Wayne Shorter Blindfold Test – B.B. King Interview [transcript]

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:37:27 Wayne Shorter: So forth.

00:00:42:29 - 00:00:50:07 Unknown Speaker: okay.

00:00:50:09 - 00:00:52:20 Wayne Shorter: Okay. You’re going to comment on it?

00:00:52:22 - 00:00:56:05 Leonard Feather: Sure.

00:00:56:07 - 00:01:25:20 Wayne Shorter: Okay. When I heard that you have a tape recorder. When I first the opening, made me think of, you know, it’s like an odd rhythm. I think it was in five or something like that. And then it ended in sixth and had a little seven put another five in it, but, made me think of, Gary Burton or, you know, kind of what he might be doing now.

00:01:27:22 - 00:01:56:21 Wayne Shorter: I don’t know if this was recorded right now. I mean, you just, you know, in the 80s and maybe, have a have a feeling maybe caught it around, 79 or 80. And these and, I don’t think a guy Burton because I, the, vibraphone solo because, when I first heard it entrance, it was him, it was he and then approach.

00:01:56:23 - 00:02:07:28 Wayne Shorter: I’ve only seen Gary in, live once really at the village gate who’s playing upstairs at the gate top of the gate. And,

00:02:08:01 - 00:02:12:06 Leonard Feather: You recognize a soprano?

00:02:12:09 - 00:02:26:09 Wayne Shorter: Not a soprano. It’s hard to recognize that one. I just wondered if it was, if it was, a guy who played with Miles.

00:02:26:11 - 00:02:41:16 Wayne Shorter: And Bill Evans. I wonder if it was him. But I’m not. I’m not sure. Yeah, but, it sounds the whole piece in general sounds like it’s in the Gary Burton kind of groove. Yeah.

00:02:43:13 - 00:02:47:29 Leonard Feather: did you think it was creative or interesting or not?

00:02:48:01 - 00:03:13:06 Wayne Shorter: I think it was, mainly kind of, in a kind, clinically dominated in the sense, you know, but well put together, you know, as a, as a, you know, piece of jazz representative music that comes out, comes up in today’s time where it’s not long and drawn out. That’s one thing I like. I was in long and drawn out.

00:03:13:06 - 00:03:37:26 Wayne Shorter: It was a, anything that’s have to be jazz or anything that’s really long and drawn out and repetitive or, you done it sufficiently when it comes to like a, taking, solos, improvised solos. you have two bookends. You can have a solo in the middle for miles and miles, and you have to bookends that the, you know, the head, and then you play the head, you out again, that that’s just about gone, I think.

00:03:39:08 - 00:04:02:28 Wayne Shorter: so the main thing I liked about it was it, it, it was to the point, you know, regardless of how whatever the clinical, ingredient there was in it, you know, and, and it was, what I liked about it was happy. You know, so I’m, I’m going to dig underneath things that people used to stop it years ago.

00:04:03:04 - 00:04:11:10 Wayne Shorter: Yeah. They stop. It was too clinical for me. So I can’t it was too academic or something.

00:04:11:10 - 00:04:12:10 Wayne Shorter: Or.

00:04:12:22 - 00:04:30:16 Wayne Shorter: bookish or planned or something like that or. Okay. So, taking away all those. Yeah, those things that, any other other people use it in the 60s and 70s, I mean, people who did this kind of, interview or, you know, blindfold test you.

00:04:30:18 - 00:04:31:13 Leonard Feather: That doesn’t bother you.

00:04:31:13 - 00:04:46:06 Wayne Shorter: Right now that that you have to tear away the, you know, have to, in the look underneath now. Yeah. You know, and see whether what it gives off, you know, exudes happiness and, something like that. That’s the main thing.

00:04:46:09 - 00:04:52:03 Leonard Feather: How would you it,

00:04:52:06 - 00:05:00:09 Wayne Shorter: For an up feeling for, like, you know, positive something. Yeah. I’d say, two and a half.

00:05:00:11 - 00:05:08:29 Leonard Feather: Okay. Good. That was, early watch on the.

00:05:13:25 - 00:05:21:23 Wayne Shorter: That’s it. Yeah. Okay. Oh, man. I say.

00:05:21:25 - 00:05:26:18 Wayne Shorter: So many people in there. I mean, you know, the.

00:05:26:21 - 00:05:27:27 Wayne Shorter: The Confederate.

00:05:27:27 - 00:05:52:06 Wayne Shorter: Soldiers, I heard, the a little bit of, you know, like, the kind of way McCoy Tyner used to play the piano. a little bit, but he was playing the piano on that piece. there was a certain kind of right hand bracket thing that he was. He or she was doing that McCoy wouldn’t do. And, I thought of Toshiko.

00:05:54:11 - 00:06:20:29 Wayne Shorter: you know that the last time I saw a thing at the gate, she was playing solo piano again, you know, and, she was, she used to pedal a lot. And on acoustic piano on the left hand, like, like that. Like she’s playing behind John Coltrane a little bit. and, when I heard the, fax opening the faxes, I was thinking about Super Sax.

00:06:23:13 - 00:07:04:28 Wayne Shorter: I think sax would would, play more strongly and, more, have a more bebop oriented, right phrasing, you know? Yeah. Even though it’s kind of like a Spanish kind of feeling, the opening, I mean, so I think these musicians were more classically oriented in the opening and, I don’t know who they were, actually, I think maybe Tom Scott might know a lot of people who could fit in and make make that kind of, something like that record like that.

00:07:09:06 - 00:07:12:19 Unknown Speaker: So,

00:07:12:22 - 00:07:23:10 Wayne Shorter: I can’t I don’t want to put it in any and musical category like this is strictly, jazz or this, you know, but it’s kind of like a kind of a mulligan stew.

00:07:23:12 - 00:07:26:03 Leonard Feather: Yeah, right.

00:07:29:26 - 00:07:38:14 Leonard Feather: how would you read it?

00:07:38:16 - 00:07:51:29 Wayne Shorter: I’d say it’s just like, like a stew to me. Like, kind of interesting to taste, you know? And, But I wouldn’t have my whole meal with that kind of. So that just being one. I get it once.

00:07:52:02 - 00:07:55:21 Leonard Feather: Yeah. Well, actually.

00:07:55:23 - 00:07:57:26 Wayne Shorter: Some.

00:08:02:02 - 00:08:06:19 Wayne Shorter: And this one, I hear two distinct saxophone styles.

00:08:07:11 - 00:08:41:11 Wayne Shorter: One, things are more West Coast oriented. The other one seems more East Coast oriented. The other one, the East Coast oriented sounds like it could come from, kind of. Dexter Gordon is something. And then the West Coast has a more Al Cohen approach. And, even in the trombones, first of all, I was thinking about, Bob, my.

00:08:41:18 - 00:09:03:14 Wayne Shorter: thinking about that, you know, and I was trying to listen for the valve trombone feeling in it, and, whoever was taking the trombone. So especially when it comes to moving around and the faster notes.

00:09:03:16 - 00:09:08:19 Wayne Shorter: Well, it sounds like something that’s from back there around in the 50s.

00:09:08:21 - 00:09:09:13 Leonard Feather: Yeah.

00:09:09:15 - 00:09:26:19 Wayne Shorter: Early 50s. You know, Joe Jones once played a song. I wrote something that sounded something like that, but he had more breaks in it, drum breaks and,

00:09:26:22 - 00:09:48:11 Wayne Shorter: Because he and I, we had a jam session and we had a gig together and, at Birdland one Monday night, and Joe Jones and myself and, Kenny doing. Really? Yeah. It was really Joe, you know, he called me, and I think I want to do it now, so. And he could play the song something like that.

00:09:48:13 - 00:09:52:06 Speaker 5 So I think,

00:09:52:08 - 00:10:35:26 Wayne Shorter: The swing part of it, the, the, the rhythm section part was playing in a rhythm section. could have been more, if more strong, you know, more, more up front. And it would have given. Seemed like the horns were all pulling the rhythm. Yeah. You know, so and I have a feeling that it was a date that was, kind of off the cuff, put together off the cuff, you know, like it and not not not I don’t see had to have a lot of rehearsals and everything but not, you know, so with that kind of thought in mind, I never been in a, in a spot where myself, where I had to.

00:10:35:28 - 00:11:03:07 Wayne Shorter: I could have any reason for throwing a record date together, a record session together. Or a song on the record session, you know, just throw it one song. Guess. Throw it together. seems like it’s pretty much thrown it kind of together. It’s a lot. for some of the, I say some of the fingering saxophone fingerings that I hear in the solo part, I give him a, I think one song.

00:11:03:10 - 00:11:07:11 Leonard Feather: Okay. And.

00:11:08:19 - 00:11:17:28 Leonard Feather: then we got to get something that we get to.

00:11:19:28 - 00:11:48:00 Wayne Shorter: well, of course, when I heard the, the opening, the entrance of the fact, the final sax, I was thinking about Steve Lacy, you know, but he plays with more, more gusto. And, he’s, after the the, signature of the song, I call that first part the signature of the song we went into, it’s got this script divided into improvization.

00:11:48:03 - 00:12:03:02 Wayne Shorter: I think Steve Lacy would have been more on target. especially if there were even without chord changes.

00:12:03:04 - 00:12:37:01 Wayne Shorter: Whoever was playing the soprano, I think, like Steve Lacy. yeah. You know, and but the everybody in that group, they were all playing on the beat more or less, you know, and that’s miles and miles. It’s a it’s nice when you can play it across the beat and across the bar lines and, it sounds as if to me, I thought they were, exploring,

00:12:37:03 - 00:12:59:04 Wayne Shorter: Trying to explore something that has been explored already. Yeah, yeah. And and going outside, so to speak. Honestly, the youth were in the 60s a lot. Going outside. Yeah. I don’t think it was a good job. And you have to be, you know, candid with, you know, I think that’ll help. I think that wasn’t a good job.

00:12:59:05 - 00:13:04:06 Wayne Shorter: I think trying to go outside, it wasn’t, you know. Yeah. on target and.

00:13:04:20 - 00:13:08:24 Leonard Feather: that’s that for the record, the journey during the drum solo, he asked me to skip forward.

00:13:08:24 - 00:13:10:00 Wayne Shorter: Right? Yeah.

00:13:10:03 - 00:13:11:17 Leonard Feather: You were getting bored.

00:13:11:19 - 00:13:16:26 Wayne Shorter: Yeah. It was,

00:13:16:28 - 00:13:25:06 Wayne Shorter: I mean, I heard some rudiments in that. It’s like in the beginning, taking drum lessons can do.

00:13:25:27 - 00:13:27:06 Wayne Shorter: yeah.

00:13:27:08 - 00:13:46:27 Wayne Shorter: So I know some people with, musicians who play, well, try to do a piece of music, as it. They don’t know how to play their instruments as they leave. You don’t know how to play your instrument. Maybe we’ll get we’ll get to something. Get the essence or something. Miles is to say that something is and make believe you can’t play with it, you know, he said that’s what he was.

00:13:47:00 - 00:14:08:15 Wayne Shorter: He was doing that sometimes, you know, he couldn’t play the trumpet. And, because it was hard to do. But I heard him do some things and it sounded, like a lot of real love was going through it and not professionalism. But at the, at the, you know, the amateur thing. yeah. When I first learned that amateur, I mean, someone who loved something that’s right.

00:14:08:20 - 00:14:28:09 Wayne Shorter: For the love of enough of the money. Yeah, yeah. And I heard that happened with Miles Davis group a lot, you know, a lot of the guy we all having Herbie Hancock with us put his hands out and not play for a while. You remember that time? And they didn’t know what to play. Yeah. And then when they did play something, it was he was like a little kid, like little buddy with you in the audience that really communicated.

00:14:28:15 - 00:14:45:23 Wayne Shorter: Yeah. You know, so all of his classical training went out the window. And something else, the real things, you know, if, if they were trying to do that. still didn’t it didn’t happen. Yeah. Yeah.

00:14:45:25 - 00:14:47:26 Leonard Feather: Okay. It sounds like, you know. Star.

00:14:47:29 - 00:14:51:28 Wayne Shorter: Yeah. That’s that’s is it sounds like it for you. This.

00:14:52:00 - 00:14:55:07 Leonard Feather: I’ll tell you that.

00:14:55:09 - 00:16:22:13 Unknown Speaker: It’s. Good. Because.

00:16:22:16 - 00:16:43:27 Unknown Speaker: You.

00:16:44:00 - 00:16:49:23 Unknown Speaker: When they’re dead. And.

00:16:49:25 - 00:16:54:21 Unknown Speaker: And.

00:16:54:23 - 00:16:56:00 Wayne Shorter: Then.

00:16:56:02 - 00:16:59:13 Unknown Speaker: When.

00:16:59:15 - 00:17:02:21 Unknown Speaker: You.

00:17:02:24 - 00:17:12:29 Unknown Speaker: Sit there and.

00:17:13:02 - 00:17:30:28 Wayne Shorter: And you.

00:17:31:27 - 00:17:40:09 Unknown Speaker: And then. And then.

00:17:40:11 - 00:17:47:14 Unknown Speaker: They.

00:17:47:17 - 00:18:05:09 Unknown Speaker: You.

00:18:05:11 - 00:18:22:16 Wayne Shorter: And then you hear that? Everything. That.

00:18:22:18 - 00:18:30:27 Wayne Shorter: They’re.

00:18:30:29 - 00:19:29:23 Wayne Shorter: You.

00:19:29:25 - 00:19:30:06 Wayne Shorter: Okay.

00:19:30:13 - 00:19:42:06 Wayne Shorter: And. They’re going to go out now and somebody has a minute.

00:19:42:08 - 00:20:01:19 Unknown Speaker: You.

00:20:01:21 - 00:20:06:02 Unknown Speaker: And.

00:20:06:04 - 00:20:38:28 Unknown Speaker: He.

00:20:39:00 - 00:21:08:21 Wayne Shorter: Yeah. That sound. And, There’s a there’s a baritone player from New York. he’s played with, Jay, used to play with, bad Jones. Now with band. I can’t think of his name. Jay Cameron. what’s the name of Pepper Adams? Yeah, the Jake Jay Cameron thing came to my head. Did he play around.

00:21:08:23 - 00:21:09:21 Leonard Feather: With them, too?

00:21:09:24 - 00:21:37:15 Wayne Shorter: Yeah. Pepper Adams, that reminds me a bit. Brown, who was playing that baritone sax? And, the pianist reminds me, funny. Reminds me of Horace Silver. the right hand has that, you know, in the left hand them. It’s a monk influence in the chords. And, you know, the way the the you know, the the the weight of the chords and the the choice of notes.

00:21:37:17 - 00:22:10:26 Wayne Shorter: And it sounds like the way Horace used to write him on. And a certain time he used to write something like that. And he had, sound like it’s heavily Horace Silver influenced, you know, the the alto sax. The alto sax reminded me of, the Jerry Dodger. Jerry Dodger and Dodger. Another thing sounded like, you know, so I might be offered this because of the media things that I got.

00:22:12:17 - 00:22:49:09 Wayne Shorter: guitarists like the steadiness the drummer had that kind of steady. And I think the steady kind of thing that Horace had at one time was when he had, Louis Hayes playing the drums. Yeah. and then after that, all the other drummers would follow, and he insisted that they keep some of that. Whatever Louis he had that I felt some of that steady thing from the drummer in there and,

00:22:49:25 - 00:22:52:00 Wayne Shorter: I think I give it two stars.

00:22:52:03 - 00:22:52:29 Leonard Feather: So that’s fair.

00:22:53:14 - 00:23:01:10 Wayne Shorter: get a two star baritone player was really, connecting up with the change. His nice.

00:23:02:01 - 00:23:25:13 Wayne Shorter: gospel by very, especially that that tenor sound and less than that of some other guys are going along doing the same kind of sound. Yeah, to me it sounded like that, though, even though I heard them on the, soundtracks of, I think in Paris, they had, you know, everything kind of souped up, some with echo and reverb and all that.

00:23:25:15 - 00:23:34:29 Wayne Shorter: Yeah, and then sound like it’s all over the screen. But, for recording, if that’s him.

00:23:35:01 - 00:23:40:26 Wayne Shorter: Probably get a little more microcosmic. of what he does on the screen.

00:23:40:28 - 00:23:46:06 Leonard Feather: Yeah.

00:23:46:08 - 00:24:18:01 Wayne Shorter: To me, this is, like the same kind of, mini build up of, rebels. Bolero. You start any kind of build up to, in Latin bolero and not bolero, but that kind of thing. And it sounded like a very. And, and it’s like repetition going on with, but, you know, repetition is something that keeps building and building, for that effect.

00:24:18:03 - 00:24:33:13 Wayne Shorter: Which is many more different ways to do that now and become more interesting. But, yeah, for achieving what they achieved that way, which is,

00:24:33:16 - 00:24:41:09 Wayne Shorter: Very kind of, you know, mundane, your mediocre way of doing it. I, I think one and a half star.

00:24:41:11 - 00:24:42:08 Leonard Feather: Yeah.

00:24:42:11 - 00:25:04:28 Wayne Shorter: And, and the it isn’t trying to conjure up excitement with the, the embellishments that were going around it, you know, you know, sax wise, the use of the saxophone, I think they would have been another choice of instrument to use, you know. Yeah. And and another attitude or something like that.

00:25:05:01 - 00:25:09:04 Leonard Feather: Yeah. Do you think the, the repetition that begins with two repetitions.

00:25:09:07 - 00:25:15:14 Wayne Shorter: Yeah. It was too much, in the beginning. too much of the same exact repetition figure.

00:25:15:17 - 00:25:18:11 Leonard Feather: Yeah. Yeah, I was one with a lot of stuff.

00:25:18:13 - 00:25:19:03 Wayne Shorter: Yeah, yeah.

00:25:19:05 - 00:25:26:10 Leonard Feather: It was, Well, my goodness, we haven’t had any more than two stars. I’m sorry to disappoint you.

00:25:26:13 - 00:25:27:14 Wayne Shorter: No, no, no, I.

00:25:27:16 - 00:25:41:14 Leonard Feather: Didn’t I had no idea how the ratings would come out. I thought you would like some of them more than you did. Let me ask you a question. What if I played it? What would you have given five stars at any time in history, you know.

00:25:45:18 - 00:25:50:05 Wayne Shorter: I see from America here.

00:25:50:07 - 00:25:51:11 Leonard Feather: From anywhere.

00:25:51:21 - 00:25:55:02 Wayne Shorter: from anywhere.

00:25:55:05 - 00:26:03:01 Wayne Shorter: And seen providing that you heard it.

00:26:03:04 - 00:26:08:20 Wayne Shorter: See?

00:26:08:22 - 00:26:11:19 Leonard Feather: There must be some things in your collection that you.

00:26:11:21 - 00:26:14:04 Wayne Shorter: Oh, and I can let me go back to my collection.

00:26:14:06 - 00:26:15:28 Leonard Feather: Whenever I think you’ve ever heard in your life.

00:26:16:00 - 00:26:17:13 Wayne Shorter: Yeah.

00:26:17:16 - 00:26:19:29 Leonard Feather: But you really think worth five stars.

00:26:20:01 - 00:26:30:12 Wayne Shorter: You know, five stars. That that that really, it’s that it’s, thing, that they put on miles. But the different groups that have gone through, you know.

00:26:30:12 - 00:26:31:24 Leonard Feather: The prestige package.

00:26:31:29 - 00:26:56:16 Wayne Shorter: I think that’s it. 12 no, it’s not 12. I they only gave me one. I was in Paris and they gave me one. they have one with the set to it with Blue Christmas on it and, devil may care. Oh. Then the other one that, the song Jackie McLean wrote, and then, then it’s a Coltrane on one thing with Miles and all that.

00:26:56:19 - 00:27:19:03 Wayne Shorter: But then, you know, it’s like a really a mix, you know, that’s a that’s a nice five star thing. I just have it, you know, and, and I was listening to it, I, I didn’t look at it. I turned it on, I said, hey, that was Jackie McLean playing real good, you know. And with Miles, of course, I think Dave Show is on one day, you know, in, not just the saxophone arena.

00:27:19:03 - 00:27:26:27 Wayne Shorter: I’m not just going to vacuum, but then and there were other things on piano, and I picked the Feldman and somebody else and,

00:27:28:06 - 00:27:33:02 Wayne Shorter: It’s I think it’s out here in the USA.

00:27:33:04 - 00:27:35:00 Leonard Feather: But where did you go to?

00:27:35:03 - 00:27:39:07 Wayne Shorter: I was at CBS in Paris, and they they laid it on us and gave us.

00:27:39:07 - 00:27:49:27 Leonard Feather: This thing that’s a different collection is I don’t think those particular things you listed all together. I want over here. Christmas I don’t think is available. All I know that’s the one about dancing.

00:27:49:27 - 00:27:51:26 Wayne Shorter: Yeah.

00:27:51:28 - 00:28:00:28 Leonard Feather: Yeah. It’s interesting. Yeah. Actually wouldn’t you be anything of Miles from from the period when you were with them.

00:28:01:00 - 00:28:03:03 Wayne Shorter: What was that question again.

00:28:03:13 - 00:28:10:16 Leonard Feather: I mean any, any, anything for miles of the 60s when you were in the group, we wouldn’t consider any of those five stars.

00:28:10:22 - 00:28:36:08 Wayne Shorter: Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, some of those things. I was just trying to stay away from that. You know, I was thinking about things that, that I haven’t been involved with, playing with at all. Yeah. Five star. I, you know, I give the the Dizzy Gillespie, big band things. Five star. Yeah, yeah. Those early big band things, I think.

00:28:36:10 - 00:29:02:23 Wayne Shorter: I think they’re listening to that stuff in schools now and colleges and everything. Oh, yeah? Yeah, they’re listening to. But what I hear coming out, is, the is, I like what they’re doing is that they’re listening to this stuff and applying it to, making what they’re doing the day the the, the, doing the best, you know, the best kind of thing, whatever new wave or whatever it is.

00:29:02:26 - 00:29:23:19 Wayne Shorter: I hear some, I hear some familiar, and it’s a matter of good work and some kind of new wave stuff. Seems like they have studied Dizzy Gillespie big band, and then him, the whole thing. You know, how you approach, a break, how you approach, you know, blare a trumpet player, you know, those brackets in the express and statement.

00:29:23:22 - 00:29:29:19 Wayne Shorter: Yeah. And it’s just coming. You know, coming through, you know. Yeah. And and,

00:29:30:24 - 00:29:38:05 Leonard Feather: let me tell you something that I put on my to take an interview upstairs.

00:29:38:08 - 00:30:03:11 Unknown Speaker: So I’ll be, tell me you love it, and, it’s. My only. Myself. You. I don’t. So.

00:30:03:14 - 00:30:11:13 Unknown Speaker: I.

00:30:11:15 - 00:30:24:15 Unknown Speaker: First thought. You know.

00:30:24:18 - 00:30:32:15 Unknown Speaker: Could it be. Better.

00:30:32:18 - 00:30:46:09 Unknown Speaker: For the murder book. If you.

00:30:46:12 - 00:30:55:21 Unknown Speaker: Murder it.

00:30:55:24 - 00:31:00:25 Unknown Speaker: And.

00:31:00:28 - 00:31:03:09 Unknown Speaker: Put.

00:31:03:12 - 00:31:12:07 Unknown Speaker: The band another number in.

00:31:12:09 - 00:31:16:25 Unknown Speaker: For.

00:31:16:27 - 00:31:25:23 Unknown Speaker: The.

00:31:25:26 - 00:31:36:06 Unknown Speaker: For the, murder interviews.

00:31:36:09 - 00:32:37:23 Unknown Speaker: For the murder, brother. number 40. Doo doo doo doo doo. Have a little.

00:32:37:25 - 00:32:52:19 Unknown Speaker: Comedy.

00:32:52:21 - 00:33:05:18 Unknown Speaker: I can’t believe it. Oh. Thank you. Rupert.

00:33:05:20 - 00:33:21:21 Unknown Speaker: For you and it looks like you been a very nice little fish.

00:33:21:23 - 00:33:42:26 Unknown Speaker: Aren’t you? You on to me, too? You know. Ever been. I mean, you. Myself too.

00:33:42:28 - 00:33:45:19 Wayne Shorter: I don’t know.

00:33:45:21 - 00:33:58:03 Unknown Speaker: Oh. For you. Oh, me.

00:33:58:05 - 00:34:17:08 Wayne Shorter: So.

00:34:17:10 - 00:34:29:12 Unknown Speaker: We. I know.

00:34:29:15 - 00:35:07:21 Unknown Speaker: Thank you very much. Here. Just a couple of nights ago, you really sold. I was awarded a great support once in my life for doing. Duke Ellington over the years. Well. And that was a pleasure. I have never seen you. I like you doing.

00:35:07:23 - 00:35:16:26 Unknown Speaker: Cigaret poker with you. Oh.

00:35:16:29 - 00:35:24:11 Unknown Speaker: Get set up.

00:35:24:13 - 00:35:57:14 Unknown Speaker: Go out there. You owe me. You know. Like, you know, my little old friend coming back? was working on girlfriend. With him.

00:35:57:16 - 00:36:13:25 Unknown Speaker: Will you be with my. And, you know, to my.

00:36:13:27 - 00:36:29:15 Unknown Speaker: To your, You know, the girl. After that.

00:36:29:17 - 00:36:41:15 Unknown Speaker: I don’t you.

00:36:41:17 - 00:36:44:19 Unknown Speaker: Well, me.

00:36:44:22 - 00:36:58:03 Unknown Speaker: So when? I first one for your girl.

00:36:58:05 - 00:37:08:27 Unknown Speaker: You know, you know, I see you. Your.

00:37:14:26 - 00:37:18:19 Unknown Speaker: I.

00:37:18:21 - 00:37:39:27 Unknown Speaker: I don’t have any.

00:37:39:29 - 00:37:51:04 Unknown Speaker: Oh, no.

00:37:52:17 - 00:37:55:07 Unknown Speaker: I.

00:37:55:09 - 00:38:05:02 Unknown Speaker: Have.

00:38:05:04 - 00:38:09:21 Unknown Speaker: I have.

00:38:09:23 - 00:38:25:18 Unknown Speaker: I have.

00:38:25:21 - 00:38:31:10 Unknown Speaker: I.

00:38:31:13 - 00:38:36:02 Unknown Speaker: Have.

00:38:36:05 - 00:38:40:12 Unknown Speaker: I.

00:38:40:14 - 00:38:45:09 Unknown Speaker: Have.

00:38:59:06 - 00:39:13:15 Unknown Speaker: I.

00:39:13:17 - 00:39:29:07 Unknown Speaker: I, I have, I.

00:39:30:05 - 00:39:40:18 Unknown Speaker: I don’t know how I.

00:39:40:20 - 00:39:54:00 Unknown Speaker: Ever.

00:39:54:02 - 00:39:58:20 Unknown Speaker: I mean, I, I.

00:39:58:23 - 00:40:01:07 Unknown Speaker: I.

00:40:01:09 - 00:40:25:13 Unknown Speaker: Have, I have, I have fire.

00:40:25:15 - 00:40:31:03 Unknown Speaker: Ever my.

00:40:31:05 - 00:40:47:16 Unknown Speaker: Mother.

00:40:47:18 - 00:41:13:28 Unknown Speaker: Never had.

00:41:14:01 - 00:41:27:04 Unknown Speaker: I never. Have never.

00:41:27:06 - 00:41:45:04 Unknown Speaker: Have.

00:42:22:17 - 00:42:27:10 Unknown Speaker: I.

00:42:27:12 - 00:42:32:13 Unknown Speaker: Good.

00:42:32:16 - 00:42:41:00 Unknown Speaker: I.

00:42:41:03 - 00:42:50:16 Unknown Speaker: Come up. Every day from.

00:42:50:19 - 00:42:55:13 Unknown Speaker: My. You know.

00:42:55:15 - 00:43:03:01 Unknown Speaker: Well, you know, my.

00:43:03:04 - 00:43:19:10 Unknown Speaker: I go with you for now, but I did for no good, my friend. I, I.

00:43:19:13 - 00:43:24:19 Unknown Speaker: Never.

00:43:24:21 - 00:43:29:04 Unknown Speaker: Heard.

00:43:29:06 - 00:43:37:00 Unknown Speaker: About.

00:43:37:02 - 00:43:45:08 Unknown Speaker: Us.

00:44:11:29 - 00:44:36:17 Leonard Feather: I don’t know where we got that picture. That’s. That’s good. I wanted to ask you about the new album because this is. Okay. And, this is not my opinion. I’m just being devil’s advocate, upset just to get something going because, you said she’s out of this question. Just one sentence you said I wanted. I like to be original.

00:44:36:17 - 00:44:49:21 Leonard Feather: I always like to have something new. And, but in this album, you’re doing a song about Elvis Presley. You’re doing a Willie Nelson song. You’re going to Conway Twitty song? Yes. So,

00:44:49:24 - 00:44:51:29 Speaker 6 But they know for me.

00:44:52:01 - 00:44:53:13 Leonard Feather: They’re not original. No.

00:44:53:15 - 00:44:55:28 Speaker 6 No, I didn’t say original. I said some. No.

00:44:56:00 - 00:44:57:23 Leonard Feather: No, you said I’d like to be original.

00:44:57:26 - 00:45:02:07 Speaker 6 I am a person of being original myself, doing that type of material.

00:45:02:07 - 00:45:04:06 Leonard Feather: Well, that’s a good I.

00:45:05:21 - 00:45:06:06 Leonard Feather: I wasn’t.

00:45:06:06 - 00:45:37:05 Speaker 6 You know, I seriously what I, I think what I really meant was and I still do, for years I’ve wanted to do several different type of albums, and I think one of them, I mentioned the fact that I would like to do, an album with familiar songs, familiar melodies, like part of the Duke Ellington songbook, for instance, like Don’t Get Around Much Anymore and some of the things that’s bluesy, but the B.B. King style could be in so many words.

00:45:37:05 - 00:45:45:15 Speaker 6 I’m I think I’m trying to say some things that I won’t have to really get away from trying to be B.B. King, but still, these things I could do.

00:45:45:18 - 00:45:46:29 Leonard Feather: Yeah, yeah.

00:45:47:01 - 00:45:59:23 Speaker 6 I wanted to do two types with a big band, one singing as well as playing, and then just one playing with a big band doing this kind of song, those kind of songs.

00:45:59:27 - 00:46:00:21 Leonard Feather: Yeah.

00:46:00:23 - 00:46:08:26 Speaker 6 And also wanted to do, kind of a semi-conscious, an album. And that’s what we’ve done.

00:46:09:03 - 00:46:10:15 Leonard Feather: Presences in the night.

00:46:10:17 - 00:46:32:05 Speaker 6 And I wanted to do a spiritual album. So these were, I think, four and the fifth one was one to do, just as I feel like doing, not thinking in terms of the market. you know what people may say about it, but just as I feel like doing it so that one is hopefully we’ll be doing the latter part of the year.

00:46:32:06 - 00:46:41:13 Leonard Feather: The one I hope. So it well, but so far all you’ve done of those five, I know. Let’s go through the five again. You got the country song, the, I like some big band type thing.

00:46:41:19 - 00:46:42:02 Speaker 6 Yes.

00:46:42:09 - 00:46:43:15 Leonard Feather: What were the others?

00:46:43:27 - 00:47:05:03 Speaker 6 well, the big band type thing I wanted to do two ways. I wanted to do one. Singing and playing, otherwise featuring me as a singer and guitarist. But then I want to do one with just laid back good, beautiful sounds of familiar melodies like don’t Get around Much anymore. hum. gosh.

00:47:05:03 - 00:47:06:09 Leonard Feather: Would you still be singing and playing.

00:47:06:09 - 00:47:08:25 Speaker 6 Would you not on that one? One? I won’t sing at all.

00:47:09:03 - 00:47:10:04 Leonard Feather: Oh, really? Oh, just playing.

00:47:10:05 - 00:47:13:11 Speaker 6 Just plain instrumental. Oh, that’s going to be a good instrumental.

00:47:13:11 - 00:47:15:27 Leonard Feather: Oh, that’s a good idea. Yeah. So you got the. I see what you mean.

00:47:15:27 - 00:47:19:15 Speaker 6 And then I want to do a gospel, you know, gospel one.

00:47:19:15 - 00:47:21:00 Leonard Feather: And on the fifth yeah I see yeah.

00:47:21:01 - 00:47:25:17 Speaker 6 That’s what I want to do. And then I want to do the fifth one. As I was saying this.

00:47:26:05 - 00:47:26:27 Speaker 6 Yeah.

00:47:26:29 - 00:47:34:27 Leonard Feather: Well, now by saying that you are sort of tacitly more or less admitting that on these other albums, you’re not just going for yourself, you’re going for the big market.

00:47:34:29 - 00:47:43:03 Speaker 6 Yeah, well, we have to somewhat. It’s kind of like if it got old saying, if you can’t beat them, learn to churn them. So I have to question.

00:47:43:03 - 00:48:02:09 Leonard Feather: I’ll tell you why. Question it because, Ray Charles did the same thing. Like, I don’t mean to say that, but 20 years ago, 1962, Ray Charles made that first country was now. But everybody was quite shocked to know that the blues king was doing you a cheatin heart and soul. Right. And it was a big sensation and so very well for a while, you know.

00:48:02:11 - 00:48:08:21 Leonard Feather: But then Ray Charles started calling off, and you don’t see him on the charts at all anymore. He just not selling rackets.

00:48:08:21 - 00:48:12:22 Speaker 6 Well, he don’t seem to be trying to get that type of material that will do it.

00:48:13:06 - 00:48:14:00 Leonard Feather: so yeah.

00:48:14:03 - 00:48:38:01 Speaker 6 Now, in my case, I like to think in terms of the way it was with, with, with, Bing Crosby, Bing Crosby saying everything, you know, everything. I’ve got a collection of Bing Crosby things where he’s singing country western, he’s singing pop. Naturally. We’re known for pop saying some, bluesy things, and he did, show type tunes, and he did not.

00:48:38:01 - 00:48:59:00 Speaker 6 Not that I’m trying to class myself in that category. Don’t don’t misunderstand me, but I’m trying to think that I’d like Dinah Washington to. To me, Dinah Washington was all other words. Whatever kind of song came out she could covet, she could do it and do it well. Not like Peggy Lee, not like Ella Fitzgerald, not like Sarah Vaughan, but like Dinah did it.

00:48:59:01 - 00:49:00:09 Leonard Feather: Yeah. That’s right. Let’s see.

00:49:00:09 - 00:49:06:27 Speaker 6 Though. And when she did to me. No, that could be. I’m a little biased because I’m crazy about it, but no.

00:49:06:27 - 00:49:07:16 Leonard Feather: I agree with you.

00:49:08:05 - 00:49:18:05 Speaker 6 when she did Dinah’s version of it, like Louis Jordan, if Louis Jordan did Louis Jordan’s version of whatever it was. Yeah, if you like Louis Jordan, you’d enjoy it.

00:49:18:07 - 00:49:18:28 Leonard Feather: Yeah.

00:49:19:01 - 00:49:23:11 Speaker 6 Same with Dinah. That’s what I’m trying to be. And that’s what I really want to be.

00:49:23:11 - 00:49:27:20 Leonard Feather: Yeah, well, you see, the reason I’m asking these questions with your some kind of hostile, like.

00:49:27:21 - 00:49:28:09 Speaker 6 No, that’s.

00:49:28:09 - 00:49:39:00 Leonard Feather: Okay. Is that you’ve been out for so long, it’s the king of the blues. You know, B.B. is supposed to have a blues boy, and you got all these album titles, you know, look through this, this book, which I think is a very good book, by the way.

00:49:39:00 - 00:49:42:04 Speaker 6 You know. Thank you, thank you, yes, I do, I really do.

00:49:42:04 - 00:49:42:15 Leonard Feather: Know you got.

00:49:42:15 - 00:49:44:06 Speaker 6 Blues. Thanks for the,

00:49:44:08 - 00:49:44:26 Leonard Feather: I reviewed it.

00:49:44:29 - 00:49:46:16 Speaker 6 All right. Yes. Thanks for the review on.

00:49:46:16 - 00:49:57:25 Leonard Feather: I think, you’ve got Mr. Blues is one of blues is King is, blues on top of blues? You’ve accentuated that image year after year, but now you’re in effect. You’re trying to sort of downplay that image.

00:49:57:28 - 00:50:06:21 Speaker 6 No, no, I’m not really downplaying it at all. I think that this we have I think people pretty well know that B.B. King can sing and play blues.

00:50:06:24 - 00:50:07:13 Leonard Feather: That’s for sure.

00:50:07:18 - 00:50:20:22 Speaker 6 But I don’t think they know that there are other things that I can do along with this. Now, when we did The Thrill Is Gone, that was a little bit different. We had some critics from time to time say, well, that’s not really it, but it was the biggest thing we ever had.

00:50:20:24 - 00:50:21:17 Leonard Feather: Yeah, yeah.

00:50:22:03 - 00:50:42:09 Speaker 6 now when you have a producer like I have Stuart Levine, which is a great producer, he’d never sit down with me and say, we got to do something for the pop market. We got to do. We’ve never did this. I’ve never had the company MCA to say, you got to do this or you got to do that.

00:50:42:12 - 00:50:50:00 Speaker 6 But I personally feel that there are certain trends of music, and believe me.

00:50:50:02 - 00:51:13:07 Speaker 6 If you’re not kind of with or within this mainstream of sound that are being played today, you don’t get more records played. Actually, believe me, I traveled from coast to coast and country to country and I found it to be true. If you don’t believe me, check with the cross-section of people and you will find that if it’s not okay, you got.

00:51:13:10 - 00:51:38:26 Speaker 6 This is my belief. You got rock music, which is the top of the market daily. You got more rock stations across the country, and you have to me, anything else? Then you’ve got Soul Station. You got more them, then you got anything else along? Say the Black Line and then Aetna. Those are your two mainstream world music. Following that you’ve got jazz Station, you got pop a good music stations.

00:51:38:29 - 00:51:50:14 Speaker 6 But you don’t hear in most cities. I said in most cities you don’t hear a good line of jazz across the board. You don’t.

00:51:50:15 - 00:51:53:10 Leonard Feather: I know that, I know that so.

00:51:53:12 - 00:51:57:02 Speaker 6 And yet I’m sorry you got the third one is country music.

00:51:57:04 - 00:51:58:06 Leonard Feather: Yeah, yeah.

00:51:58:09 - 00:52:23:12 Speaker 6 Hey, you. Nobody have any idea how big country music really is? So you’ve got the three rock, soul, country. Now, after that, you’ve got jazz and you’ve got the popular overall music. And if you are not somewhere within that, I don’t mean you have to do actually jazz, you have to do rock or so. But if you don’t have something that sounds similar, you just don’t get no records played.

00:52:23:12 - 00:52:24:28 Speaker 6 And two thirds of the time.

00:52:24:29 - 00:52:34:09 Leonard Feather: You’re talking in terms of airplay. So that determines what happens to your career. But when you are making the things that really made your world famous, which were mostly the blues things, you know.

00:52:34:11 - 00:52:34:20 Speaker 6 During.

00:52:34:25 - 00:52:47:04 Leonard Feather: Don’t those first of all, I don’t know what kind of airplay you got. I assume you got a lot of airplay, but whether or not those records are still selling 20 years later. True. No. So there must have been some great validity to them, and they were straight ahead. Blues.

00:52:47:08 - 00:53:15:01 Speaker 6 True. But if you followed the market, as I have, I’m talking about not just market of playing records, but the market, the trend of the people thinking musically, the last say for the last 15 years, things have changed so drastically. Used to be you could walk in any restaurant, practically or any ballroom, and you would find these records being played.

00:53:15:01 - 00:53:41:27 Speaker 6 But today you don’t find that we’re not thinking in terms only of radio, thinking in terms only of TV, of the exposure today. You need all of that to make it work today. If you don’t keep in the minds of people, people tend to forget very easy. With the exception of you special fans. Just special fans to me are the people that’s been with you through the years.

00:53:42:09 - 00:54:07:24 Speaker 6 usually I don’t, I don’t ever mean to forget them. Ever. I always try to do something that, from time to time in each album or every other album to try to get something that’s very hard down to the same thing we used to do. But I find that a lot of the people that have been my fans through the years ask me, when are you going to do something else?

00:54:07:27 - 00:54:20:04 Speaker 6 I get this quite often now because they are constantly hearing other things. If you can hear Lightnin Hopkins every once in a while, if you don’t hear Muddy Waters every once in a while, you don’t ask about them quite as often.

00:54:21:28 - 00:54:23:29 Speaker 6 That’s the same thing with B.B. King. I’m trying to say.

00:54:23:29 - 00:54:25:04 Leonard Feather: Yeah, I see if you, me.

00:54:25:04 - 00:54:50:11 Speaker 6 And if you don’t try and stay with. And I think though another thing that have helped me to stay around as long as I have been, I believe, is because I’m aware of. And when I go to a show each night to play me, if I’m talking too much tell them to shut up. But that just, I have to talk to you for a long time and this, this is very important to me to mention.

00:54:50:16 - 00:55:15:22 Speaker 6 If I play, for instance, that the, the the torture, the wherever I may be playing used to be five full bathroom. I got to think in terms of the audience that I have. That’s just like the time when you and I was over there for the students was playing the records. I noticed that you really laid it out to the students about the facilities that they had to record with at that time.

00:55:15:23 - 00:55:34:05 Speaker 6 Other words, when Bessie Smith was recorded and people along that era was recording what you get now, I mean, what you do is what you get. Yeah. You couldn’t do like they do today, have 24 track and you sit back and decide today you like this or tomorrow you don’t like it. You take it out with some mess,

00:55:34:07 - 00:56:05:07 Leonard Feather: Well, that brings me to another point. Could I interrupt you for a moment? Go ahead. you recorded that this was one of those things where I says tracks recorded and Nashville, Tennessee Horns recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Strings and vocals recorded tracks in New York City. Does it really feel comfortable and natural to you to record that where, you know, in the slack style that you’ve for so many years as, so he says in his book, you know, that some of your greatest records are the ones that you just did pretty straight in a nightclub like, Blues King.

00:56:05:07 - 00:56:17:13 Leonard Feather: That was done. Nightclub in Chicago, a live at the Regal. Do you really feel as comfortable doing that kind of recording with that? You know, one thing at a time with a horns, say, here in one city and you’re in another city and the brass is on another city.

00:56:17:15 - 00:56:28:09 Speaker 6 Yeah, but see the difference? What they didn’t mention when the rhythm section put the tracks down, that’s when B.B. King was on it. I was on it from the beginning when this other stuff was just added to it later on. Yeah.

00:56:28:11 - 00:56:29:13 Leonard Feather: You don’t mind that?

00:56:29:16 - 00:56:41:13 Speaker 6 Not at all. Yeah. Not at all. As long as it don’t take away from what we’ve done. And I am very happy that I was able to listen to it before they made it. The final decision.

00:56:41:26 - 00:56:46:26 Leonard Feather: in other words, as long as long as you can hear the rhythm section, don’t care what they do. Adding the horns and strings.

00:56:46:27 - 00:57:04:21 Speaker 6 No, no, I don’t know. And usually you got to have a good arranger because during the time he was doing those other things, we had Maxwell Davis as an arranger. The old things. Yes. And that’s when Davis as his arranger, and especially when we started to do stereo things, a very begin. We had the mono, but we started doing stereo.

00:57:04:22 - 00:57:23:01 Speaker 6 They was doing similar things. They would we would get together with the rhythm section and do this, and then it at home runs on it later. A lot of case, in fact, I remember when I was with the barrows, we did things like how do I love you and My Heart Belongs to Only You a couple of those things, which was a big ballad type thing.

00:57:23:07 - 00:57:26:24 Speaker 6 Yeah. And they use voices and all that. But after we had put.

00:57:26:25 - 00:57:29:22 Leonard Feather: That’s true, it’s not the first time ever. No, no, it’s.

00:57:29:22 - 00:57:46:06 Speaker 6 True. And, to to me, it probably would hurt me a little bit if I wasn’t there in the beginning. But when we do the rhythm section and this what was so good when we did the rhythm section in Nashville, man, we just went in a lot of things like the first takes.

00:57:46:08 - 00:57:46:20 Leonard Feather: Really?

00:57:46:25 - 00:58:04:03 Speaker 6 That’s good. Yeah, because it was all business. When we sit down, it was no, nobody try and overplay. We was just doing a job and it was a good job to me. And believe me, whether whether the album sales or people like it, it was one of the greatest ventures that I’ve ever had long learning.

00:58:04:03 - 00:58:12:15 Leonard Feather: And, well, I hope it naturally. I hope it sells. how did the other two do that? You that you made with, the Crusaders producing?

00:58:12:17 - 00:58:19:18 Speaker 6 Oh, that was fun. That was fun. But the only difference between that and what we were doing to try to show you the difference.

00:58:19:20 - 00:58:20:17 Leonard Feather: Between that and this.

00:58:20:24 - 00:58:41:17 Speaker 6 Yes. When I was doing the thing with the Crusaders, I was almost like crusading, other words, which to me, the the brand new tunes, which was a bit different. It was a feeling definitely. It was a it was a feeling that I had to learn to feel.

00:58:41:19 - 00:58:43:03 Leonard Feather: Yeah.

00:58:43:05 - 00:58:51:13 Speaker 6 Other words, it was a sort of a sophistication, a sophisticated, yeah way of putting it, and I enjoyed it. Don’t misunderstand me, because I’m always.

00:58:51:15 - 00:58:54:10 Leonard Feather: Would you feel you’re comfortable with these? This can be.

00:58:54:11 - 00:59:05:22 Speaker 6 This was simple. Yeah, this was simple. This would be me not having to having to try to be sophisticated and not trying to be anything but just saying in play.

00:59:05:29 - 00:59:20:29 Leonard Feather: Well, isn’t it true that most country songs like, you know, one of those nights, Love Me, Love Me Tender or You’ve Always Got the Blues, basically, they’re very simple in structure. I mean, they’re not that different from the regular 32 bar and. Right, standard pop song. Are they? So.

00:59:20:29 - 00:59:32:00 Speaker 6 Right. It’s not that much different. And I didn’t have to, I wished I could really put this into words. What I’m trying to say, when I was doing the thing with the Crusaders, that was a new.

00:59:32:03 - 00:59:32:29 Leonard Feather: There’s an experiment.

00:59:33:04 - 00:59:44:15 Speaker 6 Yes, somewhat quite a bit, quite a bit. And now I learned to. Before we put them down on tape, I will I learned to enjoy it.

00:59:44:17 - 00:59:47:05 Leonard Feather: Hello.

00:59:48:26 - 00:59:54:02 Speaker 6 no. All I was saying that it took me longer to learn to really get into the songs.

00:59:54:02 - 00:59:55:10 Leonard Feather: Yeah, I imagine so. Yeah.

00:59:55:19 - 01:00:03:20 Speaker 6 me too, because all of them was somewhat different from things that I had been accustomed to doing. But I welcome it because I want to learn.

01:00:03:26 - 01:00:04:24 Leonard Feather: Yeah.

01:00:04:26 - 01:00:07:16 Speaker 6 I’m gonna learn. But there’s other that’s a connection.

01:00:07:16 - 01:00:08:25 Leonard Feather: Two albums that you made with us?

01:00:08:25 - 01:00:17:16 Speaker 6 Yes, but the, the things, the country, things that we did, I didn’t have to really move from my real bluesy feeling at all.

01:00:17:19 - 01:00:20:09 Leonard Feather: Yeah, I understand now.

01:00:20:09 - 01:00:21:23 Speaker 6 I have to move from there.

01:00:21:23 - 01:00:34:03 Leonard Feather: It’s an interesting point. Well, when you get to that fifth album you’re talking about on your schedule, when you say, you know, just you wanted to just be a sub, what does that really signify? I mean, how do.

01:00:34:03 - 01:00:37:00 Speaker 6 You. Okay, describe that.

01:00:37:03 - 01:00:40:11 Leonard Feather: Would you go back to doing more blues, maybe.

01:00:40:13 - 01:00:45:14 Speaker 6 Maybe I would do more of the kind of blues that I would want to do. Yeah.

01:00:45:14 - 01:00:46:26 Leonard Feather: I mean, sort of straight ahead things.

01:00:46:28 - 01:01:08:10 Speaker 6 Yeah. Other words. the old days or the early days, I guess I should say any song that I heard or felt that I wanted to get into, I just get into it not thinking in terms of how strong the lyrics was. Yeah, but how it felt to me. It felt good to me. I did it or tried to do it.

01:01:08:10 - 01:01:27:17 Speaker 6 You well. And the recent years I have been concerned about the story, tells how many people that I felt could relate to this kind of thing. But when I do this other one, I don’t care. I don’t nobody relate to it if I do this, if this makes sense.

01:01:27:24 - 01:01:41:16 Leonard Feather: You know, in the early days, maybe that worked out for you very well because, you know, look at the things you had in those early albums. people related look at the reaction of the audience of the Regal. They just fell out with those things. And there was just things that you chose. I’m sure no producer told you what to do.

01:01:41:16 - 01:01:49:06 Leonard Feather: No, no, they hardly even had any proof in those days. The producer was just sitting in the control room saying, a little louder, a little more control. You the way they.

01:01:49:06 - 01:01:52:09 Speaker 6 Tried and cut. They tried to capture whatever you did that.

01:01:52:09 - 01:01:55:20 Leonard Feather: Was I mean, producer’s role was not really important in those days.

01:01:55:20 - 01:02:28:28 Speaker 6 To, well, I think this this, this, you had 2 or 3 things that you have to think about there. most of the things that we did then people will think in a certain way at that time that they are not thinking today. Now, it seems to me that, The country as a whole or thinking of the people might be kind of the clock may maybe one and back to say, you know, like 6:00.

01:02:29:03 - 01:02:30:06 Leonard Feather: Maybe, yeah.

01:02:30:08 - 01:03:05:13 Speaker 6 Maybe. but I still think that the way that, the trend of music is today, if you want to stay within the market of what’s going on, then you got to be conscious of what’s going on around you. But that’s why I said this last album, that fifth album we’re talking about. Once I can get to that, well, I’ll be making this as I remember reading something that Duke said that it was, this is personal, this is me.

01:03:05:13 - 01:03:10:13 Speaker 6 I feel like doing this and I just want to do it now. I hope people will like it.

01:03:10:16 - 01:03:23:15 Leonard Feather: I bet you anything they will to that very reason, because I think what you believe in has proven in the past to be what you know, what lasts longest. That’s why I said all those early albums are still you know, they’ve been reissued and reissued. Look at that. You know.

01:03:23:16 - 01:03:23:28 Speaker 6 Yeah.

01:03:23:29 - 01:03:29:03 Leonard Feather: No doubt if they didn’t believe in those records are, what, 20 year, almost 20 years.

01:03:29:03 - 01:03:30:25 Speaker 6 Oh, yeah. Some of these. Yeah.

01:03:30:25 - 01:03:32:25 Leonard Feather: Yeah, 15 years old, I’d say.

01:03:32:27 - 01:03:34:06 Speaker 6 Yeah. Yeah. Right.

01:03:34:13 - 01:03:41:14 Leonard Feather: 14 or 15 years old. And, and I think they have stood the test of time. I think it’s stood the test.

01:03:41:17 - 01:03:44:18 Speaker 6 Yeah. That’s right. Because we’re seeing, yeah.

01:03:44:25 - 01:04:00:21 Leonard Feather: You take a song like I’d rather drink muddy water. That’s universal. That’s never going to be old fashioned, that, when you sing, to to to be a little conceited about when you sing. I gave you seven tours and they still laugh at that. Don’t they still sing? They still laugh.

01:04:00:23 - 01:04:14:12 Speaker 6 At that all over the country. I mean, not over the country. All over the world. Every place I’ve gone that was, were the English speaking people that speak any English at all. When I say that, yeah, they laugh. Yeah. That’s. They did that in the Soviet Union there last.

01:04:14:15 - 01:04:14:21 Leonard Feather: Year.

01:04:14:26 - 01:04:15:25 Speaker 6 Too, I did.

01:04:15:27 - 01:04:19:25 Leonard Feather: Yeah. You were there, what, 69, 79, 70 over.

01:04:19:25 - 01:04:20:21 Speaker 6 70.

01:04:20:23 - 01:04:24:07 Leonard Feather: You must hear the last American. I was there because they haven’t done much lately.

01:04:24:07 - 01:04:25:21 Speaker 6 I was seven, 8 or 7, and I’m.

01:04:25:21 - 01:04:27:09 Leonard Feather: Not sure.

01:04:27:11 - 01:04:35:06 Speaker 6 I’m not sure which one, but, you know, it make so many one night as from time to time. I forget where I was last week.

01:04:35:09 - 01:04:52:26 Leonard Feather: That reminds or nothing I was meaning to ask you about. The situation in Las Vegas has changed so much. The time when I used to come up and see you there, right? And you know, there’s almost no quality music played there, and there’s lounges of all disappeared there, you know. No. And you have a home there. Yes. And, well, double pointed questions.

01:04:52:26 - 01:04:59:17 Leonard Feather: First of all, you still spend much time living there and secondly, do get any work there at all. Or is that just some phase now?

01:04:59:17 - 01:05:24:15 Speaker 6 Okay, both of those are no. questions. Yeah, yeah. No, I rarely get a chance to be there. Usually, if I have three days off, from work. Otherwise, if I have three days off, whether they get canceled or we just don’t work, usually I’ll go home. Yeah, and that don’t happen often. Not to have three days together, and,

01:05:24:17 - 01:05:44:18 Speaker 6 No, we don’t get much. In fact, I haven’t worked in Las Vegas now for about five years. That long? Yeah, it’s been about five years. but I am working in the state of Nevada, though, quite frequently. We, still have a contract with. No, with Harrah’s hotel. Oh, yes. So we still do Harrah’s Reno. Harrah’s Lake Tahoe.

01:05:44:19 - 01:05:45:26 Speaker 6 Yeah.

01:05:45:28 - 01:05:55:02 Leonard Feather: That’s interesting. Well, I suppose that’s just a consequence of the the the whole policy in Vegas. It’s not really not of musical of being out of style musically.

01:05:55:02 - 01:06:04:12 Speaker 6 You know, I don’t think it’s that, but a lot of the lounges that we would play in don’t want to pay the kind of money that we need to play them.

01:06:04:12 - 01:06:05:28 Leonard Feather: And there’s so few lounges left anyway.

01:06:05:28 - 01:06:14:16 Speaker 6 Right. And the main showrooms usually, unless I had somebody I can go in with and they’re, they don’t seem to be too much up in the air for that either.

01:06:14:16 - 01:06:20:22 Leonard Feather: One time you. I saw you play main. Sure. Was it Caesars Palace? I’m not sure. But you you did play a man? Yes.

01:06:20:22 - 01:06:21:29 Speaker 6 Which one? Right.

01:06:22:02 - 01:06:23:03 Leonard Feather: And did very well. Is that.

01:06:23:08 - 01:06:26:22 Speaker 6 Yes. We’ve we’ve been very lucky with them, in fact.

01:06:26:25 - 01:06:30:02 Leonard Feather: But, there’s a lot of people now that used to play Vegas regularly that.

01:06:30:08 - 01:06:30:21 Speaker 6 Don’t, don’t.

01:06:30:21 - 01:06:35:28 Leonard Feather: Go there anymore. Even people that live there, you know. Right. Look at Joe Williams. He never works of. Yeah. He lives there.

01:06:35:28 - 01:06:37:15 Speaker 6 You right. All right.

01:06:37:17 - 01:06:40:15 Leonard Feather: Marlene, this show never works in Vegas. And she lives there.

01:06:40:17 - 01:06:48:20 Speaker 6 All right. That’s, I don’t know, maybe things will change up and make Jeff in some way. I don’t know, but, I do know that.

01:06:48:23 - 01:06:51:09 Leonard Feather: What? You don’t need it. My God, you got so many other places, too.

01:06:51:11 - 01:06:59:01 Speaker 6 The only thing that makes this be nice to do, though, is if you work in a place and you can go in there for a couple of weeks and you’re home.

01:06:59:04 - 01:06:59:13 Leonard Feather: Yeah.

01:06:59:13 - 01:07:04:27 Speaker 6 That’s right. Yeah, I, I wouldn’t want to wear it out. But, couple of times a year.

01:07:04:29 - 01:07:08:17 Leonard Feather: Yeah. Do you ever get a week or two weeks anywhere anymore?

01:07:08:19 - 01:07:37:13 Speaker 6 Yes. I’m at Harrah’s for two weeks, and it’s right at Reno, Harrah’s Reno and Harrah’s, Lake Tahoe. It’s also a month I usually spend in the state, about twice a you 2 or 3 times a year. And I just came out of Canada up at the Royal York Hotel and was there for two weeks, kind of like that because we followed some big people like, Tony Bennett, Flip Wilson, people like that.

01:07:37:13 - 01:07:39:15 Speaker 6 Yeah, it was real good.

01:07:39:18 - 01:07:44:07 Leonard Feather: How many times you been in Japan?

01:07:44:09 - 01:07:50:23 Speaker 6 I would say about 7 or 8 times. About 7 or 8 times in the last 12 years.

01:07:50:25 - 01:07:55:19 Leonard Feather: So they there again you don’t have that language barrier or seemingly.

01:07:56:06 - 01:08:18:03 Speaker 6 not so much. So to the point where because they’re big and jazz I love jazz. That’s right. And they like blues, good blues and jazz, which they, seem to go into that. And country, believe it or not, country music is pretty big. There also. And so you’ll fit in pretty good. We haven’t been over there in a couple of years, but we usually we go about every other year.

01:08:18:11 - 01:08:19:02 Leonard Feather: Yeah.

01:08:19:05 - 01:08:23:15 Speaker 6 And same thing to Australia, Australia and New Zealand. We usually do.

01:08:23:15 - 01:08:25:16 Leonard Feather: That. Yeah, I know that.

01:08:25:18 - 01:08:45:21 Speaker 6 But I just sing, sing and play my usual way and they seem to like it in my own tongue of trying to do it my way, because I still remember what, Louis Armstrong used to say that music is universal, and if you really play, you put you in it. And most of em they enjoy.

01:08:45:24 - 01:08:59:13 Leonard Feather: So shows, no question. It’s, sort of transcend the, the language barrier. Yes. This is. No. Where did you find you didn’t have to change your your style or your repertoire much in the Soviet Union.

01:08:59:24 - 01:09:42:19 Speaker 6 yes and no. I thought of that kind of like I do here at home. For instance, if I’m playing a club tonight, I try to size up the audience when I first go out because I’m scared when I go out at first. So after the first 2 or 3 numbers change and I’m about one fast, one slow, one in between and one that has good lyrics and and maybe like, how blue can you get or something like I can usually tell the very beginning of the show whether I can go on, say, the, you start a program really thinking it in your mind.

01:09:42:20 - 01:09:55:13 Speaker 6 I don’t make up the program usually, but I have my own group with me, so I don’t have to have it written out of what I’m going to do or what. So I’m free to choose as I go on a stage. Kind of like a box. In other words, whatever I’m in frame of, the guys hit me from the other side.

01:09:55:23 - 01:09:56:11 Leonard Feather: yeah.

01:09:56:21 - 01:10:20:10 Speaker 6 start something new. thinking differently. Well, I start to do that. And so with the Soviet Union, in the Soviet Union, I started to do the same thing as I do at home. After a couple of tunes, I could tell whether people move a little bit. You know, I’ve never been the type of guy to have people pull not to hear anyway, but, if I can, I can tell.

01:10:20:10 - 01:10:35:23 Speaker 6 But just just action. Just just seeing how they move about, move their heads. if I get their attention. Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to do, is get the attention. And I can tell that in 2 or 3 tunes, that I can tell how hard I’m gonna have to work to do it. So I.

01:10:35:23 - 01:10:36:10 Leonard Feather: Assume.

01:10:36:12 - 01:10:51:19 Speaker 6 Right. And that’s the way I, I learned to do in the Soviet Union. Yeah, the same way I do at home. And I was able to do pretty good. Most times. It’s kind of like a quarterback. You, you, you know, you you can kind of tell what you got going. Yeah. And it worked.

01:10:51:26 - 01:10:52:26 Leonard Feather: Well I, I know it.

01:10:52:26 - 01:10:54:13 Speaker 6 Did about 90% of the time.

01:10:54:13 - 01:10:59:28 Leonard Feather: You and used all your usual material just. Yeah probably maybe it was slightly different.

01:10:59:28 - 01:11:18:04 Speaker 6 Or slightly, but yeah, you’re saying exactly what I wanted to say. Slightly different from time to time. I would. There was sometimes there’s certain things I could use, I felt and then other times I had to be just a little like, well, I have to change it just a little bit too untoward to really get the reaction that I felt that I should.

01:11:18:06 - 01:11:36:10 Speaker 6 Like I said, I’m not used to people just jumping up around on the stage of like some of the artists I see from time to time, man, it’s the minute they go on the stage, people go, wow, I’ve never had that anyway. But they were very polite and, I had, standing ovations nearly every place we played.

01:11:36:17 - 01:11:39:03 Speaker 6 You know, they call me the father of jazz.

01:11:39:05 - 01:11:49:06 Leonard Feather: That’s good. Would you mind just for my personal souvenir? Take one of the two of us? No. No thanks to share this music. Yeah. I’ve never had a. Yeah, I guess we have, but not not.

01:11:49:10 - 01:11:53:23 Speaker 6 Not like this. May, stand like this here. Right here. okay.

01:11:53:25 - 01:12:01:12 Leonard Feather: I sitting down here, I like, rather sitting there. Oh, okay. All right. Instead of whatever that umbrella does that. Yeah. Guess the right white arms or something.

01:12:01:12 - 01:12:02:00 Speaker 6 Yes.

01:12:02:06 - 01:12:03:08 Leonard Feather: Okay.

01:12:03:11 - 01:12:10:20 Speaker 6 No, we never have. And I never had a chance to thank you enough for inviting me out at that time, for your lecture, for the students.

01:12:10:21 - 01:12:33:28 Leonard Feather: So I had to thank you. That was something that I will always remember. Yeah, that’s that was a great experience for everybody. Yes, yes. Can you move the mic that way. Just a tiny little bit better before the show.

01:12:34:01 - 01:12:43:13 Leonard Feather: Okay. Thanks very much. Oh excuse me, can you hold that. oh. Okay. Sure, sure. I don’t want to have.

01:12:43:16 - 01:12:46:13 Speaker 6 A strike going down. Oh, okay.

01:12:46:15 - 01:12:52:04 Leonard Feather: Oh, did I turn it off?

01:12:52:06 - 01:12:57:03 Leonard Feather: Would you mind saying that again? as a producer? Oh.

01:12:57:06 - 01:13:15:08 Speaker 6 I say I always think of a good producer the same way. I guess an actor would think of a good director. There are so many things that you overlook or you don’t pay much attention to in a lot of cases, a lot of things that I. I’m not sure that I can do. Well, to me, it’s not the best.

01:13:15:11 - 01:13:35:23 Speaker 6 And, a good producer, you would bring it out good. And I think it’s the same thing with a good actor. good director brings it out. He knows what he wants, and you get it. That’s true. And, well, especially when you know they act as capable. Capable of doing. Capable of doing what? The he think that he should do.

01:13:35:26 - 01:13:42:25 Speaker 6 And I think that’s what I’ve had is from time to time as good producers that,

01:13:42:28 - 01:13:52:18 Leonard Feather: I still think you’re your own best producer. The final analysis, you have to know what to do. Up to a certain point, maybe the producer can accentuate certain things about you.

01:13:52:21 - 01:14:12:11 Speaker 6 I. But I think you’re right. In a lot of cases, I think you are right. because for one thing, is, when you start to play, and if someone tells you how to play, why you should play this or you shouldn’t play that or show that to why you really are not as creative as you would normally be.

01:14:12:14 - 01:14:16:09 Leonard Feather: Yeah, right. nobody’s going to tell you how to play the guitar, you know?

01:14:16:11 - 01:14:17:27 Speaker 6 Well.

01:14:18:25 - 01:14:20:01 Leonard Feather: that would be foolish.

01:14:20:28 - 01:14:25:03 Speaker 6 well, I’ve. I’ve had instructions. Well.

01:14:25:06 - 01:14:37:18 Leonard Feather: That’s one case where I don’t think the producers is a little out of. It’s out of line. Incidentally, there’s not quite as much guitar on this, as I would have liked to hear that. Also, I suppose, is deliberate.

01:14:37:21 - 01:14:38:26 Speaker 6 Yes, it is deliberate.

01:14:38:26 - 01:14:45:10 Leonard Feather: There’s only one track that I think has a fairly long so. And that’s, the Thief. What is it called?

01:14:45:23 - 01:14:46:26 Speaker 6 life is a thief.

01:14:46:26 - 01:14:52:04 Leonard Feather: Time is a thief, time is a thief. And so you have a fairly long soul. And, but most of us just eight bars here and there, you know?

01:14:52:04 - 01:14:52:23 Speaker 6 Yeah.

01:14:53:24 - 01:14:57:14 Speaker 6 Well, I played on all tracks.

01:14:57:17 - 01:14:58:28 Leonard Feather: But a little bit, you know.

01:14:58:28 - 01:15:14:00 Speaker 6 No, I played all the way through on all tracks, but I did tell the producer, that some places I thought maybe I did play too much. And what happened is left to him, after in the mix to put in where he would like.

01:15:14:02 - 01:15:22:13 Leonard Feather: Did you do you overdubbed the guitar or rather played the guitar in that overdub the voice. Which which was it? I did both at once. I can tell you another, by the way.

01:15:22:13 - 01:15:40:27 Speaker 6 Yes. let me see. What did I do first? First I played and then sang later. Yeah, that’s what it was. Because with the rhythm section, when we was doing it all, there, I, I had so much fun. That was really a good feeling of playing, just getting in there, playing with.

01:15:40:27 - 01:15:42:06 Leonard Feather: Everybody’s groove.

01:15:42:08 - 01:15:46:12 Speaker 6 And laid on. And I sang to it after what we who played the two.

01:15:46:12 - 01:15:48:03 Leonard Feather: Of us who were going.

01:15:48:05 - 01:15:53:00 Wayne Shorter: You know, just generally like to meet, you know, I was true of it.

01:15:53:01 - 01:16:18:04 Speaker 6 So, you know, I think it was something that a lot of people, I don’t think, even care to think about, really. But me, I seemed to need it. It’s it’s just that certain little something that, that I need as far as exposure is concerned. And I feel the need for that and maybe nobody else does, but I do, because to me, blues in the first place is limited.

01:16:18:04 - 01:16:45:16 Speaker 6 It’s not like, there are many campaigns for country music. all everyplace I go there, many country raves, I mean, great ones. Good ones. and then there’s many places, many outlets for country music today. Many, you know. All right. It’s the same thing with soul, the same thing. That’s true. And, well, to me, blues is way down on the totem pole.

01:16:45:16 - 01:16:49:10 Speaker 6 And unless you’ve got, that exposure.

01:16:49:13 - 01:16:51:15 Leonard Feather: And made you.

01:16:51:17 - 01:17:11:28 Speaker 6 Well, you know, but, I’m thinking about it the way I think that I mentioned a few minutes ago that there are people like Dizzy Gillespie. They’re people like Ella Fitzgerald, say, Sarah Vaughan and Tony Bennett. Many, many people along that line, I’m talking, whether it be jazz, a real good pop.

01:17:12:01 - 01:17:14:01 Leonard Feather: You know, you know.

01:17:14:04 - 01:17:25:18 Speaker 6 They are Sammy Davis. They don’t need to me. They don’t need that exposure that I, I personally feel that I need because.

01:17:25:21 - 01:17:30:02 Leonard Feather: When you say exposure, I mean the in terms of going to a different kind of market.

01:17:30:07 - 01:17:45:09 Speaker 6 Yes, yes. Because their standards to meet their standards and their will to me is, is this there it’s made they’ve made a world for themselves that’s not rock at all. There’s no exports.

01:17:45:09 - 01:17:54:29 Leonard Feather: That’s all that I, I think you’re underestimating yourself. I don’t think there’s any chance that you will ever be out of date or out of style. What was the biggest selling album you ever had?

01:17:55:02 - 01:18:01:11 Speaker 6 The biggest selling, was, live and well, live. Well, that’s the one.

01:18:01:13 - 01:18:04:23 Leonard Feather: Yeah. Well, that’s really fairly typical blues album, isn’t it?

01:18:04:25 - 01:18:05:28 Speaker 6 Yeah. Well that’s one that’s.

01:18:06:01 - 01:18:08:01 Leonard Feather: That’s cottage was one of the biggest was.

01:18:08:01 - 01:18:15:19 Speaker 6 Yeah. cook on it and cook honest cook count still sell the same as live at the Regal. It’s still sells. Yeah. Right.

01:18:16:02 - 01:18:30:22 Leonard Feather: so that proves in a way that, maybe you don’t have to worry about road yourself that much. The market is only for. Excuse me, sir. Frankie, can I buy you for a moment? Can you ask something I’d like you to do right away? This would be way it’s.

01:18:30:24 - 01:18:47:24 Wayne Shorter: Supposed to work. you just want to try and see things you don’t want to see. You know, it’s going to, So when. Yeah, when Sal McMullen from his family up to leave, and I need to. I need to talk to you.

01:18:47:24 - 01:18:48:11 Leonard Feather: Oh, okay.

01:18:48:11 - 01:18:49:02 Wayne Shorter: Just call me.

01:18:49:02 - 01:18:52:10 Leonard Feather: Was all right. He’s coming at ten after, is it?

01:18:52:12 - 01:18:55:14 Speaker 6 I think that’s probably back about now.

01:18:55:16 - 01:18:59:14 Leonard Feather: I think it’s all right. We’ve had a pretty good talk. We covered a lot of bases.

01:18:59:17 - 01:20:11:05 Speaker 6 Yes, I think so. I enjoy it’s always good.

01:20:11:08 - 01:20:12:00 Speaker 6 Let’s see. You know.

01:20:12:05 - 01:20:13:02 Leonard Feather: I was.

01:20:13:04 - 01:20:15:22 Speaker 6 Thinking to myself, I want to. I wanted to see you.

01:20:15:23 - 01:20:17:29 Leonard Feather: Ready to.

01:20:21:27 - 01:20:23:29 Wayne Shorter: Well, I’ve been.

01:20:24:02 - 01:20:33:13 Speaker 5 In initial thrust. So strong, I don’t have any doubt that somebody from the State Department will contact us. I mean, because I can see this being such a vital problem.

01:20:33:18 - 01:20:37:05 Leonard Feather: The State Department who said that New York grew up everything over it. So, yes.

01:20:37:07 - 01:20:57:10 Speaker 7 My brother brother’s very highly placed. And this is off the record again because he’s, he was the U.S. ambassador to Jordan. And then, he was picked by, Reagan as, and Haig, I suppose, as undersecretary of the Middle East because of our background. I talked to him about a day before yesterday. He said, Jesus, that sounds great.

01:20:57:12 - 01:21:14:24 Speaker 7 And so he said, I want to talk to the man I worked for. He said, there has to be if what you’re talking about ever becomes reality, there has to be a reason to you for the US to use that. It’d be great. and you know what else may I say? This. You know what the most critical thing is right now?

01:21:14:27 - 01:21:21:28 Speaker 7 What you’re going to do for this thing, because it’s the first step and you are international in scope in terms of being reprinted.

01:21:22:04 - 01:21:28:12 Leonard Feather: And so, I don’t want to stick my neck up, make a big story out of it, and then have the whole thing collapse.

01:21:28:15 - 01:21:38:28 Speaker 7 Well we don’t well, that’s not going to do them. Oh, no, it may not be successful over the long haul. We can’t really see the but we have to say it is going to be. But oh no, we’re going on with it. We’re going to put it together.

01:21:38:28 - 01:21:51:01 Speaker 5 Well first the fact you know, did you think I’d stick our necks out? Just say that, you know, our enthusiasm and such, you know, their enthusiasm is such that. Joe, you just reporting that how enthusiastic they are. Yeah.

01:21:51:04 - 01:22:20:05 Speaker 7 Well, it’s either exciting and valid or it is it, you see, and it’s excited about this. This is how hard you’re going to do it. We’re going to do it. Sure. It’s exciting to perceive this as my being a valid, statement of dissent. You are astute enough to to recognize the difference between this, the sound of the Duke Ellington Reed section playing certain notes, as opposed to the sound of those same notes being played by five studio cat.

01:22:20:07 - 01:22:21:19 Speaker 7 Yeah. Okay.

01:22:21:21 - 01:22:39:06 Leonard Feather: We’ve got although I got to say that Bill Berry’s band comes amazingly close. Well, with Marshall Road, same lead. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Because Marshall’s Bill Baer has been in general comes closer to achieving that Ellington feeling than any other band ever might go away. I must say, that band is amazing. Don’t you think so? Yeah. You on it?

01:22:39:11 - 01:22:40:01 Leonard Feather: Yeah.

01:22:40:03 - 01:22:58:12 Speaker 7 Well, you know, it’s the same in the same sense. It doesn’t have to be a German to play Wagner or, an Italian to play the great Italian masses at this stage of the game. But right now, we are the last chance to get a real pure one of those things together. Yeah. Not that we’re better than the Bill Berry’s effort or even that we are more sincere.

01:22:58:12 - 01:23:19:14 Speaker 7 Of course not. Of course. No, I understand not that sure. And it’s like taking five different colors and making a section out of it, rather than four pure act five pure saxophone, you know, the Glenn Miller Reed section as opposed to the Duke Ellington section. His section always had five different. So the bass section with prayers sticking out.

01:23:19:14 - 01:23:48:02 Speaker 7 Oh, right. Right. You know, and not quite sync, but something about it. Yeah. Those that mixture of colors that’s that it’s something that can only come from the roots. And there’s another thing about. Getting into some tricky areas now, the nature of Afro American society, that individual this thing is strongly we always talk about we can’t get together on anything.

01:23:48:02 - 01:23:59:10 Speaker 7 And when Crabbe tries to get up the book of music. But, you know, the read sections were like that too. I don’t care. You can write it all day and Fred’s going to stick out a little bit. You go stick that. That’s all in there. Yeah, this is my sound. Yeah, that’s.

01:23:59:10 - 01:24:00:27 Leonard Feather: What I sound. Yeah.

01:24:02:25 - 01:24:10:04 Speaker 5 But it is a cultural thing as well as musical thing. I mean, we, we are talking about something different than just a band.

01:24:11:01 - 01:24:11:28 Leonard Feather: yeah.

01:24:12:00 - 01:24:29:14 Speaker 5 Yeah, we talked about that. I said a piece of geography and time and, Yeah. I mean, for instance, it would be ludicrous for the Bill Berry band to think in terms of doing gospel. It would fit. Yeah, into the fabric.

01:24:29:14 - 01:24:30:11 Speaker 7 Of our of this one.

01:24:30:18 - 01:24:32:07 Speaker 6 Yeah, yeah.

01:24:32:10 - 01:24:33:08 Leonard Feather: You see?

01:24:33:10 - 01:24:45:04 Speaker 7 Yes. we’re in Duke’s band because they know what that’s all about. Most of them, almost every man there is probably of a Baptist background and been to church and understands that.

01:24:45:04 - 01:24:46:21 Speaker 5 They listen to Ringing Bells.

01:24:46:22 - 01:25:09:08 Speaker 7 Oh, yeah. Listen. Anything they go to shouting. And what do you call it? Call and response and that whole thing. Yeah. And of course whites can interpret that beautifully, no doubt about it. But they don’t create it and see this man. Well we’ll be interpreting. We’ll be if we do it right. It’ll be creative. It’ll be creative. We might want to record all this stuff all over again and something might really happen.

01:25:09:13 - 01:25:16:03 Speaker 7 I know the Europeans will understand what we’re doing immediately. Those who were attuned, let’s hope we can get that fire going over here.

01:25:16:05 - 01:25:21:28 Leonard Feather: Yeah, well, that’s a possibility. But I think, the European thing is a probability.

01:25:22:01 - 01:25:23:19 Speaker 7 Yes, yes.

01:25:23:22 - 01:25:26:03 Leonard Feather: Like, oh, it’s getting late and.

01:25:26:06 - 01:25:27:02 Speaker 7 Not for me. Yeah.

01:25:27:03 - 01:25:29:21 Leonard Feather: I think it’s like, what time is it? What time?

01:25:29:23 - 01:25:32:14 Speaker 7 Well I like I would like to start going to work.

01:25:32:14 - 01:25:37:26 Speaker 5 Go ahead. turn the play on. It’s so polite.

01:25:37:28 - 01:25:40:10 Speaker 7 Yep. They’re set up. Well, obviously you have to.

01:25:40:10 - 01:25:46:20 Leonard Feather: Transcribe it and pick out what’s important is relevant. And then, probably talk to buddy separately.

01:25:46:27 - 01:25:47:16 Speaker 7 Yeah.

01:25:48:17 - 01:25:52:09 Leonard Feather: because really buddy was really part of the original as well. Oh, sure.

01:25:52:11 - 01:25:53:15 Speaker 7 Yes.

01:25:53:17 - 01:26:13:28 Speaker 5 No, that buddy Johnny and you know, it’s amazing because Johnny, had been talking about putting together, you know, along the lines it’s going now, but it’s, I would I would tell him Johnny is in spades. This is, what, 4 or 5 years ago when I thought I was going to be rich just as a hobby. I mean, I want to have my band.

01:26:13:28 - 01:26:28:14 Speaker 5 We were just about, you know, I’m gonna get a band together, I don’t care. Well, I can afford it or not. I’ll do this. Yeah. And I had talked to buddy about being a band man. But, you know, it’s kind of a way of actually doing it.

01:26:28:17 - 01:26:48:19 Speaker 7 You know, about four years ago, I went up in the studio and I pulled some guys together. Not this concept at all, but a pool who I could together. And I had the guys right with their head in that era, and it was called Back to Jazz. Did you ever see that thing? No. You never heard. What was it about four years ago.

01:26:48:22 - 01:26:50:08 Speaker 7 And I’ve got to get you a copy of.

01:26:50:08 - 01:26:53:15 Speaker 5 What you have on today.

01:26:53:18 - 01:26:59:28 Leonard Feather: Let’s get back to this. Is this going to be called black Hair jazz ensemble? Black hair jazz orchestra? You know what the name is? Yeah, exactly.

01:26:59:28 - 01:27:06:05 Speaker 7 Well, we’ve been saying, man, we’ve been saying. But, that’s a good question. No, because that sounds like,

01:27:06:07 - 01:27:07:22 Leonard Feather: That is two brass in Miami.

01:27:07:28 - 01:27:10:28 Speaker 7 Yes, but a full orchestra?

01:27:11:00 - 01:27:14:00 Speaker 5 No, I mean, on one side, because if we’re going to only.

01:27:14:03 - 01:27:17:12 Speaker 6 Lead a small band, it looks like. Yeah, we’ll call it a big band.

01:27:17:14 - 01:27:21:06 Leonard Feather: But Osama is a classy. Yes, yes.

01:27:21:09 - 01:27:23:13 Wayne Shorter: If you have any problems, get canceled or what?

01:27:23:20 - 01:27:27:25 Leonard Feather: No. Tell them we’d be there a little later. That’s it. I’ll be ready in a few minutes. We’re almost winding.

01:27:27:25 - 01:27:31:10 Speaker 7 Up. Jane Phillips said hi. Hey. Hi, Johnny. How are you? Okay.

01:27:31:10 - 01:27:33:21 Leonard Feather: Well,

01:27:33:23 - 01:27:35:06 Speaker 5 Yeah. That’s good.

01:27:35:08 - 01:27:38:29 Leonard Feather: Yeah, I think, so, yeah, for the purposes of this piece, anyway, you can always change it.

01:27:39:05 - 01:27:40:26 Speaker 5 No, it also fits well, we talked about.

01:27:41:01 - 01:27:51:29 Speaker 7 Well, it gives it a little, puts it on another level. Two things that the word I didn’t think of ensemble, I thought orchestra, but that almost connotes violins and things. But ensemble is.

01:27:51:29 - 01:27:57:11 Speaker 5 Supposed to get you. It allowed us to expand it. Yeah. Let me see that.

01:27:58:13 - 01:28:04:16 Leonard Feather: okay, let’s let it go. That for now, I can always talk more on the phone because I don’t have it right this minute.

01:28:04:18 - 01:28:18:03 Unknown Speaker: Oh, it’s just near the end of the.