We are interviewing on the Hamilton College
campus today for the Hamilton College Jazz Archive. I'm very pleased to have Dr. Frank
Foster with me, most noted arranger, composer, saxophonist. Welcome to the college.
FF: Thank you very much. MR: It's a real pleasure to have you here
for a couple of days and I've been looking forward to talking to you again, because we
actually did this in early '95. I know your career has taken a different path since then.
FF: Definitely. MR: How's life after the Basie Orchestra?
FF: Well it's busier than ever and it's even beginning to pay more.
MR: No kidding. I'm really glad to hear that. FF: I don't like to talk about financial aspects
so soon, but that just happens to be one phenomenon. MR: Well I'm sure we'll talk about that quite
a bit because you said some interesting things about that earlier in the jazz history class.
Do you get most of your income, is it kind of divided between performing and writing?
FF: Right now it's divided between performing and publishing. And the writing is a minimal
part of it, the actual writing. For instance, I'm commissioned now and then by the Carnegie
Hall Jazz Band under the direction of Jon Faddis to write an arrangement for a presentation
they do at Carnegie Hall or somewhere, and that will consist of one or two arrangements
at a time. And then there'll be no more writing, actual writing for pay, for another few months
or a few weeks. I'm doing a lot of writing that's for myself, for my three groups, the
Non-Electric Company Quartet, the 10-piece dance band called Swing Plus, and the big
band called The Loud Minority. But all that, I have to do that on my own time. But the
one growing part of my business so to speak is publishing, especially publishing the charts
that were done during the Basie era, from 1953 to 1964, and the so-called "Basie heritage
era" between 1986 and 1995. And I'm getting lots of orders, mostly for the older charts.
So that's a part of the business that's picking up and that's what's going to have to support
us. MR: You have kept ownership of all those arrangements
over the years? FF: I have kept ownership of the arrangements,
if not the songs. I don't own any of the songs from that period - oh yes I do, I'm sorry,
I own about two or three of them. But the most notable, like "Shiny Stockings" and the
"Four Five Six" and most of the others that were recorded under Roulette, I don't own
the compositions but I do own the arrangements, and all the songs that were published between
1986 and 95 I own the copyrights on all of those.
MR: That's good. Something you will have forever. FF: Definitely.
MR: Well you're a self-described big band bebopper, I think you said before, and bop
made a huge kind of impact on you as a young man. Did you start off playing in high school,
kind of a normal - introduced to your instrument in junior high or whatever?
FF: Well I started off actually before my junior high years. My involvement was not
with the school at all, just the junior high years I was performing on I guess you could
say a semi-professional basis, from age 13. I actually started playing at age 11, and
by age 17, well my senior year in high school I had my own 12-piece band. But hardly any
of my musical activities were connected with the school. I wasn't in the school band nor
the school orchestra, and there was just so much going on outside of the school with seasoned
professionals twice my age most of them, and that was very -
MR: You can't get any better schooling than that.
FF: That's right. Great schooling and great fun.
MR: Was this in Cincinnati? FF: Cincinnati, yes.
MR: What was the musical atmosphere that was going on that made gigs so available?
FF: Well that was during the dance band era. There were lots of dances, mostly dances and
some night club gigs like for small combos. But lots of dances by the big bands. Those
were all the gigs. Concerts hadn't started to be a thing as yet. So I played with two
local big bands, three local big bands, before I formed my own band, and I played for senior
proms and things like that, and other little public dances. And the scene in Cincinnati,
the musical scene overall was very good at the time. There were some great musicians
that were from Cincinnati and there was a place called the Cotton Club which was the
main nightclub venue where they had shows, productions. Then there was a dance hall called
the Coliseum where all the prominent big bands came through every Sunday, so each Sunday
there was a different big band, from Erskine Hawkins to Duke Ellington, Stan Kenton, to
Tony Pastor, Count Basie, and that's where I saw a good many of the big bands. And there
was another place called the Topper Ballroom, it was the first place I saw Lionel Hampton's
band, and these were of course dance halls. And they were great because all the big bands
came through. MR: Were you yourself a dancer?
FF: No. MR: You didn't like to dance.
FF: I didn't like to dance, couldn't dance, wasn't worried about it. I had a girlfriend,
I'd take her to the dance and I'd turn her loose to dance with whomever she wanted to
while I stood in front of the band the whole time.
MR: You were a stand-in-front-of-the-band guy. That doesn't surprise me at all.
FF: That's right. MR: So you saw some of the great saxophone
sections coming through there. FF: Yes, yes. Benny Carter had a - oh my goodness,
he had a lead alto player named Porter Kilbourn who was almost a ferocious as he himself was.
And of course the great Duke Ellington had Johnny Hodges and Otto Hardwick and Harry
Carney. And of course the Basie saxophone section with Earle Warren, Don Byas, or Buddy
Tate and Lester Young. MR: So you got to hear Lester in the Basie
band? FF: Yes. And believe it or not, I liked Buddy
Tate more at the time. MR: He was a very strong kind of Texas tenor
sound, right? FF: Yes. A big old strong Texas tenor, yeah.
MR: Did you ever in those days aspire to be in those bands?
FF: I did. I aspired to be in Count Basie's band at the age of 16 or 17. But I also wanted
to be in Dizzy Gillespie's band. And I auditioned for Billy Eckstine's band with a gentleman
who was later to be together with me in the Count Basie Orchestra, Budd Johnson, the late
Budd Johnson. When I attended this dance with Billy Eckstine's band Billy asked Budd to
let me use his horn to play. Most musicians don't like to have other musicians blow their
horns. But he very unwillingly consented. And I played a few little bebop licks for
Billy and I didn't become associated with Billy Eckstine until years later. But I wanted
to be in Eckstine's band, Dizzy's band, but I wanted mostly to be in Count Basie's band.
MR: What was your first exposure to music of the big band era. Was it through records
and/or radio? FF: Through recordings and especially introduced
to me by my older brother. I had a brother who was six years my senior. So when I was
eight he was fourteen. And he had me listen to bands from eight years old on, and he was
seventeen I guess I was however, six years younger. And he had me listen especially to
Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford and Duke Ellington. And I zeroed in on those three, most particularly
on Count Basie. And I just became a big band nut.
MR: But somewhere along the line, the bop came into the picture.
FF: Yes. MR: And this was like, as you described before,
like it snatched you. FF: Around August of 1945 I heard "Now is
the Time" and "Billie's Bounce" for the first time, and Charlie Parker for the first time.
And from that moment forward, it was all over, I was a confirmed bebopper. And the idols
that I had worshipped up to that time - Johnny Hodges, Willie Smith and Benny Carter - sort
of fell by the wayside. And it wasn't until years later when I was already in my 20s that
I looked back and began to appreciate about what I had originally liked about them, because
as one matures one realizes that it's all good.
MR: Yeah. You don't have to replace the old with the new. You can listen to both of them.
FF: Right. Exactly. MR: Were you tempted to become an alto player
when you heard Parker? FF: Well I was already an alto player.
MR: You were an alto player. FF: I started out as an alto saxophonist in
my own, in the bands I played with in Cincinnati, the little bands, my own band in high school
and up until about my second year of college. And I switched to tenor because we had an
over abundance of alto players and we needed a tenor saxophonist, and so I switched to
tenor. And it got to be fun as I was enjoying it like a brand new toy. So I said hey, I'm
going to stick with this, this is fun. MR: Before we get out of your high school
days, can you remember what your own band would have charged for let's say a high school
prom? FF: Let's see. There was 12 members, I think
a maximum of about $30. MR: For the whole band.
FF: Right $30. Which means that I would make about $5, $3 to $5, and the rest of the band
would make $2 a piece. MR: It doesn't seem like much nowadays, but
you were probably glad to do it back then, right?
FF: Yeah. Well in 1946 that was pretty good for a bunch of kids.
MR: That's great. Yeah sure. And where did you get the arrangements for that kind of
group? FF: I wrote them myself.
MR: You wrote them yourself already? Man. You must have got the writing bug like obviously
very early. FF: I did. At age 13 I actually started writing.
And I don't know how, I really don't know how it happened but I was playing like stock
arrangements with these local dance bands, and after playing these arrangements for so
long, something inside of me says I can do this. And when I wrote my first arrangement
it was just one big huge success. And if you know anything about how an arranger feels
hearing one of his or her own works played back, it's a great feeling.
MR: It sure is. Did you ever have to fix things early on, it was like a learning process of,
oh I tried that it doesn't work so good so next time I'll voice this differently.
FF: Oh yeah, it was all trial and error at first. All I knew was that basically chords
were voiced in thirds, and that's all I knew. And I went on from there. I think I had a
natural gift for melody. I think I still have it.
MR: Yes. I would say from your track record, yes that's true.
FF: And so I worked from that and learned little things as I went along. I learned that
not all chords had to be voiced in thirds. So you could have some seconds and some fourths
in there. And I began to learn about altered chords, and that just really fascinated me.
And there was a friend of mine who was also an alto saxophonist. And he and I together
were studying a score. It was written by a professional who was in his 20s at that time
a guy named Norris Turney, an excellent alto saxophonist. And we saw all these weird voicings,
like these half steps and minor thirds next to half steps, whole steps, and it just boggled
our minds, how could somebody put an F next to a G flat? You know this was something that
was unthinkable. And now I can hardly voice a chord without a half step somewhere in there.
MR: You've got to have that little bit of dissonance, right?
FF: Exactly. MR: You played with another future Basie player,
Snooky Young, early on. FF: Yes. He actually started me on my professional
career if you want to call it that. After my third year of college I was a college dropout,
to go play music with Snooky Young's band. He had an excellent 10-piece band, and he
had a seven week engagement in Detroit. And this engagement started in August and my parents
had the understanding that I would be back in time to enter school in the fall for my
senior year. Well as it happened, I had the misfortune of having three instruments stolen,
an alto, a brand new tenor and a clarinet, from the club where we were working. So on
the pretense of helping the detectives locate my instruments, I said I've got to stay in
Detroit. That was my excuse. Because at the time Detroit was like a mecca. Detroit just
as well could have been New York. There were so many wonderful musicians there, from Barry
Harris to Tommy Flanagan to Kenny Burrell to Donald Byrd, the Jones brothers. Detroit
was heaven. I just didn't want to leave. So I stayed and I missed my senior year in college
and I did all this without being disinherited by my parents.
MR: That's good. Were they eventually pretty supportive of your musical endeavors?
FF: Yes they were. They were always supportive. They always encouraged me to practice, to
work hard. They bought every instrument that I owned until I was 21.
MR: I think you mentioned something about your father listening to you practicing the
new music? FF: Well he heard me playing the new music
with a group, and he said, "what is that bippity bop?"
MR: Bippity bop. Well he wasn't far from wrong, right? He got the bop right.
FF: Right, he got the bop right. I wish I had asked him to spell bippity bop, that might
have a new movement going. MR: But you also said something I think is
very important, in that you wanted to tell him - he said I don't understand it?
FF: Right. MR: And you wanted to tell him that he wasn't
supposed to be able to understand it. FF: Yeah it was not for him to understand
because, you know, wrong generation. MR: Yeah.
FF: This is for us, the youngins. MR: Seems like that keeps going on and on,
every generation, right? FF: Yeah, actually it does, it does. It's
an inevitable fact I think of our existence. MR: How was your experience in the service?
Did you get to play? FF: Oh yes, I had to play lots in the service.
Before going overseas, I was shipped to the Far East, where, after Basic Training, the
Korean campaign was going on. But I was stationed at a camp that was halfway between San Francisco
and Los Angeles, in the California foothills, and it was called Camp Roberts. And the reason
I ended up going to San Francisco as opposed to Los Angeles was that there was a gentleman
offering rides to San Francisco in his Cadillac, and he lived in the San Francisco area, he
lived in a little city called Hayward. And if he'd been offering rides to Los Angeles,
that's where I would have ended up going. But I ended up going to San Francisco and
I discovered Bop City, which was a local night club which operated after hours. So when ever
musicians finished their normal engagements that might have lasted between eight and one
A.M., they went and converged on Bop City, and that's where all the heavyweight jam sessions
occurred. And I walked in with my GI clothes on and people immediately wondered who is
this strange looking person with a silver plated horn and a case that looked like it
needed surgery very badly. So there was a gentleman by the name of Dexter Gordon who
was appearing there, and Dexter himself, up until his death, told this story about this
so-called soldier boy. I ran into someone who was from Detroit and I told this person
that I had played with Sonny Stitt. And so this person had a little pull and got me on
the bandstand with Dexter Gordon. And Dexter asked me, "well what would you like to play?"
And I said, "well how about 'Cherokee?'" "Cherokee. Well would you like to play it uptempo?" So
he obliged and we played, we lit into "Cherokee" at a very rapid tempo. And I was able to keep
up, and a lot of people say that I - I'm not going to say this on the video-
MR: Can I say it for you? That you kind of shut him down, or you cut him?
FF: Well that's what some people say, yes. I won't say that.
MR: Okay it's not for you to say. But obviously you made a good impression that night.
FF: Yeah I think so. And from that point on I was known as the Soldier Boy.
MR: No kidding? FF: And even Ralph Gleason, the late Ralph
Gleason wrote about it in Down Beat. He said there's a guy called Soldier Boy who's been
taking everyone on tenor around here lately. And I ran into such great musicians as the
late Phineas Newborn and I ran into, it was the first time I ever saw Ray Charles, now
Ray Charles played alto sax at the time, and he came through there. And one time Jazz at
the Philharmonic was in town and Lester Young and a whole bunch of people from the Philharmonic,
I don't know who all they were, and I was trying my best to just play all I know, and
just trying to impress these people. And later on someone asked Lester Young, "well what
do you think about this Frank Foster?" And he said, "I don't like him, he plays too many
notes." And that's when I learned my lesson on simplicity.
MR: Good lesson, like coming from him especially. FF: Right. All this information, by the way,
is contained in my autobiography, which hopefully will be out in a few months.
MR: All right. Glad to hear that. After the service, by the way, when you were in the
service and on the west coast, was it still pretty segregated?
FF: Not - well how can I say - you mean on the military side of it?
MR: Yeah. FF: Somewhat yes. I trained Basic Training
in an all-black company that was part of an all-black battalion. But as soon as I got
to Japan and Korea, it was all over, it was totally integrated. But I didn't mention about
how much I got to play while I was in Japan and Korea. I was in Japan for a very short
while, and only taking school training to be a clerk typist. This was to stay out of
the war zone. So after that I was shipped to the war zone, and I was in a service company
of an infantry regiment for a few months and then I went and auditioned for the division
band and got in the division band. And while there, I performed with a concert band, a
marching band, and a jazz combo as well as a sort of dance band. And in all these contexts,
for the remainder of my time in Korea, I never had to serve on a front line. And there was
quite a bit of playing, so I was able to stay up on the instrument.
MR: That was early in the war, wasn't it? Fifty-
FF: '52. In '51 I was drafted into the Army and most of '51 was spent in the California
area, San Francisco. I went AWOL for over a month over Thanksgiving and Christmas because
I was afraid that after I finished Basic Training, the idea of going, actually into the war as
an infantry rifleman, you know that just scared me to death. So I said well I'm going to stay
out here and live a little. And there was no timetable as to when I was going to turn
myself in, but there was a lady that I was friendly with who persuaded me to turn myself
in. She said, "please, turn yourself in, don't get caught. If they catch you out here, I'll
never see you again." That was the rationale she used on me. So I said okay, I'll turn
myself in. And certain other people who professed to be in the know said, "turn yourself in
to the chaplain, he'll understand." So I went back. I had evaded military police all that
time, even hung out with a commissioned officer for a while in Bop City, and he never knew
I was AWOL. So after I went back to turn myself in I went straight to the chaplain and I told
him my story. And he said, "well son, you're a musician is that right?" "Yeah." "Well what
kind of music do you play?" And why did I tell him I played jazz? He said, "oh that's
too bad, you know that jazz, that's not the music you should be playing. It's all right
if you play church music, you know, religious music, but" - and these are his exact words
and this is the title of one of my chapters - "you'll have to give up that jazz, son."
And that's the title of Chapter 7 in my book. Needless to say I was very distraught at having
gone to see the chaplain. MR: Yeah. Thanks for the help.
FF: Yeah, thank you guys for steering me in this direction. So I was under a military
court martial and I was sentenced to a month in the stockade, and I spent five days in
the stockade, after which I was shipped to the Far East. And I landed in Japan and a
few weeks later I was sent to Korea, and the fighting was going on. I'll never - and this
was early 1952 in March, March 9th was the exact day I landed in Korea, and it was a
horrible looking day and I'll never forget that. But I spent 13 months and 13 days in
Korea. MR: You have a pretty good memory for significant
dates. FF: Yeah I can't figure out where I was yesterday
but this I remember. And fortunately after about three months in the service company
of the infantry regiment, I got into the band and was able to perform in these various contexts
that I described a few moments earlier. And after being released and shipped back to the
United States, I came back to Detroit, now this was May of 1953. My first day in town,
I don't have any civilian clothes, I'm walking around in my Army uniform, I ran into an old
friend who said, "Count Basie is looking for you." I said, "Count Basie's looking for me?
Nobody knows I'm here." He said, "Count Basie's looking for you, you'd better go over to the-"
I forget what the ballroom, the Graystone Ballroom or something like that. The Basie
band was actually appearing that night. So I went over there and surely enough, Lockjaw
Davis was planning to leave and Ernie Wilkins and Jimmy Wilkins, who were in the band at
the time, Jimmy with whom I'd been in college, Jimmy Wilkins had been my band leader in Wilberforce
University, the leader of the Wilberforce Collegians. And they, along with Billy Eckstine
had recommended me for the band but they didn't know where I was at the time. So I showed
up. MR: That is really wild.
FF: The right place at the right time and three months later I was in the Count Basie
Orchestra, July 27, 1953. MR: Had you had a chance while you were in
the service to still be listening to recordings of them?
FF: Not too much. I was listening to a lot of small groups at the time. There weren't
too many things happening. MR: Well plus he had broken up the band for
a short time. FF: He had broken up the band from 1949 to
about '52 I think. MR: So you kind of got in on the New Testament
band. FF: That's right, at pretty much the beginning
of the New Testament band. MR: Right. That's really, I'm sure it makes
great print in your book. FF: Well yeah.
MR: My first day back and I'm still walking around in my uniform.
FF: That's right. It's a true story. And I mean I couldn't have made that up.
MR: Yeah, right. FF: There are other stories in there that
I could never have made up either. MR: Well here you are in a big band now, still
enamored of bop. FF: Yeah.
MR: Did you go through a period of trying to adjust your style, or feel that you needed
to adjust your style to play what was required or to fit the Basie band and still satisfy
your need for bop? FF: Well that was a problem that existed the
entire eleven years I was with the band. I never had the feeling that I really fit, except
on uptempo songs. I was trying to fill Lester Young's shoes, and really was not making it,
to my way of thinking. I mean I was reading the music, no problem reading and interpreting
the music, and the saxophone section at that time was excellent with Marshall Royal playing
lead, Frank Wess playing either alto or the other tenor, and Charlie Fowlkes playing baritone.
The second alto chair was the only chair that just fluctuated all throughout the entire
time I was there. So I fit into the section very well, because I loved big band music
and playing in the section and all that. But soloing I always felt that I fell a little
short of what I should have been because of trying to fill Lester Young's shoes. And they
were just too big. And it was an adjustment that I never satisfactorily made to my own
satisfaction. And one time as a tongue and cheek, just for laughs, I did an imitation
of Ben Webster, with the growl and the guttural type sound, and Basie loved it. And he said,
"hey do that again, kid, do that again." And so-
MR: Did you get stuck with that then a little bit?
FF: No I didn't get stuck with it because I just refused to continue to do it. He didn't
insist that I play like Ben Webster every time I stood up, but he loved that style of
playing, that's why he, well he loved Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and he loved anybody that
played that kind of sound, like Paul Gonsalves. And there was a tenor player named Harold
Ashby who had that sort of approach to tenor, and he liked this guy, but Harold couldn't
read too well, but Basie'd say, "I don't care if he can't read, I just like his playing."
MR: He sure had a thing for tenors, didn't he?
FF: Yeah, he really did. And I think he liked that tenor rivalry thing. I think he got a
kick out of that, between Lester Young and Buddy Tate. And at one point it was Lester
Young and Don Byas, and Coleman Hawkins might have been in there for a minute, I'm not sure.
But anyway- MR: And Herschel Evans.
FF: Herschel Evans, that's the one, yeah, Herschel Evans and Lester Young. He loved
that kind of, the difference in styles and the sort of friendly -
MR: Rivalry there. FF: Rivalry going on, yeah, he loved that.
And we loved it too. MR: Yeah. Did Basie ever indicate dissatisfaction
with your playing? What you were feeling yourself, did you feel that from him?
FF: No, he didn't, only on one occasion he made me feel that way. I was featured on several
uptempo pieces, like "Little Pony," "Jumpin' at the Woodside," and that sort of became
my specialty. And one time I approached him and I said, "Bas', why don't you let me play
a ballad?" And he said, "well you do all right on 'Jumpin' at the Woodside,' you don't need
to play a ballad." And he said this because he knew that I could not play a ballad at
the time. I just - a ballad played with a bebop concept didn't fit that band. Don Byas,
Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Herschel Evans, those guys played ballads in a manner that
would fit the Basie band. But I wanted to be all over my horn. I didn't want to settle
down on a simple melody. And I got a chance to play all I knew on the songs, like "Jumpin'
at the Woodside," the uptempo songs. But he was right. My tone had not developed to a
logical point where I was a good choice for a ballad. And it was proven on record. There
is a recording that I hope you won't go listen to.
MR: Let me see if I have it here- FF: Of me playing "Ain't Misbehaving" with
the Basie orchestra. And I tried to emulate Sonny Stitt playing it. He had a version of
"Ain't Misbehaving." But I listened to it later and I said no this is not happening.
I just wasn't - I didn't have the sound or the approach to play a ballad convincingly
with the Basie orchestra. And he saw to it that I didn't play any ballads, and rightly
so. MR: He knew what he wanted. It's interesting
you mentioned tone, because the tone issue shows up so much more when you're playing
a ballad. As you mentioned, if you're playing an uptempo thing, maybe your tone, it goes
by so quick- FF: Right. You can get away with not having
a well rounded, full big sound. MR: Right.
FF: Now I have made comparisons with myself, my present, the 1980s, 1990s Frank Foster
and the 1950s Frank Foster, and I think Basie would like the way I play a ballad now. If
I could have played a ballad then the way I can play one now, I think he would have
accepted me. MR: Was it just the years of experience?
FF: Hello. That's all it was. And developing a sound along with the years of experience.
MR: How about the first time you brought an arrangement to Basie?
FF: The first arrangement I brought to the Basie band was one I brought from Korea with
me that I had played with a band in Korea. It was an original cha-cha-cha.
MR: No kidding. FF: And the band needed a couple of Latin
flavored songs for the dancers that they were playing. And they only had one mambo. So this
was a mambo, not a cha-cha-cha. MR: You wrote a mambo?
FF: Yeah. This was an original sort of thing based on a mambo groove, and it was very simple.
And I brought it in to the band and we played it. And Basie encouraged me to continue writing.
And the results of that encouragement were "Blues Backstage," and "Blues in Hoss' Flat,"
and eventually "Shiny Stockings." But it's not all peaches and cream or roses as it were.
If you could count the arrangements that were rejected as stacked up against those that
were accepted, the stacks would be pretty even.
MR: No kidding. FF: Right.
MR: So you'd take it into a rehearsal and did it take him a long time to decide?
FF: No. It never took him a long time. If the arrangement played down the first time
and nobody had to decipher it as though it were hieroglyphics and it swung, it was in.
Generally if it took too long and people had to labor over phrases and how does this go
and what does this mean, and if it sounded like too much dissonance, or too many "pregnant
nineteenths" as Basie used to say- MR: Did he say that?
FF: Yeah he said, "son, when you write an arrangement, don't put too many pregnant nineteenths
in there." So I knew what he meant by "pregnant nineteenths." And if was too busy, too overloaded,
every time it got rejected. Which brings me to the story of "Shiny Stockings." We were
playing a place in Philadelphia called Pep's Bar. And we'd just arrived in town that morning
and we had to rehearse that day because it was customary to rehearse on the opening day
of each nightclub engagement. For the Basie band that was practically the only time we
ever rehearsed, was the opening day of an engagement at Birdland or Storyville or the
Blue Note or the Crescendo or this place in Philadelphia. But we had arrived late and
checked in late at the hotel, a long trip from somewhere. Everybody is tired, ill tempered,
hungry, and no one felt like rehearsing. You know we'd rather have done anything than rehearse.
But we had to rehearse that day. And I brought "Shiny Stockings" in. And the first rehearsal
of "Shiny Stockings," it just sounded like a 43 car pile-up on the New York Thruway.
Everybody ran into everybody. I said oh my, he'll never play this song, and I put so much
into it. Well Mr. Basie must have heard something, because with that horrible rehearsal, he must
have understood how tired everyone was and how unwilling we were to rehearse and that
was the result of our attitudes. He must have heard something because we played it and played
it and played it and I guess you could say the rest is history.
MR: I guess so. FF: But many other songs that sounded like
that in rehearsal never got played. And we had an expression, if we were rehearsing something
and it wasn't going well, either because it was too busy or the harmonies weren't right
or it sounded amateurish, we had an expression, "Pasadena," which meant pass it in. And after
we worked on that chart for about ten, fifteen minutes, Marshall Royal, who was the straw
boss, he'd say "Pasadena." And I guess this was sort of code terminology so that if the
arranger was somebody outside the band, he wouldn't know what we were talking about,
but you'd see all this music converging on one spot, and it was being passed in.
MR: But you knew. FF: Oh yes.
MR: Did it hurt your feelings? FF: Well they never said that about arrangements
by guys in the band. But a lot of people outside the band submitted music, including some seasoned
professional arrangers that were supposed to know their crap. And a lot of them would
just leave the arrangement at the Basie office and it'd be passed out to the band. And if
we shook our heads - sometimes we didn't even have to wait for Basie. He wouldn't always
rehearse with us. He might be sitting over in a corner smoking a cigar somewhere and
reading the paper. And it was sounding pretty corny, we'd look at each other and the next
thing would be "Pasadena." And that would be the end of that.
MR: Do you think you had an advantage writing for the band you were playing in?
FF: Yes. Definitely. The arrangers who were in the band, namely Thad Jones, Frank Wess
and myself, Ernie Wilkins while he was still there, and Eric, the late Eric Dixon, definitely
had an advantage being in the band. We knew the personalities we were surrounded by, and
we knew each other's strong points and we knew how to write for each other's strong
points, and to de-emphasize weak points, of which there were very few. I mean everybody
in that band was a section person, if not a great soloist. Everybody in there was a
seasoned section player. And we just had a great advantage over outside arrangers. And
the people like the late Nelson Riddle would bring stuff in. And we'd play something of
Nelson Riddle's and, yeah it's all right, and then Thad Jones would lay something down
and it'd be all over. MR: How did Neal Hefti fare as far as his
piles? FF: Neal Hefti fared very well. Neal, yeah.
He sort of had a formula that worked with the Basie band, as attested to the fact, the
success of "L'il Darlin'" and "Whirlybird," among others of a dozen others that really
made it. In fact some people thought that Neal Hefti's writing was the best definitive
Basie of that period. But then on the other hand some people thought my writing was the
same thing. And on the other hand, some people thought Thad Jones writing. Some of the successful
writers for the band were Benny Carter and Quincy Jones and Billy Byers. Those were three
masters, all of whom contributed some very significant music to the band. Others weren't
so fortunate. MR: Well I guess it was a left handed compliment
to say I was rejected by Count Basie. FF: I'll tell you, Basie, he would always
make it up, because years after, this must have been in the early 60s now, "Shiny Stockings"
was introduced to the book in 1955, Basie pulled me over in the corner and he said,
"kid, you know you wrote that 'Shiny Stockings?'" I said, "yeah." He said, "you really put one
down that time, boy." MR: It was five years later, huh?
FF: Yeah, right. MR: He was a man of few words most of the
time? FF: Definitely. But every word meant something.
MR: Just like his playing, right? FF: Right, exactly. Like his playing. He used
to say it's best to know what to leave out than to put too much in. And then he'd say,
he'd have a saying like "it's the little things that mean so much," and what he meant by that
was very few notes but making a definite statement rather than just taking the ink pen and throwing
it at the paper, splattering ink all over and trying to get somebody to play that.
MR: Wow. Well you were a young man, did you enjoy being on the road with that band, traveling?
FF: Definitely. Up until about the time I left, I really enjoyed being on the road.
MR: Mostly bus travel? FF: Mostly bus at the time. There was some
air travel, but mostly the bus. And I didn't fall out of love with the bus until years
later. MR: That's a good phrase. Did the band experience
any racial troubles in different parts of the country?
FF: Yes. Now this is in the early, mid and late 50s. We played one place in Texas, I
don't know if it was Houston or somewhere, where - you'll love this - where it was a
dance hall and there was this rope that extended from the bandstand on to the end of the place,
I don't know how far. White folks, white patrons were on one side of the rope and the black
patrons were on the other side of the rope. And neither the twain could meet. Now I can't
recall which were on the side where the dance floor was, where they could actually dance.
Maybe it depended on who the owners of the place were. But I remember this rope. There
was another place where black patrons were confined to the balcony. Now as much as the
black folks loved to dance, they had to come and sit in the balcony and listen and couldn't
dance, and the dance floor was reserved for the white patrons.
MR: Did you ever have an experience in that kind of scenario where the music eventually
brought the two groups together? FF: I think - I can't recall specific instances
but I think perhaps that's what happened with the breakdown of segregation we did see the
two come together, and then it was great, you know, because I love to watch good dancers
and there are good dancers in both ethnic or racial groups you know. We've played some
ballrooms where people just looked beautiful on the dance floor, I mean really know what
they're doing. And these really were bad for our morale when we experienced the segregation.
We used to get angry with the leader. We'd say why does he allow himself to perform at
these places where you have segregation? But we didn't realize that if we didn't perform
these places, we didn't work at all. I mean if you - you can't just work in one area for
your whole career. You have to branch out. It was a world renowned orchestra, we had
to go everywhere. We couldn't just stay at New York and work Birdland the year round,
or Chicago and work the Blue Note the year round. We had to go from one place to another.
And of course that included going south, and eventually when these problems worked out
we were very happy. The other instances were times in Las Vegas. When we first went to
Las Vegas blacks were not allowed into the places on the strip, you know, The Sands and
The Flamingo and all those places like that, as patrons they couldn't attend. And all the
blacks had to be confined to the dust bowls, which was the area that was the hood in those
times, the worst, on the west side of Los Vegas, they called it the dust bowl. So when
the band worked The Flamingo, or The Sands, especially The Flamingo, not so much The Sands,
I don't remember, we worked in the casino and during intermission the musicians were
instructed to hang out in the kitchen, in other words, not to fraternize with the guests.
And we had no dressing room, they didn't make dressing rooms for musicians back then. So
we got tired of hanging out in the kitchen you know, I mean sometimes kitchens don't
smell that nice. And they aren't made specifically to accommodate musicians during intermission.
So a few of us got the idea, this is where I first heard the word "militant." Somebody
said, "man, we've got to be militant, we can't go for this, hanging out in the kitchen and
not fraternizing with the guests." If somebody came in there that we knew, and a lot of us
had many white friends you know, we'd buck the system and go hang out with them. And
we almost got ourselves fired for fraternizing with guests. Now that's a situation that I'm
very happy came to an end in the early 60s. But just think, the early 60s, how late that
is even. MR: Really. That's hard to imagine. And I
want to talk a little bit more about that in a moment, because I know you had a significant
impact musically with that. What finally - the decision to leave Basie - was it just the
length of time you were there? FF: It was a number of things, mostly I had
a family that was growing, I had two children in my first marriage, and not being able to
stay home more than a few weeks at a time, I was not able to really watch my kids grow
up. And my wife at the time was pressuring me to come off the road. She didn't say that
until after we'd had two children. During the early stages of our marriage she did a
lot of traveling with me. But then the children came and then kept her at home, and with my
being gone so much, she finally, she was pressuring me for months to come off the road, I mean
incessantly - come off the road, come off the road - that was the big phrase in the
house. And I was becoming dissatisfied with the nature of the engagements we were playing.
In order words it wasn't as exciting to go to Europe anymore, because as opposed to when
we first started going to Europe back in 1954, though 1960, the European audiences were dyed
in the wool jazz lovers. They came to hear the Basie band because they loved the Basie
band, they loved the individual members of the Basie band, they knew who we were better
than we knew. They knew facts about us that we had forgotten. A European would come up
to me and say in 1957 you did such-and-such and you played with so-and-so, and you recorded
with so-and-so. And I said well I had forgotten that. They did their homework. They knew the
history of the music and they loved the music. And then gradually the audiences changed.
I guess these people died off or something, and the audiences became mostly families,
like people, maybe one guy, he loves the band, he brings his whole family, his wife and his
sister and her husband and their children. And not everybody is feeling the way he's
feeling about it. And it got to appear as though a lot of people were coming just out
of curiosity, like well let's go see what this Basie band is about, I've been hearing
about them, let's see what they are. Oh, they're not The Beatles. Oh, they're not like - they
don't play rock & roll. MR: Well you anticipated my question. I wondered
if that was what was causing it, was the rock & roll.
FF: I think the advent of rock & roll and how the big beat just inundated the world,
and I think that just kind of put a damper on things. The crowds, the big band groupies
disappeared in the early, mid, late 50s we had big band groupies by the busloads. And
that was all off. But it wasn't so much that as the nature of the audiences was changing
and it didn't appear that everyone there was a devout jazz lover and a devout Basie lover.
And so trips to Europe got to be not so exciting. And sometimes accommodations were a little
touch and go. And I began to get tired of the bus. We began to become weary of smelling
each other's armpits. MR: Basically living with each other all the
time. FF: Yeah. Basically living with each other
all the time. And some guys who came to the band couldn't get along with guys who were
already there and there were a couple of even fist fights, and things, all manner of things
that were making road life not as glamorous and as fun and as happy as it had been. The
novelty had worn off and I had gotten involved in so many different kinds of undesirable
affairs and personal life was just in a shambles. And I wanted to be closer to these children.
So all these influences. And plus, oh the big thing was I wasn't getting to play enough.
MR: Sixteen bars here, sixteen bars there. FF: Yeah, yeah. And the fact of not getting
to play a ballad, and wanting to play a ballad, that really ate me up, because I was of the
mind then, well if you'd just give me a chance I'll learn, I'll get better. But not to have
a chance at all. But don't misunderstand, there was no animosity toward Mr. Basie. There
was just this gnawing desire to be in a situation where I could get to play more. I wanted to
play more, and so for family reasons and musical reasons, I wanted to get out. Plus, some of
the most exciting players had left. Thad Jones had left, I think Joe Newman had left, and
Billy Mitchell had left, Al Grey had left. And some of the replacements for some of these
guys weren't up to the same level. Even personally they weren't as much fun to be around. And
not only did they not play as well. MR: Yeah, that's a tough thing to find, not
just a musical replacement but a personality that's got to fit into this great thing you
had going. FF: Right. That band from the mid 50s until
'61 was a force that no one could come up against as far as I'm concerned. And then
after '62, '63, '64 it just began to dissipate. It began to be something else. Even the arrangements
that were brought in weren't as exciting. And then when we did - this is no dig at ol'
blue eyes - but we started doing the Frank Sinatra songbook and tunes like "Come Fly
With Me," I couldn't relate too heavily to some of the new fare that was coming in, musical
fare. And it was commercially very acceptable to a large segment of our public. But I wasn't
getting to play enough and more and more outside arrangements were being used, so I just, for
all these reasons I finally just gave it up in July, the 31st, of 1964.
MR: There you go again. FF: Eleven years and four days after I joined.
MR: Did you say eleven? FF: Eleven years.
MR: Eleven years, wow. And you had mentioned Sinatra, and thinking about vocalists, did
the guys in the band ever kind of resent the vocalist being out front and doing four or
five songs a night and was that something that you guys felt like you didn't feel it
was necessary? FF: Well the professionalism in this particular
orchestra didn't allow for that kind of attitude on a large scale. And we loved Sinatra, we
loved Billy Eckstine, we loved Sarah Vaughan and we loved Tony Bennett, and there just
was no feeling of that kind. Whenever we knew we were going to work with them we said well
we're going to have some fun now. Some others, who shall remain nameless, we didn't have
as much fun with because some of them didn't have the quality arrangements that we would
like to play, and some of them didn't have that jazz singer mentality. Now see the Sinatras,
the Joe Williams, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, they have jazz singer mentalities.
In other words, you sing a chorus, somebody stands up and blows a chorus. Somebody else
stands up and blows a chorus, then you come back and sing a chorus. Some singers who just
have a pop singer mentality. Give me an introduction, I sing my song, nobody solos, and I take it
out, and everybody is happy, or at least I'm happy. So any singers/vocalists with a jazz
singer mentality we accepted. Those with the pop singer mentality we rejected.
MR: Well you certainly had a powerhouse band there for those years, plus with Joe Williams
on board, and a great time. Fortunately you recorded a lot so it's documented.
FF: Yes. It definitely is documented, especially in the Mosaic series of live recordings between
1959 and '62. That is Count Basie, the New Testament Count Basie.
MR: Right. Well on to a new career for you in the early 60s. And I wanted to talk a little
bit about The Loud Minority. You had described yourself as a - let me see if I got this right
- in between moderate and militant. FF: Yeah, a "mod mil," yeah.
MR: A "mod mil" thank you. You felt a social, let's say responsibility or urge, to be involved
in the Civil Rights movement? FF: Yes I did. I didn't want to be one of
the Black Panthers or one of the Five Percenters. I didn't want to be a part of the group that
said by any means necessary, you know, and if you're not a part of the solution you're
part of the problem. I mean I felt a type of militancy, but I didn't want, I wasn't
going to be involved in any violent confrontations. I would have gladly participated in a non-violent
demonstration, I never did, but of the type that Martin Luther King was about. I didn't
want to act on a hatred of the other side. That wasn't what it was about. I had too many
friends and fans who were white and they lamented the racial climate, the unfavorable racial
climate. They didn't like the injustice that was going on. If I told one of them about
what happened in Texas with the rope and the balcony scene, they would have said, "what!
Oh man, that's ridiculous." So I was more a non-violent protester in my mentality. So
I was totally with Martin Luther King. I wasn't one of the ones that wanted to overtake, overthrow
the government with an armed revolution, and besides that was very impractical with being
only one tenth of the population. How is that going to happen?
MR: Let's deal with reality. FF: Yeah, let's deal with reality. And I figured
that it was able to be done peacefully. But on the other hand, I hated hearing about those
whites who just didn't want to hear it. What do these people want? I didn't want to hear
that. No. Don't ask me what do you people want. You know? Good will is what we want,
you know. What was it that James Brown said? "Don't give it to me, open the door I'll get
it myself." MR: Good statement.
FF: You know that's the idea. Give us a chance to do for ourselves. Give us the opportunities,
open the door and we'll do the rest. But don't keep the door shut and then tell us well be
happy with your janitorial job or whatever. So when I heard about - oh I'm sorry-
MR: Well the name of your new band eventually was kind of inspired by that phrase that was
going on at the time- FF: Right. The silent majority. I don't know
if I interpreted that correctly. All I knew is that my idea of the silent majority were
those who really didn't think these people deserved what they wanted and that they weren't
like us so they didn't deserve to have it. But if that's the way it's going well so be
it. But we don't approve of it. And I think the silent majority people lumped all black
folks together like we're all the same. As soon as one stood on the corner and raised
a clenched fist and said, "by any means necessary, we're going to get what we want and if we
have to have an armed insurrection, if that's what it takes, that's what it's got to be,"
but we didn't all feel like that. And we were split in our ranks because any of us could
have said no, no, no, nonviolence is what it's about, it ain't about taking a gun and
shooting as many white people as you can. That's not going to solve anything. So we
were the Uncle Toms. We, on the other hand, hated being called Uncle Toms because we weren't
coming with our head bowed and our hat in our hand or getting on our knees saying please
Mr. Charlie, would you give us this, would you let us do this. You know we were just,
you know, man to man, let's hit it off. You can do this, I can do this, let's do this
together, not you do this and tell me I have to do that. So we weren't begging but we weren't
coming with guns drawn. MR: Yeah. You both wanted the same thing,
but you wanted to get there in different ways. FF: Right. So I resented being referred to
as Uncle Tom, I hate that expression. And a lot of people that feel the same way I do
just can't stomach that. But we're not about violence. That's why Martin Luther King was
my leader, and when they got rid of him, and this is funny how as soon as not one day after
he was assassinated certain commentators got on the radio and said, "well with the assassination
of Martin Luther King, the black Civil Rights Movement is officially dead, it's over." Martin
Luther King's gone and no more Civil Rights Movement. And we said hey, wait a minute.
No, it ain't about that. But it almost appears as though that's the way it went down. And
I was going to write this song called "Hey Brothers and Sisters, What Happened to the
Revolution?" in about the early 70s. Well it never got composed because I was so busy
trying to make a living at this time. But as a means of getting back at people who were
assaulting my ears with this silent majority, I said hey, I will call my orchestra The Loud
Minority, and I'll put out this recording where I got Dee Dee Bridgewater espousing
all this rhetoric that I came up with, the loud minority as opposed to you-know-who.
MR: And you guys did play loud, too. FF: Yeah, we lived up to our name man, that's
a fact. We definitely were telling the truth about who we were.
MR: Was it a form of controlled chaos at some of your-
FF: Did you hear me use that expression? MR: No I didn't.
FF: Yes. I use that expression sometimes. MR: Well I've read and I've heard some of
the music and I mean up to 25 musicians at some point-
FF: Yeah, I used to call it controlled chaos. MR: No kidding. I may have read that. It could
be I read that. FF: I don't know if it ever appeared in print
but I used to announce it publicly. MR: Yeah? Oh no kidding.
FF: We're about to bring you an hour of controlled chaos. Oh no, I called it controlled confusion,
that's what it was, controlled confusion. MR: Okay.
FF: Which is pretty much the same. But now the music wasn't meant to be revolutionary
in nature, I just wanted to swing that's all. I wanted to play some good music that everybody
liked, music to listen to. It wasn't wanting to - this is for black folks only, or this
is for white folks only - this is for everybody, anybody who likes this music is free to listen
and free to pay admission, come in. So but The Loud Minority, that title stood for something.
MR: Was this your first experience as a band leader per se?
FF: Well, as a professional, yes. My first experience as a band leader came as my senior
year of high school when I had the 12-piece. MR: Oh that's right, way back there.
FF: A band of kids, high school age. And I wasn't much of a leader, but for that year
I was the man. So this, yeah, this was my first experience as a real, as a professional.
MR: You mentioned a short time ago that you were busy trying to make a living. How did
you, as not in a - by the way, when you were with Basie, were you on a salary?
FF: Yes I was. MR: It wasn't like he paid for each particular
night. FF: No, no, no. We had a salary. Everybody
was on salary. MR: So now that you're not on Basie's salary
anymore, what was your major way of paying your rent?
FF: At the time it was playing whatever gig came my way, it was a club date by club date,
I mean one of these square occasions where you play for people who dance with two left
feet, and you had to play everything from "Hello Dolly" to "Mame" to whatever else squares
like. And a lot of engagements where people come by and they pass by the band and they
look up - oh there's a bunch of waiters standing on stage. I mean that's what the attitude
- they don't say this specifically, but that's what it looks like they're thinking. We're
there with bow ties and we're dressed like the waiters, they think we're some waiters
who play music. And then there were some jazz gigs. I made connections with jazz musicians,
and Joe Newman was instrumental in getting me a lot of gigs, a lot of work around town,
and on a few recordings, and Benny Powell as well, he'd left the band before I left,
the trombonist, and these connections I worked a few jazz gigs and some clubs and at that
time I was still getting writing assignments. I might write for -
there was a time when I was hired to write for Frankie Lymon, and O.C. Smith hired me
to do some writing for him. I did the writing for an Irene Reid recording session that was
done with a big band, Quincy Jones commissioned me to do an album with Sarah Vaughan and there
was a varied type of instrumental group there. So between writing assignments and playing
freelance engagements I was able to make a living but I was on my second marriage and
my second wife, who is now my present wife of over thirty years, worked a regular job.
She'd been in the work force for some years. When she met me she was in the work force
and she stayed in the work force until last year.
MR: No kidding? FF: So our income complimented one another.
Without her income I wouldn't have been able to buy a home, I mean truthfully I would have
just been in some apartment in Manhattan trying to make the rent.
MR: Scraping I guess. FF: Scraping, yes, yes.
MR: One musician put it - well on your way to starving. I can't remember who it was.
FF: I call it freelance starving. People tell me like the 22 years that I was out of the
Basie Orchestra until I took over as leader, that was my period of freelance starving.
MR: Gee when you left Basie you were in your late 30s?
FF: Yes. I was in my mid-30s. MR: So it was almost like a - you know you
think of athletes retiring from a certain type of thing that they've done for so long
and now it's on to something else. FF: I didn't have the mentality to go into
promotion or - MR: Well I'm glad you stayed with music.
FF: Oh definitely, so am I. MR: You got to record some small group things
over the years. And there's a couple of things I wanted to ask you about. In 1980 I think
you did a magazine article. I've always thought of your own music in the combos as pretty
progressive. And you had this article, it said, "I'll never make it big in music because
my stuff is just too old fashioned." FF: Yeah. Now this, you have to keep in mind,
this was a publication that was handed out in the streets free of cost, it was called
the Jazz Spotlight News. And there were several people behind it. One was a man named Jim
Harrison, who was, he's just been a sort of a jazz hustler all his life. He promotes concerts,
passes out handbills, and he's done this for like 30 or 40 years, and made his living working
in this sort of off-beat promotional area of jazz.
MR: I bet he doesn't drive a Cadillac. FF: He certainly doesn't and he still lives
in a hotel. But this Jazz Spotlight News was, I think, a very worthwhile venture in which
everybody who contributed talked about the music and the field and the business, the
affairs of music, just the way they felt. You know they weren't politically motivated
to lean toward one side or the other, they'd - straight ahead, exactly how they felt, pulling
no punches. And when I wrote this article, "I'll never make it big because my stuff is
just too old fashioned," was based on true life experiences since leaving the Basie band.
You know I was told, well in so many years, "your stuff is just not what's happening now."
MR: Comparing it to Coltrane or something? Or the avant garde or free jazz?
FF: The avant garde, free jazz, funk, rock & roll.
MR: Right soul jazz. Whatever you want to call it.
FF: Whatever you want to call it. All words. To keep telling the truth musically was financially
unfeasible and for a while I was wondering, am I just not that good? Or is it the right
people haven't latched on to the Frank Foster bandwagon, or the people in power haven't
said well he's it, or what? Or is there an actual - I was getting paranoid - is there
an actual anti-Frank Foster campaign going on? Are there people who are saying no, don't
let him through? Either he's too good or he's not good enough. I was baffled. I didn't know
what the story was. I liked my stuff, and I think every artist is supposed to like his
or her own creation. I don't believe in going around talking about, no that's garbage. I
did that but that's nothing. And somebody says, "oh I love your work." "Oh it's nothing."
They tell me they love my work, I say thank you very much.
MR: If it's nothing why'd you do it? FF: Yeah right. Yeah exactly. Why do you waste
your time doing nothing? Oh I like what I do and I've always liked what I did. And if
I did something that I didn't think was good, I got to improve on that, especially in the
area of playing. I always thought that my writing might have been a little ahead of
my playing because in writing you don't have to put down forever the first thing you think
of. When you're improvising, what you're coming up with spontaneously, that's it. And if it's
on record, it's down forever, posterity or whatever. When you're writing something, you
can write something down and say yeah that's pretty good but I think I can improve on it,
and constantly change the melody or change a note here or there or a phrase, and make
it into what it's supposed to be. And I think boy I wish I could play something like this
just soloing. But I did have this confusion going on in my mind - am I good? Am I not
good? Am I supposed to be worshipped by everybody in the public? If out of a group of ten thousand
people, nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine don't like me, does that mean I'm not good?
If half of them like me am I halfway where I should be? If a bunch of musicians love
me, but a bunch of jazz critics say naaa, where am I? And then for a while I had that
mentality, every jazz critic who says something bad about me, yeah I'm going to meet him,
I'd sure like to punch him in the mouth. But I got over all that. Everyone is entitled
to his or her opinion. And I just hope that enough folks like me that I can get across.
And it's come to the point where if enough like me that enable me to pay my bills on
time, I'm halfway there. MR: Did you enjoy your ten years almost directing
the Basie Orchestra? Did you enjoy being in a position of leader, and the business end
of things that must have been involved in that?
FF: Well I enjoyed being the leader of the Basie Orchestra. I didn't have to be bothered
with the business end of things, I just collected a salary like everyone else. And I didn't
have to pay the guys off. One thing I had to deal with was people who came to me and
said, "man, I need a raise, can you get me a raise?" And I dealt with the administration
about that and it was either accepted or rejected. MR: So the Basie organization was a booking
agent in itself? FF: Yes.
MR: And managed the day to day operations? FF: Right. I didn't have to have anything
to do with bookings or the business, and rightly so. Because as a businessman - that's why
Cecelia Foster does all my business. And whatever success I enjoy, thanks to her.
MR: Well that's a good pairing then. FF: Yes. We've got a beautiful partnership
here. MR: Yeah. I can attest to the fact that she's
very professional by the way. FF: Yes, yes.
MR: And that's good. FF: And you're not alone in that attestation.
But as leader of the Basie Orchestra I enjoyed standing in front of a quality group every
night and hearing this music coming back at me played so wonderfully, so beautifully.
That was the best part of it, being on stage with all those great musicians. Some of them
not, you know like no-names. But everybody there for all he's worth. And that's the best
part of it. The worst part of it was what I refer to as the war going on in the back
streets of Basieland, which meant the war between the old heads, who said all we want
to hear is old Basie music, basically "April in Paris," "Corner Pocket," "Whirlybird,"
"L'il Darlin'," "Shiny Stockings," "Moten Swing," and a few others and that's it. In
this corner were the people who wanted to see us move on - yeah, yeah, add to the book,
don't just play that old stuff. Some critics I really appreciate because they said, "as
the new leader of the Count Basie Orchestra, Frank Foster is not merely sticking to the
old stuff, he's constantly adding to the new stuff, showing his creativity and his forward
looking leadership." And they looked forward to hearing new - here, what's going to come
out now you know. Others said well this new stuff doesn't sound like Basie, and they just
need to stick to what Basie is known for. MR: Where did the management stand on that
issue? FF: Well the management was somewhere in between
the two sides. The management wanted me to play mostly what the band had been known for,
but was encouraging as far as new material. And when they say where my head was at, in
other words when they saw that I wanted to, I had a mentality or a slogan, I didn't want
to bring anything new into the book that Basie himself wouldn't have liked. That's how I
started off. And then I began to get experimental and want to branch out. And I took that cue
for that from the old man now, because the old man, he had an experimental nature. See
a lot of people don't know that Basie was fairly progressive. He always welcomed something
new as long as it swung and laid right. And he even told me something he wanted me to
do, that seemed totally out of context with what the Basie band was about, but it was
just a new little gimmick that would have attracted some more attention. And it would
still have been musical. But it would have been a shock to some Basie fans to witness
this. And it was like something that would have been a big surprise, where you'd think
a song was over and then suddenly we'd go into something else that sounded utterly crazy.
Now this came from the old man himself, that he wanted me to do this. I never got a chance
to implement it. And I was out of the band and then he passed away before I could even
put it together for the band as an outside arranger. People, a lot of people weren't
aware of Basie's own progressive attitude. As long as you gave him a few open spaces
to tinkle in, and as long as it swung, you could do what you wanted musically. And always
bring it back home. So I came in with this attitude, I don't want to do anything that
the old man wouldn't have liked. And then it got so good, and I realized the quality
of these musicians was high level musical quality in the band, so I started just branching
out a little. And I ran into a brick wall of resistance from critics and some people.
Because I was so inspired by the quality of the band and my wife even remarked, "you seem
to be on a roll here lately, you know, you seem to be super-motivated." I said, "yeah
well these guys are playing so good I want to." I was writing in airports and hotel rooms,
writing on the bus, writing in the bathroom, writing everywhere, and bringing it in and
the cats were saying, "yeah, yeah Fos', this is happening." And then we had one old stick
in the mud who shall remain nameless, who would say, "no, this is not Basie, that's
not Basie." MR: We've had quite a list of those "shall
remain nameless guys." FF: Yeah, and they'll continue to remain nameless
because if I ever run into them I hope I'm driving a Mack truck. But I don't want to
expose them to the public. MR: Right I understand. Well you've had a
great career. We're running up against our next business here. I wanted to do something
quickly with you and kind of test your musical memory if I could. And just tell me if you
recall- [audio interlude]
FF: Sounds like "Brotherly Shove." MR: You got it.
FF: That's the three tenor battle between Frank Wess, Billy Mitchell and myself.
MR: Man, that was a mouthful too, a lot of notes in there.
FF: Yeah, yeah. MR: It's like you're getting your bebop thing
in there. FF: That's right.
MR: This is from an album that was all your own tunes, right?
FF: I think so, yeah. MR: It's called "Easin It."
FF: "Easin It," yeah. MR: That must have been quite a nice thing
to be able to do is have an album with- FF: Well I approached the old man and I said,
"Basie, I'd like to do an album all my own." He said, "go ahead." He said, "write it."
So I wrote it. And Teddy Reig, the late Teddy Reig who was the A & R man for Roulette Records,
a lot of people didn't like him but I thought he was wonderful. He was encouraging. He said,
"do this thing, all you've got to do is write the music." So when I had finally got enough
music together for one album, because Neal Hefti had done his thing, Quincy had done
his thing, Benny Carter had done his thing, Billy Byers, about six or seven guys had complete
albums of all their own arrangements. And so I said hey - then I even went a step further
and I said, "Basie, let me publish some of my own songs." He said "go ahead." So I gave
half of them to Diane Basie and the other half I published myself, Frank Foster music.
This was a trend that started while I was a member of the Basie Orchestra that I wasn't
aware of being off the beaten path, where a lot of young musicians wanted to control
their product, and they wouldn't give the recording companies the publishing rights.
And so here I come Johnny come lately, oh yeah? Guys are controlling their own product.
Yeah I like that, let me get on that. MR: Let me try this one on ya. This is uh-
FF: I just know you're going to stump me. [audio interlude]
FF: That was two tenor saxophones, two trombones. Frank Wess and myself, Henry Coker and Benny
Powell in an album called "No Count Basie," or Frank "East, North, South, Wess."
MR: Yeah but what was the date? FF: What was the date? Why'd you ask me that?
It was around 1956 I think. MR: Yes it was '56, you are exactly right.
A nice little small group, mostly Basie members. That's great. Here's one more for you.
FF: That by the way was based on the harmonic structure of "Sweet Georgia Brown."
MR: Oh. No kidding. Just borrowing those classic structures.
[audio interlude] FF: It's got to be with Elvin Jones.
MR: Yup. FF: And I was playing alto clarinet.
MR: Alto clarinet. FF: And a lot of people said, "yeah you played
bass clarinet." And I just go along with their head, but that was an E flat alto clarinet.
I don't know the name, I think it was like, "At This Point in Time" or -
MR: "Who's Afraid"- FF: "Who's Afraid of Frank Wolf," yes. That's
what it was supposed to be, "Who's Afraid of Frank Wolf."
MR: Oh, on the record they just put "Who's Afraid."
FF: Yeah because they didn't think it was feasible that we put the whole title for some
reason or another. MR: Do you like playing with Elvin?
FF: Oh gee I loved it. MR: Quite powerhouse.
FF: Oh yeah we had some times. If I didn't get enough playing in, improvising with the
Basie band, I sure made up for it with Elvin. MR: I guess so, yeah. You had the liberty
to play as long as you wanted. FF: That's right, that's right. And as long
as you could last, he could last longer. MR: Wow. Well this has really been great,
you know I almost feel like somewhere down the line we'll have to do Part III. You've
got an awful lot to say, I know you've got some well thought out opinions on the current
state of music. And just show me - you had a gesture you made when you were talking about
smooth jazz as you put it. Do you remember what it was this morning? I think you went
- FF: Oh yeah, it's light as a feather jazz,
you could put it in the palm of your hand and just blow it away.
MR: Is there any racial disharmony in the jazz scene these days that you've noticed?
FF: Well sorrowfully enough, it mostly involves the opinions of some black musicians about
white musicians in general. They may hold a resentment for the fact that in so many
of the jazz clubs we are seeing names that we never heard of before an they're mostly
white - I'll just make up a name, a fictitious name, the Ron Brakowski Quintet. Somebody
goes well who the hell is Ron Brakowski, where'd he come from, how come I never heard of him?
And people who've been around a while and maybe not as successful as they'd like to
be are kind of resentful of these young upstarts who are getting all the opportunities. And
that's really unfortunate because I think too many of us who have this sour grape attitude
are our own undoing. It's not the fault of the club owners or the promoters or the producers
or the record company executives that we can't get a break. Sometimes our own business and
our own hatred and racial animosity might be constructing the wall that keeps us from
getting where we need to be worrying about somebody else's success. And it also hurts
me, it disturbs me to see somebody of my race talking about somebody white and saying oh
man he can't play, never could, when this person they are talking about is a monster,
which indicates to me that you don't have to be of any particular racial persuasion
to be good at jazz. All that stuff about, "this is our music, nobody can play this music
but us," forget it. Anybody, I mean not anybody individually, you know, I don't think every
person born into this world is a jazz musician, and I don't agree with somebody's got something
out that says anybody, everybody can improvise. I don't go with that.
MR: Oh that's right, there's a series, "Anybody Can Improvise."
FF: Yeah. I don't subscribe to that. But it's an individual thing, it's not a racial thing.
We have such a melting pot here, we're all into each other's culture. Okay, I contend
that jazz was born in America as a result of the black experience. Now nobody in the
world could ever convince me that that isn't true, okay? But now as I said before, we've
got this melting pot where we're all into each other's culture. We can emulate one another,
and we can relate to one another, and talent wasn't just given to whites or blacks or Latinos
or Asiatics or whatever. Every racial ethnic group has talent. And all God's children got
rhythm, some more than others. Look man, I know some black folks who can't clap on two
and four. One-two-three-four. ONE-two-THREE-four. I know some cats who can't do this.
On the other hand I know some white folks, every time will say and vice versa
you know. So we've all got talented people and we've all got some no-talented people.
Every ethnic and racial group has somebody blowing a horn that should put it down and
forget it and be a plumber or a postman or something. But when I hear somebody who's
not black perform on an instrument and that person is good, they are good, regardless
of what somebody else black might say - oh he can't play, she can't play, that's it.
Man, it hurt me years ago, one of my trumpet players, are you familiar with Lew Soloff?
Well this guy just put Lew Soloff in the garbage can, "he can't play, he never could." And
Lew Soloff is a monster. Lew Soloff can play anything, can play jazz, can play lead trumpet,
he can play in a section, you know, he can just do anything that's necessary for a jazz
trumpeter to do. Big band, small group, whatever. So when one of us can do it, give us the credit.
When one of them can do it, give them the credit. I don't feel threatened by anybody.
If you can play and you're white, great, let's play together. If you can't play and you're
white- MR: Go play with someone else.
FF: Yeah. If you can't play and you're black, get out of here.
MR: Go play with that white guy that can't play. Well this has really been a great pleasure
for me, and I want to thank you for sharing your sentiments, and you're very well spoken
about your opinions. And I want to thank you for all the great music over the years, and
it's a pleasure to have you on the campus. FF: Pleasure to be here.
MR: And let's go to dinner. FF: All right.
MR: Thank you so much. FF: Okay, Monk.
