Roger Zee: How did you go from playing the French Horn to working with synthesizers?
Pete Levin: I majored in French horn at Boston University and Juilliard in the Sixties. By the early Seventies, I became a
first-call New York City studio player on the instrument. Around then, I joined the Gil Evans Orchestra. During the Seventies, I grew
fascinated with the emerging electronic music scene. I bought a Mini-Moog in 1973, still have it, by the way, and started getting studio
work using it. Since I always played Jazz piano and some organ, I had some keyboard chops. During the decade of Disco and Star Wars, I
worked many one-hour jingle dates doing electronic tom-toms, laser shots, synth bass tracks, etc. I brought the Mini to one of Gil Evans'
gigs to do some improv experimenting. He loved it and asked me to do more and to solo on it. By the late Seventies, I exclusively played electronic keyboards with Evans and also on countless recording sessions. Gil hired another horn player to free me up to do the synth stuff.
Eventually, everybody in town forgot that I played the horn, and I just put it away! I've loved the Hammond organ since the Sixties. I still go
back to it whenever I can. In hindsight, it's actually one of the first electronic musical instruments. More than eighty years later, it
still has a unique sound that has never been successfully duplicated.
Roger Zee: While so many musicians can't find work, you release album after album. Talk about your latest
solo record, "Mobius," and The Levin Brothers' "Special Delivery."
Pete Levin: Well, I've been doing it for a long time and I've been pretty lucky. The phone always rings! These days, it's harder to
find live gigs. More players, fewer venues, less money, and growing audiences that don't want CDs anymore. Having released "Mobius" in
late 2017, I'm working on booking the band for this year. "All-star" is an over-used expression, but it's really that. All seven of us are
seasoned pros with long resumes and international reputations. Yet some festivals pass on us in favor of younger bands that currently get
exposure but will work for less money. With seven players, we can't get on an airplane unless the money's very good. So we'll do vehicle
tours. East Coast then West Coast. We'll be playing locally on Wednesday, June 13th at Daryl's House in Pawling, NY and on
Tuesday, June 19th at Iridium in New York City. It's a rough business. You've got to adapt constantly! But the process of creating new music
is self-rewarding. If it's profitable, so much the better; but I'll still keep doing it. I think "Mobius" is the best album I've done so
far, and live, the band is killin' it! I already have new music I want to record with the guys.
The Levin Brothers project's another example of the drive to create. My brother Tony and I started it in 2014 with a studio album. It's Fifties-style "Cool" Jazz - something we just wanted to do. We did it for ourselves and got a great response! We haven't had time to do a follow-up studio album, so we recorded three of our shows in April 2017 and turned it into a live record, "Special Delivery." Still acoustic Jazz, but it includes more contemporary material that we've been doing on tours. We took a few hundred copies with us to Japan. Sold them all!
Roger Zee: You've worked with so many big names in the Pop and Jazz world. Tell me about the time you spent with
Jaco Pastorius.
Pete Levin: Jaco whirled like a tornado in our midst. I played in many small groups and big bands with him, including the couple of
years he played in the Gil Evans Orchestra. Often we had two bassists on those gigs, Jaco with Mark Egan or Daryl Jones, just in case
Jaco didn’t show up. There were several nights playing duo with him in Bradley's, a small Greenwich Village bar. Jaco was extreme bi-polar,
but we didn’t understand that then. He had more energy than anyone I've ever known. That came out in his playing and his composing. His 1981 solo album, "Word Of Mouth," is still jaw-dropping to listen to. Constantly pointing out that he had more "hang chops" than anyone -- he would go for days without sleeping. Several times we would jump in a cab together, Jaco would lean over the front seat and extend his hand
to the driver, saying, "Hi. I'm Jaco Pastorius, the world's greatest bass player." What could I say -- he probably was! For sure, he
changed the game for every other bass player in the world. There are many stories about his wild behavior that I think should be put away
so we just remember the good stuff. Here's a Jaco story that didn't get into any of the histories. Jaco was living in my neighborhood at
the Gramercy Park Hotel which had an old-school bar -- quiet, dark, bartenders in vests and bow ties -- my favorite neighborhood
watering hole. One evening I was hanging there with actress/comedienne Marilyn Sokol. A fine vocalist, she was doing a play on
Broadway. I called Jaco to come down and join us. As the three of us sat drinking and chatting, we became distracted by a woman singing and
playing piano in the corner. Candidly, she wasn't very good. Finally she took a break. Marilyn and I saw the opening and took over the
bandstand. Jaco ran upstairs, put on a dress shirt and a tie, and came back down with a bass, plugging it into the tiny PA system. For
hours, we accompanied Marilyn doing standards and show tunes. The woman came back, but we refused to stop. Finally she got her coat and
left. Marilyn worked the room, took requests, told a few jokes, etc. Jaco played quiet, simple walking bass and took very few solos.
Nobody in the room had any notion that the "World's Greatest Bass Player" was right there playing a lounge gig in the Gramercy Park Hotel!
As I recall, we made about $15 each in the tip jar. Still had to pay the bar tab though.
Roger Zee: After so long, what inspires you to keep playing?
Pete Levin: I don't think it's a matter of inspiration. It's just what I do. I keep in touch with several people that I went to high
school with. The ones still living have all retired. It's like they put in their twenty or thirty years and they've had enough. Move to Florida, catch
the early-bird dinner at 5pm, wear green pants and play golf. I'd go crazy. I can't imagine not playing, not working, not creating. I
suspect that all musicians would say the same thing one way or another.
Roger Zee: How do you see the future of the music business?
Pete Levin: I'm not optimistic. The industry changes every few months. It's really difficult selling physical CDs now. They may not
exist in a couple of years. That's the big picture. For Jazz, the audiences have declined steadily since the Forties when big-band
Jazz ruled pop music. We're in what's left of the era of the independent record label. But most albums get self-released by the artist.
We face realities like new cars that no longer come with CD players. Best Buy and Target no longer sell CDs. Digital downloads are being
edged out by digital streaming, which pays the artist and composer even less. It's not a pretty picture.
On a positive note, young musicians these days get exposed to phenomenal amounts of complex music and technical know how. In the Seventies, only insiders knew what went on in a recording studio. Now your laptop's a studio and disc makers will manufacture your album for $900. I heard a high school group recently, a six-piece fusion band. They played something in between Jazz and Prog Rock -- difficult material. Sixteen and seventeen year-olds playing in seven and thirteen, and killin' it! Cover material and originals. When my generation went to high school, playing music that complex would have been inconceivable. So maybe that's the answer. Young musicians ARE the future of music and the music industry, not us veterans. The more I hang around, the more I realize that I don't have a clue!
Roger Zee: What advice do you give up-and-coming young musicians?
Pete Levin: Listen, learn, develop your skills on your instrument. Play as much as you can. If you're not in a formal music program,
learn to read music and get to whatever level you can -- chord charts at a minimum. Written music's a powerful communications language.
if you don't speak it, you'll run into brick walls all the time. Feel good about the music you create. Success is elusive, especially in the current state of the music industry. If you're making music that doesn't satisfy you but succeeds commercially, you'll receive the satisfaction of making money. If you create music that you like and don't succeed, you'll still feel fulfilled about what you're doing.
If you make music that you don't like and it's not successful, then you'll be miserable!
Roger Zee: Describe your most special or unusual live gig.
Pete Levin: Favorite gig... Out of thousands? That's tough. Here's one that stands out for me. Tokyo, 1976 with the Gil Evans
Orchestra, in a large concert hall packed with enthusiastic Jazz fans, standing room only. After we’d played for maybe two hours, the stage
crew, thinking that we had finished, lowered the motor-driven curtain. But Gil didn’t see it come down and started playing another piece.
Possibly a fuse blew or something, but they could not raise the curtain! I don't think Gil even saw the curtain! We played Jazz to 2700
square yards of cloth for 15 minutes before they got it fixed. The curtain went up in the middle of somebody’s solo to a thunderous ovation.
The sound system had stayed on all along and nobody had left the hall. The Japanese are terrific Jazz fans. Love them! Several years later,
an obscure label in Italy released a bootlegged recording of the concert. Of course, we didn’t get paid -- but we got a great story!
Roger Zee: Tell us about your favorites projects and shows.
Pete Levin: I've spent most of my career as a sideman. Job description: make somebody else's music as good as it can be, and make
the band leader look good. That's landed me on some really great gigs. I've learned from all of them, and contributed to more music
situations than I could possibly recall. It's difficult to pick favorites, but here’s some thoughts and brief memories:
PAUL SIMON: I toured a lot with Paul, but never really got to know him well. In the late '70s, Paul had split with Art Garfunkle and hadn't toured for a while. He had just recorded a new album and feature film and had to hit the road to support them. The backup band -- I don't think I've ever played with a better one: Richard Tee playing piano, Eric Gale on guitar, Steve Gadd on drums, my brother Tony on bass, a great horn section, and the Jesse Dixon gospel group singing backup. I played second or "utility" keyboard. We worked mostly small venues, 2000 seats or so. Not as lucrative, but much nicer than doing stadium level shows; better connection to the audience, and usually better sound. I've always loved Paul's compositions, beyond great. So it felt very special to perform with him, and especially to play alongside Richard Tee, one of my favorite keyboard players. This was Paul's last period of touring before he hooked up with African musicians and took a completely different approach. Eric, Tee, and Jesse have all passed. Tony, Steve and I still roam the road.
ANNIE LENNOX: I toured with Annie in the Nineties in support of her new album release. She didn't have a fixed band at the time, so she used NYC studio players Paul Pesco and Steve Wolf. Annie's a wonderful singer, very soulful. There were a couple of pop hits from the album, but some of the music had a nice blues feel. I couldn't help thinking that I'd love to hear her let loose and stretch out on some of them. I knew she could do it, but very few pop music shows allow for that. Myself, I had to focus on playing the exact same way every night. The band and shows were great. I had some nice long chats with Annie on airplanes or wherever. Mostly, we talked about our kids. She's a very special lady, and a huge talent.
LIZA MINELLI: Not a deep history here, but one nice memory. I subbed on an industrial show for her once, doing the utility keyboard book. A straight reading gig with a twelve piece band and no rehearsal. Liza would arrive at the venue five minutes before she had to go on stage, and leave immediately afterwards. Waiting to go on, her music director briefly introduced her to me, since I'd be a strange face on the bandstand. She works hard on stage, good singer -- not great -- but a fantastic performer. A year later I subbed on another one of those gigs. Liza arrived exactly at showtime. Waiting in the wings to go on, she came up to me, greeted me by name and we chatted for a bit. She remembered my name after that one brief meeting a year earlier. I thought that was pretty cool! Next I heard about her, she was in rehab. Kind of sad.
AZTEC TWO STEP: Great performers and fine musicians, Rex and Neal have been slogging it out on the folk circuit for decades, and still maintain a large, loyal fan base. Having always performed as a duo, a few years ago they decided to try a larger format and had NYC guitarist Lou Volpe put together a touring band for them. We did that for a while, then they went back to their duo format. Likely they judged the band thing to be more effort and expense than it was worth. I really liked their music though, and was happy to sit back and play simple, basic piano parts.
FANIA ALL-STARS: A large, backup band for all the singing artists on the Fania record label, many of the musicians themselves well known. They hired me to do synthesizer strings for a concert in Madison Square Garden backing up nearly every Salsa star I'd ever heard of -- Celia Cruz, Willie Colon, Larry Harlow, Ruben Blades, Johnny Pacheco, and Hector Lavoe. The capacity crowd ... complete bedlam, like the Wild West. I swear I heard pistol shots from the nosebleed seats, but nobody seemed to care. Roberto Duran had just defeated Sugar Ray Leonard the night before the concert. Duran came up and sang a song with the band and the crowd of 14,000 people went totally berserk! I couldn't tell you if he was any good as a singer because I couldn't hear anything except the bass amp and the trombone player sitting right next to me. What a night!
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA: Back in my college days in Boston, I subbed with the orchestra several times. The sound and the textures, the feeling of being on stage with 100 excellent musicians -- there's nothing like it! World class orchestras like the BSO routinely have famous guest conductors come in. Me, a college kid with good chops but little experience, getting stared down by Fritz Reiner when I clammed a note. I near wet my pants. That man was very scary! During rehearsal breaks, most of the orchestra would hang across the street at the Lobster Claw Bar. So we always had more fun the second half of rehearsals. Boston was a great music town. Still is.
JENNIFER AYLMER: A soprano on the roster of the Met. What a voice! I'm an Opera fan and I'm in awe of the Met and the Opera world. I accompanied Jennifer on some Cabaret gigs she wanted to try. Cabaret's not my thing, but just listening to her sing was a rush. After a gig we'd go out drinking and talk about stuff. I think she drank Scotch.
TOMMY CHONG: Nothing like his Cheech and Chong persona, Tommy’s very smart, soft-spoken, very inquisitive, and a big Jazz fan. A pretty good guitar player himself, he wanted to know about the guitar players I worked with in New York. When I told him that my NYC apartment was right across the street from Fat Tuesday’s, he wanted to know all about Les Paul (who I never played with). The now defunct Fat Tuesday's was Les’ hangout before the Iridium. Tommy told me about his first band called “Three Niggers and a Chink,” commenting sadly that “it never caught on for some reason.” I think he was serious. When I met him years after he got famous, he pulled into the studio driveway in a Bentley convertible. With his long hair and scraggly beard, he looked like a homeless guy. What a contrast! Wish I had a photo! This was before selfies.
THE CLAMS: The first band I did with my brother Tony, a Spike Jones sound-alike "tribute" group. We recruited iconic drummer Steve Gadd and Grammy-winning recording engineer Dixon Vanwinkle on tuba. In 1976 we released one single with me singing lead that became a bonafide top-40 hit, a parody cover of The Carpenters' "Close To You” done in manic Spike Jones style. The record made zero money. The label A&R man who signed us got fired. The band essentially lasted two days and nobody ever asked me to sing lead again! But it stands as my all-time favorite recording session. To paraphrase Jack Nicholson, “This music business needs an enema!” Hey, The Clams tried!
MILES DAVIS: An inspiration, of course. Miles was an innovator, always leading the scene. There's really no one else to compare him to. Working with him felt like being in the room with God, and you know that you're making music on the cutting edge. I played with Miles only briefly, but learned a hell of a lot. In the recent film, "Miles Ahead," Don Cheadle and the music were great. But the story and characterization were wrong in dozens of ways. Miles wasn't like that. But Hollywood needs a good car-chase to sell tickets. Another reminder of how society views musicians!
GIL EVANS: My number one mentor, Gil was best known as an arranger and orchestrator. He created Claude Thornhill's sound, did several ensembles of his own, then created iconic recordings with Miles Davis that made him famous. In the late Sixties, fascinated by Blues and Rock, he put together a large band with a shifting roster of eclectic, New York players. Regulars included Lew Soloff, Howard Johnson, Tom "Bones" Malone, David Sanborn, Lou Marini, David Taylor, John Abercrombie, Mark Egan, Hiram Bullock, Adam Nussbaum, Danny Gottlieb, John Clark, George Adams, Chris Hunter, and Gil Goldstein. He would put his old charts in front of us and make it clear that he wanted to see where the music could go. The band went to Europe at least once a year and toured the Far East several times. For years, when off the road, we played every Monday night to a packed house at Sweet Basil in Greenwich Village. One of the Mondays was recorded and won a Grammy! Gil had hired me in 1972 to play French horn. I was experimenting with synthesizers at the time and brought a Minimoog to an Evans' gig. Gil loved it. He hired another horn player so I could do the electronic stuff full-time. How many band leaders would do that?!? As sidemen and dynamic soloists, we were all a complete mismatch of styles, but it didn't matter. When that band was "on," nothing could touch it. After opening one show for Miles Davis on a Far East tour, Miles switched the billing! He didn't want to follow Gil's powerhouse band. In the mid-Seventies, we were scheduled to record an album of Jimi Hendrix music, with Jimi! Unfortunately, Jimi died a few weeks before that happened. We did the album without him and it won a Grammy. To this day, there's something of Gil in everything that I play or write.
WAYNE SHORTER: I'm always reluctant to use the word, but Wayne is a genius -- a brilliant sax player and composer. I only worked with him on one recording project, a cooperative effort with Lenny White, Stanley Clarke, Michel Petrucianni, Gil Goldstein, and Rachelle Farelle. I'd been listening to him for years of course, with Weather Report and more, always captivated by his restraint when he performed. Sometimes I'd wonder, why doesn't he play more? Over the course of the project, I had a revelation. Like Miles' playing, it's not about how many notes you play, it's about your choice of notes. Miles was a master at that. So is Wayne. He would hang back and let the rest of us take it out, then he'd enter with a brief statement or a solo that would be … perfect. I've only met a couple of geniuses. Wayne is one.
CARLA BLEY: Brilliant, cutting edge composer and pianist - my neighbor in Woodstock. I only got to play a few gigs with her big band, but they were very special and musically challenging. Playing organ with her big band at the Chicago Jazz Festival, one song started as a duet with just Carla on piano and me. The stage crew had accidentally pulled the power cord on the Hammond and then quickly plugged it back in. That would have been OK, except the Hammond rotors didn't make it back up to concert pitch. I played that intro with Carla not realizing that the Hammond was a 1/2 step flat until the band entered. Later Steve Swallow sent me a cassette from the concert broadcast. The cassette contained only the first 60 seconds, my duet from Hell with Carla. Thanks Steve, I needed that!
JAY CHATTAWAY: Very talented, prolific, composer, arranger and producer. Early on, he made his bones producing and arranging for Maynard Ferguson's band and others. Then Hollywood discovered him. I worked with Jay doing electronic realizations on several of his feature film scores, and then later when he started doing TV. He wrote music for Star Trek for fifteen years. Always a passionate sailor, Jay semi-retired and now lives on his boat. He likes to say that he got “lost in space for fifteen years!"
DAVID DARLING: Ground-breaking, creative cellist and producer. I've done many recording and live projects with him over the years. David's categorized as "New Age" and won a best album Grammy for that, but he's really beyond being stereotyped. David was experimenting with electronics on his cellos when I met him in the Seventies. We did a ballet score for the avante garde choreographer Alwin Nikolais. We had no written music and a widely diversified group of instrumentalists on the session, all improvising under David and Nik's guidance. It was pretty out there! I went to the premier at Town Hall in NYC. It was .... pretty out there!
DON BYRON: Wonderfully creative, eclectic and always thinking out of the box. Generally classified as avante guarde Jazz and post Bop, Don goes from Junior Walker to Mickey Katz to gospel in a heartbeat. He’s actually well-known for his Klezmer clarinet playing. On one 2016 gig with him, Don (totally a Democrat) commented to a Woodstock audience that Donald Trump was going to be elected president and we'd better start adjusting to that. He almost got booed off the stage. Some people are visionaries. I’m not.
JOE BECK: Brilliant guitar player. He played on two of my organ trio albums. Joe had a phenomenal technique, but it wasn't about speed; rather, it was orchestrating with his guitar. He had incredible harmonic sense. When we played small clubs as an organ trio, half the audience would be guitar players, watching him closely to see how the Hell he did it. The answer is, he's Joe Beck, and you're never going to be able to do that. Years ago, he teamed up with Jazz flutist Ali Ryerson, recording and touring as a duo. Using a 7-string guitar, Joe played “bass” on the low string, while soloing fluently and creating those amazing re-harmonizations, and making it look easy. Joe Beck. I miss him a lot.
HIRAM BULLOCK: Not the best guitarist I've worked with, but very musical and with a contagious energy. Gil Evans said that he felt Jimi Hendrix’s presence in Hiram. Not known for playing Jazz, Hiram used to say, “I don’t know what I’m doing in this band, but I’m just gonna do my thing!” Gil loved his “thing.” One time, Hiram had broken his leg and was in a full leg cast. Taking a solo at an open air concert in Tokyo, wireless, he jumped off the stage and went out into the audience, hopping all over the place on his one functioning leg. The audience loved it. Still soloing, he tried to get back on stage but couldn’t manage the 3-foot climb. Several audience members rushed up and lifted him back on stage where he finished the solo. He didn’t miss a note. Hiram was irrepressible! Unfortunately, his demons caught up with him. A tragic loss.
JOE LOUIS WALKER: As a sideman with an eclectic resume but known primarily as a Jazz guy, I don't get many calls to play “real” Blues gigs. Joe Louis Walker is the real deal so the call to tour with him was unusual. I learned that Blues fans are just as picky and opinionated as Jazz audiences. Joe was straying into rock with his original tunes and getting put down for doing that. I wouldn't presume to judge. What I saw was night after night of Joe singing and soloing on the Blues. He'd never play the clichéd riffs that so many guitarists lean on. And he'd never repeat himself. There was one slow blues that he'd take an extended solo on, often going out in the audience. Me soloing, three choruses of Blues and I've said all I've got to say. But Joe would start real quiet and take five choruses. Then ten, twenty. More. And never repeat himself. And he'd structure the solo so it kept building. That solo drew a standing ovation every show. Joe changed band personnel often. A couple of years later he did an album that broke through and got him to a better level of work. I caught a gig of his about a year ago. His current band's great -- four good players backing him that all sing backup vocals. He did a lot of new material that I hadn't played, but he still did that one slow blues with the ten minute solo. And got a standing ovation for it!
KAL DAVID: I never got to record with Kal, but I played many gigs with him and his wife Lori. Whatever you might expect from a 70-year old Jewish guitar player living in Palm Springs, he's one of the best blues guitar players I've ever worked with. And he's got a relaxed delivery of blues lyrics that swings. It’s like having Mel Torme on a Blues gig. On guitar, he routinely spins off all the riffs that thousands of other guys try to do -- and makes it sound easy. We didn't make much money on those tours, but I had a ball playing with him. More recently, Europe has discovered Kal, and he's been doing some great recordings with German musicians. Really glad to seem him doing real well. It's not easy making a living playing Blues.
CHARLES MINGUS: One of the best and most influential Jazz composers, and a virtuoso bassist. I played in his big band on and off, in the early Seventies. It was among my first exploits into the New York Jazz scene -- and what an introduction, to play with this powerhouse, free-wheeling band. Gil Evans loved Charlie's music and did many arrangements of his tunes for his own band. In 1981 I talked to Gil about producing an album of all the Mingus compositions currently in his book. Sorry to say that it didn’t happen. The Mingus Big Band still tours and performs regularly in New York City.
JEFF BERLIN: Jeff played on my second album for Gramavision in 1990 and was in my live band for a while. Jeff’s a handful, but he’s a pretty cool guy - a phenomenal musician with a frightening technique on bass. That could be said of several other famous bass players, but Jeff truly doesn't sound like anyone else. When we did studio work in New York in the Seventies, on our breaks between sessions we obsessed about finding the best calzone in the midtown area. Last month, he called me in Japan to remind to look for the best calzone in Tokyo. Jeff played briefly with the Gil Evans Orchestra. On one Far East tour, the bad-boy trio was Jeff, Lew Soloff and I, out looking for food and drink. There was one night in Bangkok .... wait, I'm not supposed to tell that story. Never mind.
TONY LEVIN: Sometimes I forget that my brother is one of the best-known and most recognizable bass players in the world. Touring and at home, it's a never-ending search for good coffee. Tony has recorded and played with my bands and I've recorded and played with Tony's bands. Of course, it's a blast working with my brother, and the bottom just doesn't get any more solid. We toured together with Paul Simon in the late Seventies. Tony and Steve Gadd together -- that’s a dream rhythm section. Recording my "Mobius" album, Tony and Lenny White met in the studio that morning. An hour later, they were the most amazing rhythm section I'd ever put together. For all the years we've been doing our various things, we'd never done a project together from scratch. In 2014, we came up with an album concept modeled after the "Cool Jazz" of the Fifties that we listened to as kids. The project became "The Levin Brothers" band. As part of immersing ourselves in the genre, we perform wearing suits and ties 'cause that's what musicians did back in the Fifties. I wear my Pork Pie hat. We've both got crazy schedules, but we manage to get some touring in with the band every year. Always doing the Northeast U.S., we toured South America in 2017, and Japan this past January. There's good coffee in Japan, but you've gotta look for it!
LENNY WHITE: Lenny and I go back some 40 years. We've played together in many ensembles. Hanging with him, making pizza or whatever, it’s easy to forget that he’s an iconic Jazz drummer who played with Miles Davis at age nineteen and was a key element in Chick Corea's breakthrough band. He was playing drums with Gil Evans when I first joined that band. He’s produced albums for a wide variety of artists. I worked for him programming and playing keyboards on many R&B projects during the Eighties and Nineties. Lenny's deeply rooted in the Jazz tradition but often gets overlooked by Jazz critics and the Jazz polls -- perhaps due to some of the projects that he produces. It's unfair, but Jazz audiences tend to be very biased. Lenny played brilliantly and took a couple of great solos on my new "Mobius" album. It got a pretty good review in Downbeat, but Lenny isn't even mentioned. Go figure! Lenny also played on "Jump!," my last organ trio album with guitarist Dave Stryker. What a wonderful trio. Every time we played a small club, half the audience would consist of drummers who came to watch him work up close. About the same time I mixed the "Mobius" album, Lenny had the idea to create a record label that was dedicated to putting out creative music that probably wouldn't get a fair shake from the industry. IYouWe Records is a sort of cooperative to make it easier to get our stuff out there. Not likely to make any of us rich, but Lenny thinks that way. He's a pretty amazing guy.
JIMMY COBB: One of Jazz’s living legends. I played on a recording project for him years ago that included Walter Booker, Freddie Hubbard, Bill Cosby, Larry Willis and Gregory Hines. On one straight-head tune, Greg tap danced and traded fours with Jimmy on drums. It was great! An iconic drummer and an old-school gentleman, Jimmy played on Miles Davis' "Kind Of Blue" album, generally considered to be one of the greatest Jazz recordings of all time. Jimmy's the last surviving player from that date. And he's still out there touring! Amazing!
JIMMY GIUFFRE: My other mentor, Jimmy was an inspiration and a great teacher. Well-known for his adventurous clarinet soloing, Jimmy had been one of the four sax players in the front line of the Woody Herman band, nicknamed the "Four Brothers." Jimmy wrote an iconic Jazz head by that name for the band. Over time, his composing became much more avante garde. I played in his final quartet for eight years. He wanted me to use only electronic instruments, but with no conventional keyboard sounds -- no sampled piano, Fender Rhodes, etc. The three albums we recorded in the Eighties still sound contemporary and fresh today. Thirty years later, music critics and fans still talk about them. The quartet traveled extensively in the U.S. and Europe. All four of us loved good beer and spicy food, so touring meant a never-ending search for Indian restaurants. Our drummer, Randy Kaye, would eat the hottest food possible. In London with pubs and great Indian food on every block, we never wanted to come home!
HOWARD JOHNSON: When I first came to New York City, Howard had already built a reputation for his Jazz tuba playing and had begun a long, unbroken streak of winning the Downbeat Magazine readers' poll in the miscellaneous instrument category. We became great friends. He got me into the Gil Evans Orchestra. Over the years, we played together in Gil’s band and on tours with Paul Simon, as well as many local New York gigs. Howard belongs in a special category -- musicians who have changed the way their instrument is played. Think about that. It's a short list: Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Art Tatum, Bela Fleck, etc. Howard fronts his own Jazz group, "Gravity" –- four tubas and rhythm section. Nobody else I know could pull that off.
MAMADOU KELLY: A wonderful guitar player/vocalist from Mali. I got called to do an album playing keyboards with his band, and in the same week to also work on a solo album for his lead vocalist, Leila Gobi. It's rare that I get to play with African musicians so this was a special treat. The feel and the grooves were amazing. Several of the players used homemade instruments that I'd never seen before, like one guy playing his butt off on a one-string banjo! For four days, I sat in a room where only the recording engineer and I spoke English. I wish I could have done some of their live gigs, but that wasn't economically possible. It was a rare and special experience for me. Being in the room when diverse music cultures meet is one of the situations that musicians live for. Sometimes it isn't just about the money.
CHUCK MANGIONE: For several years Chuck would bring me up from NYC to play lead French horn for his big orchestral concerts. Typically, it encompassed a 24-piece band with guest soloists, plus a big string section and sometimes a whole choir -- all built around his touring quartet. Chuck has won Grammys for some of his beautiful pop compositions and recordings, but his Jazz playing was always a big part of his sound. His instrument, the Flugelhorn, is much more difficult to control than a trumpet, and the upper register is treacherous. Chuck would conduct the orchestra from the podium, turning toward the audience to solo. And he wasn't easy on himself, writing very challenging and exposed parts -- sometimes acapella -- with fifty performers waiting in back of him and a thousand people in front of him. That's a lot of pressure! On all those tours, I never heard him clam a note. With his many pop music successes, he was likely not taken seriously by Jazz fans. I think he was very underrated as a Jazz player. Chuck's regular quartet and the big concerts featured a wonderful New Jersey saxophone player, Gerry Niewood, who died in a small plane crash in 2009 on his way to a Mangione gig.
NICKI RICHARDS: A very talented singer and an absolute sweetheart, Nicki won Star Search which led to a major label deal with Atlantic. I worked for weeks on her debut album. One day in the control room she remarked wistfully that with her career, she had no social life at all. Looking around at the engineer, producer Lenny White and I, she said "You guys are my only friends!" I think that's when I fell in love with her. The album was great but not a success. Last time I saw Nicki, she was dancing and singing backup for Madonna. She's still a sweetheart!
©2018 Roger Zee