Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Archie Shepp: Activist of the Avant-Garde

Transcript

Archie Shepp: Activist of the Avant-Garde · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. Before we get started, let's talk about Pushnick. Pushnick
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  Speaker 1: You can try it for free for seven days. Sign
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: up for Pushnick and Apple Podcasts subscriptions. Archie Shep's been
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: a leader in what's known as avant garde jazz since
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties. He famously played tenor sacks alongside John Coltrane,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Lee Morgan, and the great free jazz pianist Cecil Taylor.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: But like some musicians who are consider jazz artists, eighty
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: four year old Shep doesn't consider the music he plays
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: jazz at all. He calls it African American music to
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: acknowledge the Black Americans who created the tradition. Shep has
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: been politically engaged for his entire sixty year career. Every
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: one of his dozens of albums touches on African Americans
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: struggle to attain equal rights In some fashion one of
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: my favorite albums. For instance, Attica Blues takes a critical
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: look at the Attica prison riots of nineteen seventy one.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: On today's episode, I talked to Archie Shep about how
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: an assignment he received in the third grade sparked his activism.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Shep also talks about his relationship with Coltrane, who he
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: says never took his horn out of his mouth, and
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: he also recalls the rhetorical power of Malcolm X and
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: the lasting image of seeing him speak to a sea
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: of blackheads on the streets of Harta. This is broken
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: record liner note for the digital age. I'm justin Richmond.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Here's my conversation with Archie Shepp. I first heard your
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: music when I was probably fifteen years old. Sixteen years old,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: I discovered Attica Blues, Yeah, and it was at this
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: time when I was just developing a love of jazz
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: music and I heard Attica Blues and it changed my
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: whole idea of what people were doing then and what
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: jazz could be. And obviously there was a journey to
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: that album, but I thought it could be a good
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: place to start one because it was my starting point
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: with your music that I've since dived real deep into
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: and fallen in love with. But it also really matches
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: sort of the tenor of the present time here in America. Well,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: the idea was given to me by my drummer at
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: the time, Bieber Harris, who suggested that it might be
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: a good idea to commemorate what it going on in Attica.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: And I thought it was a good idea, and at
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: that point I began to write music and put together
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: the idea for the album. One of the reasons that
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: it really kind of opened my eyes to what jazz
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: could be because there's these kind of incredible vocals on
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: that album that are unlike other vocal jazz. It's not
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: like a vocal jazz record the way you might think
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: of an Ella Fitzgerald album sounding right, And I know
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: your drummer wrote those lyrics. Did he come to you
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: with the lyrics first? When he had the idea, Well,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: he didn't actually write the lyrics. I wrote the lyrics,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: and I gave him credit for it because at the
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: time he was trying to become a member of BMI
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: and he had to have some document recorded, and I
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: gave him cridit for the words the lyrics, though I
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: actually wrote the lyrics. Did you write them before you
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: compose the music? Well, at the same time, some of
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: the lyrics were suggested to me by him and just
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: in conversation. He had a worry of describing things about
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: the natural forces and various things that he would say
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: that gave me an idea of what I wanted to put.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I wanted to construct the lyrics only when the natural
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: forces told the world it's getting old. Do I worry? Yeah,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: I worry? Can you dig it about the human soul?
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: So some of some of his conversation influenced my writing
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: of the lyrics. Was it common for you or uncommon
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: for you you to sort of derive inspiration for a
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: song or an album from political happenings of the time. Well,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I've been politically engaged just about all my career. All
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: my albums have some make some illusion to struggle for
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: African Americans to attain equal equal rights. So it was
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: not unusual that Nattica Blues was dedicated and focused very
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: intensely on the on the civil rights struggle. Because I
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: was an activist on the streets with a very Baraka
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: and people Calvin Hicks, people like that, and we were
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: frequently on the streets of Harlem, with handing out the
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: handbills and occasionally making speeches on the street to the people.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: So it was not unusual that Attica was so focused. Well,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: when did you first become politically aware in terms of
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: the African American struggle for dignity, equality, freedom. There's a
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: very young man I remember in the third grade the
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: teacher asked us to write a paper about anything. Couldn't
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: write about much at that age, but I wrote a
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: paper about the struggle of black people to be free.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: And she was really quite amazed, and she asked me
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: where did I get those ideas from? And I said
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: from my father and the man upstairs. It was Billy Myers,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: who rented an apartment in my family's house. My father
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: and he used to on the weekends would discuss political events.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: So I was very early inversed in in the civil
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: rights dialogue. That would have been maybe mid forties. Yeah,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: I would say a lot of people now don't think
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: about there being a robust civil rights movement. You know,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: doctor King and Salma and all that is in you know,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: the fifties. Maybe ten years after this, well, there was
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: no movement, but black people were very aware of the
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: contradictions in the society, and my father and a man
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: upstairs just to frequently discuss the inconsistencies that existed in
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: black life, visa be the struggle to be freedom, which
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: which was almost continual after the end slavery, we've continually
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: fought to extricate ourselves from oppression. Your dad seems like
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: you must have had a pretty big influence on you.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're citing him as as a person would
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: kind of opened your mind and was you would always
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: hear him talk about the struggle for black freedom, and
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: I know he also played banjo. Yeah, it was. He's
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: an influencer who playing music. And also his mother, my grandmother,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Mamma Rose, was very active in civil rights affairs and
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: and the Baptists. Black Baptists were very committed in the
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: in the South, so they had what might have had
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: amount to pre civil rights organizations. And then my grandmother
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: frequented and she she read quite a bit, she ran intensely,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: and and her daughter, my aunt Advis was a school teacher,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: so I was frequently acquainted with was going on in
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: the black community. Did your dad teach you to play
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: your first instrument. Well, my first instrument was the banjo,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: and he taught me a few chords on the banjo.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: I later took piano lessons formerly and clarinet, and a
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: studied a bit of saxophone with Tony Mitchell. And in
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: the early days when you were learning banjo with your dad,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: what would you have been listening to or playing? Well,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: what he was playing? In fact, he played. He taught
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: me the first few bars of the Charleston. The Charleston
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: like the dance Charleston, Charleston dumped up up Babe, Dub
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: dub d dot dot. That's James P. Johnson's. It was
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: a dance, and it was a dance that was inspired
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: by the music The Charleston. That's so cool. How did
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: you end up settling on sax Well, I was a
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: boy in school. I heard play well, we had quite
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: a couple of very good musicians, Brinkley Blackwell, Norman Satchel,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: and a white white boy, George Obuletski. I believe it
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: was quite adapted the saxophone. So I was, you might say,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: influenced by all three of them, especially Satchel, who one
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: day he played for the Art in the Assembly a
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: piece of Sunny Stitt stringing the jug and I went
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: home and I told my mother I want to get
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: a saxophone. I was about fifteen at that age. After
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: that time, I had been studying piano and clarinet. Philadelphia
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: is a rich jazz town. When did you start listening
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: to jazz? When did you become aware of it? And
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: when do you start becoming aware of the musicians who
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: were in your city? In Philly, first, I became aware
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: of the music, and that was from the beginning because
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: my father played what you called so called jazz music,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: I called an African American music. From the very beginning,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: that was all I listened to. He had recordings of
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Duke Ellington, count By See a lot of blues recordings.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: So through him I became aware of what was going on,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: thinking about the people who are you're in your town,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: the Heath Brothers, Coltrane. Yeah. I heard Jimmy when I
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: was seventeen. I believe I'd go into a concert of
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: stand Getz. He was playing at a place called Reynolds
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Hall in Philadelphia, and he was there was Jimmy and
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Rainy and the place was packed. So they played the
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: first set, but Reynolds Hall had a number of rooms
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: that they rented out to private affairs, and a friend
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: of mine who I was with at the time, Eddie Ford,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: we started wandering around the building and we hit on
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: this room where there was some kind of affair going
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: on and Jimmy Heath was playing, and I remember we
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: were so attracted by what he played that we never
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: went back to hear the stand guests after the intermission.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: And I asked Jimmy when I took the liberty to
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: asked him if he would give me some help on
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: the saxophone, and he said he would. I remember going
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: to his home the following week and I found out
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: he didn't own a saxophone. In fact, he'd been playing
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: on a borrow at horn and I brought my sax
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: with me and he played it. I couldn't get much
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: shout of it, but I remember after he played it,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: it seemed like a ticket the life of its own.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: It's the color had changed the who He sort of
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: warmed it up and hung out with him all that
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: That afternoon he went to his jam session and played.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: And the next week I was going back from my
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: lesson and his brother two d Albert answered the door
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: and he said, Jimmy's in the joint. He was in
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: jail and he stayed in jail for six years. WHOA,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't know that part of the story. Yeah,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: he had. They had caught him with smoking jan on
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: the back of a car and he was imprisoned for
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: six years. So I never got the second lesson. Wow.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: So he had one lesson with him, Yeah, And that
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: was really listening to him play, and that was quite
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: informative by itself. But I never really formally got to
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: study with him. I know. Not too long after that
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: you had you were in a band with Lee Morgan. Yeah.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: I met Lee as a kid. I was a year
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: older than him, but he was very advanced and he
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: was playing with really professional music. He was a professional
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: when I met him. He was playing with guys like
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: C Sharp and Coltrane. He was known even though he
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: was only fifteen or sixteen years old. I asked him
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: to give me some help on the instrument, and he
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: consented to do so. The first session I made with him,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: I had only heard stern gets really on the saxophone,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: and I tried to create my stand get sound, and
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: he and his friend who were observing me. They seemed
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: to be somewhat They thought it was rather peculiar. They
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: didn't I don't think that they They accepted my offering.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: So finally he asked me to play something with him,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: to play a blues and I learned the blues from
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: my father because I knew the blues instinctively. When I
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: finished playing this my solo, he said, man, don't ever change.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: And that's how we developed a very lasting friendship. And
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: when he would have blues gigs, he would call me
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: to play with him. Because he played standards in Ballot,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: he had a very wide knowledge of music, but I
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: was sort of limited to the blues. But I could
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: play the blues. So it's like you went back to
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: the source. Well, yeah, I used the sound that I knew.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: I'd heard a lot of Bevin Webster prayers through the
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: recordings of my father, and I suppose that sounded a
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: little bit like Ben. That was my natural sound and
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: the sound that I later made my own. Yeah, Ben
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Webster's quite a quite a soulful cat man. His sound
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: is oh yeah, soulful brother. We'll be right back with
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: more from Archie Shep after a quick break we're back
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: with more of my conversation with Archie Shep. So you
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: had a bean with Lee Morgan and Carl Holmes called
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: the Jolly Rompers. Well, in fact, I was with the
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Jolly Carl and John Holmes. They had a band out
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: in Mullagrove, Pennsylvania. But I kept bugging, bugging them too
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: to get Lee Morgan in the band. So when they
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: got Lee, they fired me. You know, so much for
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: trying to do a good thing, Arn'tie. Yeah, yeah, trying
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: to help my friends get a gig. You mentioned that
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Lee Morgan was a year or two younger than you,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: but when you look at his career compared to yours,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: you know, his was much more sort of straight ahead.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: So it's funny to me that you two coming from
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: the same town, that you, being the older of the two,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: kind of had this much more from the start, this
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: very adventurous career where you were really exploring and stretching out.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: And not that Lee wasn't Lee was incredible, but his
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: sound was much more in line with the hard bop
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: sound tradition. Yeah that was because I seemed up the
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Cecil Taylor. Really, I went in a direction I never
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: thought I would, in fact so called free jazz reimprovisation
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: that was encouraged by Cecil, and he kind of opened
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: my ears to another direction. And Cecil was a piano
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: player and maybe also like a poet from New York. Yeah,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: it was one of the first to really completely dispensed
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: with traditional harmony and tempe. And after Ornette came to
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: New York. And I don't know, Ornette was probably doing
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: the same thing out in California, but ct was the
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: influence in New York. When did you first hear Cecil
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Taylor and what made you when you heard him gravitate
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: towards that sound? Well, I didn't really like the sound
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: I heard him on record, and I wasn't very impressed.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: My background was, as you said, very much oriented towards
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: lee and the kind of music he played. But his
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: bass player heard me at a jam session in New
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: York and Cecil was looking for a saxophone player, so
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: he recommended me to Cecil, and Cecil hired me without
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: having really heard me, on the advice of his bass player.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: I met him one night on the streets in New
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: York in the West Village, and somehow he seemed to
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: know me though I had never been introduced to him.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: So you're Archie Shepp. He said, you want to make
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: a record, and I said yeah. Almost immediately after I
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: met him, we started rehearsing for a recording which we
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: made the World of Cecil Taylor and I was with
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: his man that We didn't work much for about two years,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: and he was quite an influence on me ideationally in
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: terms of my ideas. And he was the first time
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: I heard of Malcolm X was through Cecil really and
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: we used to have discussions after rehearsals went on for hours.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: So he was quite quite an enormous influence on my
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: political and social ideas. Did you ever see Malcolm speak
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: in those days? Oh? Yeah, I heard him at Temple
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Number seven and then on the streets of Harlem. He
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: spoke when one afternoon the street was crowded with the
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: people or you could see his heads black heads, and
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: and the police at that time were mostly white. They
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: were in the crowd. They were read with with probably fear.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: And Malcolm he mounted the podium and at that time
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: you had to have the American flag when you gave
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: a speech. You'd probably still do, and he had this
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: little flag that you get from Wolvers. You could hardly
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: see it from where I was, and he planted it
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: on the podium and he said, you see that flag.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Your mother was raped under that flag in the crowd,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: and oh yeah, he says, your father was murdered under
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: that plague. And the police were really visibly frightened by
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: intimidated by his language. But he was a probable speaker,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: and I was immediately attracted to his discourse. Around the
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: same time, you not only fall in with Cecil Taylor,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: who's ideologically expanding your horizon, but musically be expanding not
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: only your vocabulary but the way you think of the
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: framework for the music you play. And then you're also
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: hearing Malcolm X speaking Harlem and at the time, no
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: one else was framing the struggle for African Americans the
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: way Malcolm was. He had a great way of making
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: you understand your own condition yeah and still just sense
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: of identity, and made you proud of your African heritage
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: because he would often talk about the anti sdents of slavery,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: and it was an awakening. It broughtened my horizons in
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: a way that I never imagined coming from Philadelphia. So
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Cecil Taylor was a big influence on sort of your
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: journey to avant garde music. But also from your hometown
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: is Coltrane, who we were friends with and played with,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: who was also a person who really moved things forward
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: with in terms of where jazz could go, along with Ornett,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: along with Cecil. Did you pick up any of that
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: from Coltrane as well? Well? John confirmed the direction I
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: was taking. He came out of the tradition, and like
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Hornette and Cecil, he didn't start on the fringes of
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: the music. He began right in the center of it.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: And he was an improviser par excellence. And I was
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: very influenced by primarily by his work, and as I say,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: he convinced me that by by example, that I was
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: right in terms of what my search because he did.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: He later recorded with Cecil Taylor, and he was a
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: close friend of Hornett's, and so when I met him
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: at the Five Spot, he was playing with Monk and
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: he never really took the horn out of his mouth
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: from the time he started on the intermissions, when when
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: the other guys would be at the bar, he was
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: he went into the kitchen and he was practicing the
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: pieces that he that he had learned from Monk he
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: was refining them. And so after I heard him one night,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: I asked him I was I was at the club
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: of your night to hear him. I asked him if
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: he would help me with the saxophone, and he graciously conceded,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: and I was at his house the next morning at
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: ten o'clock. Of course, he didn't get home until four
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: in the morning, and then he usually practiced, so he
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: went to sleep, and so he probably hadn't gone to
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: bed and sleep until about six, and I was there
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: at ten. So his wife at the time, Naima, told
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: me that he was asleep, but I could wait for him.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: So at about one o'clock he got up and he
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: went right to the saxophone, which was on the sofa,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: and he played about fifteen minutes and under rooted something
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: like I imagined was giant steps, of which later became
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Giants Steps. Then when he asked me to play for him,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: and his advice to me was to keep my hands
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: closer to the keys so I would be able to
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: move faster. And he didn't really formally teach me. I
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: just had conversations with him. I remember talking with him
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: one day, and he spent the whole afternoon talking about
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Monk and Miles and I'll teatum. And he explained to
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: me how he resolved chords, maybe starting a fifth away
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: from the tonic and coming down and half steps playing scales,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: something that I later tried to adapt to my own style.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: But really basically it was a communion of my appreciation
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: for him, and more than actual saxophone lessons, we became
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: conversant and and I really, I guess because I appreciate
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: it him so much. I look looks up to him
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: as an older brother. I had been an only child,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: but an older brother that I wish I had had
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: and probably wish you had more time with him, sure too, Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: And John Coldman helped you get your recordy with Impulse, right, yeah,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: he was essential in my getting that recording. I had
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: been calling Bob Theel, the A and R Man Impulse.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: I call him frequently. At the time. I was un
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: welfare and I used to take a dollar a day
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: and change it to dimes custom dime to make a
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: phone call, and I would call his office, his secretary Lillian,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: whom I got to know later on fairly well. But
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: I always say Bob is out to lunch or he's
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: gone for the day. Finally, I asked John, on the
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: advice of Bill Dixon, who was working together. He said, well,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: col change your friend, why don't you ask him to
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: get you a record date. So I kind of gave
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: me enough of a nerve to ask John the people
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: to help me talk to Bob Thield. And he looked
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: at me very hard, and he said, you know, a
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: lot of people think I'm easy. And I said, John,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: and that's not where I'm coming from. I'm serious. And
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: he knew I respected him, so he said, well, I'll
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: see what I can do. The next day, I called
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: and Lee and the secretary said, Bob's he's out to lunch,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: but he's expecting your call. In that way, I arranged
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: a recording date. He tried to talk me out of
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: him by saying that you guys are avant garde and
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: you want to play your own music, you will have
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: to play the songs of Coltrane. But I had already
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: been rehearsing. I knew that that was his line, and
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: I had already been rehearsing with Roswell Rudd a repertory
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: of John's music. So I said, yeah, I know, and
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: I'm ready. So that the date was arranged and when
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: we arrived at the studio, Rudy Van Yelder's Bob, but
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: he really was he didn't want to do this recording
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: at all. He has his back turned to me and
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: all I could see was smoke coming out of his pipe.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: And by the time we did the third recording and
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: so he said, hey, this stuff is great. I'm gonna
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: call John and ask him to come and hear you.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: So he called Sharane out on Long Island. We were
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: in New Jersey, and Shane very graciously conceded to come
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: to the recording date. It was late at night, and
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: so when he arrived you will see on the album
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: cover he doesn't have on any sucks. But I later
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: heard that John didn't wear socks anyway. So and he
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: played Bob. Theeld played some of the examples of the
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: recording for Train and the only one that he didn't
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: like was the piece that I had written. It was
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: a piece called Rufus Swung is back at lasted the
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: win in his next step. It was a title. It
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: was a bit lengthy and political in nature, and he
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: didn't wanted to use that, and he said, I don't
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: like this recording, and uh, he played it for John
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: and John said I like it, Bob, so they left
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: it him. So that's the only piece that I wrote
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: that's on the recording. It's the recording. It's war for Train, Yeah,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: and it's a Those are some beautiful renditions of of Coltranes. Yeah.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: I thought we we nailed it. We got it wasn't
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: exactly the way he would have played it. That's what
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: makes it great, though, Thank you. And you also played
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: on the Love Supreme sessions with Coltrane and then also
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: on the Ascension record. Yes, how are those sessions with John?
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: I was always overwhelmed by the presidents of John Coltrane,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: and I always tried to do my best and to
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: present my work as originally as possible. I Love Supreme,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: I was, I suppose somewhat intimidated, though he didn't mean
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: for me to be. But I had a problem just
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: expressing what I really might have done, because I could
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: have really approached the song more moodally and gotten into it.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: But I wanted to do something that was somehow different,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: and so the first takes I don't know I don't.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: I didn't feel like I got into the music like
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: I really wanted to. But as we did several other
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: ticks they've released them recently, I can see that I
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: relaxed and I got into the music more intensely. What
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: did you think of the music he was making on
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: A Love Supreme and Ascension too at that time? I mean,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: was it surprising to you that that's what he was composing? No, no,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: not at all. In fact, when we did Ascension, he
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: had a set of chords that he gave to McCoy
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: to play as the sort of interludes, and he would
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: play on the interludes. I often wish I had asked
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: him what were the chords that he gave McCoy to play,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: But I didn't think to do that. After a quick break,
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: we'll be back with more from Archie Chep. We're back
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: with the rest of my conversation with Archie Chap. There's
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: a lot of Latin influence in your music, even songs
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: that might not even maybe harmonically or melodically sound Latin.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: There's a there's a you know, like a three over two,
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: or you know, there's a rhythm sometimes going on and
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: through your music. Where did born in the South, move
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: to Philly, Dad plays banjo, slot of blues, going on
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: jazz music, of course, Where did this Latin influence coming?
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: At what point did that enter your consciousness? Well? When
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: I moved to New York, I played in the Puerto
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: Rican band with a guy called Chito Castro. He features
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: that marengue and rhythms like that, which I quickly and
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: it became attached to. And I still like those rhythms.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: What is it about those rhythms that appeal to you. Well,
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: there's sense of dance and the dances they do are
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: really quite exciting. And it's interesting too, because by the
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: time you start recording records the sixties, jazz has really
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: gotten away from the idea of jazz is being dance
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: music is kind of gone or out of favor, and
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: you're bringing this element back into it. It's kind of interesting. Well,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: I did, and I always consider dancing and essential fund
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: of African American music expression. This is a good chance
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: to talk about why you don't like the term jazz.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: I read at some point the word art you said
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: you felt is a passive word. There's no function to
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: the word art. Art. It's not a functional thing, and
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: you consider at least your music, or maybe music in general,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: to be functional. Is that still something you believe? Is
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: that something you ascribed to still? Yeah? Absolutely, And dance
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: is a function of music. So yes, I do feel
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: that the word art is a rather abstract unless it's
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: connected to something that has meaning. I think a lot
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: of people would say avant garde, and you, you know you,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: I think you do consider the music you play avant garde.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: That drings up an anecdote Duke and the Max and
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Charlie Mingus but recording Money Jungle, and the story goes
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: that mister Mingus asked mister Ellington, why don't we do
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: something avant garde Duke, and Duke said, oh, Charles, and
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: let's not go back to that. So that's sort of
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: how I feel about avant guard because when I was
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: a younger man, they called me the leader of the
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: avant guard, and now they call me a veteran of
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: the avant guard. Duke's idea was, when you name the music,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: you date it in time. So avalant guard is a
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: way of describing the music, but it doesn't fix the
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: music in a block of time. Imagine you feel the
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: same way about the term jazz. The label jazz, well, yeah,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: and then I think the jazz is really a term
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: that limits the expression and the true meaning of African
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: American music, so that somehow blacks are left out of
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: the equation. They have made a part of the equation,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: but in fact they're never given credit for the creation
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: of the music. It wouldn't exist without without our people.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Not to say that white people can't play that music,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: but that's defined by African American innovations. Going back to
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: Louis Arms Show up to Coltrane, all the key innovators
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: have been African Americans. In fact, that the word jazz
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: is a French word, in my opinion, it's not in
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: the American lexicon English lexicon. There is a word in
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: French jazz a, which means to talk light batter, And
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: there's a town in France called Jazz, which is the
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: way jazz was originally spelled j ss. Yes, so it
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: seems to me to confirm the origins of the word
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: to the French people who settled in New Orleans and
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: who gave it the name jazz. I mean, yeah, that
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: would done to make sense. Then that would be the
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: French connection, Yeah, the French connection. Yeah. Yes. Do you
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: have a composition of yours that you return to most often,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: either in your mind or and you're playing something you
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: think about most often? In other words, a favorite composition
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: or one that you just, for whatever reason, returned to
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: most often. I have a piece Ima, which is dedicated
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: to my daughter. I played that quite a bit, and
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: another piece I dedicated to Alma Hope Hope too, which
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: I have played quite a bit. I'll ask one last question.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: When Quincy Jones put out Back on the Block in
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: the early nineties, I remember that you weren't the biggest
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: fan of it because it put people like Dizzy Gillespie
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: and surrounded them by these different trappions, these different idioms.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: So I was curious, you know, how your views have
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: changed since then. You've never seemed to be a person
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: who felt restricted to one style music, So I'm just
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: curious how you felt collaborating with your nephew Who's Who's
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: a rapper, rap poetic. I feels very close to rap
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: because I did would would would be called a slam today,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: I guess and tribute to my grandmother Murmur Rose back
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: in the sixties, and I did another poem set to
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: music called the Wedding when Elsa in California. So I
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: feel that in a way, I'm kind of one of
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: the originators of rap music, along with the Last Poets
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: and Lengths and News and Melbourne Van Trifles. I was
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: very early into mixing words and music, So playing with
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: my nephew was really a privilege. I enjoyed it very
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: much because it's like getting back into something that I
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: had been explored many years before. Well, Archie, I don't
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: want to keep you from your practice. I know you're
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: gonna be practicing now. Thank you so much for doing this.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: It's really an honor, and it's been an honor to
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: listen to your music all these years as well. Thank
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: you so much, Thank thank you. You've asked some very
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: interesting questions and this is a very interesting interview. Thanks
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: Archie Chip for sharing stories with us from his incredible career.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Do you hear our favorite Archie Cheps songs? Tad to
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: Broken Record podcast dot com. Be sure to subscribe to
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: We can find all of our new episodes. You can
• 42:04
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• 42:07
  Speaker 1: produced helpfully Arose, Jason Gambrell, Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler, and
• 42:12
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• 42:16
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• 42:40
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