We are in Manhattan filming for the Hamilton
College Jazz Archive. My name is Monk Rowe and I'm very pleased
to have pianist Richard Wyands with me today. Thanks for coming. RW: My pleasure. MR: You know I'm pleased to say that a lot
of musicians, when your name came up, I said I'm going to see Richard Wyands I hope soon,
and they always said, "oh Richard, he's such a great guy and such a marvelous player." RW: Well I'm glad I'm thought of that way. MR: You are, indeed. And your role as an accompanist is often times
mentioned a lot. You've worked with some great singers. RW: I certainly have. MR: Who have been your own personal favorites? RW: Well I spent a brief stint, I did a brief
stint with Ella Fitzgerald and she is one of my favorites, all time favorite. I worked with Carmen McRae and she's also
been one of my favorites. I've never worked with Sarah Vaughan but she
is one of my favorites. I can go on and on for female vocalists, but
those are about the three or four top singers that I really dig. MR: Did they seem to want different things
from their piano player, from one singer to the next? RW: Well not necessarily. It's hard to remember. I don't know, I've played for so many singers
throughout the years. Carmen was very easy to work with, extremely. She just wanted to be very relaxed. Ella, she just wanted you to swing. She wanted the rhythm section to swing. That was her thing. It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that-
MR: There you go. RW: And some singers would like you me to
play a little more single note things behind them, as opposed to chords, or a mixture of
both. It all depends. A lot of singers are different. They have different ideas of what they want
to hear. MR: Have you ever had occasion where you might
be getting - I don't know if "experimental" is the right word - but if you're playing
some chord substitutions that the singer might not like where you're going with that? RW: Oh yeah. MR: And how do they let you know? RW: Well I remember I had this experience
with Ella. Ella was appearing in my home town, San Francisco. The Fairmont Hotel. I was playing some kind of an ad lib rubato
thing behind her that I usually play the same way, note for note, every time we do it. This time I made a little tiny alteration,
not enough to throw her off but just a little, and she turned around and looked at me and
said, "oh?" and kept on singing. So I'd better not do that again, I'll just
play it straight. A lot singers want to hear the same thing. They don't want you to go too far away from
it. They want to hear the same thing every night
more or less. MR: That takes a certain kind of discipline
for yourself then? RW: Definitely, definitely, definitely. MR: It almost puts more pressure on you, because
it's almost like doing a classical thing. I've got to do this as if it was written. RW: I know. MR: Was San Francisco-Oakland a good musical
scene? You grew up in the late 30s and 40s, you were
a teenager and so forth, was there a lot of music around for you to hear? RW: Well there was on the radio. Of course in the late 30s and early 40s I
was still in school, I was too young to go to nightclubs. But fortunately my mother really dug jazz
and she would take me to these dance halls and I heard Count Basie with Lester Young,
that band, I heard Jimmie Lunceford, this was somewhere around 1940. And I heard Basie at the World's Fair in San
Francisco, live, in '39, they had Benny Goodman and several other bands, and they would allow
minors to go to these dance halls, if they were accompanied by a parent. So my mother, she would take me. And I never will forget that. She was so nice about that. And then I went to the theaters. In those days they had the theater shows,
like the Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco, the Paramount in New York, and some theaters
in L.A. But I used to go to the Golden Gate Theater
and I saw many, many bands, stage shows you know. I saw Duke many times, with Jimmy Blanton. MR: That was important. RW: Very important. Because even then my ears were tuned to bass
players, because I'd never heard a bass player play like that before, at that time. MR: What was so different about what he was
doing, for your ears? RW: Oh well his entire approach was a lot
different than most of the bass players of the time, of that era. He played good lines, great lines. Not too many double notes, like -, like all
those double notes. He used the entire instrument. He'd play high, low, and so forth. And most of the bass players in those days,
I mean I'm just a kid now analyzing this, but they didn't play like that. MR: So you started on piano - did you take
classical lessons? RW: Yes. I started when I was about seven or eight. And I played - almost was a prodigy actually. That's how they were billing me. But I finally became disinterested in classical
music. I didn't put it down, but I really wanted
to play jazz, really. So I finally stopped playing. I didn't actually stop playing classical music
but I decided I'd get a teacher who could teach me how to play jazz, if that was possible. And I did, I found one, and he was a jazz
musician in San Francisco and his name was Wobert Boranco. And he lived in my neighborhood. I only had to walk three or four blocks to
his home and he'd give me these lessons. So I took a crash course, about eight months,
and I was going to junior high school at this time by the way, so it was good. He was very good. After eight months he said, "well this is
the end of the course, you've got it, you're on your own." MR: What did you know by the end of eight
months, I mean chord symbols and the concept? RW: I could read chord symbols. He showed me how to analyze chords. A lot of the sheet music you bought in those
days didn't have chord symbols, they just had those guitar things. So I had to analyze, from the sheet, the chord
and it was very good. MR: Yeah. Did he get into any kind of piano styles? Showed you the options? RW: Oh yes. Well I think his favorite - judging from the
way he played - was Art Tatum. Because he played a lot of notes. And he wrote out a list of piano players for
me to listen to and buy records. And Art Tatum was at the top of the list,
Nat King Cole, Earl Hines, Fats Waller, Count Basie - no I don't think Count Basie was on
the list but I became attached to Count Basie anyhow. MR: Yeah? RW: Oh yes. He was plinking and planking but he could
actually stride. He could play stride piano on some of those
early records and I recognized that even as a kid. Fats Waller was one of my favorites, I loved
him, I loved him. My parents had some old Fats Waller records
and I used to play them on an old grammaphone, where you put a needle in and it looks like
something that you sew with. MR: Oh right. RW: A victrola. And that was my first record player. But I loved Fats, and oh a neighbor who lived
right next door, she had a player piano, so I used to go over there, pull out the rolls,
and she'd show me how to put them on the piano, and she had these great Fats Waller and James
P. Johnson piano rolls. And I used to sit there, I'd plunk the piano
and watch those notes. I said oh my God, it must be two piano players
playing at once, it couldn't be one. They were great. MR: And those things were made actually right
from - didn't the fellas play a special piano and they punched those rolls somehow. RW: I think so. I never knew how they were made. But I guess so. MR: Yeah. That was the real thing. RW: They had holes in them, you know the roll
had these holes in them. But I never did find out how they were made. But I got a kick out of that. Anyhow I decided that was it. I wanted to be a jazz pianist. MR: So by the time you were going into high
school you kind of had a direction? RW: Well I don't know. I ran into a road block in junior high school
I decided I wanted to be a drummer. And I'd already been playing classical music
and a little jazz. And for some reason - oh my cousin was a drummer,
and he loaned me some of his drums and my parents weren't too happy about that idea
but I took lessons, actually I took lessons from Johnny Otis, who lived in the neighborhood. MR: Really? Johnny Otis. RW: Johnny Otis. At that time his name was Johnny Veliotes. And I went to school with his younger brother,
but I studied with him. And he was a very good drummer before he decided
to be a band leader. All right. I played drums in junior high school, I played
in the orchestra, the band, the marching band, and the director, he liked me especially because
being a pianist and I studied, I was a better reader, a little bit better sight reader than
the other drummers so he gave me the choice I was the number one drummer. MR: The number one snare drummer? RW: No. I had to play a whole set of drums - plus
I played in a dance band too, a junior high school dance band, which is kind of interesting. I didn't own a set of drums, my parents said
no, we're not going to buy you a set of drums, forget it. So I had to use the school drums and I had
to use one of these big street drums as a bass drum, I had a foot pedal that was a heel
pedal, heel. MR: Really? Oh my. RW: And I thought it was glamorous, you know
the girls were all smiling and everything. But later I found out being a drummer wasn't
so great after all because at the end of the dance I'm trying to take down the drums and
everything, in the meantime everybody's going, musicians and everyone is gone and I'm still
fooling around with these drums. I had to carry them all the way across the
school yard, so I don't know about this. MR: The piano is starting to look good again. RW: But I didn't play drums in high school
because there was no orchestra. There was just a marching band for the football
games and so forth. So I didn't play anything in high school except
maybe in my senior year some of the students organized a little jazz combo and they were
searching frantically for a jazz pianist, so somehow they found me. So we played for the variety shows that the
high school hand, and we went around the hospitals, the veterans' hospitals and played - like
this was 1945, so the war was still on. MR: Were you looking at military service down
the road too? RW: Yeah. MR: Did you in fact get drafted? RW: No. No I didn't. I graduated from high school when I was 16
so actually I was too young for military service for World War II. I went to college and played drums again in
college. MR: Really. RW: But there were so many drummers, there
must have been ten drummers who were trying to play in the orchestra and the band. But they gave me a chance. I played cymbals sometimes, but standing up
there counting bars. MR: Your big moment. RW: It was a lot of fun. But fortunately one of the professors decided
to organize a jazz department. There were no teachers who knew how to teach
anything about jazz so we had to do it on our own, the students ourselves. So it was pretty good. MR: Post World War II, bebop was kind of percolating,
actually here. Did it make its way out to your ears? RW: Slowly. By the way of records of course. We used to order records in San Francisco,
at this little record store, sometimes it would take two to three weeks for the records
to arrive. These were 78s of course. Around 1945 I started hearing these records
by Bird and Dizzy Gillespie and other people. So I'd go to the record store and order them. We'd wait patiently for the records to arrive,
for each 78 record. I heard some of these broadcasts late at night
from Chicago and Los Angeles, various bands. And I heard Boyd Raeburn's band. And I know Dizzy recorded with Boyd Raeburn
and I think he made some of the engagements - I think, I'm not sure about that - but I
heard them on the radio and that was great. I don't want to get ahead of myself but while
was going to college - I went to San Francisco State University by the way - and I worked
around the Bay area, in various groups. I worked in strip joints, I'm playing my way
through college, I'm working my way through college. I saved up enough money to buy a car because
the school was in San Francisco but I actually lived in Berkeley so I had to cross the bridge
every day so I needed a car so I worked at night until sometimes two A.M. in the morning,
go home, get a little sleep, go to school. It was a little rough but I was pretty young
then, it didn't bother me if I had to get up at six o'clock in the morning it didn't
matter. MR: What kind of tunes, at that time, worked
in the strip club? RW: Mostly standards. We got away with that. MR: Yeah? RW: Yeah. Some of the typical strip type tunes, but
this was way back then in the 40s, we're talking about late 40s I guess. Some of the strippers had their own music,
they brought in some of these old stock arrangements. There was only a four-piece band, four or
five piece band, how much could we play? And the piano would be stacked with music,
I remember that much. And the music had to be continuous. The band never stopped playing. So we'd take our breaks individually. MR: Oh really? RW: Really, that's right. MR: I'll be darned. RW: No intermissions. Because there were a lot of strippers. Some of the clubs had maybe ten and so they'd
come out. MR: So from - like what time would you start? RW: Eight sometimes? MR: Eight o'clock until sometimes two A.M. And one by one the guys would get up and take
a little break, 15 minutes or so. It must have been - I mean so weird, okay
now there's going to be no drums for a little while. RW: That's right. MR: And then the piano goes. RW: And no piano. MR: So you'd have bass and sax and drums maybe
or something like that? RW: Well sometimes one of the horn players
would double on piano and play enough to get by, you know, play some chords. MR: That's interesting. You probably got to see all kinds of acts
too. RW: Quite a few, oh man, some of these acts. I've worked in places, in fact I worked in
a strip joint in New York on my early days in New York, I guess it wasn't called a strip
joint but they had these B girls, but they doubled as singers. They were hustling drinks at the bar but they
would sing. So I remember one club I worked there must
have been ten singers, ten B girls, and some of them could sing very well, very well. They had their music. It was a little rough, though, playing one
singer after another. And they'd sing a couple of tunes then they'd
go back to the bar, meantime the band is still playing. I think in this joint we did get a break though. I don't remember the name of the club but
I remember doing that. MR: Well that's paying some dues. RW: Oh yeah, well it gets worse. MR: It gets worse? What's worse than that? RW: Well I used to make a lot of club dates,
or casuals as they were known in some areas, and the pianos were in terrible shape, terrible. They'd be out of tune, the ivory would be
half on, and in fact they were so far out of tune that the musicians, the horn players,
couldn't tune up, so I would have to transpose. MR: You'd have to play in a different key
than the rest of the band? RW: That's right. Very frustrating. Or the pedals would be broken off, the sustaining
pedal broken, all sorts of things, oh boy. You're talking about dues. MR: Yeah. It's almost like you want to go back and carry
those drums now. RW: That's right. MR: At least you know what you're going to
be dealing with. RW: The pianos were so bad in some of these
dance halls, they had little spinets, you know what that is, that's like just a piece
of furniture, it's not much of an instrument. I saw Nat King Cole play on a spinet. I did one of his dances like the band that
played opposite him, he had his trio then, and he's playing this little spinet. I wished I'd had a camera, a picture of that. But he was smiling too. MR: Really. RW: All the pianos that we had to play. MR: I would think physically it'd be really
very demanding on your wrists, to get any sound out of it at all. RW: It is. You can't attack it too heavily or you'll
break your arms. MR: Did you learn anything in your own playing
from the dancers? From watching people dance? RW: You mean on the dance floor? MR: Not necessarily - yes on the dance floor,
not the strippers I'm talking about now - but I'm talking about at the dances. RW: Rhythm. Time. In those days the lindy or jitterbugging was
very popular and most of the dancers had very good time. All musicians don't have good time necessarily
and I used to watch some of the dancers. I used to play my foot kind of loud in those
days, so the musicians, especially the drummers, would say, "stop it, stop it, don't you're
banging your foot too loud." But I learned a lot, you're right, I learned
a lot by just watching the dancers. However, on some occasions a little violence
would break out, fights would start and the next thing you know it's gotten ugly on the
dance floor. I've seen dancers - I used to go to dances
to see all these big bands - Cab Calloway, Basie, Duke - and they'd be held in these
big arenas, large arenas, like Madison Square Garden only not quite that large and after
a couple of hours and a few drinks, oh boy, it would get pretty wild. Throwing chairs, and -
MR: A combat zone, huh? RW: Oh yeah. MR: Were the audiences integrated for those
kinds of occasions? RW: No. Nope. MR: Would the Ellington band for instance
play at one place for a white audience, and then play somewhere else for a black audience? RW: Right. I remember in Oakland there was a dance hall,
a very nice dance hall, it was called Sweet's Ballroom, all the bands appeared there. But for the Afro-Americans there was only
one night and that was a Monday night, and the rest of the nights were for the whites. And that's how it was in most of the places. My mother took me to Sweet's Ballroom a few
times, sometimes some fights would break out there too, oh boy. But we're talking about World War II and things
were - I don't know - there were a lot of servicemen around, if you could imagine, no
one knew how long things were going to be okay. But fortunately nothing ever happened to me. MR: I can imagine them getting shore leave
or something and letting off - RW: Yeah you see a lot of drunken servicemen
and they go crazy, quite a few of them, and a lot didn't of course. When I went to these dances I would just stand
at the front of the bandstand and watch. I wasn't dancing or anything. MR: How did your mother feel about you making
a career of music? RW: At first she didn't like it. She didn't think that I would really get into
it anyhow. She figured well he'll probably change his
mind and decide to go into something else like become a doctor, a school teacher or
something. But the fact that I started out during World
War II, or the latter part of World War II, there was a shortage of musicians around,
jazz musicians. Most of them were in the service so while
I was in high school I was recruited actually to play. And at that time I wasn't that professional,
I didn't think so. I joined the union when I was 16 and had some
sponsors who took care of me. They'd call me up and they'd take me out to
their jobs and I would play and they'd bring me home. That satisfied my mother now. She was happy about that. But I'm sure she and my father were thinking
about - well the old stories about musicians doing this and doing that. Drugs and all sorts of things. Womanizers, and you know, the whole deal - I
call it clich�'s I guess. But she got used to it. When I graduated from college I decided I
didn't want to be a school teacher. I decided I was going to play nightclubs or
whatever. But she saw I was making money so she said
well maybe this isn't so bad after all. MR: Got your own car. RW: Right. MR: I understand you played at the Blackhawk
backing up different musicians that would come in? RW: Right. MR: That must have been a good experience. RW: It was because I got a chance, even if
I wasn't backing them up, if I didn't back then up I was playing intermissions piano,
or with a trio or duo. There was a bass player, well he's still there,
Vernon Alley. He and I worked at the Blackhawk, either with
a quintet, quartet or duo, opposite these big name acts, like Oscar Peterson, Max Roach,
George Shearing, a long list. It was a great experience because I got a
chance to sit there every night and watch and listen to all of these great musicians. And sometimes they'd invite me up to play
with them. MR: Making future contacts. RW: Oh yeah. I figured one of these days I'd get to New
York and it would be a good idea to make a good impression. And it worked because when I finally came
to New York I looked up some of the musicians that I'd met out there and they helped me
get started. But one of the most interesting experiences
I ever went through in my life was at the Blackhawk. I'd play opposite Art Tatum, and I was just
playing solo piano, I'd play 20 on and he'd play 40. It was 40-20 on those dates, and Art Tatum,
well I got to know him, I got to talk to him. And I knew I couldn't compete with him. No one could. But he would talk to me while he was playing. I'd sit right by the piano, as close as I
could, because some nights there weren't that may people in there for some reason or other,
and he was maybe too heavy for them, the average listener. The musicians would be there, but anyhow,
I'd sit right next to him and he would tell me what he was about to do. He'd say, "Richard I'm going into B major"
and then I'm going to do this. Because the audience could care less. They had no idea whether that meant anything
or not. What an experience, oh boy. But I didn't feel too bad when it was my turn
to play though, I thought well just do what you do and that's all. MR: You don't try to even get close to what
he was doing. RW: No, no, no, you can't do that. You shift into another gear and the next thing
you know it's hot. MR: Well that must have been fabulous. RW: It was. I did that for three weeks opposite him. MR: Was there certain things he would do the
same from night to night? RW: Um hum. I noticed that. He had his little crips and things he would
play. Not that he had to do that but he did. I noticed that a lot of musicians, pianists,
would play the same thing. MR: Well if the singers want the same thing
every night I guess the musicians can play things that they know are going to work too. RW: Well believe it or not there were a few
singers who didn't want to hear the same thing every night. I mean they wouldn't say it but you could
tell by the way they were singing, they wouldn't even sing the same tune the same way every
night which was interesting. But in those days I could do that. I could memorize things quickly. I could play the same thing every night, note
for note. It's a little difficult now. I don't want to do that really, unless it's
an arrangement, but the solos, oh no I can't play the same notes. MR: So you finally decided to come to New
York, was it a conscious decision or did it just kind of-
RW: Well I had been thinking about it. In 1954 I was still working at the Blackhawk. It was like a steady gig. And I was able to take a vacation and come
back to the job. That's how nice these owners were at the Blackhawk. They liked me that much. So I decided I would take a trip east. So I went to Chicago and then I went to New
York, stayed a week, came back to Chicago, went to all the clubs in Chicago. And then I thought to myself well I don't
think I'm ready yet for New York. Plus I had a steady job in San Francisco. And I don't know, I didn't like living in
New York. California is a lot different than New York. And I saw all these old buildings. So I went back. But finally I got tired of San Francisco. I went out on the road with Ella for a short
time, came back and a friend of mine by the name of Wyatt Bull Ruther, he's a bass player,
he was living near Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He had a little gig in a jazz club. And he asked me if I wanted to come out there
and join him. And I said yeah. I had no idea how long this was going to last,
to go that far, 3,000 miles, and then work one week and it's over. But I took a chance, got in my car, drove
mile after mile. MR: Wow. To Ottawa, huh? RW: Well the job actually was in Hull, Quebec,
which is just across the river in the French - in Quebec. A nice little jazz club. So I stayed there for about nine or ten months. But it turned out to be a singer's showcase. It started out as a jazz club but then they
started bringing in a lot of singers, just one after the other. MR: So you became like the house -
RW: That's what we were, the house trio. Then we became a quartet. But we played mostly for singers. Johnny Mathis was even there. This was before he was -
MR: Before he was Johnny Mathis. RW: Yeah. He was just doing a single then, he didn't
even have an accompanist. He was trying to sing jazz then, he really
was, he was doing a lot of stuff. But I played for so many singers there. Now this is after Ella Fitzgerald. Oh I don't know, there were so many jazz singers. It was good experience, very good experience. MR: People in Quebec any different than what
you were used to? RW: Well they were French Canadians. They were all speaking French. MR: Okay that's one big thing. RW: In fact the people that lived around us,
they were all French Canadians, so they would speak to us in French and we couldn't speak
French, so they said okay you're going to have to go to night school, you're going to
have to learn how to speak French if you're going to live here with us. So I did. Wyatt Ruther and I, we went to night school
to try to learn French. And we did pretty good. But right across the river is Ontario. So that was a different scene. Ottawa was altogether different. You know that's the English side. So I don't remember there being any night
clubs or jazz clubs in Ottawa, but most of the jazz clubs were on the French side for
some reason or another, I don't know why. But I stayed up there for nine or ten months,
I made a lot of friends and it was a new life. I really dug it. I really did. There were a lot of Europeans living there
also and they were pretty hip. But then things sort of go down hill. We were getting bored with the whole situation. So finally it collapsed. New Year's Eve, that was the end. Things just went down hill. I was ready to leave anyhow so I didn't care. You can just live there so long. There was not much competition. There was a few musicians who could play,
but- MR: You weren't being challenged. RW: No challenges, no. And I needed that badly. MR: Well you certainly could get that here. RW: Oh, can you ever get it here. I found out, that's for sure. But anyhow I went on the road with Carmen. I left Ottawa and went with Carmen. I went to Chicago and a few other places with
her and it was nice. I ended up in New York. So she decided to stay in New York for a little
while. And I made some things with her around the
New York area. And then I left. I was supposed to be going back to California
but I decided not to. I had to start somewhere. MR: Yup. Late 50s then. RW: This is '58. The winter, like February of '58. And the union wouldn't allow me to work because
I came in on a transfer, in those days you had to transfer. You had to resign from your original local
and join outright. I didn't want to do that, so I had to wait
three to six months before I could work anywhere. They could let me work a few places, in Harlem
or Brooklyn or something. MR: Nothing steady, right? RW: No, no, no steady, no. MR: Has that changed? RW: Oh yeah. MR: I mean they were very powerful at the
time, weren't they? RW: Very powerful. They would call to make sure that you were
still living at whatever address you gave them, make sure you didn't go out on the road
with a band or whatever. You had to stay in the city. Those were more dues. MR: Did you find a day gig? Something to tide yourself over? RW: No. Believe it or not I didn't. I don't know how I managed that because it
got so bad that I had to sell my car, which I hated. I said oh no, I have to sell my car. But the parking situation was so bad in New
York. I had so many tickets. MR: Some things never change, huh? RW: I didn't even understand alternate side
of the street parking. I read the signs but I said why am I getting
all these tickets? Finally I said okay, just sell the car, public
transportation is good, the subway and the buses. So I did. So I got a little money for that. It didn't last long though. MR: Do you remember what you were paying for
your rent back then? RW: Ten dollars a week. MR: Ten dollars a week. RW: For a room. MR: Is it like a rooming house? A boarding house? RW: Yeah, right. Ten dollars a week. That wasn't too bad. MR: But you probably didn't have a piano to
play on either, did you? RW: Well no. But I was staying, I remember I was staying
up in Harlem near the old Polo Grounds. And there was a jazz club right across the
street from where I was living. So I went over there, I used to go over there
in the afternoons so I talked to the owner, I spoke to him, he said he had a room upstairs
where he had private parties and dancing with a piano. And I said could I come in the afternoon and
practice. He said sure. But the next thing I knew there were several
other piano players up there practicing. I said oh wait a minute. The name of that club was Brankers. I never will forget it. It was sort of an organ house downstairs in
the main room, they featured organ players. So there was no piano in there. But at least it helped, to practice. So I stayed there a while. Then I finally went to Philadelphia. The union finally allowed me to leave town,
or do whatever I wanted to do. MR: You started working with a great list
of fellas. Jerome Richardson, Mingus, Roy Haynes. Were these like one night things kind of? Pick up gigs? RW: Well first of all Jerome Richardson, I
knew him in California. MR: That's right, he came from there too. RW: In fact we both lived in Berkeley. And I lived around the corner from him. So he got some groups together and we'd play
weekends, whatever. And so I knew Jerome. Roy Haynes, I met him in California when he
was with Sarah Vaughan, so when I came to New York we sort of hooked up together and
worked some different things, trios, quartets. And Mingus, I knew him from California. In fact I worked with him in California, in
San Francisco. He organized a small group, a quartet, and
we opened up a new jazz club in San Francisco. It didn't last long though, the club. Flopped quickly. And I made a couple of records with Mingus
out there. MR: 1959, late 50s, early 60s, rock & roll
was starting to obviously be on the scene. Were you required to play some of that kind
of music on club dates and so forth? RW: Yeah. MR: Yeah? What kind of things would you play? RW: Rhythm & blues. I played for some of these, we called them
bird groups. MR: You called them bird groups? RW: Because they had names like The Orioles
and the this and the that. That's why we called them bird groups. But they had rhythm & blues. I played for some of them in San Francisco
even. MR: Yeah? RW: Yeah. MR: I know Jerome said he had done some - he
sometimes sang and did some of that kind of thing too. RW: Gink-gink-gink-gink-gink-gink-.. But it wasn't going to last forever so you
made those too. I remember in San Francisco I worked with
Mel Torme, he came in so we got a band together to play for him. Of course he played piano also and drums. That was interesting. He wrote all of his own arrangements. Some of them were a little difficult. They were in difficult keys. You would think - being the good range he
had, pretty good - it didn't matter a half step this way or a half step that way. But he wrote them, oh boy, but it was okay. The band was good. MR: You got familiar with the black notes
again. RW: Oh yeah. The band was good. They could read anything so. Cab Calloway, I worked with him in San Francisco. MR: Do you
recall the first recording date in New York that you made? RW: In New York. I think it was with Jerome Richardson. It was called "Roamin' with Richardson" for
Prestige. And
that particular date I think the coordinator, somebody by the name of - oh I can't think
of his name - he got me on a lot of other dates for Prestige. That one date I did with Jerome did it, really. I got more calls from Prestige to do more
dates. And as a result I did this date with Etta
Jones, "Don't Go to Strangers." And that luckily, fortunately, turned out
pretty good. MR: It's curious when a record like that takes
off. I'm wondering when you recorded it, did it
make a particular impression on you? RW: No. Well usually I would go to a date and I would
play it and then I didn't think anymore about it because it seems like it would take them
forever to release the record anyhow. By the time they released it I'd forgotten
all about it really. I knew we did a good job on that, considering
we, in those days you'd just go in the studio, there was no rehearsal, the A&R man as they
were known in those days, would bring in some sheets of music and in the case of a vocalist
you may have to transpose the sheet and make up the arrangements on top of it, in six hours. MR: They could do an album in six hours. RW: Six hours or less. And that's a lot of pressure. We did it though. Everybody did. MR: So you'd be at the piano and the singer
would come over and let's try this, and well can we do it-
RW: Well the singer usually, well in the case of Etta Jones, she knew the tunes, she knew
the keys, I think she did, and we would get it together and decide on the changes, quickly,
very quickly. Figure out an intro, endings, and the solo,
and that would be it. Some of those things we did were just one
take. I think "Don't Go to Strangers" was just one
take. MR: Do you recall who also was in the rhythm
section? RW: Oh yeah. Roy Haynes, George Duvivier, Skeeter Best
on guitar and Frank Wess on tenor and flute on that record. George was very good, George Duvivier. He really organized it good for that date. It really came off very good. He just said okay, this is how we're going
to do it, and blah, blah, blah. And I'd make up some intros, we all made our
little contributions and before you knew it five hours was up, or six. MR: And what did a record date pay back then? RW: I don't remember. It's hard to say. MR: Would that be a thing where you would
go to the union office at some later date- RW: To pick up the check? MR: To pick up the check? RW: Right. The union wouldn't send you a notice that
your check, or any checks, were there unless you had so many, like some of the musicians
who did recording work every day, but they would call you perhaps, but usually you'd
have to call them. And usually, "no, we don't have anything for
you yet, no" and three or four months had gone by it seemed like. MR: It might be easy to forget who actually
owes you. RW: That's why I forgot what we played. So one day I was working at Minton's Playhouse
up in Harlem and on a jukebox I heard this record "Don't Go to Strangers," and it was
Etta Jones. So I said sounds familiar, I thought to myself. Months later, and it was a hit. I didn't even know it was a hit at the time. I checked it out and sure enough, that was
the record I was on. I said wow, a hit. Of course the record company didn't tell me
that, no man. MR: And it didn't make any difference what
money you were going to make off it anyway, did it? RW: No there was no money, no royalties, no. Well you know how that goes. They made a lot of money on that record. One of the few hits. That was a million copy hit I guess. MR: I know she was still singing it in the
latter part of her career too. RW: I know she was. MR: Yes indeed. RW: Well I saw her, in fact I was on her final
recording session. MR: Was that the tribute? RW: To Billie. MR: To Billie, yeah. RW: Or whatever it's called, "Lady Day." Yeah. That was a pretty good record. Have you heard any of it? MR: Yeah. RW: She was singing very well. She loved to sing. So I think that I was on her first hit - it
wasn't her first record but the first hit - and then her last. MR: That's wonderful. Can you tell me about Roland Kirk, a little
bit about him? RW: Well I worked with him a few times and
I did a record with him. "We Three Kings" I believe it's called. On the recording session that was the first
time that I'd ever heard him or seen him. I'd heard about him but I'd never heard him
before I saw pictures of him playing the three saxophones or three instruments at once, but
I didn't know really what to expect. So I think Jerome Richardson got me on that
date somehow. Quincy Jones was still living in New York
and I think he was running the jazz sessions for Mercury Records. So I showed up. There were two bass players that showed up. Ray Brown was one of them, and Art Davis was
the other. So there was a mistake so Ray told Art, no,
no, you make it. Charlie Persip was the drummer. I still didn't know what to expect. So Roland Kirk Rahssan, as he was known, passed
out some music or had somebody pass it out, and we ran it over and recorded it. But to hear him play those instruments like
that, I said wow, man, this is really - and he, there was no fluke, it was no novelty,
he was serious about it, and he played those instruments. It came out pretty good. I couldn't believe it. But I was only on one side of the record. The other side was a different rhythm section. Hank Jones and oh I forgot who else. MR: He was quite a force of nature almost. RW: But then I worked with him - I worked
with him at the Vanguard a few times and it was loose, very loose. He was something. That's all I can say oh boy, blowing his whistles
and things. Boy his mind was going a mile a minute. MR: Did you ever feel like you were on a roller
coaster or something? RW: Yeah. Exactly. But it was happy. It was very happy. I was smiling all the time. MR: Excellent. What's your favorite thing to do out of the
things you've done, you've done some Broadway shows, you've worked with all these great
people. Is it possible to pin down what you really
like to do - whether solo piano or small group? RW: Oh now I'd say small group, trio, duo
even, and solo. I played in a few big bands, not that many. But a big band is really not my thing. The pianist, unless he's a leader, get buried
there somewhere. There's not much room for solos. Actually solo or duo, trio and horns, I like
a quartet on down. No larger than a quartet, because everybody
gets a chance to play in a quartet and that way, in a quartet I can comp, which I like
to do. I really enjoy comping, just laying it down. MR: Who is on your first call list of bass
players. If you line up a duo gig, and who can I call
for this, who do you like to get? RW: Well I like to get Lisle Atkinson. I usually call him first when I get some work. We have a good rapport. We've known each other and we've played together
for many, many years. He has good ears, good facility, and he knows
a lot of tunes. And that really means a lot. And I love him. And he's very dependable. I don't have to worry about him being late
or not showing or something. He's always there, always, and that means
a lot. I don't know, there are a lot of people that
I've thought about through the years, bass players, that's hard to say. Record dates, that's a different thing. Most of my records I've used Peter Washington
and Kenny Washington. The Washington guys. MR: They're quite popular these days, aren't
they? RW: They are very popular. MR I understand that you used to play on top
of the World Trade Center, a club up there? RW: Windows on the World. MR: Yeah. Was that a steady gig for you for a while? RW: It was, it was. I was doing a thing with a trio, guitar, bass
and piano but no drums. Al Gafa on guitar and Dave Shapiro on bass. So we played anything we wanted to play. People didn't care what we played. It was supposed to be jazz though, so we played
everything. We'd just bring music and play things we'd
never played before. No one was listening anyhow. MR: But you had the view. RW: Oh yeah. It was sort of a hard gig because we played
short sets, I think we played something like eight sets a night. We might play a ten minute set then we'd play
a twenty minute set and it made the night so long. And there was no place to go. We'd have a booth that we'd usually sit in
and sometimes if it got crowded in there we'd have to vacate the booth and just stroll. Walk around. One night I tried to take the elevator and
go all the way down to the street level to go to the bar and have a drink and straight
back, and I didn't make it on time. I couldn't make it. I said okay, you can't do that anymore. The prices were so high in the bar, they didn't
give us any kind of a discount or anything. MR: Has your life changed at all since September
11th? RW: Yes I'd say so. My feelings. I thought about when I was working at the
Trade Center, I mean the Windows on the World, which was in the late 70s actually, I thought
to myself what if that had happened when I was working there, or whenever. I became so familiar with those elevators,
up, down, up, down, and express. And I didn't know anyone, we worked at night
you know, the offices were closed at night time, most of them. And it's different, that's all I can say. I watched it on T.V. I'd get up early every
morning and I happened to be watching the news and they switched to this scene of the
first plane, right after the first plane hit, and then they thought it was an accident,
a small plane or something. And then in disbelief I watched this other
plane, this is live now, the second plane. I said oh my God. My wife was still there, I told her come and
look at this, come and look at this. Right away I thought that it was an attack
of some kind. It was no accident. So I just sat there all day for the rest of
the day, watching them show that over and over and over and what happened, the buildings
collapsing and all of that. It was a low point, I'll have to say, in my
life. I haven't been down there to see Ground Zero,
but that whole area down there, wow. MR: Kenny Burrell - you guys had a number
of good years, huh? RW: Had a lot of fun. We traveled coast to coast driving. In those days we didn't fly, we drove. And usually everyone in the group, it was
usually a quartet, and everybody would drive you know. It was a lot of driving. But all the instruments and the luggage, drums,
bass, everything, in a station wagon. And we're driving coast to coast, but we didn't
drive straight through because there were a lot of places in between, like we'd stop
in Kansas City, Oklahoma City, and even in Texas at a few jazz clubs. So it wasn't a straight shot. We didn't have to just drive. But we'd go to California and stay two or
three months. There'd be enough clubs between Los Angeles,
San Francisco, to stay. And we'd stay two weeks at least in each club. And Los Angeles had quite a few clubs in those
days, maybe three or four or five clubs, and we'd make them. We worked at Shelly's Mannehole and opposite
Shelly and his men, it was a lot of fun, it really was. Those were the days. MR: You've gone through your whole life as
a musician. That's saying something. RW: I've never done anything else, since I
was in high school. I had some jobs that I did, summer jobs. I worked at a shipyard, all sorts of factories
and canneries, but this was just during the summer. I hadn't planned on doing that forever. But I haven't done anything else since. Nothing. I got kind of close, though, I thought to
myself. MR: Yeah. Which were the tough years? RW: All of them. MR: All of them? RW: No I'm only kidding. No. The first year of course, waiting for the
union to give me a break. Mid-60s I guess. I think that's one reason why I went out on
the road with Kenny Burrell, because things were kind of slow here in the city. So I decided well this will give me a chance
to get to California to see your family. My mother and father were still there then,
and other relatives and friends. So I'd come to California maybe twice a year,
which was great. But all of that's over with. There aren't many clubs. Minnesota we even went to. MR: Wow. I hope it wasn't in the winter. RW: Oh no, no winter, no, no. MR: Well I promised I would play a couple
of pieces that you're on and see if you can recall the session. RW: Oh I know what that is. That was with Oliver Nelson. Right. MR: Right. Nice record. RW: Those were nice. We got through those quickly. I remember we used to do them second take
at least, no further than that on all these things that I did with Oliver. But he wrote in such a way that it wasn't
that complicated, it wasn't difficult and we used to do it. I hate to have to do a lot of takes in a recording
session. MR: Yeah. They don't get better, right? RW: No, they start going down hill after a
while. That's a good record. MR: Yeah. Here's something a little more recent. MR: Do you listen to your records at home? RW: Sometimes. But I'm not - sometimes I
listen to them in the car but - MR: This is swinging man. With Warren Vache. RW: Is that what this is? MR: Yeah. It's called "Horn of Plenty." Does that ring a bell now? Okay. RW: I'm trying to think who's playing saxophone. MR: I can't remember. Houston Person I think. RW: Is he on that one? MR: Yeah I think so and Joel Helleny. Does it make you want to go listen to it? RW: That was a pretty good record. Is "I Can't Get Started" on that? MR: I believe so. I believe there's "Struttin' with some Barbecue"
on that. A nice session. RW: It did turn out pretty good. MR: If you had advice for a young aspiring
musician these days, trying to break into the jazz business, do you have anything you
can offer? RW: Well they have to have some kind of direction
of course. You have to know what you really want to do
because there is no place to even practice your craft. There's no clubs for local musicians, not
many. How do you learn how to play? In school? Like at the Berklee School of Music or some
other kind of conservatory? And it gets tough. I don't know what to tell - I've thought about
it myself, if I were just starting now what would I do, what would be my approach? I don't know. I really don't know. I don't want to sound like I'm discouraging
anyone but I'd have to think long and hard about it, I really would and I'm being honest
about it. What direction would I go in? Would I want to be a teacher, an educator? A film writer or whatever? I don't know. MR: Some guys end up doing all of those in
order to make ends meet I guess. RW: I know, I know. I don't know. I wish I had the answer. I don't know what I would do. I don't know if I'd even get into this business
if I were just starting, I don't think so. There was so much happening when I started,
oh man, it was alive, it was thrilling, just even at the beginning, when I was in high
school, it was great. I couldn't wait to get out to even go to the
strip joints and play. But I don't know, things have really changed. MR: Well you came a long way from the strip
joints I must say. RW: I hope so. MR: You did, a real long way. And I've really enjoyed talking with you today,
and I wish you the best and I hope that we are in town sometimes when you're playing
somewhere. RW: I hope so, I hope so. I guess I'll never be up your way. MR: You never know. RW: You live in Utica? MR: Yup. Right outside Utica. Not a lot of clubs there either, unfortunately. RW: I'm trying to think the last time I worked
- I never worked in Utica - but Rochester. MR: Rochester and Syracuse you might have
been. I think I told you I saw you in Syracuse with
Major Holly. RW: Right. Yeah I worked with Major up there and some
other place too right off the Thruway, I forgot the name of it. Rochester, yeah, there used to be a club called
Back Stage. Is that true? MR: I think so and there was the Pythod Room. RW: There, yeah, the Pythod, I remember that,
the Pythod, long ago. MR: Right. Well thanks for your time today. I'm most appreciative. RW: A pleasure indeed, I enjoyed it.
