We are here on behalf of the Hamilton College
Jazz Archive. My name is Monk Rowe, this is Michael Woods, and today we have one of the
best known trombone players in jazz - Mr. Urbie Green is with us to talk about his experiences
in jazz. Welcome. UG: Nice to be here, thank you.
MR: It's a nice setting, we're on the Royal Caribbean, and Urbie will be playing a set
tonight. And we'd like to start off, we've had some really interesting talk about how
people got started in the music business. Some players happened to fall into circumstances
that changed their whole lives; some people kind of had to work for years and years before
they found their niche. I wonder if you'd like to talk about that.
UG: Well just that part's a long story. Let me think how I can cut it short. Let's see,
how I got into music? MR: Yeah.
UG: Well I was one of five children and we had a mother that played the piano a little
bit, and so she started each one of us with the basics of playing the piano. My brother
Al was about, let's see, I started when I was about five I guess. We all started about
that same age. And my brother Al, who was the second child in the family, was the first
one that really got into the professional category of music. And it was about in the
mid 30's, I can't remember exactly what year it was. We grew up in Mobile, Alabama, and
that was right in the middle of the depression, the Great Depression, and things weren't so
hot down there, I mean financially anyway, and it was pretty hard otherwise. We decided
to go to California. So we drove out to California, all us kids and my mother, although my father
and my oldest brother stayed back in Mobile until we got settled out there. And I remember
we made the trip in a Model A Ford and all through Route 90, all the way through Louisiana,
Texas, Arizona, New Mexico. And we found a house to rent right in the middle of Hollywood
and my older brother Al was about 16 or 17, went to Hollywood High School, which was about
three blocks away from where we lived. And he played piano in a little jazz band with
the school kids there, and his best friend in that band was Earle Hagan, I don't know,
do you know the name of Earle Hagen? MR: Yes.
UG: And he played trombone, and later became one of the big Hollywood writers and composers,
and I guess everybody knows his song "Harlem Nocturne" it became like a real standard.
And so my brother got interested in the trombone from Earl, and he bought his old trombone
from him. I think it was two dollars or something like that, a beat up old horn. And that horn
went down to my brother Jack - well first of all, after a year in Hollywood we went
back to Mobile and took that trombone with us. Let's see. When my brother Jack was about
12 he took up that trombone and got a new one like throwing papers or something like
that, a paper route. And he gave me the old one and that was when I was 12. And that's
how the trombone came into the family. And I played all through high school, and started
playing with local professional guys around town I guess when I was about 15. Is that
enough of how I got into it? It goes a long ways from there.
MR: Yeah, I know, we'll get to that. So you had a basically a high school education as
far as your trombone and then - UG: And the piano training we had earlier
was a real good introduction to music because my mother taught us all how to read music.
She didn't know a lot about it herself, she knew just like the basic value of the notes,
a quarter note gets a beat, and then a few things like that. But she made us practice,
let's see an hour a day in the wintertime, and two hours a day in the summertime.
MR: Right. What do you consider to be your first break in the business?
UG: Well it might have been when World War II broke out. All the good guys went into
the Army so they had to hire us kids to play. MR: I'll be darned.
UG: That was about the way I really got into it I guess. And playing around Mobile for
a couple of years, I think I was about 16. There was a band from Auburn, Alabama, they
were known as the Auburn Knights, a college band, a very good big band, and they were
playing a date in Mobile and they came up to this place called the Airport Restaurant
where I was playing with a little band, and they heard me play and they offered me a chance
to go up to Auburn and play with their band, although I was still in high school. So I
moved up there, and played I guess one semester and went to Auburn High School. And that summer
they had a summer job at Virginia Beach, no usually it was Virginia Beach but that year
it was Wrightsville Beach, South Carolina, uh, North Carolina I guess it was. So we went
up there and a big band came through there that was looking for a trombone player, and
so this was in the summertime, a band by the name of Tony Reynolds, and he was from New
York. He was one of the up-and-coming new bands and they were going into the Lincoln
Hotel in New York I think, but I couldn't say, because I had to go back in finish high
school. But anyway, I met a lot of guys that I ran into later on in life. One of them in
particular, a fellow named Al Ramsey was a trumpet player who - I'm getting a little
ahead of myself. I went back to Mobile and I didn't stay in high school, I dropped out,
because another band came through town and was going to New York so I figured I'd finish
my school later on. He was going to Roseland Ballroom, so that was my first trip to New
York. That band was Bob Strong, a band from Chicago, and it was their big break, going
to New York, playing Roseland and getting coast to coast broadcasts every night. So
I joined that band, and stayed a few months, and this Al Ramsey fellow meanwhile had gone
with another band, Frankie Carle's orchestra, and he recommended me to go from Bob Strong
and I went to Frankie Carle. I forgot, I left out a year. After Bob Strong I went with Jan
Savitt's Orchestra, who was kind of a pretty well named band of the 40's. And it was kind
of important that band, because we were going to California, and we stayed there about eight
weeks, which gave me time to finish my high school education. There was a school close
by called the Hollywood Professional School that a lot of a kids that were in movies and
things like this. So I was playing out in Southgate, California at the Trianon Ballroom.
I went to high school in the daytime and finished my - got my diploma from the Hollywood Professional
School. MR: By this time was music your career? I
mean you said okay, I'm going to be a musician now. This is something I can do.
UG: I suppose so. I think you were talking to Houston Person earlier about if you just
fall into it or what. I think I actually just kind of fell into it because the older brothers
kind of led the way, you know, and the trombone was there, and you might as well play it,
it's there, you know. And let's see, I don't know. I could take up the whole story before
I get to be 18 years old I guess. MR: Well, we've got some specific questions
to ask about some of the big groups later on that you played with. Were you influenced
by recordings? UG: Oh, yes. Like during the big band era
I guess, the late '30's and early '40's and we always heard the big bands, you know, Tommy
Dorsey was a good example of how the trombone ought to sound I guess. He was very popular.
And along with oh, Benny Goodman and Count Basie, Duke Ellington. Trummy Young was, I
remember that was one of the solos I used to practice on his solo in "Margie" when I
was still in high school, with the Jimmy Lunceford band. He sang a chorus and then played a chorus.
I think I never heard anybody hit a high F sharp before that.
MR: Did you ever have an occasion to play with Basie in any context?
UG: Well, in the recording studios. He would come to New York to make records and he normally
only carried three trombones with him so they'd add me on to the band to fill out the section,
and I ended up getting a few solos down on the record with Basie. I think it was about
four albums, and then Ella Fitzgerald came in and recorded with the Basie band so they
added a trombone on that. And Sammy Davis Jr. Like the recording studios got me into
a lot of different situations you know, a lot of people would come through New York
and add me on to the band. MW: I wanted to ask you about your work with
the Basie band. Can you tell us about the sound or the feel of that rhythm section?
Because everybody says they like that rhythm section, that was the rhythm section, the
big band rhythm section. UG: Yeah, well anytime I ever do high school
and college clinics, I always tell them to listen to the Basie band, well the whole band,
but particularly the rhythm section. It's just an example of the way it's supposed to
go, I mean in that type of music anyway. And I remember during the period that we played
with them, we were normally recording at the A&R Studio on 48th Street, which was a very
small room, probably about half as big as this room, and the whole band in there, and
the time was so precise you know. And I just left, I mean before I went to New York to
do studio work I had played with Woody Herman and Gene Krupa's bands for, well Gene for
about four years and Woody for three years, and although those bands always admired the
Basie and Ellington bands very much, it was just a little different. Sometimes I always
noticed that the Basie band didn't really play as loud as you think they're playing
either, you know? Like we would get up with Woody and we'd blast away all night and blow
the walls out we thought. But sometimes if you play a little softer it sounds bigger,
you know, than if you - the louder you play the thinner it gets. But if you just settle
back a little bit it opens up a real wide horn sound.
MW: Kind of it counts up like we ain't really working or this ain't hard?
UG: Yeah. It sounds bigger than when you're blasting away.
MR: Yeah. And a lot of it has to do with the balance too of being able to hear everything.
You know I'm sure when a band is wailing away it's tough. The piano disappears and certain
other parts of the music. UG: Well Basie could always find those holes
anyway though. MR: Yeah. He'd choose his moments wouldn't
he? UG: Well I think the Basie band did leave
a lot of open spots. MW: Did Freddie Green play unamplified?
UG: Yeah. I think he might have had a microphone, I'm not even sure. I mean it wasn't a pick-up,
an electric pick-up, it wasn't that kind of amplification. It was attached to the guitar.
But I think he probably, well everybody had a microphone in the recording studio, although
in the earlier days sometimes they did all those records with one microphone.
MW: That means it had to be balanced. UG: Like the Carnegie Hall jazz thing that
Benny Goodman did I think with just one microphone, so they'd balance themselves. And
over the years it's gotten so everybody is really isolated in the studios now. You've
got your own microphone and your own earphones and so the whole balance is left to the engineer,
whereas getting a balance within yourselves is not all that important anymore or critical.
MW: I wanted to ask you about your personal style of playing the trombone. Who, when you
were coming up, who did you listen to? Who did you think was the voice on trombone? And
as Monk has referred to, when did you decide that you had a voice?
UG: Well, I think you strive to find your feelings and emotional contact with the music,
you know so that makes it individual, no matter who you are. You know if you can really do
what's true to yourself, you know, that's about as good as you can get I guess. But
of course with all the other influences getting you ready for it you know in the meantime.
But early voices I guess Trummy Young, Jack Jenny - I never heard a lot of him but he
had that solo that was played all around on Artie Shaw's record of "Stardust" which opened
up with Billy Butterfield on trumpet which was another one of my favorite players. And
Artie Shaw on clarinet. In fact that whole record was a good exercise, like it starts
off with the trumpet and goes into the clarinet and the trombone. My brother Jack and I used
to, we wrote that all out when we were kids and practiced that thing. There's a little
Jack Jenny and Billy Butterfield and Artie Shaw in us too I guess. Lawrence Brown was
one of my favorite players too. MR: He was with Ellington, wasn't he?
UG: Uh huh. He was very individual sounding, you would recognize him right away.
MR: That was a trademark of the Ellington band almost, is that he wrote for certain
people, not just the second alto player, you know. He wrote for the individual I think.
UG: A lot of those ballads I guess he wrote for Johnny Hodges, later on people put lyrics
to them and they became pop songs. "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" - actually the melody
of that was a little different when he first wrote it, but they changed it around.
MR: Oh, yeah? UG: - that's the way they did it. - But right
toward the end there, there was something different on the original. I can't remember
what it was, but it wasn't played too much after it became a pop song.
MR: You did some pretty extensive studio work over the years. Was that mostly in New York?
UG: Yeah, after eleven years of traveling around with bands I finally settled down in
New York. MR: Can you tell us about was there any studio
things that you remember that bordered on the ridiculous?
MW: Or anything that was funny, or just little quirky things about jazz?
UG: Uh. quirky. Let's see. MR: When I listen to music behind some commercials
these days I'm thinking, you know, people had to actually play this. And someone sat
down and wrote this thing. And I'm wondering sometimes how some of the players keep a straight
face. UG: Well in the studio sometimes you get in
a situation where you kind of have to be an actor, like you're not really playing yourself,
when you're choosing - I mean I'm talking about musical acting. Like they'd say, "Play
this like Tommy Dorsey," or you know, so you'd try to play, there was only one Tommy Dorsey,
so you do something similar to that. Or, "Jack Teagarden I wrote this for." One time I had
to imitate a dog eating dog food -. I guess that's really, what's I can't think,
I've got a small vocabulary. Never went to no college, you know.
MR: Well we've had some interesting talk about what people learn in college as opposed to
what happens out in the real world you know. And nowadays I know you've done work in colleges
with the music programs. What happens after they get out of school, you know? Have you
ever talked to students after they got out and any insight into -
UG: Well, this young fellow that's playing with us tonight, Chris Potter, are you familiar
with him at all? MR: Yes, I've heard his name.
UG: Amazing young player. And my son, Jesse, they're both about the same age, about 23
now I think. And boy, he knows more about jazz history than I do and he goes right from
the beginning to what's happening now and there's somewhere in there Chris has, his
own thing has come out too you know. If you haven't heard him, it'd be interesting to
hear him. Well there's an example. Well he went right to New York I guess, got a scholarship
to the New School there, and he stayed there for a while, then he went to Manhattan School
of Music which I think he's still involved there. And as soon as he got to New York Red
Rodney started using him with his group so he traveled around a lot with Red. And well
there's one. You asked me about what's happening to the young fellows.
MR: It's unfortunate that the opportunities as far as the big band playing you know, are
not nearly as plentiful as they used to be. I think there's probably a lot more talented
people out there that come out of schools and they're scrambling for ways to show what
they know and to go to the next level. UG: Well, I think of this band out in Santa
Monica that was started by Ernest Clark I think, a trumpet virtuoso back in 1902 I think
it was. He started this municipal band out there, about 35 pieces. And within that band
they had a regular big jazz band and then a small combo and chamber groups. And they
were all on salary out there, and they had their own recording studio. Anyway, it was
started from 1902 and as far as I know it's still going today. And they bring in guest
artists to either play or sing or whatever they do, and they back them up. And it seems
like a lot of cities could do something like that rather than only thinking of a symphony
orchestra, they could probably have something, I think that was 35 people involved and a
big band and a little Dixieland band or whatever the-
MW: It's like repertory orchestras to perpetuate jazz. Because if you go to any major city
in the United States of America there is a symphony there that can play all the European
classics. UG: Right. And this thing was financed by
a tax, I think it was 50 cents a year for people that owned property in that area, and
in that area there was a lot of people I think a million people. And I think it finally got
up to a dollar a year or something like that from every taxpayer, and that was able to
finance the salaries of these people and buy a building, rehearsal hall and a recording
studio. But it seems like something like that could be done a lot of places. You think anybody
would gripe about a dollar a year? MR: If you had, if you could pick out a record
or two that you would want people to identify as one of your best, was there a time or a
particular record or recording that you are most happy with?
UG: Yeah, uh, I think maybe I played better on other people's records than I played on
my own. I'm not sure. MR: Well there's less to worry about, right?
UG: Yeah as a player. When you're the leader you've got all these headaches and you're
worrying about the other guys showing up, and how much money you're costing the record
company, and if we go overtime I'll never record with them again. And all kinds of things
when you're the leader you know. I don't know. There was a record I did with Tony Bennett
a long time ago. I had a couple of spots on it that I got into some kind of other frame
of mind for a few bars. It was something about New York My Home Town or something like that.
And he did some kind of eerie songs, not really eerie, but anyway like "Lonesome in the City"
and that kinds of bluesy feel of Manhattan. And I think I made a few wolf calls or something,
you know on a ballad. And I did a thing with Billie Holiday that had a couple of nice spots
there that I felt pretty good about - "Lady in Satin" album. That was all ballads I think.
We did one serenade where I started way out low like a bass trombone for a while. It came
out better than I thought it would. MR: Did you ever have an occasion to play
or record with Joe Williams? UG: Yeah, oh yeah.
MR: Tell us about Joe. UG: Yeah, I think we did some nice ballads
with Joe. We had an orchestra with strings and we did some small group things. That was
one of the great things about doing the studio work was that along with all of the garbage
that they throw at you, there is all these wonderful people coming through New York all
the time to make records and I think he did this nice album - Joe Hunter wrote the arrangements.
And right shortly after I arrived in New York City, in 1954, Buck Clayton was contracted
to do these jam session records for Columbia. And I was called to participate in those.
That was right after I left Woody Herman's band. And I got to meet all my old heroes
on those records, like Lawrence Brown was there and Trummy Young was there, Roy Eldridge.
Well I'd worked with Roy with Gene Krupa's band for a while anyway.
MR: Is that when you recorded "Huck-a-Buck"? UG: Yeah. Coleman Hawkins.
MR: Wow. That's quite a list. UG: A lot of people. I got to meet all those
people. I got to know them. It was wonderful. Hang out with Coleman Hawkins, boy, something.
MW: Did you ever have occasion to work with or be influenced in any way by J.J. Johnson?
UG: Well we worked together a lot, but somehow I don't think I - I was pretty strong in my
own thinking I guess by the time we crossed paths. But we were in the studio about the
same time I was in New York. Then he went to California and came back. I admired him
greatly, what he does is wonderful, as a musician, such a clean, neat player.
MR: What was it like, didn't you participate in "The Benny Goodman Story" - the film of
that? UG: Um hum. Steve Allen played Benny Goodman.
MR: Is that, what's it like to do a film like that, is it you sit around and wait a lot?
UG: Well, Benny, I was working with Benny around New York in some small combo kinds
of things like at Basin Street. Wess Tableton was playing with him at the time and Paul
Quinchette, Ruby Braff, and he had, I had just signed on as CBS as a staff musician
there and Benny asked me if I'd like to go to California to do a soundtrack for "The
Benny Goodman Story." And I really wanted to do it, so I went and got a release from
the CBS and I never had a steady job after that, that was the last steady job ever, which
is fine, really it worked out just freelancing, it worked out a lot better. So Benny took
me and Stan Getz and Buck Clayton and George Duvivier and Gene Krupa, Buck Clayton, out
to do the soundtrack. And while we were out there, the director of the movie asked us
if we'd like to stay on and do the picture also. So we stayed and did the picture, another
couple of weeks. We just pretended to be playing because we'd already made the soundtrack.
MR: I didn't realize that Benny was in on the movie too.
UG: Well he was in on the music part of it. And he coached. Actually they hired Sol Yaged.
Do you know who Sol Yaged is? MR: Just the name.
UG: He's a good player around New York, and his whole life was dedicated to trying to
sound like Benny Goodman and even trying to look like him. He did everything he could
to look like Benny, even filing his teeth in a curved shape. And he had all these actions
down where he'd lift one leg or whatever when he was playing. And so he coached Steve Allen
on how to do all that stuff. MW: So the Elvis impersonations are not new.
UG: Well, when Benny was playing out there he decided he didn't like the way Gene Krupa
played anymore, for some reason, because he was the star of his early band, you know Gene.
And he was trying to get him fired. I happened to be rooming with Gene on the set, like on
the dressing rooms we shared the same dressing room. And he said, "the old man's trying to
get me fired." But he couldn't fire him because his contract was with the studio, not with
Benny. MR: Did he give him "the Ray?" I keep hearing
about that "Ray." UG: No, that's just a myth I think.
MR: That's a myth? UG: He just, he might be looking at you but
thinking about something completely different. He was one of those kind of people.
MR: And you think he's trying to stare you down or something, huh?
UG: That's what people thought. I never took it that way. I got to know Benny pretty -
MW: The Sonny Liston of musicians? Stared at -
UG: I guess, Sonny Liston, yes. MR: I have a quick story I wanted to ask you.
I read about a fellow named Marv Gold? UG: Merv Gold.
MR: Merv Gold. UG: Trombone player around New York.
MR: And some practical joke he did with some mouthpiece that he-
UG: Oh, yeah, well he was always doing, you know, he had a wonderful sense of humor. But
he gave me a present of this mouthpiece, a trombone mouthpiece, and said, "I want you
to try this, I call it, it's my new 'sure grip' mouthpiece." And around the rim of it,
it made a jagged edge all the way around, like teeth. "Sure grip" so to speak. Then
another time he brought me in a necklace of mouthpieces. He's always, you know, he could
never find a mouthpiece that he liked, so he had hundreds of them, and he made a whole
necklace out of them and put it around my neck on a recording session one time.
MR: Interesting. How do you feel about your current working band that you have?
UG: Well, this will be the second time we've played together. We played one night a couple
of weeks ago, just, we're not very organized. MR: Yeah? That's jazz.
UG: That's my favorite kind of music now is when it's not so organized. But I did that
big band thing, I was on the road for eleven years from one band to another, and it's kind
of a freedom to get out and just play with a little small group you know, where you don't
have any real arrangements, maybe an ending now and then or how to start it, but that's
really what I like to do the most now. As a matter of fact I always did but I always
got thrown in the lead trombone chair in all these bands, and some of them like Woody's
band I was able to play both lead and jazz solos until Carl Fontana came along, then
we had to share the jazz solos. MR: You know we have asked a number of players
about the etiquette involved, and who gets the solos you know, and is it sometimes a
point of contention between players, you know like how come I'm not getting any? Al Grey
talked about being in the Basie band for a while and since he was the new guy he wasn't
getting any, you know, and he didn't like it.
UG: Well, the leader is the one that's in charge of who plays, you know, like, and Gene
Krupa's band, when I first joined, he was the guy that thought that lead guys could
only play the lead and the second guy played all the jazz solos. And when Frank Rosolino
came on the band and it was just about that time I was going to ask Gene, I would like
to move over to the second chair and let somebody else play the lead, you know. And then Frank
Rosolino came on and he was a fantastic player and so I stayed over there in the lead for
a while longer. Then finally he left and went with Stan Kenton and I told Gene I says, "I
want to play that second chair. I don't want to play lead anymore." He says, "okay, you
can play the second chair if you'll play the lead on the four trombone section things,"
you know where we have the melody for a while. So that's the way it ended my last year with
Gene. And then Woody Herman heard me play on that, during that set up, and then when
Bill Harris left the band I took Bill's place. I don't know if you can hear me I feel like
I'm mumbling. MW: No, we can hear you.
UG: I was telling Monk I've been wearing a hearing aid for about the last five years
and yesterday it conked out on me, so everything sounds a little-
MR: It's not a good place to have things conk out on you.
UG: Well I don't have a terrible problem, it's just like over the years of playing with
brass in the years, a lot of the high frequencies have gone, and I'd like to advise all young
musicians to protect your ears a little better than I did all those years, like put earplugs
in if you're in a real noisy situation. I sat right next to Gene there, and the trumpets
right in back of you all the time, and I think it might have had something to do with it.
And heredity probably has something to do with it too.
MW: Just one last question I wanted to ask you is, is jazz alive and healthy in the hands
of some of today's young artists? And if so -
UG: Well, go hear Chris Potter and my son Jesse the other night and you'll find out.
MR: And we heard Antonio Hart. MW: Oh Antonio sounds great.
UG: Well there's some really terrific young players around. And I think that maybe the
general public is starting to place jazz into a permanent category, you know. Like we're
a young country, like those European countries, they've got their folk music, that took a
hundred years to get there I guess, and maybe that's what jazz is, it's going to arrive.
It's a situation now I don't know what else can they do with it, you know? Really. Bebop
is supposedly old now, but that's like fifty years old or so. And jazz still sounds pretty
modern to me. So maybe the tradition of the Basie rhythm section and of course it went
a little beyond that too you know a little more freedom, but as long as you've got that
swinging, which it don't mean a thing if it ain't got, right, but it's, maybe it's going
to become our folk music, you know, or the American, well they've got polkas in Poland
and everything, I don't know. And the Irish, they have their music that sounded very much
like jazz to me. Some of those Irish violinists you know, sound like the Benny Goodman trio
sometimes. The violin, fiddle went away you know. I guess that all went down into bluegrass
country and related, but they get to swinging pretty hard there sometimes.
MR: It's a good point though. UG: And then the country & western music now,
they've got what we call a standard rhythm section, like they've got the drums and the
bass and the rhythm playing. You know it sounds like swing music, popular swing music of the
'40's or something. So they're not doing the same old thing either, but it seems like it's
all becoming kind of related. MR: Great. I think that's a good point too
about our country not being nearly as old as some places. Maybe we're still sorting
out our priorities as far as the arts, you know? I mean it's interesting with jazz history
that you can still hear some of the originators of Dixieland, the actual people playing it.
And yet you've got the young folks here doing fusion and the whole gamut of music. You can
still hear big band and bop and everything. UG: And commercials that you hear have a lot
of jazz in them these days. And like a lot of the current television sitcoms and things,
they have a piano player. I don't know who it is but there's some real good jazz players
back there playing some nice stuff. MR: Okay. Well we want to thank Urbie Green
for being with us today, it's been a real valuable input to our Hamilton Jazz Archive.
UG: Well it's my pleasure to be here, Monk and Mike.
MR: Thank you.
