Good afternoon. We are here interviewing the great cornetist
and composer Nat Adderley as part of Hamilton Jazz Archive. Welcome, Nat. NA: I'm very happy to be here. MR: It's a pleasure to have you. NA: Of course, at my age I'm very happy to
be anywhere. MR: Nat's known for his sense of humor of
course, along with his great tunes. I want to start in a little bit different
tact today, because we've been starting maybe from the beginnings of people. But I want to ask you about the tunes you
write. Because these are things that we're going
to have our students listen to and where those tunes come from, and how you feel about your
own compositions. Because I feel that's a real important contribution
to jazz music. NA: I think that sometimes people, generally,
even people who are fringe jazz people - that is writers and critiques for wont of a better
word - don't really understand that we don't just put some notes on the paper as vehicles
for improvisation. There has to be some kind of stimulus in order
for you to write something. I know it does for me. Now I have done songs on the spur of the moment
that are not particularly extraordinary one way or the other, that were done because we
were on a record date or because we needed a certain kind of song. But generally, like my most famous song, "The
Work Song" is a song that was based on when I was a child, they were paving the street
in front of my house in Tallahassee, Florida. There was, the penal system was the chain
gang. And they had the chain gang people paving
the street. I was not even in school yet, so I was sitting
and watching them do it, and they fascinated me, these men. Because they sang these songs where there
was one guy and then a row of maybe six abreast, two guys. And there was red clay, very hard. And they had to break this clay so that they
could come along and pave the street. It was a major highway between Jacksonville,
Florida and Pensacola. Tallahassee is right in the middle. Well, when these guys, the guy in front would
hit - thumpf - and he'd drop his hammer, and he'd sing something [hums]. And then everybody else would hit - whoom
- and they'd answer [hums]. And it kept repeating. And I was sitting there fascinated, just,
I loved it. And I never forgot it. MR: You held that until -
NA: Sure. Because I used to, as I went along, now and
then when I was humming something, I'd just hum a question and answer thing and remember
that. I also remembered it because I went in the
house and made lemonade for these guys who were doing that. My mother would come home from school, she
was an elementary school teacher. My mother came home and said, "where are all
my lemons and the sugar?" The sugar was expensive. And I said, "Well I was giving those guys,
you know, the guys out front." And after that - you know I liked the guys,
you know, and they'd let me talk to them, and they all seemed to like me. And Mama said, "Listen, those guys are out
there because they did something wrong." Well I couldn't grasp that too well. They're still singing. So I went on, I got a couple of spankings
about that. In my house spankings were, they became a
bit violent, you know, spanking. But the point is, later on, when someone asked
me for a song, as a matter of fact I go and tell it exactly like it was. A bass player named Keter Betts -
MR: We've heard his name a few times today. NA: Keter was getting ready to do a record
date. We were now professional musicians, Cannonball
and I, and Keter said, "why don't you write one of them songs for me?" And I went to the hotel in Washington, and
I was doing "The Work Song." And the more I did it, the more I thought
about it and I liked it, and so I stopped. I finished writing it, and then I wrote another
song and decided to give Keter another song. Because I had a record date coming up and
I decided I wanted to do that song on my record date. That's one example of where the inspiration
for a song comes from. It is perhaps the most poignant example that
I could give for the way that I see where the music comes from, where it goes there
are other reasons for others, but that is probably the best one that I could do. MR: All right. Good story. With a tune like, one of my favorite things
you wrote, "Never Say Yes" - that sounded to me, as compared to maybe a tune like "Sticks"
that you wrote, "Never Say Yes" sounds like you put a lot of thought into that tune. NA: Again, there's another reason. Another reason. We were doing a record date with Nancy Wilson. She was, I didn't know at the time, I thought
that all the songs were going to be vocals. Cannonball, and the way he would do it, is
we always had very talented people, so Cannon, who made all the arrangements to all the business,
and then he came and had a meeting, not even a rehearsal. And he said, "listen - you do two songs, you
do these two, you do these two, and I'll do these two." So it was me, Joe Zawinal and Cannonball who
were the writers that day. And he said well you do two and Joe does two. And these others we already had little arrangements
to do. So when I went to do the two that I was to
do, I thought I was writing a song that to me had elements of Broadway song style of
that kind of like [humms]. In other words, not jazz, not for a great
[scats]. But it was sort of melodic. And that's what I was gunning for. When it came the next day I found out - we
started recording the next day. And the next day, that's when I found out
that we were not doing, she was not singing it, we were playing it. I had to quickly play the melody myself because
I had not done an arrangement that had a band. And that was the reason for that one. But there are many many stories to go along. In other words, as far as I'm concerned, most
of the music that I have ever written all has - there's a reason, for it to be the way
that it is. Now you've got two. If you've got another one, speak up. MR: "Hummin'. NA: "Hummin'" - actually, wow. "Hummin'." MR: And then I'll let somebody else talk. NA: You pick a - "Hummin.'" Boy. Well I guess the only way to do it is to tell
you the way that it really was. "Hummin'" was written about an old woman who
lived on my street when I was a little boy again in Tallahassee. Miss Sally was her name. Miss Sally. Southern people have strange ways of saying
things. But there was Mrs. Coleman lived there, Mrs.
Lasser lived up the street and Mr. Lasser. Miss Sally was about 80 years old but she
was "Miss Sally" there was no man there. She was a tall, black woman and I describe
it - she looked like they look in "Roots" like the ladies looked. She wore that long dress, as long as an evening
gown and she wore an apron, and the apron was as long as the dress. Miss Sally must have been about six feet tall. She was a tall, African-looking black woman. Miss Sally sat in this rocking chair on her
porch. And her front porch was of course the houses
were boards, little wooden houses. She sat in this rocking chair on the front
porch and she had a loose board on that porch. And that's where she had the rocking chair. And Miss Sally would sit there and rock, and
like, for example, shell peas, shelling peas. You take the peas out the shells. She'd take the peas out the shells, drop the
peas in the pot that she was holding in her lap, and the hulls in the apron behind the
pot. Now and then she'd move the pot and dump the
shells on a piece of paper on the floor and then go back to shelling peas. Meanwhile she would rock. And on that loose board when she'd rock forward,
the board would hit - bomp. And when she'd rock backwards the board would
hit from the front and rear - bu bomp. So she'd be rocking - bomp, bu bomp - bomp,
bu bomp - bomp, bu bomp. All us little boys used to come by. We used to like to, because Miss Sally was
a bit eccentric - at least I know now that she was eccentric, we just thought Miss Sally
was crazy, but after I went to college I learned that there was such a word as eccentricity. Once she'd keep this stuff going, we'd say,
"Miss Sally you want us to fix that board?" Miss Sally say, "Get the hell out." So we'd leave. Now, years, later when I was thinking about
that again, I wrote this song. Oh, I left out a part. Miss Sally used to hum little churchy sounding
things, kinda Gospel sounding. Meanwhile, - bomp, bu bomp - bomp, bu bomp. So I wrote the song. A little later on, and this is the addendum
to it. I was living in New Jersey and had this big
house, and my mother was visiting. And my mother came downstairs one morning,
and she'd been listening to the radio at night. My momma said, "listen - why don't you write
a song that's got some meaning, like 'Stardust?'" She said, "you and your brother write them
little ittilie boobly songs and they don't have no meaning." I had just done it. I said, "you know that song I got called 'Hummin','
the new one?" She said, "yeah." I said "you know, Quincy Jones recorded it,
Cannonball recorded it, I recorded it?" I said, "you know that song is about old Miss
Sally." She said, "What?" I said, "You know the rhythm represents that
board hitting - bomp, bu bomp - bomp, bu bomp - and melody is something like an old, Gospel
sounding thing [hums]." And Momma say, "yeah," kind of skeptically,
"yeah, sure." But that night we were working down in the
Village at a place called the Village Gate. Momma came down that night, and we played
"Hummin.'" Momma, she called me over to the table, "Hey,
come here, boy" she said. "You know I listened to that song, and now
that you told me what it means," she said, "I could just see that old woman sitting on
the porch and the board hitting," and she said, "you know old Miss Sally been dead about
15 years now, but we all remember that old board hitting." So she said, "Now that I see that, you know,
and I'm gonna get off your case." That's when I knew Momma was hip. She said, "I'm gonna get off your case and
I'm going to say, I agree, your songs have meaning." And that is the one for that one. Now I gave you three examples, let's get somewhere
else. MW: That's precious. I wanted to ask you about just your tone. And why you chose the cornet. Tell us about that. NA: We were, again, little boys. My father bought Cannonball a Sears trumpet,
Sears Roebuck trumpet. Because my father played cornet. But now trumpet was becoming the popular instrument
- cornet was relegated to a bunch of older men who played another style of jazz. We were just little boys. Cannonball was very talented. And Cannonball got the trumpet and he was
a very good trumpet player. And we had this little band, the guys. I was not in the band, Cannonball was in the
band, and started with all the little boys. Cannon was about ten years old. And he started teaching me to play the trumpet
because he wanted to switch to alto saxophone and he didn't want Pop to be disappointed
that neither one of us was playing the instrument that he bought, or the instrument that he
played. So he started teaching me to play the trumpet
while he went to alto saxophone. By then, the little band was working, you
know playing after football games and stuff, and he got the money together and got him
an alto sax and started teaching me to play the trumpet. I played trumpet, but in the early years,
somebody stole my trumpet one day. I hid the trumpet in the auditorium while
I was going to class, came back and my trumpet was gone. And I had to go play a gig that night. By now I was playing in the band, I was about
eight years old, maybe nine. And when I went to the school, the only place
I could go, because the school had some instruments that you could check out. Well they had no trumpets, because the trumpet
had become a popular instrument. But there were a couple of old cornets there. And they let me have a cornet and I took it
to work that night and played it and it played well. But the next day when I went to concert band
rehearsal, then that's when I found out that the trumpet parts, we were all playing trumpets,
were all ruffles and flourishes. [scats] But the cornets had a different part
- they had the melody line. [humms] was the cornet part. Soon as I played that part, then I saw the
girls were looking at me. And I say, woah, cancel the trumpet, I'm the
cornet player. And that's how I got to cornet. And after a while, in all seriousness, it
became very obvious to me that there were, I seem to be more suited to the cornet than
trumpet. For a long time in the early years in New
York, I used to play trumpet when we were doing big band records. And I was sitting in the trumpet section and
I'd play trumpet as long as I was playing the music. When it was time for my solo I'd put that
down and pick up my cornet to play my solo. Then I found out that you couldn't tell the
difference in the sound on a record. The cornet sounded just like a trumpet when
you wanted to. Sounded like a flugelhorn when you want it
to. Sound like a cornet when you want it to. So I said why bother? So I never mess around too much. I tried flugelhorn for a minute and find I
could do that on cornet too, so I stayed with cornet. [directions from cameraman]
NA: If you'd told me I'd have picked up the quality and sound of the voice. Try to drop a little lower. MW: Monk, you want to start back in? MR: When you were with the quintet and with
Cannonball, did you have a sense that, it seems to me that you guys were in on the what
later was called "soul jazz" or you were creating something that was pretty new. Did you have a sense that you were doing that
or was it just coming naturally? I mean you were combining that with the Gospel
feel and everything else. NA: Yeah, that's strange too. Because we're Episcopalians. I felt when I analyzed things a while back,
that we were very, very fortunate. We lived in a small southern town. We belonged to the Episcopal church with its
sort of Gregorian chantish kind of music. For the benefit of the music people, it's
all tonic and sixths [humms]. That's tonic and sixth. And but we lived in a town that was a university
town, which means that we got to study in the true classical tradition, because we went
to the Demonstration School for Florida A&M College. And it meant that we got to hear people like
Paul Robeson and I remember Marian Anderson gave concerts We got to hear this music, this
different music. We also got to see, when I was a kid I saw
Jimmy Lunceford's band, because they came to Florida A&M to play once. But you got to, that's another thing. However, across the street from our house,
the Episcopal church was around the corner. But across the street was a Tabernacle Baptist
Church, which was a sanctified church. And the Tabernacle Baptist Church, while we
had the organ and the European Gregorian style music, the Tabernacle Baptist Church had a
band. They had a one legged drummer and a piano
player and a guy played guitar, and a trombone. And they would open up, and they had some
tambourines and hand clapping, and that music was so fascinating that we'd leave our church,
because the Episcopal church would finish like 12 o'clock, we were through. They were just getting into it at 12 o'clock. We'd come home, and then Cannonball and I
would go stand across the street from the Tabernacle Baptist Church and check out that
music. Because they were in there going, "oh, git
it." And it was great. We also figured out in order for us to walk
to school we had to walk past what was called "the block" it was the one place where the
black businesses were. Just one block in Tallahassee. And in that block there was a barber shop
and the pool hall and the juke joint and various things. But when we'd come home from school and walking
past there, the juke boxes were running. And then you'd get to hear T-Bone Walker and
the Blues Boys. And when you mix all that up, you've got the
Tabernacle Baptist Church, you've got the Gregorian chant, you've got the symphony orchestras,
you've got the opera singers and you've got "the block." When you mix all that up and put it all together,
and it forms your musical background As a result, when you play, all of it comes out,
not just a symphony orchestra. Not just Cab Calloway's band. But there's also B.B. King in there and there's
also the Tabernacle Baptist Church. "soul jazz" is a word - they made the word
- we were just playing our background. MR: Same thing with bop. NA: That's all. That's all it is. So although I don't remember exactly how you
worded your question, that's the answer. MW: You know the thing I was going to ask
you about, because everything you've talked about so far as come from this place of authenticity,
which I feel is just so beautiful. And I feel like often times that gets overlooked
in music schools. For instance sometimes you go to a music school
and you want to study composition. Nobody asks you how you feel about anything. They just say write a sonata. You know what I mean? But it's not, for me, I don't think it's good
enough to have just technical expertise. The songs have to have meaning. And you have that. Could you give us your definition or your
insights on what you would call music from oral culture as opposed to literate culture. NA: Strong one. Well let me go back to the way you started. In a true sense, if you are an instrumentalist
in this society the only method for learning to play an instrument is in the European classical
tradition. There is no jazz method. There is no blues method. In other words, to play trumpet, I must learn
in the European classical tradition, because that is the only method for learning to play
a trumpet or a saxophone or a trombone. These are all European instruments. And because it has been analyzed and notated,
even if you wanted to just play a rhythm instrument, if you want to play drums, you still have
to learn the drums in the European classical tradition, if that is the way you are going
to learn. Of course there have been great jazz players
who never learned to read music and did not learn in the same European classical tradition. But the music is not all African or all anything. This music is all-encompassing. So that by now it would be very difficult,
extremely difficult, for a great player to not be able to read music today. The music is too difficult. It has become far beyond something you can
just sit and play. Now further on in your question. What happens is that one can have his own
ideas about what to do about the music, but if you're going to notate it, then you have
to notate it using notes that people can understand. You can't have your own system that nobody
understands but you. So if you have studied in the European tradition,
then of course the notes, the music, will be written in the European tradition. When you get beyond the European tradition,
and we used to talk about, in our seminars, I still will mention it occasionally when
it comes up. There are rhythmic patterns from Africa that
we have no notations for. There's no way to - they got split beats and
we don't have notes that have, there's no symbol for a split beat. Even if there were a symbol for a split beat,
we don't know how to split it. It's like the atom bomb - we don't know how
to split the atom. So we can only go so far with native African
music. We can go a lot further with European music. We can go there because we understand how
it works. And there are no split beats to confuse us. There are harmonic patterns. And we study the harmonic patterns but they
are studiable. Split beats are unstudiable. So that what we end up with is in a sense
some people so far are stifled because they can't get across what they want to, musically,
because there is no way to do it. But I'm sure that there are some brilliant
young people now who are working on it, and sooner or later it's gonna happen and there's
gonna be a whole new world of music to open for us and when it does I would venture to
say there are also going to be some harmonics that we've never heard of yet that will come
out. Music will survive. It will grow. And jazz will continue. And fortunately I believe that in many cases
young jazz players will lead the way. I don't remember how you worded your question
either, but that's the answer. MR: How's your son doing? NA: My son I'm very proud of. I feel very fortunate because in these days
and times it is very difficult to have children who have never been a problem for you. In fact, I have a tee shirt that says "live
long enough to be a problem for your kids." My son says, "you already have." But my son is doing really great. Of course he's a pianist and an arranger and
a composer, and he's wealthy. MR: I remember he wrote, when he was like
11 or something, he had done a tune on one of your records. NA: Yes. He did a tune on Cannonball's record. And he listened to that later on, now that
he has studied it, and he's been to Juilliard and Manhattan and he's a graduate of Yale
University. He said, "you know I listen to that now and
I think, I say my uncle must have loved me to record that song." I say, "man it was a good song. It wasn't great, I mean you were no Monk,
but it's a good song, you know." He didn't just do it because of that, he did
it because he was proud of him too. And of course now I see things and I hear
things and say I think the boy knows the music. He's a fine player. MW: You know I wanted to ask you, in some
of the things, and Jimmy Cobb alluded to this which I thought was great. He said you have a way, when you announce
a song, of engaging an audience, and pulling them into that song and making them want to
hear what's going on inside that song, and also sometimes you have a way of mixing it
with humor. Tell us about how humor is a part of jazz. NA: Sometimes - well, again, I'll go back. When Cannonball and I came to New York in
the mid-50's, the popular jazz of the day was West Coast Jazz, which was cool - it was
very cool. Nobody announced the songs or anything. Everybody stood up and they was very cool
and nobody you know, you wouldn't dare snap your fingers or have any animation, because
that was not cool. We didn't know that it was supposed to be
taboo. We knew that people weren't doing it but,
in Florida, when we played, if you thought it was good, you'd say, "hey, baby, yeah!" But cool people didn't do that you know, you
just sat there and-so eventually Cannon became the kind of leader, first of all he was a
very gregarious man and Cannonball was a student of the English language. My father was an English teacher. And Cannon was very impressed by him and by
the man who was our original teacher, a man named Kirksey, who was a master of the English
language. And Cannon knew all these words. And he would announce the songs. And then he talked about the songs so that
when he played the songs, the people knew what they were listening for. And that's when I learned, when I never thought
I'd have a band but I knew that if I ever did have a band, I'm going to explain my music. I'm going to talk about my music. And of course, I'm ignorant so I tell a lot
of jokes too. So it comes out that way. But it is a way of having people have a better
feeling about what it is you're doing. There isn't very much that I can say about
"Body and Soul." It is "Body and Soul," it has been done many,
many times. But if I know something about that song that
the general audience doesn't know, and I can tell them, then when Antonio plays it, they'll
understand it better, or they'll have a better feeling about it. MR: Right. All right. You play a lot still, and what kind of places
- you like playing these cruises and- NA: Yeah. Boy I think this is the best time now. This is the best time. We play more of course we play more in Europe
and Japan and outside of the country than we do in the contiguous 48 states. But we make more money, the audiences are
far more erudite than stateside audiences are generally, and we don't have to work all
the time anymore. You know what could be better than riding
around on a ship playing four or five times. This is great, you know? And we get paid well, you know. I live in Florida. My life is a lot different than when I was
in New York and hustling. I got the swimming pool and I live on a lake,
I can fish and when I'm home I'm swimming and when I want to write a song now I just
go out and sit out on my dock and I feel great about it. I'm not rich, but I'm in a lot better shape
now. Life is not bad for jazz players now. Of course we are working on improving the
situation in our own country. Jazz is not accepted as it should be. And there are not great numbers of jazz fans
out clamoring for our thing. They're clamoring for the Rolling Stones or
the Monster That Ate Pittsburgh, whatever else there is. We are working on it, I think we're getting
better. There are an awful lot of young jazz players
who are amazing and I feel great about what I think the future holds for the music and
at the same time I feel wonderful about the respect that the young musicians seem to have
for those of us who've been around a while now. And we can still go and play and still have
the thrill, and still when I play, I go to play I learn something every night. And it makes life worthwhile. And I hear another way to approach something
and say oh, yeah, that'll work. And you can bet your bottom dollar tomorrow
I'm going to do it because it will enhance what's happening. And there are things like this. That there is a college, it's in New York
State, right? There's a college in New York State that at
least somebody who is granting something, feels that it is important enough. Of course you had to convince somebody. But at least it's a step forward. There is something going on. I admire people who are able to do that. And I feel good about the universities being
involved. MW: You know I would like to say something
about that. This is important too that you know if you
walk into a conservatory of music in any major city in the United States, go down to the
score library, you can pick off the shelf the complete works of J.S. Bach. The complete works of W.A. Mozart. And if you, if there is a piece of European
classical symphonic music, you can go to any major city in the United States of America
and find a symphony orchestra repertory orchestra that should be able to play that piece of
music. And you know, jazz having begun in the United
States, I feel that you know, I should be able to walk in to any city in the United
States of America and just find myself a quintet that can play "Jive Samba." NA: Well-
MW: That should be standard repertoire. NA: I got a theory. This is going to take a bit. I don't often even, you know expound on this. MR: Here's your chance. NA: My major was sociology, not music. Music was my minor. I've been an amateur sociologist all the time. When I look at the jazz scene as opposed to
the classical scene, as opposed to the rock/pop scene, what I see sociologically, is this:
when you have a society that does not accept a people, how can we expect that same society
to accept the cultural contributions of that people? I believe that the reason we have a lack of
regard for the cultural contribution of black people is because you have never accepted
the people. As long as black people are second and third
class citizens, then the contributions are going to be relegated to second and third
class status. So what happens is that over a period of time
you begin to have integration. And when you have integration then you have
a mixing of the people. When the people mix, the contributions mix
and you have a different kind of cultural contribution coming, because it has come from
a different source. So that to wind it up, then, I believe that,
in fact I know, there has never been a - the word escapes me - there has never been a major
contributor - contributor is not the word I want because there have been major contributors
- there has never been a white person who has changed the direction of jazz music. All of the innovations have been by black
people. There have been great white players, that's
why it gets confusing to try to say this. There are great white players. So there is Stan Getz, there was Stan Getz,
but were it not for Lester Young there would have been no Stan Getz. There are other great white players that would
not have, but there was always a black player. There's always a Charlie Parker and a Dizzy
Gillespie. There's always a Louis Armstrong and a Jelly
Roll Morton. And these people, so, in the end, what my
point is, is that I believe that we are now in the generation where we're going to have
our first great white innovator. Because we are getting together. We're living together. We don't have closed communities. We still have them, but we have many communities
that have opened up. So the idea is a young white boy who grows
up with a young black boy and they live in this multi-cultural community, they're going
to produce some multi-cultural music that we've never heard before. MW: Let me come in on this and ask you a question
because this is exciting for me. Do you then think that if we have a great
white innovator and that person is sensitive to the contributions of African Americans,
that he will then be able to establish a beachhead to get people to respect this music the way
that it should be? NA: The music will gain its own respect over
a period of time. It won't be because of him, it will be because
of the music itself. And your point is well taken, though, because
the acceptance for the music from many people will be because they accept the man. So that makes a major difference in the way
you see it. I believe that it is a part of, it's going
to be a part of American folklore that the music stayed in this vein because we had,
when we only, if we could only live in this eight block area, and it was closed, then
all of our contributions stayed right in that eight block area. And the music that came out of there was from
that eight block area. And the people outside of that eight block
area had to study it to try to figure out what it was. But now we've got a 16 block area. And eight blocks of the 16 blocks is mixed. So now we're working on some other stuff now. MW: You know I only said that to say this. There are things that we have been trying
to get changed since 1619, it ain't been listening. Maybe somebody else said, maybe we'll just
hush and hold our hands and let somebody else say it. You know? It's like for instance I tell people, Martin
and Malcolm have already said it. It can't be said any more eloquently. You know, you said, you want to hear it again,
you want me to push rewind? NA: It will be stated in another fashion by
someone who grows up in this multi-cultural community a little later on. It will be stated, if not as eloquently, certainly,
but it will hit home, and it will come from a source that is more acceptable than Martin
or Malcolm. MR: Some great thoughts, Nat. NA: All of my thoughts - is it time for dinner? (c) Fillius Jazz Archive -8-
