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Doug Davis: Jazz Extraordinaire - History of the Bakersfield Jazz Festival · San Joaquin Sound

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  It's 1988, and today's the day for the second
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  annual Bakersfield Jazz Festival at Cal State
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  Bakersfield. You, Doug Davis, are in charge,
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  but it's raining hard. There's no amphitheater
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  yet, just a temporary structure that doesn't
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  offer much protection from all this rain. What
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  else could go wrong? So much already had. The
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  main sponsor from last year did not sponsor us
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  this year. Three weeks ago, Grammy winner Larry
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  Carlton, who was supposed to be the headliner,
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  was shot by an intruder and had to cancel. This
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  rain could cause the 2 ,000 festival goers to
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  leave and end the hope that the jazz festival
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  will continue on in the years to come. Luckily,
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  in the afternoon... The rain slows, and the festival
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  goes on to be a great success. I guess we'll
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  have to do it again. You're listening to the
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  San Joaquin Sound Podcast, the podcast about
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  music in Bakersfield and the surrounding valley.
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  I'm your host, AJ Rodriguez. For this episode,
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  I interviewed Doug Davis. He's an incredible
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  professor, amazing pianist. saxophone player,
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  and award -winning composer of classical music,
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  jazz, and even radio jingles. He has played hundreds
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  if not thousands of concerts in Bakersfield and
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  has even played in Paris, France, and New York.
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  Chick Corea, Benny Wallace, and Larry Coriel
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  all recorded his compositions. He's a logistical
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  wizard because he ran the Bakersfield Jazz Festival
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  for 30 years. He played in many groups including
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  Sanctuary, Jamology, Sneakers, and Dr. D's Debris.
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  So you were born in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1948,
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  right? And you grew up in Clinton, Tennessee,
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  right? That's correct. Yeah, I was in Clinton,
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  not only, well, from birth till I went to college,
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  which was actually in Knoxville, Tennessee. So
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  it was only like 20 miles away. That's great.
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  And your parents played the piano together, right?
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  I read that they would play Rhapsody in Blue.
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  that's right and uh i remember uh going to sleep
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  my dad would play the lower part in this piano
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  duet and my mother who was really quite a well
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  -trained pianist would play the upper part my
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  dad uh you know he would give it some accent
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  and some bass and some bravura and she provided
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  all the technique you might want and it was really
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  quite extraordinary that's amazing and You lived
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  through desegregation, right? And your parents,
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  they dealt with that. You had some violence that
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  happened, right? It is true. In 1956, actually,
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  our high school was the first high school to
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  get a court order to desegregate. Everyone in
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  the community just got ready. And for the most
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  part, we expected everything to run smooth. When
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  it actually happened, there were some outside
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  forces that really filled the town and stirred
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  up a lot of fear and a lot of hate. And suddenly
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  we were exploded. By the end of the first week,
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  there was like a town of... 4 ,000 people, which
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  is Clinton, was like filled up with a couple
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  of more thousand on the street protesting against
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  the idea of integration. And it was the first
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  court -ordered integration, so it gained the
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  attention of kind of a national perspective.
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  So a lot of news stories were run about the troubles.
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  You know, I was eight years old. So I had two
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  brothers. One of them was in the high school.
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  And my mother is an English teacher in the high
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  school. And I do remember the night when we looked
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  out of our house and we had a cross burning in
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  our yard. Because I guess my parents were connected
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  to trying to make this happen for the community.
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  Yeah. It went on from there as quite a story.
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  I mean, we had tanks rolling down our streets
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  within that first 10 days. And the National Guard
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  came out. Eventually, they had to close the school
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  for a moment. My dad, when they reopened the
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  school, walked the African -American students
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  back down to the school to come back to school.
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  And so... The spotlight was on my parents, both
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  as teacher and my dad was a lawyer who was basically
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  trying to live by the law. Yeah, that's amazing.
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  So back then, what type of music were you listening
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  to growing up? Well, growing up, as any kid,
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  I'm listening to whatever's in the air. And my
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  parents had a record player, and they did have
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  a mix of musicals. So Oklahoma and South Pacific
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  were records that were in the house. We had Ella
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  Fitzgerald doing, with Harry Belafonte, Porgy
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  and Bess. That was quite a big album. And then
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  we had some jazz players, because my dad had
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  a... a love of jazz. So he had Ahmad Jamal, who's
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  a jazz pianist, and Earl Garner. Both of these
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  jazz pianists were an inspiration to him, I think.
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  He loved them. What was the first instrument
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  that you learned to play? Well, I started piano
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  lessons when I was about eight or nine. And like
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  my older brothers, somewhere around 12, I decided
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  I didn't want to continue. And I had taken up,
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  at that time, saxophone in the band. So I just
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  continued playing saxophone throughout high school.
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  I was lucky enough to have a neighbor who wanted
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  to start a band, so I ended up playing saxophone
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  in his band throughout high school. I think that's
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  probably more money than I've ever made as a
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  musician, it seemed. Wow. Because we played almost
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  every weekend, it seemed, during the school year
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  for dances that would be in. our community or
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  neighboring communities. So that band was called
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  The Embers, right? That's right. I saw this picture
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  in your book. of that oh but i also found this
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  picture of when you won the tennessee battle
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  of the bands that's true yes we uh represented
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  tennessee at the national battle of the bands
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  it was up in boston i think that was the first
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  time i had ever flown in an airplane wow and
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  uh you know i was at that point i saxophone uh
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  i i was beginning to play piano in a more let's
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  say, accomplished way. We took that trip to Boston
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  and it was quite an amazing moment. I would say
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  that we were a kind of blue -eyed soul band and
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  we had three horns up front and had our moves
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  down and had a great singer, as you might imagine.
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  Otherwise, those bands need to roll it up and
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  just let it go. Yeah. But that was fun. AJ, you've
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  done your research. Yeah, I did. There's a lot
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  to find. So another thing I think that's important
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  that happens around this time is you were in
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  a high school play, Rebel Without a Cause. Can
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  you tell me about that? Yes, I can. People know
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  Rebel Without a Cause as maybe the movie that
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  James Dean sort of emerged as a big star in Hollywood.
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  He played the rebel, as it were. And I actually
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  was cast as the rebel in the play. So I went
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  to my mother, who was directing the play. She
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  was an English teacher at the high school. And
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  I said, you know, we need music for this. And
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  she said, I think I agree. I think you're right.
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  So why don't you write it? And so I wrote the
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  music, incidental music, for the scene changes
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  in the play. And that was really the beginning
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  of my composition. And I had fun, and I threw
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  myself into it. Really, that started everything
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  when I was about 16 as far as writing music.
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  That's awesome. So after high school, you went
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  to college at the University of Tennessee and
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  you said that was in Knoxville, right? Correct,
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  correct. It's close by. To be honest, I was...
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  probably a little silly coming out of high school.
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  I just assumed anybody would be happy to have
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  me come to their school. So I had only applied
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  to one school, which was Princeton. In April,
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  I got a rejection from them. I was, oh, oh no.
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  And it turns out University of Tennessee was
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  the right place for me to go. You might as well.
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  take the cards as they're dealt to you. But I
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  was, I worked very hard to find out as soon as
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  possible whether this music thing was going to
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  work out for me. So I was kind of on fire. I
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  went to school and went to summer school. And,
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  you know, I went through those college years
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  very fast in three years because I was just going
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  to summer school and I was. testing out of courses
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  when I could. Wow. But you were working at the
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  same time at the lacrosse club, right? I did
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  work at the lacrosse club. That's sort of, you
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  have to realize, when I went to the University
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  of Tennessee, I knew I needed piano. So I auditioned
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  because my mother was a gifted pianist and a
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  well -trained pianist. Before my audition, I
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  practiced furiously for a couple of weeks one
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  of the pieces that she played, and I had her
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  interpretation in my ear. So I kind of mimicked
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  that in my audition, and I sounded like I really
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  could play piano. Of course, I hadn't really
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  played and taken lessons since I was 12. But
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  when I started out, I went to my first piano
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  lesson and he very quickly realized, oh, that
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  I didn't know the fingerings for any of the scales
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  or anything. So I had to work doubly hard to
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  gain that skill. And I thought, you have to have
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  piano skills to be a composer. So if I want to
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  be a composer, I need to face this. And so I
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  was in the practice room trying to read my two
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  hands now. It was extremely difficult, and I
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  would get extremely frustrated. So I found myself,
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  in order to blow off steam, I would just start
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  improvising. And I began probably... Half of
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  my time in the practice room, and this is like
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  three to four hours, is just making up stuff
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  and playing. And people thought, you know, you're
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  outside the practice room. You think, wow, he
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  can play piano. Only because you play what you
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  can. That led to me getting a gig at the La Crosse
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  Club, playing in a band with Sam Bevins, who
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  was an elder statesman of the Knoxville jazz
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  scene. And I came to a rehearsal with him, and
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  he realized also that, oh, I really didn't. no
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  jazz. I just made up stuff at the piano. So he
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  introduced me to a few moves on the keyboard.
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  And of course, I went and practiced them very
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  hard because I had to go back to the gig. And
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  as a young jazz player, you find yourself pretty
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  embarrassed just to get through the night. So
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  that was a great experience. That was really
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  the summer, my summertime gig that first summer
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  at the University of Tennessee. So that hard
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  work paid off, though, that you're talking about,
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  because you went to Harvard next, right? I did.
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  I did. And in essence, I think I'm lucky enough
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  to where I can do well with kind of what's being
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  asked of me. you know, making good grades or
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  passing whatever exams and things like that.
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  And I was lucky enough to be at the University
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  of Tennessee where my composition teacher, David
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  Van Vactor, was also the conductor of the Knoxville
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  Symphony. And so that first year, at the end
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  of the year, I had written a piece for orchestra
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  that he conducted. That led to a second piece
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  for orchestra. And I wrote for the University
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  of Tennessee Band, which is really a gangbusters
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  fine ensemble. And I had quite a few good performances.
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  at the University of Tennessee that I was able
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  to cobble together for my application. And it's
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  interesting. I was accepted to Harvard. And you
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  have to understand, at this point, this is like
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  1969. So when you graduate from college in the
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  60s, late 60s, you're immediately drafted because
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  Vietnam is going on. The idea that I was rushing
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  through college was kind of crazy because when
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  you finish your degree, they did have a college
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  deferment. Everyone was trying to go to college
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  because the alternative was just going to Vietnam.
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  Well, what happened, of course, I was drafted
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  and I went to take my draft. in essence failed
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  the physical at one of the tests was they had
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  a little box they said take off your glasses
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  look in the box what do you see and i look in
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  and i say nothing you know i'm pulled out of
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  this whole test i figure i'm going to vietnam
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  my eyes are correctable it just i need glasses
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  yeah anyway He didn't ask me any questions. He
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  flashlights. And in the end, he walked toward
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  me from 20 feet away and said, let him know what
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  I see as soon as I can see it. And he's walking
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  toward me. And he gets about, I don't know, five
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  feet away. And I said, it's a triangle. It's
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  a triangle. And it was a face. Oh, no. And he
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  said, hmm. I think that what I said really changed
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  his mind. They gave me, they're only going to
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  call me up unless they absolutely have to have
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  me. And that allowed me to accept the fellowship
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  to go to Harvard. So I was pretty lucky in that
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  regard. So how was your Harvard experience? It
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  was... Wonderful, quite rich. Harvard has extraordinary
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  people, both teaching and as students there.
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  And so I met some people that now are maybe the
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  most famous composers in America, like John Adams
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  is a composer who was in my class. wow at harvard
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  and uh they uh a graduate program in music composition
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  is a relatively new thing i mean they had graduate
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  degrees for music history you know the study
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  of scholarly texts and things like that yeah
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  but the idea that you would get a degree in creating
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  music was new. And it only started, I think,
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  a year before my arrival there. So I was among
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  the very first in that group. And I had wonderful
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  teachers. Some were incredibly demanding, like
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  overwhelmingly demanding. Like to do what you're
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  asking, it means I have to give 80 hours a week
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  at least. Wow. So that was not a problem to them.
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  I was a young father, so I had more important
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  things. I had a one -year -old that I was looking
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  forward to coming home to. But you pay the price,
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  and I had my own gift at being able to handle
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  that kind of load. But on top of that, you're
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  trying to write music, right? Yeah. That year,
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  I decided to write a piano piece that would kind
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  of capitalize on all that improvising. I'd done
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  it at the University of Tennessee, all that work,
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  and just find out how intense a world I could
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  create pianistically. And so I wrote this piece,
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  and it's very hard to notate. First, it's like
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  notation is very precise, and it's like trying
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  to capture the flitter of wings on a flying insect.
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  And then it's all subjective in the end because
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  someone has to see this incredibly precise notation
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  and they have to make it into sound. So that's
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  just like, oh, wow. So I was the one who would
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  play it. And near the end of the year, we had
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  an assessment where... Someone comes to assess
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  the music program and I had been playing with
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  a friend of mine who was a trumpeter and he grew
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  up near Boston. And so we went to his home and
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  we were having a feast and we were throwing rocks
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  in a rock quarry and suddenly my glasses fell
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  off and went way over the cliff into the water.
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  So I was walking to Harvard, and I could barely
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  see because I had no glasses. And I walked in,
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  and they said, oh, here's a young graduate student.
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  Let me introduce you. This is Doug Davis. He's
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  from Tennessee. And I heard the person speaking,
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  and it was Leonard Bernstein. I knew Leonard
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  Bernstein because, you know, he had his little
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  TV shows during the late 50s. And Leonard Bernstein
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  and I spent three hours. And at the end of it,
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  I said, I've got to go to class, my composition
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  class. And I go there. And of course, my teacher
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  asked me to play. because Leonard Bernstein comes
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  with me. And as you might imagine, everyone in
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  the class is wondering, like, why I'm walking
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  in with Leonard Bernstein. But I played my piece,
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  and, you know, he was commenting on, like, just
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  how extraordinary this one page was. And I said,
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  yeah, it was hard to get to. And he said, but
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  you talked about your jazz background. And I
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  don't hear that jazz influence necessarily. And
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  I said, well, you know, I'm from East Tennessee,
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  so I don't know what you know about jazz in East
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  Tennessee, which was a little flip. I think I
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  was out of my mind with adrenaline. And I said,
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  he said, no, I mean, what? Where do you think
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  that influence lies within this music? And I
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  said, well, I love jazz too much to imitate it
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  and mock it. And I realize I'm talking to Leonard
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  Bernstein, who's got West Side Story and all
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  these wonderful things which kind of take the
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  jazz music into another realm. anyway i walked
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  away and uh he remembered he called me back five
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  years later i was with him in a discussion group
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  when he came for some lectures oh wow at harvard
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  so i mean we didn't really stay in touch but
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  it was an interesting connection and of course
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  a connection that only a harvard might might
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  give you yeah What about Earl Kim? Earl Kim,
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  he's my heart and soul. Earl Kim taught an analysis
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  class, musical analysis, and he really taught
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  the class every year, every semester, as well
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  as teaching composition. So kind of everybody
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  took Earl Kim's analysis class. Because his insights
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  were just kind of exquisite. And he also just
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  was willing to let you sit on not having an answer.
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  Maybe there is no answer. And he could sit on
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  your dis -ease. And he could also... coax out
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  of you something deeper in yourself. So yeah,
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  he eventually becomes the composition teacher
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  after that first year. I had Leon Kirshner as
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  a teacher the first year, and he went to go write
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  an opera for the next couple of years. And so
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  I was lucky enough to have Earl Kim as my teacher.
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  I know you went to Paris. Was that before you
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  graduated or after? I had finished up the master's
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  program, and they have a traveling fellowship
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  that they give to a grad student, and they gave
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  it to me. And that's when I went to Paris. It
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  was after, I think, three years in the graduate
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  program. And I was ready, I think. to have a
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  moment where I could kind of, I wouldn't say
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  reinvent myself, but really to just find myself.
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  Wow. It was very tough. I would not go. They
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  gave me the fellowship, and I'm hanging around
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  in the building because I have a son. I'm not
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  going to leave. Things had gone a little south
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  in the marriage. We were kind of separated by
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  that point. But still, you know, the high point
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  of my day was playing with the kid. But in the
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  end, they said, you know, a lot of people wanted
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  that fellowship. And here you are, you're just
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  walking around in the building. If you're not
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  going to travel. Maybe we should reconsider.
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  Well, I will go see a friend I had in Paris.
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  And that's what I did. And, you know, I was kind
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  of strangely footloose and fancy free, as it
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  were. And I was able to meet musicians. And when
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  I would play, things would happen. You know,
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  people would hear and say, You should do a concert.
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  And I would say, well, okay. And they said, there's
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  this theater. We'll just book you in there. How's
• 27:26
  next Thursday? Okay. That's cool. Yeah. And I
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  was playing for dance classes, just playing piano
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  as people dance for a couple of different things.
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  One would be like a jazz. jazz thing so i just
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  start some time and keep it going and you know
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  dance classes that someone's counting one two
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  three four then they wanted me to uh well they
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  took some of my music and made a ballet that
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  went on tour a dance troupe well that's that's
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  pretty extraordinary and uh uh lots of opportunities
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  came it was kind of very uh interesting and wonderful
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  moment there but in the end i had to make my
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  way back you know my real life was back with
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  uh in the world where i have a son yeah you know
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  so i i was back within about it was pretty long
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  like six months in paris so you came back and
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  you finished your doctorate right and then You
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  worked at some other colleges, right? I did.
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  Once I finished the doctorate, really there are
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  only about 12 jobs in the country and internationally
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  at that moment, or at least according to the
• 28:57
  placement office at Harvard, these were the jobs
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  available, and I applied to all of them. And
• 29:05
  that first year, I got no job. And I was thinking,
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  well, I would get letters that would say, well,
• 29:14
  thank you for your application to this job at
• 29:18
  Eastern Kentucky University, but we have decided
• 29:21
  to take the assistant conductor of the Berlin
• 29:24
  Philharmonic, whose degree is from Juilliard,
• 29:26
  and already has 12 years of experience, and I'm
• 29:30
  saying, well, sure. Yeah, I would take that guy.
• 29:37
  So that first year, I didn't get a job. And I
• 29:46
  ended up substitute teaching for a period. Actually,
• 29:51
  I was a Keno writer. You know what Keno is? Is
• 29:54
  that a gambling thing? A gambling thing in Reno.
• 29:57
  My dad became a judge. He was a lawyer earlier.
• 30:00
  He became a judge. They have judge school, and
• 30:03
  it was at the university. of Nevada and Reno.
• 30:07
  And he went there in the summer. My son had moved
• 30:11
  to Lake Tahoe. Well, I'll just go out that way.
• 30:15
  Because Reno and Lake Tahoe are right beside
• 30:18
  each other. And in the end, I had no job. So
• 30:23
  I said, well, my son's out here. So I'll just
• 30:28
  stay out here. And I can apply for jobs. And
• 30:31
  that's what I did. And I was a keynote writer.
• 30:35
  with an advanced degree. There are quite a few
• 30:38
  actually out there with advanced degrees that
• 30:42
  just are taking whatever job they can get. Sure.
• 30:46
  But in the end, that lasted maybe about four
• 30:52
  or five months, and I came back and was a substitute
• 30:55
  teacher in my hometown, and that was a lot of
• 31:00
  fun. applied for jobs everywhere again all 12
• 31:07
  again and I got a job at Emory & Henry College
• 31:12
  and I turned down a job in Australia because
• 31:15
  that just seemed like way too far away yeah from
• 31:20
  from family and so I just Emory & Henry is a
• 31:24
  wonderful small college liberal arts college
• 31:27
  in Virginia it's actually near the Tennessee
• 31:29
  border so I was happy to have a job, you know,
• 31:36
  and I found out, oh, I really love teaching.
• 31:40
  So I threw myself into it and have found a place
• 31:45
  for me for most of my life, I think, the teaching
• 31:49
  aspect. In the end, I made my way to Bakersfield,
• 31:54
  though. Yeah. And so you came to Bakersfield
• 31:58
  in 1982. You replaced Charles Argersinger at
• 32:02
  Cal State Bakersfield. That's correct. That's
• 32:05
  correct. The music program, well, the whole idea
• 32:08
  of Cal State Bakersfield, I think, started around
• 32:11
  1972 or something like that. And they had, oddly
• 32:17
  enough, had as their first composition teacher.
• 32:22
  Jack Behrens, who was in my composition class
• 32:26
  at Harvard in that very first year. So I knew
• 32:30
  Jack Behrens. And I didn't have any idea that
• 32:34
  he had been at Cal State Bakersfield at the beginnings.
• 32:38
  And when I got there, they had three music faculty.
• 32:43
  And Charles Argersinger replaced Jack Behrens.
• 32:47
  And he instituted... well, the Jazz Coffee House,
• 32:55
  which we would build on. We just kept institutions
• 32:58
  going. I think Gordon Mayling sort of was the
• 33:05
  one who said to his students, what do you mean
• 33:10
  start a jazz ensemble? Because he was a violinist.
• 33:15
  And they said, well, we want... a jazz ensemble
• 33:18
  so he did and that was maybe around 76 or 7 anyway
• 33:25
  so he had a jazz jam where they bring in a guest
• 33:29
  artist I continued that so I'm really the third
• 33:34
  professor in that area and I just tried to keep
• 33:39
  it going yeah and when you got there we I should
• 33:43
  say that it was a very small program. There was
• 33:46
  one sax player, no trombones, three trumpets,
• 33:50
  two drummers, and you had to play the baritone
• 33:53
  sax because there wasn't one, right? That is
• 33:56
  true. You know, suddenly all that saxophone playing
• 34:03
  of my youth came back. I, for the most part,
• 34:06
  have just played... piano most people know me
• 34:11
  as a piano player of sorts but uh that first
• 34:16
  year you know i would say well i would grab my
• 34:19
  baritone sax and if you know anything about a
• 34:22
  baritone sax it's about half the size of a of
• 34:26
  a full -grown human and uh so it's uh plenty
• 34:33
  to cart around but i'd go up and announce the
• 34:36
  next tune and go back and sit down and play it
• 34:39
  with the big band what we found out is that um
• 34:43
  i when you have a small program like that you
• 34:48
  basically pull from all those who want to play
• 34:52
  in the community so we filled out the band uh
• 34:57
  you know pulling in like I would say at least
• 35:04
  two to ten every year of people who want to play,
• 35:11
  and they join the band, and the students took
• 35:15
  advantage of that because it's very nice to play
• 35:20
  with someone who has a lot of experience. kind
• 35:25
  of understands the music even better than you
• 35:29
  would have any opportunity at an early age, having
• 35:33
  not played much of it. So the community has had
• 35:40
  a wonderful connection to the campus. The campus
• 35:46
  provided something the community wanted, and
• 35:49
  the community provided what the campus needed.
• 35:52
  Yeah. You told the Californian in November, 1983,
• 35:57
  there's something funny about me reading a quote
• 36:00
  of you, but to you, but 83. Yeah. 1983. Okay.
• 36:06
  Okay. So here's what you said. The status of
• 36:09
  jazz in Bakersfield is one of great potential,
• 36:12
  but it's not being tapped. There's an audience
• 36:15
  out there that would like to listen to jazz.
• 36:18
  We get converts to jazz every time we do the
• 36:20
  jazz coffee house. That's why it keeps growing.
• 36:24
  And the next year there was a headline that said,
• 36:26
  roof blown off the coffee house from one of those
• 36:31
  jazz coffee houses. So just starting out, you
• 36:35
  get to CSUB and you know that jazz can be bigger
• 36:40
  than it is, even though it's great that the program
• 36:43
  is going now, that you just want it to grow,
• 36:45
  right? Right, right. You had the jazz coffee
• 36:49
  houses going and the jazz jams that were already
• 36:52
  going. And you kept those going. I think in 1985
• 36:56
  is really important because that's when you booked
• 37:00
  Chick Corea. Yeah, that was important. And you
• 37:03
  have to realize to get a budget, I would write
• 37:07
  a grant to our associated students. Everyone
• 37:10
  every year would write up a proposal to get some
• 37:14
  money to do something. And so our budget was
• 37:18
  pretty minimal. And I was looking for a way to
• 37:25
  have more success and have more funds to do more
• 37:32
  stuff. And Chick Corea had recorded one of my
• 37:36
  tunes with a friend of mine. And I thought he
• 37:39
  would come possibly for a solo concert. afford
• 37:47
  him a loan and of course his agent said no all
• 37:52
  right he's not interested but he would like to
• 37:57
  bring his new band i said well sure we'd love
• 38:04
  to have them but uh what would that entail and
• 38:09
  you know the negotiation started and um His new
• 38:15
  band was the Chick Corea Electric Band that had
• 38:20
  Dave Weckl and John Patitucci, a drummer and
• 38:24
  a bass player with Chick Corea on keyboards.
• 38:26
  And Chick Corea was playing a lot of synthesizers
• 38:30
  at that concert. It's an electric band. And I
• 38:35
  eventually said yes. The only way we could afford
• 38:38
  it was to have two shows. So we were going to
• 38:42
  have, you know, like a first show and then clear
• 38:46
  it out 30 minutes or so and have a second show.
• 38:51
  And the most I could charge was maybe $15 a person.
• 38:57
  So this is about 500 seats and $15. You can kind
• 39:02
  of figure it out. a sound company to come in
• 39:12
  with all the monitors and everything else. Yeah.
• 39:15
  It's a, it's an expensive proposition. And of
• 39:19
  course you need to provide rooms and all of that.
• 39:22
  But the beautiful thing is that, like I said,
• 39:28
  an audience was out there and they came and it
• 39:34
  was a big. Big success, both musically and financially.
• 39:40
  I mean, meaning that, okay, we've now doubled
• 39:44
  our budget and we got $2 ,000 to work with. That's
• 39:48
  huge. But it is huge. And I don't recommend that
• 39:53
  you make a bet of over $10 ,000 in order to get
• 39:58
  possibly $2 ,000 in profit, but that's just the
• 40:03
  nature of the beast. Yeah. We were lucky. Did
• 40:09
  you put your own money for that, for the guarantee?
• 40:13
  No. I think there was faith. Maybe that road
• 40:22
  on faith. There was a lot of work, you know,
• 40:26
  to get the word out and let people know. I'm
• 40:34
  trying to think also at this time, it was the
• 40:38
  beginning of the California lottery. Wow. And
• 40:42
  the beginning of the California, California lottery
• 40:46
  had a lot to do with education. You know, that
• 40:50
  was how they were selling that. And, um, I know
• 40:56
  I'm not so sure I got anything from the lottery
• 41:00
  for that concert, but I may have gotten. You
• 41:04
  know, I may have put up two or three thousand
• 41:07
  dollars and they may have put up two or three
• 41:10
  thousand dollars. Yeah. And that that made it
• 41:15
  seem possible that we could maybe do OK if we
• 41:19
  sold out. Yeah. And we did. And both sessions,
• 41:25
  too. Yeah. Yeah. And I had had taken all this.
• 41:30
  You'd lower the pit where the pit orchestra would
• 41:33
  be right in front on the stage. And we had filled
• 41:36
  that up with seats. So we were trying to maximize
• 41:39
  how many people we can get in the Doré Theater.
• 41:43
  Yeah. And, well, that success, suddenly I have,
• 41:48
  that led to, that started the ball rolling, I
• 41:55
  think. Yeah, that year was big in 1985. You got
• 41:59
  tenure that year. The KVPR -FM got a jazz station
• 42:04
  in town so that people could listen to jazz.
• 42:07
  You had an album, Yes, We're Open, that came
• 42:11
  out with students at CSUB. just CSB at that time.
• 42:15
  Your jazz ensemble got top honors at the Fullerton
• 42:19
  Jazz Festival. It had Mike Rainey, Ken Bassano,
• 42:23
  Glenn Fong, Ernie Cervantes, and those are people
• 42:26
  that you kept playing with, right? Oh, sure.
• 42:28
  Yeah, we had such tremendous talent, and those
• 42:32
  musicians are, you know, they're all tremendous
• 42:35
  and still playing. Yeah, that group was... Sanctuary
• 42:43
  was the name of that group. And we went to the
• 42:47
  Pacific Coast Collegiate Jazz Festival, which
• 42:50
  was up in Berkeley, California, UC Berkeley.
• 42:54
  Two years in a row, that group was the top -rated
• 42:58
  group, and in a special category because I'm
• 43:03
  playing in it. You know, Ernie Cervantes was
• 43:08
  really the first student that I met. When I was
• 43:13
  auditioning people to be in the big band, I had
• 43:16
  just written something for the big band, and
• 43:18
  so I just gave it to him. I went to the piano,
• 43:21
  and we played through it, and really, it's not
• 43:25
  something conceivable you could sight -read,
• 43:29
  but he did a fantastic job, and I was always
• 43:36
  impressed, and he is... one of those great spirits
• 43:42
  that just lives in our community. And I found
• 43:46
  out, oh, you're also in the Bakersfield Symphony.
• 43:49
  Wow. I understand. All right, let's talk about
• 43:54
  the Bakersfield Jazz Festival or the Rite of
• 43:57
  Spring. Well, the Jazz Festival, I think, was
• 44:01
  an idea that was glimmering in the head of Bill
• 44:06
  Burton, who, you know, Budweiser. distributes
• 44:10
  a lot of beer to the world. And Advanced Beverage
• 44:15
  was the company that had hired Bill Burton to
• 44:19
  come to town and be the district manager, as
• 44:23
  it were. And he had a connection to jazz. He
• 44:26
  loved jazz. And so he approached me and said,
• 44:32
  well, what if I give you $10 ,000 to put on a
• 44:37
  jazz festival? And I said, wow. Okay, let me
• 44:40
  investigate that and I will be right back in
• 44:45
  touch with you. I just want to check out what's
• 44:47
  possible at Cal State. And I checked it out.
• 44:51
  We had nothing. We had no place to put it on.
• 44:56
  There's no facilities as such. Exactly how it
• 45:01
  could work without like restrooms. fencing and
• 45:06
  a locale and anyway I went right back to Bill
• 45:10
  Burton and said hey I don't think Cal State can
• 45:15
  do it but you know there is an outdoor amphitheater
• 45:19
  at Bakersfield College and they have you know
• 45:22
  bathrooms and all that set up and nice seating
• 45:25
  that seems like the right place and he said no
• 45:29
  I want to do it at Cal State Bakersfield and
• 45:32
  at that point I just said okay. And I began to
• 45:37
  like figure out how that's possible. Later on,
• 45:41
  I would realize that, oh, I don't think he could
• 45:44
  serve beer at Bakersfield College because of
• 45:48
  just the nature of it being part of the public
• 45:51
  education. You know, it's, it's, what is it?
• 45:55
  K through 14, as it were in California, that
• 45:59
  all community colleges are part of public education.
• 46:03
  Whereas Four -year colleges were a slightly different
• 46:07
  world. Anyway, I began putting it together, and
• 46:14
  by the time I got the offer and looked around,
• 46:19
  it was really too late in the year, but in my
• 46:24
  investigation of artists who might play, I came
• 46:29
  up with one that was going to be... Coming through,
• 46:33
  like you say, many things go to L .A. and they've
• 46:38
  got to get to San Francisco and we're in between.
• 46:41
  And could I put on a concert with Spiro Jara?
• 46:46
  And so I said, OK. We came up with a price that
• 46:53
  I thought I could live with. And so we had a
• 46:55
  second big concert in the Doré. And it, too,
• 46:59
  was a big sellout. So this concert thing seems
• 47:04
  to be working, and I then had kind of a full
• 47:12
  year to plan, and we did get lottery funding
• 47:16
  to support that very first year, and I think
• 47:20
  that was about $7 ,000 or something. If you have
• 47:25
  a budget that is $1 ,000... someone throwing
• 47:29
  around ten thousand dollars or seven thousand
• 47:32
  more is like considerable yeah and uh i uh put
• 47:41
  together a lineup for that very first festival
• 47:44
  and i had heard the yellow jackets and it just
• 47:53
  so happened they were featured in a a star trek
• 47:58
  movie and won two grammys it was a little bit
• 48:02
  odd wow the timing of things so the grammys you
• 48:06
  know are happening like whatever i don't know
• 48:10
  probably february or march and then so the festival's
• 48:15
  in april so hey that's good timing and uh i i
• 48:20
  had other other groups and i I had Mary Osborne
• 48:24
  on the stage because we do have our local stars.
• 48:28
  I had Richie Perez, who was also with her. And
• 48:33
  I also had my own group. We're just trying to
• 48:39
  fill out the day. And I brought in Baba Tunde,
• 48:45
  who was coming down from the Bay Area, I believe.
• 48:50
  And so... that opening festival. And Dizzy Gillespie,
• 48:55
  right? Well, the big, yeah, the big news about,
• 48:57
  like, maybe a month before the festival, Dizzy
• 49:03
  Gillespie was coming that same weekend as we
• 49:08
  had for the jazz festival. And this was just
• 49:13
  happenstance, but I said, I knew Chuck Woods,
• 49:18
  who was the... director at bc at that time and
• 49:22
  i said this is fantastic that you i let's coordinate
• 49:27
  all our advertising and we'll just have the jazz
• 49:31
  weekend right yeah one day at bc and one one
• 49:37
  day at cal state and you couldn't find a more
• 49:40
  familiar name than dizzy gillespie yeah you know
• 49:44
  it's just like uh In fact, there are a lot of
• 49:47
  cartoons with him blowing up his cheeks. If you've
• 49:50
  ever seen him play, he plays a trumpet and his
• 49:53
  cheeks go out beyond his head. And he's also
• 49:59
  just so gifted. And that really seemed to work
• 50:05
  out well that first year. So the second year,
• 50:07
  we were going to have the combination of BC and
• 50:11
  Cal State and have the second annual. jazz festival
• 50:17
  i think there was a lot going on there as i recall
• 50:24
  this was yeah this was the year that should have
• 50:28
  been the last one because of all the problems
• 50:31
  the headliner got shot before larry carlton got
• 50:36
  shot in his studio in la yeah and he was my headliner
• 50:40
  and then there was rain yeah Just like an outdoor
• 50:47
  event with a lot of rain is a disaster. Of course,
• 50:51
  B .C. could take their concert indoor from the
• 50:55
  outdoor theater to their indoor theater. And
• 50:58
  B .C. did. But, you know, the damage, I think,
• 51:03
  was done. just financially speaking. I replaced
• 51:08
  Larry Carlton, I believe, with the Rippingtons,
• 51:12
  which were a new band that I had heard at a festival.
• 51:14
  They were completely delightful, a more popular
• 51:18
  jazz that sometimes I would have as a closer
• 51:22
  because I like to give everyone up and dancing
• 51:25
  if possible. And we had a good... sunny day although
• 51:31
  it was i think raining up to about 10 o 'clock
• 51:34
  at that point it quit raining so i i the artists
• 51:39
  were calling me to like wonder if this was going
• 51:42
  to be canceled because they know the weather
• 51:44
  as well yeah and i said no i'm going to put it
• 51:47
  on and and uh they you have to realize we had
• 51:53
  a one -day event so we are building a venue which
• 51:58
  has a professional stage, lighting, and sound.
• 52:05
  And now we would have started building it probably
• 52:10
  at 7 in the morning, but now we're going to start
• 52:13
  at 10, and we open the gates at 1, and the show
• 52:18
  starts at 2. So it was a flurry to put everything
• 52:25
  together. get the lights up and get the sound
• 52:29
  out. You can imagine sound companies don't want
• 52:31
  to pull out all their equipment when there's
• 52:34
  a threat of rain. Yeah. But we had no problem
• 52:40
  and we had a pretty good day of it. I think that's
• 52:44
  when the Bakersfield College Arts Ascending bowed
• 52:48
  out. They were the ones who were financially
• 52:50
  supporting the... the bc side of it so the next
• 52:54
  year we decided on a a single venue uh we went
• 52:58
  to the fairgrounds i believe yeah and you know
• 53:03
  the fairgrounds has its has its own ability to
• 53:08
  have stage and lights and stuff i mean as long
• 53:11
  as somebody's paying the bills and um so We went
• 53:16
  there thinking we would do it together. You know,
• 53:19
  BC and Cal State, we'd just pool our resources.
• 53:22
  And as it turned out, they had to pull out. Fortunately,
• 53:27
  we had had enough successes early that we just
• 53:31
  weathered that storm. And the next year, came
• 53:36
  back to Cal State campus and would have it in
• 53:39
  the soccer fields out there at that point. Yeah,
• 53:43
  we should say all this is before the amphitheater
• 53:45
  was built at CSUB. Right. I think the amphitheater
• 53:48
  maybe was at like the sixth year. And the very
• 53:53
  first year it was built, we couldn't use it because
• 53:56
  actually the grass was not really strong enough
• 54:01
  to handle a crowd walking all over it. And so
• 54:05
  we once again had it just out on the soccer field,
• 54:10
  which is next door to the... amphitheater out
• 54:13
  there. These days, the soccer field is, I think,
• 54:17
  has a dormitory and a parking lot, so it all
• 54:20
  changes. The amphitheater was built. They said
• 54:24
  it really isn't for concerts. It was for graduation,
• 54:28
  and it's true. It's an unusual structure because
• 54:33
  it has steps going up to the stage, just like
• 54:37
  you would for graduation to have steps off the
• 54:39
  stage. You know, it's a Nice, rounded stage in
• 54:44
  front. But it had a cover over it. At least certain
• 54:48
  things could be protected in the back of the
• 54:52
  stage if needed. It had a couple of bathrooms,
• 54:55
  which is nicer for the artist than just bringing
• 54:58
  in more porta -potties for them. What we did
• 55:02
  were trailers. We would give a trailer for each
• 55:06
  artist to have their own. backstage room as it
• 55:12
  were since we only had two two dressing room
• 55:16
  areas on the backstage of the amphitheater we
• 55:21
  should talk real quick about uh some of the behind
• 55:24
  the scenes people that were helping you right
• 55:26
  we talked about bill burton from advanced beverage
• 55:29
  yes what about laurie king laurie king uh that's
• 55:34
  right at the very beginnings of things laurie
• 55:37
  king uh had a radio show And so she was a DJ,
• 55:41
  and she has her psychic abilities. She's the
• 55:47
  one who foresaw that maybe there was a connection
• 55:51
  between Bill Burt and myself to pull off a jazz
• 55:56
  festival. She's also a great jazz lover and knew
• 56:01
  a couple of the artists along the way from just
• 56:07
  her youth. And she was quite involved in those
• 56:12
  early festivals. I mean, really the first festival.
• 56:16
  And, you know, we've had wonderful people kind
• 56:22
  of cycling through. You have to have expertise.
• 56:25
  Initially, we had Jim Darling trying to pull
• 56:28
  together advertising stuff and promotional stuff
• 56:32
  with radio and TV. Later, I have Mark Ramsey.
• 56:38
  who did graphic design. He created our posters
• 56:41
  for most of the years, actually, starting around
• 56:45
  the fourth or fifth year forward. And if we were
• 56:50
  in my house, back in the room where I have a
• 56:53
  nice grand piano, you would see an entire wall
• 56:57
  of 32 posters. Because Bill Burton, that first
• 57:02
  year... I mean, they really carried the festival.
• 57:06
  Advanced Beverage carried the festival. And so
• 57:11
  if something came up and I was like not sure
• 57:16
  how to pay for it, he said, I got it. Well, that's
• 57:22
  nice. And he wanted a professional artist. He
• 57:28
  wanted to be in charge of that poster. So I think
• 57:31
  we actually, paid not a lot of money, but $700,
• 57:37
  which was certainly not money that most of the
• 57:41
  local musicians weren't getting paid anywhere
• 57:44
  close. The whole band wasn't even getting paid
• 57:47
  $700. Anyway, he framed that festival, that festival
• 57:54
  poster, and he did that every year. And he passed
• 57:58
  away right before the seventh festival, I think.
• 58:03
  And so this is 32. I continued framing a festival
• 58:10
  poster. But of course, in the end, 32 posters
• 58:14
  covers a lot of wall space. Yeah. So that that
• 58:19
  background is is a little bit crazy with posters.
• 58:23
  I think in the end, I'll just give them to Cal
• 58:26
  State. I need to do that pretty soon. You had
• 58:33
  so much responsibility. You had to locate the
• 58:35
  venue, find sponsors, book musicians, write the
• 58:39
  contracts. You had to find a place for the artists
• 58:43
  to stay, sell merchandise, recruit student performers,
• 58:48
  get publicity, and even you were performing yourself.
• 58:51
  Much of that is true. Thank God I was married
• 58:56
  to a woman named Adele who was an elementary
• 58:59
  school teacher. And probably the biggest moment
• 59:03
  in the history of the Bakersfield Jazz Festival
• 59:06
  was after that very first jazz festival where
• 59:11
  we broke down all those tables and chairs in
• 59:17
  the festival and getting home like at 2 in the
• 59:21
  morning. And we're completely exhausted. And
• 59:25
  we look up at the ceiling and realize... It was
• 59:32
  successful. And I guess we'll have to do it again.
• 59:40
  And if you didn't make that decision to do it
• 59:45
  again, it would have stopped right there. Someone
• 59:49
  has to pay a price. And it wasn't a price that
• 59:54
  I paid alone. She organized our volunteers. And
• 59:58
  that's a group of 100 people. each day that are
• 1:00:03
  out there with their two to three hours of volunteering
• 1:00:08
  at a gate or at a table or serving beer or taking
• 1:00:14
  tickets or handing out programs or doing all
• 1:00:18
  those things that make an audience come in and
• 1:00:22
  say, hi, I'm glad to be here. And eventually...
• 1:00:27
  I was out there working with my sponsors and
• 1:00:29
  just going crazy. And I had someone from Cal
• 1:00:32
  State who came out and was just like looking
• 1:00:35
  at me, dealing with, you know, all the vendors
• 1:00:40
  who are going to have various foods and merchandise
• 1:00:44
  to sell and telling them where their booths are
• 1:00:47
  going to be. And she said, could you use some
• 1:00:51
  help? That was Sue Wallace, and really I said,
• 1:00:57
  absolutely. I turned over to Sue Wallace, that
• 1:01:02
  organization of those outside vendors, and then
• 1:01:05
  we had another Ramsey. Mark Ramsey was the artistic
• 1:01:08
  designer, but Mike Ramsey was in charge of everything
• 1:01:13
  away from the stage in terms of organizations,
• 1:01:18
  just dealing with fencing. dealing with where
• 1:01:24
  you place porta -potties, dealing with the tents
• 1:01:28
  that had to go up. And we had quite a lot going
• 1:01:34
  on. I am not alone in all of this, if you can
• 1:01:40
  imagine. Just the idea of someone organizing
• 1:01:45
  100 workers. to come in that day and have their
• 1:01:50
  name tags and know exactly what they're doing
• 1:01:53
  and where to go. Well, that's good. If I had
• 1:01:57
  to do that and also play on the stage and deal
• 1:02:02
  with all the artist stuff, that would have been,
• 1:02:05
  I couldn't have done it. Not well. Yeah, it's
• 1:02:11
  just so much work. It is amazing to put on a
• 1:02:15
  festival. And for 32 years, it ran. And that's
• 1:02:18
  just so much work. And it's not like you were
• 1:02:22
  like an experienced festival promoter. You know,
• 1:02:26
  you built it from the ground up. It had the good
• 1:02:30
  fortune to start smaller. It did grow into a
• 1:02:37
  much more massive undertaking. I'm complete with
• 1:02:41
  fireworks, which may have been a problem. I tried
• 1:02:50
  to write everything down for my successors and
• 1:02:56
  give them a timeline, sometimes by month, by
• 1:03:03
  week, by... And then, you know, in the last days,
• 1:03:08
  my to -do list was, you know, maybe 40 things
• 1:03:12
  that have to, these things have to happen today.
• 1:03:17
  It's good to write it down. And that way, maybe
• 1:03:20
  you won't forget something. But, you know, in
• 1:03:25
  the end, that's just a lot. It's a lot to deal
• 1:03:28
  with. But the audience kept coming. And let's
• 1:03:32
  face it. Without the community, which is the
• 1:03:35
  audience, of course, but there's also corporate
• 1:03:38
  sponsors. We had, the opening five or six years,
• 1:03:43
  we just had Advanced Beverage. But after that,
• 1:03:48
  we've had a car dealership. By the end, BMW stepped
• 1:03:54
  up with a five -year. guarantee wow of 75 000
• 1:03:59
  not per year but 15 000 a year for five years
• 1:04:03
  yeah so i mean that's uh they became our title
• 1:04:08
  sponsor at that point and uh we suddenly wanted
• 1:04:14
  to when bill burton died we decided to give a
• 1:04:19
  scholarship and endow a scholarship in his honor.
• 1:04:23
  And we would give that scholarship from the stage.
• 1:04:27
  And eventually, we grew to almost... I think
• 1:04:33
  almost 20 scholarships that we gave from the
• 1:04:36
  stage because I established a scholarship sponsorship
• 1:04:40
  so that people could be, you know, get all the
• 1:04:44
  perks of being a sponsor, but they're going to
• 1:04:47
  give away $2 ,000 to like very deserving students
• 1:04:50
  from various disciplines, you know, spread the
• 1:04:54
  love. Yeah. It's important to say that you're
• 1:04:58
  not getting anything from this. It's for the
• 1:05:01
  students. To get scholarships, it's to fund the
• 1:05:05
  program, to buy the equipment. That's why it
• 1:05:08
  exists. Well, that's true. That's true. I have
• 1:05:12
  no salary, although I must admit I should be
• 1:05:17
  wearing a jazz festival sweatshirt today. The
• 1:05:21
  sweatshirt might come from, like, you know, 2003.
• 1:05:26
  I don't know. The volunteers. None of them were
• 1:05:31
  being paid. We did pay the stage, you know, your
• 1:05:36
  stage workers. Yeah. And certainly all the lights
• 1:05:39
  and sound and all those stage workers and a production
• 1:05:42
  manager. Those are positions that we paid, as
• 1:05:47
  well as the musicians. In 1992, it was the sixth
• 1:05:51
  year of the Jazz Festival, and it was the first
• 1:05:54
  one with the amphitheater, and it also had a
• 1:05:57
  tribute to Mary Osborne. Do you remember that?
• 1:06:00
  Yes, I do. She was so dearly loved in the community.
• 1:06:05
  And among jazz musicians, she was more than dearly
• 1:06:11
  loved. We all knew how special her talent was.
• 1:06:15
  We had basically a band which featured musicians
• 1:06:22
  who had played with her from the community. So
• 1:06:25
  it was a group. basically her colleagues who
• 1:06:30
  had played. And of course, among them was her
• 1:06:34
  son, who was a bass player, quite a gifted bass
• 1:06:37
  player, and her daughter, who was a singer and
• 1:06:42
  is a singer. And so they were part of the group,
• 1:06:45
  as well as Rusty Richards, who was a piano player
• 1:06:49
  in town. We had some iconic people, very gifted
• 1:06:55
  people in the community. That was just a moment
• 1:06:58
  for us to recognize that we had a special one
• 1:07:02
  among us. Yes, Bill Burton, of course, had his
• 1:07:06
  memorial with the Jazz Festival. There is a Mary
• 1:07:09
  Osborne scholarship from the festival. And we
• 1:07:14
  also had a photographer who was kind of an iconic
• 1:07:18
  character at the beginning. He was... into jazz
• 1:07:22
  photography and therefore he wanted to do the
• 1:07:26
  jazz festival and he would come with all his
• 1:07:30
  photographic gear which is considerable and he
• 1:07:34
  would just sit beside the stage and move around
• 1:07:39
  on occasion and so that's Bernie Mather and Bernie
• 1:07:45
  took concerts in the Doré of many of my artists
• 1:07:48
  that I had there. The Doré Theater is kind of
• 1:07:51
  a separate world from the festival. But we did
• 1:07:57
  a kind of celebration for Bernie Mather, and
• 1:08:00
  we showed on the screen his photography from
• 1:08:05
  the, like, I don't know, 10 years of the festival.
• 1:08:10
  And while I had a big band, playing with Pete
• 1:08:17
  Chrislieb, who is a new Bernie Mather. He's a
• 1:08:23
  great tenor saxophonist who was in the Tonight
• 1:08:26
  Show band with Johnny Carson. He was the one
• 1:08:29
  always playing the sax solos in L .A. on many,
• 1:08:32
  many albums. And he was a good friend because
• 1:08:37
  he had those... Racers that are trying to go
• 1:08:47
  as fast as they can in a straight line. What
• 1:08:51
  do they call those things? Drag racers. Drag
• 1:08:55
  racer. And Bernie Mather, in addition to be a
• 1:08:59
  photographer, announced at all the drag races
• 1:09:04
  in Bakersfield. He was their announcer. I should
• 1:09:07
  have had him as the announcer of the jazz festival.
• 1:09:10
  That would have been fun. He had two jobs to
• 1:09:13
  do then. And one time Bernie opened his car and
• 1:09:21
  he showed me a motor that he had machined out,
• 1:09:25
  I guess, for these drag racers, which is like
• 1:09:30
  a ridiculous amount of power that they're going
• 1:09:34
  to try to draw upon to get themselves going.
• 1:09:39
  But along the way, we did have our tributes.
• 1:09:46
  Yeah. A tribute to Adele, too. That's who I was
• 1:09:52
  thinking of. Yeah. Yeah. So my wife passed away
• 1:09:57
  in 2015. So that's not quite at the 30 -year
• 1:10:05
  mark. I guess it's the 29th. or so jazz festival
• 1:10:10
  anyway we uh yeah that that particular program
• 1:10:15
  was that was a very tough blow and you can imagine
• 1:10:20
  if someone is organizing these 200 workers uh
• 1:10:27
  she was happy to uh like make a lot of phone
• 1:10:31
  calls and kibitz with everyone that was kind
• 1:10:36
  of And we were lucky enough to kind of have Robin
• 1:10:42
  Kearley, Paul Kearley's wife, say, well, I'll
• 1:10:46
  step up and get that organized for you. And she
• 1:10:52
  had her own particular method, and it seemed
• 1:10:55
  to work out just fine. She would give like 10
• 1:11:01
  different areas a leader, and that leader would
• 1:11:05
  do the job. to get all the workers needed. That's
• 1:11:12
  cool. Yeah, I treated them to a nice meal after
• 1:11:16
  it. I pulled them all together. Yeah, because
• 1:11:20
  that was a lot to do. Yeah. Are there any other
• 1:11:25
  moments from the festival throughout the years
• 1:11:27
  that you wanted to talk about? Well, every festival
• 1:11:32
  is fantastic in its own right. They all have
• 1:11:38
  their memories. I know that I basically changed
• 1:11:46
  myself somewhere around the 15th festival in
• 1:11:52
  that I was loading up two congas and a bongo
• 1:11:59
  on what are these heavy -duty stands. So that's
• 1:12:03
  like five drums or four drums. Anyway, the stand's
• 1:12:08
  probably almost as heavy as a drum. And putting
• 1:12:13
  it into my truck to get it over to the festival,
• 1:12:15
  I didn't quite get it far enough in because they
• 1:12:18
  were all hooked together, and I had to get it
• 1:12:21
  over to the stage. So I made another little move
• 1:12:26
  and threw out my back. Oh, no. And that particular
• 1:12:31
  festival... We were going on stage first. I was
• 1:12:37
  playing in the band that was going on stage.
• 1:12:40
  And they were going to play like six or seven
• 1:12:42
  new pieces of mine. And it was Bernie Mather,
• 1:12:47
  my photographer, who had back trouble himself.
• 1:12:51
  And he was giving me what we know as Soma, which
• 1:12:56
  is a muscle relaxant. And so I somehow made my
• 1:13:00
  way through. And I did get a... our festival
• 1:13:05
  doctor that we would have to tell me don't take
• 1:13:10
  any more of those and but the next day I couldn't
• 1:13:15
  get out of bed and my son to show you how useless
• 1:13:20
  I was he took over the duties of being me and
• 1:13:25
  and didn't do really anything but let everyone
• 1:13:29
  do their jobs you know Because we have a crew
• 1:13:33
  and everyone stayed on track. Everyone knew what
• 1:13:37
  they're supposed to do. Yeah. What about any
• 1:13:40
  performances that you remember? I know I saw
• 1:13:43
  this one clip on your YouTube of you and Paul
• 1:13:47
  Perez playing in the rain. And everyone else
• 1:13:51
  is getting rained on, but you two are just barely
• 1:13:53
  under this thing that's covering the piano. Yes.
• 1:13:57
  That was at the 30th. festival and and that is
• 1:14:01
  a crazy moment we we had a couple of moments
• 1:14:05
  like that but that you will look at it and there
• 1:14:08
  are sheets of water falling off the tent and
• 1:14:12
  i'm playing on an acoustic grand piano which
• 1:14:16
  is underneath you know i hope that piano survived
• 1:14:20
  that day but i have like three guys out you know
• 1:14:25
  three horns and it's a sextet And that was quite
• 1:14:30
  an interesting performance. I remember I had
• 1:14:34
  another artist who was coming up to make sure
• 1:14:37
  the guitar amps were okay because he was coming
• 1:14:39
  on after us. And that's Mike Stern. And I noticed
• 1:14:44
  for a long time he just sort of stood beside
• 1:14:46
  me watching me play the piano, which was fun.
• 1:14:53
  Kind of unnerving a little, but fun. Another
• 1:14:59
  moment when we had rain, and this was, I think,
• 1:15:03
  at the Mary Osborne tribute. It had been threatening
• 1:15:09
  rain. It wasn't actually raining. And then finally
• 1:15:13
  when Andy Norell, who plays steel drums, his
• 1:15:16
  band came up and... It suddenly rained and it
• 1:15:21
  was raining and he was hitting the steel drum
• 1:15:25
  and there was water flying off his drum. And,
• 1:15:30
  you know, it has little cups for different pitches
• 1:15:34
  all over. Yeah. He has to stop, and so we stopped
• 1:15:39
  the festival. And we have, like, bunches of visqueen.
• 1:15:43
  We're covering speakers, and everything's getting
• 1:15:46
  covered up. And you would expect, of course,
• 1:15:51
  the sound people want to leave. The audience
• 1:15:56
  just hunkered down. It was very strange. So we
• 1:16:01
  had, like, all these people just, like, covering
• 1:16:03
  up. And after about 10 minutes, you know, and
• 1:16:07
  nobody's making any moves to leave, Andy Norell
• 1:16:11
  came up and he said, well, if you're not going
• 1:16:13
  to leave, I'll play if you'll dance. And he came
• 1:16:21
  back out. And I'm sure most of them just sat
• 1:16:26
  there covered up. But we did get some crazy enough
• 1:16:30
  people to dance. And it did quit raining, of
• 1:16:33
  course. That's great. That was just one of those
• 1:16:36
  curious moments. I always avoided big band because
• 1:16:40
  I'd been to festivals and heard how bad the sound
• 1:16:44
  was. A big band is like 18 pieces, right? It's
• 1:16:49
  a lot of instruments. And, you know, you can
• 1:16:52
  understand outdoor, it could be crazy. But I
• 1:16:58
  think it was maybe the 25th festival we had to...
• 1:17:03
  Gordon Goodwin, big fat band, very famous band
• 1:17:07
  of L .A. players. And they bring their own sound,
• 1:17:13
  man. They bring everything. And I was stunned
• 1:17:17
  at how perfect the sound was. I mean, it sounded
• 1:17:21
  like, you know, you had headphones on. Wow. And
• 1:17:27
  it was like you heard everything, you know. And
• 1:17:32
  I thought, wow, I know how difficult that is
• 1:17:37
  just to get the sound right with four people.
• 1:17:40
  Well, you have a drum set and an acoustic piano,
• 1:17:43
  which is kind of not so easy to deal with. Yeah.
• 1:17:49
  With microphones. So there were lots of moments
• 1:17:53
  in the festival. Yeah. One cool thing that I
• 1:17:58
  thought about the festival is like we talked
• 1:18:00
  about before, it's about the students. And you
• 1:18:02
  always have people from the college and then
• 1:18:04
  later people from the high school honor band
• 1:18:07
  were playing at the festival, getting time with
• 1:18:10
  all the professional jazz players. That's huge.
• 1:18:13
  Well, it is huge. And of course, if you're a
• 1:18:17
  young musician, you remember those moments without
• 1:18:22
  question. Honor Jazz Band was originally the
• 1:18:29
  conception of Mike Bone, who was the one who
• 1:18:32
  was part of the group who said, hey, in like
• 1:18:36
  76, we ought to have a big band. And Mike Bone
• 1:18:40
  was the West High band director, and he's the
• 1:18:43
  one who organized that honor group. He had stepped
• 1:18:47
  away and become an administrator, I think, and
• 1:18:51
  Rob Martens. who is now at Ridgeview, became
• 1:19:00
  the primary director and was joined by other
• 1:19:06
  people who became music teachers, Tony Aguilar,
• 1:19:11
  and these days we have Amanda Sproul, who is
• 1:19:18
  Chris Tyner's sister, and she's working with
• 1:19:22
  them. You know, the festival is definitely on
• 1:19:26
  a hiatus, maybe forever, but the Honor Jazz Band
• 1:19:31
  continues on, and it still, every year, gets
• 1:19:36
  itself together, and it's great for those young
• 1:19:39
  musicians to suddenly play with, they may be
• 1:19:43
  the best in their high school, but now you get
• 1:19:45
  to play with the best from all the high schools.
• 1:19:48
  Yeah. Yeah, I think it's so amazing, everything
• 1:19:51
  that... that you and the people that you work
• 1:19:54
  with have done to build the jazz festival, to
• 1:19:57
  build a sense of community of jazz and teach
• 1:20:01
  people how cool jazz can be. It's really awesome.
• 1:20:04
  And how a lot of the people that were involved
• 1:20:07
  with this are continuing that. Some of my professors
• 1:20:12
  at BC were Chris Tyner, Kyle Burnham, and so
• 1:20:18
  did Paul Kearley. They work with you. Yeah, these
• 1:20:24
  are our all -stars, no doubt. And Chris Tyner
• 1:20:29
  is such a gifted musician, and so is Kyle. Kyle
• 1:20:33
  just sent me a little, you know, a text with
• 1:20:37
  a new jazz tune that he's created. And it makes
• 1:20:43
  me think, hmm, Kyle? That's so, so good. Maybe
• 1:20:48
  I need to like, you know, get my act together,
• 1:20:51
  write another tune or two. Yeah. And you're I
• 1:20:58
  have never met you until today, but I've heard
• 1:21:02
  of you from from these other professors have
• 1:21:04
  heard like a thing or two just here and there.
• 1:21:07
  But it's always been very clear how much respect
• 1:21:10
  they have for you and how much of a. important
• 1:21:13
  person they were kind of like how you talked
• 1:21:17
  about earl kim being important all these professors
• 1:21:21
  and people have you as their professor that meant
• 1:21:25
  so much to them i remember i asked uh asked chris
• 1:21:30
  tyner i said hey i would think it'd be awesome
• 1:21:32
  to interview doug davis for the podcast do you
• 1:21:35
  have his number and he said that he still basically
• 1:21:38
  remembered your home phone number, that you had
• 1:21:41
  given him your home phone number. And I thought
• 1:21:45
  how making this podcast, I had this idea and
• 1:21:50
  I had Kyle Burnham's phone number and I texted
• 1:21:53
  him. I said, hey, and this is five plus years
• 1:21:57
  after I've even been at BC. And I just said,
• 1:22:00
  hey, I had this idea for a podcast. What do you
• 1:22:01
  think? And he just said, do it. You'd be perfect
• 1:22:04
  for that. Fantastic. Yeah. So your teaching style
• 1:22:09
  has rubbed off, and it's helping people still.
• 1:22:12
  Well, it's always good to give someone the green
• 1:22:15
  light to go for it. Very special. I even read
• 1:22:22
  a story in the newspaper that a student was ready
• 1:22:26
  to give up on her final exam, and you stayed
• 1:22:28
  for six hours until she would finish it, she
• 1:22:30
  would pass. That you just... Constantly are going
• 1:22:34
  beyond to be a good professor to help people
• 1:22:39
  learn. I think that's awesome. Well, thank you
• 1:22:42
  so much. Yeah, that touches. We've talked a lot
• 1:22:51
  about the stuff you've done for jazz, but. What
• 1:22:56
  about a lot of the stuff that you've composed?
• 1:22:59
  You've composed a lot of stuff like Aloud and
• 1:23:02
  the Dream Songs. You've composed songs that were
• 1:23:06
  recorded by Chick Corea, Benny Wallace, and Larry
• 1:23:08
  Coriel. What's your songwriting process? Well,
• 1:23:13
  that is shifting gears. And to a certain extent,
• 1:23:17
  when I start to create, it can be in many guises.
• 1:23:24
  Sometimes it's turning on the shower and just
• 1:23:30
  hollering. It can also be kind of abstract when
• 1:23:39
  I may have some move at the piano that I think
• 1:23:45
  catches my attention and I like it. And I will
• 1:23:51
  take a moment then. just to look at the notes
• 1:23:56
  I have in that. And I have on occasion like taken
• 1:24:03
  text that I've written and take that momentary
• 1:24:09
  flash of brilliance and work out some kind of
• 1:24:14
  scheme that spins and spins until it finds itself
• 1:24:21
  again. And then use that to guide me through
• 1:24:27
  the setting of those words. And sometimes it's
• 1:24:35
  just like a baseline. Or sometimes it's just
• 1:24:39
  like a rhythmic groove. It always is giving like
• 1:24:48
  the full weight of my being to... whatever is
• 1:24:54
  driving me forward. So, and I think I began to
• 1:25:01
  trust my voice. You know, if I can sing it, I
• 1:25:07
  can hear it, then having enough experience, like
• 1:25:12
  with an orchestra, to understand what the instruments
• 1:25:17
  can do, and more importantly, what they can't.
• 1:25:23
  writing in such a way that everything will sound.
• 1:25:29
  It doesn't get too muddy or too thin or too anything.
• 1:25:33
  You know, it's going to sound right to my ear.
• 1:25:36
  And for whatever reason, there's all different
• 1:25:40
  aesthetics in music. I'm given to wanting the
• 1:25:49
  next moment to feel. in some sense, so connected
• 1:25:56
  to what's happened before that we feel that it's
• 1:26:02
  almost inevitable. And if you can make everything
• 1:26:08
  feel like it's the right note, then what more
• 1:26:15
  are you going to ask of music? And I do, you
• 1:26:23
  know, we shape things. We all have our own little
• 1:26:26
  dance. And we all have our natural gifts. I would
• 1:26:32
  love to have more technique, more that I could
• 1:26:38
  hear. But, you know, like Bach seems to be able
• 1:26:45
  to hear with great clarity. maybe four different
• 1:26:48
  voices doing different things at the same time.
• 1:26:53
  Well, that's a technical gift, you know, both
• 1:26:59
  for his ear and his mind. And to have control
• 1:27:04
  over that and have them all singing at the same
• 1:27:07
  time is, oh, we just, you know, we give a nod
• 1:27:13
  to genius. But don't devalue yourself that you
• 1:27:21
  can't do that. Mozart may look up and see a whole
• 1:27:26
  piece along the skyline because that's Mozart.
• 1:27:31
  So the best thing I can do as a creator is just
• 1:27:36
  be myself. I love that. That's a big question.
• 1:27:41
  I hope I gave a good enough answer. I think it's
• 1:27:46
  great. Yeah. Let's see. Is there anything that
• 1:27:50
  we didn't get to talk about that you wanted to?
• 1:27:54
  Well, there is just a special gratitude toward
• 1:28:00
  the community that I would love to share. Sure.
• 1:28:04
  Because this community has given me my life and
• 1:28:10
  support. And I look forward to. continuing to
• 1:28:16
  hear music maybe sent by one of my former students
• 1:28:20
  and continuing to go to the symphony and hear
• 1:28:26
  kind of the magnificent work that's there and
• 1:28:29
  at the concerts at bc and cal state and we have
• 1:28:33
  the bakersfield jazz workshop yeah which every
• 1:28:37
  tuesday night like is showcasing artists from
• 1:28:41
  the community and giving a place for others to
• 1:28:45
  Come and learn and play. So, I mean, we've got
• 1:28:49
  a lot to be grateful for. For the last question,
• 1:28:54
  I always ask this. Are there any Bakersfield
• 1:28:58
  musicians or artists that you think people should
• 1:29:02
  look up, whether it's from the past or from now?
• 1:29:05
  Well, this is in honor of a friend. I may mention
• 1:29:09
  more than one. It's not like I know this person.
• 1:29:12
  At all. But one of my colleagues researched a
• 1:29:17
  book on Lawrence Tibbett. T -I -B -B -E. Opera
• 1:29:22
  singer, right? Opera singer. And one of the first
• 1:29:26
  Hollywood singing actors. But he was also with
• 1:29:31
  the Metropolitan Opera. And he was the head of
• 1:29:34
  the union, I think, at one time for film actors.
• 1:29:42
  I don't know that much about him other than,
• 1:29:45
  wow, he grew up in Bakersfield. Yeah, early 1900s
• 1:29:51
  opposite. Exactly, exactly. And maybe he had
• 1:29:56
  a relative who was a sheriff or a police officer.
• 1:30:01
  There's something like he may have lost his father
• 1:30:05
  in a gunfight, the last gunfight in the West.
• 1:30:09
  Whoa. And then there's another person who has
• 1:30:16
  written a book about the other Bakersfield Sound,
• 1:30:21
  as he says, which is Randy Fendrick. And he's
• 1:30:27
  a wealth. I mean, he wrote a book, and I don't
• 1:30:29
  know if you're aware of it. Yeah, yeah. Oh, okay.
• 1:30:32
  Well, that's kind of wealth of knowledge. And
• 1:30:37
  I'm glad you mentioned Chris and Kyle Burnham.
• 1:30:43
  because certainly they would have a lot to offer.
• 1:30:49
  And Chris is basically this light in Bakersfield
• 1:30:56
  that radiates everywhere. So that's way too many,
• 1:31:02
  and it would only continue. But thank you for
• 1:31:07
  this effort. It's wonderful. It's been great.
• 1:31:10
  I'm happy to have you. Have an interview with
• 1:31:13
  you. It's great. Well, keep after it. I will.
• 1:31:17
  I will. Super.