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BIG BAUD NEWSLETTER JUMP VOLUME XXXIII BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER JULY-AUGUST 1994 Famous Door, where several radio broadcasts a week INTERVIEW CAPSULES spread the word about Count Basie’s exciting new band. It occurred to us that only the first subscribers to the The Scene BBJ NEWSLETTER, which began with the March- April issue o f1989, have had the advantage o f reading It was between sets at a dance featuring the Count Basie some o f the initial interviews. Rather than repeat them, Band and the guys were all outside taking a smoke and but to still give newer readers an opportunity to enjoy talking, but we caught the Count in the kitchen behind their comments, we offer these mini-interview com the ballroom. ments from two o f the music personalities featured in the first six months o f the BBJ NEWSLETTER. Basie leaned on a counter, relieving his legs of the weight, and was matter-of-fact, apparently not enjoying COUNT WILLIAM BASIE being interviewed. We later learned of his shyness, giving us the illusion that he didn’t want to be inter viewed, when in fact he later mentioned the value of such conversations. The year was 1971. The Interview Capsule BBJ: How did your theme, ONE O’CLOCK JUMP originate? CB: Well, that started in Kansas City. We were doing that number for some time without a name, and then we happned to be on the air at that time, too. We actually had a name for the tune, but it couldn’t be used in public. In those days we didn’t have to program numbers on ahead, and the announcer said, “What’s the name of this one, Base?” I just happened to look at the clock and it was about ten minutes to one, so I said, “Just call it ONE O’CLOCK JUMP.” That Count Basie was during the time we were on those late night broad The Background casts out of the Reno Club in Kansas City. BBJ: How have some of your other instrumentals If it hadn’t been for radio, there’s every chance William been named? Basie might have continued as the leader of a regional midwest band for some years beyond the late thirties, when most of us first heard of him. He was broadcasting CB: I know how we picked ours sometimes in the from the Reno Club on W9XBY when music critic John past. Some things kind of happen, and you name them after people.... some characters. And then Hammond heard him and set up his first national tour, I remember how JUMPIN’ AT THE WOODSIDE got ending at Roseland in New York City in late 1936. The its name. That was named for the first hotel we stopped band achieved top notoriety in 1938 and 1939 as the result of their work at the Savoy Ballroom and then the at. We used to rehearse and get a lot of things together there at the Woodside Hotel. That's how that got started. VOLUME XXXIII BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER JULY-AUGUST 1994 BBJ: Do your melodic ideas come from riffs that just occur, do they come from ideas in your head, or can you describe the process? CB: You’ve asked a beautiful question there. But I ’ m afraid you ’ 11 have to get the answer from the guys they really come from. They’re not mine. They come from some very talented arrangers who have been writing for the band in the past fifteen or twenty years. They’re the ones with the brainchilds. Before that, I had a few ideas of my own. Now, my ideas are sort of on the back shelf. The kids are coming up, and they’ve been doing marvelous things. They have their own ideas now. We’ve got a couple of guys in the band who are writing. Bob Crosby watches Bob Haggart work Eric Dixon, Bobby Plater, Quincy Jones, Neal Hefti, Benny Carter, Chico O’ Farrell and Sammy Nestico. sparkplugs of the Bob Crosby Orchestra in the late Guys like that have been doing some wonderful things 30’s and early 40’s, writing such enduring favorites for the band. I’m not going to take credit when it’s not as SOUTH RAMPART STREET PARADE and due. WHAT’S NEW, and performing as whistler, bass player and ad-lib composer with drummer Ray Bauduc BBJ: You’re being too modest. on BIG NOISE FROM WINNETKA which became an instant success on record. He began his career CB: I’m being truthful! playing banjo and guitar during his childhood on Long Island, and played trumpet and piano in a BBJ: You’ve been in the music business for several school band in Salisbury, Connecticut. He switched decades now. You’ve been besieged by fans to string bass in high school. and interviewers... .you get tired of it, I know. How do you keep a pleasant outlook? The Scene CB: Oh, I think this is a beautiful thing, because if Bob Haggart seemed more like Mr. Haggart, not be this would stop you’d be through. You know, cause of any formal behavior, but as a natural reaction when people stop asking for autographs and interviews to his distinguished appearance. With his grey hair and and all those type things, then you’d better believe it’s erect bearing, he could easily be mistaken for a bank over. You’d just as well go home and turn on the TV and executive or chairman of a multi-national corporation forget about it! instead of a working musician. Count Basie never had to go home and turn on the TV. His bass was in the comer of the room, carefully He played until afew weeks before his death on the 26th sheathed in its leather case, ready for action any mo o f April, 1984. ment, it seemed. Even though he’d probably answered the same ques BOB HAGGART tions many times before, he was extremely polite and casual, giving apparent thought to each comment as ifhe The Background hadn’t heard the question before, and carefully going into detail. He was 75 at the time of the interview, (1989) Robert Sherwood Haggart has become a living legend in but seemed to be twenty years younger, exhibiting a music, not only because he plays excellent bass, but quiet vitality; he obviously enjoyed talking about music. perhaps more important, because he also has composed and arranged from his earliest years. He was one of the The Interview Capsule 2 VOLUME XXXIII BIG BAND JUMP NEWSLETTER JULY-AUGUST 1994 BBJ: WHAT’S NEW was written for a specific minute.” The tables had table cloths, of course, and I reason. Would you tell us that story? wrote ledger lines on the white table cloth and wrote down da daaah da da dat... the first strain and part of the BH: Well, WHAT’S NEW was originally a song I’d second strain. I took the table cloth home and made the written in Chicago when we were at the arrangement from that. Blackhawk, and Billy Butterfield and I used to go out to Squirrel Ashcraft’s house. Now, he’s a lawyer who had BBJ: How’dyou get tied up with the Bob Crosby a recording machine and we’d go out there on our night Orchestra in the first place? A lot of the players off ...and I had just come up with this melody which I were left over from Pollack. had no title for... .1 play a little piano... .1 taught it to Billy on the spot and we made this little aluminum disc with BH: Yeah, the whole band were orphans from the the cactus needles. We’d go there on our nights off... and Ben Pollack Band. Well, I just got a call from drink scotch whiskey, of course... and have a lot of fun, Gil Rodin. They were looking for a new bass player and this was one of the things we did. The title I put on because Pete Peterson, the bass player they had, decided it was I’M FREE. About a week later, I think it was, I he didn’t want to leave New York and they were going had made an arrangement for the Crosby Band and we on the road and my name came up recommended by went into the studio and recorded it and it came out I’M different people, Ray McKinley, Glenn Miller, Jimmy FREE. It came out in an album featuring all the guys in Dorsey. the band, Fazola, the clarinet player and Eddie Miller and Bob Zurke.... BBJ: Isn’t it unusual for a bass player to be such a good composer and arranger? BBJ: And Butterfield did his solo. .. BH: Well, just lucky I guess. I’ve been so involved BH: And Billy did this... and I’M FREE came out of in music since I was in high school, I wanted to this Bob Crosby showcase. It was the first thing write arrangements. I never went to school formally, or Billy had been featured on and it caused quite a sensa anything like that. I was never trained to play the bass tion, you know, the way he played that tune. On the in the symphony....I sort of learned the hard way by strength of that, a lyric was written in California by going out and playing, ‘cause I love to play with good Johnny Burke, who was writing for Bing Crosby at that players.