Johnny Griffin

10/9/82

S = Standifer
G = Griffin
AM = Audience Member

G but the way he taught us it was you know like little children learn how to read, to count holding hands and walking around circles and to count and before you could play any notes on an instrument put together, you had to make a clear sound just with the a clarinet mouth piece. We had to buzz a straight tone ___________ and standing, say from September till January to February, in the beginners band, if you turned out to read well enough and had a good sound and such you were allowed to progress into the second concert band. The beginners band then may have been maybe 150 students because this was a high school that had four...about four thousand students. And in the second concert band they'd have say 120 you know ______, they played like music you know, then after that you had the concert band, if I happened to be in the second concert band you were able to progress, maybe in a years time, if you have progressed far enough you could get into the concert band, that the clarinet is really for, fourth clarinet, third clarinet, there'd be an alto clarinet, bass clarinet and would work up, second, first and go on into more difficult music. And also in the past when they had a 27-piece dance orchestra...we don't kid. We play the music of everything from Duke Ellington, Jimmy Rustler, Count Bassey, Denny Goodman, you name it...Bobby Shore, what ever, it's the music that we play. And in every strain they're going to have something called the High Jinks. For one week they will put on a show and sing and dance and _____, and the music that we played in this dance band was a, come from a guy who transcribed off of records, so it was exactly the same sounds you would hear of the day, the popular music of the day. Which in that time was a lot of jazz.

S were all of you readers?
G oh you don't get out of the beginners band unless you get to read. And if you stay in the beginner's band, then yeah you automatically out of the music department. Causes he had to a, let you know quickly know if you didn't have any talent. You know, the man was very, he was, first of all he was a disciplinarian because of the quite a few wild kids, of course who were in to the school. But the first thing he did was maintained law and order. So there was never any problem in his classes about that. And he made you listen, he told you how to practice; we tuned the bands everyday, just like classical musicians do. And he knew all the instruments and he could tell you how to play an instrument, although I never heard him make a sound on an instrument. But he could tell you just what to do to let you get a better sound from your instrument. I mean the man was such that a when big bands would come, see there was a legal theater in Chicago, or for a ballroom and other places in Chicago, and say that maybe a trumpets was sick, or a his accompanists was sick, in fact this is the way I joined Lionel Hamilton's band. The day Jay Peters was playing with the band and a he got drafted into the armed services cause this was during the World War II period, this was in 1945. Ham was playing at the downtown theater in Chicago and he made it a point to go around to schools and seeing the bands and have jam sessions, he'd bring Lou Buckner and maybe Herby Steals sometime if he switched off with him Lou Buckner and Ernie Cobb, well he came to my high school during my senior year and a, I had been playing professionally, and anyway I was sixteen years old, I had been playing professionally since I was fourteen. Well my bandmaster had us, myself and other musicians have a jam session for Lionel Hamilton, it was like a rally for the basketball team or something like that, I can't remember exactly ...a pep assembly. And so I was part of this jam session. Well in June, after I graduated, Jay Peters had gotten drafted and I graduated like on Thursday night and disappeared for a class party for a couple of days, I didn't even get any sleep... well anyway. We arrived back in Chicago to find out that Lionel Hamilton had been looking for me for two days, cause he needed a replacement. And so I mean... to show you that the musical ability, the training was such, that I could into this band at seventeen years old with no problems what so ever, I mean and play.

S yes she was a blues singer, worked with Sippy Wallace, Alberta Hunter that whole... especially in the thirties...Leo Montgomery, did you know him, Lil'Brother?
G no, they were before me...

S yeah, all those guys, they were active more in the thirties actually and in the partial forties...
G now when I was in Ham's band Dina Washington was singing.

S oh...
G yeah it was Washington and ____ Green...

S I'd like to say to the audience, don't let me monopolize the questions...any time you want to ask a question, go right ahead, it just so happens that we're ... we're talking about a resource on Mr. Griffin so if you have some specific questions.... yes...
AM yeah, I would like to ask Mr. Griffin about the events leading up to your decision to move to Europe and play there? And what made you decide to do that and how was it at first.
G oh... well... now that's quite a story...ah, well in the first place when I finally went to Europe the first time it was like...it was too _____ to ______ it was like a promo tour for Riverside Records. And they were trying to get me to go early...this was in 1962. I thought oh Europe... eh yeah you know, I wasn't interested you know, like its said why leave heaven...so it was just a funny thing that the president of Riverside Records, the late Bill Brower, who was not actually on the e-way you know...I knew him of course because I was in the record company, but he was not like my friend. I used to hang out with Oren Keeton, who was the vice-president. But Bill came over and said; "Johnny, come and have lunch with me," I said: "Okay" he took me to lunch and a he said Griffin I guarantee if you go to Europe you will enjoy yourself so much that you don't come back and see me, cause I had already refused his first tour, I think Zoot Simms and some other cats went out in the fall of the year. He said I guarantee you...but any way he got me to go, but it was more than that, the quartet that I had with Eddie Davis, the two tenors had just broken up, because it seemed as though there wasn't much interest in jazz anymore, in fact our booking agencies was only interested in booking Miles Davis or Horace Silver and jazz messengers like that, you know, or maybe Jimmy Smith, their times were hot. So Eddie Davis and I, my partner, we had to breakup the band cause we wound up playing besides the money that we were making, so economically you know, so I was kind of ah...depressed about that because I thought we had a good group, and every place that we played the people enjoyed themselves but we could never get anybody to really ____________...so I did...I went to Europe on December the 12th 1962 worked in ___________ for a month and I went to Stockholm and worked in the Golden Circle for a month back down to Paris for a week and then I went to London for a month at ah Ronnie Scott's and I finally went to Holland for a week, I went to a small town after that .... And I could have gone to Copenhagen but my twins were having their birthday in March, and I wanted to be around for their birthday party, but at the same time I was having problems with my family life, and when I got back to New York in March of 63, and getting off of the airplane I, I mean this is an actual fact, I was getting off the plane and I said to myself...what am I doing here? I knew what I was doing when I was coming home but I...anyway I went to work in a Bird land. And so I had trouble with the I.R.S about some monies to the Riverside records that I was supposed to...they gave me, but I didn't take care of my receipts or anything, like an idiot, and I wouldn't have gotten all of these canceled checks from the accountant and just turned them in, but no receipts telling what happened to the money. So the government charged me for all of these thousands of dollars, and I couldn't understand...how can you say that I owe all this money when I have none? This just doesn't work. So with the problems that I had with the I.R.S. and one night they came to Bird land and told the manager, they said; any monies coming to Griffin, you give it to us. And so when the manager told me this I said; well I quit...you know...they can just do that, that's the problem that they have, I'm not saying if it's right or wrong, but I mean you know, see where ever I go they say don't give him the money, give it to me...give it to us, the government, so...I decided to disagree. So all my kids came back to Chicago, and their mother was on her way to___________. Then these People in Europe were clamoring for me to come back. Then I went back to New York in March, and there's something else too, the music changed, the so called jazz critics thought they would get into the music free jazz______________ and to me it was just a lot of _________, just involving noise. Nobody _____ one up to me, I mean I'm very opinionated about music... it's my life. They could swing, some of them could have some very interesting compositions, but which time the soul was like.... but a, excoriating sound...but this is the big thing, you know you turn on the radio and this is what I hear, the big jazz, so called jazz program. And then with the IRS I can't make any money uh and the musicians and their attitudes no the musicians attitudes hadn't changed while I'd been gone two or three months and it was just having been away, and coming back and everything was going negative. I started noticing all of this everybody is walking around how great I am... M E me... and everything was like that I am some big name musician of course I will not call their names. Not trying to frame, I mean generally all for just listening to the stuff and to me they couldn't make it. They could play fairly but I mean they weren't entitled to all this language we were getting, radio downbeat ah, whatever. And you know the public is always the last to do anything anyway, there was a few people...they say this is it and people follow cause anytime they read something, the written words is very powerful it's like Pow they said he's great... he's great!

S Such as could you be a little more specific, in terms there were a lot of jazz musicians at that time, who were without you know... we know what your talking about, but it could help a little more if you could give us an example, could you do that?
G Well I can't give you the names cause that wouldn't be right either, because I mean the music belongs to everyone, and I wouldn't want to downgrade or say negative things about anyone in particular because after all it's only my opinion.

S Well I was speaking more specifically about who at that particular time was really being popularized, who was really being ............
G But then you had me saying names.

S Ha,ha Gotcha... Okay
G But I could even tell you about later on like Archie Chef, Archie Chef... now I hear Archie Chef always, always speaking_______ so I mean its varying in messaging, the gentleman is very knowledgeable and like now, he can play and he's changed oh he's changed. Like I'll tell you how I met him it's funny! I heard some of his music, and I'd been living in Europe at that time, this was about 1967 or 1968. And Felonious came over to Europe to do a tour, and uh he like uh added on to his band you know like Rouse, Ben Rowdy and Larry Gibb, well Phil Woods was there, Cot Terry ah Ray Copeland, Jimmy Cleveland so it was like 8 or 9 pieces or 10 pieces or something. And so doing this tour, when we got to Stockholm um we were on the same program, as Archie Chef, Sara Vaughn, and some others. So uh the night before this program I was in the hotel, getting ready to go to the concert hall, getting my stuff together and the telephone rang, and I answered the phone and it was Archie Chef, and I had never met this man and uh asked him where he was, he said he was in the hotel, and I invited him to my room he said hi, I gave him a drink and something to smoke, and I asked him why was he making all of these animal sounds, zoological sounds out of his saxophone. When Coleman Harper then was taken at all it was just Coleman in the 20's wrestled his saxophone from the circus cause, he was living in the circus was this is an instrument that you can make so many different sounds with you know, it's very special and he told me that uh, I said you know I said you make the very same sounds that I have been trying to avoid all my life you know like squeaks and squawks, like hawks and geese, you know like ducks. He told me that these sounds were... this is the way that American Society made him feel. He was expressing, I mean this was his expression of the society.

S anger, frustration...
G It's obvious yeah! Sounds whew, the man has a lovely sound; he always had a lovely tone. So he asked me to that night to listen to his music you know, because the way the program went some other groups came on then Monk came on and we played, and then Sassy came on the side and then Archie Chef finished his program then after I finished with Monk after Monk's program finished Monk was trying to get me to leave. Excuse me... but I told him I had to wait until Sara sang and then uh Archie Chef was one player I had promised I would listen to his music...so Monk decided to leave but I mean Sassy sang beautifully. Then Archie Chef came out, Monk followed me out and we were standing waiting in the wings, and they proceeded to perform. To me it was terrible, anyway I went back into the dressing room and we had a monitor so we could hear the music back too, and Monk's been tried to drag me out of there, I said I promised I... well anyway. I was living in Paris at the time, and after this tour was over which was like 3 days later and I went back to Paris and Archie Chef 's group came into a place called the Shaky Pay...on the left bank in Paris. And he stayed in there for one month. So I said Pete this is it. I didn't want to be like you know when I was in Florida something like Louie Armstrong said that Be Bop Charlie Parlor, and Charlie Parlor... was like it wasn't Jazz, and at that time I was why don't that old man shut up. But he... you know.... so I was saying to him I said; now I want to be like Louie Armstrong said this music just passed me by and I just can't get used to these sounds I don't know if I have been in Europe too long or what, so from their opening night, and the Shaky Panks six nights a week I listened to this music and this sound, and it sounded... if not worse, the last night then the first night I listened every night in fact by the end of the month I was sure that none of these guys could play at all! Of course I was wrong I found out later that that Beaver Harris was a hell of a drummer, because he belonged you know to Kenny Clark's drum class, and learned how to really play, you know. So they could swing too...they never sang anything the two trombonists Rocky Orwell _________ I didn't know all their names...I mean this is where it affected me and I can't believe it. Now which is something funny to, because the way I was nickel less in the _______of New Orleans, early 70's... the first night he was there with me when they played Archie's' first set he said Johnny, what are they doing I said; listen man, don't ask me you ask Danny, tomorrow...you know But I don't know, but about four nights later he told me he understood what was happening, so I was trying to find out so I said well you please tell me because I can't tell you, but I mean... it took a long before I found out that some of those musicians could really play. Then I found out there were a lot of them that could not play! I just said Archie Chef because I've said this before, and it's true we had this conversation, and everything and there are a lot of musicians in fact I a lot of people...I always got along with them very well but I just couldn't stand what they were doing to the music to play music and put ah...be political...music to me is no, like I said I am very biased and opinionated, it's wrong to me. So that's why I couldn't clasp what Archie Chef was talking about American Society was making him play and he said if it was up to him he would make the music more beautiful to society. To add some positive line to it instead of that grid, it's like that finger on the blackboard coming at you.

S You told downbeat magazine that you didn't feel that Jazz was music for the masters but a few moments ago, you said Jazz belonged to the people, could you elaborate on what you meant by that?
G Well I meant that uh, in the first place the masters on that train to accept anything below the service, especially when society the governments don't give you anything to train about on this course the problem is should go out there and shuffle take care of society and shake it up if you want to. It's nothing to fame to me for Jazz uh you have to be sensitive enough or interested enough to be able to hear before the circus of sound.

S Does that mean that I have to know all court changes whether you're in the dominant or the tonic.
G No,no,no, they could not tell any guitar player they can't name what the bass guitarist is playing. That has got nothing to do with musical education. It has to do with uh...having the opportunity to hear good sounds. Like when I was coming up in school... grammar school we had music appreciation classes every week they had classical music and I don't know if they still do that. There are a few grammar schools that do that; this was when I was like 7 or 8 years old, nine years old. At Forest Field in Chicago down in southern Chicago you had music appreciation classes and you listened to classical music, and the music that you hear on the radios at that period it was good music pop music of the date had essence. Even if it was just big bands, things like Frank Sinatra, but the music had body to it. You had to be a trained musician, you don't take just an off beat guitar and plug it in, cause nobody was plugging in over there, and plug it in and make a whole lot of noise like you was doing something. It took training and it took...the people had a chance to hear good sounds so they could recognize it but the thing in that everything has degenerated and it is just noise. The decibel level of the music young people listen to today is such that it destroys the ears. I mean actually destroys the ears. So you see if there is nothing...if people are listening, you know who are taught to read and write those of us who are lucky, but very few of us are taught to listen. How many classes do you have on listening?

AM what are your audiences like in Europe is there a better audience for Jazz than yours?
G No I can't say that I wouldn't say so no. I found that this music called jazz is uh the people who like this music are in society everywhere. There is a certain magnetism in the music that grabs the people, you know uh the Europeans don't have it in their music, they have or actually music, classical music. Then they have this kind of music what is called prevocational music over there to which is like what we call _____when you make a lot of noise and they have ghost players playing___________, but people are people whether it's in Japan or in France or in Sweden or wherever.

AM Maybe what I'd like to know is, are there bigger are there larger audiences for Jazz in Europe?
G Yes, but you have to...people are more... you see what I think that in America...America is so commercial it's just sickening, you know I was looking at television over there in New York and I felt sick, I mean I got angry and I'm a television freak, you turn on television I mean... I'm like that till you turn it off. And then I get on with my life. But I mean I got anger, and the programs, you know... how can they give this to people how can people accept that but if you don't know any better how can you fight? Now that's not to say that these things are not happening in Europe, because they are, but television is not on 24 hours a day. I mean in America you watch so much they give you so much here, I really think that they give you so much here to keep you from thinking. There are very few can do without seeing Coke-a-cola or Pepsi cola signs something advertised you have so much... they give you so much of mediocrity, that you don't know quality when you hear is or see it. You really don't. You get fuller quantity with very little quality. This is the difference. That's one of the reasons why I have been in Europe I didn't even know how to relax until I went to Europe, you know if I was in a hurry, I left New York and went to Paris and I could make a phone call and cause this is like a five star hotel out there, at 11:00 I made a phone call nobody answered the phone I went down to the front desk, and the desk clerk went to lunch and I'm still waiting for my phone call, and then when he came back I asked him about it he gave me the French shoulder, said I went to lunch, you know I'm from New York I mean they rush. Finally I could understand how you didn't have to be rich for these people to be able to take a month off for their holidays for every year I don't care there going to take a month off and they'll go away. I'd never heard of anything like this I haven't even had two weeks. I mean every weekend they go away and I mean these people are not rich, just average lower middle class, just above the poverty level, they, they are gone. So that was a new experience, and something else too I had felt that if I hadn't left New York when I left my life would be finished in about 3 or 4 months at the most, cause I was very depressed I felt like I was at a dead end street and I hate people that tell me what I can and can not do, and that's where the agents are. You can only make this amount of money you can only go this far. I can't stand people controlling me like that. That's exactly what happened and it's happening right now.

S Some of the musicians say were taken advantage of by their agents, because they were poor businessmen but for whatever reasons do you think that sometimes you were taken advantage of by agents.
G Of course... I mean that's normal. I mean you have to be used if your not used what good are you to be misused or abused but you see musicians are not usually good business men anyway. It's just not what you learn. In fact to be a hardcore businessman you need to be like a Jazz musician anyway, or even classical musicians it's just not in the make-up.

S But anyhow I have a second one, European booking agencies, are much more receptive to the musicians needs and what he's trying to express.
G Well that's something else that's another reason why I've been in Europe so long just because the respect that you get normally from stagehands or stage managers in these Italian Opera Houses or what ever there you are. Is so different from the union men on the stage at Carnage Hall in America because you know your in the same program as November the 10th a... Father Rueben's ________ November 11th Johnny Griffin and they all give you this, and he knows how you feel not thinking about it but these people.... Maestro they will send you flowers and fruit so naturally if get this good treatment. That's not to say it doesn't happen in America but when I played Carnage Hall, and I came out with Dexter that time, I had flowers and fruit, but I haven't seen them since. Ha ha.

AM Who did you have with you? Tom and who did you listen to besides Joe? Who do you like to listen besides Joe?
G Oh I listened to Joe, you see he was about 4 or 5 years older than I was but we went to the same high school in Chicago. But other influences actually were Johnny Hodges and Dan Lester...I could turn summersaults about Johnny ...really I think bias is affecting me, Robb L Gray, Dexter, you know and all the trumpeters and the pianists cause I love all the pianists, the quality, Bud Powell, Fats Waller their music you know. And things like that.

S Some quickies, do you think Charlie Bird, do you think the Bird was weak by copping out with all those drugs and all that stuff? This is just some.... there is no attitude behind the question I guess is what I'm getting at.
G no...Charlie Bird was a very strong man; there was nothing weak about him at all.

S Why didn't people like Dizzy and Roy you and others all go the same route...
G I now about drugs I'm not in to it.

S you has the background that permitted you to become a Jazz musician that you are. Were there any kind of experiences that.
G I grew up in Baptist Methodist Church and I played piano for the church and went to Sunday School, I played guitar for the church teens my mother sang in the church choirs and I always heard Jazz my aunts and my cousins always had Jazz records.

S do you think that church experience, the improvisatory of nature of some black churches helped at all?
G to a certain extent, but I mean the improvisation that turned me on did come the church, the feeling, the basic feeling had came from those church...the way these church choir's could sing, the gospel choirs not the singing choirs. The singing choir was more educated than, singing ah we had the arrangements and people all singing in the gospel choir's, the feeling depth swing, ah no the provocation came from listening to...to records with jazz...the jazz music of the day you know, everything like I said, from Artie Sharp, Benny Goodman to Ben Rustler, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Aldrich all them...in which I could hear from a kid up, I mean I just heard this music. And then they'd play...it was on the radio all the time doing his appearance too, I mean on all the juke boxes, you know, that's what you heard on a juke box is jazz records, jazz...and you'd have some rhythm and blues then you'd have some Frank Sinatra's of Perry Como's or what ever, but there were jazz records all over.

AM when you were in Europe, ah in 63 you ran into Roland's Hurt, did you play with him for a while...
G yeah...we did a tour together when he first came over there...

AM none of that got recorded though...
G I ....none of it is on a record that I know of, so...there may be some tapes around though.

AM I'd like to hear that...
G yeah there may be some tapes...

AM the only way I found out about that was that, ah you know when you appeared in Copenhagen in 62, there was a mini-script song...by the guy he works for
G yeah, I can tell you how met him, it's unbelievable...I had this gig in Chicago, it was called the Blue Monday Morning Jam Sessions, and I working like crazy...I was working sis nights a week, and that's from, say from ah, Tuesday to Sunday, working from 2 till 4... Saturday night I'm working from 10 till 5... Sunday afternoons I'm working from 4 till 7...then I'd go back and work from 10 till 4, again in this club till Monday morning, and at 7:30 in there they used to have big night clubs in Chicago... and the ______________________ and El-Grotto, with dancers and comedians, like Joe Williams was saying so I mean a lot of people got their big start...like Red Foxx, you'd see him on television.... ah their working these clubs, well when these clubs were closed Monday morning like 5:30, they would go eat breakfast, and they would all come, you know, to these clubs...little clubs would open up again and have these jam sessions, and maybe 5 or 6 blues clubs, 3 or 4 jazz clubs, but I'm starting playing one of these clubs, I met Cannonball the same way too...and ah of course I'm out of my head, I'm beat from working 7 nights a week, and even on Monday nights I'm traveling with a big band. So this is about 10 o'clock in the morning and ah I'm drinking...everything, smoke coming out of my ears...the place is loaded, people all outside, it was warm...I see them lead the blind man in and he's kind of got a golf bag over his shoulder and all these pipes sticking like that...I said; what's going on, you know so I saw them taking him, their taking him to a Danto club and there was a reservation on the back, and there was a band room...it was rolling, and I said; what kind of instrument.... what instrument is that, and he say' its this is this and that is that and the Montello, I'd never seen those instruments, I'd seen alto or soprano saxophone, so I went up on the bandstand to play with him. We played something...the blues...of something, I don't know, so we took a break, I mean a break in the tune, he didn't take the break, so I took the break and played, so he stand up...I hate that the tenor saxophone just hanging around his neck, boy I hate that...a pipe in this hand, a pipe in that hand, I didn't know, ah now I've seen many things in my life, but I'm cool...I'm out of my ________ so I started just playing a few, we're having fun just swinging, so we started playing something to the saxophone, I said hum...this turns me on...I'm not watching him you know I looking off to the side, and it scared the _________________....

AM do you think________ a favorite rhythm section really awesome things up...really powered it?
G oh, there's been quite a few, there's be quite a few, I've been very fortunate, I've played with some very good rhythm sections.

AM who were some of those people?
G like Billy Joe Jones, Paul Chaney__________, drummers from Chicago like ___________________ah Art Blakely, and Oscar Predator, ah and now that the Basses...you plug them in and their amplified, see I'm a bass as before when they didn't have amplifiers...there were some fantastic basses but you couldn't hear them, you know of course it's a shame too cause I could play the bass amplified, I can't stand electrified instruments like the electric piano, _____________, acoustic instruments...

S did you ever jam in Minton's,
G yes, I've worked at Minton's, I've got 3 or 4 albums that I made there...

S when was this...
G in the 60's...and I jammed in Minton's in the 40's and the 50's too...and I've...I worked in Minton's with______ Joe and I ...

S oh...
G we had about 3 or 4 prestige records....

S did you ever work with Mary Lou Williams?
G I never worked with Mary Lou Williams, but I'd been around a little bit of New York...

S she was at Minton's frequently... her pop...at Minton's.
G yeah...

S what about Carmen McRae...
G I knew Carmen...sure...

S she's doing a lot in Chicago now and of course she's...
G I mean I've know Carmen for years and years and years and years, I never worked with her, I wasn't in the same program she was in you know what I'm saying, ah music festivals and things, but I've known her, she's been around for years.

S did you perform with Charlie Parker...
G no...

S what about Dizzy Gillespie or Aldrich...
G oh, I know Dizzy Gillespie; I just did 5 concerts when we were in Europe.

S have you recorded with her...
G ah, yes I've recorded with her...they had a double album that came out in France in, 60.... or 79, and Albert's Connoted and Kenny Clark,

S did you ever get involver with any of those contests, the tenor sax contests you that we read about of the past, where several tenor sax's or several sax jams would get together and see who could out bind the other...
G oh that happens all the time...I mean that's where a saxophone player will grove...I used to do that, cause that when I played here with Dexter, when I first came back it was like that, you know, I mean it's not that, its just cause music, it like people that say awe, that guy just blew Dexter off the stage, or something...then the other guy says no, he didn't either. But you know, all the year when I played with Charles, and we had this quintet...a lot of stars were completely different you know. Just the other ah we had a festival in Niece...just last summer I had ah, Moody and Frank Foster and his band come and play, but you know all musicians have so much respect it's not really about all that their playing, as much as they can play now, if your not ready your asking for trouble...

S right...
G definitely it's no time to go to sleep, you know. But it's a lot of fun, and...

S Andy Kirk paid you a very fine compliment, I think, just a few days ago, he pointed out that you're a very intelligent, intro-spec rive player, but he also said something I didn't quite understand and I didn't peruse, he said you weren't one who played for the masses of audiences, that you seemed to play as much for yourself as did Charlie Parker sometime, very often as you did for the audiences...could you expand on that or do you believe that...
G a, well what happens is, that when I'm playing, I like the people to know that ah, what should I use_______ at times, it's music, yes I like to play for audiences, I don't like studios and ah, I like to play for people, because I can feel the vibrations of people and I feel that the musicians on the bandstand will use the vibrations of the public to help us with the music, you know, I mean it really concerns me, like when I'm playing I'm involved with the music, the music takes...I'm lost in the music, I know there are people out there, but sometimes I can do something, you know, and make somebody smile or something or think of something silly to play you know, something with some humor in it, but ah, yes, it's a very selfish thing, it is self, but I mean it's self being that ah, involved in the music. I believe in people coming to a concert to hear you play or to a club, but everyone has a different want or...everyone is different, and ah, so I think it's crazy to try to ah do what everyone wants, it's impossible anyway, you know, It's okay if you're a pop musician and your playing something that's very popular and everybody can sing to the solo, that different, but I mean, I think the people should come in, say you should come in...and sit down to listen, to be taken away form their trails and tribulations, they come to be entertained, now...so they come in...they leave their selves open so that we can give them the benefit of our experiences and what we express may be, they can feel and get something out of it. I think this is what should happen, and normally that's what happens. They sit there and listen, so I don't try to play something that people don't understand, they couldn't understand if I played some unlisted music...musicians themselves, if I played something very slow blues, they couldn't understand... they'd say oh I can understand that...it's the blues...but I mean they couldn't write it out, now that's what understanding, you know what I'm saying...I can't understand their jazz but rock-and-roll I can understand. Okay...maybe they can't understand the lyrics but if they had to be a musician to understand the music than that says to technically understand. So the whole thing is all about entertaining...if they come in open to receive what's going on, on the bandstand ah I think that's it. I put myself out for the people...I don't turn my back on the people I....

S to try to give them their monies worth I think they say as they bring the ticket home...
G oh yes...I definitely want them to enjoy themselves, but the first thing, the main thing, in the whole thing is for me to...the musicians to get the music together, cause the whole thing is about music...if that music is right and the rhythm section is swinging, and everything is going on just so, there's no problem.

S you mentioned a few moments ago, to that, in Europe you thought that the audiences were, or you implied, were a little bit better, or something...
G no, no...I was saying...

S I'm sorry, more congenial...
G no the people are more culturally minded than they are in America, I really think that. I really think that they if they get more music, not that it has to be jazz but ah, it's nothing unusual to see jazz on television once a week, for an hour, or 2 or 3 times a week.

S you implied that you were treated better...with flowers and with wine and you know...
G oh yes...I mean, you know, Americans are so blasé about jazz and all, and Americans, I mean they don't even want to know about it...jazz...and all that jazz, I mean jazz has such a negative compotation you see in article they're selling, of articles like turkeys or something, I mean it has nothing to do with music.

AM ah...I was reading your article in the Ann Arbor paper about, ah, you said you don't want to play music that people dance to, is that because...
G I said that...
AM well it said something about...

S I don't think he said that...
G No, no...

AM I wanted to ask you about, like in the last thirty years or so, people don't seem to be dancing to what is so called jazz like back in the big bands...
G I like to dance myself...I mean there are something's that you can dance, I mean, even the fastest tunes that I play I've seen people dance...but it's just the people decided not to play them. Like I said; that's when...when the music moves from primary to black clubs, down to say the New York ballet, or Broadway or down in the village, or ah in Chicago, ah from the south side, you people in those clubs their not dancing at all, people just sit around and listen, they didn't/t dance, they got so that they really got more involved into the depths of the music.

AM do you appreciate that more or do you like to see people out there?
G I like it... it's alright to me if they dance or if they don't dance...

AM as long as they enjoy it, right...
G as long as they enjoy it, cause that's the whole thing you know... as long as they're not obnoxious, you know.

S well this looks like this is going to be the last question, so I think we ought to put into perspective exactly what he said in the article...since this is on record, is that he is a horn blower and he ________________ especially and then he pointed out that rock and fugitive pop, all this is very provident here, he said; rock has a nice advantage to it, but I like to dance also, but he said; it isn't the music I want to play night after night, so that's exactly, evidently, who ever you talked to, it isn't the fact that you don't like dance music, cause you like dance music, but you don't want to play it every night.
G yeah, cause all the music that I grew up in...cause I mean, when I listened to Charlie Parker play I was dancing.

AM well I just wondered why...I mean you never see people dancing in jazz clubs.
G it just...it had changed you know, its funny cause in the future things change.

AM cause I like to dance to your music, more than I would AC DC you know, the rock people...
G right, you know, there is this ballroom in New York, and you know this is a huge ballroom, it could hold 6000 people I imagine, there's two bandstands, so people had plenty of space then, you know, you've got one for the jazz clubs their so small for the clubs to pay the musicians to keep it going they have to fill it up with chairs, so there's no space to dance, and I think that primarily it has to do with that too...

AM is the price of it have anything to do with it, say sometime a person pays like $10.00 to see a show they're almost more like, you know, entertain me you know.

END OF INTERVIEW