Arts Alive from the Algonquin; No. 12; Jazz as America's Classical Music; Part 1; WNYC

[Klein] Welcome. This is Arts Alive from the Algonquin. I'm Sandy Klein. Today, we are live from the Rose Room of the legendary Algonquin Hotel for an hour of stimulating conversation about the arts here in New York and around the nation. The production of Arts Alive from the Algonquin is made possible, in part, with the generous support of the National Westminster Banks as part of their arts and the community program, and by the Hearst Corporation as an expression of its commitment to excellence in communications. The man with the horn, the man classical trumpet player Maurice André called potentially the greatest trumpeter of all time, is here to host today's program. Wynton Marsalis effortlessly weaves through the worlds of jazz and classical music to bring us rich and satisfying sounds. In 1984, he became the first artist ever to win Grammys in both the classical and jazz categories and has at last count, eight of those statues to call his own. Al Hirt gave Wynton his first trumpet when he was six. That was when you were six. Not when Al Hirt was six. Right? And, but you didn't get seriously started on a musical career until age 12. By the time he was in high school, Marsalis was the first chair trumpet in the

New Orleans Civic Orchestra. He went to Juilliard at 18 and performed as a pit musician and Broadway's Sweeney Todd and with the Brooklyn Philharmonic. The same year he joined Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers in his fourth year as artistic director of Classical Jazz at Lincoln Center, Wynton Marsalis will perform in a three concert Classical Jazz Christmas on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday evenings. Joining Wynton Marsalis for that holiday concert series and for brunch today, is jazz singer, John Hendricks. Hendricks began singing as a child in his native Ohio and as a teenager was often accompanied by Art Tatum. Through the years, Hendricks' lyrics to the jazz works of Ellington, Basie, and others have become as familiar as the original recordings. He is lyricising Thelonious Monk's songbook and also wrote all the lyrics and performed on the recording Vocalese by the Manhattan Transfer. He's authored several shows, among them Evolution of the Blues and Reminiscing in Tempo. John Hendricks' music is now a family affair. Joined by his wife and daughter, he works with the vocal group Hendricks and Company. The man who conducts the classical jazz orchestra is among, is another rather, of our

guests today. David Berger, a composer, arranger, author and educator, has transcribed more than 100 works by Duke Ellington. His credits include compositions and/or arrangements for films, commercials, TV specials, and Broadway. Hisself a trumpet player, Mr. Berger has worked with some of the best bands in the business. Quincy Jones, Gerry Mulligan, Thad Jones, and Buddy Rich, just to name four. Alina Bloomgarden, another member of this august gathering, is the producer of Classical Jazz at Lincoln Center. She's also director of Visitor Services, which makes her responsible for the guided tour and Meet the Artists programs, as well as creating programs to welcome visitors to the arts. Miss Bloomgarden has been at Lincoln Center nearly nine years; before that, she was an executive at Macy's Herald Square, where she started Macy's International Center. Welcome, everybody. And I just wanted to say that I too play the trumpet. I was eight years old when I played and I played Barcarolle for [Marsalis laughs] quite a large group. But I also used to play in my bedroom to pretend I was Louis Armstrong and I would open all the windows and blow my brains out.

And I had to stop because the neighbors got a petition together, and they presented it to my parents, and that ended my trumpet career as a troubadour. [Marsalis] That's a true story? [Klein] That's a true story. [Marsalis] Oh, that's very heartwarming. So, If that hadn't happened, it would be Marsalis and Klein at a Christmas Hanukkah concert at Lincoln Center. [laughing together] The program is yours. [Marsalis] Well, the first thing that we're going to discuss is the conception of jazz music as American art and something that we were discussing a few minutes ago, that the music identifies certain characteristics that are purely American. And we are all very interested in the education system and the fact that we go around the country many times to hear jazz festivals and other things. And very few of the works of the masters are actually being performed by younger students. And certainly we've created a body of music that addresses many different of the ceremonies: like, we have parade music,

wedding music, funeral music. We have American adaptations of classical works, much like the one that we're going to hear in our concerts Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday: the Duke Ellington version of The Nutcracker Suite. And it's something I know is a great concern to everyone here. And Dave Berg has transcribed many, many of Duke Ellington's pieces. And we're trying to make these works available to the students in secondary schools so that they'll be able to perform this music. And we know that coming into contact with this music causes a great transformation in these students because they come into contact with something greater than themselves and something that's life vivifying; it makes you really understand why you're American and what it means to be American, and also ties you into different generations. Like, here we have three generations of musicians and people and we're all tied together by this music. And the hierarchy is established based on knowledge, not on age. Like I might have won awards and all of these things, but when I'm with Mr. Hendricks,

his overwhelming experience and knowledge of the music is apparent and evident, and it gives me something to strive for. And it makes me understand more of what life can offer in terms of development and maturity. I know this is something that Dave and I have discussed many times, and he has important thoughts on how we can make the music accessible to the younger students. [Hendricks] I think it's not only the musicians that are around now that we can learn from, but the music of the past. When you deal with the Duke Ellington composition and you play that, it's like a classical musician playing Beethoven. Doesn't matter that Beethoven was writing music over 100, 150 years ago, that music still has relevance to today's life. But more specifically, jazz has relevance to American life. It's about American culture, whereas the classical music, the European classical music is about European culture. And Americans need to address what's happening in this country and get that into the educational system. Not only [should] you learn American history in school, but you should learn about American music. That's a part of American history.

So I've taken [it] upon myself since most publishers were not interested in putting this music out there; they found that it didn't make enough money for them to warrant publication. So I make a lot of this music available myself. I've gone to the publishers and gotten permission to do this. And so, anyone wishing to play this music can get it from me. They can contact Lincoln Center if they want and get me through there, and I'd be very happy to provide that music. [Klein] So why hasn't jazz been taught to our students? Why has it taken a backseat? [Marsalis] Well, having taught jazz in American society on many campuses, I can tell you that the reason jazz hasn't been taught in America is because, frankly, of racism in America. How can you acknowledge the cultural contribution of a person whose existence

you don't want to acknowledge? So this is as ugly and as unpleasant as it may be, is the truth. And we must tell the truth here. And that's basically why; there's still an elitist. class attitude of European music teachers towards jazz. Now, I understand that America is only 200 years old and that it's understandable that the people who founded this country when they came from Europe would cling as long as possible to that culture from whence they came. But how old do we have to be before we finally stand up and say, wait a minute, we have a culture of our own? I think it's time that we did this. [Bloomgarden] I think it's true of Americans anyway that they tend to give more credibility to things that are European, not only in terms of the racism issue, but somehow it seems

to be part of the American character that we have yet to really claim our own, artistically. [Marsalis] Yes, I think the time has come now. [Bloomgarden agrees] I can understand why it hasn't been, and I can be even sympathetic to that. But I think now that it's ridiculous that we don't start to address it. [Hendricks] But, you know, Alina, that may be true, but when I was in high school we read Hemingway and we read Steinbeck, and we read Crane and, you know, all kinds of Faulkner and all kinds of American authors. And in fact, that's what we'd––one year was just American literature. Another year we read English literature. [In] how many schools do you study American music? The average non-music student will not. Well, maybe they have jazz day for 30 minutes; you listen to [Marsalis laughs] maybe one Louis Armstrong. If you're lucky, you get a Louis Armstrong, you might get something much lighter, you might get Dave Brubeck or Stan Kenton or something for that lecture. I'm doubtful that you would get the really great American jazz. [Marsalis] And also this is on a higher level;

This is in the, at least, the high school stage and past. If you want to inculcate young American students into their culture, you have to start in the first, second, third grade––at that level. [Hendricks] Sure. [Marsalis] That's where it must begin. And then the question of elitism, it ceases. It's like a very curious thing has happened historically since the 1960s, which is the first question was, is jazz an art form? Alright, then there was the highbrows, who taught in most of the universities. They were like, this music is not enough for them because it comes from Negroes. And quite frankly, if a Negro is on the highest level, it must be barbaric because they are barbaric people. And of course, this is given the definition of what black is in this country, which means that a man could be Duke Ellington's skin color or Louis Armstrong's––that they are all just in this same big void, that you just avoid unless you smile and, you know, he's: "oh, yes. That issue again." See, we went from that to the nineteen sixties

in which this elitism was attacked with the counterculture, the pop culture which reigns today, which was the elevation of not people like Duke Ellington, but the folk aspects of jazz music, one of the branches on the tree of our music. So what we have today is a mass culture in which music is the most popular art form. But the whole conception of refining musical taste is now a moot point because we now are taught that it's just purely a matter of opinion and that you don't really have to have taste. If you like it, it's good. If you don't like, it's not good, which, I don't really have a problem with that. But the thing that it does, it leaves teenagers open to be exploited because music is a very sensual idiom, and you really need education. And what we see happening now is that the lowest possible elements and components of our music are being pushed up. Like one good example would be the beat of the rhythm.

Start off with a beat, and a groove develops organically, like the New Orleans groove that we developed in New Orleans. It went [vocalizes drum pattern with variation and syncopation] And the people would dance to that rhythm, but the rhythm changes. It's a groove; it's organic. So it's based on African rhythms and African sensibility of groove, improvization, and dance to beat. Now, in today's contemporary music, it's [vocalizes drum pattern with simpler rhythms] And it doesn't change, it's just that repeated over and over and over again, so you see that it does have similarities to the African conception, but something is wrong with it. You know, it's like the style, and that the whole dance conception of the improvisational aspects of it have changed. Now, curiously enough, the dance has retained some of its vibrance, but the music itself in this culture, has gone down. So now the primary argument is not necessarily will those who like European culture

accept jazz, but how can we get those who are inundated with being taught that––basically––folk forms of the music are just as vibrant and contain just as much light, vivifying information, as the highest developed form of the music. [Klein] So how do you do that? [Bloomgarden] Well, I think one of the ways is when you think about classical jazz at Lincoln Center, it's an institution making a commitment to jazz. There's kind of a movement in this country. What's the word? Repertory jazz? [Hendricks] The classic jazz movement. [Bloomgarden] Classic jazz movement. I mean, there's ways in which institutions begin to give credibility to this art form and then perhaps that has some effect where schools also will. [Hendricks] But what we're trying to do, is what what's happened with classical music, with European classical music in this country, the way it's taught in schools, the way that the corporations and the government funds symphony orchestras and operas and dance and

ballet companies, we're trying to get jazz in the same... to have the same kind of respect from the public, and get the same kind of treatment in the schools, so that when you learn about Beethoven in third grade, you also learn about Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. And then the students can say, this is another you know, they're probably going to continue to listen to the radio, to top 40 tunes, but they'll know that, yes, there are these other musics that are available that are more serious and will and will be something that they will be, they can be interested in for their whole lives. Most people don't continue to listen to popular music, top 40 music after they're 25, 30 years old. Hopefully they grow beyond that. But [laughing] I think someone different maybe. So I think what happens is, tell me if I'm wrong. But I think what happens is that most people above that age tend to become nostalgic and listen to those popular things that were popular during their adolescence. I think that's true. And and don't continue to buy the new records. So for those people, when they get tired of that kind of music, they may be ready to move on to something that's mature, that's written by adults for adults.

And that's what jazz is. It's like classical music. It's written by adults for the appreciation of other adults, much as the great popular music of the 30s and the 40s was, like when you had writers like Cole Porter and George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin that you just can read the lyrics of those songs. Those songs are not for teenagers. Those are songs about adult emotions, adult experiences. And teenagers can appreciate that and learn from it and learn how to be good people and good adults. Whereas the popular music now that's being written is designed to take advantage of teenage emotions. And it's not there to teach them how to be better people, but is there to take their money. And that's, that's the crime. And yeah. So what we're trying to do is say here's another here's an opportunity for you. If you if you're looking for something more in music, here's an opportunity for you to get it. And if we don't keep this alive, it won't be there, because this is the last generation that if we if we lose it for a generation, this music won't we won't be able to reclaim it. We need the older players to teach the younger players how to do this

correctly. I was fortunate that I got to work with Duke Ellington's band, and I learned firsthand from Cootie Williams and Harry Carney and all the people in the band, how to... What that music was about. The younger players won't have that, because so many of those older players are no longer living. So it's up to my generation and John's generation, those of us that are still doing the music, to teach the younger players how to carry on this tradition. Because it's not something you can read in a book or just get from records. You have to live it. So you feel you have a mission then, John? Oh, yes. He's done what Dave was saying. I've, I was very upset many years of my life because my father was a minister and I, I was the ninth child and the seventh son. And he chose me to follow in his footsteps and to preach the gospel and to live that kind of life. And I was always very, very aware that out of, out of 12 boys, I have 11 brothers. You know, I want to lose sight of what you're saying, but I cannot stop dwelling on

that. I also I also have three sisters, but in those days, we didn't count them. I don't want to dwell on that either. [Laughter] I knew that would get you! But anyway, I was always, always very aware of this. You know, that I had this high choosing, through my father. And yet at the same time, I always was very aware of jazz music, and I had I had the same reverence and love for the music, as my father wanted me to have for the Word. And it's preaching. And it's only been in the last 10 years of my life that I have come to to rationalize, that in a sense, when I sing and make people feel good, I'm in a sense performing a ministry. I'm lifting the spirits of people who listen to me. And it made me feel a lot better.

What about you, Wynton? I mean, did you... jazz was a part of your life. I mean, you're obviously younger than John. Do you also feel that you're on [a mission]? Everybody's younger than me! Are you on a mission, as well? Well, I don't really think that I'm on a mission necessarily, but my father is a jazz musician and also a teacher. And I was very fortunate, like Dave was saying. And to have been around the jazz musicians, which is really the only reason I wanted to play it. I was trying to have the same type of integrity my father had has, because a lot of times he wasn't working. But I always knew how great jazz music was. But it didn't, I didn't feel it was pertinent to me. Because my brother and myself, we could go on a gig, playing in our pop band. We could make a hundred dollars a night replicating songs on a record. And my father, who was an accomplished musician and a great musician, wasn't working most of the times and he'd go and make thirty-five dollars. So given the commercial climate and the justification of things that are commercial we didn't really, my thought was, well, you know, I like jazz, but it's too hard to

learn how to play it. You know, when you start playing jazz, you so sad. I mean it's hard for me. You know if you start off playing the Hadyn Trumpet Concerto, you might be saying, but the Haydn Trumpet Concerto is great. So, you know, you may go [bohm, bohm, beh, bom, bom, bom] but you always know that eventually, if I practiced this, I will eventually go, [repeats the tune, but with more finesse] Whereas in jazz, you know, you have to play your own ideas. So you stand up and you listening to Clifford Brown. Some'isn [improvised melodic vocals] and you playing like [improvised melodic vocals, but slower] It's very depressing. Yeah. [Laughter among all three] So, you know, for me as always. Well, why, why should I spend all of these hours, and also the type of music we listen to people would be soloin' going [doo dee doo dee] doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo. I mean there's reduced style of pop blues, which is very popular today. You could do that in circular breathe and look, get a ugly face, you know, like really working hard and everybody would clap.

I mean, I know I used these tactics, you know, when I would play my solos in high school and I would look at my like my father, who was cool and elegant, like Mr. Hendrix. You see him, he's jumping all around. He's clean. We go on the bandstand with outfits on with sequins on. And, you know, all the girls would be hollering and I'd be making my ugly faces. And then the thought always, for you as a musician is, why should I spend hours of my life practicing and studying this music? When first, nobody in my generation likes it. I sound sad. I'm not going to make any money doing it. I mean, look at my daddy. He can play and he ain't making no money. Then when I got to be like fifteen or sixteen, fourteen, I started listening to Coltrane and just the overwhelming spirituality and love in that music and the power of it, in the type of engagement that the music. It makes you engage yourself with it, that that got to me. And at this point, I just like the differentiation between the dance music and the music music. Because a lot of times, you know, it's not really the people necessarily like the popular music of today,

or dislike it. It's just that they like to dance, and a backbeat is conducive to dancing. So when I'm speaking of music, I'm speaking mainly of listening, listening to music, which you also can dance to. And I think what hurt our music, what hurt jazz music, is when people stopped dancing to it. And I don't think I don't know how we could get them to start dancing to it again. But that really was. That's something that really hurt us. Well, that's sort of what you see happening with classical jazz at Lincoln Center, right, Only your sort of bringing it back, and, or maybe, well, introducing people to it for the first time. Well, I think it's significant that Lincoln Center is doing jazz. And I think there's a special attitude that has to be there so that jazz can have a very good home at Lincoln Center. There's, we try to really create an atmosphere that musicians are comfortable in, and that, that real sort of magical, or that vibration can happen between musicians and that, you know, because jazz is somebody expressing themselves very personally, very eloquently right before your eyes.

So that really has, we have to be prepared. And I believe we try to devote ourselves to Making the right atmosphere there at Lincoln Center so that the jazz can really thrive in terms of the dancing, it's something for us to address. Wynton, I think that would be interesting to dance. We have done that Lincoln Center. Well, no, I wish we could though, I think that we really gave up a lot when we gave up that and think about. Yeah that's true. Another thing that Mr. Hendricks can probably because he remembers when they. When I used to I used to go to dances. They used to have dances. Every city had a big dance hall. You were talking about Duke Ellington the first time you heard it. It's the first time I really heard Duke Ellington was at a dance, quote unquote. I mean, you know, it was where people went to dance and we used to dance to the greatest orchestras in the world. Andy Kirk and his clouds of joy would play for dancing. Jimmy Luncer would come play for dancing. So we got to dance to. Some how people think of dancing as lower. I don't know why they want sort of the music to be higher when you're listening and then

dancing is, I don't know why they do. Well, that came with the advent of bebop. I think where it became such a such an eclectic music, you know, and so fierce and relentless in its, in its design. And its and its, its method that it was difficult to dance to it, especially at some of the tempy it was that were set. You know, it would be very hard to dance to Koko, for example. Samsung is real fast. Dong, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong, dong Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. It's also the irregularity in the music and the bebop. And the pulse of. Yeah, yeah, yes, I think so. I think what what what we did not do what we did. But what really happened was we we sacrificed dance. That always was a part of the music and always went with the music or the artistic and creative advancement of the music that is and was bebop.

You know, I think that was, I think we really lost a lot. Yes, we did. Come on. Let's talk about that we're gonna find a way. Yeah, we lost the entertainment value. Plus, from a romantic standpoint. Like it's something about seeing I know from playing pop music when I was growing up, if we play a slow song, if you're a musician and you're on a bandstand and you see everybody, the guys and the girls, you know, How they're going to make it in that there's slow groove, and it's just a certain electricity that goes. Yeah, it's true. Certain collective electricity, that is an important part of jazz music. And then we're trying to bring back and this is the thing that makes it so important once again for education, because not only do you have a collective electricity between the music and the audience, you also understand your role as a musician inside of a group. There's a hierarchy at work. It's like being in a democracy. You have the rights of making up your part, but you have equally the responsibility of knowing the music and playing something that will make everybody else sound good. And also when you when you're sitting in a section, you have to blend. So so it's a form of sacrifice, of your own individuality for the collective good. It's really a very social, socially advanced

experience, you know, because if you're going to play too loud, you're going to destroy all the, all the symmetry and design of the whole thing. Yeah. You've got to know your role in society. Exactly. That's exactly true. And, you know, now a lot of times we play so loud, like the music is so loud. I know in my own endeavors as a musician all my life, I have played in front of amplifiers and electric instruments, and I, my sound, never really developed like I wanted it. And it's taken me ten years just to get to this very first stage of development. It just gradually realized why you have to play soft. You know, the drummers play real loud and it's kind of like what our times are like right now. And we just recognize that we're just in a decline and we will come out of it, it's a time in which selfishness and egoists and all of these things are at their highest level me, me, me, me, me, let me be heard, it's pretty loud. Assault, attack. Yes. It's an attack on romance and attack in and these things But there are many who don't believe in these things. It's just their voices are not being heard. I got to see people all over the country who are interested in not going back into the past, but retaining and developing and

refining those things that made our people such essential people and the type of concern that we had for each other that has been, by a large, lost in public. Yes, it's true. And I feel that we'll return to this in the in the upcoming years. We'll see people go back, especially in the direction of romance, because you can only take away so much in terms of a male-female type of relationship. Yeah, that's true. Songs like "One Night of Love" and I got a good example in melody would be, you know, you're going from melodies that used to be. You know. Gorgeous. Mr. Hendrix could sing some of them. Oh yeah, gorgeous. cause this is real, pretty melodies to stuff like do beep, beep, beep, doop. Boo, beep, boop. Peter McGauran, going around hittin bands and then say, check out our band and I go to hit a band, high school band or college band, and they're going doo, goo, doo, goo, doo, goo, doo, goo, boom beam boom bedomp and the trombones are going to bopt, bop bop, bop bop bop bop. tump boom beam boom bedomp. I mean, that's cool. But. So when they tell you and they ask you to come here, then what do you say?

Well, you know, [inaudible] , I got hear 'em, but I just have to tell the don't, of course they don't like it. They think I'm I'm being personally with them but I'm not. I have to tell them, you know, a band is not really designed to, trombones are not designed to just go bump, bump, bump. And trumpets go to play like de dee, de dee, that will be the whole song. doo doo doo doo dee, doo doo dee dee da, doo doo doo doo dee, dee, de de. You go from that to like something like, delilip, bodlelip, boo boo boop, be, be de boop beep be boop. Doaaam, bump, bu, bu bu bu bu bu bump bump, bump bumpt, [laughing] bump bumdum bum bump bump, up to bip, bip, bip, bip bip. I mean it's in the sound, you know, the best way I can do is just to sing these things and I try to just get them to understand the grandeur in the majesty of our tradition, in our history, and not that we want to return to the past because you can't do that, but that the way that you go into the future is that you master the past. And if you don't know the past, and if you don't have respect for it, because it's like when we were discussing before and I want to turn this over to either Mr.

Berger orMr. Hendrix, is the fact that in our music, the generations are actually what they are. Like there's no generational difference. [Hendricks] No. [Marsalis] There's no generation gap. I mean, we were just in the studio and we recorded a monk song. Trinkle Tinkle and the hierarchy was established, I mean, we knew. [laughter] [Hendricks] That was something, that was an experience that was, you know, for me, it was an experience cause I didn't know the song. [all laughing] So I had to stand next to him to learn, you know, the melody of the of the song, you know. But once once you learn the melody of a song, I think it becomes like Monk said, all songs are the same song. [laughter] [Klein] I get the feeling that with jazz, everyone is equal. [Marsalis] Well, no. [Maralis chuckling]. [Klein] Or maybe, it's like sharing what I mean. [Marsalis] It's like what you said what happened was I showed him the song, and I knew it, but see, now after two times of playing it. Then he did something on the song that I could never do.

[Hendricks, laughing] Oh, wait a minute. [Marsalis] Because all of the years of experience -- like you can practice and be a good musician, but just a years of experience in the type of deep understanding that he has in his music, it comes out. [Klein] Okay maybe I should have said instead equal, sharing [Marsalis] Definitely. Yeah. [Hendricks] Yes, oh yes. [Marsalis] But you, there's a respect that's established through music. It's not based on publicity. Well, you know, Mr. Hendrix they wrote ten more articles about me than they wrote about you last year. [Laughter] So that means that on Trinkle Tinkle, when you're dealing with the music, it doesn't make difference. Just musical knowledge comes into play, and then and then you know, those who, maturity, then it exhibits itself and what it is, you know, it's not something that, oh, this is old. It becomes how can I learn how to do that? I mean, he sang so much on that tune, he got finished I, I was embarrassed to be standing up. [Laughter] I like the first couple of times through the song. He didn't really know the song. And I was saying, well I-I started wondering, you know, I said, I wonder if he's go'n to get this. [Laughter] And believe me, the third time we sang, and that's when I wondered if I was going to get it. [Laughter]

I wonder if I'm going to get, why am I here. That's what the great musicians always remind you, of, what you might achieve if you stay in this music, if you are diligent enough. And this is something that is a great inspiration for me, to be able to stand next to a man this great and be able to just witness that level of audistry, and dedication and work and say to myself, well, maybe if I practice and stay serious long enough, perhaps one they I'll achieve a portion of what he just represented, what was just shown me.