[Dixielandjazz] Howard Reich: Portraits in Jazz - Chicago Tribune, August 22, 2014

[Robert Ringwald]

A Critic's Collection of Great Jazz Interviews
by Howard Reich
Chicago Tribune, August 22, 2014
In 37 years of covering music for the Tribune, I've heard virtually all of the masters
and have been lucky enough to meet most of them. Whether chatting backstage with
Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra or conversing with Lena Horne in a Manhattan recording
studio or visiting Oscar Peterson and Ornette Coleman in their homes, I've been able
to ask whatever I wished about the subject they had dedicated their lives to: music.
Their thoughts have appeared in these pages, illuminating their art and how they
viewed it. Now many of my columns have been gathered in "Portraits in Jazz," a new
Tribune e-book. Its subtitle tells the story: "Profiling the Giants: >From Jelly Roll
Morton to Wynton Marsalis."
I wasn't fortunate enough to meet Morton, the first great architect of jazz, for
he died in 1941, at age 55, after having been swindled by a music industry that robbed
at least two generations of black musicians of royalties. But Morton left enough
of a record to piece together his story and set the stage for "Portraits in Jazz."
What follows are excerpts of thoughts the great musicians have shared with me as
I asked about their early years, their breakthroughs, their setbacks, the moments
they viewed as their triumphs. Their words are still inspiring to me and, I hope,
to readers too.
"Portraits in Jazz" is available now at chicagotribune.com/ebooks (free to DigitalPLUS
subscribers; $7.99 for nonsubscribers). It will be available in the TribBooks app,
and wherever else e-books are sold, beginning Tuesday.
Ella Fitzgerald, June 9, 1991:
"I used to go and jam with Dizzy (Gillespie), and that's how I learned my bop. Back
then (in the early '40s), they used to have places where you could just go and jam,
you know? Although they'd be sort of seedy after-hours spots, it was still the place
to be. So I used to follow Dizzy, travel a couple places with him, and I guess I
was just thrilled with what was going on (in Gillespie's band), and I tried to do
it. I just tried to do what I heard the horns in the band doing."
Lena Horne, June 7, 1998:
"I had my schooling right there in the Cotton Club (in New York City). I learned
from Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, Adelaide Hall, the Nicholas Brothers, the whole
thing, the whole schmear. That was a great place because it hired us, for one thing,
at a time when it was really rough (for black artists).... In a way, it's all very
funny, because so many of the things that happened were so ridiculous, you know?
You wouldn't be allowed to get on a particular bus, but you'd be asked to sign your
autograph. Now that's funny."
Frank Sinatra, July 14, 1991:
"Chicago was one of the turning points in my career. I was with Harry James' band,
and we were playing the Sherman Hotel's Panther Room, and Jimmy Hilliard, with CBS
Records, came to hear a few sets (in 1939). One thing led to another, and Hilliard
told Tommy Dorsey about me. Tommy saw me another time in Chicago, and we talked.
I still had time on my contract with Harry, but he was wonderful (agreeing to release
Sinatra). The Dorsey band was the dream of every singer then, and it was a terrific
shot. I stayed in Chicago with the Dorsey band, and seeing Harry and the guys leave
was one of the hardest things I've ever been through."
Dizzy Gillespie, Nov. 11, 1990:
"When I heard Charlie Parker for the first time (1940), man, I had never heard anybody
play like that. I mean, he sounded really different. So we locked ourselves up in
that hotel room and played all day. We didn't even call it bebop yet. The word came
about because people didn't know what tunes we were playing. So folks would come
up to us and say, 'Hey, man, play that tune, you know the one you played the other
night, which goes like: Ye de bop, do dob it dop, be bop, doo doo.' So that's how
they started calling our music bebop."
Ornette Coleman, Sept. 21, 2003:
"Oh, man, I've had some really terrible things done to me. At a certain point in
my life, I just decided that I would never fight any kind of class, any kind of race,
and if someone said, 'I don't like you,' I wouldn't try to defend myself. I'm not
trying to control, change, dominate, kill or be against anyone, or put somebody above
another. I think my position is that I'm no more than a speck of dust in the sand,
and I'm trying to avoid being stepped on."
Sonny Rollins, March 29, 1992:
"All I know is that when I was a kid, I used to lock myself into the closet to practice,
and I'd stay in there for hours and hours, just completely consumed by what I was
doing, happy in my own world. And I still think that when I'm really playing, I get
into it in a way that other things disappear. The 'where I'm at' and 'who's around
me' just go away, and I cocoon inside the music. I did it when I was a kid; I did
it when I was playing at some club on the South Side of Chicago, and the bartenders
got mad because I played four hours straight, and they couldn't turn over the crowd
to sell more drinks."
Wynton Marsalis, April 23, 1989:
"What I care about is music that has spiritual content. Bach is spiritual, and so
is Louis Armstrong. I believe that there is a spiritual core at the heart of all
music of significance. Music, you know, is a journey, and a record or a concert just
shows where you are in a certain space and time. All that matters is that you just
keep developing along the way."
Von Freeman, Sept. 20, 1992:
"See, when you pass 60, nine-tenths of this thing is stamina. Because you've got
to be able to stand up and play, because nobody is going to have any mercy on you
because of your age. They feel if you can't cut it, retire. So you've got to just
lean in there."
-30

-Bob Ringwald K6YBV
www.ringwald.com
916/ 806-9551

“Don't worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you.”
- Winston Churchill