[Dixielandjazz] Nat Hentoff's JazzTimes Column, the Family of Jazz

[Norman Vickers]

To:  DJML listmates--
This is long-- Nat Hentoff's JazzTimes column "The Family of Jazz" and some
personal anecdotes and observations.
If short attention span or no interest in Hentoff, delete now.

Thanks.

Norman Vickers



I am forwarding this column by Nat Hentoff from the May 2004 issue of
JazzTimes magazine.  Most of you know that Nat was awarded a Jazz Masters
award at the January IAJE ( International Association of Jazz Educators)
meeting this year in New York.  This is the first time that a jazz
journalist has been given this award.  It's worth $25,000.  Previously, it
was limited to jazz musicians or composers.

Permit me one anecdote. Hentoff and I were never introduced but I was
familiar with his writings over many years.  In addition to his JazzTimes
columns, he writes for the Village Voice ( I was once a subscriber) and to
the Wall Street Journal ( my Pensacola friend John Harrell clips the columns
and sends them to me.)  A couple of years ago, Hentoff was a guest of Mat
Domber, producer of the Arbors March of Jazz Party.  Tables for the ballroom
at the Sheraton Sand Key  Resort on Clearwater (FL) beach are reserved in
order that payment comes in.  Obviously the tables in front of the bandstand
go first.  Floyd Levin reserves the same table from year-to-year by paying
for it for the next year.  I have been pleased to be a (paying) guest at
Floyd's table for a number of years.

Music industry guests, musicians and their spouses or spouse-equivalents are
assigned tables in the middle of the room.  (There are no bad seats in the
ballroom and many regular guests prefer seats in the back of the hall
anyway.)

Early in the course of the weekend, Mr. Hentoff moved from his assigned seat
to our table. Since the music was playing and I recognized him from his
picture, I made no effort to introduce myself.  And, he did likewise.
Floyd's wife  Lucille didn't take it that well, mumbling, " They sent him
Floyd's book ( a personal remembrance of some seminal jazz figures) and he
never reviewed it!"  Mat Domber, our genial host who was performing as
Master of Ceremonies, mentioned to Hentoff that those seats were reserved.
Hentoff mumbled back, " But I'm on assignment from the Wall Street Journal."

Soon Hentoff moved again to the front table, center-stage.  Between our
table and the adopted table of Hentoff was Don Wolff, criminal defense
lawyer and St. Louis jazz radio host.  Wolff was acting as the official
videographer for the Jazz Party.
Periodically, Hentoff would pass in front of Don Wolff as he videoed the
event.  It upset Wolff, of course, and he gently spoke to Hentoff about it,
with no obvious effect.

Now to the conclusion of my story.  Wolff was photographing Dick Hyman's
piano solo at close range-- getting Hyman's finger-work on the video.  Out
of the corner of his eye, he could see Hentoff coming, oblivious to what was
going on. So, I stood up, put a body block on Hentoff, shushing him at the
same time and explaining quietly what was happening.  So I never was
formally introduced but I put a body block on him.

To Mr. Hentoff's credit, he returned to the Northeast and wrote an accurate
and glowing report of the entire event!

					--------

Regarding the NEA Jazz Masters awards, there was a photo of the present and
past Jazz Masters awardees taken.  As I recall, about 20.  This was
published in the same JazzTimes issue.  Dan Gioia, head of the NEA was in
Pensacola recently to present a $10,000 grant to the Pensacola Symphony.
Some arts people- I was included-- had a luncheon with him.  Subsequently he
sent a copy of the Jazz Masters photo for the Jazz Society archives.  A Jazz
Masters brochure had been prepared for the event with biographies and photo
of each of the present and past awardees.  Roger Villines of the Jazz
Society of Pensacola was in attendance at the IAJE January meeting in New
York and brought back a Jazz Masters brochure for the JSOP archives.

				----------------------

Regarding the following JazzTimes article by Nat Hentoff, I have also
experienced that jazz-family feeling among professional jazz players.  At
the Dick Gibson Colorado Jazz Parties, the jazz musicians would greet each
other warmly and exchange jazz anecdotes.  Milt Hinton wrote in his book and
also discussed with me, the get-together in 1957 for the "Great Day in
Harlem" photo.  He said that the musicians would get together and discuss
the jazz life.  He said that the piano players would group together, the
drummers and so on.  You can see that in the photos which Milt took prior to
the official photo.



Norman Vickers
____________________________________________________________________________
___-

THE FAMILY OF JAZZ

BY NAT HENTOFF

>From May 2004 JazzTimes

Years ago, I took my daughter, Miranda, to a rehearsal of Count Basie alumni
the morning of a Carnegie Hall tribute to their former leader.  Some of the
musicians were in their 60s and 70s.  As is usual in the jazz life, most had
not seen each other for some time and greeted each other warmly, jocularly
and started riffing on the times, good and bad, they’d had together

Among the musicians was drummer Gus Johnson, whose crisply elegant riding of
“the rhythm wave,” as Basie’s guitarist Freddie Green used to call it, has
never gotten the fullness of recognition he deserved.  And Harry “Sweets”
Edison captured Miranda’s attention when—as the band ran down one of the
arrangements for he evening—he stopped the music and turned his score back
to the arranger. “Too many notes,” Sweets said.  I later told Miranda what
Dizzy Gillespie had said to me not long before:  :It’s taken me all my life
to know what not to play.”

My daughter, though young, was already working gigs as a pianist and singer
of her own songs.  But she’d never been in the company of some of jazz’s
vintage creators.  After several hours we left and Miranda said to me, “ I’
I've never seen so much love among musicians before.”

The family-like love happened again in January in New York at the
International Association for Jazz Education’s Annual Conference when Dana
Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, hosted an NEA Jazz
Masters Luncheon.  Around the table were musicians I hadn't’t seen for
decades:  Benny Gholson, Chico Hamilton, George Russell, Dave Brubeck, Randy
Weston and Roy Haynes.  And some I’d only talked to briefly during the
years:  Clark Terry and Jimmy Heath.

It was a reunion for most of them, too.  They swapped stories of illusory
royalties from record dates, and more glowingly shared vivid memories of
their idols.  Randy Weston spoke of being a young man in the imperial
presence of Willie” The Lion” Smith.  Dave Brubeck and I traded stories
about Paul Desmond, who was one of the most lyrical, witty, ironic and
luminous melodic improvisers in the history of the music.

I told Dave of the crush Paul and I had on Audrey Hepburn and how we once
waited, without success, just look at her a t a stage door.  I never met
her, nor did Paul, but he wrote the song “Audrey” for her.  After she died,
someone close to her said she played that recording very often.  Paul never
knew that.

At tat NEA luncheon Roy Haynes told me, “When I was a kid, I used to listen
to your jazz program on the radio.” Roy is three months older than I am, but
I started in radio when I was in my teens.

I returned the favor and told him and the others at our table about the
first time I heard Roy.  At one of the Sunday jam sessions at the Savoy, a
jazz room in Boston, this kid, who couldn’t have been more than 17 or 18,
asked to sit in on drums.  He was going to Roxbury Memorial High School,
near where I lived.  As I remember, clarinetist Edmond Hall as well as other
jazz pros were on the stand, and this was the first time I’d seen a high
school student dare to be in such company.  The young Roy Haynes, with
crackling confidence, riveted everyone’s attention and finished to a roar of
applause.

As a reported, I’I've gotten to know political figures, criminal defense
lawyers, some their clients, judges, even a Supreme Court justice.  But I’d
rather be in the company of jazz musicians, especially at reunions when the
past comes alive again.  Toward the end of his book, Myself Among Others: My
life in Music, George Wein speaks of “ the humanity” of jazz players, whose
“feeling for communication transcends the music and becomes part of their
personal life.”

The strangest story I know about how jazz makes the most different people
into a sort of family was told to me long ago in Paris by Charles Delaunay,
the standard-setter for jazz discographers, and the creator of Jazz Hot
magazine (many of whose stories and interviews out to be anthologized.)
During World War II, working under cover in Paris for the Free French,
Charles was picked up by the Gestapo and taken in for interrogation.  As the
questioning was about to start, an SS officer looked hard at Delaunay, and
referred accusingly to a Fletcher Henderson record from the 1920s.  “You
didn't’t have all the right personnel on that date,” he said to Charles.
Delaunay was not held for long.

However, if any jazz person ends up in a tough spot with the secret police
in Zimbabwe, China or Cuba, he or she oughtn’t count on the jazz family ties
being that helpful again.  But those ties can be powerful. Jo Jones told me
of a legendary Kansas City drummer, Baby Lovett, who when his wife died,
grieved so hard that he stayed home and stopped functioning.  Jo canceled
all of his gigs for a month, flew back to Kansas City, moved in with Baby
Lovett and brought him back to life.

The music becomes a deep, regenerating part of the lives of all of us who
‘ stop listening to this family.

`				--End--

 F. Norman Vickers
Volunteer Executive Director
Jazz Society of Pensacola, Inc.
PO Box 18337
Pensacola, FL 32523-8337
JSOP Phone- 850-433-8382
JSOP FAX 850-433-7383
Home Phone 850-432-9743
Cell 850-324-5022
nvickers1 at cox.net (That's ONE not L)
www.jazzpensacola.com
www.jazzfederation.com