Grachan Moncur III: Hit the Center of the Universe with that Sound
A Conversation with William Parker
Grachan Moncur III, 2004 © 2023 Michael Wilderman
Grachan Moncur III is a living legend of the deep blue soul trombone sound. His compositions have a unique personality; they simultaneously echo and reflect Black history and futurism. I have always thought of his trombone sound as a beacon of hope and rebirth.
–William Parker
This conversation is included in Conversations IV (RogueArt, Paris). It took place on January 12th, 2021.
Grachan Moncur III: I was born at Syndenham Hospital at Lenox Avenue and 125th Street.
William Parker: Were your parents living up in Harlem?
No. See, my father was working at the Savoy Ballroom at the time with his half-brother, Al Cooper, and his two boys. So my mother was over there visiting him. And I decided to come in the world. I was premature.
My mother and father met at the Savoy Ballroom.
Yeah. Well, that’s where my mom’s water broke, I guess.
So, then, you were born in New York?
Yeah, my mother was living in Newark. My father was mostly on the road or with the Savoy Sultans. He was staying in New York because they worked six or seven nights a week and the Sunday matinee, you know? He had a room over there. My mother and my mother’s mother and her mother all were from Newark. My father and his half-brother were from Miami and the Bahamas.
So your father was a bass player.
My father was the bass player with the Savoy Sultans. My father had two other brothers, two older brothers, oldest one was named Leroy. So to make a long story short, they had the same mother with different fathers. They were living with my father’s mother’s sister because my father’s mother died when he was born. It was a very complicated situation. My father’s mother’s sister raised all of them. Al Cooper left and came up this way and somehow developed the Savoy Sultans and sent for my father to come to New York. My father was playing too good, and he must’ve had a lot of talent because he learned very fast, became very good, and started working with the Savoy Sultans. I think they were the house band there for maybe eight or nine years.
So you grew up around music.
That’s right. I was almost born in the Savoy Ballroom.
So the possibility of you being a musician was very high. Was the first instrument you played the cello?
Yeah. My father wanted me to be a bass player, but I didn’t show too much talent with the strings. And so I got me a cello, I think it was on my sixth birthday. That wasn’t working out as quick as he wanted it. And one day he came in with a silver-plated trombone from New York and it was wrapped up in a newspaper, didn’t have a case. He had got a pawn ticket from a friend of his. And when I first saw this silver-plated trombone, something happened. Like I fell in love with it just at first sight, you know? So I started playing with it. My father started me out and he taught me the rudiments. But I was getting on my father’s nerves. When I used to practice, I used to experiment quite a bit and I would get on his nerves. He said, Man, stop playing all that crazy stuff and get in the books. So then I got a teacher over here in Newark.
There was a music store called Dorn & Kirschner and most of the musicians in Newark, most of the Black musicians, really, studied there. I think that was probably the only school that we could go to. It was actually a music store, but they gave music lessons. And so I had a very good teacher. The procedure was very good. I took my father’s advice and got in the books.
Next door to the store was a place that would occasionally hire groups and my practice room was right next door. I could hear the band. So after a couple of years I’d been practicing, I heard this band, and I’m went over there with my horn and the guy said, Well, why don’t you come sit in?
So after I played a couple of numbers with him, he said, Well, make the gig. You know, I didn’t really know too much. I’d been listening to music, I’d been listening to the inception of bebop during that period – this was late forties. One of my best friends and his older brothers had all of the new bebop records, you know, by everybody, both on the West Coast and the East Coast. They had everything – Miles, you know, very up-to-date. They were very serious jazz buffs, especially one called Calvin.
When I came in at that time, I was playing trombone. They asked me who was my favorite cat at the time, and I told them, Benny Green. He said, Look, I want you to take this record here and go back into the room and listen to this record. It was by J.J. and one of the pieces on there was called “Teapot.” He said, Just sit down and listen to this. And when you come out I’ll ask you a question. So I did that and when I came out, he says, Now who’s your favorite trombonist? I said, J.J., man. [laughs] I was still in grade school. I was in the fifth grade when all this was happening. So, you know, pretty early.
Later, when I was at Laurinburg, I heard a record that J.J. had made with Illinois Jacquet and Jazz at the Philharmonic. On this record, there was one side, it was all Illinois playing a jump song. On the other side, it was J.J. playing a ballad, I think it was “Embraceable You.” But the way he sounded playing the ballad, his solo sounded compositional. You know, it didn’t sound like the way I was hearing the guys play during those days. And I noticed that and I thought that was very interesting. I never did copy that way of playing, you know, but I liked things that I heard from his conception.
But when I met Miles. I used to go to Birdland, by this time I was going to Birdland, sitting in, jamming, and there was a bar next door to Birdland called the Green Lantern. And that’s where all the cats would go before they go down to Birdland. The drinks were much cheaper at the Green Lantern. You get a big glass of wine for fifty cents or a quarter or something. And at the time, I’d heard Miles on a lot of different things. One day Miles walked in there, because I would always tank up at the Green Lantern before I went down Birdland, because I could only afford to buy maybe one drink down there. It was much more expensive. But when I saw Miles walk in, you know, I jumped up from my seat and I came up to him. I introduced myself to him and I said, I know you don’t know me, I said, my name is Grachan Moncur and I’ve always admired your playing. And he looked at me, he said, I know who you are. I’d been going down to Birdland sitting in and everybody come down to Birdland on Monday night, you know, whether they sat in or not. I hadn’t realized everybody came down to Birdland, from the biggest people to the wannabes, you know? So you never know who’s listening to you.
I went over there religiously every Monday night to sit in. And if I get my butt kicked, then I’d go home and practice the song that I got my butt kicked on and came back, try to be ready for them, you know? But anyway, Miles said to me, “I know who you are, never say that corny s-h-i-t to nobody.” He said, “Dig yourself, you got something, mf.” Miles had a raspy voice, you know. And those are the exact words he’s telling me: to dig myself. So as harsh as he was, because of the fact that I probably had so much respect for his playing, I took it to heart. And that changed my whole thing, as far as idolizing people. When he said, You got something, even though I was still developing – you’re always developing musically, no matter how old you get or how much you know – that planted a seed in me to dig myself and go for it.
Do you remember what year that was?
I was trying to think about it last night. At that stage, it was long before I went with any major group. It was long before. I’m quite sure I had just graduated from high school. I’m quite sure. When I first graduated, Wayne Shorter had secured a job for me to work in the band he was working in, which was one of the best bands over here in Newark at the time. It was a big band. He had some guys come to listen to me the year before I graduated from Laurinburg Institute, which was the same school that Dizzy Gillespie went to.
So that’s in the South, Laurinburg?
Yeah. Laurinburg was in North Carolina.
And that’s where you went to high school.
Yeah, I went to high school, boarding school. Bird and Diz was in the air down there because Diz lived only seventeen miles away in Cheraw, South Carolina, because Laurinburg was right at the borderline. So Gerard, South Carolina, was seventeen miles from Laurinburg, and Hamlet was eleven miles away, that’s where Trane was from. That area has a lot of jazz tradition, as far as the cats go.
So you came back up to Newark after high school?
Yeah. I was back up in Newark. I lived in Newark, but I went to New York just about every chance I could, religiously, to all the jam sessions that were happening in Brooklyn, up in Harlem, and Birdland. Birdland was on a Tuesday, up in Harlem was a different night. Different places, different nights. And I would go to all the jams.
So that was like the school, that’s how you learned.
That’s right, you know, and if somebody cut you because you didn’t know a tune, you go home and practice and come back ready to kick they butt. You know, it was serious. Yeah, it was serious.
Did you know Wayne Shorter coming up and from Newark?
Wayne and I, we grew up together, man. We were like Batman and Robin. Wayne was always four years ahead of me. When I graduated from Laurinburg, he graduated from NYU. When I was in middle school, he was going to high school. But he heard me, he had his eye on me, and I didn’t know that. I had my eye on him. You know, I’m the one that told him about Trane. ‘Cause I used to go to New York and I had to make Wayne go to New York. ‘Cause Wayne was kind of shy. He wasn’t a very outgoing dude, you know what I mean?
Was his brother around at the time? Alan?
I’m gonna tell you something about that. I used to go to a place where Wayne and Alan, they worked in the same band. And this was during the time they both were in high school. During this period, Alan was playing alto. Wayne always played tenor. Believe it or not, during those days, Alan was more advanced than Wayne, as far as playing solos. But it wasn’t until he went to Howard University, I think, that he stopped playing alto. He decided he going to play trumpet. Didn’t know nothing about the trumpet, he just picked up the trumpet. He just went for it. It might’ve been a different story if he had stuck with the alto. You know, he might’ve got to be just as big as Wayne.
But I used to go down to his family. I was like part of their family. I would have dinner with them. Wayne and I would be practicing all day, either with our horns or he would be at the piano and writing out stuff. By this time, the big band that he recommended me to had disbanded and Wayne made me the leader of a small group that we got together. It was called the Jazz Informants. He made me the leader for a couple of reasons, for one, I was more into the business end of things.
But anyway, during that time, there was a club over here called Sugar Hill and all the big-name groups, like Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers and Max Roach with Kenny Dorham, you know, the best players in the world. I had got a gig there with Wayne and the Informants. We played Saturday and Sunday afternoons.
We made more money on Saturday and Sunday at the matinees. We drew more people and made more money for the club to the extent that they told us, If it wasn’t for you cats, I wouldn’t be able to pay some of the cats that I hired that was the main attraction. Everybody, they knew us, they loved us. And you know, it was pretty good, but we weren’t ready to be out there. But, as upstarts, it was OK.
What was the next thing that you did? Did you go in the army yourself?
No, I never went to the army. I never, I never went to the army. I was very sick during that period. I was a sickly baby, born premature. As a matter of fact, I had a twin sister. She didn’t make it. She only lived six weeks – Grachan and Greta. But I was very sickly. Let’s leave it like that.
What was your hookup with Ray Charles?
Uh, let me see. Oh yeah. I went down to visit my mother and father, by this time they sold the house that they bought on High Street in Newark, and they moved back to my father’s hometown.
That was in New Jersey?
No. My father was born in Florida. My mother’s side were all from Newark. On my father’s side, they were from Miami and the Bahamas. They went down there and I went to Florida to my father’s hometown. By this time they had just been down there a couple of years. They were just really starting over. My mother was really well established up in the Jersey area as a beautician. Actually, my mother was much more than a beautician. She had a beauty salon that was called the Theatrical Beauty Salon and it actually catered to people that were in show business. Not just them, but she had quite a few clients. You know, one thing leads to another, when one person started going to it, other people followed. So it had a tradition.
When I was visiting my mother and father down there, somehow, the guys down there really fell in love with me and wanted me to stay there. And they had just got a job that they was supposed to start. What they offered me was so inviting. I had decided to come back to Newark. I wanted to stay up in the area around New York. But they talked me into coming back down because they had a gig that was supposed to be a house band gig, you know, similar to what we had at Sugar Hill. And I was going to be the leader. The gig was supposed to last about two years, it’d be a Saturday and Sunday thing.
So anyway, with the promise of having a steady gig, I gave up my apartment in Newark and went back down there. But by the time I got back down there, Blue Mitchell had come on the scene because he’s from that area. So when he came on the scene, they gave the gig to Blue Mitchell. They still wanted me to come down there. They showed so much love because they kept me working anyway. Some kind of way something worked out. So anyway, while I was down there, eventually I saw a sign that Ray was coming to town. And by this time I get sick of being down there.
So I went where they were playing and I introduced myself to the band and told them where the musicians hung out, which was a place called the Sir John Hotel. It was a place where people would come after they got off work and they would come down there to jam. They really wanted to play jazz, you know? So they came and I was playing and Hank Crawford and “Fathead” Newman, they heard me and they called Ray up, told Ray that they found a trombone player they would like to recommend for the band. After the recommendation, they told me that they would call the Sunday after they left. And they called me right on time and told me, that if I could get to New York ... I didn’t even realize it was an audition. It was a rehearsal, but also audition. So I took a chance and came to New York and I got the gig. I got the gig. I didn’t realize how big of a chance I took until I got it, you know what I mean? I guess you have to really know what you want to do. And if you want to play music, man, it can’t be about just the money. Anyway, that’s how I got with the band.
Did you get to know Ray?
Yeah. I got to know Ray very well.
But I put my resignation in after the tour because Art Farmer and Benny Golson was a part of the tour. What a lot of people don’t know is that anybody that worked on that show with Ray was working for Ray Charles Enterprises. Ray worked for nobody. Any theater that they played, they bought the theater. Nobody hired Ray. Anybody that was on that show, and we had the biggest stars in the world, like Art Farmer and Benny Golson. And that’s when Benny Golson heard me.
So anyway, at the time of the Jazztet, there was only three bands in the world that hired a trombone. It sounds extraordinary, but it’s true. There were only three small group bands that employed the trombone at the time. It was like Art Blakey, the Jazztet, and sometimes Miles Davis. So the trombone chairs were very limited.
So when Art and Benny wanted me to join the Jazztet, Ray Charles called a meeting. When I put my resignation in is when I found out how much Ray dug me, man. He called a meeting at his house in Los Angeles. We would always disband in the summer. Doing the Dinah Shore TV show, that would be the last gig for the summer.
So he called a meeting at his house with the manager. And he wanted to know why I was leaving the band. He said, Man, what’s wrong? Is anybody in the group bothering you? Or you want to a raise? I said, No, Ray; I said, I just think it was a good opportunity for me to go. I forgot the exact words that I used, but I told him it was a good time for me to try to flex my muscles elsewhere. Because anybody coming to see this band, they come to see Ray Charles. They ain’t come to see nobody else. They will see other people, but it’s about Ray, you know? And he said, he admired my spunk, because he couldn’t pay some of these guys to leave this band. They had more experience than me, had records out. And he said, If you have any problems, I want you to know this is home and you can always come back. And he kept his word. I went back twice and I didn’t have no idea that I would ever do that. I came to New York and after the first rehearsal I had with Art Farmer and Benny Golson, Art took me to the union to get my union card – 8802. And while we were waiting, I asked him, How long do you think that the group’s going to be together? And he said, Well, Grachan, don’t nothing last forever. When he said that, my heart almost fell out of my mouth. You know what I mean?
When he said that, it reminded me that Ray had told me that he couldn’t understand why I would leave the band, because this was in the fifties and he said, I’m booked to the eighties. So that’s what I thought of. Anyway, I had no problems. When the band was suspended, I just went on, started working with Jackie McLean and Sonny Rollins and, I mean, the baddest in the world.
That’s where things were happening, in New York City and Newark, but mostly New York City.
Right. But they were happening more over here than the world knew. On the down low, it was more happening more over here than it was in New York, in general, for musicians. OK. On the down low because New York was considered big-time. They paid a little bit more money in some of the cases, but there were a lot of things happening here that wasn’t happening in New York at that time. A lot of cats, including Charlie Parker and some of the biggest cats in the world, worked over here when they didn’t in New York. There were more places to work, more different types of jobs.
When did you make your first recordings of your own music? When did you begin to develop your own musical compositions and ideas?
Well, we go back to the last time I went back with Ray. When I left the group, that summer, Bobby Hutchinson and myself started practicing together. I was writing some stuff and bringing tunes up to his house. He was living in the Bronx at the time. I had heard him in Brooklyn, he was working at a place called the Blue Coronet. This particular summer, I was gonna study Monk’s music, not to put it in my repertoire, but I just wanted to dissect this music to see just how he was putting this stuff together. And it was very interesting.
Tony Williams and I became friends, ‘cause Tony lived about two blocks away from me. So Tony and I was hanging out quite a bit. Tony was working with Jackie McLean in a play called The Connection. So, Jackie called me up and told me that Tony had recommended me. And that day I had just written “Frankenstein” and “Ghost Town,” believe it or not.
Jackie was very enthusiastic about the fact that I was in town. That’s where that band started.
How did that move from practicing those tunes to getting your first recording?
What happened was, when we were booked at the Blue Coronet – let me tell you about that. Jackie had a gig up there. We were supposed to go in there for a week. The word got around that me and Jackie was doing something that was very different. Everybody was coming to see us. The word got out that we was doing some real different kind of stuff. And most of it was my music, like “Frankenstein,” “Ghost Town.” That was like way out. But there’s something much deeper than what most people know about my music. There’s a spiritual element. I don’t like to talk about it because it sounds like you’re putting yourself on a pedestal, something like that.
No, talk about it, man.
No, I’m just saying there’s a spiritual quality to my music. I’m trying to find a way to explain it, to break it down. Sometimes when it’s hard to get something out, I have double reservations about saying it. But I’m going to say it because I think it’s nothing bad – everything is not for everybody. Everything is not for everybody to know. And it’s not that there’s anything bad about it or not. But certain things are just for you in life. Things that people tell you, sometimes it’s only meant for you. It’s for your benefit, you understand. And if you try and hold something back from the world they think it’s because you’re afraid that someone will take something from you. It ain’t got nothing to do with that. It’s spiritual, there’s a real spiritual aspect to everything in life. Some people don’t believe in it. Some people they act like they believe in it. They make a lot of money projecting that they believe in certain things only because they’re looking to find something out that they can use to their advantage.
Well, let me tell you something. The thing is, that if you listen to your music, how you operate is that you blow into your horn and we know air goes through the trombone and makes a sound and something magical happens. Now, other people do it and they may have a lot of technique and a lot of this and a lot of that. And when they blow air through the horn, ain’t nothing happens. It falls flat. And what’s Moncur doing to get that magic to happen, that mystery, what’s he doing? They can’t figure it out because you can do it, but the world can’t do it. If we’re going to play an interval from here to there, everybody plays it. And it’s like, hey, it falls flat. But when you play it, there’s a magic there. And I think that’s what you’re talking about. Certain things come through you and it’s just like, it happens. It’s like you’re a particular messenger with a particular music or a certain tribe of people, or a certain people who are supposed to get your musical message. And either you get it or you don’t.
I think you put it better than I could put it and I’m glad you said it. You hit the nail on the head without even getting into the central thing that I’m talking about. You still explained it correctly.
The best way I’d like to put it would be ... I’ll put it like this. I won’t include nobody else in it. Someone very special on my mother’s side of the family told me that someone told them that I was going to have a gift to have premonitions. And I started seeing things and I became afraid of what I was seeing. And I prayed hard. I was really afraid of what things I was able to see. I didn’t know where it was going. So I prayed that whatever power I had would to be put in my music and to take it away from the way I was dealing with it. I was young – young – you understand? I prayed, I was that afraid. I could see motion pictures of people, you know, kids, that were afraid of certain stages of their lives and it turned out to be something real that they were afraid of.
People might slough it off as, that ain’t nothing, you know, forget about it. It’ll blow over. But I knew it wasn’t going to blow over. And if it was, I didn’t know when it was going to blow over. So I appreciated the gift, but I wanted to put it in my music and use it that way. I prayed for that. And so the fact that I was experiencing it the way I was experiencing it, when I was younger, I feel as though it happened. Maybe it didn’t, maybe I’m just imagining it. I don’t know, maybe I’m just crazy. [laughs] That’s one thing my wife and I agree on, me and my wife agree on that. We are both crazy. My wife and I are both crazy, but I said that she’s much crazier. And she has not denied that. [laughs]
It’s what they call “beautiful crazy.”
It’s crazy. I love it.
That’s good. Who wants to be normal in this world?
[laughter] That’s right. Even with all the money in the world, especially. I think when they have all the money, that’s when they really go crazy. That’s what I think I’m seeing now. Maybe we need to forget about money for a little while.
It’s never brought anybody happiness. You understand, power should bring joy to people. It shouldn’t bring people down. You can’t be powerful while other people are suffering.
That’s true. That’s true. It ain’t gonna work.
It should be bringing people joy, you know, where they actually love you. Not, you know, you’re going to build a wall to keep people out and do all kinds of stuff like that.
But you speak the truth there. You know, certain people have that, the mystery people. In South Carolina, they call it a “Geechee.” And when people come from the islands, they got a certain thing happening. You can come from anywhere, but they become magical people who are connected with deep spirits, with the ancient ancestors and with the future at the same time. And if you go in a big circle, you find the ancient and the future meet. So if they say, well, your music is futuristic, everything that’s futuristic is also very ancient.
Yeah. Yeah. Joyous.
So you were in good company.
Yeah. Well, like they say, nothing’s new really.
Just in the moment, in the moment. You know, nothing new, nothing old. Just what is.
That’s right. What is, is what’s up. Just keep on going.
And another thing is – I don’t want to philosophize too much – something that Bill Dixon told me. He said to me, When Grachan plays a sound, he hits the center of the universe with that sound.
He really said that? That’s deep.
I’ve heard some things that came out of my horn that I said, “That ain’t normal, there’s something up with that. I don’t know what that was, but it came out of me. I don’t know what it is.” I don’t like to talk about it because all I know is, it’s a feeling.
But you know what, I’m going to tell you something. This reminded me of my oldest daughter, who passed away tragically. I don’t wanna go into it. But, she came to see me play when I did one of the Jazzmobiles. I knew she was coming. And this particular day, there’s something that comes out of my horn at the end of certain phrases and I don’t know what it is musically. I can’t say it’s like a two-five, two-five-one cadence thing or something like that. But there’s something that I play when I’m at a certain point that I’m saying that I’m calling my daughter’s name and I’m saying that I love her. I love my Hilda. Hilda was my oldest daughter. She was named after my grandmother, Hilda Hamilton. She was always Nana to me, but her real name was Hilda. And my first daughter was named after her. She would be sixty-one, if she was living.
So anyway, she was there and I realized that I had played that phrase a couple of times during the hour or so performance. And when I got off the bandstand, my daughter came up to me and said, Daddy, I really liked that. And I heard you, I heard it. I heard you. Thank you.
She thanked me. And that’s what I be saying: she heard it. I play trombone, I don’t sing. She heard me say, “I love my eldest daughter.” And that’s what I think I’m saying when I hear that phrase. And like I said, I can’t name the term of what I’m doing because I can use it. I know what I’m doing most of the time. Sometimes I go out, I go out purposely, but most of the time I know what I’m doing. But with this cadence, the only thing that I know is, I know what I’m saying on my horn. That’s what I hear when I hear it come out with me. So there’s definitely something spiritual, you know, and I don’t try to pinpoint it. I would like to utilize it for a good reason. That’s the only thing I be praying for. I hope one day, whatever I’m doing or will do, or did in the past, I hope it can materialize into something. I would really like that.
Well, the thing is, what we just talked about is much more important than talking about the records and the history. All that’s fine. But what we just talked about, talking about these mysteries and the spirituality, that’s more important than anything.
Yeah. That’s something that usually isn’t discussed.
Yeah. You can’t go to Wikipedia. This is the kind of stuff I’m looking for. ‘Cause this is the kind of stuff you can’t get anywhere except through the horse’s mouth and really understand it. We’re looking for something deeper than just saying, you played with Archie Shepp and this one and that one and blah blah blah. I heard this Japanese guy talking the other day that there’s a music that we haven’t even heard yet, that we’re afraid to play because it don’t even sound like music.
[laughs] You know the reason why I’m laughing is because that’s what I’ve been hearing recently. I’ve been doing more soul searching. I call it brainwashing myself for the next stage of music. The way I want my horn to sound, the way I want it to feel, the rhythmical aspects of it, you know what I mean? I don’t ever want to sound like yesterday, I guess. Yesterday’s gone.
That’s right. Yeah, exactly. So the thing is that most people are afraid. You said you had to pray. And it’s frightening to go into this next level, to really go into it. You get afraid –
You get afraid because people might think you’re crazy. Like, what is that?
You got to even get used to even doing this, you know, because it’s like sprouting wings and taking off or something.
But the thing is about – it’s not about you, it’s about who you are. Who’s listening to it. You hear these guys like this, Bob Dylan, they just gave him $300 million for his repertoire. The people made him. I mean, it’s what they heard. So, I don’t care how good you are; it’s not about you. It’s about what people hear from you. It’s a shame that it’s gotta be like that because, see, like I love Hank Mobley, you know? I know many people love Hank Mobley; I’m not unique in doing that. But I also know the pain that he was going through.
I know how he has helped me. And I may have helped him in a little way, but I know how much he has helped me. You know? I mean, even before I knew him personally, he helped me. I got to know Hank as being like an uncle or a big brother, you know? ‘Cause he was out there before me, before Wayne. We all drew from Hank, you know, my generation of people. ‘Cause he was out there before us. We was trying to get where he was at and to see how this world can bring you down or let you down. The world can let you down. You got to be super strong or super something, you know, ‘cause it ain’t all about you. You gotta have somebody besides you. It’s never all on you, man.
No, that’s the truth. And it’s like, what is success? Ideally, everybody should know about all the great musicians and there should be months dedicated to Coltrane and Elvin. But it’s not about the numbers. When someone loves your music, they love your music.
Yeah. That’s true. And you, as an individual, you will never know what they feel. All I can do is accept what they tell me. And I don’t dwell on it because sometimes you can get stuck on yourself. I try not to do that, because I know already that I don’t know nothing. The closest I get to anything is: I believe. It’s to believe, but to actually know something? I’m going to tell you the truth: I’m afraid to know. I hope you understand what I’m saying.
I mean, you’re actually speaking some heavy Zen stuff. The goal of all great Zen Buddhist monks is to know nothing.
Hey, well then, I’m gonna tell you something. I’ve been blessed where I had a guru for a few years in Brooklyn and it was studying yoga. It was about occult powers, Yogananda, you know, it wasn’t the exercise. It was about clairvoyance and the occult powers. And I learned a lot. I went through a period of writing music with a guru, and he would kind of guide and tell me where my music was. When I did that thing for Amiri Baraka, it was at the Village Gate, I think it was called The New Wave in Jazz – John Coltrane, Sun Ra was on it, but they didn’t put everybody out there. Cecil Taylor was on it. They put out certain people on certain volumes of it. I was on it. My two pieces was on it and Charles Tolliver was on it. Archie Shepp was on it.
Was Marion Brown on it?
I don’t remember him being on that. But I made some good stuff with Marion Brown. As a matter of fact, there’s an encyclopedia of jazz that I have. I can’t think of the name of it right now. It’s got Charlie Parker and Monk on the cover. Big, thick, almost like a big dictionary. But in it, they gave Marion and I five stars for the thing we did called Three for Shepp. We could have gone somewhere, but there was so much happening during that period. It was just complicated. There was too much happening. Max Gordon, he came to see us when we were at Slugs’ and he told me he was thinking about making us his house band. Me and Marion were on our way to something. ‘Cause even cats that they didn’t want to dig it, you know, they had to pay attention. They had to pay attention. They didn’t talk too much about it. We was getting ready to do something, man. We did it. We actually did it. But we could have had the opportunity to develop ... Marion had some compositions that were very unique. As a matter of fact, before Marion and I got together, he was staying with Ornette. Ornette was the one who said to him, Hey man, you need to get up off your butt and get out there.
Dave Burrell was the first person that told me about him. Dave just finished Berklee College and he recommended Marion to me. And we auditioned for Slugs’. This is after Jackie had disbanded the group that I was in, actually left the group over to me. I used Bobby Hutchinson and then I got with Dave Burrell and Marion Brown. That’s when me and Marion got together and we started shedding and exchanging tunes and stuff.
It was very good. It caught the ear of Max Gordon and Max took his club very personal. It was like his home. You don’t get down there, man, unless he loved you. He had told me, I really like what you cats are doing. He was thinking about asking us to be a house band, but didn’t. Right after that, that’s when the Vanguard big band thing started happening. And that was it. But I felt good that he’d even thought about it.
That’s what you need. You need to be stabilized to develop. You have to get something that you can put your teeth into. Then, when you’re developed, people can disband and go in different ways. By that time you’re established. It's like the Beatles did.
Did you meet Coltrane?
Sure! I talked to Coltrane every time he come off the set, when I could get him. He used to practice all the time during intermission. He'd be practicing. I brought Freddie Hubbard and Wayne out to his house. Yeah. They went in the back room and they got into a certain book of scales that was kind of popular during those days. And I was in the living room by myself, doing my thing. They were back there in Trane’s room. But yeah, Trane and I used to talk all the time, man. You know, exchange ideas, just telling him where my head was or what I heard.
I’m the one that told Wayne he got to go to New York and hear Trane. This is before Trane had even got it together. I said, You gotta go hear this cat man, ‘cause he going somewhere else. But I didn’t expect Wayne to do what he did. I didn’t like the fact that Wayne kind of followed him, because Wayne had his own thing. And I was kind of disappointed. It’s like a lot of people being disappointed when they say they hear Miles and me. They tell me they didn’t like to hear me do that. ‘Cause I got a lot of love for Miles musically. And it comes out of my horn. I mean, people that really love me, they be mad when they hear me do something that reminds them of Miles.
So, give me a quick overview of when you went to Paris, that period of Paris in the ‘60s. Were you invited to go to Paris? How’d that happen?
Well, five groups from America was invited to go to the Pan-African Festival and one of the five groups was the Archie Shepp group. So actually Archie was the one that was recommended to get a group together. So he got what he called an all-star group. It was Archie Shepp and his All Stars. And there was no money involved, but they would take care of all the travel expenses. The trip was from New York to England, from England to Paris, from Paris to Marseille. And from Marseille over the Sahara Desert to Algeria. And every stop we made, we were greeted and treated like royalty. Every step, we didn’t have to pay a dime.
But when we got there, ‘cause we had no money, I said to our guide, Take me to your embassy. So it took he to their place. And I just said, Look, my men came over here from New York. We tired, and we ain’t got no money. So would you please take care of us? And they went in the vault, gave each one of us $500. Plus they took care of all expenses.
That’s where we met this photographer. They called up Paris and said they got all the American avant-garde over here.
Jacques Bisceglia?
Yeah. So when we left Algeria, we left with the promise of all getting contracts to record in Paris. I did make at least two records in Paris, two recordings. So that’s what happened. When I got to Paris, it was very unique transition.
Now, did Sunny Murray behave himself in Paris?
Oh man. Sunny was always beautiful with me. He treated me like I was his big brother or something. He always showed me a lot of love every time I worked with him, and vice versa. I thought he was a great cat, man.
And I wasn’t the only one. I remember down at the Half Note, I think that was what it was called, it was way down in the Bowery below the Village. It was a jazz club. Trane was working down there and Sunny Murray came in one night and sat in with Trane. And after Sunny finished with them, Trane and Elvin Jones and McCoy, they put him on their shoulders and marched around the damn club. I swear to God, they marched around the club in a circle. That’s how much they loved him, and he was playing straight ahead. I mean, he was playing with Trane. I never heard him play like that again. But I know that night he played his ass off and everybody was so overwhelmed they put him on their shoulders and marched him around. That’s right.
Sunny, man. One day he brought me down Philly and couldn’t pay me. And he went out and pawned his drums to pay me. But anyway Sunny was just a different kind of cat. ‘Cause I remember once I was broke as hell, and I came to a rehearsal, Sunny was doing a rehearsal and I think I was supposed to be on the gig, but some kind of way I missed it, it didn’t happen. But when he saw me, he came up to me and went in his pocket and gave me, I forgot how much money it was, but it was more money than I had seen in a long time. It was something that went down and I didn’t want to expect to no money. I just came by to hang out. But I needed that. That was a hard time for me during those periods. Sunny was like family to me.
Did you know Clifford Thornton?
Oh yeah. He was over there in Africa with us. Dave Burrell and Archie Shepp. Dave Burrell and me, we used to practice at Archie Shepp’s pad. We used to call it the gym, you just go up there and play. We’d play and play. We played one blues for six hours and wear out about ten drummers. Everybody in the whole community would come. Between Archie’s house and Dave Burrell’s pad, I did a lot of practicing with the avant-garde side of town.
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