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Funding for the Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program NEA Jazz Master interview was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. CEDAR WALTON NEA Jazz Master (2010) Interviewee: Cedar Walton (January 17, 1934 – August 19, 2013) Interviewer: William A. Brower and engineered by Kennith Kimery Date: October 2 and 3, 2010 Repository: Archives Center, National Museum of American History Description: Transcript, 116 pp. Walton: What's your last name? Brower: Brower. Walton: Brower. Yeah, you told me. Yeah. Brower: We gonna walk through history. Walton: Okay. Well, I hope so. [laughs] It's really cooling off just a little bit, a wee bit. Brower: It'll take a minute. Walton: Yeah. It's a big room. Brower: It is October 2nd, 2010. My name is William A. Brower and on behalf of the Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program, I'm interviewing Cedar … Is it Anthony? Walton: Yes. Brower: Walton. For additional information contact the Archives Center at 202.633.3270 or [email protected] 1 Walton: Junior. [chuckles] Brower: Uh, let's, you know, begin at the beginning. Because over the course of these two days, or as much of them as you are able to afford us, we want to walk through your history as you can account it to us. Walton: Uh-hm. Brower: Um, you're from Dallas. Walton: Dallas, Texas. Yes. Brower: Born in 19 …? Walton: '34. Brower: '34. Tell us something about your upbringing in Dallas. Just give us a broad picture of that. Walton: Well, I had very loving parents and I was an only child. I came up in a happy home that included also my grandmother, my mother's mother, too. So … which tells you that, uh, my father accepted a package deal, you know – mother and her mother. But he had no choice because my grandmother's cooking was superlative, to use one way to describe it. Seductive would be another. [laughs] He couldn't, he couldn't turn this combination of people down. His wife and his wife's mother. Then I came along. Brower: What was your mother's mother's name? Walton: Louise. Grimstead which, uh, that's one of the few questions of people who want to make sure you are who you say you are. You know, like credit people or like that. What was your mother's maiden name. [laughs] But anyway, so my mother was an aspiring concert pianist and she gave that up. I was too young to remember when or why, whether she decided to go into a, a public school teaching, and also she had a few piano students that came around, four or five, not a big schedule because she was busy teaching at regular school all day. She was a very pleasant woman, a big music lover. She used to love to play sheet music. I'll Be Seeing You, for instance, comes to mind. She would play that and sing those words. She couldn't play one note without the music, though, which, uh, doesn't make you a bad person. [laughs] At all. But uh, fast forward literally, hmm, sixty years, I recorded a [supervising?] recording with the great Etta James and she sang that song. So that was one of the songs I really knew and was able to do it justice. I wish more people could hear that. The CD got a Grammy. But she's a … as a personality that would… never picked up the Grammy. She was … we had to beg her to do this project about five years because she's a Blues artist. She considers herself … and they were trying to get her to do a Billie Holiday theme, and she was just afraid of, shall we say, a little bit skeptical about doing it. But she finally did it, and luckily she liked me and she liked the producer, John Snyder. And so, I digress. You know, that just happens to be one of my mother's favorite songs, and I 2 thought it was a miracle that I would run in to it again on a project such as, you know, a person who wasn't sure about their ability to do this kind of music. Brower: digressions are good Walton: Yeah, Okay. [laughs] Brower: as long as we return Walton: Yeah. [laughs] Brower: … to the chord Walton: Yeah. [laughs] Brower: you dig? Walton: Okay. [laughs] All right, so uh … and then my father's side of the parentage … Brower: Let me ask you [though?]. Walton: Oh. Brower: What do you know about your mother's musical training? You said she was an aspiring concert pianist. Walton: No, she just studied piano either before I was born … I can't give you much details, but she uh, was, went to college in Texas down in … named Wiley College, and I presume she, uh, had a, uh, she, uh, she took a major in whatever music program they had. And so that's where she was sort of trained. But she had an affinity for jazz that was uncanny, I mean, uh, I mean uncanny in a sense that she would take me to concerts. That's when I first heard Hank Jones. That, that tour, Jazz at the Philharmonic, I uh, my eyes, my eyes popped when I saw Hank, you know. I was very, very single-minded, you know. I said, "Wow!" – to sum up my feelings about Mr. Jones at that time. And we had a … Brower: How old were you? Walton: Uh, I was twelve, thirteen, fourteen maybe. Maybe twelve, you know. Pretty young, but totally impressionable because I'd been trying to play since I was five, you know. There was a room in my home, in our home that uh, in winter time, they didn't turn on the heat unless we had guests, you know, so I would put on my overcoat and go in there and tinkle and play what I thought I heard on these records by Louie Jordan and Nat King Cole. And now I know I wasn't For additional information contact the Archives Center at 202.633.3270 or [email protected] 3 even close, but at that time I thought I was. So … [laughs] it was like fooling myself in a way, you know? But in a good way. You know, just picking out things and making up stuff as my mother used to refer to it, but … Brower: You were about to speak about your father? Walton: Uh, he uh was in agriculture, and he'd grown up on a farm in the southern part of Texas near the Brazos River, but the soil was the color of that char here, and I say that because that soil was so rich, I like to joke about it, you could just look there and something would grow. You didn't even have to put a seed in there. So, I mean, that's my way of describing how he described how, uh, rich that soil was. So rich that he and his family, which was considerably large compared to my mother's family … She was an only child with a single mother and I was a … He was from a big family, brothers and sisters, and they had a farm which produced, from his account, first-rate produce, you know, and uh, they had many customers who would come and buy from them. That's how they made their living. Brower: What was his level of education? Walton: Uh, college graduate. He went to a place named Prairie View, Texas, which was sort of like a sister college to Wiley where my mother went. In other words if they would have social gatherings, they would sort of like, uh, try to interweave the, uh, the community, uh, and uh, you know, see what came from it. You know, dances, uh, soirees, I suppose. You name it. So they met at that level, I believe. Brower: You say he was in agriculture. What do he do? Walton: Well, uh, in each county in Texas anyway, they had what they called a county agent who monitored the farms in the county … uh, their production of everything: vegetables, livestock, or even uh … I'll always remember one day we were on … I used to go with him sometimes to these farms. It was his job to visit these farms and then make out reports and then when it came time for the state fair, he would issue ribbons; you know, blue ribbon or red or white. Blue was the highest, I believe, of these tomatoes and [laughs] different things. Chickens, livestock, everything. And so he was a county agent and he was that. Just to set the record straight, uh, to clarify, there were, uh … He was the Negro county agent. There was also a county agent [there was a Negro fund?] and now I'm talkin' 'bout the Forties now, of course, so …. We had a very happy life, a happy social surroundings, very uh, uh, commendable as I think back, you know. I didn’t, we did, we didn't need to uh, uh, to, to … in the small sense, need to be integrated. We had everything, we had everything on our side of the color line, so to speak. And uh, that's the answer to your question about my father and what he did. And I would often go with him on his … Sometimes I didn't feel like goin' to these farms, but after I got there and found other kids and we were playing on the tractors, in the hay and so forth.