Interview Nat Reeves
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Interview Nat Reeves Cadence: First thing, if you’ll just tell us your name, where you’re from, and what you play. Reeves: My name is Nat Reeves. I currently live in Hartford, Connecticut, and I play the acoustic bass. I was born in Virginia. Cadence: What’s the current project that you’re in Portland with? Reeves: I’m currently in Portland with the group called, “We Four.” Javon Jackson is the saxophone, Mulgrew Miller, pianist, I’m on bass, Jimmy Cobb, the great Jimmy Cobb is on drums. Cadence: And you teach in Hartford, right? Reeves: I teach at the Hartt School, Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz at the Universtiy of Hartford, in Connecticut, and I’ve been teaching there since 1982. I started off as an adjunct, part-time, and now I’m a full-time Associate in Music professor. Cadence: Are they sympathetic to your schedule? Reeves: Well, I the university expects their professors to perform and record—it’s like publishing; to be out involved in the public, to draw attention to the university, and the students are the ones I have to think about and try to—I don’t call it “make up”, but give them some special time when I return home, and keep them involved in things that are happening with me while I’m out on tour. Cadence: So you have a sub when you’re gone? Reeves: I have someone who teaches my ensembles. My private students have a syllabus schedule that they have; assignments, practice. If I tried to sub for all my private students, I probably would stay home. It wouldn’t be worth it. But this way, they have to learn how to practice, because a lot of young musicians think that the one-on-one lesson is when they learn. They don’t really practice, they wait for that lesson every week, but the fact that I go away sometimes, I think it’s good for them to get to know themselves, learn how to practice, become friends with the other musicians, and I hope that one day that they may be in the same situation that I’m in, and be a traveling musician and a professor. Cadence: Is it hard when you leave, for the students? Reeves: It’s hard leaving my wife, and my dogs, and my mother. It’s hard to leave to go anywhere right now, especially when you’re on an airplane every day. There’s so many things that could happen, but when the music is as strong as it is with this group, this is my immediate family now, so I stay in touch with those I can, and I do the best I can with the music. Cadence: Easier once you getting going? Reeves: Yes. Cadence: It’s hard to leave. Reeves: It’s hard to leave, but once you get going it becomes a routine. You not only play together, you eat together, you talk and you tell stories, and it becomes a bond that’s pretty special. Cadence: You’re with your friends. Reeves: You’re with your friends, and it becomes pretty special. Cadence: Not so lonely? Reeves: It can be lonely at home, if your head’s not clear, or thinking about good things. Cadence: I’d like to ask you about your relationship with jazz great, alto saxophonist Jackie McLean. Reeves: Well, the first time I met Jackie McLean was in Richmond, Virginia. I was living there at the time, and my cousin, Lee Jackson, took me to a concert that he was playing with, a group there called “The Oneness of Juju,” was the name of the band, and we had a brief meeting, a hello, and then I went to New York for a little while, came to Hartford, stayed for a little while and then went to New York, and then came back to Hartford. When I came back to Hartford the second time, that’s when another friend of mine took me to meet Jackie again, and he immediately got me involved in what he was doing. He had a concert at the University of Hartford, and he already had a bass player on stage, and he invited me up so he had two bass players on stage. So we became really good friends. He was my mentor. Everything that I’m doing today wouldn’t have happened without his help. Cadence: So he was huge. Reeves: He was a huge influence on my life, and a huge influence on my concept, everything that I try to do with my young students. He’s the reason I’m at the University of Hartford. He started the program there in the early 70s, and I think about him every day. Think about him every day. Cadence: Is it correct to say he covered Free, Hard Bop, Bop styles in his approach? Reeves: I think he covered all of the areas. You know, he loved Charlie Parker, he loved Ornette Coleman and some of the free music, he loved the electric bass. I even played the electric bass on a few of his songs, and he was very open to all music. Cadence: Jackie had a wide palette. Reeves: A very wide palette of music, and he was very helpful to young musicians, and he was helpful to not only musicians, but to anyone that could use some help. Very, very strong personality, and I think about him every day. Cadence: Good man to work with? Reeves: A great man to work with, great man. The band was always tight. We were always rehearsed. You always had money in your pocket; he would never let you travel with no money. Cadence: He had his stuff together, the business end, as well as the artistic. Reeves: He had his stuff together, yes. We would all meet at this house and go to JFK in a van together, and it was a band. In those days—since I was in the band from 1985. I played his last performances in 2004. I was on and off the band several times, but I was always involved in his life in some way or another, because I taught at the university and we shared an office together. I would take frequent trips with him to New York City to see his mom, and to meet with Arthur Taylor for breakfast, and I would take frequent trips to Boston to have his saxophone repaired. We would go out and eat Japanese food. We would speak pretty much every day, you know, when we were really, really tight. And I got to watch some of his students at the University of Hartford become part of the band. Cadence: The evolution of his students. Reeves: Yeah, yeah. Alan Palmer, Eric McPherson, Steve Davis; they were all students at the Hartt School. Cadence: Jackie McLean died after a long illness in March 2006? Reeves: I don’t want to say yes because I really don’t want to think about when he died because he died on my mother’s birthday, so it was a sad time for me. I kind of—it’s almost hard for me to celebrate her birthday. I have to give it a day or two. Cadence: Okay. Reeves: I think it’s 2006, but I hate to say people die. He’s still alive to me. I mean, because his music is just like he’s still here. Maybe not in body, but his music is here, so he really hasn’t died he’s just moved on. Cadence: I felt that when my grandmother died. It felt like she’s not gone. You know, her body is gone. Reeves: Yeah, the spirit is here. Cadence: You don’t feel like they don’t exist any more. Reeves: Yeah, the spirit is still here, and that’s the way I feel with him. I watch some of his videos on youtube or put his recordings on and think about some of the things he would say to me, and that’s what keeps him here. Cadence: Yeah, sounds like a really great mentor. Reeves: Oh, that’s what my whole concept is at the University of Hartford, is—you know, he always told us how to dress, you know, how to speak to people, how to get what you deserve, how to be polite, but, you know, you have to bark sometimes, the importance of the music; it’s all about the music. Cadence: Yeah, not losing the music— Reeves: Not losing the music. Cadence: Tell us about working with and meeting Jackie McLean. Reeves: The business part of it. My first trip abroad was with Sonny Stitt. I played his last performance, and it was my first trip to Japan, that was in 1982, so after that performance, I came back to Hartford, and that’s when I went over to see Jackie, really got to meet Jackie after that performance, and I played a cassette of Sonny playing, and he could only play the alto saxophone at that point, he was so weak. He had signed himself out of the hospital to be on that tour. Cadence: So, he was pretty sick at that point? Reeves: Yeah, those memories are strong in my heart, as well. There seems to be such a connection with saxophone players for me. Cadence: Why is that? Reeves: I don’t know. I spent a lot of time playing with the great Kenny Garrett as well, and Eric Alexander, on his last few recordings, and I just recorded with Kenny Garrett recently, in July 2011.