Tape Log Interviewee: Hugh Joseph “Rusty” Hassan III Interviewer
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Tape Log Interviewee: Hugh Joseph “Rusty” Hassan III Interviewer: Kelly Elaine Navies Interview Date: August 20, 2014 Location: Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Washington, DC Length of Interview: 1:00:35 Comments: Only Text in quotation marks is verbatim; all other text is paraphrased, including the interviewer’s questions. Time Topic 0:02 “Today is August 20th, 2014…” 0:35 Mr. Hassan, “Rusty”, recounts some details of his family and his early years in New England. He became interested in Jazz at an early age and began collecting record albums. 4:40 In the fall of 1963, Rusty moves to Washington, DC to attend Georgetown University and takes his record collection. Rusty turned 18 a few days after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. 5:50 Rusty’s love of Jazz music was not influenced by his friends or family. However, he discovered in his mother’s closet a collection of 78 rpm recordings of the Jazz at the Philharmonic series. The pianist listed on the record label was named “Shorty Nadine”, which Rusty’s later research eventually revealed to be in reality Nat King Cole. Rusty is now a good friend of Nat’s younger brother and jazz artist Freddy Cole. Rusty makes sure to see Freddy’s appearances in Washington, DC. 7:00 Rusty talks about the influence his friends at Georgetown had on his choices to attend live music performances in DC. He was friends with other jazz lovers. One friend in particular, an African American young woman, Carolyn Jackson, was very influential. Her brother Ambrose Jackson was the trumpet player for the house band at the Howard Theatre. Ambrose would encourage Carolyn to see particular performances. So, she and Rusty would go the matinee shows, sometimes cutting class to do so. 8:45 Rusty talks about being one of the few white people that attended shows at the Howard Theatre in the 1960s. He was excited to experience live music performances and absorb the rich African American culture. He was already aware of the ties between Rhythm ‘n’ Blues, The Blues and Jazz. One artist in particular, Bo Diddley, was a major influence on the Rock ‘n’ Roll guitarists that followed. Rusty also recalls that the Magnificent Men, a “blue-eyed soul” group were warmly received by African American audiences at the Howard Theatre. 10:02 Rusty remembers feeling “pretty welcome” as a white person at the historically African American Howard Theatre. This was not his first time venturing outside the mainstream of European American culture. In the summer of 1963, Rusty recalls that he and a friend from New England went to Small’s Paradise in Harlem. These two young white teenagers were not treated with hostility at all. Rusty compares Smalls with the Howard by saying they were pretty much the same. As a music lover Rusty comments that the sound system at the Howard was not the greatest. But it was the audiences’ enthusiastic response to the live music that thrilled him. 12:15 Rusty recalls that the Howard Theatre house band, which was very much in the Soul Music format, was led by saxophonist Rick Henderson. Mr. Henderson had played lead alto for Duke Ellington’s Jazz Orchestra during the period that Johnny Hodges was away from the ensemble. While Rusty was at Georgetown his friend’s brother, Ambrose Jackson, played trumpet for the Howard Theatre house band. In the mid-1950s he left to tour with Otis Redding. Eventually, he settled in Europe and began working with avant-garde jazz musicians. 14:30 Rusty recalls the highlight of live music performances on U Street occurred at Bohemian Caverns. It has been restored to its former glory and is doing good business today. It started in the 1920s as the Crystal Caverns. In May 1965, Rusty and his off-campus roommate from George Washington University, Toby Mason, had seen an ad in the newspaper that Ramsey Lewis was going to perform at the Bohemian Caverns. They arrived for the performance to find large trucks filled with recording equipment outside the club. After some investigation, they learned that the performance was going to be recorded for a live album. The Ramsey Lewis, Eldee Young and Red Holt played a jazzy instrumental version of an R&B hit song, “The In Crowd”. The audience really enjoyed the song and began clapping along underneath the music. The trio plays several more traditional jazz numbers and the performance ends. Later that summer, Rusty recalls hearing the song playing on the radio and realizing that he is hearing himself clapping along to the music. 18:05 Rusty recalls another highlight at Bohemian Caverns. He went to see John Coltrane around that same time. He remembers walking down the stairs while bassist Jimmy Garrison is playing a long solo introduction. Then McCoy Tyner comes in on piano, followed by Elvin Jones on drums and finally John Coltrane on tenor saxophone. Rusty recalls the performance was so intense. During a break, John Coltrane passed very close by Rusty. John had that same thoughtful expression on his face as on the cover of A Love Supreme. Rusty was too tongue-tied to speak to him. Many years later he recounted that story to McCoy Tyner. McCoy Tyner laughed and told Rusty that John was friendly and might have talked all night with him, but it had to be about music. Jimmy Heath, jazz saxophonist, had much the same to say about Coltrane. Mr. Heath added that John Coltrane had complete focus on the music, and practiced during set breaks while other musicians talked and rested. 20:55 In the fall of 1965, Rusty and his new roommates, who were living at 19th and S Street NW, went to Bohemian Caverns to see the classic Miles Davis Quintet featuring Herbie Hancock on piano, Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone, Ron Carter on bass and Tony Williams on drums. 24:17 Rusty didn’t eat at restaurants on U Street. He grabbed food, a hot dog or something like that, on the way. 24:30 Rusty graduated from Georgetown in 1967 and became a Vista Volunteer. He met his future wife, Sandra Barrett, in 1968. Sandy, an African-American woman born in Washington, DC at Freedmen’s Hospital and had attended the March on Washington in 1963, was teaching African dance at a community organization in Adams Morgan. 25:40 Rusty recalls the “insurrection” or riots of 1968 after the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He and Sandy were living in an apartment at 1620 Fuller Street NW. They were just off 16th Street and not far from 14th Street, and experienced the spill over to Columbia Road. Because he was a Vista Volunteer connected with the Georgetown University Community Action Program, Rusty rode over to campus and went up to the roof of one of the buildings to get a panorama view over the city and the fires that were burning. Later, Rusty gave a fellow community activist, Alice Arshack (sp?) a ride to her home uptown, but the National Guard would not allow him to get back home to Sandy, and so he spent the night at Alice’s. 28:05 Rusty never felt that he should fear for his safety because he was white. He recalls that neighborhood around the apartment was fairly integrated. Some of the building tenants were involved with Nonviolent Action Group “NAG”, the Howard University affiliate of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). These residents were involved in opening an African-American focused bookstore known as the Drum and Spear. Sandy was one of the original employees. A lot of her friends were Black Nationalists and initially relations were very tense. However, eventually he became close friends with a lot of the people who had been very hostile at first. This group included the poet, Gaston Neal. In the beginning, Sandy’s friends weren’t sure about Rusty. They wondered if Rusty was a very light-skinned black guy. Once they understood that he was white, they were against Rusty and Sandy’s relationship. They asked her questions like “What are you doing with this white guy?” Their relationship survived that test; they got married and have remained together 45 years. 30:00 Rusty talks about their “honeymoon” trip to Europe from September to December of 1969. Sandy wanted to be married before going on a trip to Europe with Rusty. They started in Great Britain first. They stayed with Rusty’s former roommate from Georgetown University for a week or two. Then Rusty, Sandy, and a third friend drove down to Dover. From there, the trio took a ferry to Dunkirk and then went on to Amsterdam. Then they went to Paris and parted ways with the third person. Rusty and Sandy searched for Ambrose Jackson, the brother of his Georgetown University classmate and former trumpet player with the Howard Theatre house band. He was now working with avant-garde jazz artists in Paris. Ambrose introduced them to another interracial couple. The two couples drove to Marseille and then took a ferry to Corsica. They stayed in the man’s father’s home for a week and returned to Paris. 33:00 Rusty was wanted to attend a major Rock and Jazz Festival in Paris sponsored by the BYG Actuel Record Label. However, Paris was under martial law in response to the insurrections occurring in major cities in America and Europe. The CRS, a militarized police force, were patrolling the streets armed with machine guns. The festival had been declared cancelled in Paris.