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CONTENTSCONTENTS

CLUBS, CONCERTS, EVENTSCLUBS, CONCERTS, EVENTS 13 Calendar of Events 18 Clubs & Venue Listings

4 Odean Pope by Ken Weiss

Jazz History FEATUREJazz History FEATURE 32 Art Blakey, Part 7 by John R. Barrett

INTERVIEWSINTERVIEWS 20 Pat Martino 26 Famoudou Don Moye by Ken Weiss

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Interview and photo by Ken Weiss

Tenor saxophonist Odean Pope (b. October 24,

1938; Ninety-Six, South Carolina) is best known

for his greater than two decade membership in the

Max Roach Quartet, as well as for his unique voice

on his instrument. A master of circular breathing

and multiphonics, Pope’s trademark ‘foghorn’

blast reaches deep into the soul of the listener.

Heavily influenced by the sounds of the Southern

Baptist church choir of his youth, Pope moved with

his parents to Philadelphia at age ten where he

found an extremely jazz rich territory with future

jazz legends such as John Coltrane, Lee Morgan,

Benny Golson, Jymie Merritt, Jimmy Garrison,

Philly Joe Jones, the Heath Brothers, Archie

Shepp, McCoy Tyner and Bobby Timmons. He was

especially influenced by the obscure and eccentric

pianist Hasaan Ibn Ali, who also caught the atten-

tion of Max Roach. Pope was a member of the

Philadelphia group Catalyst in the early to mid-

‘70s, which merged jazz and funk and presaged the

work of later jazz fusion bands. He is an accom-

plished leader with a number of recordings by his

unique Saxophone Choir band, which features nine

saxophones and a rhythm section, as well as per-

forming in quartet and trio settings. A strong com-

poser, his songs have memorable melodies and are

augmented with his superior arranger skills. Pope

was the 2017 recipient of the Mid Atlantic Living

Legend Award. This interview took place on Janu-

ary 19, 2018 at his home in the Olney section of

Philadelphia.

Jazz Inside Magazine: Your first name is regular-

ly misspelled as Odeon in the press. It’s even print-

ed that way on the disc of your recording Ninety

Six [Enja, 1996].

Odean Pope: For the most part, that started in

Europe.

JI: I looked up odeon. Do you know what it

means? Ironically, odeon derives from ancient

Greek and stands for a building used for musical

performances. That’s so very apropos.

OP: I didn’t know that.

JI: Published reviews of your work over the past

15-years or so typically open with something to the

effect that you are, “One of the most underappreci-

ated jazz musicians of your generation.” How do

you explain that?

OP: I think mainly because all my peers - Lee

Morgan, the Heath brothers, Bobby Timmons, and

the list goes on, went to New York in the mid-‘50s.

I went to New York along with them but I decided

to come back to Philadelphia and I think that’s the

main reason I didn’t get the recognition I should

have gotten. The only person I know who got some

international recognition while living in Philadel-

phia was Grover Washington Jr..

JI: Why did you choose to remain in Philadelph-

ia?

OP: That’s a very detailed issue, nothing to do

with New York, but just the scene that was happen-

ing during that period so I decided to come back to

Philadelphia.

JI: How important is public recognition to you?

OP: I think my health is more important. I chose

my health over recognition because, as you know,

most of my peers have left the planet.

JI: When asked if you thought of yourself as a

hard bop or free jazz player in the past you an-

swered, “I like to think of myself as one of the

forerunners of ‘the spirit.’” Would you explain

that?

OP: To be one of the forerunners of ‘the spirit’

means to me that I’m always striving to be the

frontrunner of what’s happening today. Not the

past, but the present, as well as future. I feel that

I’ve studied so many different kinds of concepts

and I’ve had the opportunity to sit on bandstands,

be at recording studios, and to talk to so many great

musicians, that I have acquired quite a bit of

knowledge in terms of what direction I’m going to

go into. Being a forerunner means that you are one

of the ones who is reaching certain aspects of your

craft being number one.

JI: Finding your own unique voice on the saxo-

phone was a career quest for you and you certainly

accomplished that. How did you pursue that goal?

OP: It’s very strange because ironically, when I

was 25, I took all the records and recordings out of

my house. I just wanted to concentrate for the next

few years [on my sound]. I thought maybe it would

take one year but it ended up taking me at least 10

years to get a sense of what I wanted my sound to

be, as opposed to going the traditional way of

sounding like someone else. I was really determine

to reach my own voice.

JI: Many musicians use circular breathing and

multiphonics [playing several pitches at once] but

you arguably use these techniques more than any-

one else. Explain your interest in these techniques

and how you see them fitting into your music.

OP: The interesting thing about circular breathing

is it allows one to play long phrases and to generate

high intensity to create ideas and things that you

have acquired that takes an amount of articulation

and expression to play, and to play long phrases.

The way I use circular breathing is to play long

phrases as opposed to playing short phrases and it

allows me to play, maybe, two choruses without

taking a breath. I can play for half an hour without

taking a breath. The person who really taught me

circular breathing was a piano player by the name

of Eddie Green when we played together in the

group Catalyst. He used to play the melodica and

used circular breathing. All of the people I used to

ask before him would tell me all kinds of different

ways which were not right. I asked Rahsaan Ro-

land Kirk and we talked about circular breathing

but I never got the full understanding of it from

him. Fortunately, Eddie Green knew the process

and technique of circular breathing [and shared it

with me].

JI: So Rahsaan Roland Kirk didn’t want you to

know how to do it?

OP: Well, you said that.

JI: How about your use of multiphonics?

“… when Trane got the opportunity to go with Miles Davis, he asked me to replace him [in

Jimmy Smith’s group]. I told him, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ because I was no way ready to play with Jimmy Smith. He said, ‘Look, don’t

never use the word can’t. Always say I can do it. Take that word can’t out of your vocabulary.’ I prac-ticed with him on Jimmy Smith’s repertoire and he gave me very good information on all the tunes.”

Odean Pope

Forerunner of the Spirit

INTERVIEWINTERVIEW


OP: I find multiphonics interesting because it cre-

ates a lot of energy and intense moments where the

audience all of a sudden hears three or four tones

coming out of one horn that makes them sort of

jump and stand back. I work with the multiphonics

quite a bit, in fact I have a tune called

“Multiphonics.” It allows you to extend chord

changes or to create chord changes, and I got those

fingerings from playing oboe. Oboe has different

false fingerings and to be able to play multiphon-

ics, you have to be able to use all kind of different

fingerations in order to make three or four notes at

the same time.

JI: You’ve said in the past that when playing, you

create an image in your mind of walking into a

dark room with strings. Would you talk about that?

OP: I thought for many years about what concepts

and what ideas could I use to make my playing

more orchestral and flexible, more complex, more

creative. What could I base my concepts on when I

improvise and when I write? I was sitting up one

night and an idea came to me around two o’clock

in the morning – suppose you walk into a dark

room filled with strings and whatever string you

pull, you can write or play a concept with that

string and make it compatible with every other

string you pull. I think the important thing in crea-

tivity is to have a combination of concepts and

ideas going parallel as well as contrary to one an-

other, and to also make the parallel and contrary

concepts compatible, and these strings to me were

concepts. Every string in that room was a concept

for me to utilize and also to make something more

profound than I had before.

JI: You were born in a small South Carolina town

called Ninety Six that currently sports a population

around 2,000. How did Ninety Six get its name?

OP: Ninety Six is definitely on the map. A few

years ago, the mayor of the town put my name up

in a few places around town saying, “We are fortu-

nate to have a great artist from Ninety Six, South

Carolina.” As far as how it got its name, you’d

have to research that. [The town’s website reports

that, “Most likely, Ninety Six received its name

when Indian maiden Issaqueena (Cateechee), rode

her horse, ninety six miles from Keowee, the capi-

tal of the Cherokee nation to the outpost to warn of

impending war by the Indian natives.”]

JI: The Southern Baptist church figured promi-

nently in your early years and tailored the way you

eventually crafted your music. It’s well document-

ed that at age eight you listened to the church choir

and imagined what it would sound like to have

saxophones replace the singers. You didn’t start on

saxophone until age thirteen, so did you know at

eight that you would pursue saxophone and a saxo-

phone choir?

OP: The Saxophone Choir was inspired through

the Baptist church where it was mandatory that

every Sunday you go to church. My mother was a

schoolteacher and she played the piano in the big

mass choir, about 40 people in the choir. At a very

early age I was speaking and singing in the church.

I would speak on holidays and sing with the choir.

I used to play the Jew’s harp and the regular harp,

and at a very early age I was asking myself, ‘What

instruments could I use to depict the big, massive

choirs that I was exposed to?’ First I started on the

piano, and after a short while I said, ‘This is not the

instrument I want to play’ and I stared on the clari-

net, but it wasn’t for me. The Earle Theatre [in

Philadelphia] used to host groups by Duke Elling-

ton, Count Basie and Lionel Hampton, they would

come in and perform for 10 days in a row. When

Lionel Hampton came to town with Johnny Griffin

and Arnett Cobb in his orchestra they impressed

me so much in terms with what they were doing,

how they were playing, how they would walk

through the audience, and have people walking

behind them, loving what they were doing. I really

liked that so I asked my mother if she would buy

me a saxophone, which she did. After a short while

I got a teacher. I studied with some very great

teachers and I found out that saxophone was going

to be my voice.

JI: You moved to Philadelphia at age 10 and soon

found yourself surrounded by future jazz stars that

were your age and just a bit older. Would you talk

about your neighborhood and the Philadelphia

scene at that time?

OP: During that time it was Jimmy Garrison, he

was in the North Philly neighborhood as well, and

we used to play a lot together. I also played with

Spanky DeBrest. I used to play a lot with bass

players, I’d get them to come over to my mother’s

home and we would play. And from that experi-

ence I began to branch out and meet a lot of differ-

ent musicians. Benny Golson was living two blocks

away from me. When I was around fourteen I

formed a band with Rudy Richardson, bassist Tony

Williams and drummer Ralph Langley and we used

to practice all the time. As a matter of fact, we

played “How High the Moon” so much that one

advanced player by the name of Bobby Fontaine,

he was a great alto player who died at a very early

age and played like Charlie Parker, he came by and

said, “Look, if I come past tomorrow and you guys

are playing “How High the Moon,” I’m personally

gonna come in and kick all of your butts!” He said

to get something else to play so we started to check

out other compositions. Benny Golson would also

give me a lot of information on a lot of different

things. Finally, I met John Coltrane because he

lived not far from my parents’ house. He lived on

33rd Street and we lived on Colorado Street which

was between 17th and 18th. He used to frequently be

coming to see Benny Golson or other musicians in

that neighborhood like Sonny Fortune. We met

early on and when John was in town. We used to

go over to [pianist] Hasaan Ibn Ali’s house two or

three times a week to practice, which was like go-

ing to one of the highest universities in the whole

world because all of the information we were look-

ing for and trying to reach, Hasaan Ibn Ali had all

of the information. As a matter of fact, Hasaan

created the Triangle Major 7, which I think later on

Trane got credit for but that was Hassan’s creation.

JI: You also used to practice with Lee Morgan?

OP: Yes, we used to play duets all the time in my

basement. At one time, we had a group with Lee

Morgan, Kenny Rodgers on alto, myself, Tootie

Heath, Jimmy Garrison, and I think Colmore Dun-

can on piano, and later on we started rehearsing

with Hasaan Ibn Ali. North Philadelphia was a

place where all the great musicians were. Philly Joe

Jones, Benny Golson, John Coltrane, Hasaan Ibn

Ali, Bubba Ross, and the list goes on. Richard and

Bud Powell lived in Willow Grove and I used to

see them periodically. Eddie Green was taking

lessons from Bud Powell. During that time there

was just so many great musicians around, and they

were very willing to share their information with

the younger musicians. I was fortunate to be raised

at that time because I’ve learned a whole wealth of

detailed information about the instrument as well

as of improvisation and writing my own composi-

tions.

JI: Would share some memories from those early

days with the other young musicians that went on

to fame?

OP: Here’s one about Lee Morgan. Willis Toll had

a workshop every Monday night down around 22nd

(Continued on page 8)

Odean Pope

“[Hasaan] did make a recording under his own name in 1965 with me and [bassist] Art

Davis and [drummer] Khalil Madi but it was never released. Now there’s some talk about releasing

it … they say that tape was lost in a fire but recently somebody found the tape and it may

be released. I was contacted by Atlantic Records about that since I’m the only living

artist from the recording session. That was the only recording date that Hassan ever had …”


and Walnut and he would bring an out of town star

like Sonny Stitt or Gene Ammons and use the

rhythm section from Philadelphia with people like

Tootie Heath, Jimmy Garrison and Sam Dockery.

This particular night, Lee Morgan, I think he had

just turned 17, and we went down to the jam ses-

sion. Sonny Stitt was the guest artist for that partic-

ular night and Lee Morgan, who had brought his

horn, asked Sonny Stitt if it was possible for him to

play something and he said, “Yes, come on up. So

what do you want to play,” and before Lee Morgan

could say anything, Stitt said, “Let’s play

“Cherokee.” I’ll play the melody and you play the

first solo,” not knowing that he was going to play,

instead of playing the melody in B Flat Concert,

which is the standard, he played it a half step

above, which is B Concert. So Stitt played the mel-

ody for “Cherokee” in B Concert and when it came

to the solo, Lee Morgan was unaware that it was in

the key of B and he started sputtering, sputtering,

and finally he just put his horn down. That was a

very embarrassing moment for Lee and when that

happened, we all started playing “Cherokee” start-

ing in B Flat and going through all the keys. So that

was our study for the next couple years. Sonny Stitt

sent us to school to be able to play a combination

of different keys.

JI: Pianist Hasaan Ibn Ali had the most significant

early influence on you around 1960-65.

OP: One day when I was around 13, I was in my

parent’s basement practicing and somebody

knocked on the window and I opened it and he

said, “My name is Hasaan Ibn Ali. What are the

possibilities of you coming around to practice with

me? Can we get together?” I had not heard of him

but I said, ‘Of course, I like to practice.’ So when I

first went over to his place, I was so greatly influ-

enced by what he was doing and how he was doing

it. I mean he took me by surprise. I just worried

him to death. I was there every day. He never had a

day job. He would get up in the morning and start

playing at 9 o’clock. His father would bring some

breakfast to the piano, so between 9 and 9:30 he

would eat something, and then he would play from

9:30 to 12. His father would then bring him a little

lunch, maybe some fruit to the piano, and he would

eat. After that, we’d play a couple games of chess

and then we would practice up until 4-5 o’clock.

I’d be at his house at a quarter to 9 every morning

and we would practice. I’d bring fruit for lunch.

His mother was a domestic worker. She would

bring him a couple packs of cigarettes - Viceroys

was the main brand during that period. She would

give him a couple dollars and then he’d get dressed

- he always spent the day playing in his bathrobe.

We both would get dressed and go out to 2 or 3

houses in the community. There were people with

pianos in their house who would let us play and

give us a couple dollars and some hot tea. So this

was like our school. We did this for maybe four to

five years and then Trane started to come in and we

started to do it with Trane but he would never go to

the houses with us. He would just practice during

the day because he would have other activities

during the night that he would do. This was a real

learning process for me. To not only be able to

learn a lot of tunes, because he’d play a lot of

standard compositions and add his own chord

structures, and he would pass them on down to me.

Most people didn’t feel comfortable playing with

Hassan. There was a place called the Woodbine

Club where all the musicians in that period would

meet at every Saturday after all the clubs let out at

2:00 AM. They’d all meet there and have a jam

session. When Hassan would get up on the piano,

all the horn players would get off the stand. But I

was determined that I was going to play with him

and that’s why I practiced with him every day so

that I could hear his harmonic, rhythmic and me-

lodic structures. Hassan was one of the greatest.

I’ve never heard a piano player play like Hassan.

He was greatly influenced by Monk, Elmo Hope

and Bud Powell, but he had his own identity. I

think he had more technique, more flexibility, and

his ideas was just like the sea. He had ideas as deep

as the sea. I mean I never heard anybody, even

today, play like that.

JI: The only way people might know of Hasaan

Ibn Ali is by way of the Max Roach recording The

Max Roach Trio Featuring the Legendary Hasaan

[Atlantic, 1965]. Why didn’t he record under his

own name?

OP: He did make a recording under his own name

in 1965 with me and [bassist] Art Davis and

[drummer] Khalil Madi but it was never released.

Now there’s some talk about releasing it. Rahsaan

Roland Kirk was trying to get it released but he

passed before it happened. They say that tape was

lost in a fire but recently somebody found the tape

and it may be released. I was contacted by Atlantic

Records about that since I’m the only living artist

from the recording session. That was the only re-

cording date that Hassan ever had and the reason

he didn’t get the recognition was because he stayed

in Philadelphia. He never went to New York. He

was content to stay at his parents’ home and prac-

tice every day. Nobody ever gave him gigs except

for me when I would get a gig.

JI: So the question remains, what happened to

him? He had the backing of a star in Max Roach

and had been featured on a major label recording

that presented his original compositions.

OP: I think what happened shortly after he did the

recording as a leader was that he got incarcerated.

He called me up and said, “Odean, I’m not gonna

be able to go to the mix session. I’d like you to go

mix the LP.” I told him I would and before the mix

date came, he made a telephone call to New York

and asked Atlantic Records if they would extend a

loan to him. He needed additional money. When

they found out that he was incarcerated they just

put the LP on the shelf and it never got released. I

think that and the influence by other activities other

than the music is what really destroyed his whole

career. He ended up dying young. I think he was

49.

JI: He got out of prison?

OP: Yes, but his mother and father got burnt up on

my birthday at their home on 2406 North Gratz

Street on October 24, 1980. He went to one of the

recreation centers for the homeless and when he

died, they only found my telephone number on his

body. They called me and said I was his only con-

tact and asked if I could make the final arrange-

ments for him. So I called [a super fan of Hasaan’s]

in Boston and he gave me a thousand dollars to

make the last rites for him and that was the end of

that.

JI: Hasaan sounds very much like Thelonious

Monk on the Roach recording.

OP: Right, but there was a difference if you listen

to it carefully. The technique is different. Hasaan

had flawless technique. Monk had technique too

(Continued from page 7)


So Stitt played the melody for “Cherokee” in B Concert and when it came to the solo, Lee Morgan was unaware that it was in the key of B and he started sputtering, sputtering, and finally he just put his horn down. That was a

very embarrassing moment for Lee and when that happened, we all started playing

“Cherokee” starting in B Flat and going through all the keys. So that was our study for the next couple years. Sonny Stitt sent us to school to

be able to play a combination of different keys.”

Odean Pope


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but he didn’t have the kind of technique like

Hasaan. Hasaan could play extremely fast, very

complex things, and he had his own identity.

JI: Apparently, Hasaan had a tainted reputation

around town and was known to push other pianists

from the piano bench so that he could play.

OP: Of course, he was doing that all the time. I

witnessed it so many times where we would go to

places and he would just walk up on the bandstand

and push the piano player off and start playing.

And see, they respected him so much they didn’t

resist, they would just get up and play. He was

known for that.

JI: Is it true that when Hasaan saw that you were

also studying oboe he suggested you use some of

the oboe fingerings on tenor which, as you men-

tioned earlier, helped you with difficult overtones

and multiphonics?

OP: Yes, he asked me when I was doing the oboe,

what fingerings were different on the oboe from the

saxophone. I told him about the false fingerings

and he said, “Why don’t you apply some of those

fingerings to the tenor saxophone.” So that’s when

I started getting different sounds on the saxophone,

like two or three notes at a time and the “foghorn,”

that’s what I was really known for, the “foghorn.”

He greatly influenced me about doing many things

on the saxophone, things that I’m still doing today.

JI: Are those oboe false fingerings that you do a

rare technique for saxophone or do others use

them?

OP: I’m not saying that I was the only one using

them at the time, but I used them from the oboe and

then I started using other ones. In fact, there’s a

book by Larry Teal on saxophone methods that

teaches different fingerings above the altissimo

range. But I was studying these things on my own.

I was so impressed on what the false oboe finger-

ings would do on saxophone that I started experi-

menting and found many, many different finger-

ings. Some other saxophone players are doing

them. James Carter is one of the few doing some of

those things. He told me he knew about me when

the first Saxophone Choir album [The Saxophone

Shop, 1985, Soul Note] came out, which he used to

listen to.

JI: What was your early relationship with John

Coltrane?

OP: I met him when I was around twelve. I used to

go over to his house and we would practice and he

would give me different ideas. We would practice

scales. He was a person who would do scales for

maybe two hours before he did anything else.

Nothing but scales, and he still was doing that up

until his last days here on the planet. That influ-

enced me and I still do regular scales because when

you practice them, it gives you a greater sense of

what the pitch might be and how closely you are

playing perfectly in tune because the saxophone is

a very difficult instrument to play in tune all over

the instrument. By practice, you gain a sensation in

your fingers and you can get the saxophone to

sound very round with all of the details. This morn-

ing I played scales for about 90 minutes and I’ll

play more later. Scales are mandatory for me.

JI: How did you come to replace Coltrane in the

Jimmy Smith band around 1955?

OP: I spent a lot of time with Trane, practicing

with Hasaan Ibn Ali. The gig he got with Jimmy

Smith wasn’t a permanent gig, Jimmy just called

Trane to fill up a few tour gigs that he had. So

when Trane got the opportunity to go with Miles

Davis, he asked me to replace him. I told him,

‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ because I was no

way ready to play with Jimmy Smith. He said,

“Look, don’t never use the word can’t. Always say

I can do it. Take that word can’t out of your vocab-

ulary.’ I practiced with him on Jimmy Smith’s

repertoire and he gave me very good information

on all the tunes. Jimmy had about 15 tunes that he

would play over the course of a night and most of

the tunes I was able to memorize. I played with

Jimmy for close to two months and that was very

unique and very educational, not only musically.

Jimmy was highly educated in terms of what he

wanted to do and how he wanted to do it. He was a

genius, I’ve never heard anybody play the organ

like him. He was so fluent and original. He was one

of the first organists that was swinging. Playing

with him for two months gave me a big umbrella to

work under and I’m still working under some of

those things right now.

JI: What was your experience with Jimmy Smith at

that young age? He was known to be demanding.

OP: I knew Jimmy Smith before I worked with

him. He worked in town with Don Gardner. I knew

him before he played the organ. He was playing a

thing called the organum, which was something

that you would put on the piano and it would get an

organ sound. He was nice to me because I was very

young and he saw that I was really trying to do

something different as well as trying to play his

music.

JI: Bassist Jymie Merritt picked you as an original

member of his ensemble The Forerunners in 1962.

Would you talk about the intensity of that music?

OP: Even today, every time I play that music it’s

like I’m playing it for the first time. The notations,

the rhythmic structure, the melodic structure, and

the harmonic structure [are unique] and all the

musicians are playing a different part and each one

has to figure out how to fit their sound into what

the others are doing. His music was so different,

and it still is today. It’s different from anyone

else’s music, it’s very challenging. In fact, [at some

point] most of the musicians, except for me and

Jymie Merritt, had nervous breakdowns because of

the music. One night, I remember, the wife of one

of the musicians called me up and said, “Odean,

what y’all been doing tonight because [my hus-

band] has been sitting up all night, talking to him-

self?” I told her we had been working on some

concepts of the music. I think the music was so

demanding, and it required so much discipline and

hard work and so much preparation, it put out a lot

of stress and if you weren’t really flexible, it could

really take you to another place.

JI: You had the opportunity to join Art Blakey and

the Jazz Messengers?

OP: Art Blakey, shortly after I went with Max,

asked me to come with his group but I told him I

was working with Max and didn’t want to split.

JI: There’s a good story about the first opportunity

you got to play on stage with Max Roach.

OP: [Laughs] That happened at Pep’s in Philadel-

phia around 1966. Hasaan Ibn Ali and Max Roach

were very close. Hasaan used to go up to Max’s

house and play and Max would record each ses-

sion. Hasaan sometimes would show up at unusual

times. It could be two o’clock in the morning and

he’d want to play the piano, and regardless of what

time he showed up, Max would open the door for

him and tape record it. On this particular day,

Hasaan came to me and said, “I’m giving you a

little head’s up. Max is in town next week so why

don’t you practice a little bit more and I think you

and I go down and we sit in with Max.” I said, ‘Are

you sure about that?’ He said, “Odean you’re ready

to do that.’ So I practiced and practiced and, I’ll

never forget this, it was a beautiful Saturday day

and Pep’s was packed. What happened was that at

the second tune of the first set, Hasaan asked Max

if we could play something, which he agreed to.

Now Hasaan, of course, could play any tempo in-

cluding the most ridiculous, fast tempo you could

do, which is what Max did. Max said, “We’re go-

ing to play “Cherokee” and they started playing

really fast. Kenny Dorham looked over to me and

said, “Do you know what we’re playing?” I said,

‘Is it “Cherokee,” and he said, “You got it. Look,

this is the introduction, I’m going to give you the

cue when we are supposed to come in.” We played

the melody and Kenny said, “I’ll let you take the

first solo,” but by time it came my turn to solo, it

was so fast that I sputtered and sputtered. I was just

reduced so I finally stopped playing. The music

was just so intense that it made me tighten up. I had

played that song many times but never at that tem-

po. When I got off the stage I was so embarrassed.

All my friends were there. It gave me great incen-

tive. I came home and I studied and practiced,

practiced, practiced. I had been playing “Cherokee”

but not at that tempo. I practiced with Hasaan and

the next time I played for Max, I was able to play

that tempo.

JI: You’re best known for your greater than twenty

years spent as a member of Max Roach’s quartet

but you actually worked with him for about a short

period much prior to that in 1967.

OP: Jymie Merritt was working with Max at the

time and he recommended me when Max was

searching for a tenor player for his quartet. So I

went to New York and Max said I had two weeks

to learn twelve compositions and that he didn’t

want any music on the bandstand. I commuted to

New York every day rather than stay there. For two

weeks he picked me up at the train station and then

took me back to the station. He had a unique sys-

tem of training the band that I still use at times

today. He said to play four measures of the music,

repeat it four or five times, and then turn over the


Odean Pope


music and play it by memory. That worked very

well.

JI: Your first stint with Roach only lasted about a

year. Why so short?

OP: Right, I played with him at first about one

year and then I went back home to study, study,

study. I wasn’t really ready to play with him at that

time and I told him that. I needed more technique

and ideas. When I got back home from ’68 until

1979, I didn’t take hardly any jobs, I just stayed in

the basement and practiced. Max called me again

in 1979 and asked me to join his new group with

Charles Tolliver, Jymie Merritt and Stanley Cow-

ell. So I went to his house and studied the composi-

tions and this time I was more prepared. He tried

out a number of saxophonists and I was the one he

picked. I worked with him from 1979 until 2002,

the last 22 years of his career.

JI: Is it true you almost declined the opportunity to

join Roach’s band for the second time in ’79?

OP: Yes, I almost declined. I was still rehearsing

with the Forerunners at the time and Jymie Merritt,

who’s a very inspirational person, told me around

1978 that he was thinking of leaving Art Blakey to

go back with Max Roach who was forming another

group. He told me I was ready for Max and he

would mention my name to him. In fact, he said

that Max had asked how I was doing. Max liked

me in 1967 because I was trying to play something

different from everyone else and that’s what he told

people when they asked why he was keeping me.

He heard something different in my playing.

JI: Talk about Max Roach as a leader and his ex-

pectations of you.

OP: During my early experience with him, I had

just learned to circular breathe but I would just

hold the note, I wouldn’t move it. We were at Ron-

nie Scott’s [Jazz Club in London] and this night the

place was packed as always when Max played and

I was playing and I just held one note for about

four minutes. Max stopped the band and said over

the mic, “Odean, if you cannot move that circular

breathing, don’t play one note no more!” So from

that experience he taught me to start searching how

to circular breathe and to move it around. I worked

on that for the next few months and then all of a

sudden it was all there. That was a very embarrass-

ing moment for me.

JI: Would you share some Max Roach memories?

OP: He was a very unique person. He was the kind

of guy that was really hard on bass players, not so

much Jymie Merritt, but others. When I first played

with him he had Calvin Hill on bass and he used to

pick on Calvin all the time. I remember one funny

thing. We were sitting down for dinner once and he

said, “Calvin get up from the table because you

don’t have any table manners. You’ve got your

napkin on the back of your chair!” Cecil Bridge-

water said, “Max, you’ve got your napkin on the

back of your chair!” So he was really steamed. If

Max would get a little angry with you for some

reason he wouldn’t let you solo. We were in East

Berlin one night and he told [bassist] Tyrone

[Brown] to just play the harmonic concept – which

means ‘don’t worry about it because I’m not gonna

let you solo.’ The only people that he never messed

with a whole lot was Cecil Bridgewater and my-

self. I remember him and Stanley Cowell getting

into a big fight at Ronnie Scott’s. We played Stock-

holm and it was so beautiful with a big crowd.

After the gig was over, Max was overwhelmed by

the reception from the audience and he sat down at

the piano, singing “Nobody Knows the Trouble

I’ve Seen” and Jymie Merritt said, “We should

leave because when he starts singing that song

something is getting ready to happen.” So Charles

Tolliver, Jymie Merritt, Stanley Cowell and myself

left and went back to the hotel. We were playing

chess and talking until suddenly we heard all this

rumbling downstairs in the lobby of this beautiful

hotel. Max had broken all the windows around the

hotel, which was now completely a wreck, and then

he went to the river and threw all his money in the

river. We went on to Ronnie Scott’s but Max was

locked up so Kenny Clarke and Jimmy Heath went

and got him out of jail, brought him to the hotel in

London, and all night Kenny and Jimmy were

praying with him to try to get him together. The

next day he had scheduled a rehearsal but Stanley

Cowell had not heard about it so he never showed

up. That night when Stanley came into the club,

Max grabbed Stanley by the neck and they fell on

the floor. Stanley didn’t want to hurt him, he could

have if he wanted to but he had so much respect for

Max that he didn’t. Meanwhile, Max was reaching

for my horn to hit Stanley with it but I grabbed his

hand off of it. He then grabbed a quart sized beer

bottle, broke it, and jabbed it into Stanley’s leg and

Stanley’s leg was quite messed up for a while.

Those are a few things of what he would do. He

was a real character in addition to being the great

drummer of any generation. He had some other

things going on with him that were unacceptable. I

don’t know if he was bipolar but he did some really

unusual things at times. If he was around a group

of people that really [celebrated him with great

applause] that would really take him to some other

place. I think he would get so emotional and so

caught up with that. One time he wore one outfit

for two weeks, traveling and performing in Europe.

He was also one of the greatest people and most

giving people that I’ve come into contact with.

When I was sick in Europe and stayed in a hospital

there for seven weeks, he gave my wife a thousand

dollars every week that I was gone, and anytime I

needed anything he was there for me. He was one

of the greatest leaders. He always influenced me to

continue on the path that I’m traveling.

JI: There was a period where you traveled with

both Roach and Dizzy Gillespie on the road.

OP: There’s a park in London that the queen

named in tribute to Max called the Max Roach

Park and she set up an extensive tour for the Max

Roach Quartet featuring Dizzy Gillespie. We trav-

eled in a van that had everything including a refrig-

erator, library books, everything you could need

was right there. And traveling with Max and Dizzy

for about two months in Europe, if you can imagine

traveling with two of the greatest forerunners of

this and any era, traveling with them, listening to

their stories, paying attention to what they’re do-

ing, how they are doing it, how they are approach-

ing you about how to play certain things. Dizzy

used to always tell me different things - how to

phrase this, how to do this, how to play “Night in

Tunisia” a certain way. It was just so much infor-

mation that after that tour I had so much infor-

mation to work with, and I’m still working with it.

It’s a continuum, it never stops. I’m constantly

trying to make that next step and I learned that

from Max and Dizzy. It was interesting to see the

two of them interact on that tour. We were playing

once and Dizzy said, “Max, you’re playing too

loud,” and Max would run it down a little bit. Diz-

zy again said, “Max, I told you you’re playing too

loud!” I’m saying this to say that Dizzy was the

only person, other than Kenny Clarke, who could

talk to Max in a way like that and not have him fly

off and start cussing and carrying on. The only two

people who I knew who could really hound Max

was Dizzy and Kenny Clarke. And during that tour,

it was Max’s quartet but Dizzy had more to say

about what was going on than Max. Max and Dizzy

had a good relationship and could talk to one an-

other.

JI: What was your Abbey Lincoln experience?

OP: Abbey Lincoln was a gem. She was one of the

greatest ladies to travel with, she was very giving

and never separated herself from the sidemen like

most artists do when they get to a certain level. She

was always talking to us about issues and was very

knowledgeable about the political arena.

JI: During your time with Roach, you also studied

at the Paris Conservatory for Music under drummer

Kenny Clarke. How did you fit that into your

schedule and why take lessons from another drum-

mer while learning under Max Roach?

OP: Kenny Clarke, in a sense, was the first drum-

mer to play the foot pedal and I think Max took

that concept from Kenny and added onto what he

was doing. Kenny was the first to play independent

with the left foot and also play the bass drum with

his right and have four things going on at once,

which was very different during that time. As well

as the bebop concepts and rhythmic concepts, he

was teaching that in Paris so every opportunity that

I would get, I would take lessons from him. He

gave me some valuable information that I’m still

using today. He was a very giving man, very sin-

cere. I used to go to Paris [with Max] maybe four

times a year and sometimes when we were off I

would fly over to Paris for a week to study and go

to the Selmer Company to get horns that they

would give me. In fact, anytime that I’m in Paris I

can still go by the factory and get brand new instru-

ments.

JI: There were periods during your extensive time

with Roach when he wasn’t working that much

which made life a struggle for you. What did you

do to earn money and how close were you to pursu-

ing a different career?



Odean Pope

June-July 2018 Jazz Inside Magazine www.JazzInsideMagazine.com 12 To Advertise CALL: 215-887-8880 Visit JohnALewisJazz.com

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Sunday, June 17

Victor Goines Quartet; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Terence Blanchard Featuring The E-Collective; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Manhattan Bridges Orchestra featuring Memo & Jacquelene Acevedo; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Joe Lovano & Dave Douglas With Lawrence Fields, Piano, Linda May Han Oh, Bass, Joey Baron, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

Vocal Masterclass with Marion Cowings; Sacha Perry Trio; Ehud Asherie Trio; Richie Vitale Quintet; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Monday, June 18

Monday Nights With WBGO, Uptown Tentet; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Mingus Big Band; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Vanguard Big Band; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

Lucas Pino Nonet; Joe Farnsworth Group; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Paquito D'Rivera; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Tuesday, June 19

Jazztopad Festival Presents: Maciej Obara Quartet Presented In Partnership With The Polish Cultural Institute Of New York; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Django Bates Trio With Peter Eloh, Peter Bruun; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Freddie Cole Quartet; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

David Murray & Class Struggle With Craig Harris, Trombone, Mingus Murray, Guitar, Lafayette Gilchrist, Piano, Rashaan Carter, Bass, Russell Carter, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

Robert Edwards Group; Frank Lacy Group; After-hours Jam Session; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Victor Wooten With Dennis Chambers, Bob Franceschini; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Wednesday, June 20 Shamie Royston Trio With Special Guests Jaleel Shaw And Lee Hogans Album Release Party; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy Django Bates Trio With Peter Eloh, Peter Bruun; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St. Freddie Cole Quartet; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St. David Murray & Class Struggle With Craig Harris, Trombone, Mingus Murray, Guitar, Lafayette Gilchrist, Piano, Rashaan Carter, Bass, Russell Carter, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S. Nick Finzer Sextet; Harold Mabern Trio; Aaron Seeber "After-hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St. Victor Wooten With Dennis Chambers, Bob Franceschini; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Thursday, June 21 Ann Hampton Callaway; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th

& Bdwy

Vinicius Centuaria With Helio Alves, Paul Sokolow, Adrianno; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.



Frank Perowsky Quartet; Bruce Williams Quartet; Asaf Yuria "After-hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.


Friday, June 22 Ann Hampton Callaway; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th

& Bdwy


Birdland Big Band; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.


John Bailey Quintet; Ken Fowser Quintet; Corey Wallace DUBtet "After-hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.


Saturday, June 23 Ann Hampton Callaway; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th

& Bdwy




Smalls Showcase: Jade Synstelien Trio; John Bailey Quintet; Ken Fowser Quintet; Philip Harper Quintet; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.


Sunday, June 24 Ann Hampton Callaway; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th

& Bdwy


Benny Bennack III ft. the DW Jazz Orchestra; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.


Monty Alexander; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Monday, June 25 Band Director Academy Faculty Band; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln

Center, 60th & Bdwy


Vanguard Big Band; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

Ari Hoenig Trio; Jonathan Michel Group; After-hours Jam Session; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.


Tuesday, June 26 Christian Sands Trio; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th &

Bdwy

Janis Siegel; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Ravi Coltrane; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Tom Harrell With Mark Turner, Tenor Sax, Charles Altura, Guitar, Ugonna Okegwo, Bass, Johnathan Blake, Drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

Steve Nelson Quartet; Frank Lacy Group; After-hours Jam Session; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.


Wednesday, June 27 Christian Sands Trio; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th &

Bdwy (Continued on page 14)

CALENDAR OF EVENTSCALENDAR OF EVENTS

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Duchess; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.



Emanuele Cisi Quartet; George Papageorge Group; Mike Troy - "After-hours" Jam Session; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Lettuce; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Thursday, June 28 Adrian Cunningham Quintet With Special Guest Vocalist Brianna

Thomas From My Fair Lady To Camelot; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Grant Green Evolution Of Funk With Grant Green Jr., Donald Harri-son, Marc Cary, Khari Simmons, Mike Clark; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.



Darrell Green Quartet; Keith Brown Group; Jonathan Thomas -"After-hours" Jam Session; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.


Friday, June 29 Adrian Cunningham Quintet With Special Guest Vocalist Brianna




Tom Harrell With Mark Turner, Tenor Sax, Charles Altura, Guitar, Ugonna Okegwo, Bass, Johnathan Blake, Drums; Village Vanguard

178 7th Ave S.

Andy Fusco Quintet; Dmitry Baevsky Quartet; JD Allen "After-hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.


Saturday, June 30 Adrian Cunningham Quintet With Special Guest Vocalist Brianna





Sunday, July 1 Jeff "Tain" Watts Travel Band CD Release; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At

Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

The Smokestack Brunch: Adi Meyerson; Grant Green: Evolution of Funk; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Larry Fuller; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Vocal Masterclass with Marion Cowings; Sacha Perry Trio; Chris Byars Sextet; David Gibson Quintet; Jon Beshay "After-hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Monday, July 2 Mingus Big Band; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Vanguard Jazz Orchestra; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

John Colianni; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Anthony Pinciotti Quartet; Joe Farnsworth Group; After-hours Jam Session; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Tuesday, July 3 Steven Kroon Septet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Barry Harris, piano; Ray Drummond, bass; Leroy Williams (drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

Veronica Swift; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Spike Wilner Quartet; Josh Evans Quintet; After-hours Jam Session; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Wednesday, July 4 George Coleman Quintet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.



Randy Johnston Trio; Isaiah J. Thompson "After-hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Thursday, July 5 George Coleman Quintet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Emmett Cohen; Veronica Swift; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Richie Goods Group; Randy Johnston Trio; Charles Goold "After-hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Friday, July 6 George Coleman Quintet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.



Joey "G-Clef" Cavaseno Quartet; Amanda Sedgwick Quintet; Corey Wallace DUBtet "After-hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Saturday, July 7 George Coleman Quintet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.



Smalls Showcase: Julieta Eugenio; Eliot Zigmund Quartet; The Amanda Sedgwick Quintet; Brooklyn Circle; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Sunday, July 8 The Smokestack Brunch: Alex Goodman; George Coleman Quintet;

Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Lee Ritenour; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Barry Harris, piano; Ray Drummond, bass; Leroy Williams (drums;


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http://www.jazzstandard.com


Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Vocal Masterclass with Marion Cowings; Sacha Perry Trio; Nick Hempton Band; JC Stylles/Steve Nelson - Hutcherson Band; Hillel Salem "After-hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Monday, July 9 Mingus Big Band; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Wallace Roney Quintet; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Vanguard Jazz Orchestra; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

Django Reinhardt NY Festival: Django Festival Allstars + Special Guests; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Ari Hoenig Trio; Jonathan Michel Quintet; After-hours Jam Session; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Tuesday, July 10 Michael Pignéguy & The Awakenings Ensemble featuring Dominick

Farinacci; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Matt Penman Group; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

MonoNeon & Friends; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Russell Malone, guitar; Rick Germanson, piano; Luke Selleck, bass; Willie Jones III, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.


Charles Blenzig Group; Frank Lacy Group; After-hours Jam Session; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Wednesday, July 11 Claudia Acuña: A Tribute to Abbey Lincoln; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At


Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

MonoNeon & Friends; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.



Avi Rothbard Quartet; Neal Caine Quintet; Jovan Alexandre "After-hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Thursday, July 12 Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Cassandra Wilson



Itamar Borochov Quartet; Tal Ronen Quartet; Davis Whitfield "After-hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Friday, July 13 Roni Ben-Hur Quartet with special guest Joyce Moreno; Dizzy’s Club,

Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio with special guest Alicia Olatuja; Jazz Stand-ard, 116 E. 27th St.

Cassandra Wilson; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.



Tom Guarna Aggregate; Duane Eubanks Quintet; JD Allen "After-hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Saturday, July 14 Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio with special guest Alicia Olatuja; Jazz Stand-

ard, 116 E. 27th St.




Smalls Showcase: Nicole Glover Trio; Dave Stryker Quartet; Duane Eubanks Quintet; Philip Harper Quintet; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Sunday, July 15 The Smokestack Brunch: Jared Gold; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.




Vocal Masterclass with Marion Cowings; Sacha Perry Trio; Ralph Lalama & "Bop-Juice"; Josh Bruneau Group; Jon Beshay "After-hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Monday, July 16 Jon Gordon Quartet; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th &

Bdwy

Mingus Orchestra; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Wallace Roney Quintet; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.


Clifford Barbaro Group; John Chin Quintet; After-hours Jam Session; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Tuesday, July 17 Tribute to Jimmie Blanton; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center,

60th & Bdwy

Michael Leonhart Orchestra featuring Nels Cline; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

Earl Klugh; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Thumbscrew - Mary Halvorson, guitar; Michael Formanek, bass; Tomas Fujiwara, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

Tommy Igoe Sextet; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Tommy Campbell & Vocal-Eyes; Robert Edwards Group; After-hours Jam Session; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Wednesday, July 18 Shenel Johns and Vuyo Sotashe: In Honor of Nina Simone; Dizzy’s

Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Michael Leonhart Orchestra featuring Nels Cline; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.




Mike Moreno Quartet; Harold Mabern Trio; Aaron Seeber "After-hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Thursday, July 19 Freddy Cole Quartet Pays Tribute to Nat King Cole; Dizzy’s Club,

Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy

Pat Martino Trio plus horns; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.




Mike Moreno Quartet; Carlos Abadie Quintet; Giveton Gelin "After-hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Friday, July 20 Jon Faddis Quartet; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th &

Bdwy





Itai Kriss & TELAVANA; Immanuel Wilkins Quartet; Corey Wallace DUBtet "After-hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Saturday, July 21 Pat Martino Trio plus horns; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.




Valery Ponomarev Quintet; Immanuel Wilkins Quartet; Brooklyn Circle; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Sunday, July 22 The Smokestack Brunch: Jon Thomas Organ Quartet



Sarah Elizabeth Charles; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.



Vocal Masterclass with Marion Cowings; Sacha Perry Trio; Grant Stewart Quartet; Bruce Harris Quintet; Hillel Salem "After-hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.


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Monday, July 23 The Descendants: An African Sextet in New York; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz

At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy


Dizzy Gillespie Afro Cuban All-Star Experience; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.


Kennci 4; Joe Farnsworth Group; After-hours Jam Session; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Tuesday, July 24 Stanley Cowell Quintet; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th

& Bdwy

Bill O'Connell Jazz Latin Quartet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.


Fred Hersch, piano; John Hébert, bass; Eric McPherson, drums; Village Vanguard 178 7th Ave S.

Birdland Big Band; Marilyn Maye with Tedd Firth Trio; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Steve Nelson Quartet; Frank Lacy Group; After-hours Jam Session; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Wednesday, July 25 Posi-Tone's New Faces; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.




Andrew Gould Quartet; Willerm Delisfort Project; Mike Troy - "After-hours" Jam Session; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Thursday, July 26 Catherine Russel; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th &

Bdwy

Regina Carter Quartet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.




Scott Wendholt/Adam Kolker Quartet; Tim Hegarty Band; Jonathan Thomas -"After-hours" Jam Session; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Friday, July 27 Regina Carter Quartet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.




Steve Williams Quartet; Joe Dyson Quintet; JD Allen "After-hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Saturday, July 28 Regina Carter Quartet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.




Smalls Showcase: Ben Barnett Quartet; Tim Hagans Quintet; Joe Dyson Quintet; Philip Harper Quintet; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Sunday, July 29 Smokestack Brunch: The Adam Larson Band; Jazz Standard, 116 E.

27th St.

Regina Carter Quartet; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.




Vocal Masterclass with Marion Cowings; Sacha Perry Trio; Alex Hoffman Quintet; Jerry Weldon Quartet; Jon Beshay "After-hours"; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Monday, July 30 Monday Nights with WBGO: Lakecia Benjamin Quartet Plays Col-

trane; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At Lincoln Center, 60th & Bdwy


McCoy Tyner; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.


Jonathan Barber Quintet; Joel Frahm Trio; After-hours Jam Session; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

Tuesday, July 31 Gabe Schnider Presents Hapa: Love Stories; Dizzy’s Club, Jazz At


Harold Lopez-Nussa Trio; Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St.

McCoy Tyner; Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St.

Gerald Clayton, piano; Logan Richardson, alto sax; Walter Smith

John Pizzarelli with Jessica Molaskey; Birdland, 315 W. 44th St.

Ian Hendrickson-Smith Quartet; Abraham Burton Quartet; After-hours Jam Session; Small’s, 183 W. 10th St.

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“Some people’s idea of free speech is that they are free

to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back that

is an outrage.”

- Winston Churchill



5 C Cultural Center, 68 Avenue C. 212-477-5993. www.5ccc.com

55 Bar, 55 Christopher St. 212-929-9883, 55bar.com

92nd St Y, 1395 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10128,

212.415.5500, 92ndsty.org

Aaron Davis Hall, City College of NY, Convent Ave., 212-650-

6900, aarondavishall.org

Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, Broadway & 65th St., 212-875-

5050, lincolncenter.org/default.asp

Allen Room, Lincoln Center, Time Warner Center, Broadway and

60th, 5th floor, 212-258-9800, lincolncenter.org

American Museum of Natural History, 81st St. & Central Park

W., 212-769-5100, amnh.org

Antibes Bistro, 112 Suffolk Street. 212-533-6088.

www.antibesbistro.com

Arthur’s Tavern, 57 Grove St., 212-675-6879 or 917-301-8759,

arthurstavernnyc.com

Arts Maplewood, P.O. Box 383, Maplewood, NJ 07040; 973-378-

2133, artsmaplewood.org

Avery Fischer Hall, Lincoln Center, Columbus Ave. & 65th St.,

212-875-5030, lincolncenter.org

BAM Café, 30 Lafayette Av, Brooklyn, 718-636-4100, bam.org

Bar Chord, 1008 Cortelyou Rd., Brooklyn, barchordnyc.com

Bar Lunatico, 486 Halsey St., Brooklyn. 718-513-0339.

222.barlunatico.com

Barbes, 376 9th St. (corner of 6th Ave.), Park Slope, Brooklyn,

718-965-9177, barbesbrooklyn.com

Barge Music, Fulton Ferry Landing, Brooklyn, 718-624-2083,

bargemusic.org

B.B. King’s Blues Bar, 237 W. 42nd St., 212-997-4144,

bbkingblues.com

Beacon Theatre, 74th St. & Broadway, 212-496-7070

Beco Bar, 45 Richardson, Brooklyn. 718-599-1645.

www.becobar.com

Bickford Theatre, on Columbia Turnpike @ Normandy Heights

Road, east of downtown Morristown. 973-744-2600

Birdland, 315 W. 44th St., 212-581-3080

Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd, 212-475-8592, bluenotejazz.com

Bourbon St Bar and Grille, 346 W. 46th St, NY, 10036,

212-245-2030, [email protected]

Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery (at Bleecker), 212-614-0505,

bowerypoetry.com

BRIC House, 647 Fulton St. Brooklyn, NY 11217, 718-683-5600,

http://bricartsmedia.org

Brooklyn Public Library, Grand Army Plaza, 2nd Fl, Brooklyn,

NY, 718-230-2100, brooklynpubliclibrary.org

Café Carlyle, 35 E. 76th St., 212-570-7189, thecarlyle.com

Café Loup, 105 W. 13th St. (West Village) , between Sixth and

Seventh Aves., 212-255-4746

Café St. Bart’s, 109 E. 50th St, 212-888-2664, cafestbarts.com

Cafe Noctambulo, 178 2nd Ave. 212-995-0900. cafenoctam-

bulo.com

Caffe Vivaldi, 32 Jones St, NYC; caffevivaldi.com

Candlelight Lounge, 24 Passaic St, Trenton. 609-695-9612.

Carnegie Hall, 7th Av & 57th, 212-247-7800, carnegiehall.org

Cassandra’s Jazz, 2256 7th Avenue. 917-435-2250. cassan-

drasjazz.com

Chico’s House Of Jazz, In Shoppes at the Arcade, 631 Lake Ave.,

Asbury Park, 732-774-5299

City Winery, 155 Varick St. Bet. Vandam & Spring St., 212-608-

0555. citywinery.com

Cleopatra’s Needle, 2485 Broadway (betw 92nd & 93rd), 212-769-

6969, cleopatrasneedleny.com

Club Bonafide, 212 W. 52nd, 646-918-6189. clubbonafide.com

C’mon Everybody, 325 Franklin Avenue, Brooklyn.

www.cmoneverybody.com

Copeland’s, 547 W. 145th St. (at Bdwy), 212-234-2356

Cornelia St Café, 29 Cornelia, 212-989-9319

Count Basie Theatre, 99 Monmouth St., Red Bank, New Jersey

07701, 732-842-9000, countbasietheatre.org

Crossroads at Garwood, 78 North Ave., Garwood, NJ 07027,

908-232-5666

Cutting Room, 19 W. 24th St, 212-691-1900

Dizzy’s Club, Broadway at 60th St., 5th Floor, 212-258-9595,

jalc.com

DROM, 85 Avenue A, New York, 212-777-1157, dromnyc.com

The Ear Inn, 326 Spring St., NY, 212-226-9060, earinn.com

East Village Social, 126 St. Marks Place. 646-755-8662.

www.evsnyc.com

Edward Hopper House, 82 N. Broadway, Nyack NY. 854-358-

0774.

El Museo Del Barrio, 1230 Fifth Ave (at 104th St.), Tel: 212-831-

7272, Fax: 212-831-7927, elmuseo.org

Esperanto, 145 Avenue C. 212-505-6559. www.esperantony.com

The Falcon, 1348 Rt. 9W, Marlboro, NY., 845) 236-7970,

Fat Cat, 75 Christopher St., 212-675-7369, fatcatjazz.com

Fine and Rare, 9 East 37th Street. www.fineandrare.nyc

Five Spot, 459 Myrtle Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 718-852-0202, fivespot-

soulfood.com

Flushing Town Hall, 137-35 Northern Blvd., Flushing, NY, 718-

463-7700 x222, flushingtownhall.org

For My Sweet, 1103 Fulton St., Brooklyn, NY 718-857-1427

Galapagos, 70 N. 6th St., Brooklyn, NY, 718-782-5188, galapago-

sartspace.com

Garage Restaurant and Café, 99 Seventh Ave. (betw 4th and

Bleecker), 212-645-0600, garagerest.com

Garden Café, 4961 Broadway, by 207th St., New York, 10034,

212-544-9480

Gin Fizz, 308 Lenox Ave, 2nd floor. (212) 289-2220.

www.ginfizzharlem.com

Ginny’s Supper Club, 310 Malcolm X Boulevard Manhattan, NY

10027, 212-792-9001, http://redroosterharlem.com/ginnys/

Glen Rock Inn, 222 Rock Road, Glen Rock, NJ, (201) 445-2362,

glenrockinn.com

GoodRoom, 98 Meserole, Bklyn, 718-349-2373, goodroombk.com.

Green Growler, 368 S, Riverside Ave., Croton-on-Hudson NY.

914-862-0961. www.thegreengrowler.com

Greenwich Village Bistro, 13 Carmine St., 212-206-9777, green-

wichvillagebistro.com

Harlem on 5th, 2150 5th Avenue. 212-234-5600.

www.harlemonfifth.com

Harlem Tea Room, 1793A Madison Ave., 212-348-3471, har-

lemtearoom.com

Hat City Kitchen, 459 Valley St, Orange. 862-252-9147.

hatcitykitchen.com

Havana Central West End, 2911 Broadway/114th St), NYC,

212-662-8830, havanacentral.com

Highline Ballroom, 431 West 16th St (between 9th & 10th Ave.

highlineballroom.com, 212-414-4314.

Hopewell Valley Bistro, 15 East Broad St, Hopewell, NJ 08525,

609-466-9889, hopewellvalleybistro.com

Hudson Room, 27 S. Division St., Peekskill NY. 914-788-FOOD.

hudsonroom.com

Hyatt New Brunswick, 2 Albany St., New Brunswick, NJ

IBeam Music Studio, 168 7th St., Brooklyn, ibeambrooklyn.com

INC American Bar & Kitchen, 302 George St., New Brunswick

NJ. (732) 640-0553. www.increstaurant.com

Iridium, 1650 Broadway, 212-582-2121, iridiumjazzclub.com

Jazz 966, 966 Fulton St., Brooklyn, NY, 718-638-6910

Jazz at Lincoln Center, 33 W. 60th St., 212-258-9800, jalc.org

Frederick P. Rose Hall, Broadway at 60th St., 5th Floor

Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, Reservations: 212-258-9595

Rose Theater, Tickets: 212-721-6500, The Allen Room, Tickets:

212-721-6500

Jazz Gallery, 1160 Bdwy, (212) 242-1063, jazzgallery.org

The Jazz Spot, 375 Kosciuszko St. (enter at 179 Marcus Garvey

Blvd.), Brooklyn, NY, 718-453-7825, thejazz.8m.com

Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St., 212-576-2232, jazzstandard.net

Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St & Astor Pl.,

212-539-8778, joespub.com

John Birks Gillespie Auditorium (see Baha’i Center)

Jules Bistro, 65 St. Marks Pl, 212-477-5560, julesbistro.com

Kasser Theater, 1 Normal Av, Montclair State College, Montclair,

973-655-4000, montclair.edu

Key Club, 58 Park Pl, Newark, NJ, 973-799-0306, keyclubnj.com

Kitano Hotel, 66 Park Ave., 212-885-7119. kitano.com

Knickerbocker Bar & Grill, 33 University Pl., 212-228-8490,

knickerbockerbarandgrill.com

Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard St, 212-219-3132, knittingfacto-

ry.com

Langham Place — Measure, Fifth Avenue, 400 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10018, 212-613-8738, langhamplacehotels.com

La Lanterna (Bar Next Door at La Lanterna), 129 MacDougal St,

New York, 212-529-5945, lalanternarcaffe.com

Le Cirque Cafe, 151 E. 58th St., lecirque.com

Le Fanfare, 1103 Manhattan Ave., Brooklyn. 347-987-4244.

www.lefanfare.com

Le Madeleine, 403 W. 43rd St. (betw 9th & 10th Ave.), New York,

New York, 212-246-2993, lemadeleine.com

Les Gallery Clemente Soto Velez, 107 Suffolk St, 212-260-4080

Lexington Hotel, 511 Lexington Ave. (212) 755-4400.

www.lexinghotelnyc.com

Live @ The Falcon, 1348 Route 9W, Marlboro, NY 12542,

Living Room, 154 Ludlow St. 212-533-7235, livingroomny.com

The Local 269, 269 E. Houston St. (corner of Suffolk St.), NYC

Makor, 35 W. 67th St., 212-601-1000, makor.org

Lounge Zen, 254 DeGraw Ave, Teaneck, NJ, (201) 692-8585,

lounge-zen.com

Maureen's Jazz Cellar, 2 N. Broadway, Nyack NY. 845-535-3143.

maureensjazzcellar.com

Maxwell’s, 1039 Washington St, Hoboken, NJ, 201-653-1703

McCarter Theater, 91 University Pl., Princeton, 609-258-2787,

mccarter.org

Merkin Concert Hall, Kaufman Center, 129 W. 67th St., 212-501

-3330, ekcc.org/merkin.htm

Metropolitan Room, 34 West 22nd St NY, NY 10012, 212-206-

0440

Mezzrow, 163 West 10th Street, Basement, New York, NY

10014. 646-476-4346. www.mezzrow.com

Minton’s, 206 W 118th St., 212-243-2222, mintonsharlem.com

Mirelle’s, 170 Post Ave., Westbury, NY, 516-338-4933

MIST Harlem, 46 W. 116th St., myimagestudios.com

Mixed Notes Café, 333 Elmont Rd., Elmont, NY (Queens area),

516-328-2233, mixednotescafe.com

Montauk Club, 25 8th Ave., Brooklyn, 718-638-0800,

montaukclub.com

Moscow 57, 168½ Delancey. 212-260-5775. moscow57.com

Muchmore’s, 2 Havemeyer St., Brooklyn. 718-576-3222.

www.muchmoresnyc.com

Mundo, 37-06 36th St., Queens. mundony.com

Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Ave. (between

103rd & 104th St.), 212-534-1672, mcny.org

Musicians’ Local 802, 332 W. 48th, 718-468-7376

National Sawdust, 80 N. 6th St., Brooklyn. 646-779-8455.

www.nationalsawdust.org

Newark Museum, 49 Washington St, Newark, New Jersey 07102-

3176, 973-596-6550, newarkmuseum.org

New Jersey Performing Arts Center, 1 Center St., Newark, NJ,

07102, 973-642-8989, njpac.org

New Leaf Restaurant, 1 Margaret Corbin Dr., Ft. Tryon Park. 212-

568-5323. newleafrestaurant.com

New School Performance Space, 55 W. 13th St., 5th Floor (betw

5th & 6th Ave.), 212-229-5896, newschool.edu.

New School University-Tishman Auditorium, 66 W. 12th St., 1st

Floor, Room 106, 212-229-5488, newschool.edu

New York City Baha’i Center, 53 E. 11th St. (betw Broadway &

University), 212-222-5159, bahainyc.org

North Square Lounge, 103 Waverly Pl. (at MacDougal St.),

212-254-1200, northsquarejazz.com

Oak Room at The Algonquin Hotel, 59 W. 44th St. (betw 5th and

6th Ave.), 212-840-6800, thealgonquin.net

Oceana Restaurant, 120 West 49th St, New York, NY 10020

212-759-5941, oceanarestaurant.com

Orchid, 765 Sixth Ave. (betw 25th & 26th St.), 212-206-9928

The Owl, 497 Rogers Ave, Bklyn. 718-774-0042. www.theowl.nyc

Palazzo Restaurant, 11 South Fullerton Avenue, Montclair. 973-

746-6778. palazzonj.com

Priory Jazz Club: 223 W Market, Newark, 07103, 973-639-7885

Proper Café, 217-01 Linden Blvd., Queens, 718-341-2233

Clubs, Venues & Jazz ResourcesClubs, Venues & Jazz Resources

— Anton Chekhov

“A system of morality

which is based on relative

emotional values is a mere

illusion, a thoroughly vulgar

conception which has nothing

sound in it and nothing true.”

— Socrates


Prospect Park Bandshell, 9th St. & Prospect Park W., Brooklyn,

NY, 718-768-0855

Prospect Wine Bar & Bistro, 16 Prospect St. Westfield, NJ,

908-232-7320, 16prospect.com, cjayrecords.com

Red Eye Grill, 890 7th Av (56th), 212-541-9000, redeyegrill.com

Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 East Ridge, parallel to Main St.,

Ridgefield, CT; ridgefieldplayhouse.org, 203-438-5795

Rockwood Music Hall, 196 Allen St, 212-477-4155

Rose Center (American Museum of Natural History), 81st St.

(Central Park W. & Columbus), 212-769-5100, amnh.org/rose

Rose Hall, 33 W. 60th St., 212-258-9800, jalc.org

Rosendale Café, 434 Main St., PO Box 436, Rosendale, NY 12472,

845-658-9048, rosendalecafe.com

Rubin Museum of Art - “Harlem in the Himalayas”, 150 W. 17th

St. 212-620-5000. rmanyc.org

Rustik, 471 DeKalb Ave, Brooklyn, NY, 347-406-9700,

rustikrestaurant.com

St. Mark’s Church, 131 10th St. (at 2nd Ave.), 212-674-6377

St. Nick’s Pub, 773 St. Nicholas Av (at 149th), 212-283-9728

St. Peter’s Church, 619 Lexington (at 54th), 212-935-2200,

saintpeters.org

Sasa’s Lounge, 924 Columbus Ave, Between 105th & 106th St.

NY, NY 10025, 212-865-5159, sasasloungenyc.yolasite.com

Savoy Grill, 60 Park Place, Newark, NJ 07102, 973-286-1700

Schomburg Center, 515 Malcolm X Blvd., 212-491-2200,

nypl.org/research/sc/sc.html

Shanghai Jazz, 24 Main St., Madison, NJ, 973-822-2899, shang-

haijazz.com

ShapeShifter Lab, 18 Whitwell Pl, Brooklyn, NY 11215

shapeshifterlab.com

Showman’s, 375 W. 125th St., 212-864-8941

Sidewalk Café, 94 Ave. A, 212-473-7373

Sista’s Place, 456 Nostrand, Bklyn, 718-398-1766, sistasplace.org

Skippers Plane St Pub, 304 University Ave. Newark NJ, 973-733-

9300, skippersplaneStpub.com

Smalls Jazz Club, 183 W. 10th St. (at 7th Ave.), 212-929-7565,

SmallsJazzClub.com

Smith’s Bar, 701 8th Ave, New York, 212-246-3268

Sofia’s Restaurant - Club Cache’ [downstairs], Edison Hotel,

221 W. 46th St. (between Broadway & 8th Ave), 212-719-5799

South Gate Restaurant & Bar, 154 Central Park South, 212-484-

5120, 154southgate.com

South Orange Performing Arts Center, One SOPAC

Way, South Orange, NJ 07079, sopacnow.org, 973-313-2787

Spectrum, 2nd floor, 121 Ludlow St.

Spoken Words Café, 266 4th Av, Brooklyn, 718-596-3923

Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse, 165 W. 65th St., 10th Floor,

212-721-6500, lincolncenter.org

The Stone, Ave. C & 2nd St., thestonenyc.com

Strand Bistro, 33 W. 37th St. 212-584-4000

SubCulture, 45 Bleecker St., subculturenewyork.com

Sugar Bar, 254 W. 72nd St, 212-579-0222, sugarbarnyc.com

Swing 46, 349 W. 46th St.(betw 8th & 9th Ave.),

212-262-9554, swing46.com

Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, Tel: 212-864-1414, Fax: 212-

932-3228, symphonyspace.org

Tea Lounge, 837 Union St. (betw 6th & 7th Ave), Park Slope,

Broooklyn, 718-789-2762, tealoungeNY.com

Terra Blues, 149 Bleecker St. (betw Thompson & LaGuardia),

212-777-7776, terrablues.com

Threes Brewing, 333 Douglass St., Brooklyn. 718-522-2110.

www.threesbrewing.com

Tito Puente’s Restaurant and Cabaret, 64 City Island Avenue,

City Island, Bronx, 718-885-3200, titopuentesrestaurant.com

Tomi Jazz, 239 E. 53rd St., 646-497-1254, tomijazz.com

Tonic, 107 Norfolk St. (betw Delancey & Rivington), Tel: 212-358-

7501, Fax: 212-358-1237, tonicnyc.com

Town Hall, 123 W. 43rd St., 212-997-1003

Triad Theater, 158 W. 72nd St. (betw Broadway & Columbus

Ave.), 212-362-2590, triadnyc.com

Tribeca Performing Arts Center, 199 Chambers St, 10007,

[email protected], tribecapac.org

Trumpets, 6 Depot Square, Montclair, NJ, 973-744-2600,

trumpetsjazz.com

Turning Point Cafe, 468 Piermont Ave. Piermont, N.Y. 10968

(845) 359-1089, http://turningpointcafe.com

Urbo, 11 Times Square. 212-542-8950. urbonyc.com

Village Vanguard, 178 7th Ave S., 212-255-4037

Vision Festival, 212-696-6681, [email protected],

Watchung Arts Center, 18 Stirling Rd, Watchung, NJ 07069,

908-753-0190, watchungarts.org

Watercolor Café, 2094 Boston Post Road, Larchmont, NY 10538,

914-834-2213, watercolorcafe.net

Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall, 57th & 7th Ave, 212-247-7800

Williamsburg Music Center, 367 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY

11211, (718) 384-1654 wmcjazz.org

Zankel Hall, 881 7th Ave, New York, 212-247-7800

Zinc Bar, 82 West 3rd St.

RECORD STORES

Academy Records, 12 W. 18th St., New York, NY 10011, 212-242

-3000, http://academy-records.com

Downtown Music Gallery, 13 Monroe St, New York, NY 10002,

(212) 473-0043, downtownmusicgallery.com

Jazz Record Center, 236 W. 26th St., Room 804,

212-675-4480, jazzrecordcenter.com

MUSIC STORES

Roberto’s Woodwind & Brass, 149 West 46th St. NY, NY 10036,

646-366-0240, robertoswoodwind.com

Sam Ash, 333 W 34th St, New York, NY 10001

Phone: (212) 719-2299 samash.com

Sadowsky Guitars Ltd, 2107 41st Avenue 4th Floor, Long Island

City, NY 11101, 718-433-1990. sadowsky.com

Steve Maxwell Vintage Drums, 723 7th Ave, 3rd Floor, New

York, NY 10019, 212-730-8138, maxwelldrums.com

SCHOOLS, COLLEGES, CONSERVATORIES

92nd St Y, 1395 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10128

212.415.5500; 92ndsty.org

Brooklyn-Queens Conservatory of Music, 42-76 Main St.,

Flushing, NY, Tel: 718-461-8910, Fax: 718-886-2450

Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, 58 Seventh Ave., Brooklyn,

NY, 718-622-3300, brooklynconservatory.com

City College of NY-Jazz Program, 212-650-5411,

Drummers Collective, 541 6th Ave, New York, NY 10011,

212-741-0091, thecoll.com

Five Towns College, 305 N. Service, 516-424-7000, x Hills, NY

Greenwich House Music School, 46 Barrow St., Tel: 212-242-

4770, Fax: 212-366-9621, greenwichhouse.org

Juilliard School of Music, 60 Lincoln Ctr, 212-799-5000

LaGuardia Community College/CUNI, 31-10 Thomson Ave.,

Long Island City, 718-482-5151

Lincoln Center — Jazz At Lincoln Center, 140 W. 65th St.,

10023, 212-258-9816, 212-258-9900

Long Island University — Brooklyn Campus, Dept. of Music,

University Plaza, Brooklyn, 718-488-1051, 718-488-1372

Manhattan School of Music, 120 Claremont Ave., 10027,

212-749-2805, 2802, 212-749-3025

NJ City Univ, 2039 Kennedy Blvd., Jersey City, 888-441-6528

New School, 55 W. 13th St., 212-229-5896, 212-229-8936

NY University, 35 West 4th St. Rm #777, 212-998-5446

NY Jazz Academy, 718-426-0633 NYJazzAcademy.com

Princeton University-Dept. of Music, Woolworth Center Musical

Studies, Princeton, NJ, 609-258-4241, 609-258-6793

Queens College — Copland School of Music, City University of

NY, Flushing, 718-997-3800

Rutgers Univ. at New Brunswick, Jazz Studies, Douglass Cam-

pus, PO Box 270, New Brunswick, NJ, 908-932-9302

Rutgers University Institute of Jazz Studies, 185 University

Avenue, Newark NJ 07102, 973-353-5595

newarkrutgers.edu/IJS/index1.html

SUNY Purchase, 735 Anderson Hill, Purchase, 914-251-6300

Swing University (see Jazz At Lincoln Center, under Venues)

William Paterson University Jazz Studies Program, 300 Pompton

Rd, Wayne, NJ, 973-720-2320

RADIO

WBGO 88.3 FM, 54 Park Pl, Newark, NJ 07102, Tel: 973-624-

8880, Fax: 973-824-8888, wbgo.org

WCWP, LIU/C.W. Post Campus

WFDU, http://alpha.fdu.edu/wfdu/wfdufm/index2.html

WKCR 89.9, Columbia University, 2920 Broadway

Mailcode 2612, NY 10027, 212-854-9920, columbia.edu/cu/wkcr

ADDITIONAL JAZZ RESOURCES

Big Apple Jazz, bigapplejazz.com, 718-606-8442, gor-

[email protected]

Louis Armstrong House, 34-56 107th St, Corona, NY 11368,

718-997-3670, satchmo.net

Institute of Jazz Studies, John Cotton Dana Library, Rutgers-

Univ, 185 University Av, Newark, NJ, 07102, 973-353-5595

Jazzmobile, Inc., jazzmobile.org

Jazz Museum in Harlem, 104 E. 126th St., 212-348-8300,

jazzmuseuminharlem.org

Jazz Foundation of America, 322 W. 48th St. 10036,

212-245-3999, jazzfoundation.org

New Jersey Jazz Society, 1-800-303-NJJS, njjs.org

New York Blues & Jazz Society, NYBluesandJazz.org

Rubin Museum, 150 W. 17th St, New York, NY,

212-620-5000 ex 344, rmanyc.org.

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OP: I was fortunate to get a teaching job at what is

now called Settlement Music School. In 1978,

Billy Taylor and I first started at the school at 4th

and Queen Street and from that experience, they

gave me a job to work at Holmesburg Prison with

[violinist] John Blake and also to teach some stu-

dents at the school. That gave me a little money

and periodically I would accept some gigs around

Philadelphia. I also worked at the mail department

at the Wanamaker Building. That’s why I com-

posed one tune that I named “Mail Order.”

JI: Catalyst was a Philadelphia-based, collective

band you helped form in the early ‘70s that com-

bined jazz-funk, rock, soul and avant-garde jazz.

It’s considered to have been ahead of its time.

What circumstances brought the band together and

what made it so advanced?

OP: I got a job as music director in 1972 for a

special program that got a grant to combine music,

dance and art. I brought in Tyrone Brown, Philly

Joe Jones, Eddie Green, Jymie Merritt and Sher-

man Ferguson for jobs teaching there also. Three

days a week, Tyrone, Eddie, me and Sherman

would stay late and rehearse all night to develop

the Catalyst sound. Somehow Eddie Green made

contact with the Muse label and we did four LPs

and worked quite a bit around town. We were play-

ing all our own music which I think made us stand

out over the other groups who played standards.

Even today when I listen to that group it still

sounds good. Michael Brecker told me he used to

listen to all the Catalyst recordings.

JI: What was your connection with Grover Wash-

ington Jr.?

OP: I was in the pit band at the Uptown Theater in

the early ‘60s. On this particular Saturday night, I

had another gig and I had to find a replacement so I

asked Leon Mitchell if he knew of another tenor

player I could get to sub for me and he said there

was a new guy in town by the name of Grover

Washington so I called Grover. That turned out to

be Grover’s first gig in town since he moved from

Buffalo. That’s how we met and shortly after that,

once he had a hit record, he used to call me to work

with his group a lot and we got pretty tight.

JI: You didn’t live far from Sun Ra in the German-

town section of Philadelphia. What was your rela-

tionship with Sun Ra and the Arkestra?

OP: Sun Ra called me to make a job with him in

Chicago in the early ‘70s. That’s how I met him

and for over two months, every day, I rehearsed

with him, getting the music together because John

Gilmore had some other things going on. He want-

ed me to know the repertoire and be able to do the

job when John wasn’t available. So about the third

week of rehearsing every day I asked him how

much the gig was paying and he said, “Well, don’t

worry about that. It will be worked out.” So I came

the next day, rehearsed, and asked again how much

the gig was paying but no answer. After about sev-

en weeks I asked him again how much the gig was

going to be paying and he didn’t tell me so I sort of

pulled back from the rehearsals. I always had a

tremendous amount of respect for the group be-

cause they were doing something different but

during that time, music was my livelihood and I

had to support my wife. I got married very young.

There was also talk going around at that time that

some of the musicians wouldn’t get paid, they

would get food money or maybe a dinner. Musi-

cians at that time were so eager to work with Sun

Ra that they would work for like maybe twenty

five to fifty dollars. Since Sun Ra has passed, I’ve

been over to the house to play quite a few times

and Marshall [Allen] and I have a recording out

together [Universal Sounds, Porter Records, 2011].

I really admire Marshall.

JI: You play clarinet, oboe, flute, piccolo, soprano

sax and piano but on recordings and performances

you only use tenor sax.

OP: My feeling about that is that there’s still so

much for me to do on the tenor that I haven’t

picked up the other instruments. It’s strange but it

seems that I can adjust to the soprano’s embou-

chure a lot better than the tenor’s. I can just pick up

the soprano and the sound is right there but the

tenor requires more discipline and hard work for

me, so I try to utilize as much time as possible on

that instrument. I keep telling myself that at some

point I would like to pick the bass clarinet up. The

tenor requires so much demand in terms of tone,

technique and all the qualities that come out of it.

I’m always trying to do more on the tenor and to

play from the low B-flat to the high F and then

above the extended altissimo range that I play, it

requires a lot of time.

JI: Except for your regular work with Max Roach,

you’ve not done a significant amount of guest or

sideman work.

OP: I’ve worked with Bobby Zankel quite a bit

and I like working with him because he uses origi-

nal music and it’s a great challenge. It’s hard, com-

plex music. Most of the time I’m playing with my

quartet or my trio. I’ve played as a duet with An-

drew Cyrille a number of times. Playing with other

people really helps me develop.

JI: Let’s talk about your work as a leader. Your

skills as a composer, arranger and orchestrator are

vastly underappreciated. You’ve written a number

of compositions that are worthy of consideration as

jazz standards such as “Epitome,” “Cis,” and

“Muntu Chant,” but I don’t hear others covering

them. Where is the disconnect?

OP: I think the disconnect is with the Saxophone

Choir. The music was written for nine saxophones,

piano, bass and drums, and I don’t know of any

other saxophone choirs like that. The music is diffi-

cult to adapt to smaller groups because the melo-

dies are stretched out for nine saxophones.

JI: You’ve recorded the same original songs nu-

merous times, including “Cis” at least five times.

Why record the same songs so often?

OP: It’s been done with different configurations

and that makes a difference. I’ve done it with the

Saxophone Choir, the trio, and the octet, and with

each of those groups, it sounds like a different

song.

JI: “Cis” is a composition that you’ve been playing

very regularly for well over thirty years. You wrote

that for your wife and it has meaning to you that

listeners will never know. How has it been to per-

form that song for so many years, especially now

that your wife has passed?

OP: It reminds me of the great memories that my

wife and I shared together. She was a very special

lady. She was going to the University of Pennsyl-

vania, studying to be a writer, but when I started

traveling with Max she decided that she would

travel with me and drop out of college. So the first

trip she took with the band I was bogged down

with a full suitcase of books that she packed! She

was so special and supportive to me and every time

I play that tune I think of her and feel very special.

JI: The Odean Pope Saxophone Choir has been

active since 1977 and utilizes, as you’ve men-

tioned, nine saxophones plus a rhythm section to

translate the power and glory of the gospel choir

that you experienced as a child. That large ensem-


Odean Pope

“I was in the pit band at the Uptown Theater in the early ‘60s. On this particular Saturday night, I had

another gig and I had to find a replacement so I asked Leon Mitchell if he knew of another tenor player I

could get to sub for me and he said there was a new guy in town by the name of Grover Washington so I

called Grover. That turned out to be Grover’s first gig in town since he moved from Buffalo. That’s how we met and shortly after that, once he had a hit record, he used to call me to work with his group a lot …”


ble gives you so much to work with, do you feel

constricted when working in smaller settings?

OP: Not really because in each one of my groups I

try to create something a little different. With the

trio I play about fifty percent standards, with the

quartet I’m also playing some standards. I like to

play standards that haven’t been played so much

and that are unique with their chord changes and

harmonic and melodic structures. You don’t hear

people playing songs like “Nancy with the Laugh-

ing Face” and “On a Misty Night.”

JI: “Grey Hair” appears on your Epitome recording

[Soul Note, 1994]. What inspired that song?

OP: The concept behind “Grey Hair” came when I

started getting grey hair. I looked in the mirror and

I said, ‘That’s a good composition.’

JI: You titled a 1999 recording Ebioto [Knitting

Factory] which stands for “everybody is on their

own.” What did you mean by that?

OP: I meant when you get on the bandstand with

me, everyone is on their own. We each have differ-

ent ideas up there but when I write certain things,

everybody’s on their own. In other words, this is

your arena and this is my arena, and in order to

make them be compatible to one another you have

to work with it. It’s like a puzzle that must be put

together to make it sound complete. So Ebioto is a

message to the musicians who are performing it.

JI: Locked & Loaded [Half Note, 2006] was a

critically acclaimed, blockbuster recording you

made live at New York’s Blue Note club and fea-

tured performances by Michael Brecker, Joe

Lovano and James Carter. How did that project

come together?

OP: Jeff Levenson, who was working at the Blue

Note at the time, called me up and said that he had

wanted to do something with me for many years

and that he wanted to record the Saxophone Choir.

He arranged a three day recording session at the

Blue Note Club and suggested I include a different

guest soloist each night, which he left up to me to

pick. I had met James Carter about twenty years

ago in Warsaw where we struck up a nice friend-

ship. He told me he used to carry that first Saxo-

phone Choir LP around with him so I knew he

would be compatible with what I was trying to do.

Michael Brecker had told me he used to play the

Catalyst CDs all the time when he was going to

Berklee. So I knew he knew about my music. I first

met Joe Lovano after I did an interview at a radio

station in New York City. When I came out of the

studio, he was sitting on the side waiting to do his

own interview. I had never heard about him before.

He said, “Odean, I’m Joe Lovano and I really like

your music, man, and I really hope we can get a

chance to play or do something.” So these are the

three musicians I used.

JI: Michael Brecker appeared on stage with you

for that recording despite being weakened from the

disease that would take his life. What went on be-

hind the scene to get him there?

OP: A few weeks before we got ready to record,

Michael Brecker called me up and said, “Odean,

I’m very sick and I don’t know whether I’ll be

ready to do the date or not.” I said, ‘Michael, you

can do it. Somebody told me a long time ago not to

use the word can’t in my vocabulary. You can do

it, I believe in you.’ A week later he told me he

would give me his best.

JI: Plant Life is a 2008 recording [Porter] you

made that also features a composition by that

name. What inspired that title?

OP: That was inspired by the creation of plants –

trees, the foliage, and the transitions that the trees

go through. I was driving upstate to Erie and Buffa-

lo and the plants were so beautiful that I was in-

spired.

JI: Plant Life featured Sunny Murray on drums

playing uncharacteristically more in the pocket.

How did you envision Murray for that project?

OP: Sunny and I go back a long ways, we used to

play together as a duo. Before the recording, Sunny

had invited me over to Europe to do a trio thing

with him, which I appreciated, so I asked him to do

a trio recording with me for Porter Records who

had engaged me to do four or five different things.

I felt very close to him and he was one of the few

drummers during that early period who was doing

something different.

JI: There was a 2011 all-star benefit concert for

you in Philadelphia after you publically announced

your 30 year struggle with bipolar disorder. How

has that disorder interfaced with your work as an

artist and why come public with that?

OP: Bipolar is a sickness just like any other sick-

ness. I was in a European hospital for seven weeks

with bipolar in the past. Bipolar first started with

me in 1980 when I lost my brother. I couldn’t ac-

cept the fact that he was gone and I was doing all

kind of crazy things. I was a devil, I was a different

person. And then from that attack, it would seem

that whenever something very favorable happened

to me, I would get so emotional that the same thing

would happen to me. They prescribed medication

and I would take it for a short while and then stop.

But bipolar can be controlled with medication and

exercise, and you can live a normal life. When my

wife died, I couldn’t accept that and they put me in

the hospital. I first went to my daughter’s house for

about two weeks. I was walking the floor all night,

wouldn’t go to bed. Finally, her husband came to

my room one morning and said, “Put your bedroom

slippers on, we’re gonna get you out of here to-

day,” and they put me in the hospital. I was there

nineteen days, I wouldn’t cooperate with the doc-

tors, I would just look at them. Finally I told my

daughter that I was ready to come home and to take

the medication. The benefit concert was set up by

my manager Deena Adler. She got Bill Cosby to

come and the place was packed. Dee Dee Bridge-

water sent me a thousand dollars, as did Al Jarreau,

and I was able to use the money that was raised to

pay back bills because I hadn’t been working for a

while. That benefit concert gave me a new perspec-

tive after seeing all the people that were there who

thought that I should be helped and treated like a

normal person. I don’t intend to be sick anymore, I

intend to do what I’m supposed to do.

JI: The last questions were given to me by other

artists to ask you:

Gerald Veasley (bass) asked: “Knowing that you

still practice extensively every day, I wonder how

you maintain your spirit for growing as a musi-

cian?”

OP: I think over the years I’ve developed a con-

cept that I have things that I must do and things

that I want to do. I get up in the morning and do

certain practice exercises that if I don’t do every

day, I feel like I’m not complete. I often practice


Odean Pope

“I often practice pianissimo, just with my fin-gers, which I sort of learned from Sonny Stitt.

He had certain things that he would do in situations when he wasn’t able to practice. He developed this unique thing of just practicing by fingering the keys and listening to it. Living

here I try to be as congenial to my neighbors as possible and I practice from nine o’clock pianis-simo and then when twelve o’clock comes, I’ll

open up until five o’clock. Then maybe if I go to eight o’clock, I’ll practice pianissimo again.”


xxxxxxxxxx

By Eric Nemeyer; Photo by Ken Weiss

JI: Could you tell us about your recording that is a

tribute to Wes Montgomery.

PM: Personally, the preparation for this goes a

long ways back. In fact, the preparation goes back

to approximately 1958, 1959. It goes back to a time

when I wished I could play the music that I had

listened to and fell in love with which is all of the

separate cuts on this particular album, Remember.

And I’ve remembered those songs throughout my

evolution as an individual. It goes back to a time as

a child; so many of us have a dream that we wish

could come true someday. And in the process of

growing and becoming an adult, in most cases, the

majority of individuals forget what that was about.

And they proceed accordingly to fit whatsoever

they have become in that point in their life. And

rarely is it in conjunction with what they really

wanted to do as children. I wanted to be like Wes

Montgomery. I wanted to be able to play like that. I

wanted to be able to fluently flow through the mu-

sic that impressed me so deeply in my childhood.

And it took me close to 50 years to reach a point

where I have the dexterity at this point in my life to

be able to achieve that, with the same intentions

that I had as a child, which was the enjoyment of

the music itself.

JI: Do you remember any dialogue that you might

have had with Wes?

PM: One of the most significant moments was

based on me asking what the name of the chord

was. We were at the President Hotel one evening,

and I was in his room. And he was sitting on the

edge of the bed and he was playing. I don’t remem-

ber exactly what it was, but I asked him, “What is

that? What’s the name of the chord that you just

played?” And he was specific in bringing to my

attention that it really made no difference what you

called the chord, because he could care less what it

was called. And that said something to me. And it

began to reveal to me the multifaceted interpreta-

tions and definitions of quite a number of different

things that we as individuals see in different ways.

One musician sees the same chord as a B-minor

seventh flat five. Another musician sees that specif-

ic inversion of that chord as B-minor over B. There

are quite a number of things. Another musician

sees that very same chord as a B-flat major seventh

sharping the root. So what I learned from his re-

sponse was how little he could care about the name

of something and how deeply involved he was in

the essence of what that truly represented and what

it functioned as.

JI: Could you discuss your continuing evolution?

PM: Well, I think it’s essential to experience what

all of us experience in common. And that’s musi-

cianship, which is to participate as a craftsman,

successfully as a craftsman in the midst to the re-

sponsibilities of the craft itself. And that is, some

of the most basic general terms that are common in

such a pursuit would be being on time, being in the

union, when of course these things are functionally

a necessity, knowing the right people, having a

manager, looking for a manager at some point,

having a record contract, all these things that are

general interest on behalf of musicians who are

entering into this as a career. We share them in

common, initially. Somewhere down the line due

to an experience throughout the years over a broad-

er length of time in the evolution of our interpreta-

tions, we begin to see that all of these things really

have nothing to do with what we initially started

out wanting to be and wanting to do. So in that

respect, it’s impossible to tell at the early stages of

our own evolution, our experience in music exactly

what’s going to happen next and where it’s going

to bring us. But one of the most profound things of

all of this happened to me when I forgot everything

and I reestablished a position that was very similar

to the very initial departure as a child and that was

the playfulness with a toy; to be able to sit down

and enjoy something to such a degree that your

parents would have to come over and say, “Stop

doing that and do your homework” is something

that we all share in common. And something that

the majority of us forget, primarily because once

we are reorganized and pointed in a direction that

is going to be feasible for a career and for success

within an industrial society, we begin to forget the

ecstasy that we had as children lost in the playful-

ness and joy of curiosity itself.

JI: Ashley Montague said, people need to grow old

not in their childlike qualities but in their adult

qualities, otherwise heaven forbid, a certain psycho

-sclerosis sets in.

PM: Exactly, that is exactly what I’m just defining

here. So I think that has a great deal to do with

many of us as musicians, in terms of being crafts-

men in any field or any profession. And I think that

the true nature of an artist in any field of endeavor

is a little closer to the ecstasy that is innate and that

has transcended its applications within such an

industrial society, that it is the essence of that indi-

vidual’s intentions that are solidified within that

individual and he or she has then the power to cre-

ate longevity in their own ecstasy. And that is the

difference between two things in my experience,

the first being my intention as a juvenile, who is

still subject to the intentions and the responsibili-

ties of parental guidance, where it was from the

bottom of their hearts their main intention was to

advise and to guide me into directions which would

support me and would give me longevity and en-

durance and a future as opposed to the ecstasy that

was innate since childhood. So that came the sec-

ond time around when I forgot everything the first

time and the blackboard was erased. It then came

down to procrastination for a period of limbo. And

from that came finally a decisive direction and that

direction led me right back into my favorite toy:

the instrument.

JI: What was that process of recovering your

memory like?

PM: The process itself had more to do with seek-

ing a closer awareness of consciousness on a philo-

sophical as well as a spiritual level than it had any-

thing to do with a career orientation or the replica-

tion of the past for a better future. There was a

period of tumult, just very volatile confrontations

with just many things that were alienated immense-

ly to me. And what it always caused me to do was

to sink back into solitude. And it brought me closer

to individuals such as Thomas Merton and of

course nowadays would be similar to individuals

such as Eckhard Tolle and others. And it brought

into a closer interest in certain artists’ innate refer-

ences to such states of mind, such as John Coltrane

“A Love Supreme”, “Giant Steps”, but the meaning

of these terms had much more to do with the attain-

ment of a higher goal as a human being not as a

musician. And because of this it came down to a

reassessment of my own interests. And my inten-

tions had very little to do with a career anymore.

And not only that, it would have been foolish to

move in those directions due to the fact that it had

already been done. And there was a history already

built for that. So when I finally got back to my

relationship with my instrument as my toy as it was

in the beginning, prior to my educational interrup-

tion with that ecstasy, it was no longer interfered

with. And the second time through, it’s been a

childish ecstasy all the way; it’s playful to the max.

And within, like so many others, I am primarily

interested in the human experience and from a third

point of view the fidelity with regards to interpreta-

tion and definition and the decoding of all things

that lead to a happier existence.

“...we begin to see that all of these things really have nothing to do with what we initially started out wanting to be and wanting to do.

So in that respect, it’s impossible to tell at the early stages of our own evolution, our

experience in music exactly what’s going to happen next and where it’s going to bring us.”

Pat Martino

INTERVIEWINTERVIEW

Hear Pat Martino at the Jazz Standard July 19-22, 2018



pianissimo, just with my fingers, which I sort of

learned from Sonny Stitt. He had certain things that

he would do in situations when he wasn’t able to

practice. He developed this unique thing of just

practicing by fingering the keys and listening to it.

Living here I try to be as congenial to my neigh-

bors as possible and I practice from nine o’clock

pianissimo and then when twelve o’clock comes,

I’ll open up until five o’clock. Then maybe if I go

to eight o’clock, I’ll practice pianissimo again. I

think the answer to the question would be that my

spirit and my whole development comes by way of

steady practicing and maintaining my physical

fitness through riding an exercise bicycle, I think it

inspires me to want to be a better person. There is

so much out there to learn and to develop and I

have to practice or that cannot happen. Scales and

the concept of chord changes and the fourth system

and third system are the key and what keeps me

very energized and want to keep doing more.

Joey DeFrancesco (organ) recalled a memory:

“The first time I met you was in the 9th grade when

you did some teaching at my high school, CAPA

[Philadelphia High School for Creative & Perform-

ing Arts]. I remember you teaching us “Giant

Steps.”

OP: I remember that well. I had gotten a grant to

do a ten-week workshop at the school and Christian

McBride and Joey DeFrancesco were the only two

students who were there every day and for most of

the time, they were the only two in the class. Chris-

tian was playing the upright and Joey was playing

piano. On this particular day I went in and I was

practicing before the class, warming up on “Giant

Steps.” So when they came in they said, “What is

that?” I told them and they asked me to write the

changes out. It was a Monday, and when I came

back that Wednesday they were there before I got

there, playing “Giant Steps” like they had com-

posed it. I never had seen anybody develop so fast.

“Giant Steps” is very complex, I was amazed with

what they were doing.

William Parker (bass) asked: “What are your

goals for the future? What haven’t you done that

you would like to do?”

OP: I would like to leave a great legacy in terms of

what I’ve done to help other people. I would like to

be a good force to help other people. I’d love to go

up to certain people and give them a few thousand

dollars to help get themselves together or talk to

them. I would like to give back. I’ve been so fortu-

nate to share so much with so many great people

and so many people have helped me during my

lifetime. My main goal at this time is to continue to

grow and develop and also get into the position of

being able to help more people with their concepts

and their ideas.

James Carter (multi-instruments) asked: “What

wisdom did you get from your association with

Max Roach?”

OP: I think I grew quite a bit working with Max

because he gave me so much flexibility regarding

my improvising and playing. When you improvised

he never cut you off, the only time he did was

when I was playing that one note. He was a tre-

mendous supporter of you developing your own

ideas, and without him I don’t think I would be

where I am today in terms of development, creativ-

ity, the love for the music, and all of the other

things that goes into being a great artist and staying

positive.

James Carter also asked: “Who’s currently on the

musical front that you’re digging on?”

OP: I like to listen to piano players and George

Burton is one I’ll mention. I brought him into the

Saxophone Choir when Eddie Green passed and he

developed so fast. His teacher, Tom Lawton, is

another pianist I’ll mention. He took George Bur-

ton’s place in the band and he is another talented

guy, an excellent reader, and his concept of im-

provisation is very creative and interesting.

Joe Lovano (saxophone) recalled playing at the

Blue Note club with you which led to the Locked &

Loaded recording: “Playing with the amazing

Odean Pope Saxophone Choir and standing toe to

toe with you, experiencing the total power of your

playing within the full ensemble, captured me from

the first note to the last and was a thrilling, explo-

sive experience through the evening. That night

was also extra special for all of us because Ornette

Coleman was there to hear us and sat right in front

of me. That fueled my ideas and added to the inspi-

ration that filled the room for all of us.” Would you

talk about performing in front of Ornette Coleman?

OP: I’ve had the good fortune of going down to

Ornette’s place in New York often while we were

working on this recording, especially when we

were mixing it. Just looking out and seeing him

there… One time before, I was at the Blue Note

and I remember seeing Illinois Jacquet and Sonny

Rollins [in the audience] there on the same night

and it gave me the same kind of feeling when I saw

Ornette because I used to love the way Illinois

played. When I was twelve or thirteen I thought

that was what I really wanted to do. Between Illi-

nois Jacquet, Sonny Rollins and Ornette Coleman,

the energy and ideas came by just looking at them.

It seemed like energy was coming to me when I

looked at Ornette. Ornette was the kind of person

who was very humble, he didn’t talk that much,

and he always was smiling. You never knew what

he was thinking. I had the opportunity to go down

to his home and really talk with him directly and

eat and share things with him. When he came to me

and said, “Odean, the Saxophone Choir is so won-

derful and so rhythmically and harmonically in-

clined with what we are doing today. I would like

to write the liner notes.” That was the most reward-

ing feeling that I received from that whole

[project]. In addition to Michael Brecker, James

Carter and Joe Lovano, I think the four of them

together, that’s where my inspiration came to play

and to try to do what I’m doing today. Joe Lovano

is a very humble man, he’s very original, and he’s

the kind of person who tries to enhance whatever

you’re doing.

JI: Any final comments?

OP: I’d like to mention the musicians here in Phil-

adelphia like Julian Pressley, Joe Sudler, Tom

Lawton, Lee Smith, Craig McIver, Terry Lawson,

Elliott Levin, Lewis Taylor, Robert Landham and

Bobby Zankel, these musicians they are so special

and so giving and so much into what I’m trying to

do that I feel so extremely blessed that I have these

great musical minds at my fingertips.


Odean Pope

I’ve had the good fortune of going down to Ornette’s place in New York often while we were working on this recording …. Just looking out and seeing him there… One time before, I was at the Blue Note and I remember seeing Illinois

Jacquet and Sonny Rollins [in the audience] there on the same night and it gave me the same kind of feeling when I saw Ornette …”

http://www.newportjazz.org


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Interview and photo by Ken Weiss

Donald Franklin Moye Jr. was born on May 23,

1946 in Rochester, New York, into a music-loving

family and shared his father’s interest in the

drums. Entranced in the ‘50s and ‘60s by the rare

and exotic African and Caribbean rhythms and

percussion techniques, Moye is able to swing and

improvise in the conventional jazz manner while

also developing an expansive, unique polyrhythmic

style. He’s best known as a member of the Art En-

semble of Chicago since 1970, as well as his time

with The Pharaohs, The Leaders, Randy Weston,

Kirk Lightsey, Steve Lacy, Wadada Leo Smith,

Julius Hemphill, Henry Threadgill, Hamiet Bluiett,

Pharoah Sanders, the Sun Ra All Stars, Archie

Shepp’s Attica Blues Orchestra, Don Pullen, Steve

McCall, Andrew Cyrille, Milford Graves, Baba

Sissoko, Kenny Clarke and numerous other well-

known artists. This interview was started live on

October 8, 2017, while he was in town with the Art

Ensemble to play Philadelphia’s October Revolu-

tion Festival [Ars Nova Workshop], and completed

by phone from his home in Marseille, France on

March 21, 2018.

Jazz Inside Magazine: What’s your family back-

ground? Where does Moye come from?

Famoudou Don Moye: My grandfather was born

in Pensacola, Florida and his grandfather was from

Haiti. He was a mix of Haiti and Seminole. My

mother’s side was from Richmond, Virginia and is

a mix of Cherokee and probably Irish or Scottish. I

went over to Haiti,

sniffing around,

and some of the

extended family

goes back to Benin,

the ancient king-

dom of Dahomey,

which is the coun-

try of origin of

many Haitians.

JI: Why did you

adopt the name Famoudou in 1975?

FDM: We were all interested in personalizing our

awareness [at that time]. I took the first name Fa-

moudou but I also wanted to honor the name that

my parents gave me, so I kept my family name.

Famoudou was a spiritual name. At the time, I was

involved with the group in Chicago called the Sun

Drummers, founded by Atu Harold Murray, which

was a collective of drummers that combined many

spirits. I had also played with many of the West

African musicians in Paris. Famoudou Konaté’s

name emerged as one of the great masters. Famou-

dou was a great djembefola [djembe drummer]

from the Mandingo tradition and I felt a great ener-

gy from that name. There was also another great

master who inspired me, Dougoufana Traoré, who

was the first Senegalese master of the djembe tradi-

tion in the modern era. I used both of their names

together for a minute but then I said, ‘No, this is

too heavy.’ I used both of their names on Julius

Hemphill’s Raw Materials and Residuals recording

but when I saw it written out, I decided I wasn’t

doing that no more. It was too heavy, it jumped up

off the page and smacked me. [Laughs] One fist

was Dougoufana and the other fist was Famoudou.

That was 1974.

JI: What do you mean by too heavy?

FDM: Names in traditional societies have a

rhythmic spiritual vibe because of the way people

get their names. You can’t be messing around with

those kind of traditions if you don’t know what

you’re doing. The name don’t just come out of the

sky. They probably have a ritual and some kind of

sacrifice, especially in the Griot societies. They

have more than five hundred years of tradition so

there’s a lot of energy attached to a name in addi-

tion to what they want to reflect through the person

who gets it and what his responsibilities are. People

of most indigenous cultures have significance at-

tached to their individual names.

JI: You ended up meeting Famoudou Konaté in

1985 in Guinea, ten years after taking his name.

That had to be a special moment for you.

FDM: I was on a tour of Sierra Leone, Liberia and

Guinée, West Africa with a trio that included saxo-

phonist John Tchicai and pianist, percussionist and

poet Hartmut Geerken. We did a concert with the

Ballet National de Guinée in Conakry Guinée so I

put out the word there that I wanted to meet Fa-

moudou Konaté personally. When we met he said,

“Who is this? Famoudou who?” I said, ‘It’s

Famoudou Me! And here’s a boom box, a fifth of

Remy Martin Napoleon Cognac, a carton of Marl-

boros, and a Swiss Army knife. Now let’s talk,

Master.’ [Laughs] That was my formal meeting

with him. The name Famoudou had come to me

and this was me realizing what the name really

represented. I made sure I went and got the

connection of who this guy really was so I’d know

what I was messing with.

JI: You brought him gifts?

FDM: That’s what you do, that’s the world tradi-

tion. You give, you don’t take. Anytime I go to

different cultures, I take gifts along, and they give

gifts back. It’s the spirit of giving and sharing, and

certainly not stealing or copying. These other cul-

tures start out by giving. They feed you and then,

depending on your presence inside of what they’re

doing, the sky is the limit from there. If you’re

already knowledgeable about their traditions, if you

half way speak the language, and know the impor-

tance of what they’re doing, then you’ll probably

have to take a duffle bag along because it’ll be full

when you leave. [Laughs]

JI: You term your playing to be “Sun Percussion.”

What does that title infer?

FDM: Energy from the sun. That’s an extension of

the Sun Drummer tradition. I was inspired by all

the energy and the spirit from participating with the

Sun Drummer. I said to myself, ‘Hmm, I’m Sun

Percussion, I do more than hand drums, I’ll expand

on that.’ All the people I deal with, you have to

personalize what you do. It’s not about sounding

like somebody else. You can do that too but you

have to try find your own personality. That’s the

gift that was given to us from the masters: Roy

Haynes, Kenny Clarke, Max, Baby Dodds, Elvin,

Papa Joe Jones, Philly Joe Jones, Billy Higgins, Ed

Blackwell, Buhaina and many, many more. Find

yourself, express yourself, define yourself.

JI: You’ve had a lifelong interest in world rhythms

and it’s been your inclusion of various African and

Caribbean percussion instruments and rhythmic

techniques that have separated you from many


“… you have to personalize what you do. It’s not about sounding like somebody else. You can do that too but you have to try find your own personality. That’s the gift that was given to us from the masters: Roy Haynes, Kenny Clarke,

Max, Baby Dodds, Elvin, Papa Joe Jones, Philly Joe Jones, Billy Higgins, Ed Blackwell, Buhaina and many, many more. Find yourself, express yourself,

define yourself.”

Famoudou Don Moye

Relentless Pursuit of the Pan-African Pulse

INTERVIEWINTERVIEW


xxxxxxxxxx

other jazz drummers of your generation. What

peaked your interest in this and why do you think

the investigation of ethnic rhythms wasn’t more

prevalent amongst other musicians at the time?

FDM: For me it was prevalent at that time. I was

hanging out with the Puerto Ricans in the housing

projects of Rochester, New York when I first heard

it, and I felt it also in the Townsend Children’s

Band and the Statesmen Drum and Bugle Corps.

Then I started playing the bongos. My first connec-

tion with hand percussion was through listening to

Perez Prado and Dizzy Gillespie. I’ve always been

captivated by drums, any kind of drums. I got dis-

ciplined at school many times for pounding on the

desks but the music saved me. A lot of my buddies

in the housing projects ended up dead or in jail.

JI: When dealing with specific ethnic rhythms is it

important to you to replicate them authentically or

are you giving an interpretation of them?

FDM: It ain’t no interpretation. If you want to do it

right, you go deal with the people who play it. I

never did YouTube study or bought too many

books beyond basic drum techniques, I went to the

people that actually do it. I believe in the direct

approach. There are no shortcuts to finding out

what it really is. If you watch something online and

rewind it over and over again, that’s not connected

to life. That’s just a diversion. You have to see how

those cats express themselves live in their own

context whenever possible. When you’re with

them, you can see and hear what’s on their minds.

If they are going to a party or to a ceremony, you

get some of the same rhythms in different func-

tions. I was in Haiti and I wanted to go swimming

but all the beaches in Port-au-Prince were com-

pletely polluted so I drove about 100 kilometers out

of town, stopped on the side of the road near a little

bridge. I had a little drum I was beating and a

couple of people came over the bridge and they

started drumming and then the mayor and some

more people came and played, and we all got toge-

ther for about three days. If you’re around different

cultures, you get all of it. Everywhere I go with the

Art Ensemble, the percussionists come out so I

meet people from all over and I’ll capitalize on that

and go to visit the places of the people I’ve met.

That’s part of the way I get involved with the

relentless pursuit of the pan-African pulse. That’s

what I call it. My classification of how this life

really goes is if you really want to consider

yourself adept at a certain tradition, can you do that

all night authentically? Not just one or two songs.

Do you have the capacity to play this music at a

high level with these musicians for a whole gig?

That goes for any kind of tradition, jazz, reggae,

the blues, djembe, koteroba, bâta, cumina, samba,

rumba, taiko or whatever. Can you do that? Then,

you can call yourself a good drummer in the con-

text of that tradition.

JI: How has rock music influenced you?

FDM: Not much, I was too early for rock & roll,

but I respect any music that’s well done and sounds

good to me. Oh, I had a lightweight brush with

rock, being a teenager of the late ‘50s and early

‘60s, and being around that environment of the

LSD scene and all that stuff. That was my encoun-

ter with rock through Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix

and people like that. They were pretty advanced

and every now and then I listen to some Zappa

because he was a bad dude. [Laughs] He’s one of

the great American composers and he always had

great rhythm sections. Then Santana came along

and he did a good job of exposing people to other

cultures because the white kids of that era didn’t

know anything about that.

JI: Are hand drums and percussion truer to your

heart than the standard drum set? On your 1971

solo release [Sun Percussion, Vol. 1] you don’t

event approach the drums until the sixth track.

FDM: It’s all the same, it just depends on what I’m

doing at the time. Philly Joe Jones told me it’s all

the same, man. You have to take that ass whooping

from whatever instrument you’ve got. It’s gonna be

an ass whooping.

JI: Is it true you named a son Bongo?

FDM: No, that was his nickname. All the kids that

came by to take lessons, they were Bongo One,

Bongo Two. That was just a little term of endear-

ment. He’d say, “Stop calling me Bongo!”

JI: You’ve spent a lot of time living in Europe

over the past fifty years and now live in Marseille,

France. Why did you make that move to Europe?

FDM: I went to Morocco first because I went to

play at the Casablanca Jazz Festival and then I got

a job teaching over there. Three months became six

months and then a year, things kept going on. I had

a hip operation in Italy in 2009. My manager Lu-

ciano Caiazzo had a brother, who was the mayor of

Pomigliano and he called up his buddy who was

the chief orthopedic surgeon in the hospital there

and they took me in for the surgery. I ended up

coming back too soon from rehab and that’s why

my Italian right hip is weaker than my French left

hip. In 2011 I started having trouble with my left

hip in Casablanca where I met an Italian bass

player, Claudio Citarella, whose girlfriend was a

French neurologist, who introduced me to an or-

thopedist in Nice, France. So, I did the other hip in

Marseille. That’s how I initially ended up in

France.

JI: That’s how you ended up living in Marseille?

FDM: No, I met a lady in 2007 while playing at

the Charlie Jazz Festival near Marseille and we

communicated back and forth until she finally said,

“You must come to Marseille!” After about two

years of holding off I gave in. The good ones

always win.

JI: What other musicians might we know who live

in Marseille?

FDM: Not that many. There’s Javier Campos Mar-

tinez, the bâta/rhumba and Cuban master rhythms

master in Marseille. Also I rehearse regularly and

perform occasionally with Christophe Leloil

[trumpet], Simon Sieger [piano, tuba, trombone],

and Remi Abram [tenor saxophone].

JI: You’re taking lessons?

FDM: Yeah, hell yeah! I’ve always taken lessons

with somebody. I even take drum lessons because I

always find these drummers in the pursuit of, not

perfection, just improvement. You have to find

people who do stuff that you ain’t gonna never do,

then you get with that. I’ve learned over the years

that the better teachers they are, they don’t get no

gigs. They just play drums. I’ve found three or four

of these cats over the years that just play and teach

drums and are not gig musicians. That’s all they

do. I found a guy like that in Marseille who could

be working all the time. That’s the mystery of how

cats make their life choices, and I just stay out of

that. I just find them and pay them, and then six

months go by and I learn some shit I’ve been

working on for the last twenty years without fo-

cus… You see, you have to work against your ha-

bits. There’s always somebody out there doing

something better, so I don’t have limitations [in

finding people to learn from].

JI: What’s a typical day for you in Marseille?

FDM: Get up, go to the studio. For the first time in

forty-five years I’ve got a rehearsal studio. I’m not

living in a space where I can just get up and go

downstairs and play at home. So, I’ve got a studio

now. All these other cats that I know did that and

now I’m doing it too. [Laughs] So I go across town

to the studio and hit, and I’ve usually got students

or classes, or just auto-torture. We call it duo

torture, auto-torture, group-torture, it’s all torture,

but it’s better than doing it by yourself. The auto-

torture is difficult – self-torture. You have to make

pleasantries out of all this stuff just to get through

it. You’ve got to psych yourself up, otherwise you

get older and then you start playing tricks – mental

tricks. “Oh yeah, I got this.” You ain’t got that,

man, you’ve got to face that drum set! The hardest

thing is to do that by yourself, at least for me.

Roscoe [Mitchell] gets up every day, for the fifty-

five years since I met him, he’s still doing some of


“Cab [Calloway] told us how back in the ‘30s and ‘40s he had to rent a sleeping car because

they could never stay in hotels. Under the floor boards, they had rifles and pistols

because once you got out of the big cities, it was like the Wild West.”

Famoudou Don Moye



xxxxxxxxxx

the same exercises in a similar order. He may

change the selection of the instruments, but when

he’d come to Chicago and stay at the house – 6:30

piccolo, 7:30 clarinet, 8:30 alto, 9:00 breakfast, and

10:00 tenor. That’s the cycle, and Lester [Bowie]

had the same exercises he did and used them all the

time for years. These are the people I was closest

to. Even though I worked in all kinds of other

groups outside the Art Ensemble. I wasn’t as close

with Joseph [Jarman] and his personal thing of how

he did his development. [Malachi] Favors was an

unknown element. He was old-school, didn’t tell

you nothing until you made a mistake. He got me

good on bass players though because a good drum-

mer gotta be able to play with all kinds of bass

players, and then you go to piano players, and then

you go into the interpretation and phrasing of the

frontline pretty boys. [Laughs] I like trios because

everybody’s got to throw down. Duos, you got to

really throw down. The music doesn’t lie, only

humans lie. If you’re dealing with truth, don’t mess

with human beings [Laughs], sooner or later lies

are gonna come up, but I know the music does not

lie.

JI: Has your view of America changed since you

moved away and do you plan to move back in the

future?

FDM: I’m a citizen of the world. I just try to

maximize the situation and just try to be

comfortable wherever I am, however, these are

strange times. But I’m in constant communication

with the musicians and friends. So I don’t buy into

this shit about expatriatism. I’m an African-

American, it ain’t gonna be, ‘I’m never going

back.’ I’ve spent the majority of my life traveling

and I’m not gonna get caught up with the hoax of

going somewhere to the perfect place. This shit is

horrible everywhere, man - France, England, Rus-

sia, Africa, Asia and beyond. It’s the whole new

world order. My roots are in the United States.

There ain’t no feelin’ like the feeling I have in the

States when I look at the different traditions. I can’t

imagine committing to life in another culture, it

would be a denial of all the positive elements in my

life.

JI: What’s the most unexpected item or thing

you’ve ever used to make music on?

FDM: Tire irons, brake springs, brake drums,

bamboo etc…When I was working in Napoli with a

group named Bungt Bangt led by percussionist

Maurizio Capone, they made all their instruments

from found objects and trash at the junkyard. By

Napoli being a fishing port, they got fishing crates,

Styrofoam, oil drums, and all the debris and detri-

tus from the shipping industry, and then made ins-

truments out of all of that. Oh yeah, there’s also the

side of the road cats, that’s what I call them. In

many indigenous cultures, there are guys playing

on the side of the roads that’ll make an instrument

out of anything. When I was in Sierra Leone, West

Africa, I saw the dudes there making instruments

out of olive oil or coconut oil cans. They cut them

into strips and made thumb pianos out of that. Then

I’ve seen the dudes that made drums out of stools.

They’d be sitting around and get off the stool and

the top of the stool was a drum head. They had a

whole stool drum ensemble. Then I’ve seen other

cats that had shoe drums, they had a drum attached

to the shoe, and they would play and dance. There

were also the cardboard carton cats that would

make things out of that material. I also saw an en-

semble called the Ramadan Horns whose wind

instruments were made of car and truck mufflers.

There were also people who made instruments out

of saws and large gourds. There’s a whole world of

strange instruments out there. You can go to almost

any indigenous culture and you will find these non-

professional, side of the road cats that have been

playing music their whole life. They come home

from their work and they might play until 10

o’clock at night or later. I’ve seen that in Guade-

loupe, Haiti, Mexico, India, Sierra Leone,

Morocco, Guinea, and Spain. Nobody got no mo-

ney, but that’s the strength of the human spirit.

People are gonna beat on something. Just like the

whole hip-hop phenomenon and rap, to me, that’s

an extension of the demise of music education in

the public schools: no instruments, no music pro-

grams, no bands - so kids just made themselves be

the band and the instruments.

JI: What’s been your journey from a starting musi-

cian to one of prominence?

FDM: When I got out of school everybody I met

had a band or had been in the Army bands. Roscoe

was in the Army band with Albert Ayler and Eddie

Harris at the same time. [Laughs] There were not a

lot of accessible music conservatories so musicians

went into the Army band and went home from

there, and they just got their ass kicked every day

practicing and playing morning, noon, and night.

When I went to Chicago, there were still five

playing levels, starting with the at home level, then

there was the scrub jamming practicing level, then

there was the level where you might start playing

house parties or weddings, then the next level you

play in a real club, and then you go to the top level

where you be playing with the big boys. I went

through all of that, and there was always tutelage

from the top cats. I was working with six different

bands, seven days a week, and rehearsing all day,

every day when I got to Detroit, Paris, New York,

and Chicago. I was a country boy, it wasn’t like

that in Rochester so I had to get out of there. I

would have never got that there. I left New York

because I found a house in Chicago, twice as big

for half as much. We were always committed to

quality of life and not just making every gig and

then getting home and don’t have nothing.

JI: You’re best known for your forty-seven-year

collaboration with the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

Now that original members Lester Bowie and Mal-

achi Favors have passed, and Joseph Jarman is

infirm, the band has undergone dramatic altera-

tions. In addition to original members Roscoe

Mitchell and yourself, the personnel that is current-

ly touring includes trumpeter Hugh Ragin, bassists

Junius Paul and Jaribu Shahid, and cellist Tomeka

Reid. What makes this band, the way it is com-

prised today, the Art Ensemble of Chicago?

FDM: It ain’t that dramatic, it’s the same esthetic.

The body of work is there, we don’t have to di-

verge from that. You see, our position was not

replacement, it’s just that you have special guests,

you add new elements, but your construct don’t

change. It ain’t who’s gonna replace Lester, it’s not

a replacement, it’s a special guest to come in and

express himself in this construct. The volume of

the work is so big, most people come in and have

to contribute to that. We ain’t looking for somebo-

dy to take us in another direction. We still got work

to do, man. [Laughs] The work ain’t finished, the

legacy is there so all we gotta do is focus on that.

We all had our own side bands where we could

express ourselves in the way we wanted, our goal

was when we came back, bring some new stuff,

come back fresh.

JI: Well the band does seem different these days.

Nobody is painting their faces or dressing up and

the use of small instruments has lessened.

FDM: I paint my face sometimes, it’s the feeling.

As far as the small instruments, tell that to Home-

land Security or Customs or the airlines that want

to charge you two hundred dollars for an extra bag.

Back in the day, we had cargo containers, flight

cases and international carnets. It wasn’t all the

hassles of standing in a check-in line and trying to

explain why you’re traveling with a set of drums

and percussion. Now it’s a thousand dollars to do

that. So that was by choice because we paid for all

of that equipment, for all the years we did it, and it

wasn’t exorbitant. We could have made a lot more

money if we hadn’t committed to the thing of tra-

veling with our own equipment.

JI: How are new members of the ensemble cho-

sen?

FDM: We just recruit all the time. I’ve got a per-

cussionist, Dudu Kouaté from Senegal and a per-

cussionist/griot Baba Sissoko from Mali. Roscoe’s

got Fred Berry, who goes all the way back to his

groups of the early ‘60s with Malachi Favors.

We’re always looking. We’ve never put a

restriction on ourselves. We just figure out a way to

pay for it.

JI: Let’s talk a bit about your pre-AEOC days.

While going to school at Detroit’s Wayne State

University in 1966, you spent time with the Detroit

Artists Workshop, a community organization co-

founded by political activist John Sinclair which

gave you exposure to a number of the Beat

Generation poets Amiri Baraka, Gregory Corso,

Robert Creeley and Alan Ginsberg. How did these

poets influence you?

FDM: Through their rhythms of life, their vision

of society, their relation to the reality of all the

bullshit that was going on at that time in white

American culture. That was before all the Ameri-

can white kids went crazy. The poets were cultural

beacons of a time to come when people would start

using their brains more reflectively. The Beats

played with musicians during poetry readings. I

can’t say that the poets effected my playing be-

cause I was listening to Miles, Coltrane, Duke and

others, but it was more of their lifestyle that had its


Famoudou Don Moye


xxxxxxxxxx

effect. Their words were good for the brain, put

something on your mind. They turned me onto

other writers from around the world and from diffe-

rent social origins.

JI: You also met Timothy Leary, the famous LSD

pioneer.

FDM: I can tell you the last meeting with him.

[Laughs] I was in Tangiers, Morocco in 1969 with

the Detroit Free Jazz band after we had done some

productions with Julian Beck and Judith Malina’s

Living Theater in Europe. We rented a house and

Timothy Leary shows up in town with all these

rich, white hippie kids, talking about how they

were gonna have a new ‘LSD Nation’ on the

beaches of Tangiers [Laughs]. The Moroccan Cus-

toms and Border Police showed up and said, “Oh,

hell no, not here!” We got ourselves out of town in

the next days, down further south to Essaouira,

because they were busting everybody that didn’t

look right in Tangiers as a result of Leary showing

up. At that time, Tangiers had a pretty good jazz

scene because Randy Weston had a club there,

which is one of the reasons we ended up there.

JI: After the Detroit Free Jazz band disbanded in

Copenhagen you relocated to Rome. How did you

join forces with Steve Lacy there?

FDM: Oh, I did all of my research at that time on

who was doing what and where in Europe. I knew

there weren’t a lot of drummers in Rome and I got

there because I had a gig set up there and an apart-

ment. Once I got there, as per my usual routine, I

went to all of the dance schools and studios in town

because in those days they needed live music for

their movement classes. I did that in any town that

I’d go to. I worked with the Norman Davis Dan-

cers, The Bob Curtis Dancers, trumpeter Enrico

Rava, bassist Marcello Melis, singer Archie Savage

and saxophonist Gato Barbieri, and then I met

Steve Lacy. He rehearsed every day but he wasn’t

working that much. I hung out with him for several

months until we both decided to leave for Paris. As

a matter of fact, I paid his train ticket to Paris be-

cause he was broke. First day we got to Paris, we

went to the local spot in the Latin Quarter and there

was Art Taylor, Mal Waldron, Marion Brown and

Frank Wright all siting at the café in the afternoon

having coffee and a beer, and then Johnny Griffin

walked by. [Laughs] So I said, ‘Ok, here I am!’

JI: Talk about the Paris scene when you got there?

FDM: Frank Wright and his band, we all stayed in

the same hotel. Me and his drummer, Muhammad

Ali, got to be good buddies. I was like the little kid

with those guys, hanging out with them all the

time. I also had my gigs with the dance classes

there. Paris was filled with African drummers so I

had some serious competition. We used to rehearse

at the American Center for Students and Artists in

Montparnasse, Paris. That was a good place for

shows, and I would see Slide Hampton, Art Taylor,

Johnny Griffin, Dizzy Reese, Philly Joe Jones, who

was my good buddy, and Randy Weston. Paris was

the center at that time. Albert Ayler, Cecil Taylor

and Archie Shepp among others came through

there. Sunny Murray was around, trumpeter Alan

Shorter. I was friends with ten different drummers

and everybody was working.

JI: You became especially close with drummer

Art Taylor while in Paris.

FDM: I used to go by his house all the time when

he was in town and we would play rudiments and

just drum talk. He even gave me a set of drums. I

paid him 500 francs, 100 dollars at the time, but it

was like super deluxe, top of the line Sonor drums.

He was a Sonor endorsee and he said he wanted me

to have those drums. Art Taylor, Randy Weston,

Memphis Slim, Johnny Griffin and Kenny Clarke

were the heroes for all the young cats in Paris for

how to get through the European stuff on top.

There was a whole scene there alternative to being

in New York.

JI: While in Paris you took over the vacant drum-

mer chair for the Art Ensemble of Chicago in 1970.

How did you get offered the band and what was the

environment like at the French farm house the band

lived in?

FDM: Lester Bowie said, “If you want to be in this

band are you prepared to take your place in the

history of music? Otherwise, do not fuck with us!”

That was his mindset at that time – they were

getting ready to make history by going forward into

the unknown future. Of course I wasn’t gonna say

no. It was significant because of the range of the

material and all the stuff they were doing. We

rehearsed every day at the big house they rented in

the suburbs of Paris. Lester had his wife, Fontella

Bass and four kids with him and two dogs so it was

a family environment plus a work situation.

Rehearsing every day was mandatory. It was the

formula for serious research. We warmed up on

twenty songs at a time and every couple days we’d

change the list of songs. We’d do all kinds of songs

– ragtime, blues, country western, R & B, straight-

ahead bebop, ballads and calypso. They were all

really into percussion so we’d have a period every

day when we’d work on rhythms and percussion

techniques. Lester Bowie’s first wife and vocalist

Fontella Bass was often working with us, so that

was a good experience with that level of vocalist

because she was an accomplished gospel and R &

B singer. For me, this was the real deal. It wasn’t

like we were studying, we were DOING this! We

were playing music at the highest level.

JI: It’s ironic that you became a member of the Art

Ensemble of Chicago yet had never been to

Chicago.

FDM: Well, yeah. [Laughs] They had several guys

from Chicago that were on the short list of drum-

mers in ’67 after Phillip Wilson left to go play with

Paul Butterfield. Phillip said, “I’ll be right back,

I’m just going to make this quick tour,” and he

never came back. He ended up playing at

Woodstock and beyond. They considered drum-

mers Jerome Cooper, who was buddies with Ros-

coe, Steve McCall, and Thurman Barker. There

were about ten cats around Paris and Chicago that

were possibilities, and then I showed up. I think the

hook was my hand percussion. I hit it off pretty

good with Malachi [Favors]. There was a concert at

the American Center where I played with the Steve

Lacy Quartet on the same bill as the Frank Wright

Quartet and the Art Ensemble. We did our set and

then the Art Ensemble was playing, and when they

got to an open section with percussion, I took my

conga drums to an open area next to Favors, put

them in place, grabbed a nearby chair, sat down,

and started improvising with them. They looked

sideways at me but Favors told me to keep playing

and that’s how we first got started. I was in the

right place at the right time. They later came to

watch me play again at a gig with Steve Lacy and

saw that I could play trap drums too. I did some

gigs and tours with them before Lester came and

asked me into the group.

JI: Was that your sly way of auditioning for the

empty drum chair?

FDM: Of course, I was hoping to throw my hat in

the ring next to the ten other drummers vying to get

the gig with The Art Ensemble of Chicago.

JI: How did Lacy react to you telling him you had

taken up with another band?

FDM: I told him that the Art Ensemble of Chicago

wanted me to tour with them on a regular basis and

I asked for his advice. His response was, “Are you

nuts or bullshitting me young man? You’d do best


“We rehearsed every day at the big house they rented in the suburbs of Paris. Lester had his wife, Fontella Bass and four kids with him and two dogs so it was a family environment plus a work situation. Rehearsing every day was

mandatory. It was the formula for serious research. We warmed up on twenty songs at a time and every couple days we’d change

the list of songs.”

Famoudou Don Moye



to go on about your business while you’ve got

some business to go on to!”

JI: Would you talk about life with the AEOC, es-

pecially back in the ‘70s and ‘80s? They were

known for presenting very animated stage presenta-

tions which included at least once, Joseph Jarman

ripping off his clothes until he was completely

naked.

FDM: Jarman did that in 1969 at a big rock festival

in the north of France before my time in the band.

He was playing guitar, doing a parody on the social

element of rock & roll, and during his solo, he

started taking his clothes off. That was an historic

moment, a direct extension of his theatrical activi-

ties. He was doing all kinds of theater pieces in

Chicago and Paris. At that time there was a great

interdisciplinary activity between music, dance,

theater, creative writing and painting. Everyone

performed together.

JI: The group traveled in a bus with two guard

dogs and shotguns and rifles.

FDM: That was the Cab Calloway legacy. Cab told

us how back in the ‘30s and ‘40s he had to rent a

sleeping car because they could never stay in ho-

tels. Under the floor boards, they had rifles and

pistols because once you got out of the big cities, it

was like the Wild West. You had to carry guns to

protect yourselves. We bought a 1951 Greyhound

bus after we played at the 1972 Ann Arbor Jazz

and Blues Festival. We went straight to the Grey-

hound used bus lot in Detroit and got our bus. It

looked just like the bus that Louis Armstrong, Bing

Cosby and Bob Hope traveled around with in the

On the Road movies during the ‘50s.

JI: Did you ever have to pull the shotguns out?

FDM: Yeah, hell yeah! Four o’clock in the morn-

ing, up in the countryside of Michigan, our bus

broke down. We were out there in the middle of

night, waiting for the sun to come up, and all of a

sudden, all these lights appeared and the white

vigilantes were there with their guns. They said,

“What you boys doing out here?” We said, ‘We’re

here minding our business. What you doing?’ And

we had our guns and the dogs were barking and

they said, “Well, look here, Jethro over there, his

cousin is a mechanic, and in the morning he can fix

y’all all up and you can get the hell on out of here.”

We said, ‘Thanks a lot Bubba, we’ll see you at six

o’clock.’ It’s a good thing we had our guns because

it could have turned out differently.

JI: Joining the AEOC and not being from Chicago,

were there problems for you upon arriving in Chi-

cago with the band?

FDM: I quickly became immersed deeply into the

Chicago tradition just by virtue of the fact that I

arrived with the Art Ensemble. If I had arrived on

my own, it would have taken me years. I met a lot

of the characters and personalities from the scene

because they were coming to see who the hell is

this? They talked about how the Art Ensemble

went to Europe and came back with some dude

who’s not even from Chicago. They were saying,

“Who is this dude,” and I was saying, ‘You will

find out.’ [Laughs] I had to brush back from the

cats. Even Jack DeJohnette came in and tried to

turn me into a punching bag, and I punched back.

Chicago is the “punching bag tradition.” They spar

with you to see if you’ve got heart. You can’t go in

half stepping. Fear is not acceptable. A lot of times,

the older cats would try to make you flinch and you

had to stay there and take it, and then the next time

they would say, ‘Nobody told you to talk, man, go

get me some cigarettes and get back to this rehear-

sal on time!’

JI: You’re saying that Jack DeJohnette challenged

you?

FDM: Yes. Steve McCall challenged me, and Phil-

lip Wilson, and Thurman Barker and Jerome

Cooper, and Robert Shy. All of the drummers,

that’s part of the deal. They said, “You look like

you can play. You got heart?” There was no

physical contact, just psych stuff. All those cats

were good at heart, it’s not a negative thing, but the

music tradition is precious. This was in the days

before all the jazz schools. The jazz school I went

to was in the neighborhood.

JI: The Art Ensemble did some joint touring with

Max Roach’s Double Quartet. Did you have much

of a relationship with Roach?

FDM: I was watching Max every night and we got

to be good buddies until I walked his daughter

home one night. He drove up in a taxi and said,

“Okay, that’s the end of that shit!” [Laughs] We

were just going back to the hotel, the string quartet

was walking too, then Max got out of the taxi and

walked with us. Oh, boy, we laughed about that!

Chico Hamilton was on that tour too, and for my

taste, Chico Hamilton was one of the baddest so-

loists at that time. Also one of the all-time drum-

mers for me was Joe Dukes. Did you ever hear Joe

Dukes with Brother Jack McDuff? That was a bad

dude there.

JI: You performed with other prominent and influ-

ential bands in the mid-‘80s. How was it playing

drums with eight brass players in Lester Bowie’s

Brass Fantasy?

FDM: It was great because I came up in drum and

bugle corps as a kid. We were national champions

in the early sixties.

JI: You were also a founding member of the jazz

supergroup The Leaders [featuring players such as

Chico Freeman, Don Cherry. Arthur Blythe, Kirk

Lightsey and Lester Bowie]. What was the concept

for that band and how was membership deter-

mined?

FDM: Because the Art Ensemble rehearsed and

worked so much, we encouraged each other to

make damn sure that everybody got all of their pet

projects done during the Art Ensemble’s down time

so as to get that off their chests. Everybody had

elements that they wanted to look into that would

not have been successful inside of all the music

that the Art Ensemble was trying to do. So The

Leaders was an extension of me wanting to play a

different kind of music. I had been playing around

New York, Europe and Chicago with Chico Free-

man and one day we sat down and came up with a

construct based on the cooperative ideals of the Art

Ensemble of Chicago. Philippe De Visscher, the

Belgian agent that was booking the Art Ensemble

decided he wanted to do an “All-star band,”

whatever that means, so me and Chico sat down

and did a list of people we’d like to perform with.

Our first choice for piano was Don Pullen, but he

was too busy with the Don Pullen/George Adams

Quartet so we called Hilton Ruiz, who stayed for a

short time until he got too busy. So we called Kirk

Lightsey, who I never imagined I’d be working

with because he was like one of the “big boys”

when I was in school in Detroit, one of the

“men.” [Laughs] Lightsey said he’d do it and then

we called Don Cherry, Arthur Blythe and Cecil

McBee. We really had eyes to hire Lester Bowie

but he was too busy with the early version of Brass

Fantasy, Jack DeJohnette, and the Art Ensemble.

He did join us later once Don Cherry committed to

Old and New Dreams. The Leaders was a

cooperative band without a leader. It differed from

the Art Ensemble in that everyone cooperated on

doing tasks but they weren’t collectively paying for

anything. With the Art Ensemble, fifty percent of

all profits went into the pot to pay operating

expenses, everybody was a leader and we all paid

in the same amount.

JI: In 1983 you were part of a percussion quartet

with Andrew Cyrille, Milford Graves and Kenny

Clarke that recorded Pieces of Time. Would you

talk about that special collective?

FDM: That was Kenny Clarke’s last recording

session. Andrew put that all together. Andrew

called me and said, “We have to do this because

Kenny’s coming to New York!” Kenny was

hesitant to do that recording with us because he

said doing all that percussion wasn’t “his thing,”

but then Max [Roach], his buddy, stepped in and

told him, “Go ahead and make that money.” Max

was driving Kenny around in New York then

because Kenny was sick. Kenny was great, he was

really humble.

JI: What current projects are you involved in?

FDM: I’m studying, studying, studying. I’m

working a lot with Archie Shepp’s projects and I

work with the Kirk Lightsey Trio. I’ve got my

Percussion Ensemble: MMusic, with MMusic stan-

ding for the countries of origin for the six percus-

sionists in the band - Morocco, Mali, United States,

Senegal, Italy and Cuba. I also have some projects

that I’ve been working with to keep my edge. I’m

playing with a good trumpet player named Chris-

tophe Leloil who I met in Shepp’s band. I’m also

working with a Martinique saxophone player, Re-

my Abram and a young multi-instrumentalist na-

med Simon Sieger. There’s not that much work. I

don’t jump out there like that – I say, ‘Say No and

Get Mo.’ I just pick my spots but I’ve got enough

work going on. I’d be doing the same thing if I was

living anywhere else. The idea isn’t to run around

so much. You’ve got to stay focused and a lot of

times touring takes you out of focus unless you’re

fortunate enough to be doing your own thing most



Famoudou Don Moye


of the time. I’ve never been the one answering the

phone to be a hired gun but I tip my hat to the cats

that can get up and go out the door, going to a dif-

ferent gig every night, the way the conditions are

now. My real focus is to stay home because I’ve

seen so many musicians that were never home so

they didn’t have no home, and all they’d talk about

was music. I say, ‘Man, I’ve got enough music to

last me.’

JI: What are your guilty pleasures?

FDM: I’m supposed to answer that? [Laughs] I’ve

got hobbies but I’m not answering that! The last

three houses that I’ve had, I’ve designed the

kitchen, so that’s a pleasure, but that’s not guilt. I

cook all the time. I like to do wood refinishing and

gardening. I also do a lot of archiving. Cats used to

laugh at me when I would go out after the concert

with my sack and get all the ticket stubs and

concert programs, stealing posters off the walls

before the concert started so that I’d have a whole

collection of memorabilia.

JI: The last questions have been given to me to ask

you from other artists:

Roscoe Mitchell (multi-instruments) asked: “Now

that the Art Ensemble of Chicago is approaching its

50th Anniversary in 2019, what are your thoughts

moving forward?”

FDM: To consolidate all of our experiences and

get up the next day and go forward, don’t go back.

Roscoe’s going forward and I’m just keeping in

step with him. You’ve got to get up and do some-

thing. We’ve got an expanded format for 2019 and

beyond.

Hugh Ragin (trumpet) asked: “When a student is

learning African rhythms, how important is learn-

ing the dance and the language of the culture that

produced those rhythms?”

FDM: Critical, because it’s a multisensory expe-

rience. I tell my drum students, ‘If you can’t dance

yourself, how you gonna play dance music?’ If

you’re gonna play rhumba and salsa, rhythms,

grooves, and whatever else you hear, you’ve gotta

dance and sing through your instrument. The music

is in the language and the language is in the music

and the music and the language are in the drums.

Dan Weiss (drums) asked: “I would love to know a

handful of your favorite recordings and why you

like them.”

FDM: Le Carnaval des Animaux by Camille Saint-

Saëns, which is a cello piece, because I was a

violin student for a little while. I listen to a lot of

Toumani Diabaté, the kora master/griot from Mali.

Another of my all-time favorites is Albert Collins

& the Icebreakers, that’s Texas blues. The

Mendelssohn Violin Concerto and the Tchaikovsky

Violin Concerto. I used to listen to them every day

when I was in high school. I had a record with

them on the same album. Charles Mingus’ Black

Saint and the Sinner Lady, John Coltrane’s, Kulu

Se Mama. I would also have to say Mongo

Santamaria’s Yambu and Tito Puente’s Puente in

Percussion. Another one that really inspired me

was Totico y su Rhomberos with Jerry Gonzalez,

Steve Turre, Don Alias, Andy Gonzalez, and Toti-

co the singer. I bought that record in the subway at

43rd Street in New York. For me, Don Alias is ki-

lling on that.

Kirk Lightsey (piano) said: “Moye is one of my

best friends. We talk every day and he is still one

of my favorite drummers in the world! My question

is what memories do you have of The Leaders, and

I wonder what you have to say about how that great

band ended?”

FDM: Ok, I’m not going to go into the details of

the ending, but the beginning and the duration was

great. Playing with Kirk and with Cecil McBee was

a real challenge, they had been playing with each

other since the Army in the ‘50s. They came out of

Detroit and did all those piano-bass duos around

New York because there was a city ordinance that

you couldn’t have a drummer in a lot of clubs.

Consequently, the rhythmic foundation and the

intensity and strength of all of Kirk and Cecil’s duo

gins were really solid because they had played a lot

without a drummer. When they played, all the

rhythms were there, so I had to put myself inside of

that equation as a trio and rhythm section to

compliment the band, because if you missed a beat,

they’d run over your ass. I had to learn to play with

those masterful artists.

Pheeroan akLaff (drums) asked: “Why did you

decide to become facile in European languages,

while many expatriate musicians did not?”

FDM: That goes back to grammar school. I lived

in a building in upstate New York in the ‘50s, after

World War II, and there was a whole mix of cul-

tures who were there because work was available.

We lived in the projects and on my floor we had

Greek, African American and German families,

and also a good mix at school, Italians, Polish and

Puerto Rican. We had a choir at the church that

sang songs in many different languages. So, I heard

all these different languages every day. I studied

Latin when I was in high school. I’m learning to

comfortably speak French, English, German,

Spanish, Italian, Wolof, Bambara, Arabic and some

Russian. I just deal with whatever it takes to ask

where’s my money, [Laughs] where’s the hotel,

what time is the gig, and what time is the next

flight? It costs a whole lot of money when you

don’t know what you’re talking about. People don’t

always know that I often understand their language.

So, I really get to hear what they’re saying on the

side.

Pheeroan akLaff also asked: “Do you believe that

U.S. audiences have ‘caught up’ to the level of

curiosity, receptivity, or critical analysis offered by

European listeners in the 20th Century, regarding

African American creative music paradigms?”

FDM: Whew, that’s a mouthful! I wouldn’t say

caught up, Americans often just don’t have an awa-

reness of other cultures. Everything is focused on

the American thing. I’ve found Europeans and the

Japanese to be a lot more open but in the States

you’ll have some magic moments when you least

expect it then you say, ‘Now this is the real deal!

This is the American feeling here!’ Any other au-

dience, in any other place, would not understand

this like that.

J.T. Lewis (drums) said: “Maestro Moye it was an

honor to be asked to be included in your interview.

You are one of my heroes and I hope I can make

you proud to continue the tradition of this special

music from Africa and Black America. When I

listen to your playing, your vocabulary is very

large, it sounds like it comes from a lot of places.

Can you explain how you developed such a large

drumming vocabulary?

FDM: A large influence came from the Art Ensem-

ble and the way we used to rehearse all kinds of

music. We’d always do twenty different songs as a

warmup every day and change them often to incor-

porate different types of styles. Once I got to Chi-

cago I played with a lot of different people. One

group was called the Pharaohs, which was founded

by Phil Cohran. A number of those people went on

to become part of Earth, Wind and Fire. There

were six percussionists in that group and that inspi-

red me to form my own percussion ensemble. I was

also working with African dance companies and

modern dance companies. I often worked with the

legendary Von Freeman, which I consider a feather

in my cap, and also the great piano player Willie

Pickens. The great Chicago drummer Wilbur

Campbell started calling me to sub for him. I was

studying with Muhal [Richard Abrams] and

playing with the AACM Big Band as well as co-

leading many projects with percussionist Enoch

Williamson. I was also working with poets, actors,

dancers and theater groups. I was playing with

percussionists from Africa, Cuba, Puerto Rico,

Columbia, and beyond. I also had contact over the

years with all kinds of drummers. I was fortunate to

have an open mind or have my mind opened, and

have had concentrated exposure to a lot of different

musical disciplines.

Jamaaladeen Tacuma (bass) asked: “How did you

become involved and inspired in fashion and

personal style, a passion that you enjoyed in the

past and currently still. How was that passion

transferred to the visual and performance concepts

of the Art Ensemble of Chicago? I mean the Art

Ensemble’s performances were crazy with Bowie

walking around in a lab coat and Malachi’s and

your face painted, it was definitely visual.”

FDM: I’m an adherent to the old style, old school,

of dressing for the occasion. There are several dif-

ferent ways to reflect that in your choice of dress.

You have the tribal influence, the spiritual in-

fluence, the ritual influence, the social influence.

All of these things were reflected in my vision of

the world around me. The people that I saw coming

to town to play when I was coming up, they dres-

sed. It wasn’t just jeans and t-shirts. My exposure

to people dressing for performance stayed with me

and as I moved out into my own consciousness I

started seeing styles like the Native American aes-

thetic, the African aesthetic, the Indo-Asian aesthe-

tic and the world wide Indigenous aesthetic. I had a

mixture of all these influences from traveling

around, meeting tailors and crafts people, buying

stuff and combining elements. In conjunction with

all of that was the Art Ensemble’s encouraging

every member to have their own look. Everyone

was focused on dressing and preparing their ap-

pearance for the stage and beyond. There were

performances when I first got in the band that

everyone painted their faces including Lester, Ros-

coe and occasionally even Fontella Bass when she

performed with us.



By John R. Barrett, Jr.

The Messengers opened 1963 in Japan,

their first appearance in that country. On their

Tokyo concert of January 2, they played be-

hind singer Johnny Hartman – the first time a

vocalist appeared with the group. (This event

would go unrecorded; their first disc with a

singer would be 1964’s Kyoto, made with

Blakey’s cousin Wellington.) Spring was

spent in a lengthy tour, as Blakey hit San

Francisco in February, Birdland in March,

Europe through April, and back to the Jazz

Corner on June 16, where a live album was

made called Ugetsu.

Their final record at Birdland,

the crowd is receptive and the sound

is warm – they also had a new batch

of tunes, many composed in Japan.

“One by One”, a landmark for

Shorter, has a prim theme that

quickly turns sassy – the cue comes

from Blakey, thumping the toms

with insistence. The longer the

horns play, the more their harmo-

nies fan out; Wayne turns hopeful

on his solo, moving up with a bitter-

sweet tang. Hubbard is peaceful on

the choruses, flamboyant on the

bridge; his highlight is a pleading

note, held for six bars. Walton’s bit

recalls Booby Timmons in its

breathless blues; Fuller has a great

tone, but does little with it. A won-

derful opener, this signifies the

group is ready … the crowd is cer-

tainly ready to applaud.

During his time with Blakey,

Cedar Walton did not write many

tunes … but those he did were

priceless. On his first rehearsal with the

group, Walton brought in a thing called

“Mosaic”; it became the title cut of their next

album. The same thing happened here: Ce-

dar’s lone composition was penned in Tokyo,

its title coming from the Japanese word for

“fantasy”. At once the mood is set, when Ce-

dar launches a Tyner-like vamp, simple yet

lavish.

Freddie offers the theme with gentle

grace, then blasts off for an athletic solo. His

notes are limitless, flapping like butterfly

wings as Workman makes a sinewy walk. If

he is a storm, Shorter is a spring wind, puffing

steadily but softly. His turn is one long varia-

tion of a compact phrase; as Walton’s vamp

returns, he moves like Trane for an exquisite

mood. Fuller sounds a little pugnacious, pac-

ing with tiny steps. His notes are rounded,

sweet, and long – his is the most coherent

solo, and the most consistent. Wait for the end

-theme, where the horns trade tiny solos,

Fuller does a long quote of “It Never Entered

My Mind”, and Walton sounds exactly like

Tyner on “My Favorite Things” … like the

best fantasies, this one comes true.

Fuller’s “Time Off” is a racer, allowing

Blakey and the trombonist to show their chops

at high speed. Wayne does the same, making

like Rollins through the steady flood of

chords. It is inherently logical, flawlessly per-

formed – when Art does his double-time rim-

shot, he’s actually slower than Wayne is!

Freddie begins at that speed, and goes from

there: the opening flood of high notes will

stun you. Art is having the time of his life,

raining down cymbals like mad; Cedar’s elab-

orate solo is matched by Reggie’s manic

walk. Very few groups could keep this pace

for five minutes; the crowd recognizes this,

and rewards accordingly.

The stage is tense for Shorter’s “Ping-

Pong”; Cedar’s comp explains the title.

Shorter begins with the quote of “While My

Lady Sleeps”, then runs through jazzed corri-

dors – decent, but we’ve heard it before. Bet-

ter is Hubbard, who dances around the scale

with deft precision – Fuller succeeds him in

mid-chorus, and continues the thought with

lively steps. The end is the best part, where

Hubbard screams as the rhythm freaks out –

it’s a Ferris wheel out of control. No solo real-

ly stands out; the tune is the star of this one.

“I Didn’t Know What Time It Was” puts

the spotlight on Shorter, who starts with rest-

less, rippling patterns, as Coltrane would

sound on A Love Supreme. Slower than most

renditions, the tune is a walk through the rain:

leisurely, sad, cold, and beautiful. Cedar’s

chords are glassy and gorgeous; we don’t hear

the other horns ‘til the end, when they roar

with big-band dynamics. Because of Fuller’s

presence, Wayne didn’t get the solo time he

had on past projects – this rectifies it, and

how. He ends it with a rusty trill in the image

of Coltrane, and soon launches into “Ginza”,

another standard of his. The ensemble harmo-

nies are rich, the feel propulsive –

Wayne’s solo has a worried feel in

its frantic lines, a tough sort of fra-

gility. Hubbard opts for diagonal

lines, in a persistent march upward:

cymbals roam free, and Walton is

the real McCoy. Curtis’ effort is his

best of the evening, where muscular

phrases match his tough tone.

Workman has a spindly part,

matched well with Cedar’s com-

ping; the end-theme tops the entry,

and the disc sadly ends. Almost

perfect from beginning to end, this

may be the Messengers album to

hear first.

Three more tunes were record-

ed this night, to appear on the CD

reissue of Ugetsu: a cursory take on

“The Theme”, Shorter’s slow ballad

“Eva” (all twisting melodies and

chorded horns) and the Monk-

inspired “The High Priest”. Work-

man starts with a nervous bounce,

the horns sketch the uneasy melody.

The drums are big here: mostly toms, with the

occasional cymbal for emphasis. Curtis

blooms on his solo, a warm flurry of delicate

notes. His wavelike patterns are followed by

Walton, at which time the cymbals do their

job. Wayne spins a weary circle, giving way

to Hubbard’s fast flight. Art does what he can

to drive him faster, and then there’s Cedar,

dispensing elegance with the speed of a player

piano. You’re amazed at their skill, their

wealth of compositions … and wonder how a

tune like “The High Priest” could be not good

enough. Such things will happen with stand-

Art Blakey

His Life & Music — Part 7

FEATUREFEATURE


ards this high.

In the mid-‘Sixties Art’s recording sched-

ule slowed down considerably; three months

passed between Ugetsu and his next album, A

Jazz Message. Title to the contrary, this does

not feature the Messengers, but rather an intri-

guing one-time quartet. Two of the players

had never recorded with Blakey: McCoy

Tyner, already famous with Coltrane, and Art

Davis, the second bassist on a rejected take of

“A Love Supreme.” The fourth member, Son-

ny Stitt, had worked with Art – but hadn’t

done so since 1950! Cut on September 5 for

the Impulse label, this could have been a dis-

aster … but considering the people involved,

you know otherwise.

The band earns its keep with the opening

song, a blues called “Café”. Davis begins with

a baião-like figure, seemingly ¾ and 4/4 at the

same time. Blakey provides some hard sticks,

establishing the time as 4/4; the theme comes

from Tyner, as a vaguely sinister Latin dance.

After this he steps back, providing thick

chords for Stitt’s relaxed solo.

Far smoother than his norm, Sonny hums

at mid-tempo, a chain of sly, interlocked

notes. A few choruses in he begins to move:

there’s a passionate trill, an urgent rush, and

constant bombs from Blakey. This solo is well

organized, more cerebral than you expect

from Stitt – Tyner begins his by chiming the

high notes, almost like a celeste. The third

chorus comes with block chords, while keep-

ing the high notes; the fifth does the same

with thicker harmonies, and it ends just as it

gets good. Davis’ turn seems without meter, a

cluster of raw, high, sharply-plucked notes.

Some passages sound like Oscar Pettiford at

the cello, others like avant-garde classical

music, which Davis also played. The ex-

changes are a wicked duel between Stitt

(quoting “Topsy” at one juncture) and Blakey

(cracking the snares and tuning the toms). The

result is a densely-packed six minutes – with

all the ideas here, they could have played for-

ever.

“Just Knock on My Door” is a more con-

ventional blues, begun by Davis in a typical

walk pattern. Stitt’s on the alto, blowing small

feathery notes; he’s relaxed even on the fast

parts. The tone has light rasp and swaggers

like a tenor – this solo owes nothing to Parker.

The background for this is quite basic: foggy

cymbals, an unadorned bass-walk, and a cur-

sory comp by Tyner. It fits the mood but

McCoy seems tense, as if he wants to do

more.

On his own solo, he does – a rolling bar-

room blues, with gradually ripening harmo-

nies. His famous block chords are heard just a

little, but enliven the tune whenever they’re

played. It’s interesting that both Stitt (the grit-

ty competitor) and Tyner (the dazzling sophis-

ticate) play the opposite of their usual roles.

Davis gets another solo, filled with broad

swoops and elliptical phrases; on the second

chorus Sonny comes in, hitting a riff like a car

horn. This is the door-knock of the title: an

inviting sound, and an inviting tune.

“Summertime” is made for Stitt, its chord

structure ideal for his lyricism. He does the

theme simply, with the tiniest hint of vibrato –

his rasp deepens at the solo, where he un-

leashes a flamboyant trill. Art’s snare keeps

pattering like soft rainfall; the brushes are

constant, working a light mist on a big cym-

bal.

The most noteworthy part of Tyner’s solo

is that he uses nothing from his 1960 version,

made with John Coltrane for the My Favorite

Things album. While that effort was an echo-

washed onslaught of chords, this take is inti-

mate, mixing cocktail phrases with patches of

silence. He has totally changed his approach

for this record – while Tyner was aggressive

with Coltrane, pushing him with energetic

comps, here he steps back and lets Sonny

work at his own pace. This draws it all togeth-

er: this isn’t four superstars in the same room,

but a genuine group.

Side Two opens with another blues, boo-

gied sweetly by Tyner. Inspired by “After

Hours”, “Blues Back” combines slow lonely

chords with a steadily marching cymbal.

Sonny’s got a syrupy tone, well-suited for

things like this; he quotes “Lucky So-and-So”,

then spins dizzying circles for his finish.

McCoy’s effort is somewhat clunky, and it

ends rather suddenly – decent in parts, but it

seems like an afterthought.

“Sunday”, a Jule Styne standard, is given

the soft touch by Stitt, who includes bits of

“Too Close for Comfort” and “There’s a

Small Hotel”. There are no notes, rather a

stream of vibrato-filled sound – there are

times when he sounds like Stan Getz! Davis

gives an intricate twang to his walk, some-

what buried by the cymbals; McCoy’s turn is

sleek, and all the notes twinkle. It is followed

by a fast “The Song Is You”, where the alto

coos one moment and groans the next. Sonny

fires on all cylinders: his solo is a breathless

sentence, where a thousand ideas are linked

effortlessly.

Stitt does not employ his usual quotes or

devices at any point on this album, doing the

whole thing fresh – he seems motivated by the

new surroundings, as is Tyner. McCoy’s solo

is closer to usual work, with lots of punchy

chords – still, there’s a ballroom touch he

didn’t use often. In one sense, this isn’t a Bla-

key album: the leader never solos, and rarely

breaks out of mid-tempo. Viewing it another

way, it’s a very typical effort – Art gets a

group sound from disparate personalities, and

turn familiar elements into memorable music.

Art began 1964 by recording the “jazz

version” of a Broadway show, the Sammy

Davis vehicle Golden Boy. While many such

albums were made during the ‘Sixties, this is

Blakey’s only foray in the genre. Written by

Lee Adams and Charles Strouse, authors of

Bye Bye Birdie, the show is best known for

the standard “Yes I Can”; the album featured

an 11-piece Messengers, with tuba, French

horn, and the first-time pairing of Freddie


“The greatest day in your life and mine is when we take total responsibility for our attitudes.

That’s the day we truly grow up.”

- John Maxwell

Art Blakey, Part 7

“As the Jazz Messengers entered their second decade, stability was replaced by

turbulence. Recording offers declined as the music was changing direction; touring became a larger part of the schedule,

putting further demands on the musicians. Stays in the group became briefer, especially

at saxophone – to no one’s surprise, Wayne Shorter was a hard act to follow.”


Hubbard and Lee Morgan. (They would reu-

nite on Art’s Soulfinger album, cut on May

12, 1965.) This was Morgan’s first date with

the group after a three-year absence; he would

return to the group, replacing Hubbard, in

March 1964.

Around the same time as Golden Boy, the

regular sextet was making an album at Van

Gelder’s, called Free for All. Recorded on

February 10, the title cut opens with rainfall:

sad chords from Walton, paired with drizzling

cymbals. The horns sink their teeth in the ag-

gressive theme: the prominent voice is Fuller,

his tone at its most rubbery. Wayne’s solo is

first, and wastes no time: in a gritty tone, he

draws curlicues through the active drums.

Swooping noises are next, followed by a

metallic two-note flutter; the other respond in

a simple riff. One chorus is basically a single

held note, blown in the tone – and passion –

of Coltrane. His tone turns warmer by the end

of his solo, with the intensity at its highest;

Fuller tries to follow with a series of long

whoops. It’s actually pretty good … it fails

only in comparison with what came before.

Hubbard tries for a calmer tack, sounding

reserved even as he climbs fast. His lines are

ordered, a precision surprising at this speed –

and now he blows fire, emphatic as he trills at

the top of his range. This is at least as good as

Shorter’s solo, and certainly more melodic.

Art bunches the cymbals on his solo, goes

across the rest of the kit, and band finishes

with relish. Worth the price of admission for

this cut alone, Free for All lives up to its

name.

Lee Morgan returned to the Messengers

lineup in early March, starting with a week at

Shelly’s Manne-Hole. His first new record-

ings with the group came in April, in sessions

for the albums Pisces and Indestructible.

These were made with Wayne Shorter, who

was receiving overtures from Miles Davis; in

late summer he accepted, and played with

Miles at his Hollywood Bowl concert on Sep-

tember 18.

Of his time spent with Blakey, Shorter

would say “The kind of timing I learned with

Art was almost always consistent. Building

your expressions into sort of a climax, ending

your solos on something very worthy of shar-

ing with or being remembered by everyone.

… [B]efore I left, we were starting to stretch

out with the arrangements, trying an extended

kind of thing with three horns in front on

tunes like ‘Mosaic’ and some of the other

things we wrote. But at the time I was getting

calls from Miles so I figured five years, that’s

enough for a cycle.” He had been with the

group longer than any previous saxophonist –

both his sound and compositional style would

influence those who followed.

As the Jazz Messengers entered their sec-

ond decade, stability was replaced by turbu-

lence. Recording offers declined as the music

was changing direction; touring became a

larger part of the schedule, putting further

demands on the musicians. Stays in the group

became briefer, especially at saxophone – to

no one’s surprise, Wayne Shorter was a hard

act to follow. Through 1965 the chair alternat-

ed between the veteran John Gilmore and a

young Gary Bartz: sometimes they’d play

together, for a dynamic resembling the

Griffin/McLean Messengers of ’57.

It was Gilmore who went on a European

tour in late February; a March 7 stop in Lon-

don was filmed at Cine-Tele Studios for the

TV show Jazz 625. Morgan is absolutely on

fire, spraying notes on high as Gilmore lays a

smooth background. He wields a mute on

“Lament for Stacy”, stepping gingerly among

the moody chords. The camerawork is inter-

esting, focusing sometimes on bassist Victor

Sproles, sometimes on Art’s cymbals – then

you see the band at a distance, peeking behind

the wavering discs. Lee’s eyes seem closed

whenever he plays, getting deep into the fab-

ric of the songs – it was one of the last times

he would play for the Messengers.

Morgan left after the group returned to

America, sometime in the summer of 1965.

He too proved difficult to replace: Charles

Tolliver played a few club dates in June, but

the band worked much of the summer without

a trumpet. A solution came via Dizzy Gilles-

pie, who suggested to Art the name of Chuck

Mangione.

A native of Rochester, New York, Man-

gione was not yet 25, but already had impres-

sive credentials: he had recorded four albums

with his group The Jazz Brothers, contributed

a song to the repertoire of Cannonball Adder-

ley (“Something Different”), and did a stint in

Woody Herman’s big band. He was not un-

known to Blakey, having sat in with the group

in its stops through Rochester – Art used this

opportunity for housecleaning, hiring Lonnie

Liston Smith and tenor Frank Mitchell along

with Mangione.

Their first engagement was a week on the

Jazzmobile, a moving trailer that brought jazz

to the streets of New York City. According to

Gary Bartz, Blakey was so occupied bringing

in new talent that he forgot to tell his current

men they had been replaced! “[W]e had come

back to New York from a gig in Cincinnati,

and all that week we were hearing advertise-

ments on the radio for Art Blakey and the Jazz

Messengers at the Jazzmobile. Neither Hicks

[pianist John Hicks] nor I had heard from Bu

about this, but we figured ‘Well, we know

where we’re working’. So we went up there.

We could hear music from all the way down

the block. And there was the Jazzmobile mov-

ing down the street, with Art and a whole new

band!”

Liston Smith was only in the group a few

months, his stay going unrecorded. His re-

placement was a drum student, a former child

prodigy who claimed he hadn’t practiced the

piano since 1960! Keith Jarrett had attended

Berklee for composition; to earn spare cash he

worked the cocktail lounges of Boston, play-

ing his first piano in years. He was scheduled

to study with the renowned Nadia Boulanger

in Paris, but decided against it at the last mo-

ment – before he became a composer, he

wanted to see if he could make it as a musi-

cian.

He went to the Village Vanguard on

Mondays, sitting in with the Jones-Lewis big

band. On one occasion in late 1965, Jarrett

took a ten-minute solo; as he left the stage he

was thanked by two members of the audience

– Tony Scott and Art Blakey. After playing

with Scott a few times, Keith joined the Mes-

sengers, for a period of about four months.

His stay there was turbulent: he offered play-

ing suggestions to the rest of the band, which

they naturally resented. He was seen as aloof

by the other musicians, who thought him dis-

interested when he wasn’t soloing; Art as-


“Lonnie Liston Smith was only in the group a few months ... His replacement was a drum student, a former child prodigy who claimed

he hadn’t practiced the piano since 1960! Keith Jarrett had attended Berklee ... was

scheduled to study with the renowned Nadia Boulanger but decided against it ... he wanted

to see if he could make it as a musician.”

Art Blakey, Part 7


cribed it to Jarrett’s restlessness. “Sometimes

a man has so much talent he would get bored

waiting for the other cats to catch up …[I]t’s

like a kid in school; put him in the wrong

class and he gets bored.”

Jarrett’s only record with the band would

be Buttercorn Lady, recorded at Hermosa

Beach’s Lighthouse on January 1, 1966. It

would be reissued in 1995, retitled Get the

Message. He has fun with “Buttercorn”, spin-

ning a long, funky calypso. As Art feeds him

tom-toms, Keith dances with precise steps –

somewhat clunky at first, his harmonies

broaden when Mangione coos behind him.

“Recuerdo” has one those perfect Mes-

senger Moments: Chuck goes Dizzy-like on

the mute, Mitchell answers with toughness …

and Blakey tuning the toms behind both.

While he had something of Morgan’s touch,

Mangione also shows a warm edge, at times

absent from Lee’s work. In the midst of his

emoting, Chuck sneaks in a quote of “Shadow

of Your Smile”, absolutely perfect for the

surroundings. By this moment alone, Man-

gione proved he belonged in the Messengers;

Wynton Marsalis characterized him as “really

low-key – it wasn’t a step forward, but it was-

n’t a step backward.”

The tune also contains what critic Alan

Goldsher calls the most bizarre Messengers

solo: a dissonant Jarrett, plucking and scrap-

ing piano strings in ways that were common

in classical music (Henry Cowell did it in the

1920’s) but at the time unknown in jazz. Ac-

cording to Mangione, Blakey liked this: “Art

would encourage him by yelling ‘Act like a

fool!’ And Keith did, because Keith is Keith.

He was as unique then as he is now. Similar

discord appears on Chuck’s feature “My Ro-

mance”, where odd triple-time sequences mix

with the sweetest mute you ever heard. If

there was tension between Jarrett and Man-

gione – as apparently there was – it resulted in

beautiful music.

The later Jarrett is heard on “The

Theme”, in a dense sustained cloud of intri-

cately-connected notes. It is simple by his

later standards (in the ‘Seventies he’d do this

sort of thing for 45 minutes straight) but it

certainly shows the direction he was going.

The horn riff behind him is little softer than

normal – they seem to be giving him defer-

ence. Mitchell gets a good turn on “Between

Races”; clearly inspired by Shorter, I also

hear some Rollins in the slower passages. The

bell-like comps provided by Jarrett are won-

derful.

On this session you can hear the roots of

Keith’s greatness, but he was already growing

tired of the Messengers. In the spring of 1966

he was sitting in with Charles Lloyd on his off

-days; he even appeared with Lloyd on a TV

broadcast, made on February 16. This was not

a surprise to the band, some of whom saw

Jarrett as an opportunist – he would join

Lloyd full-time at the beginning of March.

His replacement was Mike Nock, a New

Zealander who supported Yusef Lateef on the

Live at Pep’s albums. His stay lasted about a

month, followed briefly by Lonnie Liston

Smith and then by Chick Corea, fresh off a

stint with Blue Mitchell’s band. One album

was made during his stay, but surprisingly

Chick did not appear on it. As with many jazz

albums in the late ‘Sixties, Hold On, I’m

Coming attempted to reach a pop audience by

covering the hits of the day. Recorded on May

27, the disc included such curiosities as

“Monday, Monday”, “Secret Agent Man”

and, most improbable of all, “Walking My

Cat Named Dog”!

The expanded lineup included two trom-

bones, Garnett Brown and Melba Liston, the

guitar of Grant Green, and the organist Mal-

colm Bass; while not officially a Jazz Messen-

gers session, Corea was the only Messenger

absent. Despite the commercial trappings,

Hold On, I’m Coming sold poorly; the Mes-

sengers would make no studio album for the

next five years. Corea and Mangione left the

group at the end of October; they briefly

formed their own band, which played Roches-

ter until Chick joined Stan Getz. After an un-

successful attempt to rehire Bobby Timmons,

Blakey was able to get McCoy Tyner, right

after he left Coltrane’s group. The trumpets

flew by in quick succession: Bill Hardman for

most of 1967, Randy Brecker at the end of

’68, then followed by Woody Shaw. Many

stars played with Art in this period, including

Buster Williams, Kenny Barron, Joe Hender-

son, George Cables, and Joe Farrell – but,

apart from some bootlegs, no recordings were

made of them. While the Messengers had al-

ways been a live act, this was especially true

in the late ‘Sixties.

Blakey was fond of calling his bandmates

“my youngsters”, but in late 1970, he was

proud to make an exception. After a long ca-

reer in Europe, the bebop legend Don Byas

came back to the United States … and found

himself forgotten. After his appearance at the

Newport Jazz Festival, Byas made the rounds

on the New York club circuit – no one was

interested but Blakey, shocked that this pivot-

al figure was unemployed.

He took Byas on a lengthy tour of Japan;

Don didn’t replace Ramon Morris at tenor, he

joined him, for the first two-tenor lineup in

Messengers history. On top of his horn-work,

Byas acted as sort of a batting coach to the

other players, offering advice and sharing his

experiences. This was partly the reason Art

hired him: “[T]he young guys in the group

took advantage of his experience.” After the

tour, Byas did one gig with the band in New

York before quitting – shortly after this, Bla-

key signed up with the Giants of Jazz, an all-

star tour that circled the world for eighteen

months.

Art Blakey, Part 7

“Blakey was fond of calling his band-mates ‘my youngsters’, but in late 1970,

he was proud to make an exception. After a long career in Europe, the bebop

legend Don Byas came back to the United States … and found himself forgotten.

After his appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival, Byas made the rounds on the

New York club circuit – no one was inter-ested but Blakey … and took Byas on a

lengthy tour of Japan…”

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http://www.maxwelldrums.com

http://www.newportjazz.org

Documents

Eric Nemeyer’s - Jazz Inside Magazine · Art Blakey, Part 7. Art Blakey, Part 7 . Interviews . Pat MartinoPat Martino . Jazz Standard, July 19-22 Famoudou Don Moye Famoudou Don