Steve Kuhn's Stories Of Scott Lafaro, Stan Getz, and John Coltrane

so uh ladies and gentlemen today I have the wonderful opportunity to sit down with one of my favorite piano players and a real great cat on the scene Steve Kuhn now Steve I don't know yeah I know you don't have too much time but I want to talk about some history because you're a great part of history you've worked with some real legends and for young musicians such as myself any stories that you have to share are real gems for us so some of the people that mean a lot to me include John Coltrane and Scott laughs are oh so almost two people I'd like to talk about first I'd like to talk about the farro and I know you've studied at the London School of Music and probably got a chance to be around Elevens a little bit but how did you get in touch with Scott and how do you work with Scott because he was such a talent on this it was after the Lenox School in 1959 I graduated from Harvard and what got a scholarship to the Lenox school summer that year and then I in September that year I went to New York at some point I don't know somewhere in lake 59 I don't remember I met Scotty just you know musicians that you made you hear about this one on that one I don't remember where we met her anything like that but I remember hearing a lot about him I know he was working with Booker little at the time oh five spot I I met them there we just I think we must have play a little bit together I don't remember but it was an instant connection for me just in terms of its what he heard and how I reacted to what he played and vice versa yeah there wasn't he was an extraordinary talent and you know what these into installed generation and base yeah yeah definitely I mean edits and that's extraordinary because he really didn't start playing the face till English 18 and 19 years old and he was tragically left us at 25 very tragic pageant in a period of five or six years of trinary what he did yeah and he was like a big brother to he was two years older than I am we I think in 1961 Stan gets contacted Stan was living in that part was Sweden at the time and he wanted to come back and work and he called touch with Scott and said I'd like you to work with me and Scott he said well if I could put a trio together and I'd like them and so he called me and he called beat LaRocca Wow and we met with Stan at the Village Vanguard one afternoon Sunday afternoon and we played together and stand hired us just like that so that was the beginning of that relationship with Scotty we had been some playing before but with Stan and it was more steady he he was a very strong-willed person he knew what he liked you know the good life but we did with the first job we had with Stan was at a place in Chicago on the south side the Sutherland lounge we were there for two weeks and at the end of the two weeks Scotty was not happy with the Verona because you know he was hearing symbols he wasn't hearing even promise Scotty was very sensitive so he said to stand you know and he was also working with Bill at the time so he's back yeah it was between bill and Stan it's me he said to stand if not merely I've been having trouble with Pete Stan said well you want me to get another drummer and he said well if you want me to stay yes who Roy Haynes Wow so Stan I avoid hate well that was the group until Scott was told the Alexa in July of that year I was assistant one hard mean it must have been well we were we were working upstate New York one week and Scott had taken that week off because he's from upstate New York and he was helping his mother moved to California some members of his family I don't know so he took the week off we were working up in Saranac Lake historic the phone rings eight nine o'clock in the morning and Stan says the choke lasers just called him and he heard on the 8py Associated Press but jazz bassist on the farm was killed on a relaxing meal and I'm half asleep I said are you out of your mind I'm seriously and sure enough Wow we were close enough where we will work after who's Jimmy garrison took its place for that week look close enough so we could drive to the funeral it was casket was closed because he was burned so badly in the axle wow that's hard it was I couldn't believe and really for me that was the first major loss in my life in terms as we were like brothers yeah to this day I'm still in touch with his sister she wrote a wonderful corporate box not a phone you never know anything better Texas University of Texas press about his life get it if you love to do that she lives in Los Angeles Eileen Fernandez I was yeah it's very talented you know I had a similar thing happened to me with a friend I died 21 accident you know it's hard but thanks for that just want to talk a little bit about full training was like a promise you tell us a little bit about how you started working with Coltrane and some some history of the culture while I was working with my first name to New York I had met at the Lenox school Kenny Dom was one of the teachers up there I met him there and when I came to New York I called I checked into the Bryant hotel which is at 54th and Broadway which is a block and a half an awesome the original Birdland yeah and I called people I had home from when I was living in Boston and also people I'd met at Lenox yeah Kenny was one I called and I said I'm here if you hear if anybody needs a piano player and he said well as a matter of fact he was looking for somebody because be honest and I don't remember but he had a job out of Brooklyn the place called the turbo Village in bed-stuy okay and he hired I worked out with with Kenny worked with him until I had heard that Coltrane was - John was leaving Miles his man and he was looking to put a group together yeah so out of the blue and I'm basically really shy I call I got his number and I called him and I said I know you don't know who I am but I'm Carly working with Kenny gone I'd love we could just hit together sometime - just talking play some music or something yeah so he a few days a week went for I don't remember he must have asked around about me and he called me one day about Brian's hotel and he said I got a studio a couple of blocks from here let's meet in the studio they had an upright piano a couple of chairs a small room - and we got together and we played a little together and talked that was it nothing was said yeah your name a week or so later he calls me at the hotel and he asked me if I would come out where he was living in Hollis Queens he was married to my email yeah yeah at the time the song that's like took the subway out through Hollis Queens mainland ate dinner for us again we've sat and talked and played her team that he drove me back to Brian's hotel still nothing yes sir and then about a week or so later it's from the fall leaves of the Brian and oc2 John and I'll never forget this he said put on $35 a week the old game start wow I was making after the week with Kenny yeah I mean aside from it rather than just the chance to play with him of course he had been put in a club called the Jazz gallery in New York and I think it was suited with two weeks of four weeks out of my memory because everybody was he was leaning miles it was very hot at the time so we started working there and four weeks made one into six eight he wound up working engine 26 weeks straight Wow unheard of a half a year they said if life is nice a week I was I lasted eight to ten weeks and then McCoy Tyner joining the band help you but those eight or ten weeks on the beat the Roco was the drummer and Steve Davis from Philadelphia I think their cousin jobs with the basis yeah but it was extraordinary I never I never experienced that kind of electricity on the bandstand before Wow literally in his soul in the middle of his solos people would be standing up as a mature community or they were clapping he was screaming Cara unbelievable fantastic I know it's been a dream come true to work with him and extraordinary any any like any statement he said to you at any point in time that stands out or I was not happy I was 21 at the time I was not I'm sorry 23 okay 1961 yeah I was trying to find my own voice and I was really not happy with what I was doing am i during the period I was with him I said John there's anything you'd like me to do when I'm not doing or some things that I'm doing that you don't want learn again I'll never forget he said I respect you too much as a musician to tell you how to play really but there are things that people when I heard McCoy with him I really liked McCoy sought to lay down a carpet for him off of which he could spring and a lot of times I was out there with him improvising and trying to just so it was in a way probably getting in his way okay I mean I was doing the toppling the traditional copy but also I was doing other things trying to find my own voice excuse me but dudes and he was very interested in 20th century contemporary classical music at the time so he and I was into a lot of that stuff so he was always asking me about Carlos car line stopped our cosmic alignment okay Pierre Boulez it's a Greek sanaka contemporary composer a lot of mathematics involvement but he was very interested in what was going on in schools yeah so and I you know as much as I could tell him which isn't that much but he was very interested and I saw him a couple of times after I left and then I went to live in Sweden and every song I was living in Sweden I heard it was a time just those 18 months or whatever it was always he was really the first well I shouldn't say that the second person I met him in the business come too sure it was at first yeah I'd met at Lennox in 59 and then John who had such a complete devotion to the music they weren't interested in drinking or getting jobs as straight as a pin at that time he persisted by when he wasn't eating or sleeping he had the horn in his mouth the Gunther had the same kind of dedication to them you it was it was very inspiring to be around they weren't chasing women and doing drugs and it was really it was their will yeah exactly John had an addictive personality obviously because he had some issues prior to that so I always remember that he that's he had a sweet tooth and he would be by these butter rum life savers and he'd be constantly popping them in his mouth and you can always smell it been talking to them it's the part of wrong but not anybody never said much he acquired something that involves Scotty well there was one blue which Stan gets in 1961 and John was still doing some yet some things that miles he had to do he couldn't get out of it completely and so we were following them miles would be in Los Angeles and then we would play the same well then they went to San Francisco they played and then he followed them so there was in San Francisco there's one time there's an overlap yeah we got there baby early but we were all staying at the same hotel and I remember Scottie and I walking in the moat outside the motel and we passed by John's room and John's practicing the course and we just stood there outside his door listening practice which was mesmerized yeah and the scottie plate would had a chance to play with him till a little bit if he was he like Scotty very much yeah that's the listen to somebody practices that's that's that's such a a naked experience almost like you're watching a naked woman get undressed he did he like you guys yeah do you like to hear you guys like did he did he check in on you guys sometimes when you guys were not that I'm aware of but miles did that with with Scotty just walking by and we hear the horn let me just stop and it's playing I don't know yeah you know Rabi told the story once about John sitting down at the traffic light playing flute he wouldn't move until you finish playing what he worked out called traffickers and he was sitting there he couldn't you couldn't move until he had finished it it's the right one you know Steve thanks so much for sharing that with us you know that's such a important thing for us who us musicians who want to get all close to these legends of this music and you are a giant to walk them on Giants so you know thank you for for sitting down with us before I finish could you just tell us for young musicians and Janice or jazz musicians who are watching this what's one important piece of advice that you'd like to share with us before we finish it's a very difficult being a musician or an artist of any kind thank you for whatever it's a very very difficult difficult life having said that if it's in your heart of hearts to do it you've got to just follow you gotta go love it and at some point you may realize well this is really not for me or this is for me and you just continue it's it's a it's not an easy road oh but it really depends a lot of times during the third along the way I was tempted to just give it up and do something else because it was hard it still is to a certain extent but back in the basement in my 20s it was really difficult and there's a lot of temptation a lot of a lot of drugs around in those days and just fortunately I did my share but I was able to get out of it completely that's very good news but if follow your heart follow you listen to your heart and at some point you'll know whether this is what you want to do and you have to support the music to buy I did a number of years of playing commercial jobs studio work and stuff like that playing for private parties yeah he just thought and teaching a lot of I still teach privately but no you just it's very hard to do to make a living I had made a decision many years ago not to get married because unless I was with a woman who was financially independent I couldn't support a family and I didn't want to have that pressure so consequently I got married when I was 50 Wow and it but it lasted only for four months but that was I figured I'd try it well yeah that's any case that's a story for another time I'm sure yeah it's it's really it's a difficult life but again if it's if you feel it this is what you want to do you've got to go all out yeah well Steve thanks so much man I'm very welcome planning you thanks for sitting down with us it was a real pleasure and I'm sure we'll cross paths again hopefully I hope if I pick you thank you

Channel: JONAH JONATHAN

Views: 20,057

Rating: 4.9526629 out of 5

Keywords: Steve Kuhn (Musical Artist), Scott LaFaro (Musical Artist), John Coltrane (Saint), Jazz, Stan Getz (Musical Artist), Band, Interview, Jonah Jonathan, Jazz Musician's Voice, Legendary, Musician (Occupation), Roy Haynes, Pete LaRoca, Kenny Dorham, Lenox School Of Music, Bill Evans, Trio, Piano

Id: TX17vkuV5x0

Length: 19min 20sec (1160 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 17 2013