My name is Monk Rowe and I'm very happy to
have Ken Peplowski in New York City as my guest. And I would pull a mean one on you
and ask for the exact date and location of when we first had an interview. But I won't
do that. KP: Well wait a minute now. Was it Odessa,
Texas? MR: It was not, but it was sort of like that.
It was in Aspen 23 years ago almost. KP: Wow.
MR: 1997. We had just sort of started doing these interview sessions and I remember that
was, musically that was a great party. I wonder if you could do me a favor, for people who
will watch this and if you can think back to 1997 or about then, what a typical, let's
say week or ten day period for you was like, employment/music-wise.
KP: Yeah. That, you know the 80s and 90s were really interesting for me 'cause there were
a lot of different kinds of gigs that I did, everything from big bands, small groups, there
were a lot of big bands still playing in New York. I played in Loren Schoenberg's band,
a great guy who now is up at the Jazz Museum in Harlem. He had a wonderful big band. And
we had kind of semi-regular gigs with that band. Mel Lewis was the drummer. And I was
recording for Concord at that time, traveling quite a bit which I still am, but in New York
when I was home I'd play everything from, you know, clubs to private parties and functions.
So, with great bands too. Like there used to be a circuit of jazz-oriented what we call
club dates in New York, which is not a club date it's playing a wedding or a private party,
and I always tell people that the first one that I ever did the band was Mel Lewis, Milt
Hinton, Bucky Pizzarelli, Steve Kuhn, and Buddy Tate was the other saxophone player,
and here we are playing somebody's wedding. MR: Oh my God.
KP: And they had no idea, you know, and we were just playing nice tunes for four hours.
But that was New York back then. You just, all these endless circles of players and it
seemed like everything was wide open and always a new opportunity around the corner and a
very exciting time. And you talk about Aspen, those kind of what we call jazz parties, and
if people don't know what those are it's generally something that takes place in a hotel, a self-enclosed
festival as it were, which kind of centers around one time only jam session bands. So
you'd hire 32, sometimes 60 or 70 musicians and put together these bands for a one-off
with no rehearsal. And back then there was almost one a week - at the very least you'd
play a couple a month. So they were all over the place, always in a hotel and the musicians
and the guests and the audience would all stay at the same hotel.
MR: Well this leads to an obvious question about what's your life like presently?
KP: I'm watching paint dry, and I'm eyeing my dog and wondering how she would be if I
basted her. No I'm kidding. I'm joking. She's right over there. She may make a cameo appearance.
MR: No animals will be harmed in the filming of this.
KP: That's right, yes, yes. No I mean it's, I know you've heard this a million times and
we all have but there's, we've never experienced anything like this. And the musical community
has certainly never experienced anything like this, where everything just stopped. And even
now there's no immediate prospects for re-opening. You know it's, I can tell you I've had most
of my major work cancelled for the year. Period. So we're all trying to figure out how to forge
ahead and there's so much uncertainty. And I talk to a lot of my musician, you know every
day I talk to a few musicians. I've actually cut it down because it's the same depressing
conversation over and over, which is, you know what have you been doing? Nothing. You
know. Applying for grants. Applying for relief money, unemployment money. You know me personally,
I don't have a back-up teaching job, I don't live with a spouse or a partner that works,
I don't, so that's all I do is play music and travel and that's gone. And in New York
they've just started Phase I [of the re-opening]. So we're on Phase 4, the musicians. Possibly.
So by the time they get to us it's going to be August at the earliest. And I can't see
that anybody has yet figured out how to make it work for venues. you know clubs, even concert
halls, yet. Because it's such a tricky thing with the social distancing. And there's a
place here in New York, Small's, in the Village, where he started having bands play to an empty
room and he streams the concerts. And it may be that is the foreseeable future.
MR: It's interesting the - we're, up here in Upstate, we're a bit ahead of you and the
restaurants now can have like pavilion seating or semi-outside. And we went out for the first
time like in three months on Friday. And there was a musician playing. And I think the first
thing that will come back is just like single acts: guitar/singers, piano players and stuff.
Oddly enough, we were very aggravated because the guy was playing so loud that the whole
thing was - and I had this weird feeling, like I should be happy for him, right? Turn
it down. KP: I know. Yeah. That's a tricky spot because
you don't want to critique him or say something to the owner, well then we won't have music
anymore. But yeah it's probably going to be singles and this kind of streaming stuff,
which it's one step better than trying to layer instruments one on top of each other,
because as you know, because of quantum physics we still can't have two musicians in two different
places play together with the time delay, even though it's microseconds apart. So the
only way around that is to layer one instrument at a time, and that doesn't make for good
jazz. MR: It does not.
KP: Because then if you start with the rhythm section first they're just playing a generic
accompaniment. So I think at least this is something, if we can meet up in different
spaces and play and rely on people's generosity to keep it going too, you know too that's
the other thing is if people want to even see live jazz down the road they're going
to have to keep supporting all these streaming things, you know, because otherwise you're
going to see the clubs fold one by one. MR: That's a dire prediction. And besides
the loss of income, which of course is paramount, how do you feel about yourself right now?
I mean performers, that's so much a part of what they do.
KP: Yeah. And I think, I've had this conversation with friends of mine. I think sometimes it's
hard for a lot of non-musicians to really understand our plight because it's not a job.
You know if you're a musician it's you, it's your life. And so your income is taken away
and part of your being is taken away really. And for a lot of us, myself included, the
first couple of months I didn't even feel like practicing. Because I talked to Dick
Hyman about this, my friend, I talk to him a couple of times a week. And he had the same
feeling. Because it's hard to practice in a vacuum if you don't feel like there's anything
to practice for. So I've just started, just forcing myself to get back into it by practicing.
And I've actually got a storage room downtown that looks like the last scene from that Indiana
Jones movie where they go into this warehouse and it's just boxes stacked on top of each
other all the way up to the ceiling. And I've been going through random boxes and getting
rid of things and sifting through. It's nothing but books, recorded music and sheet music
and arrangements. So I'm sifting through sheet music actually, to come up with a couple new
sets of tunes that I haven't played before. Just trying to do something.
MR: Right. With the hope that it pays off in the future. I know I have a hard time being
motivated. I need a goal with a date on it. KP: It's true. And like I said it's nothing
against my fellow musicians but we're all in the same boat and it kind of doesn't help
talking to each other. It helps in the sense that you don't feel, you don't take it personally
that all this has happened, but it's so depressing because it's the same conversation over and
over, you know, nobody's got prospects for work, even things that are cancelled, they're
not necessarily re-booking with specific dates because a lot of next year is already booked
for concert venues. So they'll cancel you and say, "Well we'll talk about 2022" and
some undefined future you know. So it's a weird time, it really is. I can't pretend
otherwise. And then you know you add to that, I know everybody is afraid to talk about politics
and things but you just add to that the social environment on top of that, and everything
that's going on, and that's just another layer of dark clouds on top of everything else.
MR: It's rather stunning that - what is going on all at the same time.
KP: Yeah. I think some of it's connected because I think there is kind of a mass depression
and kind of, you know, I think this country is going through an upheaval and we were before
this Covid thing started. But it's brought out extremes in people and extreme reactions
and people are mad and they don't know quite what they're mad about. It's going to be an
interesting time ahead. And I can just hope that everybody - all I can say is I hope everybody
gets out to vote in November, or mail in their ballots and do whatever it takes because we
have to make some changes here. It's a sad situation.
MR: It's hard to imagine that some changes won't be made.
KP: Well we said that. MR: We said that.
KP: We said that four years ago. We thought it was a shoe-in. You know? So yeah, you know
okay, now you've got me going on this. But I tell my friends, I sound like a broken record
when I talk to my friends because more and more I really think we live in two countries,
two different countries in the United States. And it's not, you can't divide it along geographical
lines, but we live in, and I think it's been that way for a long time. But the mad king
that's in power now has enabled people, giving them strength to come forward you know, with
these crazy ideas. But they haven't come out of nowhere. You know, this disbelief in science
and basic facts and compassion for your fellow man, and you know I don't care what side of
the political fence you're on but if you're a Republican, and especially the politicians,
I don't know how they can live with themselves for supporting this mad king you know. Just
if you take this George Floyd incident I could imagine any Republican president, either of
the Bushes, Nixon, Reagan, they would have tried to heal the country by saying something
that brought people together. They would have tried to do something compassionate you know.
But it's like half of the country, you know we have people that are proud of their ignorance.
They feel like they haven't been heard all these years. They're still fighting the Civil
War really is what it is. And it's going to take a long time to sort it out. And I hope,
and if we make a change in November that'll be a big step forward but we have a long ways
to go. We've, you know, caused a lot of harm around the world. We've severed a lot of our
good relationships around the world. And again, that's going to - not to bring it back to
me, but that affects all the musicians too, because jazz was always considered kind of
a good will gesture from America to the rest of the world. And if you remember they used
to send bands out to all these countries. And it's supposed to be the music of freedom
and of tolerance. And you know you don't see ethnic boundaries. You don't see gender boundaries,
you know, age boundaries. It's just people play jazz and they don't play jazz. So it's
going to affect all of us. And when things start to open up again we could always rely
on work in Europe but I don't know if there's going to be as much of that anymore either.
MR: Wow. Well said. Have you witnessed any of the protests in New York?
KP: Yes. You know I live up in Inwood, which is the northernmost part of Manhattan. So
it's generally pretty quiet here but there have been some protests in this neighborhood
on Broadway that were very peaceful. So that was a good thing. And yeah, the only thing,
you know what I've done, and I actually posted this on FaceBook, you know, again, I wrote
a post saying look I don't have income for the year pretty much, but I'm still finding
a way to give some money to, I figured the best thing I could do under these circumstances
I gave money to Act Blue and also the Black Congressional Caucus, trying to do something
positive. You know? So I think we all have to become activists a little bit at least,
in whatever way you can be now. How are the protests where you are?
MR: There's only been a few, they were peaceful, you know Utica is a fairly small city so we
don't see too much of it. But there's a lot of activism that comes out of the college
campuses of course and you know I work at Hamilton College. So you'd like to think that
this time it's going to make a difference. Sometimes - I remember when Sandy Hook happened
I said this is so awful it has to make a difference. Something's going to happen now.
KP: I know, I know, yeah. Well I think people have to listen to Barack Obama, who just recently
has been stressing the importance of yeah you should protest and you should vote. And
we've had not just in the last voting cycle but probably for the last 30 years if you
go back you can look at the statistics. Young people 18 to maybe 24, they just don't turn
out to vote. Period. And we all say this, you have no right to complain about things.
You can't tell me it doesn't make a difference if you didn't actually vote yourself. So you've
got to do it. That's all we have. We've got a democracy here in this country, a supposed
democracy. And if you want to keep it that way, or make it a more democratic government,
that's how it works. You have to vote. You have to put people into positions where they
can actually change things. And you know you can destroy property and you can make yourselves
heard but then you've got to actually do something within the system that we have, for better
or for worse. MR: Let me ask you if amidst all the flurry
of cancellations that you got that you were receiving via email and phone, did you have
a circumstance where someone said to you, "Well you can still come if you want"?
KP: No. Only one - actually one I had a gig in Switzerland that would have been in April.
And at that point it was still possible to get there and I was at least three weeks out,
they were saying do you want to come and do this job, but I could see that if I went there,
first of all I'd be risking my own health, second of all I might be stuck there and not
be able to get back for a couple of weeks. So I said no, I don't think this is a good
idea let's move that somewhere else. That's the only one actually. The rest just cancelled.
Now some, not many, but a few places cancelled and then tried to make something up to us
by having a streaming event of some sort and getting some money for us. Actually there's
a gig in Pasadena that I was supposed to do at this gourmet restaurant that has jazz.
And the guy felt so bad for cancelling his whole series, in addition to closing the restaurant,
he raised enough money to pay like half a dozen of us pretty well to do a streaming
series. And I did it right here just telling stories and playing a little bit and I thought
that was such a nice gesture on his part. MR: Really.
KP: And it's good for him too because it keeps the name out there and it keeps, you know,
just keeping this music in people's minds. MR: I could envision a scenario, perhaps later
in 2020, where someone might offer you a gig you'd have to travel to and, you know, bring
a couple of people with you. And some people may say no I'm not ready to do that. You'd
have to make more phone calls than usual - if you want to do it.
KP: That's true. Very true. And also I was thinking about that same thing regarding the
clubs that are having musicians show up and get on stage and play to nobody, which is
safe for the audience but not necessarily the musicians. Because if you're a horn player
you're taking the mask off when you play and you can't social distance that much when you're
playing in a quartet in a small club. You know. So I'm sure there'll be some of that.
But there's also the other factor is how desperate do we all get that we just want to jump back
in and play? You know? And then you kind of roll the dice, you say well I've been healthy
let me take a chance. I actually took the antibody test and as it turns out I tested
positive so I probably had the thing. We don't know for sure, which they still don't know
if it means you have a resistance to it or not but you might have, which is good news
you know. MR: It used to be sort of a joke that making
a living in jazz was a dangerous thing. KP: Yes, that's right. Yeah. So it's going
to be - I was thinking about New York just opened up this week and there was an article
in the Times saying the offices, they're going to have to jump through hoops supposedly,
to be able to work in the office. They've got to fill out a questionnaire every day
saying, you know, have you been exposed to anybody with the virus in the last two weeks,
you know all this stuff. Then they're going to take your temperature. I mean I can't imagine
that they're going to keep that going for a couple of weeks because that's going to
- and how are you going to do that in a club or a restaurant with people constantly coming
and going. I don't know. It's - figure this out, Monk, will ya? Sort it out.
MR: Wait until you go get a haircut. KP: I know. I need one actually.
MR: I finally got one and the hoops they have to jump through, like they test your temperature
first. It's bizarre. KP: Was the person wearing a mask that gave
you the haircut? MR: And they, as much as we like Cuomo, most
of us anyway, I mean he seemed to have acted like an adult, but the business owners are
aggravated at the 30 pages of requirements that they're dealing with to open up. So there's
no good answers and currently the colleges are trying to figure out what to do.
KP: What is yours doing? MR: The last I heard they're planning on the
students coming back with some big changes, yet to be determined. And faculty may not
want to come back. They have to give the faculty the choice of teaching on campus or off.
KP: Yeah. I was also thinking, you know I have a couple of students that want to go
to college next year. And it's such a strange time. Because do you pay for housing? You
don't know what's going to happen. It's so late in the day really, to make a decision
like that. MR: What if they ask you about going into
music for a career? KP: Well I encourage it. I just tell them
look, this is a time that we've never experienced before. But in my own experience I've only
played music for a living. Since I was eleven years old that's all I've ever done. So I
think, I always tell students the same thing: half the battle is wanting it bad enough.
And like we were taking about earlier, deciding that it's not just a job. So it's not something
you do and then you'll do something else to fall back on. You have to decide you're a
musician, you want to play music, I'm willing to have good years and bad years, and do whatever
it takes to get on the scene. And then you have a very good chance of making it happen.
But you have to be all in you know. And now it may be hard for them to envision this but
you know this will pass. We'll figure things out. I don't know, you know I watch Bill Maher's
Show. I don't know if you do. But I watch it every Friday. And he keeps saying, I think
he's of the opinion that we should have done like Sweden did and just use common sense
and then go back to work because the past pandemics, nobody, you know we didn't have
lockdowns like this and a similar number of deaths. And then he said, you know, "People,
the statistics of people that die of infections in hospitals is also a hundred thousand a
year and nobody talks about that." But what I would argue about that is we've had a hundred
thousand deaths because we did the lockdown, and if we hadn't we might be at five hundred
thousand you know? So I think this pandemic is probably worse than any we've ever seen.
And as painful as it is for all of us I think it's something we have to do. You know here
in New York, and maybe it's the same where you are, so many people are walking around
outside just hanging around in groups and no masks, nothing. And I don't understand
that. Because it doesn't kill you to wear that mask. And every epidemiologist, nobody
disagrees on that, it's not even a thing that's debated yet, you know, everybody is saying
you still should wear them when you're outside to protect yourself and to protect other people.
MR: Have you had any thoughts about why the pandemic occurred, besides, well we can trace
it to one city or something. But I'm wondering if you think there's something larger going
on? KP: Well I do think this is related to climate
change. Because most of these major outbreaks, the ebola thing happened too because you cut
down the trees, you cut down the habitat, and a virus needs a host. So it jumps to the
next species to stay alive. It makes kind of an evolutionary leap. And this is not based
on hearsay, it's pure science and empirical evidence. And I think we're going to see more
and more of these extremes as we go on. And you know there were all kinds of stories in
the papers about the first two months, the carbon dioxide was down, you know the air
quality was so much better. And now it's almost right back up again as things are opening
up. And it's like we're so selfish as a species. We just don't care. You know we're going to
kick this can down the road and let somebody else deal with it. And I just, there again
you go, it's two countries, maybe two different worlds. You know? There's people that believe
in, as I said before, empirical evidence in everything in life. That's all you can go
on is a preponderance of the evidence, until you're proved wrong. And then there are people
that are just deniers and want to believe crazy alternate realities. So but what do
you think about this? MR: Well I think you can't, this sounds like
a much used phrase but you can't mess with Mother Nature for too long. And I think nature
always has a way of saying there's too many people, there's too much of this and something
happens because of that. That's about as far as I've got with that.
KP: Yeah, right. MR: It's very interesting I was reading a
book about Pops Foster and he's talking about playing on the Mississippi riverboats in 1918
and then he said, just in passing, "And we had to take a few months off because of this
flu thing." Right? He's talking about the Spanish flu which really struck me as it's
come around or something. KP: Yeah, interesting, yeah. Is that his autobiography
that one? MR: Yeah. I'll send you the title. It's a
great read. KP: Yeah I think I missed that one. I've got
to read that. MR: Yeah.
KP: I love those oral histories like that. MR: Yeah. Any upside for you personally? Anything
you've taken up as a hobby or - KP: Well I've always loved books and movies
so I'm reading a lot right now. Every day I actually take an hour at least and read.
And I read all kinds of things - fiction, nonfiction, and I'm also a fan of the old
humorists, Robert Benchley, S. J. Perelman. So I've been going through my S. J. Perelman
books reading those. Because they still make me laugh and Lord knows we need that. And
I'm watching a lot of classic movies that I've had over the years that I haven't gotten
around to watch. And you know, I've got a girlfriend, she lives in Jackson Heights.
So we're meeting up now once or twice a week and she'll come over, like last Saturday we
watched a Hitchcock movie, we watched the one with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly -
MR: "North by Northwest?" KP: No, "To Catch a Thief."
MR: Oh, oh. KP: Yeah. Is that the name of it? You know
it's on the French Riviera and he's a cat burglar. But you know, so I've been doing
that and I walk my dog, Honey Pie, you know we go out a lot. And like everybody else I've
been having to cook and I've been eating very healthy actually. And my girlfriend is a vegetarian
and not militant about it at all, she doesn't care what I eat. But I've been leaning in
that direction. And I lost 20 pounds going for long walks with my dog, and I feel really
good. MR: That's great because most people go the
other way with the adding. KP: Yeah. So in that sense, you know that's
like all those things give me some kind of calm center. You know? So, and then trying
to - just in the last week or two there's been little bits here and there of trying
to book things for the future, people contacting me and me reaching out to others, which hasn't
happened in the last, you know, when this started, there was no talk of anything. But
let me ask you, what are you doing? MR: Well I'm able to do, you know the Jazz
Archive project is like a half time job for me at Hamilton and I'm working from home like
90 percent of the college employees. Gigs - you know I played one gig in the last 75
days and that gig I felt like maybe I shouldn't be playing this. It's an odd feeling. But
I'm pretty much the same as you. I'm an avid reader and I have a dog who gets three walks
a day now. And my wife is busy making masks for our children and grandchildren. So I wish
I was a little more motivated to, you know I kept thinking I've got all this time I'm
going to listen to every Cannonball Adderley LP that I have, which is a lot. And I haven't
made much progress with that. It's hard to get motivated when you don't really have a
goal. At least - KP: I could tell you one thing, my dog, this,
'cause I share custody with my ex with my dog, Honey Pie. So when I'm traveling, you
know she gets the dog. So this is the best time of her life. To her this is the greatest
thing that ever happened. She's so happy. She has me 24 hours a day, you know.
MR: Well that maybe is a good up-note to wrap up on. And you have anything else you'd like
to - KP: Send money?
MR: Ken Peplowski, Upper Manhattan. KP: That's right. It'll get to me. No I mean
people can look on my FaceBook site and I'm doing some streaming stuff like everybody
else. And I might actually start a series. Because I had a lot of positive things I did
this one for this club/restaurant in California which is just me sitting here telling, you
know, dumb stories from the past and playing a little bit and playing songs that were related
to the anecdote I told. And people really loved it. So I might do kind of a weekly or
bi-weekly thing on that. MR: Well I'm going to stop our recording and
then we can just wrap up and say good-bye. KP: Sure.
MR: Thank you. KP: Thanks.
