Erroll Garner Blindfold Test [transcript]

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:22:01 Erroll Garner: I have no idea who it is. as will probably be the case with a lot of these rackets, because I don’t get too much chance to listen to rackets anymore.

00:00:22:03 - 00:00:26:24 Leonard Feather: Because there are 5000 records coming out every week. That’s right.

00:00:26:26 - 00:01:06:03 Erroll Garner: But, I like the the first and last course is immensely, partly because there’s, some linear writing involved, which I enjoy, the tennis, although I enjoyed the band as a whole, I enjoyed the drama, I enjoyed. I think that solo wise, and from the point of view of swinging and vivacious ness, it starts to fall apart a little bit after the tenor solo until we come back to the ensemble again and I would give it, yeah, that’s.

00:01:06:04 - 00:01:13:24 Leonard Feather: Impressive. Particularly, not over now. No.

00:01:13:27 - 00:01:17:15 Erroll Garner: it was kind of a nice, polite attempt at being funky.

00:01:17:18 - 00:01:23:02 Leonard Feather: Yeah. You know, the system.

00:01:23:05 - 00:02:00:22 Erroll Garner: I would give it three. Okay. Sy Walter and Stan Freeman playing their first gig on the moon. no, I, I don’t know who it is again, but, this type of approach is more the type of thing that you would do when you’re playing, you’re in a you’re in a show of some kind. And if you got to play something flashy on stage and it has ever been thus lizer, I,

00:02:00:24 - 00:02:33:21 Erroll Garner: I don’t care too much for it until we get to the last chorus. It’s all too big and too heavy and too low. The swing and too much, concentration on technique to swing. One of the very few people that ever had the gifted technical and swing concentration at the same time as Art Tatum. And, as Daryl said in an interview last night, he took most of it with him.

00:02:33:23 - 00:02:40:04 Erroll Garner: You know, WG is a little take on your,

00:02:40:06 - 00:02:46:00 Erroll Garner: Oh, I wouldn’t give it any more than one. I don’t think.

00:02:46:03 - 00:02:53:29 Leonard Feather: You know.

00:02:55:25 - 00:03:00:17 Erroll Garner: I like it, particularly in the facility of the trumpet player. It’s a pity. Hank Jones.

00:03:00:17 - 00:03:05:19 Leonard Feather: Right on this one. Medium.

00:03:05:22 - 00:03:23:14 Erroll Garner: It’s also a pity that the ensemble, is, only with the trumpet player rather than the pianist playing in the octaves with him, which would give a different.

00:03:23:16 - 00:03:31:06 Leonard Feather: You know, sound from the improvised, you know,

00:03:31:09 - 00:03:34:26 Erroll Garner: What can I do to just avoid. I mean, poor isn’t.

00:03:35:01 - 00:03:45:28 Leonard Feather: The trumpet is tremendous, I think. yeah. sound like anybody, someone you.

00:03:46:00 - 00:03:47:12 Erroll Garner: Would like to sound like monk.

00:03:47:12 - 00:03:52:27 Leonard Feather: I guess. But no. it.

00:03:52:29 - 00:03:55:14 Erroll Garner: Doesn’t seem that he wants to be.

00:03:55:16 - 00:04:01:01 Leonard Feather: Quite that. Far up.

00:04:01:04 - 00:04:14:14 Erroll Garner: and feeds a few chords to sort of come down to earth a little more than monk usually does, which is kind of a shame. If you’re going to sound like monk, you should sound like monk.

00:04:14:19 - 00:04:26:14 Leonard Feather: Shouldn’t sound like monk, but, yeah, I don’t like it very much. did you read it, though?

00:04:26:16 - 00:04:41:17 Erroll Garner: Well, I if only for the trumpet alone. Three. Okay. Sounds like the Russian Fats Waller. I don’t get too much out of it. There’s a couple of little grunts there that sounded like Bill Williams, and I don’t think he plays piano.

00:04:41:18 - 00:04:47:05 Leonard Feather: I don’t know who it is. it it was a discovery. Yeah.

00:04:52:24 - 00:05:27:06 Erroll Garner: He’s awfully conscious of the melody. Yeah. And if the same amount of conscientiousness put paid to tone production that he paid to the melody, since we’re not getting far enough, out of pianistic line to be really funky, if enough if the same amount of attention was paid to, Tom production, perhaps it would be kind of pleasant.

00:05:27:06 - 00:05:45:14 Erroll Garner: But, there are instances in the record where he’s rather unkind to the piano, and there are certain people that we don’t mind being unkind to the piano. I don’t mind how unkind the arrogant ways to a piano, because the end result is fantastic. Yeah. I don’t care too much about the end.

00:05:45:14 - 00:05:52:29 Leonard Feather: Result of this. And I wouldn’t give it beyond to send it to me like frenzy.

00:05:54:05 - 00:06:30:17 Erroll Garner: We shall see. well, Cole Porter is not as fortunate as Liberace. You’d have to cry all the way to the bank. I don’t know. it’s a record with a good, bleak, undoubtedly. the, person responsible for organizing the music. after a contemporary introduction, probably may have felt that he would need too many aspirins to continue in the contemporary vein, so I decided to make a Dixieland arrangement of.

00:06:30:23 - 00:07:00:18 Erroll Garner: Yeah, it’s kind of a curious mixture of styles with the rhythm very, emphatic to the effect. They’ve got to, every beat of the, every beat of the bar must be very marked and very precise. The whole effect is, is is kind of stodgy. I don’t like it. I wouldn’t give it beyond to start.

00:07:00:21 - 00:07:45:27 Erroll Garner: I mean, in fact, I would say one. Yeah. Well, basing my opinions on my theory of old times, I would still prefer a good original, a good copy to a band original, you know, and, this is an extremely good copy. I’m not fooled. I don’t think it is arrogant. I don’t know who it is. It’s someone with a good command of the instrument and someone who, before he makes the record, has made up his mind what he wants to do.

00:07:45:29 - 00:08:08:14 Erroll Garner: And what he wants to do is swing. And he does. And, he figures that, for the first and last course, it causes, he needs the characteristics of arrow and to swing because, he hasn’t perhaps made up his mind what original thing he can use of his own that would swing more than this copy of arrow.

00:08:08:14 - 00:08:15:21 Erroll Garner: Guy. And, I commend him for taking that level, and I give it four star.

00:08:15:23 - 00:08:21:00 Leonard Feather: Do you think you sound like him a little?

00:08:21:02 - 00:08:27:24 Leonard Feather: Well. I don’t know,

00:08:27:26 - 00:08:53:12 Erroll Garner: I wouldn’t be too surprised if I heard that it was Reynolds fancy, but it probably isn’t one. But it sounds like you. I guess they have found a new baby at them. So I wish we could predict in future. The old studio type bands would be this hip. I like that, I’m sorry. The cord at the end was very little more than a plain six.

00:08:53:12 - 00:09:21:27 Erroll Garner: The 9th May have been in there. It wasn’t prominent enough. It, with a band of that size and, you could use a little more imagination than the last cord and a little more imagination in the last chorus. That’s a whole those, triplets have been done so many times. Yeah, it’s a shame, because the whole effect is one of, a pretty good sense of swinging, like, this is strange.

00:09:22:01 - 00:09:45:09 Erroll Garner: Yeah. Very much. I don’t, I don’t like that tight drum sound. I haven’t liked that too much since the Artie Shaw band. I thought that was very nicely used in things like, carioca and things like that that were kind of in a in a, close studio with. No, yeah, no echo and that kind of thing.

00:09:45:09 - 00:10:11:01 Erroll Garner: And that, that tight, closed cymbal sound goes along with that. It doesn’t go along with the present day, loose type of, sound in the echo, and it shows up as being a little too stodgy. And if anything does keep it from swinging, is that, three anyway? Yeah. As can only be Bud Powell or and I think it’s tush.

00:10:11:03 - 00:10:34:05 Erroll Garner: I always, suffer as much as they do when they’re playing one of those tempos, because when it’s at the end, you know, you you can breathe a sigh of relief and say, yeah, I guess they did make it, you know, they did, but it it’s, I don’t know, I used to like to play those tempos all the time.

00:10:34:07 - 00:11:01:21 Erroll Garner: I don’t like to play them hardly at all. Now, just once, now and then, because a run on the track is good for the soul, I. But, I’m almost getting to the point now where I don’t like to hear those tempos I admired. It’s good playing. And again, if it is tight, I can only commend you for going along with the theory that, good copy is better than bad.

00:11:01:21 - 00:11:06:16 Erroll Garner: Original. Yeah. Three. How do.

00:11:06:18 - 00:11:14:11 Leonard Feather: You do? See, it?

00:11:14:13 - 00:11:21:11 Erroll Garner: There’s something there apart from harpsichord. If it’s harpsichord on the.

00:11:21:13 - 00:11:34:25 Erroll Garner: If it’s just harpsichord, someone almost beat her up to the punch. If it isn’t this Latin. Things sound like this.

00:11:34:27 - 00:11:40:27 Erroll Garner: Because it could be a kind of a real hip bracketed.

00:11:41:00 - 00:11:46:11 Erroll Garner: The Les Paul’s with a couple of grunts to throw one off bass.

00:11:46:13 - 00:11:47:18 Leonard Feather: I don’t know.