that he did in our radio broadcast or recorded in the studio with the trio in Sweden I think it's 69 my god it's it's the most incredible display of saxophone playing its virtual astok you know I just wanted you to talk a little bit about the drums in bebop and music they weren't a companyís Testament I mean yes they were I just didn't I just want to ask the question here it's like you know the the drums eventually Cobham my Vishnu weather report the the rhythm sections got progressively louder and louder and they went their own way they had nothing to do with adding texture I mean in swing was out right gone it was gone they didn't day that wasn't part of what woods Avenue and Johnny Rockland what they wanted to do it was nothing can you talk about the the the prime jobs of those amazing bebop drummers because to me they were just it was time but it was such a an important time because without that bebop wouldn't have happened because all those be my players played time they had incredible time well he kind of the proof was there just go back and listen to the records you know the swing that was swing and I when I say swing I don't mean the Coleman Hawkins swing there was a whole other thing but those guys played good too but that's a different kind I mean when Louie Bellson used to tell me well you know Duke always said and this was Louie's exact quote Duke always said if if you can't hear though the one player you're playing too loud come on I mean listen to our Blakey this is at that time man that band who did you go chess play with tiny Kahn or anybody like oh that's before me is it before you know yes beef just before me who's any tiny died died just just says that was literally as I got into the Stan Getz thing because I the record that really freaked me out about staying Getz was the the live at live at the its with it's the Jimmy or any albums that's tiny comment on that tiny condos yes and then tiny died and Frank Isola joined the band and Roy Haynes did some of the records and but tiny Kahn was incredible without without all that time and those right and those in those recordings it wouldn't have happened I mean that was the the drummer was well you play time you know well you got to keep time I don't know how the guys played with Dexter Dexter like to lay back way back and how the drummer's found enough courage to just keep forging ahead I don't know well I that's what I wanted to ask you about because there's a difference between some people have a great time but then there's also feel yeah it was a different feel I mean gene Evans played right on the beat Sonny sit and Stan Getz they like to forge ahead next I like to play behind I mean it was it's wonderful but to me that's why you guys all have your own individual sound I know I don't believe that just sound but a whole different feel feel man yeah the feel is there because number one I don't think you guys got uptight about tempo shifts or changing of the tempo if it's fed up or slowed down a little well I'm sure you got it you could hang with it though they did but wherever it went that they didn't fight they went with it that's right and no no I just don't understand it there are some wonderful player young players and there's a young player from a couple young players I know from from Europe there Germany Austria they play wonderful Benny goes over there all the time and he plays with a young drummer there everything my jobs over there the drummer puts together and he's a great player Austin young kid he must be 34 35 years old but he's been playing that way for 10 years just to be clear you were an autodidact in the sense that you would put on records and listen and listen but you'll whether or not a play what about what about like the bird the bird mentality did you listen to everything on the radio and try to play it none of the radio but on records outside a bebop though I mean like other types of music well there were some there were some players that played had a wonderful sound Giorgio all great saxophone player from New York and he played on the Artie Shaw band he played with Buddy Rich they had a small band together Giorgio was a great saxophone player came out of that Coleman Hawkins kind of sound and to Barry he had that kind of thing Charlie Ventura they were wonderful man people don't know that they're gone they are gone but I you know I mean to me it speaks also like there's a there was a conversation I mean when you were with Maynard on those relentless nights you said you know there's rough rough on the road you know how many days I mean gets with Teegarden was out 364 days a year basically yeah the truant officer had to come back and get yeah that's right did Maynard no no no no I was by Maynard I I when I joined Maynard's band the first time in 16 just a sub for uh for Joe Farrell who had an appendectomy and I had just had when I was recovering really and I went on the band I played with him in Buffalo for a long weekend and then maynard said listen we're going to Newport once you become the new part and then we're gonna play bird land but I need you for Bob the next month I said okay okay yeah couldn't wait you know and then about less than a year later Joe left the band and I got a call from Don Ellis who was on the band we were in the Army together done tonight and he said yeah come on down try out for the band and I get there and no Wayne Shorter was playing had taken his place and he didn't like it at all he left real quick he didn't like manners no and they were looking for a tenor player so I went there and it was an afternoon rehearsal at that bird Lane and and I was sitting there with my heart ready to play in this this African American dude comes over to me and he said and I didn't recognize and he said if I use you tenor and I said no no problem so I took my mouthpiece no leave leave the mob he said I don't have a mouthpiece with me and I said really okay and he went up and played one of the other guys came over and said do you know what that was I said no he said that was Hank Mobley Oh I said what egg was in bad shape didn't anyway but oh the Jimmy he's I just was with Jimmy in Atlanta and Charlet bird would come to their house and have to borrow his horn for the moment on it off oh yeah these guys was dripping with authenticity I mean I to me um you know I want this is really important can you do this is you told me this off air but you were up the first TV show you've got you were on when you came to LA was the Glen Campbell show but a lot of cats wouldn't know you said Glen would come down and play he could play he could play jazz yeah yeah it was an incredible incredible player yeah it was it really turned my head around I said what listen to this you know and we didn't have a lot of that didn't happen a lot but if there was an especially long break he'd come down to get tired play you know cuz he knew most of the guys in the band and it was it was wildly yeah like if you looking back on it you talked about the the snowy night well first of all when you came back and you were very you were very disappointed with the sound or just music in general well that was what I got at the enemy but an explained could because because the music had changed the language has changed well yeah and then most of the guys in New York were and the segregation thing had widened what do you mean by that it got he got even worse I mean you couldn't go to a black session they wouldn't let you play and they had their own little caucus in honey it was and they were gone even if the cats wanted you yeah that's right if you know we're guys there were guys that I was in the army with it was the drummer Sam Flint I'm a singer Sam Fletcher and I remember he was going uptown and there was a there was a session a little get-together I said look I'll come with you he said no down he can't I said why he said Muslims you can't do it I said what yeah I was shocked that was a and then you went back to Buffalo you actually well I was in New York I had just gotten out of the army and I hung for about over five or six days in New York before I went home and when I got home it was happening there too you know and you know people that I thought I knew real good they looked the other way and a lot of white musicians were getting angry and looking the other way and not hiring black guys black guys what year was this like 58 this was exactly January 15 January 58 so this is well before all our heroes were murdered I mean this early well I mean just part of my night tippity but what went down at that Y was who knows who knows it was it was Politico it was all the racial thing and it got worse and worse and worse instead of getting better I mean I remember the fifties the early fifties yeah I was free to go anywhere and you know there was a thing in the the the first speaking of Buffalo in in the Buffalo Musicians Union the bylaws and it was created somewhere around 1914 1915 there was a Musicians Union and it was only white you man if you were black you couldn't you couldn't be in it and there's a bylaw in there that if it said and it was written in German and I can read a little bit of German yeah I had somebody say come and look at this what does all this mean and I'm reading and in German it said if you got caught playing with a black musician you would be fined 25-dollars and not allowed to work for a week I mean this was 1917 but things got better and then of course the black musicians had formed their own but everybody was working and then it came to laws where you had to hire a certain percentage of whites or black on your gig and it got it got completely out when I got home later three years later I get home but it was worse I said what am I doing here and then I got completely upset with it I sold my heart alto tenor clarinet the flute and I sold them all I tried to get in a day job you know I was gonna drive a taxi I was gonna take people rogen wound up doing that yeah I was gonna take an exam for civil service you know exam for the City of Buffalo but then you drove to this and then this guy had called me and he said listen I got a steady gig it's a commercial gig you don't have to worry about jazz playing I took it and then balletto came through town that was 59 I went on the road with him for about six months and that was my first recorded solo with the obligor band what album I'm not even sure it's called you know snakes fantasy so the big bands were still happening but but I guess when trusty driving through that raging snowstorm were you playing where you had you already picked bought a horn at that point or you would basically walked away from music when you saw sunny that night no I didn't have who was in that treat was it a trio with sunny that's Frankie Andrea Grymes and sunny Frankie Dunlop Henry Grimes and Sonny Rollins and it good I told Sonny the story fairly talking to friends I said Sonny and now I remember why I want her to play the saxophone what can you was it more the spirit was it what was it that night the expression that he had the the interpretation of songs that I thought I knew who was he played a flower drum the theme from Flower Drum Song and I swear his eyes got slanted yeah it was he was it was you know you had to listen with sonny played man it was just like Oh lean forward to the point where I was gonna fall off the chair you know it was he was he was right the player I just saw him last last October we were at October no we were there in July we were on our way back from visiting my wife's family and in Long Island and in Cooperstown and uh before we got to Cooperstown we made a side trip and went to Woodstock and saw sunny is he up in Woodstock I didn't know he was up yeah did uh who gave you I mean you obviously were known quantity but who gave you your for real break when you got out to California like I said I was uh I came to town I started going to rehearsal bands and the first man played on was was dumped ice trip from the Bay Area you know him don't know that he what kind of music was he wrote a lot of chance for buddy we called him the walls King everything was but he called me one one more he said hey what are you doing this afternoon and said nothing and we lived you know like five minutes from here on anyway this before he bought this beautiful place oh no this was three or four years before that maybe five I don't know but this was 1968 this was February 1968 and maybe January and he said but Buddy Rich is in town he needs a tenor player for a rehearsal I said okay and that's how that came into and then all of a sudden that was on the road with him I was only going out for two weeks I didn't see rose for three months four months we went to England and whole bunch of places and on the way back you play the Fillmore West in places like that I feel like he played those places more like more like rock halls you know were you incorporating Hendrix I mean I did not what you love but I mean buddy was always stretching vocabulary in music you know well then he was really still pretty much straight ahead you know yeah he didn't he had started doing the delving into like Beatles music in this and Edwin her Norwegian wooden doll that no he didn't do all that but we did play this was later on we played Geary in San Francisco yeah up on the top of the hill there yeah we were there and it was who else was on that bill like Jefferson Airplane or like some no no no no it was just us no it wasn't Fillmore what's do it's the other some I can't remember their club you know let me let me ask you this is it really interesting because I found this album called very rare it's a t-bone Walker album with Jerry Mulligan's on it Dizzy's on it zut an hour on it Steve swallow was playing with t-bone in the ghettos of of New Haven and I'm thinking that when I came drove over and I said did mens to play with the blues was right alongside the jazz at that time did you play with any of those original blues masters yeah there was a guitar player I don't think it was he came through Buffalo no no no it was out here and one of the rock guitar player bass players wrote the charts we played I didn't during those solos it was all him Memphis oh no I was just you know I wanted you to just talk a little bit about but wait after buddy yeah like I left buddy in what year to year I mean day to day one year came back here and I came back in January by the 1st of March middle of March I just did the dollar East show and that was Pete Myers who wrote the big man chart on love for sale and and he was a writer oh sorry good good writer good big man writer but there was that my first writ very first television show can you just talk about the significance of Shelly man to to music in general I mean Shelly Shelly came out of that New York time and played with the real masters you know Ben Webster Coleman Hawkins really yeah he played with those guys back there in the day and he's from he was a New Yorker or New Jersey I don't know where he came from but does Shelly was shot even beautiful and I knew him I played with him with with the Maynard Ferguson any name the Henry Mancini time and then Nick sir Olli was the drummer that played with my small group and the big man and Nick died and that's what I heard Shelley to come in and play with her the big man and he did he said dad I can't turn the music I said don't look at me I'll tell you I don't know because Cerrone was the best one of the greatest drummers of all time he could play anything he could really he was special and we were good friends but Shelley yeah Shelley he's not that small group album that I did do you know that which one is that me Sal listicles Sam dodo Shelley man Andy Simpkins and Frank sturdy you don't was on Pat Britt's label right no no catalyst no I got to go and dig for that that's an amazing car don't even know that it's a double CD right now i I bought the the well you know who produced it was her blown how was the Pacific Jazz it was no no there wasn't Pacific jazz it was Palo Alto to handle Alto and who was on the now mistress re-stream Soto oh sorry Shelley and Andy Simpkins Sal místico and Sam know Don and me and I only played baritone and alto of it because the charts were originally written for trombone so I covered them on a baritone and it's it's it only came out as a and sort of got buried nobody really know what to do with it the critics said well it's a typical West Coast album over arranged and it's anything but there's these long solos on it and it's it's wonderful man it's a real jazz album and Shelley said Todd thank you for asking he said we made a real jazz album and if they think we're was close because everybody there was from the East Coast if you had any advice is the wrong word but in this day and age there's so much were saturated with musicians are saturated with so much material and they'd have to really dig to find the quality stuff what is your advice to cats for them to help find their own individual sound tone Tambor that's up to them but I would say play play what you feel play be honest about it and it's gonna be okay what is honest with me honesty no Stan Stan said it beautifully said play every note you you mean and mean every note you play can you just finish with a with a little piece of music before we go your homage to your son maybe but don't play we play whatever you want put yeah be honest and it was oh you know what it was it was the time in Buffalo where I took a lesson what I'm saying gets I think that you - no - of everybody this is a cannonball tenor saxophone my friend up and my friends up and in sax cannon cannonball I love it yeah that's the name of it but thanks to Tennyson you you didn't you took a lesson with stand I took you say it I was maybe 16 years old when I went he said it would be possible I heard of playing Buffalo yeah but not before three not three my right there he said well play something for me and I took my heart out and put the mouthpiece on I'm gonna play let me see sorry that's why I started and at that time I was I wanted to be a standards later you know I mean that was that beautiful sound that crystalline kind of sound that he had was beautiful and I remember saying to play you know I started playing it was what I knew of some of the lakes from me and that was that but he was he started laughing and two of my friends were there with me and they said oh my god he's laughing at dot he said no no is this that's I just want you to know it's the first time I think because I had all this red hair wavy red here it's the first time I ever saw somebody look Sims Don Manzo Happy Thanksgiving bless you brother and like sunny told you and keep playing Thank You Man the Jake Feinberg show see you later

Channel: Jake Feinberg Show

Views: 1,823

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Sonny Rollins, Buffalo, Maynard Ferguson, Pete Magadini

Id: QxHi7JP3i-Y

Length: 51min 23sec (3083 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 23 2019