NSE #844 | Henry Threadgill and David Hershkovits, with Julie Patton

happy Friday it's really really wonderful to see you here in the NSC hello and welcome to the Brooklyn rails 844th new social environment I'm Eleanor a programs associate here at the rail and I have the pleasure and privilege today of being your MC for a conversation featuring Henry threadgill and David hershkovitz we're thrilled to welcome poet Julia Zell Patton here to close today's program before we get started the Brooklyn rail acknowledges black lives matter and here in New York we are on Lenape hoking the unseated land and Waters of the Wappinger Canarsie Muncie and Lenny the nape people of the Delaware nation and Shinnecock India Nation we recognize land acknowledgments are not a replacement for necessary decolonial work but serp as a reminder of place of the legacies of dissession and enslavement that sustain and enrich the stolen land we are speaking from and now to introduce today's guest and host composer and multi-instrumentalist Henry threadgill is widely recognized as one of the most original and Innovative voices in contemporary music he has acclaimed releases from his bands air x75 the Henry threadgill sex chat very very circus make a move Zoid and Ensemble double up he was named a jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2021. and David hershkowitz is a writer and editor and publisher who began his career as a journalist at The Courier New Orleans weekly moving back to New York in the late 70s he joined the staff of Soho Weekly News he founded paper magazine in 1984 and has co-edited several books and has also written for Publications including GQ and vanity Affair among others he also hosted the light culture podcast focusing on culture and cannabis I'm so thrilled to have you both in conversation today on the new social environment and with that I'll pass it over to you David all right thank you thank you Brooklyn rails thank you Fong for helping arrange all of this like it's a great honor for me to be host and a opportunity to talk with Henry in this format uninterrupted one hour uh so the occasion that brings us together here is a publication of this book uh autobiography I'll hold up here and I'll read it easily slip into another world a life in music by Henry threadgill and Brent Hayes Edwards this is a wonderful book for anyone interested in anything really in American history in the culture of music uh just the evolution of creative individual from you know like we all start out little boys and girls and then uh you know end up somewhere very different so Henry um I know you're not like one to believe in the importance of titles as far as bringing meaning to your work because you're famous for your titles like for example keep right on playing through the river over the water or salute to the enema Bandits which are the names of some of your compositions so easily slip into another world you feel that's the same as the same uh kind of value as those or do you have more meaning into this one no I think it has the same kind of values yeah you know so you don't really feel like it doesn't mean anything particularly not in particular all right so you know because you you in your in general and your views about music are that one shouldn't bring meaning to it that you should just sort of get it from from the music yes and and today you know in the art World particularly there's always this question of Storytelling you know the story behind the artwork that brings to it meaning just how do you respond to that do you relate to that um well that is that seems to be to prevailing way to present art these days to tell the story story behind the story and the meaning I don't I don't see that these things have much value uh because the the viewer or the audience they come to a work of art and you really have to view it on your own terms you can't really subscribe to what someone has told you about it or the background material it does it really doesn't help you you know you're in a world of your own when you face of listening or viewing or work or art you you're all by yourself and nothing that somebody else tells you can really help you know matter of fact I think it does more to distract from the experience that you might have you know because it creates expectations and when someone explains something that's just one way of explaining it's one thing I learned in school there's a lot of ways to explain things this is not one way to explain anything you can explain things three or four or five different ways you know so I would my advice is there's never touch explanations regarding art just go in for the experience you have a you know for example like a work like Guernica Picasso's Guernica which so much you know meaning is into that with regard to the war and history does that you feel that's contradicts what you're saying or is it uh does it matter you know uh yeah it might have something to do with the war and uh that's not the only painting like that uh I can think of the other painting right now but again these things are again subjective you know they don't really because you see something historically don't mean that that's the only way you can look at it historically you understand what I'm saying yeah that might be important that it might not be important see a work of art is is a is an elusive thing in itself the more you try to tie it down the more it gets away from it gets Mercurial you know and if we've just fallen into this fashion in the art world of explaining everything and saying what things mean and what my intentions are well whatever your intentions are not with my intent what they might not work for me or anybody else you know so I don't see I don't see the necessity of sharing this kind of information but this is a democracy people should do whatever they want to do this is still a democracy let me check what time is it [Laughter] okay but that said I'd like to explore some of the context of your life of your story as as you talk about it uh you know beginning in Chicago right as at an early age So reading your book one of the images that struck me was you uh standing in front of howling wolf at Maxwell Market when you were like four or five years old mesmerized and basically lost in his music for the day right your family were looking for you they didn't know where you were and that's where they found you and so what did you want me to do in relationship I want to know you know I want to talk about like how you know you talked about school and influence and how that came to become an important part of your life important enough for you to bring it up in your book yeah uh you know and I'm going to deviate and come back to that you know I'm reading another book on the history of Chicago right now about the life of jelly roll Morton and it's so informative Chicago has got this history uh incredible history see the The Great Migration is what brought the southerners Southern black people and southern white people also to Chicago they brought people from the south to Chicago because Chicago was like 42nd Street what I mean by that is you go to 42nd Street to change trains to go anywhere in New York they all stopped on 42nd Street somewhere on the east side or the west side you're going to get a connection where to go anywhere ish in the United States you have to go to Chicago so anyway so the blue before the blues people got the people that uh were fans of the Blues which was Southerners it was the people from New Orleans that were they came to Chicago at the turn of the century that was uh General Morton and later on people King Oliver and Louis Armstrong they came uh right at the beginning of the 20s and so that migration at the same time the South the the blues came to Chicago and this is what uh struck me so this is a this is the twin let's say 19 20 25 so now 1949 1950. I'm standing in front of Muddy Waters and holly wolf uh in on Maxwell Street you know and uh it was just over for me as a kid it was overpowering I just I had heard very powerful Music Live um but this Howling Wolf just took me away it was like you know uh it was like the Pied Piper I would have he could just walk me off into the lake I could walk right out if he went into the lake I'd have went right after him and um you know when speaking staying with Chicago for a minute because when when the musicians and you know when the migration came from the south at that point you know for example Muddy Waters I mean you know one of the first that I'm aware of that you know became a recording artist and famous for for that um you know they plugged in so they went electric and my understanding is that you know having this uh rural Blues sounds that when it went north to Chicago and all of the energy and and everything that was going on in a big city made the music change yeah to this other form that we're more familiar with today yeah it became electric later uh probably in the um I'm not exactly but I think in about the late 50s Maybe it became the Electoral you know because that's when the electric instruments really started to take off you know but but it stayed basically acoustic music in the beginning you know and and it was and it was being played in small venues so you didn't really need electric instruments so much you know the bigger the venues got the more the necessity to have electric instruments became a need you know as we got into larger halls and concert spaces you know but for the longest I mean the first record by Molly Waters got Electric Mud that was yeah that was the one that kind of brought it into the Psychedelic rock and roll era that's right that's right because that was a part of Chess Records which was another big Chicago institution did you have any run in with those people from Chess Records in those days uh no I knew that I had met one of the chess brothers and um I did some recording I think at the chess but uh like I was in uh Studio band you know came in to play on some uh rhythm and blues tracks and that was my only real context I never had like a recording contract with either the any of the chess Brothers just recording in that studio once or twice you know but what were you how did you feel when you heard like Chuck Berry or when sort of the sound was moving from Blues to more like a rock what we know is rock and roll today yeah well it was a Little Richard we had to credit Lou Richard with that but along with Joe Berry because Little Richard was right there I don't know who I don't know who got the home plate first it could have been a tad but I know Little Richard was right there you know but yeah all of a sudden it was like there was this other energy and this other um branch music that was branching off from the Blues you know and that was like it's a Chuck Berry Little Richard had that they had moved it they had moved the uh goal post someplace else you know and and where were you when your musical Evolution at that point oh I was just interested in uh and I was interested in in blues njs at that point you know uh but but you know like you know the Beatles were under contract in Chicago you know that right all right no well yeah they were in the contract to the chess Brothers just brothers on the Beatles yes they did they had the Beatles first when we came to America that's that's who that's who had them and they made the mistake of selling them yeah I know they regretted that you know and then then the stones came to Chicago remember that's right it's after the Beatles well they recorded they actually recorded that the Chess Record Studios right that's right yeah because because of the Blues and and the blues stretching out into the music of uh Chuck Berry and um Little Richard I never look Rich's mother quite she lived down the street from me when I was a kid you know she had a pool room I used to go there as a kid she was always telling us when Little Richard might show up but he we would never be there when he came to visit her you know there's a good documentary now I could check that I don't remember the title but there's a new documentary about Little Richard that's very interesting um so in in terms of your family background your father ran a gambling house yeah yeah a number of different at different times you know he worked yeah running government casinos for the mob which one well I hope I'm not offended about it with the Italian mob okay you gotta remember when Capone came that's he came there and uh he had to he had to fight the average and the um basically the Irish he had to fight to get rid of the Irish you know and so the Italians had it the Sicilians added you know and my grandfather had worked for them had worked at um he transported liquor from all over the country all the way to Canada he's illegal [ __ ] working for Al Capone he made enough money to bring my grand my grandmother and my father to Chicago that's how they got there because my grandfather Henry made enough money working for Al Capone that he could move the family to Chicago and that's how my father had this connection with Al Capone and that whole group and so that's how my father ended up working for the corporations and you never wanted to go into the family business no road but your mom was had a more genteel back ground yeah my father was into music highly into music really you know he and he knew everybody he knew foundation and everybody you know and had the incredible record collection you know he knew all about music you know that's just uh that was just that was just his uh lifestyle you know which was the lifestyle in America anyway at that time or so many people I mean you know was it like really a black families you know more uh you know always respecting music you know having music as part of the home life piano records just seems like it's part of the you know it's part of the history and the Legacy uh I think that it would vary from uh that would vary depending on the families you know uh and it it might have something to do with economics and it might not see the thing about um what what you exposed to what we were exposed to in America not just Chicago uh was radio and radio did not have the guidelines that they have now you heard all kinds of music and we heard plays where he plays and everything on the radio you know everybody would run to the radio at certain times of the day to hear certain programs to hear different music and this music across all borders especially in Chicago I grew up uh I listened to as much Serbian music as I listened to Polish music as I listened to a country and western hillbilly music as I did black music because that's what played on the radio all day long you know it was like the race music right wasn't that uh those were race records what they call records when they when they went to exploit making records of just black artists and that was based that started with these two brothers like what were their names these were two brothers that like managed and to get control of uh General Morton's music there were two brothers that came up from the Southern Illinois that started this whole race record business but they made a lot of money with that you know because the race records of uh was was basically a lot of new it started out a lot of New Orleans inflected uh uh music that was from New Orleans and later on it expanded into other aspects but mostly New Orleans in the beginning and you had a piano growing up and you started just like fooling around on the piano on your own yeah well yes I did but I didn't even know it was a piano in the house until I heard Boogie Woogie on the radio uh I can't this one was a long hallway and then we're in the house we'd go to this room this room that room but in that hallway there was not it was a single light and so you couldn't see everything that was in the hallway that's what the piano was but when I heard this music on the radio this was Albert Ammons and me Lux Lewis they would come they would Play Boogie Woogie every day when I was about three and when I heard that I all of a sudden I found a piano because I said I've got to be able to do this I gotta be to play this so I would go and sit at the piano all day until that music will come on it didn't matter I get up in the morning that after I had something to eat and or something I go sit at the piano with the radio on waiting and when it would come on then I would try to do it and so it took I mean day after day after day and you gotta remember a kid that's three years old you can imagine what size my hands were trying and think about what was going on with Boogie Woogie piano playing and so I was I was at in the I was trying to I had to reduce it down to a minimal weight of playing Boogie Woogie you know and that's what got me started it got me started in music uh physically I would say physically but my mother had already had me into music taking me to hear all these concerts and everything she took me to all of the great Lewis Armstrong Jimmy Knoxville Harrison Hawkins everybody basic sugar child Robinson everybody she took me to see all of them on a regular almost a week weekly basis yeah so talking about time and place that was Chicago was really an important place to be in those days right a few minutes everything everything I mean that whole crop North Armstrong jelly roll Morton I didn't even know that Benny government was born in Chicago and Billy Goodman learned to play up under jelly roll Morton by sitting in front of him all the time studying him and studying his band everything was coming out see Chicago I think it was called the what the union Stockyards uh why all of the trains came into Chicago because all of the train lines went all over the country to do what to feed America because all of the meat products came from where Chicago that's where the Stockyards were I I remember when I first got in kindergarten first grade kindergarten Monday morning they would have to close the windows to the school you know the spring and summer they had to close the windows because the smell of blood the whole city smelled the blood once once they started butchering the animals and then on um the influence of the Catholic Church prevailed for them not to slaughter animals on Fridays and consequently in the public school system they serve no meat on Fridays you can only get fish at school so that was one day that we didn't have to breathe the smell of blood you know and neither did you see any kind of meat product in the school system on Friday so Chicago is an extremely interesting place in terms of these cultures and when you go over and look at the all the greatest architects work is in Chicago all of there's no other City no other city in America that has what Chicago has that represents to the world of architecture and sculpture and why is that it's because Chicago's policy is started under Richard Daly they tearing Chicago down and rebuild it constantly New York looks the same didn't start building anything here until Juliana came along and started tearing down and building up but basically it looks the same the building that I live in here on 10th Street all these places you can go back and see pictures of it in Google and go back to 1932 1925 and see what the street looked like every place I live in Chicago is all disappeared not my kids asked me said when you live so it's a picture I said yeah if I don't have a photograph you'll never see it otherwise because if you go there you won't see it they turn they tear it down Mayor Daley made money with concrete the Democratic party made all that money through daily with concrete to tearing down and building up of large architectural uh sculptured pieces and housing and buildings of all sorts yes sorry go ahead so that's uh so Chicago is this very interesting place uh in terms of what goes on in terms of uh that world of uh that aspect of the Arts of sculpture and architecture but and and to show you the other thing about the importance every after uh Richard Daley every president of the United States had to come to Chicago if you wanted to become a president of the United States you had to come to Chicago and see the mayor of Chicago to see the mayor of Chicago to become the president of the United States Republican or Democrat because he could deliver the vote that he could deliver there was a big big scandal with John F Kennedy that's right uh he really didn't want he was really upset about coming because you had to come and sit up on the platform and sit behind mayor daily because mayor data was considered the King he was considered the the the king the maker the person that made the presidents of the United States and if you want to be president you had to go sit behind him because he was the king and and he was known to also stuffed the ballot boxes right which was that's right also giving credit to how Kennedy was elected by many people yeah so this is a very interesting place um my uh to Chicago Symphony which is one of the Revolutionary orchestras in this country that could that uh contributed something to music on an evolutionary and revolutionary basis under Stockman you know uh this the all of these people that came from the south there the inventions that took place in Chicago is an extremely um uh Rich place you know and um something that my mother told me about it that was very interesting that when I grew up there you know they said uh Chicago is like uh uh racially segregated most Sega was considered the most segregated place in the United States and the the name for Chicago was like as far down south as you can get up north if you can understand that yeah that's how Chicago was described as far down south as you can get up nowhere now uh there was an incident in the book where I talked about going across a borderline that I didn't know existed because I was a kid and got attacked by these white people they tried to kill me because of I had gone across this this line of segregation something my mother told me she said uh she said didn't you know when I went to school we were segregated but there was no segregation in education she said you all grew up with segregation and education in other words I had I went to school in a black community and in the black areas right so in the black areas who's in the black areas blacks Chinese and Jewish people are all in the ghetto together right so they all go to these schools but my mother's but she showed me her books from high school I I was shocked when I saw what it looked like you know she said it was all based on Merit you got into the best schools in Chicago based on marriage not on Race she said when I came along all of that changed again in Chicago that you had to go to school where you lived you went to school based on how smart you were when my mother came and my mother was at one of the biggest one of the smartest schools there which was Marshall uh just a you know final word on Chicago from just listeners if you ever go take the tour the architecture Tour by the American Institute of Architects which is a wonderful well you know shows you what Henry's talking about how the city was rebuilt after the Chicago Fire and all these amazing buildings were constructed along those lines uh so Henry um in your book you talk about the first time you heard Charlie Parker what can you tell us what what that was like for you you would like 15 16 at that point well I was much younger than that when I was about um seven or eight oh okay and then I was really confused I loved it but I was confused I didn't know what I was listening to it just it did fit into anything that I understood at the time you know I hadn't began to start study music at that time I was teaching myself how to play but I hadn't studied any music but when I go to Charlotte Parker and and that whole crowd that whole crowd of people that became the so-called modernist Jessica lesbian and Kenny Clark and the loneliest month these people that would change uh everything in terms of uh abstract expressionism in terms of Art and extra expressionism in terms of music that's why they would consider these monitors I just didn't know what to make of this you know and it took me by the time I got to ready for high school then I started to understand it a little bit better but I knew I couldn't do it that was that was beyond reach and nor did you want to particularly did you well I did because uh uh youth you know you come into music uh and you come in and you have to uh you have to you have to be uh you listening to something you have to emulate something to get in you just don't get in without emulating something you know uh and so that's what I did I came in first listening to Charlotte Parker and that whole group of the modernists you know um after years past I started going backwards past I went back to this guy Joplin and and general and people like that you know I found that Stravinsky got me on that trail Stravinsky kept going back looking at different um important composers and trying to re-evaluate and reuse the ideas and Concepts from earlier periods you know but um I did the same thing but with the the Bebop I knew that one thing I I understood was that like you play music in in a real world of values cultural social ideas Etc and I knew that this music I was just a kid that music wasn't relevant to me uh uh these were people they grew up in World up under the World War II influences there I was a I was a baby of World War II you know so I said this doesn't represent me this is this is not for me I said I have to learn it but this is really not for me to do you know I knew that early on and I just had to wait to find out what was going to be the language or the cultural uh venue that would really capture me and represent uh be representative of people like me and others that grew up during my time you know and that didn't happen until much later right when I heard brunette Coleman that was it Arnett Coleman was the guy that was it yeah when did you hear him do you remember that when you first well in the in the neighborhood I was living at the time uh it was one kid that had he was a little bit older and he had a job part-time job he used to build these records and we used to go there to his house and listen to Reckless you know and he came in and put on this one and Coleman record and a couple of us look as soon as it came on the companies look at each other and said that's it that's it was like three three musicians In This Crowd on listeners and the three of us as soon as it came we kind of looked at each other said uh-oh that sounds like it you know were you were living in New York at that time or what oh no no no I was about no I was about 13 years old oh okay so Chicago then I was in Chicago yeah I was about 13 when I heard on on that I said oh wow I said this is really something here this is a whole new ball game you know but then you have but you had Sonny Rollins oh yeah on your on your on your sax case right yeah that was my that was my main influence you know you need back to my earliest thing you have to have a beacon in life you can't just jump out here and do something you got to have some kind of Beacon to help guide you something that you can measure up to something that will reveal information to you you don't necessarily at first you know some people make the mistake of trying to to emulate and be just like the beacon you can't be as good as the beacon nobody can we come along during the time and I find out you can never do something as good as other people did it and nobody can do anything better than you that's just the way it is you can you can work all you want you'll never play as good as a Charlie Parker it's not possible and nobody would be able to play as good as you because we we're specific in time you know we do things given the time that we're living in but so Sonny Rollins was my hero and stayed my hero uh in terms of the tenant saxophone I had heroes in terms of uh different instruments and different kinds of music I mean you know it's gospel music that was a whole nother area like the blues you know I had my different Heroes there you know um but Sunny would remain in my main uh person that I could use as a yardstick and Benchmark to like to go forward and to test myself you know see and the good thing would be like I would always fail so so yeah there's more work to do there was a lot of work to do that's what that meant well you I mean in your career you've experimented so much with all these various types of bands that you've put together these groups that of instruments that typically won't see in any other band um so I think that's a Hallmark of your work it's it's the fact that you are open to experimentation you don't you haven't just sort of rested on your laurels and just continued one band for example you know throughout your career you've had many different combinations and I I bet you're still thinking about them today right yeah you know uh because you or something else and we might have to change what I'm saying you get people that are stylists you know what I'm saying right uh and it's that's fine but you have other people that are constantly going forward I'm one of those people I can't go backwards I have to go forward going backwards is a mistake for me under all circumstances in my private life going back was just a mistake it is it is I learned that you know going back trying things that you should never go back there to see that girl she didn't like you in the first place there's always something going back to this neighborhood see they almost beat you up for going back to that neighborhood all these things you know you have to find these uh things out for yourself but like um like I said there's people that have become great stylists they stay with a subject or or uh uh a Repertory or subject way of presenting themselves somebody would paint the same picture over and over and over it'll keep changing but you it'd be up to you to see the my new changes in it that's a stylist you know me I keep moving uh that's that understood that about myself early on that I had to keep moving but uh you know in in putting this book together you had to look back as well so you had to you know maybe force yourself to think about things that may be weren't so pleasant or uh you know not something you were that comfortable discussing in public in this way I'm leading up to talking about your time in the Vietnam War um when you know you you went overseas you tell us the story which uh in in is in your book about how you wound up at the front because at first you were just you know expecting to be a musician and then what happened well I was always a musician the thing was um when I got drafted and I went down to the draft board the people the guy there knew me and he called me there and said I got good news for you and bad news and he said the uh bad news is you've been drafted I was drafted because I had taken a job and I was going to school part-time you supposed to go to school and have about 16 to 18 hours you have to be a full-time student to get uh a 3s deferment is what it was called to be deferred from the draft you have to be in school full-time and I was working part-time trying to save up enough money so I could go to the American Conservatory of Music and I got caught so I got drafted and uh so the guy said the bad news is you've been drafted the good news is you're a professional musician so you can get signed a contract with the government to play music only no he said to play music to play music and that was true uh as soon as I finished basic training I went to uh uh Fort Riley Kansas and I was in one band and I went to the top band that was in the top band on that post um and everything was going along fine and then I I got promoted to uh arranger there'd only been one of the men that had this position before me uh Daniel Ward from Cleveland Ohio that was during World War II and he he was a had that position and he was sent to in World War II Lucian islands and distinguish himself by getting a silver star silver medal and then he was became the drummer on the Johnny Carson show from there he went to the symphony and became a great percussionist and there he switched over to becoming a composer and then he won the Pulitzer Prize he won the Pulitzer Prize and then I won the polar surprise from the Vietnam War he wanted the only Soldier to win the Portland surprise in World War II in music with Daniel Ward and then I won it from the Vietnam War I got um I'm gonna skip to confuse the I was writing music and like so the music was pre-married in Kansas City and when the um the Archbishop didn't like the music that was up on the platform man he he jumped up and said uh who's responsible for this blasphemy and that sent me on the road but you were taking liberties with some American with America how do you think of Liberties well he might have thought I was Taking Liberties but what did he know but he didn't know anything about music you know the band loved it he just didn't know anything about music I mean you know you know people are this get over in your business and I I make wrist watches and you build boats what are you doing over here telling me how to make a wrist watch you know what I'm saying you you cooking artichokes and you over here digging ditches now that this jig is telling you how to fix some artichokes you know well that was the that was what he was doing and so consequently he got them to punish me for this by sending me to Vietnam in one day they did this in one day in less than 24 hours he was this was the Archbishop of the Kansas City of Kansas the state of Kansas in that whole area and the those generals almost had a heart attack when he when he jumped up and said when he jumped up and uh said who's responsible for this blasphemy so they knew they had to do something to me so what they did they sent me to Vietnam and so back to the contract to the agreement all right so I had agreement with the government just like the dislike to serve the doctors and the other people that had contacts with the government you know the surges the cooks the different people professional Cooks uh tailors that came in that had uh have been successful they had businesses they tell us they got contracts so the thing was we found out was it didn't say that I couldn't have a second occupation yes you're a musician but now you're in the Infantry too so then yeah the book goes on to describe like some you know we're laughing now right but there were so many instances there that were not very laughable that were very cool I had had some fun answer this one anyway on the way to uh before I left when I when I was still in basic trading this is not in the book this is you know short story so like because of my bill I'm long and got long muscles and thin and you know so like go to basic training they build you up you're nothing but muscles but they're all longer muscles so like they had targeted me these officers that targeted me to try to uh for the uh to be a paratrooper because of my build and everything so they start quoting me right let me out of certain duties and giving me a lot of the all the dessert I could eat was you started giving me a lot of ice cream I'd agree to anything yeah so uh so they came and got me wasn't even the take me out to put on a big show this was unauthorized they had put on taking me out to this film at sundown and the plane was coming over plane was coming over and so it was just me out there in these offices and they were looking at me and the plane came over and it was going to be a demonstration of a paratrooper so guess what happens guy jumped out of the plane and the shoot then nobody came all the way to the ground boom I know they don't think I'm gonna do this you know so they were very upset so then they and they act like it was my fault so they start screaming at me about you know why this man shooting up because he didn't he didn't follow instructions he probably got somebody else to the phone is shoot I didn't open my mouth I never been to say anything so they said we're trying to get the next plane comes over the next guy jumps out and there's a when you the shoot open but the the the the jumper ended up on top of the shoot that's what they call a main West right so agree look at me again and I think that's it oh I looked at that said um so because now they put this up now this guy died you gotta remember the guy that jumped out of the plane so that there was real trouble about this because it was unauthorized staging of this to recruit me so they were having they were in big trouble so as a result they stayed mad at me and then they called me out and charged me with something and put so I was on KP for the rest of the tip for the rest of the time I was in the basic training that was ever going to KP every night peeling potatoes and and washing dishes and ovens up to the time that I left there you know we're running we're getting a little bit late here in the time right I wanted to I'm just going to jump forward a little bit to make sure because I want to uh there's so much more to discuss and you know I definitely recommend this book highly for more Henry stories many many of them but I want to talk about the other one the most recent uh work that combines a lot of your interests in art music film you you were able to put together from a live event which I I was there and lucky enough to listen and be a part of and you took that you've shot it it was all built around a Cova time tell me how that Health start you know the process by which you arrived at your final the film because did you start in the beginning did you know you were going to make a film did because you also made original artwork if we could show some of these slides now that accompanied the uh the the film and the Live Events like for example tell us start talking about the um you know how you came upon doing this this project like this aspect of it the photographic aspect of it was like you said we were all uh basically confined to our homes doing covert you know and we had no we didn't have it in Mass we didn't have anything at the time and so I would just come out you had to come out and walk and get some air every day and exercise a little bit and so uh I we live in the East Village I live in East Village and I would walk just in the East Village which is Fifth Avenue to the to the Avenue D from Houston to 14th Street that's the East Village and I started uh noticing all of these uh things that were being left in the streets that it didn't make sense I mean really beautiful items and expensive things that were being left in the street and I start photographing them I just stopped photographing it and I didn't really know why for a while and then I understood why these things were just in the street and not being picked up that's because there was no homeless people in the street that most people didn't notice that they had they put all of those homeless people in hotels because they couldn't go to the shelters because the shelters were petri dish see and they would have came out of that and picked up a lot of these things that were in the streets so I was shooting all of these things because I've always had an interest in photography uh but the for the my interest is not as a photographer it's just a document what was being put in the street because all these people were leaving not just New York uh East Village but they were leaving New York so they were abandoning all these wonderful things uh and putting them in the street you know and uh there was more I've never seen so many moving trucks in my life that I wanted I only show so many of these I have over 200 moving vans oh wow they're moving vans alone wanted taken from the East Village you know um so that part of the photographic part and then uh I would come home and I after these walks and I would start writing kind of um automatic writing in a way type of how cool automatic writing you know and that's something I've been doing all of my life also I've been writing that way you know and I just started collecting you know collecting the writings collecting the photographs and then I get the writings to my daughter to paint the writings so that I had 42 paintings now and I had already made a film at the Tilton gallery and one at the uh Augustine Lauren Gallery a few years back and that had been trying to figure out how I wanted to use that film I had had it in its original form which is about a half an hour film and so I started going back into exploring how I could use it in this piece in a multimedia fashion you know so here was this is this is something to write in 19 was suffice for a bear Market forget 20 not supposed to be a panic fear this is more this is not a quiz the picture frame sing Everything nothing no puzzle just stuff feeling from the bazaar and did you already have this idea of putting all these things together into one piece yet no that came together as I collected as it was as the material was building up it started coming to me and then I started writing music okay yeah I started writing music I was taking pictures and writing and uh prose poetry and then I started going back uh going into that film that I had made taking that film apart seeing how I could use it in this piece you know but it was all due to covid were you making the best of a bad situation yeah you know just I don't really want to go back to the Vietnam War but just I know use in your book and I I've heard you say this as well that that Vietnam war after that you felt like you had become an artist that you take that experience which you know has good and bad and you know people will have to read the book to to find out more about that but you know maybe that's one of your trademarks is the ability to do that to take take something and and turn it into something beautiful a piece of art out of out of your experience though it's obviously not about covid is this is this a piece about covid would you say no well well covert is covet is a part of the Kobe if you talk about covert as a disease but covet as it affects our behavior and our what we do socially and what our new how our cultural ideas are have been enhanced and um affected by Kobe not covet itself but how it has impacted Our Lives you know what has it all of a sudden people are afraid of one another and see don't get up in my face you could give me something people are running leaving out of town all these things you know you can get all these buildings all of a sudden that's being shut down because of businesses are working from home so now you got a big Ghost Town Midtown has become a ghost town at that time to go up to Midtown it was incredible the amount of square footage that was not now empty I used to go up there and just look at that I said this is really amazing you know uh and and the rat population was out of control you know and the way it is shifted from one side when people if if you live in a block let's say it's a hundred people on one side of the street and 100 people on the other side of the street let's say there's a hundred Rats on both sides 100 rats on your side of the street and 100 rats on the other side of the street if 50 people leave from the other side of the street those rats are smart enough to know there's not gonna be enough food there for them so they come to your side of the street now you got a rat problem that's what happened doing Kobe the all of a sudden they were putting rat uh traps everywhere that's something else I got a whole slew of pictures of uh David I take a whole collection of rat traps that I yeah wait for that exhibit Henry everywhere everywhere you said um you've quoted I think it was um James blood Ulmer telling you what ornette Coleman had said to him uh jazz is the teacher uh Blues is the preacher and and you added time is the reaper you can't make that change so you know so now you know time is the reaper for all of us uh what is what is uh coming up for you are you are you still you're looking ahead you have new projects in the works constantly composing God knows what tell me yeah well I'm finishing up the uh the other one because we're putting that now into all of the different uh documentary film festivals in the United States and England and uh English-speaking countries you know Canada that's what we're doing right now and then I'm I'm writing new music for uh 15 Pizza Ensemble that I have to get finished and working on the next installation piece this is a eight and a half minute installation piece involvement uh photography film and music and so I'm um going into this to the side in the studio to put this together and make it a installation piece that's so great because I feel you know your music that you're composing now or you know that I've been hearing is I think fits in well with what you're doing now with this multimedia because I feel like your music takes in things from all over the place and somehow you know puts it together so it seems unified not abstract in that sense so you know I feel like this assemblage collage multimedia is very much you know represents who you are as an artist to me oh thank you uh so I think we've reached our hour now yes thank you so so much David and Henry this has been an incredible dialogue I cannot wait to read more um it's been so fun um thank you so much thank you we've got some great questions um from audience today and our first question will be coming from Lois and Lois you should be able to unmute and ask your question directly hi Henry I don't remember me Lois from the New York yep yeah hi um maybe you could talk a little bit about how you became engaged with the black Arts movements Steve Cannon and David Henderson and Amiri Baraka and all those people and also the poet's Choir Oh well the poor Squad that was but butch Morris oh that's Butch right which Morris was really responsible for that and and then Bob you know Coleman who's here I see you know he had projects over there the the I got involved with the uh back in Chicago I was involved with the uh different uh artistic movements Black Arts movements and not just black arts movies I was involved in all kinds of Japanese movements and just um all kinds of balls people that were doing different things I've always been into uh the different aspects of the Arts so when I got to New York I just continued that uh that's how I met David Henderson David Hammonds and uh Steve Cannon you know because that's always been my interest you know music film theater dance you know it's always been the thing that's attracted me thank you you're welcome okay thank you so much for that question Lois um our next question will be from Charlie thanks so much for this amazing conversation it's just been such a treat to listen to Henry one thing that I was curious as you were talking about uh listening to Charlie Parker as a Young musician and uh is your your history as a composer I was curious did you start composing uh music also when you were such a Young musician or did that come later and and if so I'm curious if there's been any significant shifts in the way that you said about the cup the composition effort excuse me um I'll leave it there thank you Henry well um when I first started what I discovered when I was teaching myself how to play Boogie Woogie what I discovered was I wasn't good at interest that my interest really wasn't about playing but I wanted to understand how how was this made that became that's what I understood right away that's what my interest got so wide that's why I had so much on my plate because I wasn't just trying to play an instrument I was trying to understand how music was made so by the time I became a senior in high school that I wrote my first piece of music and by the time I got to uh Junior College I had written the first major piece of a concert band and I've been a whole string of small Ensemble Pieces by that point so uh and uh that part of your question is about my process is changing is that what you yeah well yeah it's constantly changes because it's a developmental thing you you you work in a medium and you do everything you can and then there's no nothing else to do so you have to move on hopefully you can find something else to do you know uh that's yeah that composing is a is a it can it can be a person can work one Minefield for their entire life and others you have to go for my Minefield to manage so life had to change minefields thank you so much Charlie for that amazing question thanks Henry um our final question today will be from song over to you from thank you thank you so much Henry thank you congratulations on Amazing memo and halfway through I have to find more time to finish it but it has been a pleasurable reading terrific life story Henry um follow the questions with Charlie and uh hearing you talking about growing up in Chicago I wonder also um the John and Alan Lomax feel recording you were did you come in contact with them because you know feel recording was so essential for the Library of Congress and what they not just for folk music but also uh present music I mean they discovered that belly for example you know in the late early 30s the same time they discovered General Morton that you mentioned against this Blues you know there's delta blues like sun house you mentioned muddy water of course then was McKinley Morganfield he hasn't changed his name quite yet not that only came later uh so I was wondering that's one question did you come in contact and we're aware of uh I never bet Ellen it would have been Alan Lomax I remember seeing him but I never met him yeah okay but did you was you exposed to that oh yeah yeah okay there were other people too that were documented the field recording you know uh Bob Caster from Del Mar records yeah my records was recorded the First aacm music that's what they were they were film recorders they went to the South um I don't think he did any Appalachian recordings though you know I don't but I think Alan Lomax might have did some uh Appalachian recordings okay but uh I that's all I didn't know much about him I had seen him once with uh in connection with a um we're going to see Malcolm X speech yeah the reporting Malcolm I think you know but that's pretty much about him you know other than at the time you know uh that he was did all these field recordings you know that there was a number of people interested but I think non-sexual records came along later they were interested in the same thing with General recordings initially you know yeah Meredith discovered that it has that they didn't know much about their own folk history right well I mean it's uh it's so interesting what they did because you know they were archiving recording both black and white musician it was not separated it's all together um which brought me to remember I used to collect records in college before coming to New York that was the end of it but I remember having one album and I think Raymond is here can can correct me I'm wrong Raymond but it was I think it was recorded in 62 by Victorious Spivey used to have her own record label and she did this record uh for Big Joe William which introduced Bob Dylan as a harmonica player and backup vocal so what's my question my question is that because of the the Lomax brother what they did was there a sense when you were at all cross-pollinate with folk music you know like Dylan and other people not really not really uh everything was actually coming in the 60s everything was starting to get segregated yeah okay so-called integration produce segregation on on a certain level you know yeah and you know one thing too uh uh what most people don't understand about the the 1960s and the integration Act the the myth and I see the big big big misconception that integration has something to do with black people is a myth yeah this is a total myth it yes it did they had the smallest thing to do with black people what it had to do with was they were trying to get the money of every ethnic group in America every group in America was segregated that's what people don't understand the Polish people one of the Italians every every group of people had their own unions and they had a lot of property and money and the big people wanted that money and property so when with integration that means that everybody had to come into the big unions sitting here in New York City and give up all of their riches and their property Goods yeah and one the one group of people that fought them for years was the Polish people in Chicago what the they fought the federal government for years when used to come from the airport in Chicago there was a white marble building with a gold statue of padaraski standing on top of it that's how much money the police people was just physically showing you how much money they had it wasn't giving it up you know yeah the black musicians had a major fight to join up with the with the federal with the national unions because they they own so much they had so much property they had so much money you know the property at the University of Chicago that they owned real estate and there was a major fight these fights went on as Saint Louis Baltimore Detroit All Over America where you had the failures unions permanent unions all of these different groups waiters cups all of these are unions ethnic ethnic groups and they make the whole civil rights movement and integration dumped the whole thing on the back of black people and that's what not it wasn't even about that it was getting the money there was a little piece of the pie mm-hmm wow that's amazing well uh my last question um because you know you came to New York and became immersed and naturally integrated into the experiment culture the culture which most of us came to New York and by the time I came to New York the late 80s was fleeting it was ex leaving us slowly very few people would agree to to resist the temptation to become professor in the academy Henry you know so my point is that as I'm involved with so many things and one of the things that I was trying to convey why we have to cultivate experiment culture and I know that you have a certain you know not this thing but you you don't particularly care much for into institutionalized Jazz pedagogy um so where do how do we cultivate and support and given the certain kind of you know fearlessness to experiment uh among young musicians you know it's not just had like yourself you you know you you love art you make art and you compose you play music you you do so many different things Henry so how do we get together support the Next Generation you know well you see like you said I'm not a big fan of of the pedagogy of the University but I'm not willing to throw the whole thing out because that's all we've got right now unfortunately that they don't seem to have the right Vision to teach young people what they really should know see now we don't even have a basically a liberal arts program in America you know you walk into you walk into a music class and you and somebody said well uh have you read Shakespeare they look at each other like you're crazy who is he you know why should I know something about Shakespeare you know right with this photographer or that painter you know so I I remember going to a class and I I brought up uh Cecil Taylor's name is Stravinsky's name and the kids look to be like I was a dinosaur they didn't know who and more kids I think I heard of him so uh it's a lot of work to do see the the problem is the institutions have lost their uh Focus their focus on money in making money they forgotten about the the curriculum and the future of America we have these are they turning out all these students they they cannot compete with other students from around the world now we now we're looking pretty silly in terms of even mathematics and grammar school and what mathematical scores look like in this country right as giving kids the right to determine what the courses are going I mean what what they want to do so here's the baby called on the floor and the baby's gonna tell you what the but you the parents should be doing for them [Laughter] so will the baby ever learn how to walk if if you if you The Guiding parent don't be there to make sure that happens or you're gonna listen to what the baby have to say right so like that's where we're faced with education just focus on money and letting students have all of this Freedom you don't need all this freedom you don't learn anything by having all this Freedom you learn things because you've restricted that's how you learn things because of restrictions that's that's exactly how United States do restrictions yeah yeah and but nobody we don't have a uh we don't have a czar educational Czar that represents to represent this viewpoint but like I said the the out of control uh price of going to college now these you know that seems to be the agenda of the colleges they they and like I said I've said this before if you pick up the curriculum booklet and and go back and pick it up and go back and find the one from 35 40 years ago and tell me if you see any difference in it none you ever learn anything in 35 or 40 years to teach people something right now if we go to science science will tell us that there's been all kind of advancements in everything you know the musical sciences and and all other kind of scientists would tell us that there's been advances that we should have made use of but you know we're just we're just sitting there and like I said I we don't have any alternative right now we have to keep these institutions uh I don't know I don't have an answer for this other than like the the young young artists that come to see me which is a very few uh that I shared with them my ideas about how art works and what they should know you're supposed to know everything about the past uh just I didn't have money with a lot of kids help today but when I know you it's almost time to go when I when I decide when I got out the service then I went back to I had enough uh I saved some money and I had the GI bill and I went back to continue my education right well I did go to I didn't go to school to get a degree yeah I went to school to get every piece of information I said I went to school to take every class that they had every class that's what I wanted to tell you yeah I kept taking classes until they put me out they kept they threatened to put me out so I would change curriculums I kept changing and then they made me take a bachelor's degree then they made me take a master's degree and I was almost I was about ready to get a doctor's guy and I'm not interested in any of those degrees I'm interested in the information yeah and I just by the time they gave me uh one or two degrees I said well I still don't have the information I need so forget it [Laughter] so anyway I had I discovered a great teacher who taught me that Henry you have to become the teacher yeah and that's that was the beginning of my really best education when I when I started coming to my own class oh yeah that's super true happening well I always loved what Charlie Parker say before someone asked him I think New York time can you default jazz in one sentence he said it's very easy man if you don't live it it won't come out your horn right so I think it's people account so you certainly have that rich experience so I can't wait to finish the book Henry so congratulations again thank you thank you thank you David for being the greatest terrific see everybody without the question but uh we'll we'll get back to Eleanor thank you so much thank you so much thong that was so wonderful thank you David we do have one more question that came Raymond Foy so Raymond if you want to ask quickly I think we have time for one last one before poetry thank you um uh Mr threadgill you have this incredible Arc of experience that very few people have today you mentioned Malcolm X you melt mentioned the Black Arts Movement given what you've seen um through civil rights in the 60s and the radical movements and then where we've come to today what are the gains what are the losses uh what is the way going forward in terms of uh the struggle for racial equality the struggle from Racial equality in my opinion in the United States is a struggle that started in the Civil War and it had this country had a chance to go forward and correct that and they didn't they won the war and they allowed the South to continue with their philosophies they symbol their behavior and with their weapons it was the first time in history that any losing Army had retreated home with their weapons and their symbols Germany they did not allow the Nazi flag to fly again or the Nazi movement to perpetuate himself the designs the the Revolution in Russia they didn't allow this we made a serious mistake for philosophically you've got two groups of people in this country when you go back to what happened at the beginning of the Civil War in America you have to think about this to let you so that you can appreciate understanding what about when I say there's two groups of people when the South decided to secede they came to the union remember and what did the the Union what did the Union say we're not for this but we can't stop you so we'll have to let you do it right that's what they said so what happened what happened then anybody here know what's happened what happened was Fort Sumter remember Fort Sumter when the South fired or started the war by shooting because they said we just don't want to separate we want to fight so they wanted to be up to North and take over the North and have its own philosophy prevail over the entire country well this country made a mistake when they let when they when they started this killing and and insisted on keeping up the certain ideas they were supposed to never let this happen again so now it's come back on us and who knows how long this is going to continue to see what happens when when the at the uh within people tried to overthrow the government when they ran into the to the Congress of different places this people need to get used to this this is not going away because we didn't stand up to it in the first place if you you don't stop it it's going to continue you and basically the only solution from my view built is to have a North and South Korea or North and South Vietnam or north and south something I don't see these two I don't see these two groups of people ever living together I don't see how that's possible if it doesn't make any sense we don't we have a group basically that can be defined as intolerant at another group that I would described as tolerant and they don't mix thank you so much Henry and thanks Raymond for that final question um it's been again such an incredible conversation I'm so so grateful to you Henry and David for being here on the MSU today um we do have a tradition here at the rail of concluding our community events with a poetry reading um and today I'm excited to welcome our Poet Laureate of the day Julie azelle Patton to the stage um Julie Azel Patton is a New York city-based poet and visual artist um she's also the founder of the Eco Arts housing and land conservation Project based near Detroit Patton is the author of skip this part should I just pass it right over to you Julie that's is not to be cool and interrupt you I thank you for your introduction I just don't like to hear about myself when myself is not here not really there because nothing's really here nowhere there though I intended to just walk through some words however I have been having trouble this air quality and so I won't be able to um um do what takes a lot of breath there are many things that were triggered including this squeaky chair and one was what blue tubes look like smashed and bloody and you be the slop out of them then boar over can cakes had me um Gobots sick too could serve blue could serve blue blue rice I wonder what is in this cool too cool too cool to cool age and dye your clothes with it and die too instead of painting running around with blue Nicks can still streak down the porcelain sink and the the neighbors as the here come that Mexican man here come the Mexican man oh ain't that the roof oh fast as Lightning next thing you know it was in the house with its blue jay head in front of the TV with the stupid stupid blue pit news I don't see how anyone can concentrate on that like that you didn't you didn't you did you end your apostropheed used to be distracted by why you can't catch a lot of colors like that you just interview [Music] enter your bed now you see how things can be yeah yeah lick a lot hey I have an idea how come there's no serious of little pain oh after the blues could make money off of it forget Windsor should be muddy waters move no James Brown blue serious Soul Billy Fab color blue don't take my words please nude Indigo afro bluesiac has How Could You Forget Duke Ellington Blues Rhapsody in Blue blue Porgy and best blue ah our green blue no stain gets blue I'm sure there's more culture with me [Music] the loneliest blue what kind of blue with that in the bottom of your beat repeat maybe we'll be shall be still be what you've been the diamonds making some buckets gotten a freaking America paint blue lime watercolor middle model that should be the name of the entire line let's make some little little pinky Scranton American freaking Blue Line yeah oh Demi Scott close forget height the blues speaking of watercolor this blue seems true enough uh typical blue a true it's blue you always say that true if you Wishy so too about it like a true voice but I know which blue I'm referring to and that's different for water water which tends to take on the color of the sky you know what I'm looking at the sky right now and a part of it's almost a Wedgewood blue oh now it's getting darker grayer no it's quite orange quite orange the complementary color of the sky the zillion Hues but I ain't never seen a sky yet like the one I've seen in San Francisco the clouds the clouds Cloud did you know that the clouds Cloud real loud real loud silk like is if there's a layer air pocketed orange pocket that forms underneath the clouds as the bottom wall seems to be on the same and then they swim in the sky in the land which the color no violet or violence or blurpo will blurb meter the dude on both your houses what about Crayola [Music] on people sounds like the blue this eye someone's daughter yes the cry on people have blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue blue [Music] a block is in the room [Music] now don't forget the war paint green bats camouflage flag blue maybe you better think about this again you with your blue smiles cut out the host talking about blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah is that how you started with the letter L [Music] icking the surface of blue Underpants you know a forgot his pants so let's talk about another way of articulating these things foreign [Music] thank you Henry this is your Ninth Street neighbor Hood this is who your Ninth Street neighbor normally I'd run into you back in the day and commodities or I remember when I was going on the road with Don Byron you gave me the best advice ever because you told me to travel very light and I said I was interested in traveling light because I'm amazed and do you remember what you said to me you said Jersey and you suggested I get knit things that I could wash out in cold water and uh thank you everybody uh thank you thank you thank you Julie that was amazing thank you so much for being here and thank you so much again David and Henry it's been so amazing a really great way to end the week um thanks everyone for tuning in and we would also of course like to thank the Tara foundation for American art for sponsoring our NSC program they make these daily conversations possible and support our archive which is on the Royals YouTube channel and this conversation will be posted there very soon for the past 22 years the Brooklyn rail has been a platform for Arts culture and politics and our free monthly publication and these public events like rnsc um check the chat for a link to support the rail to donate um and join us on Monday um we are going to be offering a screening um of namjoon pox moon is the oldest TV um it's going to be an amazing film and you can register via the link on our website um the link is in the chat again thank you Henry David and Julie thanks everyone for tuning in um thank you all lovely long weekends okay thank you thank you thank you thank you so much that was incredible thank you thank you so much thank you Henry

Channel: The Brooklyn Rail

Views: 481

Keywords: Henry Threadgill, David Hershkovits, Julie Patton, Interview, live conversation, artist, artists, poetry, poetry reading, The Brooklyn Rail, Brooklyn Rail, Phong Bui, The New Social Environment, Art, contemporary art, poet

Id: JQR7G3tsXsw

Length: 95min 1sec (5701 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 30 2023