We're filming today for the Hamilton Jazz
Archive and we're in California and we're also in musician's heaven, because today we
have two giants of jazz music - Mr. Gerald Wilson and Mr. Snooky Young, who between them
have accounted for some of the greatest recordings of trumpet music and also some of the greatest
compositions and arrangements, and it's a real pleasure to have you gentlemen here. Welcome. GW: Thank you. SY: Thank you. MR: Before the cameras were rolling we got
a taste of some history between these two gentlemen, and I want to ask you what you're
doing right now though. You said you're busy, I know you're busy. SY: Actually, I'm just freelancing. I've been out of work now for three years,
but I'm not unhappy about that. MR: You're filling in the time I bet. SY: Yeah. MR: You're with the Tonight Show Band here
tonight, and various other projects I bet. SY: Sure. MR: Gerald? GW: Well I've been out of work for ten years. No I'm just kidding. I'm doing fine. I'm going into my fifth year on the faculty
at UCLA, which I'm very happy about. I enjoy my work there. And my band is doing just good. We play concerts. We don't play all the time, but we play good
concerts. We've just played The Playboy a few months
ago, a couple of months ago, and last year this time Snooky and I were getting ready
to go to Chicago to play the Chicago Jazz Festival together there with my band. And we made an album in between, right Snooky? SY: That's right. GW: And so I'm really busy. I'm doing really good. MR: It's wonderful to see our elder-statesmen
of jazz really carrying it on and we're so happy to see you really working out there
like that. A lot of the musicians from your age seem
to start so early. When we think about when you started playing,
today kids are still in high school and they don't know what they're going to be doing. Can you take us back to what got you started
and when you really got out there? GW: I think Snooky should go first because
he was before me. SY: Well I came from a family band. My father and mother were musicians and so
actually when I first went on the road I guess I was about 13 years old. And I started playing way before then even. That was when I was able to go out and play. I went down south and I played with a band,
and I'm sure you know this band, Grim Jackson- GW: Yes. SY: Eddy Haywood Senior-
GW: Yes. SY: And also Belton Syncopators out of Florida. So now that was before I went with the band
he just mentioned, Chick Carter's band. This was like '32, '33. But I was just a little baby. I was just crawling around there. MR: Amazing. What an education, huh? SY: Not really, I was about 13 years old. MR: Yeah. You were quite old to be playing out. Did you have to continue your schooling somehow? When you say you were on the road-
SY: Well I did, I did. We had a little tutoring when we were on the
road and so then I went on the road for it was about a year. And then I went back home and I went back
to Dayton, Ohio. My whole family was out on the road for about
a year to a year and a half and I had some tutoring while we were out. But I went back home and finished my high
school education anyway, before I ran off from home with a band. Because I was anxious to get - that's what
we did in them days. I imagine you possibly did the same thing
in a sense. MR: What was your musical start from? GW: Well it was kind of like Snooky. My mother was a pianist. She played the piano, she played in the church
and also played in the school. She was a school teacher in a little town
in Mississippi, Shelby. And she started me out teaching me piano when
I was about six. However, I didn't take too well with the piano
at that time because my sister was an excellent classical pianist. My mother could play the piano and my brother
could even play the piano. So I wanted a shiny horn so I talked them
into getting me a trumpet a little later on when I was about 11 or 12. I stuck with that for a while and finished
grammar school where my mother taught in Shelby, and then I had to leave the little town to
go to the nearest city that had a high school that I wanted to go to which was Memphis,
Tennessee, which was only 80 miles from Shelby. So I went to school a couple of years in Memphis
studying the trumpet and music with the professor there, Professor Love, and people at the Manessa
High School, where Jimmie Lunceford was a teacher at one time by the way. And I spent a couple of years there and then
I happened to be lucky to go to the World's Fair in 1934 and I had never been north, and
it was such a great difference in Chicago than it was in Memphis or Shelby. And when I got back home I just heckled my
mother to death, I said, "you must send me to the north." And she says, "well I can't send you to Chicago
but I can send you to Detroit, Michigan." Which was better because they had a better
music school in Detroit than they did in Chicago. They had one of the greatest music schools
in the world in Detroit. I studied - my trumpet teacher was Mr. Clarence
Burn, who was the head of the music department. His son was Bobby Burn, who replaced Tommy
Dorsey with the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra at the age of 16, and his brother Don, who
also played sax. They both joined Jimmy Dorsey's band. And of course I went on to Detroit and that's
when I got there. MR: When did your interest in arranging and
composing start? Was it early on? GW: Yes, very early. My quest to be an arranger and composer started
when I was a very small child, about 10 or 11. I used to sell the Radio Review in Shelby. This was a magazine, a paper magazine that
had all of the radio programs that were going to be on. My brother was an avid jazz fan. He graduated, he and Teddy Wilson graduated
in the same class in 1929 at Tuskegee. And my brother got me very interested in jazz. So we would listen to Duke Ellington and Earl
Hines and Claude Hopkins and all of the bands coming out of New York and Chicago. And I wanted to write music like Duke Ellington
or somebody like that. And I wanted to do that at an early age. MR: Snooky, can you tell us what it was like
as a young man being on the road in some of the various bands that you started with? SY: Actually, what it was like. I was so young at the time I don't recall
too much of it to tell you the truth. I mean when I was with my family and we-
MR: But when you got out with, you know, the bigger bands. SY: Oh when I went out with the bigger bands,
the first big band I went out with after my family band was a territory band out in Chicago,
Chick Carter's band. And it was fun going to that band 'cause all
the guys was, they were all much older than me and so that kind of pulled me along, you
know, 'cause I was anxious and playing pretty well to play with a band like that I think. I had the same experience when I played with
The Wilberforce Collegiates. I didn't go to Wilberforce, but I played with
that college band when I was still in high school, over in Dayton. And so when I went on the road with the bands,
I was so young and so small, they kind of all kind of put me under their wing and kind
of guided me along. That's the way I came along. MR: What was the first group that you got
to play lead with? SY: Well I was playing lead with this band
that I mentioned, Chick Carter's band. And I learned how to play lead in that band. 'Cause I really didn't want to be - I had
no idea I was going to be a lead trumpet player. 'Cause I wanted to be Louis Armstrong or Roy
Eldridge or one of those kind of cats. And but when I went into Lunceford's band,
well out of Chick Carter's band, when I went in there, I replaced the lead trumpet player
in Lunceford's band. His name was -
GW: Eddie Tompkins. SY: Eddie Tompkins. I replaced Eddie Tompkins. Well then I think that's when I started really
concentrating on playing lead trumpet. And so from then on I turned out to be a lead
trumpet player. And so I kind of forgot being a Louis or a
Roy or some of them other people, and I started concentrating on being a lead trumpet player. MR: Yeah. But you got your licks in later on. I've got the records to prove that. SY: Well I got a few licks in but I still
was happy, I think I was happier where I finally wound up being a lead trumpet player. Because all those jazz trumpet players, they
was playing so much and moving along so fast. There comes Dizzy, Charlie Shavers, Gerald
Newman, you know, so all of these guys, I just scratched the surface with the names
I called then, you know. And so it didn't disappoint me or anything,
because I just say well, this is my niche so I'll follow it on in to it. I'm glad I wasn't frustrated in not going
that way rather than being an out and out jazz player you see. MR: What was the first significant group to
play your compositions? GW: Well you know I was around Detroit, and
I was very lucky there to play with two or three bands in Detroit. I played with Hal Green's band, it was a nice
band, I also played with a band called Gloster Current. Gloster was a great writer, composer and arranger,
and he had a fine band, a young band. I played with them for a long time. Milt Buckner and his brother Ted were around
Detroit. Milt was doing a lot of writing and got interested
in that real well there. And I played with that band for a while, and
then I was lucky enough to play with the Plantation Club Band, which was the big nightclub in
Detroit. These were all older guys, much older than
I was only about 18 at the time. And they were all McKinney's Cotton Pickers,
Benny Carter, Don Redmond, it was a very famous club. And I played there for a couple of years or
so. And then I read in the paper about this band,
Chick Carter's band from Ohio. I knew Chick, he had worked there at the Plantation
as an entertainer, as a singer before he had the band. And I had read about these guys in the Pittsburgh
Courier and the Chicago Defender, they had been to the Apollo, they were going to play
in Chicago and all the big cities, and I said I'd like to play with a band like that. And they needed a trumpet player by the way. And I left and joined the band, and Snooky
was in the band. That's when we met. MR: That's the first time, huh? GW: Yes. MR: That was what year? GW: This was 1938, 39-
SY 1938. GW: Yeah, even '38, huh? SY: I think it was '38 because -
GW: I think it was '39. SY: '39? GW: Yes. Well that's when we went with Lunceford. Right. Let me put it all together for you. I joined this band, I wanted to go with this
band. I wanted to get on the road, you know, because
I'd been in Detroit going to school since 1934. This was 1939. So I took the job. I quit this great job by the way, high salary
in Detroit for a night club band, and I wanted to go join this young band which I did. They were in Saginaw. And I joined them and we played the weekend,
and the job folded. The job folded. And so I was going to go back to Detroit but
I was ashamed, you know, to go right back so fast you know, so the guys in the band
said, "Gerald, why don't you come on and go to Dayton with us?" And Snooky and them said, "come on and go
to Dayton with us." And I said, "well what am I going to do there?" You know they said, "don't worry, we'll have
a place where you can stay and everything." So it happened. We took a taxicab. Those were lean days. We hired a taxicab to take us from Saginaw,
Michigan to Dayton, Ohio. And so we made the thing, and we went there,
and while I was there I was walking down Fifth Street and passed by the YMCA, is that right? In your home town? SY: That's right. GW: And the guy ran out and says, "hey, what's
your name?" I says, "my name is Gerald, Gerald Wilson." He says, "okay I got a wire in here for you." MR: How did that happen? GW: The YMCA has this wire and it was a wire
from Jimmie Lunceford. Said would you like to join my band? If you would like to join my band call this
number. So we were waiting to play a date, we were
going to battle Erskine Hawkins. We were going to put Snooky on Erskine by
the way. We had him all ready to be chewed up by Snooky. SY: He makes no bones about it. GW: And at the moment it was great because
it was a great thing to see this, because I would have loved to have played with that
band. That was my favorite band. So, but I loved this little band of Chick
Carter's. And I says I'm not going to leave this band. So finally the day came a couple of nights
later and we played this battle of the bands with Erskine Hawkins. And I knew Sammy Lowe and Dud Bascomb and
Jimmy Mitchell and Everett Paris. I knew all of these guys. Over the years I had met all of the bands
that came through Detroit for years. So I was talking with Sammy Lowe, the trumpet
player. And he says, "hey Gerald, you got a wire from
Jimmie Lunceford, he wants you to join the band." I says, "yeah I did." He says, "what are you gonna do?" I says, "oh, I'm going to stay with this band,
this is a great band here." They had some great musicians. They had Ray Perry and Step Horton, and Eddie
Byrd and all these great guys. Sammy Lowe says, "look Gerald, this band that
you're playing with is breaking up as soon as they finish this job tonight. Ray is getting ready to leave for Boston tomorrow." So I says, "really?" You know, I didn't know all this was happening. So I immediately went to the telephone and
called Jimmie Lunceford. And he says, "go down to the station in the
morning and there'll be a ticket there for you and information what to do." And that's how I left Dayton and went on to
New York. SY: Six months later, he had Lunceford send
for me to join the band. MR: All right. SY: Right? GW: Well what happened, and I'll let him get
to you right quick, about six months later, Eddie Tompkins, the lead trumpet player and
this is very good for history too although it's, we didn't know all this was going to
happen. I was singing with the quartet and the trio
because I had replaced Sy and I could do that - I had studied all of that in school. And we were in Washington at the Howard Theater
and we were singing "Ain't She Sweet" you know that number - a big hit for Lunceford. And the quartet finished and Eddie was a member
of the quartet - Eddie Tompkins, Trummy Young, Willie Smith and myself, that was the quartet. When we finished we always stepped back and
we'd take our bow, in an orderly manner, I mean everything was like a routine. And we all went back but Eddie, the trumpet
player, walked out the door and we didn't see him, I didn't see him for weeks later. So they needed this trumpet player real fast. MR: And along came Snooky. GW: Snooky was the man. A few days later Snooky walked into the theater
at the Howard. SY: I was playing with Gerald those few months,
I know that was the cause of it. I know you must have talked to Lunceford. GW: Well I said I knew this trumpet player
that could really play the trumpet. I told him he was one of the greatest trumpet
players I've heard, and he was just a kid. And as I say we put him on Erskine Hawkins. Erskine. Snooky could already play double B flats then. We featured him on the trumpet. He could really play the trumpet. He was a marvelous trumpet player at the time. MR: You know that competition thing and that
battle of the bands and the jam sessions, and I don't know if that happens nowadays. But that must have really inspired players. SY: It did. MR: And made you play better than you thought
maybe you could. SY: Oh, yeah. You probably play better than you ever play
when you ever run across a band. You remember that battle we had at Washington,
D.C. against Gene Krupa? GW: Yeah, and then we had a battle with I
think it was Andy Kirk one night at the Golden Gate Ballroom. SY: Golden Gate Ballroom. GW: But the Lunceford band was so tough that
we weren't worried about any band. We just weren't worried about any band because
we didn't even bother to take out our music when we played the battle of the bands because
you only played, you know you played a set, and we wouldn't even have any bandstand. We'd just come in and do our thing. If you would notice the Lunceford band, they
had it right from the trumpets, they had trumpet, flugelhorn and the little French trumpets. They had, oh, they were a tough band. SY: A lot of people don't know that, but Lunceford's
band was one of the first bands that had flugelhorns in the band, I would say. GW: Yeah. And the little French trumpet, it's made like
a French horn, but it's a B flat trumpet. SY: B flat trumpet that's right. GW: And they played those, they did everything. They had a Glee Club in the band, they had
a quartet, trio. And the first thing you do when you join the
Jimmie Lunceford band, is go and get measured for seven outfits. Shoes, everything was like, you know, like
that. MR: It had to be right. SY: Yeah, I came in with the wrong socks one
day and got a fine. I got a fine. I never wore the wrong socks again. Lunceford looked down, I think we had on white
suits, maroon socks and maroon tie and handkerchief. I think I had on the wrong socks and he saw
that with them white shoes. MR: Wow. That's amazing. Some of the other fellows have been talking
about the difference in band leaders. How Ellington was not, you know, that strict
I guess, to put it nicely. But some of the others, like you say, wrong
socks, costs you money. Yeah. Tell us about your first big band and how
that came about. GW My first big band? MR: Yeah. GW: Well what happened was, it happened, well
I intended to be a band leader from those early days of selling the Radio Review I used
to make my own batons. I thought once I was going to use a baton
in the early days, but I never used a baton by the way. But it happened I was out of the Navy, I had
just gotten out of the Navy in 1945, and Herb Jeffries, the singer, had been with Duke Ellington
and Earl Hines. He wanted to get a band. They wanted him to front a band for this new
night club in Los Angeles here called Shep's Playhouse. So they said well the guy to do it is to get
Gerald, 'cause Gerald's got music. I had plenty of music because I was writing
music for Jimmie Lunceford before I left him and then Benny Carter, I wrote music for Benny
Carter and Les Hite, which Snooky was with. We were with both of those bands. And so I had plenty of music. So I said well you know, in those days, arrangers
did those kind of things, you know. Why you'd write a guy a whole book if he wanted
it, you know. So I was doing it for the money of course. And at the last minute, I got the band together,
picked the people, put them together, Herb's going to front the band, rehearsed them and
everything, and Herb, something came through for Herb and he decided he wasn't going to
front the band. So the guy told me he said, "okay, Gerald,
you take the band, come on into the club." So I went on into Shep's playhouse with a
band. And that was it. MR: Wow. Did you have to get a different singer for
that? GW: A singer? MR: Yeah. Or did you just go with the band? GW: At that time he was going to be singing
of course and, but they had other singers. It was a big show and everything and there
were lots of singers around during those days. There were a whole group of singers that traveled
around so that it wasn't hard to get a singer. MR: Now didn't you work with some other singer
later on? Some guy that used to be a waiter? GW: Yeah, that happened with my band of course. We were, and Snooky was with me at the time. We were together, you know, Snooky and I we
played with Les Hite's band here in Los Angeles. We played with Philfour. We made records with everybody. We played for Warner Brothers and MGM. SY: And for movies. GW: Yeah, and the movies, we was doing it
all. Yes. CBS. We were with Meredith Wilson who had the Army
band thing going there, but he had this thing we used to go. So we were always together, Snooky and I,
playing with these different bands. And in 1945, when I organized it, it only
took us about six months and I was in Salt Lake city for 13 weeks with my band at this
biggest nightclub there, broadcasting. So we made it real quick. We went over to Chicago, went to Dallas, St.
Louis, and came back to Los Angeles. SY: Was that when we went to the Apollo? GW: Yes. We went to the Apollo Theater in '46. SY: Oh was that '46 then? GW: '46 we went to the Apollo. We played the Apollo, then we went to Chicago
and we played there ten weeks. Well the last two weeks. SY: At the El Grotto? GW: Yes, at the El Grotto I didn't have a
singer. So my male singer, he had to go away, he had
to leave. So he said well what are you going to do? The guy that owned the club was Harry Fields. He said, "listen, there's a guy here named
Joe Williams." I said, "well I know Joe Williams," he used
to sing. Well I didn't know him personally, but I'd
heard him sing with Lionel Hampton's band and so I knew he was a fine singer. So he said, "we can get Joe Williams." So he got Joe Williams for us. Joe came in and finished the two weeks at
the El Grotto, then we went directly from the El Grotto to the Club Riviera in St. Louis,
where Ella Fitzgerald was the top draw, and it was my band, and I had Joe singing with
my band. That was a six week engagement, and we were
doing great. Joe was singing, he could sing all the numbers
we had. He was a fine singer then, and he could sing
the same numbers as the guy- MR: That helps, right? GW: Yeah, he could sing all those numbers
of that guy, Dick Gray, was singing. So we had Joe with us, and Joe loved it, of
course being there with Ella Fitzgerald. I remember we battled, our band and Joe, we
battled Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. And you know it was like this all night long. MR: I think you should explain a battle. How did that work, you know? GW: A battle really doesn't mean anything. It's not like Tyson and those guys. MR: Did you play a song and then they played
a song? Or was it a set? SY: No, you played a set. You played about an hour. A four-hour engagement we would play hour
- hour - hour - hour. That's the way it would be. But the people, you know, was there to see
who was going to blow who out. That was the whole idea. GW: But the musicians weren't thinking that
way at all. SY: But that was what they say, the battle
of the bands, it was for the public. You know the public would be looking for,
just like a ball game or something. That was a great band. I loved playing in that band. Gerald's first band. That was your first band, wasn't it? GW: Yeah. I enjoyed it. SY: First band. Gerald could arrange - Gerald could rehearse
a band better than anybody I ever played with. Down through the years. I used to love the way he rehearsed a band. And I played with a lot of them, you know
that. MR: I know that. SY: But he was the best. MR: Was Joe doing - what kind of stuff was
he doing at that time? GW: He wasn't singing the blues, I'll tell
you that. MR: Yeah, I was going to ask. GW: He should have been singing them then. Because that's his niche. I mean let's face it. Joe Williams is one of the great blues singers
of the time. But he also sings a fine ballad too, you know,
and fine jazz songs too, Joe is beautiful. SY: You know I would like for you to remember
when we were with Lunceford's band and we would go into the Regal Theater and Joe Williams
was the stage - I mean wasn't he working in the theater? GW: I don't know. The first time I saw him was with Lionel Hampton
that I remember Joe. SY: Oh, I think this was before Lionel. GW: I didn't know that. SY: He used to tell me that. He used to be backstage when the big bands
would come in and he said he was so thrilled when Lunceford came in. And you and I was his same age - he got a
year on me, or maybe 6 months. GW: Six months on you. Yeah my birthday is coming up in a couple
of days. SY: I'm talking about Joe. GW: Joe Williams? SY: Yeah. He's got about a year on me. We're all about the same age. GW: Oh, that's right. That's right, yeah. SY: We're the same age. MR: About 39, right? GW: 39? Exactly. MR: That's fascinating how the musical chairs
that were going on. You know, people moving from band to band. Tell us how your tenure with Basie came about. SY: Well I quit Gerald Wilson's - but no - I
quit Count Basie's band to join Gerald's band. MR: That's saying something there. SY: The guys couldn't understand that. They say, "where you going?" "Look," I say, "I'm going out to California." They say, "you going to California for what?" I say, "I'm going to join my friend. He's got a band, Gerald Wilson." They said, "are you kidding? You're going to leave Count Basie?" I say, "well we was roommates and close friends
in Lunceford's band" I said, "I'm going to join his band." And that's what I did. I left the Count Basie band to join Gerald
and stayed with him for, I forget, three or four years before I-well that was back down
to war time too, I got caught up, although I was fortunate that I never got, they found
me physically fit and I never had to go in. I never heard from my draft board no more. That's the truth. I wanted to go to Great Lakes where this guy
was, and everybody was at the Great Lakes. GW: We had it all fixed ready for him to come
on in. SY: I thought I was going to Great Lakes,
'cause Willie Smith was up there, Clark Terry was there, Jimmy Nottingham, oh, you can name
all the guys that was up there, Marshall Royal, Ernie Royal. GW: Well they came out here see, that band
started there. They put that band together there, and then
they came out to St. Mary's Prefried out in San Francisco. SY: That's right. MR: You spent two or three periods with Basie,
right? One of which was fairly long. SY: Well the first time I went in Basie's
band was right out of Lunceford's band. I replaced Buck Clayton. Buck Clayton had to have his tonsils out. I had left Lunceford and I wasn't in my home
town just in between whatever might happen. And so they needed a trumpet player to replace
Buck so I went in the band for a month and replaced Buck and so when Buck came back I
went on back home. And then I went to California to join Gerald
Wilson, no, Lee Young and Lester Young. I went to California to join that band. And I didn't like playing in the small band. So I set around there for about a week and
rehearsed with them. I said, no I don't like playing in a small
band, I say, I want to go with Gerald. Gerald was over there with Les Hite's band,
and so I went over with Les Hite. And we was happy. That's what, we were roommates and everything,
you know, in Lunceford's band anyway, you know, we were just like that. So that's how I, let's see, but we went from
that band to Benny Carter's band. Benny Carter took a whole trumpet section. GW: Let me tell about that. SY: You tell him. GW: Listen, you know, we were in Les Hite's
band, which he had a good band. You must remember Les Hite had been to New
York City already. He had Gil Fuller writing for him. Dizzy Gillespie had played in his band. They were a very good band. So when I joined him and Snooky came out and
he didn't want to play with the small group, Les Hite says, "we'll take Snooky on with
us." Well after we left Les Hite's band, Benny
Carter needed a trumpet player so he called me, and he says, "Gerald, I want you to join
my band." I knew Benny from New York, I used to talk
with him all the time, and go around and hear his band rehearse over on Lenox. And I had seen his band that he brought to
California at that time, and I says, "well Benny, I'll tell you what, you need one trumpet
player, why don't I just bring you four trumpet players?" MR: No kidding. The whole section? GW: So he says okay. J.J. Johnson was in the band. But he needed a trumpet section. And we could just play anything that they
had and could play it right now. And we went into Benny Carter's and Benny
Carter's band like shot from here to here. From here to there. And we went in there-
SY: See the trumpet players that he had, I'm going to tell you, I remember it was Miles
Davis. GW: Was Miles in that band? SY: Miles was one of the ones he wanted to
let out. The fellow that married Sarah Vaughan? What was his name? GW: Yeah, Sarah's first husband. He was the manager. SY: Treadwell. George Treadwell, Miles Davis, and I can't
think of the other two, but the whole trumpet section he was unhappy with it. Benny was unhappy with his trumpet section. GW: Yes he was. SY: And that's when Gerald said, it was Fred
Trainer, Williams. GW: Walter Williams. SY: Walter Williams, Gerald Wilson and myself. That was the trumpet section we took into
Benny Carter's band. And also if you'd like to hear that trumpet
section on film, you can hear us in "This is the Army" with a 60-piece Warner Brothers
orchestra, with four trumpets and we are those four trumpets. Yes. MR: Great. I'm interested in if I saw my dates correctly,
you were with Basie for six or seven years at one point and then you left and you came
in? GW: Yeah. Isn't that funny? Who do you think, when I joined Count Basie,
who do you think I was supposed to replace? Snooky Young. Snooky left the band. They were playing someplace, and Basie called
me and he says, "Snooky there had to go back East, Gerald," and I played a couple of days
with him at the Lincoln Theater, see? I think you left and so they didn't have a
trumpet player. So I went and played a couple of days at the
Lincoln, and so Basie said, "well look, Snooky had to go and he's going to re-join us when
we get to Chicago. You come on and go to Chicago with us and
then Snooky will be back." I said fine you know. So I left with the Count Basie Band, which
I loved. I mean let me tell you, that was another great
day for me to be able to join a band like Count Basie, because I was going to get a
chance as a writer to sit where swing had really started. And remember that there was the original rhythm
section, which they called the "All American Rhythm Section," with Walter Page, Jo Jones,
Count and Freddie Green. So for me that was going to be another education
deal. Because I'm going to sit here now as a writer,
I can just observe really what's going on. And what's going on with this swing. Because you must remember the Count Basie
band and Count Basie and that rhythm section, they're the ones that put the word in, the
really meaning into Swing. All bands had to change to that type of rhythm
section. All bands. The Lunceford band would have had to change,
which they had to. Duke Ellington. Everybody. If you're not playing this type of rhythm,
you're not into the newest form of rhythm that would finally take over the world. And because you must remember that bebop had
no rhythm of their own. They had to use that same kind of rhythm in
their first efforts. So it was a great day for me. But Basie had more in mind, by the way, because
when we got to Chicago, Snooky didn't show up. He didn't show up. And I said, you know I thought I was going
to come back home. But he had other ideas. He was also, he also needed a writer at that
time. And I was the man. MR: That must have been a thrill. Is it possible to put into words what that
rhythm section did? GW: Well you know, you remember Jo Jones was
an innovator into drumming. Jo Jones was a real innovator. He had some things going that drummers had
not been doing. Walter Page had been one of the first to start
the walking bass rather than playing the root and the fifth. In other words Boom Boom BOOM Boom. In earlier days, they just played the one
note. Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom. So Page started walking on the chords more
or less. And then of course Jimmy Blanton came in a
little later, but it was all, and Freddie Green, who had you know, nobody can play the
guitar, rhythm guitar, like Freddie Green. To this day. SY: That's right. GW: To this day. He never bothered about a solo. SY: You know when I left Lunceford's band
and getting back to what he's saying, I went directly into Basie's band. And those two bands was night and day. I mean Lunceford's rhythm was a two beat rhythm
thing, you know. And it was great and all like that, but you'd
come out of that and move into Basie's band, I almost felt like I didn't know how to read
music. 'Cause everything was laying so different. MR: Especially for a lead trumpet, right? SY: That's right. MR: Because you've got to be in sync. SY: That's right. And I had to learn how to play with Basie's
band, because, well, can you explain that better than I can? Because it's very difficult, because you asked
a question that kind of hit on that, and I left from one band and went directly into
this band, this swing band what you're saying. And I noticed a difference. But Lunceford had great rhythm and everything,
but it was a two beat rhythm. And so most bands was playing two beats. Not like Lunceford's band did though. GW: Yeah, Lunceford had the two beats. SY: They had the two beats, Lunceford's band. GW: But they had to get that, you know to
play jazz, the ultimate jazz beat is when you're playing four four. MR: Yeah. GW: Yeah. It's the ultimate rhythm. And they had this thing. Jo had it going here, he had it going here,
and it was the thing that all bands needed, and still to this day, I mean the band you
play with now, all bands, you've got to have this. Whether you're playing bebop or not, you know,
whatever. So it was a great education, man. I'd like to tell you I was very lucky with
that band because as I said, Basie really had plans for me to use my playing. They were going into Carnegie Hall for the
first time and he wanted new music because he wanted a new sound. And I wrote, I had eight numbers on his first
Carnegie Hall concert. Also at that time he had a big show. We started it in Chicago at the Regal. I had to write all of these production numbers
for the chorus, and all of that stuff. Chorus girls they had, and dancers and stuff,
and had to write all of that stuff for his band. They played it on Broadway for 16 weeks. And then they did a lot of recording from
it, which have just come out, you know. A few weeks ago, my daughter brought me these
new CDs. I was worried about these things would never
be heard. And they are out now on CD. So I had a great time with Basie's band, I
loved his band. I really - I was with him when he disbanded. I was actually with Count Basie when he disbanded. MR: Was that because of the economics of the
time? GW: Yes. SY: I foreseen it coming, that's why I split. Really. That's the truth. I seen it coming in California and I split. They didn't know where I was. But I had gone home. I mean, I'm a youngster and I didn't pay it
no attention, I said, well I'm going home you know. I packed my things. MR: Back to Dayton? SY: Yeah. I stayed for ten years. Almost a mistake. MR: Almost. SY: Almost a mistake. I got out just in time. I will say that. I got out just in time. Because if I'd have stayed another two or
three years I would have lost any desire to get back into the fast company, you see? And it wasn't easy coming back, I'll tell
you that. MR: What was the first fast company you came
back into? SY: Count Basie. And that was when he was the hottest. I mean his next trip around, the comeback. Joe Williams was in the band, you know? And oh, that was, Thad Jones, Joe Newman,
Wendell Culley and myself was the trumpet section. Henry Coker, Al Grey and Benny Powell were
the trombone section. And the reeds was Marshall Royal, baritone
was Charlie Fowlkes, Frank Wess, Frank Foster, and Billy Mitchell. Billy Mitchell. And the rhythm section was of course Freddie
Green, Jo Jones, Eddie Jones and Sonny Payne and Count Basie. And that was his next bad band, I think so
far as, compared to his other bands, people used to try to compare the bands, but I was
in both of them and I don't think it's fair to compare either one. MR: Yeah. They're both great. SY: They're both great. GW: They were both great, they really were. SY: That other band with Prez and all of them,
that was a great band. But that next one he had he was, Basie was
a lucky man. 'Cause he had some of the greatest saxophone
players I believe, to come along. MR: The sound, yeah. SY: First he had Lester and Herschel Evans. GW: Don Byas. MR: Buddy Tate. SY: Lucky Thompson. GW: Lucky Thompson. Yeah. He always had great -
MR: He always had all these great tenors, right? SY: And he had a great lead alto player, Earle
Warren. GW: Earle Warren. SY: People forget Earle Warren. "Smile" they used to call him. He used to smile when he played. He was great, man. GW: He sure was. MR: What was Basie like to work for? GW: Beautiful. Beautiful. I was lucky. I lived in Count Basie's home with him for
about eight weeks. SY: All you had to do for Basie is play. Play. Because he would kind of let you mess up a
little bit, but not too much. He didn't want to be, you know what I mean,
like catch some guys overdoing it and drinking and whatnot. But he'll let you go on and do that 'cause
he like the taste himself a little bit you know, from time to time. But they didn't want you to mess up. He was pretty flexible. He was a nice guy. I loved Basie. GW: Wonderful man. MR: That's marvelous. SY: All the sporting life people liked Basie
too, the racetrack people and all these kind of people, the hustlers and whatnot. They all loved Basie. GW: Sure, he bet on the race horses all the
time. He loved to gamble. SY: They all loved Basie, man. MR: Did you get to go overseas with him? GW: I didn't get to go overseas with him. SY: I made a Command Performance with the
band. We played for the Queen. I think that was the only time that I mean
I think the band did a Command Performance, that was in '59 I think it was. And that was great. That was something to be asked to play before
a Command Performance you know. To go through the whole ritual of it is really
something. MR: As an arranger, when you were trying to
decide who gets the solos - is there a certain, was that your responsibility or was that-
GW: Yeah, well it's your responsibility as an arranger to give the solos to the best
players, to the best soloists. Because if you give it to anything less, it's
just going to, you know, it's not going to do your arrangement any good. MR: That's right. But if you've got two great tenor players,
you know. GW: You really don't have much of a problem. MR: Yeah, I guess not. GW: Not at all. MR: No lack of talent. SY: They might get mad at one another. MR: I was going to say - is there a little
competition for solo space? SY: That doesn't happen but you never know
a guy might say I wish I'd had that solo or something. But that's just the way the cookie crumbles
sometimes. MR: Wow. Let me move on a few years, and Thad Jones
- Mel Lewis band. How did that whole thing come about? SY: Well that band came about, there were
a bunch of musicians in New York that was all mostly doing studio work. And so Thad and Mel come up with the idea. I don't know exactly who came up with the
idea, Conners, a guy names Conners, oh, I forget his name. He lives in - anyway, they got this idea of
putting this band together and to get all the guys that wanted to just play for, you
know, instead of just playing that studio music all the time. So that's how that band formed. And we rehearsed any hour of the night. Any time, the guys would just show up because
they wanted to play what Thad was writing and everything. And so finally they got a gig down at the
Village Vanguard, and we did it every Monday night and so that's where that band went right
to that. But it was just guys that wanted to play. MR: It must have been crowded in there. SY: Yeah. Because everybody was in the studios and things
in New York. I could name, I can't even name- You know
the guys that was in the band? GW: Pepper Adams, Garnett Brown. MR: Benny Powell was in the band, wasn't he? GW: Who? MR: Benny Powell? SY: Benny Powell was in it for a short while. But at first the trumpets, the trombones was
Quentin Jackson, and man it's a shame, my mind is closing up on me. I can't recall these guys names now. MR: Well Jerome Richardson? SY: What's that trombone player that Mingus
hit in the mouth? GW: Oh, Knepper. SY: Jimmy Knepper. GW: It's true. It was terrible. SY: I was working with him when that happened. GW: Really? SY: Yeah. We was working on some kind of concert for
a Town Hall concert. GW: Yeah I remember that incident. SY: Yeah I was working and we was rehearsing
every day. But one day Jimmy Knepper came in, the cat
hit him 'cause he didn't have some music written or something. It was terrible, a trombone player. GW: That is terrible. SY: I hate to put that on the wax but it's
true. MR: Yeah, it's a pretty well-told story. When you settled in L.A. later on, you got
into some other - GW: Well I settled in L.A. when I came out
here when I left Lunceford's band. I settled here then and I've been here ever
since. MR: And your writing has taken you a lot of
different places. GW: Many different places. I've been lucky, I've been lucky. I've written for practically every band that
there was that you can imagine. And my dreams have all been, really, all of
my dreams have come true. I wanted to write for people like Duke Ellington. I wrote for Duke and I wrote for him even
up until the time he died I was still contributing numbers. I worked, I did two concerts at Carnegie Hall
with Al Hirt, and Snooky was on the band then, and J.J. Johnson, we had all those great guys
there. And I wanted to write for the movies, and
I've written for the movies. I wrote for MGM, "Where the Boys Are," "Love
Has Many Faces"; over at Columbia, Ken Murray's "Hollywood My Home Town." I've done TV work. Everything I've wanted to do. I also wanted to write for the symphony orchestra. And one day I got an invitation to write for
the Los Angeles Philharmonic. I composed a number that they performed, and
then I later orchestrated six other things for them and Zubin Mehta conducted all of
my numbers. So all of my dreams, more or less, have been
answered, although I'm still writing today. In fact I was writing yesterday, as my wife
can attest to, and I intend to write until I die. I love to write and I love to write things
that nobody else has heard before. I believe that I can create, I can write music,
I can do it any way I want to now, and so my dreams, like Snooky's have been answered. Snooky's the greatest lead trumpet player. I told him he was going to be - by the way
- I told him he was going to be the greatest lead trumpet player in the world. And that's when he said, no, he wasn't. But I knew he was. MR: Well I got to hear just, the country got
to hear him just about every night for all those years. We, I mean with the Tonight Show. Any particular experiences on that band that
- funny incidences or during your tenure with that TV thing? Something you'd rather not remember? SY: Everything was just so smooth so far as
I was concerned. I just don't remember. I can't recall anything. I just went, it was just like clockwork, the
way that show, well they would put it together and everything. It was just very seldom anything went wrong. But here's a funny little story for you. I was in, this was with the Count Basie days. I was with Basie and Sonny Payne and I used
to hang out after the shows and everything was over, and we was playing the pier there. And Sonny Payne, we was in a bar and Sonny
Payne got a little tipsy, and he had a brand new Chrysler Imperial. And so I says, "Sonny, you done drank too
much, you better let me take this car home." So he say, "okay, Snooky." I took the car on home. The next day Sonny got up and didn't know
he had given me the keys to his car or anything, and reported his car stolen. And I was driving to work the next day and
the cops pulled me over. And I had on the Count Basie uniform and everything. And they said, "this car was reported stolen." I said, "stolen?" I said, "I didn't steal this car." I said, "this belongs to the drummer in the
band." I said, "he was too high last night so I'm
driving his car." They said, "we're taking you to jail. We don't believe it." They took me to jail, and it's true. First time I was ever arrested. And so they called Count Basie. And Basie told him, say, "yeah, that's all
right." So they let me out. And so I get back to the show. I missed that show, but I played the second
show. They got me out in time for me to play the
second show. After the show as over and I was getting ready
to leave, Sonny and I was going out to have a good time again, and Basie saw me and Sonny
leaving the theater and he says, "hey Snooky, ain't you had enough of Sonny Payne yet?" I says, "he's right." That's a true story. MR: I hope it's not still on your record. SY: He did do that he did. Well you know, he didn't know where his car
was. MR: Well this has been a marvelous conversation. I know you have to work fairly soon I think. Anything else that you'd like to add before
we wrap up here? GW: I think we've about covered everything,
huh? SY: I think so. MR: We could probably do another hour. But, I'm going to thank you guys for your
music over the years and it's great to see such camaraderie with the stuff you've created. SY: I'm very happy to be friends with this
guy for so many years, and we're still friends, and he's still producing music and it's greater
than ever. I have to say that. And I love playing his music and I always
have, always will, and he's still writing. He's something else. Gerald Wilson is something else. I really mean that. GW: This is my friend. MR: Thanks so much on behalf of Hamilton Jazz
Archive and Gerald Wilson and Snooky Young. Thanks for being with us today. SY: Thank you, Monk. GW: Thank you.
