Marshall Stearns Interview – Samuel Hayakawa Interview – Other Interviews [transcript]

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:22:02 Unknown Speaker: Guess is the company. Cleans up the house nice. And then somebody comes over to monitor.

00:00:22:04 - 00:00:29:24 Leonard Feather: Hello. When I first heard of you, it was, as an expert on jazz. I figured through him. Possibly doctor Marshall Stearns. When did you first become interested in jazz?

00:00:29:27 - 00:00:47:14 Marshall Stearns: Well aware of my very original interest in jazz, which was quite a frivolous, you know, interest in simply enjoyment jazz back in the 1920s. And I hear at least over the.

00:00:47:17 - 00:01:20:02 Marshall Stearns: Know the first wave of white jazz bands. and, I got braced and popular songs and jazz at that time. Then, this is all lay dormant for a long, long time. But I went through the tedious job of getting a PhD in English and getting myself established as a master lexicographer and a scholar. Know it all start up again in 1940s, when I became a columnist for the Chicago Defender, and I learned a number of things.

00:01:20:05 - 00:01:21:19 Leonard Feather: One of the.

00:01:21:22 - 00:01:43:23 Marshall Stearns: I learned as a professor of English at Illinois Institute of Technology, I was right in the middle of the Negro district, not far from 35th and state, which was the jazz capital of the world in 1920s six, I began to take a tremendous interest in surrounding community, read around Chicago. I began calling on Jimmy and and Roosevelt Sykes, my auntie and O.

00:01:43:26 - 00:02:08:16 Marshall Stearns: Albert Ammons, and Mead, laughs Lewis. All sorts of other people, that community who were connected in some way with the musical world. And I began to write columns about my need to read the good news about them all the way to the best of the 40s. You know, and really mixing in the community and finding out about these people that first hand and building a record collection.

00:02:08:19 - 00:02:10:01 Leonard Feather: And writing magazine articles. Two and.

00:02:10:01 - 00:02:31:16 Marshall Stearns: Oh, yes. Well, most of the articles for the Chicago Defender, not many magazine articles that. Anyway, I got really soaked up in, in, in in the early 1950s, I got my G. I got acquainted with Mahalia Jackson and goodness me, I don’t know how many people who used to play with Louis Armstrong, who used to play Little Jimmy Noone, her lines.

00:02:31:16 - 00:02:43:16 Marshall Stearns: And so I never got to meet her lines too. And so on. So I and then in 1950s, I did,

00:02:43:18 - 00:03:07:27 Marshall Stearns: I do not think I was just seminar on an FM station FM t oh, Chicago. It was a weekly program about an hour long, in which I lectured on the history and sociology structured jazz scene, illustrating what I said by playing records. And these are one hour programs they went on for. I would say almost a year.

00:03:08:00 - 00:03:21:14 Marshall Stearns: And I am. And they summarized jazz history for, you know, I was public in Chicago. That’s why that you got to be known in the field. I also traveled in mobs, Caribbean.

00:03:21:16 - 00:03:22:20 Leonard Feather: And.

00:03:22:23 - 00:03:32:06 Marshall Stearns: Other bands giving lectures on jazz history. Whistler actually used to give a lot of lectures with Memphis Slim and his boogie band.

00:03:32:12 - 00:03:36:02 Leonard Feather: I didn’t know. Yeah. He also wrote an album though subject for several years.

00:03:36:02 - 00:03:37:03 Marshall Stearns: I read now what?

00:03:37:03 - 00:03:37:21 Leonard Feather: What else?

00:03:37:22 - 00:03:45:17 Marshall Stearns: Well, Claire Austin, I did one for us. I did one for, one last year. Bob Scobey put it on you. Oh.

00:03:45:19 - 00:04:03:01 Leonard Feather: Oh, yes. Yeah. Well, this, as you know, quite a revolution going on now, which has its parallels socially, I think, in the, sort of loss of interest in jazz population, the tremendous rise of rock and roll. Yes. And do you see any implications there?

00:04:03:07 - 00:04:20:01 Marshall Stearns: No, I haven’t I haven’t paid enough attention to what’s been going on in the last ten years in the rock field. I guess I’ve been too busy with other things, and I didn’t find it attractive to start with, so I didn’t go to work and try to understand.

00:04:20:04 - 00:04:26:09 Leonard Feather: Yeah, lots of other things to do. Have you been listening to, I know you do listen to Ellington. Are you’ve been very close to Ellington.

00:04:26:12 - 00:04:38:13 Marshall Stearns: Yes, I did, I had the honor of presenting him for Doctor of Fine Arts degree, an honorary degree at the College of Arts and Crafts. a couple of years ago.

00:04:38:16 - 00:04:42:25 Leonard Feather: Well, what are your present taste when you have. If I get a chance to listen to me.

00:04:42:28 - 00:05:15:08 Marshall Stearns: Oh, right now, I like I go to the jazz workshop every now and then in San Francisco, Basin Street West. They don’t go to these rough concerts ever. And, every now and then I drop in, I address Craig Magoon or old times sake, but I, I’m pretty fond of very progressive jazz when it comes to to outright rock business.

00:05:15:10 - 00:05:16:14 Marshall Stearns: Right. Bothers me.

00:05:16:20 - 00:05:19:08 Leonard Feather: What do you mean by far? Progressive jazz particularly?

00:05:19:10 - 00:05:26:27 Marshall Stearns: Well, when they say classic. You know, I keep in touch with there’s so little now, particularly the last six months, I hadn’t even thought about their name or they.

00:05:26:27 - 00:05:28:07 Leonard Feather: Started coaching them. For example.

00:05:28:09 - 00:05:34:08 Marshall Stearns: I listened to a lot of program, and I wouldn’t say I studied them, but I enjoyed it very much.

00:05:34:10 - 00:05:36:06 Leonard Feather: And Miles Davis.

00:05:36:06 - 00:05:38:22 Marshall Stearns: Miles Davis, JJ Johnson.

00:05:38:25 - 00:05:39:20 Leonard Feather: Is.

00:05:39:23 - 00:05:44:05 Marshall Stearns: Still on his mind, but hell, he’s an old timer. No founding father.

00:05:44:08 - 00:05:46:25 Leonard Feather: The trumpet.

00:05:46:28 - 00:05:50:22 Marshall Stearns: I yeah, I know who I like to hear John Handy.

00:05:50:24 - 00:05:51:01 Leonard Feather: Oh.

00:05:51:01 - 00:05:56:14 Marshall Stearns: Yes San Francisco very much. I don’t hear him often, but I hear him as a every chance I get.

00:05:56:20 - 00:06:07:24 Leonard Feather: If I what do you do? You’ll find the people who know you and that, as an expert on jazz and so power it have a different image of you as I do some knowing who is jazz.

00:06:07:26 - 00:06:09:12 Marshall Stearns: Well, different from what I’ve been.

00:06:09:13 - 00:06:18:18 Leonard Feather: Well, different from the popular image, which I would say part of the image of you and a lot of the students as, as, an associate of, say conservatives.

00:06:18:20 - 00:06:30:16 Marshall Stearns: Now, this is a real middle class image. Well, and I don’t know how many students could have it unless they could get their information about the world through something like the Berkeley Barb.

00:06:30:19 - 00:06:32:07 Leonard Feather: Yeah, I know.

00:06:32:09 - 00:06:56:17 Marshall Stearns: Most of my students, so many of my student friends and I have so many of them are my kids who went to work for Eugene McCarthy. Yeah. Kennedy supporters. And just as many of those are among my supporters in the student body as there are far more listen, there are conservative students in my support. And not only that, I don’t, you know, a little hard about what was going on.

00:06:56:17 - 00:07:28:20 Marshall Stearns: The fan mail, telegrams, letters, they all seem especially. Good. So much of that comes from all in the political spectrum. The Liberal Democrats, Country Democrats, Nixon supporters from right here are left see what they have in common. And this, I think, is something you should all be concerned. It’s not a liberal or conservative cons and it’s everyone I mean you this first thing about a college or university.

00:07:28:22 - 00:07:53:17 Marshall Stearns: This it’s a place to teach and to learn. It’s a place to advance knowledge. Therefore, the first obligation of the minister is to preserve the conditions in a college university. So the teaching and learning can go on and research can go. Once you destroy those conditions, you destroyed university and all. I’ve that liberals have been as grateful for this as conservatives simply say, damn it, this place is going to remain a place for teaching and research.

00:07:53:19 - 00:08:00:03 Marshall Stearns: Our first classroom can be conditioned with a bunch of goons coming in beating up the professor if he doesn’t stop lecturing.

00:08:00:06 - 00:08:06:20 Leonard Feather: I remember one time in the middle of all this turmoil, you suggested that you could cool things by having my halo come up. That foreign concept that did, materialized and.

00:08:06:23 - 00:08:12:24 Marshall Stearns: Didn’t in here last year. Things are tougher than I realized, but I want them to come over for a concert one of these days.

00:08:12:26 - 00:08:18:11 Leonard Feather: How do you feel about having a jazz tour as an art form, as a subject for credit?

00:08:18:13 - 00:08:19:15 Marshall Stearns: It is great.

00:08:19:16 - 00:08:21:15 Leonard Feather: And it is, as I was saying.

00:08:21:18 - 00:08:40:27 Marshall Stearns: Very much forgotten. The man’s name is Try to See You as a small experimental jazz group that. Yeah, there were a couple of different courses on Jazz at San because they did especially well known for some time. As a matter of fact, John Hammond is one of the products of San Francisco State. Oh, that would do that.

00:08:41:04 - 00:08:59:27 Leonard Feather: For that. Thank you for accepting it. You know. Yeah. I just want one final question. on the jazz level, do you think that that the arts in general, jazz and in particular can do anything in breaking down? But let me get an understanding.

00:09:00:03 - 00:09:05:08 Marshall Stearns: the great thing that happened with that Ellington concert.

00:09:05:10 - 00:09:10:17 Marshall Stearns: Was 3000 students go out of Ellington University.

00:09:10:20 - 00:09:12:07 Leonard Feather: In other words, the answer was yes. Yes.

00:09:12:10 - 00:09:27:17 Marshall Stearns: But this time I want to do this with dance. I want to do this with the jazz. I want to do this with classical music. I like the guy up the San Francisco State College Symphony. No way more. As if you had to rally around the ice.

00:09:27:19 - 00:09:28:04 Leonard Feather: All right.

00:09:28:06 - 00:09:30:24 Marshall Stearns: There you go. Profoundly unifying in.

00:09:30:26 - 00:09:32:20 Leonard Feather: All right. Thank you very.

00:09:32:20 - 00:09:40:17 Marshall Stearns: Much. I’m sorry. You don’t.

00:09:40:20 - 00:09:46:17 Unknown Speaker: What’s wrong with that? And know that it’s going to get back to that. It’s never changed. It’s always been that way.

00:09:46:19 - 00:10:05:22 Leonard Feather: I think there’s still right as the the writing that way. But, and always popular groups I mean the rock rock rockers, they’re writing their own material. This is the special right it right for other artists who like the Toni Morrison and still in that kind of material. But just same.

00:10:05:25 - 00:10:23:29 Unknown Speaker: There’ll never be a publicity. I just did a song. Johnny Mercer is cool. How do you Say It is? And it took me two years to sing it, but boy, it was worth waiting for it because, boy, that guy knows how to write lyrics. You know, like my huckleberry friend, the moon River. And you know it just as a way of in this one song.

00:10:23:29 - 00:10:46:10 Unknown Speaker: And how do you say it? And it says, perhaps the French could tell us what to do. I wish I knew, little. How do you say of it is in to you? You know, not to be a hit, but, what a lyric, right? And you know, in times like these, they say perhaps the French could tell us what to do.

00:10:46:10 - 00:10:53:19 Unknown Speaker: Just that one line just stops a, you know, just like what?

00:10:53:21 - 00:11:18:10 Unknown Speaker: I’m. I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m just names, and it’s just like them. I think the dedicated guys are the guys that have it. Personally, I think I mean that I saw Duke Ellington, come in before a concert up in Boston one time, and he said, thanks for Buddy Hackett and myself. And he played. Oh, it’s it’s about five hours before the concert.

00:11:18:13 - 00:11:34:06 Unknown Speaker: And a broken down piano, right. Tape the piano and broken notes. He did everything just I wish there was a tape recorder there that day, but he played everything that is okay. So was going to do that. And I, you know, and he played for 4 or 5 hours. I might as well just wide open. We couldn’t believe it.

00:11:34:08 - 00:11:52:01 Unknown Speaker: I think it’s the guys I just dig in and a consistent and doing and, and work, you know, just get it done. What they have to do, you know, they do it. Just keep like when, when Billy Strayhorn passed away, you know, he said, well, my guy says, I’m going to just write it out. And that’s that.

00:11:52:03 - 00:12:17:19 Unknown Speaker: That’s how concentrated he is. You see, you and, Yeah. See if something is good like that. I don’t understand why the magazine shouldn’t be taking the guy like that and blowing him up this guy and make another one. He’s alive. And now when he’s gone, do they make another have memorials on Nat King Cole? Why don’t you tell me that when he was alive?

00:12:17:21 - 00:12:44:29 Unknown Speaker: Yeah, right. The audience did, you know audience, Neville. That him that they were always in that, they always said, well, that can’t do this, can’t do that. Any great singer. But he’s very ugly, you know, which is not true at all. You know, duties in the hands of the beholder. And now you listen to his records, and it sounds like he hasn’t even gone right.

00:12:45:01 - 00:13:05:07 Unknown Speaker: I. How about his original records with just with the trio that were real work that nice. You know, those are beautiful. Some of those for you later on. I got to go full that style and again, like country music and all that beat. And he doesn’t like Nat Cole. You don’t have to tell him what to do. He’s going to show up.

00:13:05:09 - 00:13:11:18 Unknown Day. To.

00:13:12:09 - 00:13:29:05 Unknown Speaker: My band. And you look at guys and they’re all in their early 20s. Yeah. You know, it’s an amazing thing. That’s right. I’m the old man of the band. And, the amazing thing about it is I don’t feel old, man. Yeah. You know, that that whole. That whole excitement thing keeps you young. You got to stay with them, you know?

00:13:29:08 - 00:13:45:01 Unknown Speaker: Otherwise they blow you right off the bandstand. I’m not going to let that happen. Yeah, yeah. So I’m really, for the first time in my career, I think this is the happiest I’ve ever been. And also, there’s great horizons for this band. I think this band is really going to be successful. You know what my question.

00:13:45:03 - 00:13:53:10 Leonard Feather: I know it’s true, isn’t it? That at the beginning there was pressure put on your manager impression of making a sort of semi rock and roll band? They resisted.

00:13:53:17 - 00:14:16:05 Unknown Speaker: There was so much pressure put on me to make this band a commercial band. You know, I had managers who insisted that the only way to get that million dollar mark in the bank was to, prostitute and, give up everything that I’ve ever done and start a whole new thing. Like, you be the commercial buddy Rich, and go all the way that the people want you to go, like the Beatles.

00:14:16:08 - 00:14:36:00 Unknown Speaker: Well, not even doing the Beatles once we do the weekends, but we we’re doing rock. Do rock as rock. They wanted to do the rock as rock, you know, and as rockets. Rotten. Yeah. And I insisted. I tell you what, I gave it a fair trial when we were at the Aladdin Hotel. And last March. I thought that for the past.

00:14:36:00 - 00:15:00:04 Unknown Speaker: Now I’ve made so many blunders and so many mistakes. You know, thinking about everything I do is right. And I’ve been.

00:15:00:07 - 00:15:14:03 Leonard Feather: Playing.

00:15:14:05 - 00:15:44:21 Leonard Feather: Well, we’ll get. What shall we get through? Yeah. So it’s just a quick. Hello. Yeah, that’s an example. The, the title of the article and its implications. How are accurate, you know, in what way are you committing a suicide and what have you done? This is hurt you or that your relationship is with the students? Basically.

00:15:44:24 - 00:15:56:24 Marshall Stearns: I don’t believe I’ve hurt my relationship with sane students a single bit. okay, this is a little curious. This is just nonsense. I’m just as much. If it was.

00:15:56:26 - 00:15:57:27 Leonard Feather: Yes.

00:15:57:29 - 00:16:29:03 Marshall Stearns: And, I sure am not committing suicide. In fact, I’m expanding the border lines at the boundaries of semantics. This. See, semantics emerges out of education and psychotherapy as concerns of communication, and in semantics as in other educational therapeutic studies of communication. You try to understand people and try to empathize with them, to see the world from your patient or students and reference.

00:16:29:03 - 00:16:55:19 Marshall Stearns: I have always encouraged, I believe in it very profoundly. This is the first time I’ve had an administrative experience and certainly ministration different problems of education. So the third is a bunch of goons who said they’re going to beat up the students and teachers and close down the school. You know, if you had several months, you might do some psychotherapy on several hundred times.

00:16:55:22 - 00:17:15:15 Marshall Stearns: If you had enough therapists. But if you’re going to do it right this minute, you got to act and you have to act before new. And there’s a very important difference. A communication is necessary. But the number of people who say you, unless you do it at once, these non negotiable demands are going to have a place down there.

00:17:15:15 - 00:17:26:04 Marshall Stearns: You have to say, well they’re not negotiable. You’re not going to have the place down either. So you have to use the level force as necessary and is not inconsistent. But the use force.

00:17:26:07 - 00:17:28:08 Leonard Feather: Is this I mean, stop.

00:17:28:10 - 00:17:33:02 Marshall Stearns: To stop the breaking down of our democratic institutions by violence.

00:17:33:04 - 00:17:38:08 Leonard Feather: Is that something inconsistent, as has been claimed? And you’re tearing down that loudspeaker?

00:17:38:11 - 00:17:58:08 Marshall Stearns: I wasn’t tearing anything down. I didn’t hurt the loudspeaker a bit. Yeah, I tried to make the announcement, which I’d already made, I think, and bitterness all over the campus that loudspeaker equipment was not authorized to be used on the campus because of the state of emergency. Just.

00:17:58:11 - 00:18:00:12 Leonard Feather: You know, a.

00:18:00:15 - 00:18:19:29 Marshall Stearns: Couple of guys came on campus with a soundtrack and began using it. And so I tried to remonstrate with them, and all they did was to push and push me away, allowing me to carry the truck. And so I climbed out of the truck to try to address the students work on the owners of the truck by the operation of the soundtrack turned up the volume.

00:18:20:02 - 00:18:21:08 Leonard Feather: the.

00:18:21:10 - 00:18:26:17 Marshall Stearns: Loudspeaker. So I would be drowned out. Yeah. So I just pulled a couple of wires. That’s all there was to it.

00:18:26:20 - 00:18:29:23 Leonard Feather: And that was construed as a denial of the freedom speech.

00:18:29:26 - 00:18:53:13 Marshall Stearns: Well, that was I don’t know what it was construed as, but, and, I had the legal powers, president to declare a state of emergency. And by gosh, it certainly was a state of emergency in the preceding month. But I don’t know how many fires said, how many people beaten up, how many people injured, how many classrooms disrupted.

00:18:53:15 - 00:19:12:03 Marshall Stearns: This was going on all over the place, how much property damage and so on. And so I declare a state of emergency and immediately started right up the first day of my presidency by defining my emergency regulations. They were on college property. They were using soundtrack. Was that not legally? Yes, that was illegal. And so I just kept it.

00:19:12:05 - 00:19:20:00 Leonard Feather: What validity is that up until the frequently stated claim you’re dealing with effects are not what causes.

00:19:20:02 - 00:19:23:09 Marshall Stearns: Well.

00:19:23:12 - 00:19:28:02 Marshall Stearns: There’s no validity in it whatsoever. But you know.

00:19:28:05 - 00:19:32:12 Leonard Feather: Well, first let’s examine what was what do you think the causes are horrible is terrible.

00:19:32:14 - 00:19:32:29 Marshall Stearns: I don’t mean to.

00:19:32:29 - 00:19:36:01 Leonard Feather: What extent do you think they are addressing so up to that right.

00:19:36:04 - 00:19:55:00 Marshall Stearns: Now, let me say that I believe from the bottom of my heart that there are a large number of social injustice in this country that need to be repaired, stepped aside. Action has to be taken about. I do not. I believe the majority of students in our colleges universities are concerned with those social problems and am willing to work.

00:19:55:02 - 00:20:19:23 Marshall Stearns: That’s how much people sacrifice themselves to achieve justice for everybody in the country. And I, the leadership of the student district are not mentioned social before. I’m at home. Very interesting trying to any pretext cluster for the sake of social disruption, college disruption because they are driven, I would say, by profound.

00:20:19:26 - 00:20:48:02 Marshall Stearns: Profoundly sick psychological needs. No. The fact that they used slogans like abolish racism to fight the war in Vietnam and so on is simply a cover up, as is so clearly the case for, I would say, how do you write demands? Because when notice that when demands are met.

00:20:48:04 - 00:21:09:19 Marshall Stearns: The peace doesn’t settle on the campus. This has been true all over the country and demands are met. What happens next? Then there are further demands that were not met. There still further demands and these demands become more and more unreasonable as time goes on. And so you and if you really are interested in educational reform, then you might have, let’s say, the first set of demands and then go work with them and see what they can do before you go on to another set.

00:21:09:19 - 00:21:32:06 Marshall Stearns: But this is not what they do. Mark Reddick, Columbia University And after all that uproar about building the gymnasium on the edge of Harlem, said, I don’t know where the gymnasium is and I don’t give a damn. But that was the issue. Yeah. And which I don’t. College in the capital, San Francisco State, there’s a great big uproar about cafeteria prices.

00:21:32:08 - 00:21:53:00 Marshall Stearns: And all over the some of the dissident students who led the anti cafeteria strike were asked if you were going to take part in the management of the cafeteria. They said, hell no, not in any goddamn cafeteria. So the whole dogma, so much of our disturbance is real, real need to disrupt, to defy authority, to tear things down.

00:21:53:00 - 00:21:56:02 Marshall Stearns: There’s a spirit of nihilism all the way through, and there’s no.

00:21:56:02 - 00:22:00:06 Leonard Feather: Yes, but isn’t this at least based on some justifiable malaise with the status?

00:22:00:06 - 00:22:22:00 Marshall Stearns: I’ve already said that the majority of students are justifiably concerned with the state of society. I really believe that the federal. In fact, I’ve never seen a generation of students more ethically concerned with these matters. But I’m talking about now that the leaders or the disruptions and if you have real ethical concern, you don’t have to tear down.

00:22:22:03 - 00:22:51:00 Marshall Stearns: So you don’t I don’t have to go to prison. President Kirk’s office in Columbia University to tear open secret files and defecate all over his office. This doesn’t produce social reform, actually. Did you? I never said be picketing on the office for, if not a fantastic, neurotic need. So I would simply make a call for him. I’m trying gesture not to.

00:22:51:00 - 00:23:11:27 Marshall Stearns: What degree is this going to abolish racism? But I haven’t taken this. I have taken that stand. I have, because I’m careful to distinguish between two things and sometimes are hard to distinguish. But I’m making the distinction. The young men and women were really concerned with improving educational opportunities, given the state of our society, and those were simply wanted right there.

00:23:12:04 - 00:23:44:12 Marshall Stearns: So let me give you some of my experience with the example of black students at San Francisco State. Where those who are determined to continue the revolution or inspired by Black Panthers or people like that, and they they just continue to threaten to tear the damn place up. Some of them caught those bombs in their pockets. Some of them, one of them, one of them blew up himself up, sometimes in front of the car, off his hands or something, with a string of North building music, building.

00:23:44:14 - 00:24:11:11 Marshall Stearns: And there have been large revolutionary students all over the place. No. When you look at these black students running, you can’t tell from their speech or their gestures or their appearance, which are revolutionary, which are just merely some serious and urgent needs and social reform. So what do you do? The thing that I’ve done, which just takes me there, that is you just have just drawn the lines and none of that rough stuff I’ve used.

00:24:11:11 - 00:24:30:13 Marshall Stearns: Police are necessary to reduce road as the result of this particular action. I have been meeting with more and more black students who are interested in peaceable social reform. They’re actually interested in tutoring and educating.

00:24:30:16 - 00:25:04:17 Marshall Stearns: Underprivileged children and preparing them for college work. And they’re working with me now. See, and this has been two the Mexicans and the violence in the Third world have had Liberation Front. And this has been true Chinese. Some of them have been so terribly militant and allied themselves with extreme militants. But when the chips are down and I’ve shown it that I wish to establish order and more groups of them for the past month in meeting with me to plan out Filipino American, area studies, American Indian studies, black studies, etc..

00:25:04:19 - 00:25:10:08 Leonard Feather: There are more names of specific minority students who have been sympathetic in the in working with you.

00:25:10:11 - 00:25:30:24 Marshall Stearns: Name them my name. Yes, I know the man at this point because they’re just simply going to get into trouble with the militants among themselves, the same minorities. But don’t forget that the extreme militants like the Black Panthers, use physical violence against their black brothers. If those black brothers begin to cooperate with good administration in any way.

00:25:30:27 - 00:25:42:27 Marshall Stearns: All right. And students, therefore, who are cooperating with me or with whom I am meeting are in actual physical danger because they are being constantly subjected to gangster tactics.

00:25:42:29 - 00:25:49:13 Leonard Feather: Let’s get to the specifics in this article. A couple of points that you found that, you wanted to take. It should be remarkable.

00:25:49:16 - 00:25:56:28 Marshall Stearns: Let’s stop it for a moment. I want to see where I’m supposed to be.

00:25:57:01 - 00:26:00:20 Leonard Feather: Hello? Hello. What were you you.

00:26:00:27 - 00:26:04:04 Marshall Stearns: Going to ask about? But that’s not the whole.

00:26:04:04 - 00:26:06:20 Leonard Feather: The roller coaster.

00:26:06:22 - 00:26:25:16 Marshall Stearns: The Tuesday during the first week. During the first week I was president, someone asked me how I felt about about the uproar. And I said, this has been the most exciting day since my 10th birthday, when I rode roller coaster for the first time. Now people have said they have interpreted this to mean that I had a hell of a lot of fun watching people getting hurt.

00:26:25:19 - 00:26:40:12 Marshall Stearns: Now that’s even a study. That statement, as we say in semantics extension. You think back when you’re ten years old and you never you haven’t heard a coaster before. That’s not a joyful experience. It’s not a joyful experience at all. It’s just terrifying.

00:26:40:19 - 00:26:42:16 Leonard Feather: In other words, I’m sitting rather than excited.

00:26:42:18 - 00:27:02:02 Marshall Stearns: And and the the, the fact about it’s not a coaster. Is this absolutely terrifying when you’re going through it, especially as a little boy. At the same time, you listen. It’s terrifying thing. And then every now and then, you merge with a sense of relief that nothing worse has happened. Yeah, that’s what I was pointing to. The alternation of terror and relief and terror and relief.

00:27:02:03 - 00:27:06:05 Leonard Feather: Would you say that exciting was perhaps a long process? It’s a choice of word.

00:27:06:07 - 00:27:13:14 Marshall Stearns: When I said more about it. I said more about it, but no one gave it to the rest of it, you know?

00:27:13:16 - 00:27:18:11 Leonard Feather: Yes. How about the statement that I, on the line.

00:27:18:13 - 00:27:54:19 Marshall Stearns: Oh, it says here, I hired myself a personal passage, and that is not true. what happened is that my friend, Mr. Clement Stone from Chicago, put at my disposal in the services of Mr. Michael family. So I Sausalito, who was a lot. Man. No, actually, what happened is that. Mr. Coleman and the public affairs officer at San Francisco State, Dr. Harvey York.

00:27:54:22 - 00:28:38:08 Marshall Stearns: It’s while I came, they didn’t they didn’t create an image for me. This image or this business of becoming a television figure and so on. It wasn’t an entirely an accident of my own doing. And see, when I mounted that soundtrack, I couldn’t I couldn’t know that this is going to be the case because I was acting impulsively, you know, television cameras and photographers all around me when I was pulling that bootleg that made me a national image overnight, so that from that day on, just starting December 2nd, thanks largely telephones came in in the hundreds each day.

00:28:38:11 - 00:28:43:00 Marshall Stearns: no public relations man could have done me. I could have known how to do it myself. It just happened.

00:28:43:02 - 00:28:46:23 Leonard Feather: Nevertheless, what she says, essentially, it’s true that you have been using the services of this man.

00:28:46:26 - 00:29:01:25 Marshall Stearns: Well, for the first few weeks, I did the most, most recent, more recently. Well, all you can do is simply answer the mail or answer a part of it. You say, and and actually, Mr. Townsend, and work with me for 2 or 3 months. And since then he’s got.

00:29:01:25 - 00:29:12:12 Leonard Feather: Up until now, this statement here in quotes, he was saying, I chose to teach at San Francisco State rather than at a more important university, because I wanted to keep in touch with the lower classes.

00:29:12:12 - 00:29:39:15 Marshall Stearns: That’s a that’s a very, very short miss quotation, I said. Then, was that I myself, as a child of immigrants, knows. But what it means to have people knows know perfectly well the aspirations of immigrants working classes generally, and the aspirations they have for their children. And I said, I’ve always enjoyed the fact that Sanchez was State College.

00:29:39:15 - 00:29:46:19 Marshall Stearns: I was in touch with the children of immigrants, the children of working people, the first generation of children who in their families, school, going to college.

00:29:46:26 - 00:29:49:10 Leonard Feather: You didn’t use the term lower classes?

00:29:49:12 - 00:29:56:01 Marshall Stearns: I don’t recall that I did. I rarely do.

00:29:56:04 - 00:30:10:16 Marshall Stearns: see, there were some very hostile people at that meeting who were willing to report anything. And you know that that that quotation, the only place that first appeared was in Herb Caen’s columns. Yes, but he was not there.

00:30:10:19 - 00:30:11:15 Leonard Feather: and.

00:30:11:18 - 00:30:20:04 Marshall Stearns: And Herb Caen has been pretty hostile to me from the very beginning, the needling. Ever since I got in there. I don’t know why. I’ve never been. I never had any problems with him.

00:30:20:06 - 00:30:36:12 Leonard Feather: sure. As far as, Doctor Clark has recently suggested that instead of blaming students for the violent actions, one should blame the society for the problem. Now, this is sort of got lost in the shuffle, but I would imagine you agree with that.

00:30:36:15 - 00:30:40:23 Marshall Stearns: Well, no, I’m not going to agree with that.

00:30:40:25 - 00:30:46:05 Leonard Feather: Always blame. See, I think.

00:30:46:08 - 00:30:53:28 Marshall Stearns: Our society is not as right when as people say.

00:30:54:01 - 00:31:32:04 Marshall Stearns: We are, after all, undergoing tremendous adjustments to vast technological change. I mean. You just can’t get it adjusted to propeller airplane, which changed the face of the world. And then you got jets and the flow of things having jets. And we have we never had the radio revolution in my lifetime. Television revolution, communications revolution of all kind and in every culture, the whole movement of country people to the city is enormous, because the food that it took, 50% or 40% of the American people to feed the rest.

00:31:32:04 - 00:32:04:03 Marshall Stearns: And and then 85 when I was born. And that takes about 7%. I mean, the vast dislocation of population in all these dislocations that social institutions are trying to meet them as rapidly as possible and as skillfully as possible. And we can never change fast enough. And I don’t know how much how we can change much faster. Actually, our society has been changing very rapidly in response to these technological, geographic and population changes, and there obviously remains an awful lot to do.

00:32:04:05 - 00:32:43:22 Marshall Stearns: But what I just we not have a challenge. This is an imperialist or racist or exploitative society. We have a lot of youth I believe are Jewish and I’m Japanese. Your parents or grandparents fled pogroms or other restrictions on the careers of Jewish people, and my father left Japan because his career was limited. Or it came about when we found a place for ourselves and right around us of constantly trying to continue to offer opportunity for all those who were willing to get done, get some training and get to work.

00:32:43:24 - 00:33:03:08 Marshall Stearns: And his country still remains this way. And I just amazing my students from from really impoverished or underprivileged backgrounds work their way through school and go out into the world and find an important place in them, in their system, selves and society is continues to be dynamic.

00:33:03:10 - 00:33:35:26 Leonard Feather: This is true. However, there there is my criticism. Would you suggest, should replace open rebellion as group field or in so many cases, when I say some of the war criticism of even things like, the offshore oil situation, Santa Barbara criticism of, new tobacco lobby, there’s so many aspects of Saudi where criticism is torn down by lobbying or by power structures of various kinds, not just don’t you understand how some one could very easily become completely alienated and disillusioned by.

00:33:36:00 - 00:34:01:23 Marshall Stearns: All right, but but notice the notice that, that the only way of avoiding, let’s say. Notice that there’s not has been no futility supplies. Criticism is concerned the objections to the war mounted. And now they’ve made it to the point where Mr. Nixon is now withdrawing troops and trying to de-escalate worse rapidly as possible.

00:34:01:25 - 00:34:03:28 Leonard Feather: If you really think as rapidly as possible.

00:34:03:28 - 00:34:29:23 Marshall Stearns: I rethink as rapidly as possible. Now, let me explain something that a democratic society gives you and me, and everybody has a right to criticize and to recommend changes. Now notice that before those changes take place, you’ve got to get the majority on your side. the majority have not until recently rejected. The war in Vietnam is totally useless.

00:34:29:23 - 00:34:48:20 Marshall Stearns: And so long as that majority existed, the moral crisis persisted. Now that the majority who seem to come come around to the other point of view, the war is being de-escalated as rapidly as possible, as far as I can see. In other words, that the criticism has been effective, but it’s never as effective as fair fast enough. But I think it’s a matter of water pollution.

00:34:48:23 - 00:35:05:19 Marshall Stearns: I have been criticized in this manner of water pollution for a long, long time, but one very simple reason I’m a fisherman. I hate to see all those fish get killed. Nobody has got worried about it 20 years ago saying yes, but now everybody’s worried about it. In other words, my minority view of 20 years ago has become becoming rapidly the majority point of view.

00:35:05:19 - 00:35:07:16 Marshall Stearns: Still isn’t the majority point of view.

00:35:07:18 - 00:35:21:15 Leonard Feather: To what is? To what extent is that also true of the other racial, opinions got in the treatment of blacks in this country? Well, I mean, I know they’ll pass background. Yes. I’m skipping a lot there. Yes. I mean.

00:35:21:18 - 00:35:45:04 Marshall Stearns: Well, I believe that, One very important fact is that, progress is being made in the treatment of blacks in this country. There’s no question about that. But the important point is this is it’s because progress is being made that there is impatience for even faster progress. And you express that impatience by saying there’s been no progress at all.

00:35:45:06 - 00:36:02:20 Marshall Stearns: But that’s a customized fact of rhetoric. You said really criminal progress at all. Then the situation would be hopeless, and the black people just put their hands on the pockets and say, what the hell in this? Studying what they use to try to find a good job, I’m going to get nowhere because there is no progress. That’s because there is progress.

00:36:02:20 - 00:36:09:24 Marshall Stearns: If there is all this impatience and the very fact of this, of this, angry black, black rhetoric is proof that progress is being made.

00:36:09:27 - 00:36:19:03 Leonard Feather: But there’s been very little progress in terms of, according to Harris and Gallup polls, in terms of general public attitudes is deteriorating. If anything.

00:36:19:05 - 00:36:27:25 Marshall Stearns: Yes, the that that attitude is deteriorating. And that is one of the tragedies and I’m afraid that,

00:36:27:28 - 00:36:29:14 Unknown Speaker: That,

00:36:29:16 - 00:36:37:13 Marshall Stearns: The tactics of angry black militancy have frightened a lot of white people,

00:36:37:16 - 00:36:48:27 Leonard Feather: Who don’t look up to the causes for the tactics, don’t look at the original sin, which is white. Right now. I struggle with the attitude of which in my culture, I throw it all away. It all began centuries ago. Yes.

00:36:48:27 - 00:36:57:03 Marshall Stearns: Well, yes. The notice that many of us who are not Negroes were not involved in putting those people in slavery.

00:36:57:05 - 00:36:58:26 Marshall Stearns: And also, you know.

00:36:58:28 - 00:37:01:02 Leonard Feather: Let me shift. Why don’t we go that good?

00:37:01:02 - 00:37:25:16 Marshall Stearns: Gosh, I think what human institutions are like, they last for centuries and millennia. Think of the caste system in India and things of this kind. Caste system was officially abolished many decades ago, but it still works. It still exists. How do you change your society overnight? You can, and all you can do is just start from where you are and move on as best you can.

00:37:25:19 - 00:37:49:24 Marshall Stearns: And in the light of the fact that we’ve inherited from the past a terrible system of a holy Negro, some subjection in terms of caste, we’ve got to outlive this, and we’re making progress towards television and again, we have every right to be impatient about that. We have no right to despair.

00:37:49:26 - 00:37:55:09 Leonard Feather: Do you feel that your.

00:37:55:12 - 00:38:13:18 Unknown Speaker: I think that people who try to get ahead tongue in cheek and eventually folks find it out. Yeah. And they find it out in terms of even though this is all for publication, I hope. oh. Which part I don’t know. You do your own editing with your knowledge and in bad taste, and which is not okay.

00:38:13:20 - 00:38:24:27 Unknown Speaker: but in the case of Ramsey Lewis, he can’t buy hit. You can’t buy a hit. He still draws.

00:38:24:29 - 00:38:33:09 Leonard Feather: One of the freaks very often, you know, you can’t always follow him up.

00:38:33:11 - 00:38:36:16 Leonard Feather: With the number of orders and one big hit record of.

00:38:36:17 - 00:38:56:00 Unknown Speaker: The year in. But now we in the East. It’s kind of funny and doesn’t mean the same thing as it does out here for some reason, but you must. A killer can draw, and now he can draw back east something, you know. But back in the East, Herbie man is big.

00:38:56:06 - 00:38:57:02 Unknown Speaker: Yeah, he can’t make it.

00:38:57:05 - 00:38:59:15 Unknown Speaker: He can’t make it out here.

00:38:59:18 - 00:39:01:00 Leonard Feather: It’s true.

00:39:01:02 - 00:39:09:17 Unknown Speaker: but we play concerts in the East. We played one with,

00:39:09:19 - 00:39:43:12 Unknown Speaker: Herbie Ramsey. Richard Drew Holmes, Gloria Lynn. Mongo Santamaria and, a couple of travel go to the beach. 15,000 people. Where? Philadelphia. They’ve got another one coming up. October 1st and Philly at that new arena. Basketball arena with,

00:39:43:14 - 00:39:55:00 Unknown Speaker: With, group Nina Simone. Herbie again. And I don’t know. Well, the couple of things.

00:39:55:02 - 00:40:00:11 Leonard Feather: Yeah. Yeah, those are strong bills.

00:40:00:13 - 00:40:14:29 Unknown Speaker: What you’re saying, they call it the Philadelphia Jazz Festival. One night and some critic wrote in the paper.

00:40:15:01 - 00:40:44:28 Unknown Speaker: Said the jazz festival only had two jazz groups. group and composer. Well, I said you. That’s a very strong thing to say, you know, they just read Herbie and Mongo and, you know, Ramsey, you know, they read all that right up and only down the line. That’s what I’m wondering.

00:40:45:00 - 00:41:03:02 Leonard Feather: Anyway, as I say, I think, you found the right formula and, you can attract people to, to more complex things by first sort of hooking them in with the, the simpler things. What was really a sort of lucky accident. I’m sure you didn’t.

00:41:03:04 - 00:41:21:04 Unknown Speaker: Of course. Of course we tried to make hit records. We recorded the tune of Jones Avenue because opposition with capital was precarious. I had a good financial deal with them, and I wasn’t selling records. So, we did a thing called money in the pocket.

00:41:21:11 - 00:41:23:14 Leonard Feather: Oh, yeah.

00:41:23:16 - 00:41:54:02 Unknown Speaker: And we did things that they wanted to do. We did a thing called Good Bye, Charlie. Yeah. Nick. Yeah. But, mercy was just a lucky accident. Same thing is true. But why am I treated so bad? It was not as big as mercy, but it was a big, big record. And the single in over 150,000. And, the album is approaching 150,000.

00:41:54:04 - 00:41:55:27 Leonard Feather: Well, it’s all things I’m working on.

00:41:55:29 - 00:42:04:26 Unknown Speaker: I don’t know, I don’t know. mercy is around 800,000 or something. Single. Single? Yeah. And, the album is around 300.

00:42:05:01 - 00:42:07:20 Leonard Feather: Really? That’s. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

00:42:07:23 - 00:42:28:16 Unknown Speaker: Fantastic. But the thing that’s funny about it is, We were playing a thing, Joe was working with a gospel singer. And,

00:42:28:19 - 00:42:29:11 Leonard Feather: Oh, that’s the.

00:42:29:14 - 00:42:54:08 Unknown Speaker: That’s the married man. And, the he, he did some song where he played. He developed the mercy kind of thing as a background for, And he played for us. What? He was playing in the background of this tune. I said, well, I wonder why, she didn’t do it or something like that, you know? And he said, well, actually, his background didn’t have anything to do with the tune.

00:42:54:10 - 00:43:24:24 Unknown Speaker: The tune was something else. It’s like, Groovin High, you know, it’s, this is what it is. Development, you know, is his background is the same relationship. Groovin high is the whispery is the. And, that was the most the thing. We liked it and we started playing it. We started using it as background music for me to talk, you know, you know, I would just talk, sign off and stuff like that.

00:43:24:26 - 00:43:28:10 Unknown Speaker: And people liked it. They would say, play the theme.

00:43:28:13 - 00:43:30:24 Unknown Speaker: So.

00:43:30:26 - 00:43:49:01 Unknown Speaker: why am I so bad? We started doing because we were the Staple Singers do a couple years ago. Yeah. And, we had a difficult time getting that form together because it’s unorthodox, you know, it is a.

00:43:49:03 - 00:44:05:16 Leonard Feather: almost the same thing, it seems. And there’s still a few open source things, you know, you say forth. So it’s, this kind of music has been summed up in this little pop music term. Part music only meant Rolling Stones.

00:44:05:19 - 00:44:09:15 Marshall Stearns: Oh, yes. Well, that that that we inherited that attitude from London.

00:44:09:15 - 00:44:11:01 Leonard Feather: You know, because their.

00:44:11:03 - 00:44:14:09 Marshall Stearns: Pop meant something entirely different than it does.

00:44:14:11 - 00:44:17:01 Leonard Feather: Than it did here. Now it’s the same both here and there.

00:44:17:04 - 00:44:20:06 Unknown Speaker: And we talk about pop music. Before it was an entirely different thing that.

00:44:20:08 - 00:44:21:14 Marshall Stearns: They talk about now.

00:44:21:16 - 00:44:33:04 Leonard Feather: You know, I got how much you got there. And I got one thing that, even turn over. So yeah. And upside one.

00:44:33:07 - 00:44:35:02 Unknown Speaker: If there’s a call for work.

00:44:35:04 - 00:44:35:11 Leonard Feather: Yeah.

00:44:35:12 - 00:44:49:23 Unknown Speaker: There’s a it’s like, well, not a click. It’s just a, it’s a class of a grade, let’s say a b c. Yeah. And they either call the if they can get the A, they get the A’s. And if you get the A’s are all the same guys you get the B’s all the same guys. It feels like the same guy.

00:44:49:26 - 00:44:55:28 Unknown Speaker: You know another. And then there’s a, there’s a.