My name is Monk Rowe. We are filming in Los Angeles for the Hamilton
College Jazz Archive. I'm pleased to have as my guest Pete Jolly,
who is a piano player of wide reputation. Can I say that? PJ: Whatever you like. MR: I think so. PJ: Thank you, thank you. MR: Welcome. PJ: It's nice to be here, nice to have you
out in California. MR: Yeah, we were talking before the cameras
were rolling about the difference in climate and a lot of different things actually. And I've been hearing a lot of different stories
from the west coast musicians than I'm used to hearing, especially about the studios and
so forth. PJ: Okay, right, yeah. MR: But we'll get to that, because you're
an east coast person first yourself. PJ: Right. I'm classified as a west coaster, but I'm
really from the east coast, right. I was born in New Haven, Connecticut and my
father was an accordionist. And at the age of about three and a half which
sounds crazy I know but it's true, he handed me this little twelve bass accordion. MR: A twelve what? PJ: Twelve bass accordion. MR: When you say bass, it's buttons? PJ: Yeah. Well twelve basses on the left side but it
was a keyboard, a piano keyboard. I should say technically it's a piano accordion. That's the right term. And he got me started playing on that and
then pretty soon that led to a little bigger accordion and then I took accordion lessons
in New York City by a gentleman by the name of Joe Viviano when I was quite young, that
was in the 30s, before World War II. And at about the age of six the piano came
in. I used to, I was at somebody's place and I
went over to the piano and my mother thought hey it would be a good idea if we get a piano
in the house, because we didn't have one. So in those days they had families that wanted
to get rid of these big pianos, they didn't want them anymore, you could buy them for
twelve dollars or anything, just take it. MR: Just move it and you can have it, right? PJ: Because we couldn't get it in the front
door, we had to get a guy to bring it up through the window. It was one of those kind of things, in Connecticut. This was in Wallingford. So I started fooling around with the piano
as well as taking my lessons on accordion, and then I started taking piano lessons in
Connecticut at about the age of six. And every time I'd go over for a lesson she
used to teach some of the students at Choate, the prep school there, it was right next to
Choate. And so she said well you have to play this,
and she showed me what I had to do with my hands, you know, different positions, and
then I would come in and play what I was supposed to play but then I would do some other things. And what I'm leaning to is I think I always
had that natural ability that I wanted to improvise. And that came out later. I mean I didn't go to school to learn how
to improvise is what I'm saying, it was in my mind, and then my dad used to bring home
wonderful records like with Teddy Wilson and Benny Goodman, so that got me started, the
Swing Era, you know the swing like Teddy. And of course boogie woogie was a big thing
too back in the early 40s, and I was into that. That's how I started with the piano with the
boogie woogie. MR: How did this piano teacher deal with your
inclinations? PJ: She was very nice. She was good about that. She knew that I had something different going
on than the usual student. Because I would once in a while go in there
and just play her a tune, one of the popular tunes of the day, and it wasn't my assignment. But anyway then I studied harmony, theory,
and as far as my first playing engagement, I'm trying to think back. Well when I was in grammar school in Connecticut
at the time there was a group of young guys that got together and played, directed by
an older musician. I was the youngest. I was still in grammar school. And the rest of the band was from high school,
you know, the trumpet player, the tenor sax player. And this guitar player was the leader. And he would get us these little gigs playing
for weddings, playing for picnics, playing by the lake. And at that time I was kind of like switching
back and forth from accordion to piano. I played maybe one set on the accordion and
then go over and play the piano and play another set. And that went on until the end of World War
II because we were the band that played the V-J dance in August of '45 in this square. And I was still in eighth grade. And we played this gig. And the town was just going crazy. I can remember, these were highlights you
know. The bells were ringing, the horns were blowing
and everybody was in a uniform and they had this big dance right in the town square, and
I was part of that band. MR: Didn't you - I can't remember if you had
mentioned this to me but you could remember the air raid drills in school? PJ: Oh sure. Oh yeah. MR: Did you dive under the desks and go out
in the hall? PJ: We had to go over to Choate School. MR: You had to what? PJ: We had to go over to Choate, because I
went to a school it was called North Main, and it was just a block away from Choate,
so whenever there was a drill, we used to march over there, and there was a basement
area or something, I don't remember. But oh yeah, I remember all of that. But playing that gig, and that's where I learned
to play a lot of tunes was with that little band. He had all these stock arrangements you know. But I learned how to play a lot of the standards,
it was good for me. MR: To play by ear and to read at the same
time. PJ: Exactly, yeah. We had to play all kinds of music because
of the various ethnic events. If it was a Polish wedding you'd have to play
polkas, if it was an Italian you'd have to know some Italian songs. And I was only about -
So anyway, this got me started in learning some of the pop tunes of the day. Because during the war years there were a
lot of wonderful tunes that came out. And I'm trying to think, okay 1945 the war
ended. I have an interesting story. Then my family moved to Phoenix. MR: And before we move to Phoenix-
PJ: Go ahead. MR: I have to ask you something about your
name. PJ: Oh sure, yeah. MR: In one of the books I looked at, they
had your last name as "Seregioli" PJ: Seregioli. And the gioli became the Jolly. G-I-O-L-I. And it was sort of a nickname that they threw
at me and then we decided to use it, because everybody I would say - "Seregioli" well how
to do you spell that? Is it a C is it an S? MR: And then you've got to deal with the "ja"
is it - PJ: Yeah. There are some names like that. Joe Garigola. It's similar. It's Seregioli. My father was Italian of course. MR: Was he a first generation or had you been
in that area for a long time? PJ: Yeah, he was first. Well as a matter of fact I think my grandfather
came over first. And dad came over maybe when he was four or
five to New York, and then later he became a citizen, because he wasn't born here. But his sister, my aunt, was born here. So then they moved from New York up to Connecticut. So that's how the name-
MR: How come Phoenix? PJ: Why Phoenix? Well that crossed my mind too. I still hadn't finished eighth grade yet,
right? So my mother wanted to go out there for climatic
reasons. And my dad during the war made a trip out
as far as Tucson, because the trains were just packed with troops, it was hard - he
worked at a defense plant back then. It was a silver company, but then during the
war they made incendiary devices and 20 millimeter shells and that kind of stuff instead of silver. So he had a vacation, came to Arizona, this
is - I'm assuming like 1944 maybe or '43 to see what it was like. So the war ended in August of '45 and we moved
to Phoenix in November of '45. And I didn't know what to expect, because
in my mind I said, in those days I just envisioned cowboys and Indians you know, at my age. MR: Yeah, we're going west, right. PJ: Exactly. I still have a lot of friends back east that
don't cross the Hudson. As soon as you cross the Hudson you've gone
west. So yeah we moved to Phoenix and I came back
a couple of summers and stayed with my aunt, my grandmother and still studied. I went back a couple of years. Still listening to jazz, that was always my
forte. In Phoenix, when I arrived there, I started
to play gigs there and eventually joined the union and met up with some very good players. By that time, by the time I got out of high
school, it was Charlie Parker time and Bud Powell and people like that that I was listening
to and being influenced by. And there was a wonderful guitar player that
lived in Phoenix who I played with, Howard Roberts, so we used to play all the time,
and we had little gigs. And I kept listening, and I guess I'm trying
to think, everybody came along in those days, there was Chet and Gerry Mulligan, then Horace
Silver, George Wallington, George Shearing of course, Oscar. So then I kind of went from the swing thing
into the bop thing. I actually converted in Phoenix. That's where the conversion took place. MR: Meanwhile your parents are going, what
are you going to do to make a living here. Did they recognize that you were going to
be a musician? PJ: Oh definitely. MR: And they felt all right about it? PJ: Oh definitely, yeah. Because while I was in high school I was starting
to work six nights a week. MR: Oh so you were making - yeah. PJ: So the guy at the union says, "You're
going to have to join the union." And I got in about a year earlier. I think you have to be, I don't know what
it was, 16 - I think I was in when I was 15. And one of the jobs I had there, it's kind
of a funny story, it's a cute story rather, it's Howard Roberts and I were working doing
a hotel gig, and it was time to graduate from high school. So I think graduation was like a Friday night
or whatever it was. And so I had to get a substitute to work for
me so I could go graduate high school. So I guess what I'm trying to say is I've
been playing a long time. MR: And I see eventually you got with Georgie
Auld, Shorty Rodgers. PJ: Yeah I'll tell you, this all happened
in Phoenix too. What happened in Phoenix towards the last
few years I was there, before I moved to California, there was an architect that decided he wanted
to bring in jazz artists about every - for ten days. You know, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and then
through the following week. And a few days off and bring in somebody else. So I had the house trio at that time. So I got to work with Jack Teagarden, Georgie
Auld, Chet Baker, Herb Geller, Barney Kessel, Maynard Ferguson, you know I got to work with
all the guys. In the meantime Howard had moved over to California. He says, "Pete, when you going to come over?" I said, "Man I'm having too much here, it's
really great. Every ten days I'm into a new bag with somebody." So he had that club in two locations. It was called the Jazz Note. And after the second one fell apart, because
he didn't really own the club, he had to find a club that had a back room that could be
used for concerts. And he made some arrangements with the owner
of the establishment I guess to get a percentage of what they would either eat or drink and
then he would get an admission. So that's how he did it. He had to find a place that had kind of a
dual facility situation. And it was a lot of experience for me. In the meantime I had come over to the coast
and sat in with Shorty Rodgers and Shelly at the Lighthouse when they were working with
Howard Rumsey. So Howard told Shorty about me so anyway that
gig ended, the Jazz Note, which lasted oh my God at least - I think it ended about 1954. So Georgie Auld and Barney Kessel called me
and said, "We have a gig out here in the valley in Studio City, do you want to come over on
the fourth of July and work?" I said, "Sure, great." So I worked that weekend and then I was asked
to go work at the Haig on the off-night, Monday, with the trio. And I believe the trio was either - it could
have been Red Mitchell and possibly Larry Bunker. But anyway I worked the off-night at the Haig. MR: This is the Haig? PJ: It was called the Haig. That's where Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker-
MR: Oh yeah, right. PJ: A wonderful little room. And the guy was fantastic. He never made a lot of money. If he ran out of booze he'd send somebody
down to the drug store and pick it up and bring it back. But anyway Shorty came in that night and said,
"How would you like to join the Giants?" I said, "Well great," I said, because I played
with him down at the Lighthouse a couple of times. Because Howard hired me for one night or two
nights, and then I sat in with them before that. He said, "Well we're going to be going on
a tour in September and we're going to start at the Haig, we're going to play a couple
of weeks here and then we'll rehearse a couple of weeks before we play the Haig." And this was around the fourth of July. I says, "Okay, now I'll be right over." So I packed up and moved over. MR: What kind of money was he offering back
then for that kind of gig? PJ: Oh God. Okay when I went on the road with Shorty Rodgers
I got $175 a week. MR: That's probably a lot more than some people
were making though, huh? PJ: Well to me it was great you know. Of course what was great was playing with
these guys, playing with Shelly and that kind of a rhythm section, Curtis Counce was in
the rhythm section, Curtis played bass. And Jimmy Giuffre. That was the band, and Shorty, it was a quintet. And it was a long tour. It started in San Diego and we might have
even played in Syracuse, I don't - it was called The Festival of Modern American Jazz,
195 - end of '54. And it was Stan Kenton's orchestra, Art Tatum
trio, Charlie Ventura with MaryAnn McCall, and a piano player from Massachusetts was
playing with her. He plays solo all the time, you know who I
mean. MR: Dave McKenna? PJ: Dave. Yeah. Dave was playing piano with Charlie Ventura. Then they had Jimmy Smith and he did a thing. It was like two busloads. MR: Wow. That's amazing. PJ: Oh yeah, it was great. Every night. MR: 1954, hey? PJ: And then Frank Rosolino was on Stan's
band and Lennie Niehaus and Bill Holman, Jack Montrose, the sax section, and Sam Noto. You ever hear of Sam? MR: Sure. PJ: He was on the band. Mel Lewis, Max Bennett. That was Stan's band. But anyway, that's how I got my foot in the
door. Before I went on that tour we did an album
for RCA out here called East Coast, West Coast Jazz, for a guy by the name of Jack Lewis,
who was A&R for RCA for quite a few years and recorded a lot of wonderful jazz. So on this tour, we got to New York, Jack
offered me a contract to do my own album. So my very first album was done in March of
1955 on RCA. So guess I did about four different albums
for them at the time. MR: Beginning to feel like yeah, I'm doing
it here. I'm making-
PJ: Well when Jack called that first album, "Jolly Jumps In" that was his title. I had nothing to do with it. Because in those days I said hey, man, I'm
just happy to get an album out. Whatever you want to call it. And there's an original tune on it, "El York"
and he wanted to title it that because there was a guy at RCA by the name of Bob York,
and I said well okay. It was called "Relaxing" originally, and he
says, "Well do you mind if we call it 'El York?'" I said, "No that's okay, I don't care." MR: Let me play something for you here, because
I think this may be about the time that you're talking about. I'd have to check my dates. MR: Do you recall this session? PJ: Oh sure, sure, sure. MR: Interesting concept. PJ: Well that was Jack again. He wanted all the artists to do a version
of "Lullaby of Birdland." That's what he did. So when he came out he says, "Well I want
you to do a version of "Lullaby of Birdland" I said, "Well why?" He said, "Well I'm going to do this album
with various artists. I forgot all the artists on there, but there's
Al Cohn I think- MR: Al Cohn, Billy Byers, Charlie Barnet,
Quincy Jones even led a thing. Yeah, this is 1955. PJ: Yeah '55. That's when everything started to happen,
where I got recognition. MR. Right. PJ: Right. That's a long time ago. MR: And who was with you there? PJ: It looks like - I have to get my glasses
to see it. MR: Mardigan? PJ: Oh Art Mardigan. And Buddy Clark. They did that with me, not Shelly. Yeah it was Art Mardigan. Okay that was recorded again during that March
period, '55. That was the same time I did my first album. Yeah, boy, I've got this around someplace,
but Barbara Carroll, Quincy, Al Cohn, Ernie Wilkins, Andre, Billy Byers, Milt Barnhart,
Joe Newman. MR: Nice, huh? Well if you can't find yours, I'll let you
buy this from me. How's that? PJ: I'm pretty sure I have it. Yeah anyway that was a project, I wonder if
they gave Jack any credit on these things. You know sometimes in those days, I'm looking
for the producer. MR: Well the '50s seem to be-
PJ: Jack was a really wonderful man. He still lives out here, I see him periodically. MR: You went on to play with Richie Kamuka,
Buddy Collette, Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, lots and lots of people. What was Woody like for you? PJ: I worked with Woody for about two weeks,
maybe four weeks. It was out here, two different clubs, and
I believe Nat Pierce couldn't do it or something so they called me in. And well he had it recorded those things. One was "Basin Street West" and the other
was "Peacock Lane" I think it was called "Peacock Lane." No Woody was wonderful. He would just, I know one thing, if there
was a piano solo he would let me open it up and if it was only going to be like one chorus,
I'd end up playing two or three, which was nice. MR: Yeah. Then he'd cue the band in wherever he wanted
them to come in. PJ: Right. And Benny was a short stint too. That was only for two weeks at Disneyland. What had happened was he wanted - Disneyland
wanted him to play for a couple of weeks and then he wanted to do an album for Capitol. So Tommy Newsom came out, he was living in
New York then before he came out here for The Tonight Show. And he wrote all the charts. That was in '64. And we rehearsed and the rhythm section was
Colin Bailey and Monty Budwig, and it was a wonderful experience to work with Benny. And he was sort of the same way. You know, "Play another one Pops." You know. That was how he would say it. And I was a young kid then, taking this all
in, saying God, you know. But as far as - I never did go on the road
with any big bands. That was sort of before my time. MR: Yeah. The-
PJ: When I got out here and I started to work with a trio or a quintet, I liked small group
work. Because you could stretch out more as a pianist. In the big band, you get an occasional solo
or you're comping for each tenor player that wants to play ten choruses apiece. You know what I mean. MR: Yeah, right. That long line of horn players. PJ: And pretty soon it's always the piano
player and the bass player that's last. And you've been doing this for - But I enjoyed
big bands, don't get me wrong. I just preferred the smaller groups, the quintets,
the quartets, the trios. MR: Tell me about this tune, "Little Bird." PJ: All right. That was written by Dick Grove and myself. Dick Grove had a wonderful rehearsal band,
great arrangements, a great arranger. You know he just passed on, not too long ago. And every Tuesday or Wednesday he would rehearse
in the rehearsal band and I'd go down and either sit in with the band or listen, and
Dick would say, "You want to play a couple of tunes with the band?" So there was one chart he had where I was
able to take that one little line he had and made a tune out of it, "Little Bird." So I played it for Dick. I said, "Dick, I think you should get half
of this." Because he didn't remember it. But I said this is -
MR: That was nice of you. PJ: So I said, "I really heard one little
thing in your arrangement, and I transferred it and it became a tune." So we recorded it. I played it for Bones Howe. And Bones Howe said, "Well I think I've got
a company that will record you. It sounds like we've got something." So it was with Ava, and then Jackie Mills
and Tommy Wolfe were running the company, Fred Astaire owned it. It was originally Choreo - from Choreographer. That was the name of the company, but they
had a lawsuit and somebody in Texas had that name, so in those days it cost Fred Astaire
about 50 thousand dollars, which was a lot of money back then, to change the name and
change all the letterheads, the logo. So he named it after his daughter, Ava. So it came out on Ava. And that's the story of "Little Bird." And then we got a Grammy nomination for it
back in '64. MR: Yeah. I think it was originally released in '62
and- PJ: Maybe it was '63 the Grammy. It might have been "Sweet September" for '64,
but I know I got two in a row, two years. It's either '63, '64, or 64 - I think you're
right, I think it would be '63. MR: Nice. The studio scene out here was pretty busy. PJ: Well getting back to the mid-50s, like
when I came out here, there were all kinds of jazz dates going on I mean it was wonderful. It was just thriving. Pacific Jazz was recording, Contemporary Records
was recording out here, of course RCA, Bethlehem. And a lot of smaller companies were recording
jazz albums all the time. So every week you'd be on somebody's album. So it was a wonderful world because I was
working six nights a week with Shorty, we're playing jazz six nights a week, and then we'd
throw in a few record dates and it was all jazz, it wasn't commercial recording, which
I got into later. This was like what I came out to do. And I was in a dreamland, I said my God, I'm
making jazz records and I'm playing jazz every night, six nights a week. MR: And I'm getting paid for it too. PJ: Exactly. So it was wonderful. I will always cherish those years. It was a wonderful experience. I got to play with all the various musicians
that I've played with too. MR: It sounds like you were appreciating them
while it was happening too. Sometimes you don't seem to recognize the
times that are, those are the good old days I guess. PJ: Yeah. Now when I came out here to work with Shorty's
band, Shelly Manne was playing with him, and I'd never worked with anybody of that caliber. And I learned a lot by listening to him, and
we enjoyed each other, but I mean that's where I really started to fine tune myself. You know, because I had some shortcomings
and I felt there were some creases that I was able to get rid of because of having that
guy by your side. I mean, God, every night, six nights a week
for a year. MR: Right. I saw an article in Keyboard magazine that
was entitled "From Mash to Dallas." This seems to indicate that you played on
a lot of sessions eventually. PJ: Oh sure. MR: When did that start? PJ: Okay the very first movie - Shorty has
a small speaking part in it and I think Ralph Pena's in it too, and Shelly, is "Man With
the Golden Arm," with Frank Sinatra. Then the second jazz movie, which really got
a lot of - we did two soundtracks, there was the jazz soundtrack and then there was the
scoring soundtrack that Johnny Mandel wrote, that was for "I Want to Live." That was a great band. We had Art Farmer, Frank Rosolino, Bud Shank,
Shelly, Red Mitchell, Gerry Mulligan and myself. And Jack Lewis again, he went with United
Artists, he'd left RCA. So Jack was always looking for someplace to
get focused in on some jazz. And so that was one of the second pictures. And in that picture actually visually seen
we're playing a tune, and now getting to the commercial things, about that time I was starting
to work with my own trio quite often. My first trio consisted of Bob Vertoe, Bob
Neel. Bob Vertoe is a bass player and Bob Neel. And then I was going out working my own jobs
at some of the clubs as well. And then after that I started getting calls
for some commercial dates for - I'm trying to think back then in the beginning, I don't
know if it was Dinah Shore or somebody, you know whatever it was, I don't remember - just
doing a record date for various people and that progressed into I did a lot of T.V. film. And when I really got into that it was due
to Earle Hagan, when he started "I Spy," and I did all the "I Spy" shows, all the oh God
how many shows they had, "Mod Squad," "Eight is Enough," "That Girl," "Andy Griffith,"
oh God. We had two or three shows every week we were
doing. So I did an awful lot of T.V. film. And then as far as recordings, Herb Alpert,
Sinatra, I was on "This Guy's In Love With You" with Herb and that was on-
MR: Wait a minute now. Are you the guy that played -.
On "This Guy's In Love with You" on the record? PJ: Well there were two pianos. It was Burt and I playing. It was Burt Bacarach and I, yeah. I don't remember - I think we were both doing
the same thing. MR: Oh, a double track pianos. PJ: There were two pianos on the date, right. MR: That's just such a-
PJ: And "A Taste of Honey," I was on that one. MR: Oh, with Herb Alpert? PJ: Oh yeah. MR: Oh cool. PJ: I was on "New York New York" with Frank. MR: You've played some significant little
piano riffs then. PJ: I'm trying to think of the list of - you
get my bio out - but there were a lot of different record dates with all kinds of different artists. Dean Martin, Bing Crosby, through the year. MR: Do you get statements from the union from
the Recording Manufacturer's Society or whatever, about things that you've played on and you
get royalty or residuals? PJ: I don't get a printout of everything. The only thing I get a printout now are the
movies that have gone to T.V. And we get a special overall payment once
a year from that. But as far as records, no. Well there is a Phonograph Special Payment
Fund, but it's based on sales. And it really doesn't pin everything down,
and it doesn't go all the way back, it goes back five years. And it keeps going back. Like it's always five years back. The next year they'll skip that year and then
another five years back. So to go all - as a matter of fact there's
a friend of mine down in Georgia that's doing a discography of all the things that I've
done. And it's quite an ambitious project for him. And he's almost done. He's at Valdosta State University, Ed Barr. Maybe you know him? MR: No. I do not. PJ: Nice man. Writes liner notes, and the head of the jazz
department. MR: I would like to correspond with him maybe
you can get me in touch. PJ: Oh yeah. MR: Did you ever have a sense of when you
were doing a particular tune, of some of the things you mentioned, and the guys that were
on the session were saying, "This is going to be a big one?" Or were you just churning them out so fast
that you never stopped to think about that? PJ: Once in a while you'd hear that, but nobody
can really predict. You get a feel sometimes that this is going
to be - producers have a better knack at that then I think the musicians do. They feel like if something is going to be
a hit and that's what makes a good producer. But for instance "Little Bird," getting back
- I don't want to go backwards here, but when we recorded it we had to make sure that it
was two minutes and thirty-five second, or two forty-five and don't touch three minutes,
because you're not going to get the airplay. Because back in those days we were getting
AM play because it hit the charts. But the charts were different in those days. The charts were more musical back in '63,
'64. There wasn't-
MR: Yeah, before the Beatles took over. PJ: Yeah, right, exactly. And we got to go through the Monkees and the
Beatles and Presley and all of that came in. MR: What was let's say the most obvious rock
& roll date that you may have participated in, or was there any? PJ: I did one date with Frank Zappa. MR: No kidding? PJ: Yeah. "Lumpy Gravy" or something. MR: You were on "Lumpy Gravy?" Get out. PJ: I'm trying to think of these names that
I've worked with, it's a lot of years. And you know what he said to me when I was
on the date? It was a late date, it didn't start until
like one o'clock or eleven thirty at night. And I remember leaving the house and thinking
oh boy, it's going to be one of those long dates at Capitol over here. So he says, he was very complimentary, he
says, "Pete I remember when I was going to high school up in Lancaster, and you were
playing with Shorty Rodgers, and you guys came by and you just killed me, I loved it." MR: Cool. PJ: Yeah, that was Frank Zappa. MR: He had quite band, Ian Underwood and-
PJ: Ian, yeah. MR: And some of those guys. PJ: Yeah. I used to work with Ian a lot in the studios. MR: Yeah he became quite a studio ace didn't
he? PJ: Oh on every date he'd be there, because
he was one of the first guys that got into synths. I mean he was patching all the time. I mean back in those days, he was patching. Chords galore. And I'm looking at him like woah. I don't think I could ever get into that. But he was a master at it. MR: Did you enjoy that date? PJ: Yeah it was interesting. It's sort of like I don't know quite what
to expect. It came off. It was a challenge though, I remember it was
a little bit different. MR: Was it a live session or were you doing
overdubs? PJ: It was a live session. I don't think I'm on all the tracks, but I'm
on some of them. MR: I'll have to get that album out and-
PJ: Yeah, I don't even have it myself, but I know I'm on it. MR: Now did you ever, you must have heard
yourself on the radio quite a bit with all the stuff you were doing, not just under your
own name. PJ: Oh yeah with other guys. MR: Here comes Herb Alpert on the radio, and
I'm on that. There must have been a certain amount of satisfaction
in that. PJ: Yeah, especially if it was something musical,
right. If it was something too commercial, I wouldn't
even want to listen. I just went in to do the job so I could make
the mortgage payment. MR: It wasn't something that you'd call your
neighbor over and say listen- PJ: Exactly. Yeah right. But there were some lovely things that I did
that I'm proud of. You don't have that, or do you? MR: "At a performance in Tokyo's Buddakan
Stadium the group drew over 100,000 enthusiastic fans." This was the Lighthouse All-Stars. Wow. Japan loves jazz, don't they? PJ: Wonderful. Yeah it was a wonderful trip, it was just
a great trip. Shelly was on that trip and Shorty of course,
Bud Shank, Jimmy Guiffre came over too for that, flew in from Massachusetts. And I hadn't seen Guif in a long time. MR: Still playing good? PJ: Oh yeah. He's still living in Massachusetts as far
as I know. MR: Yeah, I think you're right, I saw his
name in something a while ago. So you list your influences as Red Garland,
Oscar of course, of course this is this fella's opinion, he can hear bits of George Shearing. PJ: Yeah, right. MR: Do you feel that you have influenced any
people yourself? Some of the younger players? Frank Zappa maybe? PJ: You know that's a good question and it's
a difficult one for me to answer because there have been times when I've listened to somebody
and because I know when I hear myself immediately that it's me. Because what you just played me, I don't play
that way anymore. You know what I mean? I mean I know that when I hear back on a piano
playing I know that that goes way back. That was in my twenties. Because I had gone through a lot of influences
since then, it's like a recipe, you know you take a little bit of Red Garland, a little
bit or Horace Silver, a little bit of George Wallington, a little bit of Bud, a little
bit of Bill Evans, whatever. And hopefully you come up with some kind of
style that you can be identified with. I would say that my style is more of a swinging
style. And for that, when I play a solo I used to
work with Zoot Sims a lot on jam sessions and stuff, and when I'm playing my solo I'm
thinking, as I'm comping with my left, I'm thinking of some of those things Zoot played
on the sax. And that's really where I'm coming from. MR: Yeah. So it doesn't have to be just a piano player
that influences you. PJ: Oh definitely. Yeah right. So that was a big influence, that swing style
he had that was incomparable. But I have heard some people and I say gee
I wonder if that's me, and it's not. You know? That's happened. Oh yeah. That's happened. So I guess we all go through our periods,
'cause what else can we do? You don't go to school to learn this. You listen to these people. You go home and play the records, and you
might like a little bit of what they do here so you take some of that and some of this
and some of that, and Garner I love, too. I keep forgetting, Garner was a big influence. As a matter of fact every once in a while
I'll go into that Garner approach. He was a giant I thought. MR: What's coming up in the future for you? PJ: Okay we have some concerts coming up and
then the new album we'll be working on. We just did U of A, University of Arizona,
we did a concert over there, and did a concert down in Annenberg Theater down in Palm Springs,
and then we're going to be doing two concerts at a place called the Vintage down in the
desert and then another place called - anyway it's another private club down there. And I'm still trying to get into some more
jazz festivals, getting that going. It's not easy. Like last year I did the Ottawa and I did
a short engagement up in San Francisco. MR: You do your own promotion and booking? PJ: Pretty much, yeah. I don't really have an agent or a manager. People call and then we make arrangements. I spent a marvelous evening about two weeks
ago, George Shearing was playing down at the Studio Center for the Arts, with Joe Williams. And a friend of mine from Cincinnati came
out with his daughter and he wanted to see it so he invited me. I had never seen the auditorium but George
sounded marvelous. And Don Bagley, the bass player, he went with
us. And he remarked, he said, Gez, four people
packed this whole place. I said yeah. The drums came out for Joe. Joe did the second half. And that's the part that really amazes you
when you see that many people to come out and see four people. It's a great concert. MR: That's good. PJ: And George sounded marvelous as usual. You know he had some nice stories to tell,
some funny stories. He must be what, pushing 80? MR: I think he is. PJ: Or close, 79, 80? Joe too. Joe sounded great. MR: Joe celebrated his 80th birthday recently. PJ: Yeah. So you see these guys, they're filling the
places. MR: Right. There's hope for the future. Well I wish you the best of luck in your future
endeavors. PJ: Oh thank you very much. MR: It's been a real pleasure talking to you
and I'm anxious to listen to your CD. PJ: I don't know - I guess the only thing
we didn't discuss was the accordion. MR: You know I've known a number of people
who started out on the accordion and moved to - was the Italian music the reason for
the accordion? PJ: Could be. Yeah that's probably it. Marty Paich played accordion. MR: No kidding. PJ: Yeah, in fact I'm going to give you a
list of names, yeah. MR: Do you still use the accordion? PJ: Barry Manilow. But I'm just saying, who played accordion. Well there are some other ones that are kind
of sleepers. George Shearing made a couple of records on
accordion. MR: Get out. Well how about yourself? PJ: Well I did one album with Terry Gibbs. "Terry Gibbs Plays The Duke." It was a quartet album and we did all Duke
Ellington tunes and it's hard as heck to find it. I think it was for Mercury. And it was total accordion, bass - let's see
who was on that. Gary Frommer maybe, I'm trying to think who
the bass player was, Leroy maybe. But anyway it was vibes, accordion, bass and
drums. That was it. The whole album is accordion. And I got to stretch out on that which I never
got to do too much. Shelly used to kid me, he said "bring the
accordion out." MR: Is it different, the attack is slower
on it, isn't it? PJ: On the accordion? MR: The response of the notes? Maybe not, maybe I'm mistaken. PJ: Actually it's a little faster. MR: Than the piano? PJ: Oh yeah, it's faster yeah. MR: Oh no kidding. PJ: And the thing about it is I used to listen
to people like Art VanDamme and one is an air instrument, so there are some things you
can do on accordion that you can't really do on a piano. And my first album, "Jolly Jumps In" has some
accordion on it, about two, or three, or maybe four tracks with accordion. Then I was on a track with Buddy DeFranco
on accordion on an album, as well as piano. I played a gig with Buddy once, the piano
ws so bad, up in Denver, and I happened to have the accordion with me and I played the
gig with accordion because the piano was just horrible. Yeah we didn't get into accordion but I thought
maybe I'd throw that in, you might be able to splice it and put it in there. But I don't play it that often now. I've used it in T.V. or movies, but it's always
like bring your accordion and there's always somebody having dinner in a restaurant - I'm
not on camera of course - and they want some ethnic music while these people are eating
dinner or whatever. That kind of thing. You very seldom get a call to play jazz on
accordion. And I was playing a lot of jazz on accordion
but I guess when I got over to the piano I found that I was able to do more with the
piano than I could do with the accordion. MR: Have you had to play electronic keyboards
a lot throughout your career? PJ: Not many. I have a Rhodes, I got into that, a wonderful
Rhodes. I went to Europe for them for CBS Musical
Instruments, and I bought one synthesizer which I have at home, a DX7, and that's as
far as I got. MR: I have one too. PJ: You do? MR: Yeah. We may be the only two left in the United
States. They move so fast you know. PJ: Oh I know it. And about the time that happened there were
guys like Ian Underwood and people that had invested time and a lot of money into their
investment and they were really into it. And I came from an acoustic -
when all that happened I said I'm not going to get into synthesizers. I just stuck to the DX7 and I said that's
enough and I stopped at that point and I just went back to acoustic piano and maybe I'll
pick up the accordion again. I haven't done it in a while, you know, play
jazz on it. I've got the instruments at home. I've got three accordions. MR: Well get them out and dust them off. Keep that tradition going. PJ: Yeah there aren't many left really. Honestly. MR: Well thanks for your time today. It's been a real pleasure. PJ: Thank you, Monk. MR: I hope your future projects go well. PJ: I hope we run across each other soon. And I'm looking forward to viewing this in
the future. MR: Okay, very good. PJ: Okay. MR: Thanks a lot.
