Billy Eckstein

September, 1985
S = Standifer
E = Eckstine
W = ?

S I have 2 or 3 questions that you're bored with like just to check things like your birth and I know that... could you just give me some brief information as to why you're here in Canada and where you will go to following this performance.
E Well, we're here at the Top Hat in Windsor as a tending engagement and I leave here and we will go to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania for a week there and then to Denver and then I'm going to take about 3 weeks off.

S Aaaah. When you take 3 weeks off, where do you take those weeks off?
E Back home in Las Vegas.

S Los Angeles?
E Las Vegas.

S Oh, Las Vegas.
E Yeah. I live in Las Vegas.

S Does Sammy Davis, Jr. also live in Las Vegas?
E No, no. He lives in Beverly Hills.

S Oh, because every time you hear about Sammy Davis, Jr. he's at Caesar's Palace or ...
E Right. He works there a lot, but he lives in Beverly Hills.

S How many children do you have, Billy?
E I have 7. 5 boys 2 girls.

S And is the young man that I met who is record manager or was a record manager...
E Ed. That's Ed that you met. He was Quincy for years. And now he's vice president of Arrister Records.

S Is Arrister located in New York City?
E New York City, yeah.

S How did he take with that move from the West Coast to cold New York?
E Well, he wanted to get the New York stamp because he hadn't worked in New York. When he came out of school he went right on with Quincy. So, he wanted to get that stamp in New York.

S So this gives him a little bit of a broader field.
E Yeah. It broadens out his scope because after all if you're in the business that he's in, New York is the place. You must go there and get used to doing the-where the competition is vast.

S Do you think New York is tougher than L.A.?
E Oh, much more competition. L.A. is kind of laid back, but New York, everybody is out there for that buck, you know.

S Do you think that-this may be a dumb question, but the young people have asked me to ask this. Do you think your son will have a better time in the business than you, in his business, for example, or does he think that he'll run into somewhat more cut-throat competition?
E Well, I don't know. You know, times change and the elements change along with it. The elements of success. And he's very successful. He's doing very well. And I have a younger daughter who sings. My youngest daughter sings. She's going to be very good.

S Where is she now?
E She's in California.

S Is she in school or is she performing?
E No. She's graduated from Music School and she's been working down around and getting her feet wet, you know. I had her out with me for a year just showing her the ropes a little bit, but she's going to be all right.

S Are those the only two that have ...
E Yeah, well I have one son who's a drummer and then one son writes scripts and another daughter is a model, so they're all doing their thing.

S I see. Tell me, I'm going to this big digression, but I was talking to Roy Eldridge about two or three years ago. He was singing at Jimmy Ryans. Do you know that place here on...
E Jimmy Ryans?

S Yeah.
E Yeah.

S Anyway, we talked about 52nd Street and Minten(?) and we talked about you a lot because I was to leave there and go talk with Cab Calloway. He mentioned that you used to front-Dizzy Gillepsie was organizing a band, I think, Shaw was the producer there at the time, and you were going to front that band...
E No, no, no. That's wrong.

S Okay.
E It was my band. I organized the band and Dizzy was in the band.

S I'm glad you corrected that because this is even in print, would you believe, when they celebrated the birthday of Charlie Parker, they asked some people about this band. But you organized this band.
E Sure. It was my band.

S And Dizzy was simply...
E Dizzy was the first musical director with the band. Charlie Parker was in the band. But, no, no, that was my band.

S Now who was the singer?
E Sharon Long.

S I see. Now she was very young at that time.
E Yes. Well I found Sharon on an amateur show at the DePaul Theater, and then-I was with Earl Hines at the time, and she went with me on my last year with Earl Hines. She got into Earl Hines' band and she came with us. And when I started my band, she came with me.

S So in essence, you sort of-she was like your protégé or you sort of started her in the business?
E Well, I started her in the business.

S I see, well that's not generally known or even talked about. I talked with Andy Kirk today. Do you remember him?
E Oh, yeah, a dear friend.

S He heard that I was coming to talk to you. First of all he said, "You tell him I said hello."
E Yeah. He's a nice man.

S Anyway, you know Huey Whimside died a few weeks ago.
E Yes, I know.

S And Huey's relatives live in the same building with Andy. So, we talked to him about that. Anyway, Andy likes to talk and he again asked something. How do you-in your view where does the term "Yard Bird" come from? There are all kinds of ...
E Well, yeah, I've heard it came from-it was, you know, during World War II, Yard Bird was the one who was a nonconformist, and Bird was just about that, you know. So, they started calling him Yard Bird, I think, with Jay McShain's band, and then it dwindled on down to Bird.

S I see. I've done quite a bit of work with Dizzy Gillepsie and the last one was in Atlantic City. Of course, when he talks about the Yard Bird, he gets kind of misty eyed. In your opinion, what can you say about Yard Bird that we all haven't read one way or another?
E Well, Bird was a pure genius. There was no-you know, you use that term is used very loosely, you know. Like in my business, I mean, in my travels, I've met three that I would consider-I've met some very accomplished musicians and talented people---but I think to fall in that genius category, I don't know but three-that would be Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, and Charlie Parker.

S What about Felonius Monk?
E No. Accomplished musician.

S Now, that's a heavy word. Accomplished musician, but you say maybe not a jazz artist?
E Oh, great jazz artist, but geniuses have a little extra something. There's that little something that you know is a little different.

S Are you good at reading music?
E Yeah.

S What is your key?
E My key?

S Yeah. In other words, when you tell the orchestra to give you a D( ...
E No. It doesn't mean anything. I sing in any key.

S laughs I see.
E Whatever the range of the song is.

S I see. Mr. Lee and I were reading-there's a piece of music on the desk and we were singing the parts of that. I don't know if you wrote that. There's some harmony and so on.
E No. I think Bobby wrote that.

S Oh, I see. Anyway, where did you learn how to read music?
E I studied. You see, I play instruments. I play trumpet, trombone and guitar.

S Now you were at Harvard for a while, weren't you?
E Yeah.

S At Armstrong High School did you get any music training?
E No. Well I started mainly learning piano, but not as an accomplished pianist. I learned by just using it as a basis for harmonic structures.

S Would you say our most aspiring artists such as yourself and the young people, if there's an instrument to start on piano should be it.
E Yes. Piano should be the one. Yeah, because that's your basis. Everything is right there in front of you.

S Do you hear pretty good?
E Huh?

S Do you hear in terms of key...
E Oh, yeah.

S You can tell, "Hey look, you're flat or you're..."
E Oh, sure definitely. Yeah.

S Do you think that's an asset or is it a...?
E Oh, it's definitely an asset because if you don't know where the line is between that intonation line, then you don't know whether you're sharp or flat.

S It's interesting. I talked with Mary Louise-in fact I traveled with her for about 3 or 4 days right before she died-in Norfolk, and she said the thing that bothers here sometimes is that she heard too well.
W Yeah, well sometimes it can kind of get you, you know. I don't have perfect pitch, but I have relative pitch. I'm glad I don't have perfect pitch because perfect pitch can drive you crazy.

S Well, I think maybe that's what Mary Louise was eluding to.
W yeah.

S there's a statement here in the paper that I want to read to you as a tribute to you and also listen to it for a moment and tell me if you said this and if you agree with it. It says, "Billy Eckstine recalls when they played in the mid 40s the Earl Fockaham Band and the Byrd continues pinching for missing gigs. Earl used to find him blind Eckstine said. One time we were working on Paradise Theater in Detroit and Byrd said, 'I ain't gonna miss no more'. And then he did..."
W He stayed underneath the bandstand.

S Right. "And the next morning he got there he crawled out from under the bandstand."
W He crawled out from under the bandstand after we had done the show.

S So that's true.
W Sure.

S That's the determination I got had even in his lowest years, I guess.
W Yeah.

S Do you think the Camarilla and he wrote the song,
W "Relaxing General".

S Right. I think that probably you more than anybody could answer this question. Was that good for him or just a _____ ____?
W Well, Byrd was, during that particular period, he was trying to kind of get away or to break himself of a narcotic habit, and it left his nervous system pretty shook up. He was shaking like this all the time, so they put him in Camarilla at the hospital there but he was gone a little bit too far. It couldn't happen.

S I want to stop just a second.
W So he came out of there and he had written a lot things while he was in the hospital.

S You know, some people say that right after that he moved into one of his most creative periods, even though it was a very short period. Do you believe that?
W I don't know there was a period that Byrd wasn't creative.

Laughter

S Do you think he would have been as provocative of what we hear on recordings today if he had not had the motivation or provocation of drugs and alcohol? Do you think that helped?
W No, I don't think it helped, but you see, Byrd was on drugs since he was 16.

S Well that's why I'm asking the question because all his ...
W His adult life was always on drugs so nobody ever knew-nobody would know. That's a hypothetical thing you could never tell what he would have done but he was a genius, that's all. I don't think that the narcotics did anything to enhance his playing, but who's to say, because nobody knew him when he wasn't.

S Let's digress again. I'm going to mention just some names and you tell me anything that you can remember that's memorable that comes from Billy Eckstine about this person: Mary Lou Williams, for example.
W Mary Lou is a beautiful person. She's from my hometown, Pittsburgh. Mary Lou I love very much. She's a very accomplished musician.

S All right. Andy Kirk.
W Andy was one of the fine gentlemen of our business. I think that's one of the main things, and a good musician.

S Cab Calloway.
W I won an amateur show imitating him. That's how I started in the business.

S Right. And in fact this is what was so interesting. Everyone keeps wondering how would Billy Eckstine do Cab Calloway, because ...
W Well, I was still in school at the time and Cab was very popular and everybody was doing Cab Calloway so I did.

S Okay. This is another digression. I'm 49 and one of the questions that we had when I was growing up when I saw you and all the women were going crazy, there was a thing about the light damned near white performance especially and then Linger(?) gets into this very deeply.
W I don't understand.

S Okay. Those performers who were light enough to pass even. Michael Linger, for example, where Linger would say, for example, that she thought sometimes people wanted her to be more White than Black in their olden days.
W ___ ____. I don't think I was ever mistaken for anything but Black.

S Well, I don't mean you personally, but in terms of your experience in the days when you were younger, do you think the lighter skin performers were indeed encouraged to white-up for the movies?
W No. As a matter of fact they'd blacken us down.

S Aaah. Why?
W Well, I guess there's a reason that according to what the Caucasian wanted us to look like. He wanted us to look-if we were Black, then he had his idea of what we look like.

S That's interesting. I talked to Anne Brown in Oslow in 1980. She's here in New York now you know. They're making a movie of her life. She said the same thing. She said she was really too white to be black and not black enough to be Black, but she was blackened down in many of the roles that she played, even in Porgy & Bess. And, of course, she...
W You know, it's a funny thing. I never had those hang-ups. I mean, I think the people that were concerned, maybe your agents and things had those things, but I never knew. I knew exactly what I was, and there was no hang-up with me. None whatsoever. The fact that the pigment of my skin maybe being lighter brown than other people of my race, maybe some of them, but you know our race has all colors.

S Right. But I think the hang-up in talking with all of the different persons in the business here, seeming more of course that the hang-up of the audience and the people who manage you and the producers rather than the hang-up of the performers themselves.
W Yeah. I think so, because I think maybe the Caucasian kind of felt guilty. But it isn't our fault that we were the color we are. This is because of him sneaking in the back doors at night and my grandfather-my father's father-was German. That's how we get the name Eckstine.

S Aaah.
W But he married a Black woman and had two children and then my father, of course, married my mother who was Black.

S Did they come originally from Pennsylvania?
W My grandfather?

S Yes.
W No, no. They were from Germany.

S Oh, I see. And on your mother's side?
W Mother from Pittsburgh.

S I see. So you're roots are in Germany and Pennsylvania.
W Well, a lot richer in Pennsylvania.

S I see. Well I was interested to note that you went to Harvard University for a while.
W I just went up there a little while, because I graduated from Armstrong High School in Washington and then I went up there but I didn't stay that long because I went into show business.

S Was it tough those first years in show business for you or was it very easy for you and things just happened?
W Not easy. But I'll tell you the truth, I was so enamored with the idea of being in show business so everything was bright to me. I mean, I didn't think of it as being tough and things like that. Just like now, when I look back over the career and the things that we did when I was Earl Hines band and my band, all those one-nighters, which now when I look back and think of all those things, it must have been pretty tough, but it wasn't tough then.

S Would you change anything at all?
W Not a bit.

S Why not?
W Because it taught me something. It taught you your craft. Today the kids that are out now they make a hit record and they put them right out on the stage with 10,000 people out there and they don't know anything about the business yet. I would much rather the way it was doing one-nighters and things with bands where you learned your craft. Every night you had a different audience and, of course, that particular type of show business is all over now.

S I noticed when you're performing you don't have a lot of electronic equipment making that voice get bigger or smaller.
W No. I guess it's because of when I came up, there weren't those type of things. So, I'm used to hearing myself. My own voice.

S Of course, this is not unusual to singers, but your enunciation and pronunciation has always been impeccable. Do you attribute that to your education?
W I think so.

S As well as to your home environment?
W Yeah. My home environment and education, I guess, because my family, thank God, were very, very big sticklers for education. My older sister has 2 PhDs and my other sister is a CPA, and then myself, and I got my degree not long ago. But...

S So you have a tradition of education in your family.
W Yes. Well my mother, my mother was educated very highly-not to the form of completing college or any Masters or such, but she was very educated. My dad was educated. They were both High School graduates.

S What would you say to the youngsters today in and out of show business relative to education. Many kids say, look after high school that's enough or if I go to college I'll be a lawyer or a doctor.
W It all depends on what they want to be, you know? Now, education in point, one of my sons, the one that you met, he was going to Boston University and he one day told me, he said, "Dad, look. There's no need for me going back to college because I know what I want to do. This is what I want to do." And he said, "And I don't need college for this." And he's doing it.

S So you're saying if you know what you want to do go for it.
W That's right. If you want to be a doctor, a lawyer you must go to college. But if you want to be a musician or such, study your craft. Study music.

S Let's digress again. Dizzy has this weird horn. Do you know why it's like that?
W Huh?

S That weird horn, trumpet that Dizzy has. That weird shape.
W The one that goes up?

S Yes.
W I think he dropped it once and he stepped on it and it went up like they broke the band on it. And so he-and it's very, you know, it looks weird, but it's very, very-it makes a lot of sense. When you're playing music, say for instance, you're playing a part of the band and you're looking at your music, your horn is down into the stand.

S Right.
W This way, it's up and it goes right on out to the audience, you know?

S They used to say, "Why is Dizzy like that, you know, he's often written about his being a clown when he was younger, especially on the stage."
W Yeah, he did you like a fox.

S Okay.
W You remember that old stuff. Oh, yeah. I know Dizzy. For years he's been my buddy way, way, way back. Dizzy is one of the most astute guys and one of the most learned guys in the world and knows exactly what he's doing musically. I'd always see Charlie Parker had the natural knack of doing things. And Dizzy had the knowledge of what it was.

S Are you a religious person?
W Not one that goes every Sunday to church and things, but I'm a firm believer and I think my religion is inside.

S I noticed Dizzy when I was with him he didn't eat any meat.
W No, Dizzy is a Bahi(?).

S He gave me a sermon ____ _____ ____. Mintons-did you ever sing with them.
W No. Mintons was just a jazz ______.

S What kinds of songs-I know what kinds of songs-I've heard all kinds of songs, but for the camera, what are your favorite kinds of songs even now?
W I think a song that's got something to say. I'm not much on gimmicks. I never have been because they don't last. But I like a song that tells a story and has some meat to it, you know, that means something. I'm not much on gimmickry, you know. I never was one, because that's not a secure way of making a foundation in this business because if you're a gimmick singer, then you're no bigger than the last gimmick ____ wear out.

S That's how your longevity in the business can be attributed to that fact probably.
W Well that and luck.

S I see. Tell me one other thing about-who does your arranging?
W Well, my pianist, Bobby Tucker, Quincy Jones, oh, I've got many arrangers I like.

S Of your favorite, is there any particular one that seems to stand out in your mind?
W Well, I like Billy Barrs, Bobby Tucker, Quincy, Frank Foster-quite a few.

S Okay. We're going to wind this up with about a 2-3 minute move through the country. Detroit-when you performed there I know when you were with Himes, when you finally joined Himes in 1937 or 1939...
W No. I joined him in 1939.

S 1939. But prior to that, you were in Detroit.
W Yeah. I worked here down on Adams at the what was then the Norwood Hotel down in the basement there at a club there called the Club Plantation. I worked there. Oh, I worked a lot of places here in Detroit during those days. I worked out to Broad's Club Zombie, I worked any number of times at the Paradise Theater, and ...

S Were you at the Paradise Theater when you moved from here to the Club DeLise in Chicago.
W No. I was at the Plantation.

S I see. And then that's where Earl Himes ...
W Well Bud Johnson, God rest his soul of fame, a tenor saxophonist. Bud was always a big, big, big booster of mine and he always.. when I first met Bud in Pittsburgh when he came through there, he heard me sing and he wanted me to come to Chicago. He said, "You ought to get out of this town and come to Chicago." So finally when I saw Bud I was in Detroit and I was working there at the Norwood Hotel and Plantation and he came through with Earl Himes and couldn't get a room. The place was sold out. So I had 2 beds in my room so he stayed with me and he said, "Well, you're right here now, why don't you come on over to Chicago?" Well, Bud went to Chicago and he told a producer there at the Club DeLise, Earl Potrella, about me and he came over and heard me and he took me over to Chicago.

S and from that point on? You stayed with Earl Himes for about...
W 4 years.

S And then you went back again on...
W then I went back to the deLisa. No. After I left Earl Himes 4 years and then I went off to DeCheckin(?) Street, and then I started my own band.

S Did you ever sing at Barney Josephson's...
W _____'s Society?

S Yeah.
W No.

S There were a lot of people that ____ Barney_____. Well, let me say that you've been very charming and patient with us here in trying to get some information on you, Mr. Eckstine.
W Oh, it's my pleasure.

S I would like for you to tell us just when last thing. If there's anything-this is a tape that will be seen, hopefully, for generations. What would you like to say if there's one or two words or comments or insights you'd like to give someone who's looking at you now about your career or your philosophy of life, or about a musician's techniques or whatever, what would you like to say?
W Well, I think the business that we're in, we're very fortunate-those of us who were in it, because you have a different business every day. I mean, you have a different audience out there, and it's always so invigorating because there's always new roads to go down, new things to conquer. That's the good thing about music. You could never get stempted in it unless you let yourself do that because there're plenty things you can learn every day. Every day. That diatonic scale gives up pretty songs over and over and over and over again, and it's up to you to enjoy it, and I do. I enjoy the business.

S Do you have to... When you're singing, you seem to have lived some of those bars, but does a singer necessarily have to experience all those wonderful insights to ...
W It helps. If you haven't experienced it to be able to possibly appreciate whoever they're writing about their appreciation of the song.

S So in other words you're saying it's not enough to sing the song but also you should know something about the meaning to it.
W Oh, yeah. You can't sing about love unless you know about it.

S All right. I think with that, you've said it all. You're a beautiful person.
W Thank you.

S Thank you.

END OF INTERVIEW