LIBRARY oF CONGRESS JAZZ SCHOLARS

Dc jAZZ pROJECT

A Legacy: Sight Sound and Beyond

Andrew White

MADE Possible by

tHE REVA aND DAVID LOGAN FOUNDATION

Thursday, November 3, 2016 ~ 7:00 pm Montpelier Room Library of Congress, James Madison Memorial Building Made possible by

The Reva and David Logan Foundation is a Chicago-based family foundation that provides strategic grants to support the arts, investigative journalism, scholarship and social justice. ***** Concerts from the Library of Congress has joined forces with the Logan Foundation to showcase some of the greatest figures and musicians in contemporary jazz. The 2016-2017 season features a commission and performance by Steve Coleman, an appearance by Ambrose Akinmusire, and residencies with jazz scholars Ingrid Monson and John Szwed. Andrew White lectures on Coltrane to launch the DC Jazz Project, an initiative that seeks to document the history of jazz and jazz musicians in the nation's capital through public programs and oral history interviews.

Please request ASL and ADA accommodations five days in advance of the program at 202-707-6362 or [email protected]. Latecomers will be seated at a time determined by the artists for each program. Children must be at least seven years old for admittance to the concerts. Other events are open to all ages. • Please take note: Unauthorized use of photographic and sound recording equipment is strictly prohibited. Patrons are requested to turn off their cellular phones, alarm watches, and any other noise-making devices that would disrupt the program. Reserved tickets not claimed by five minutes before the beginning of the event will be distributed to stand-by patrons. Please recycle your programs at the conclusion of the program. The Library of Congress Montpelier Room Thursday, November 3, 2016 — 7:00 pm

LIBRARY oF CONGRESS JAZZ SCHOLARS DC JAZZ PROJECT A John Coltrane Odyssey: Sight, Sound and Beyond Andrew White Speaker & Saxophone • About the Speaker

Andrew White has won international recognition as a multi-instrumentalist, music theorist, composer, author, publisher and entrepreneur. 2016 marks the 45th anniversary of his publishing company, Andrew’s Music, which offers over 2,900 titles in its catalog, including four hundred compositions, fifty books, articles and treatises, and more than sixty recordings. White is an authority on the music of John Coltrane. Admired as “The Keeper of the Trane,” he has created and published 840 transcriptions of the jazz master’s solo improvisations, and his book Trane ‘n Me is considered a significant contribution to Coltrane scholarship. Born in Washington, DC, White grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. He graduated cum laude from Howard University, earning a Bachelor’s degree with a major in music theory and a minor in oboe. He continued his study of the oboe at the Paris Conservatory as a recipient of a fellowship from the John Hay Whitney Foundation. Further studies followed at Tanglewood and at Dartmouth College. White received two Rockefeller Foundation fellowships between 1965 and 1967, awarded for the study and performance of contemporary music at the State University of New York at Buffalo. As a musician White has pursued successful and wide-ranging careers in classical music, jazz and pop, performing as an oboist, bassist and saxophonist. His saxophone career has included performances with the Washington-based J.F.K. Quintet (1961-63) and with such artists as Kenny Clarke, Otis Redding, McCoy Tyner, , as well as with the Julius Hemphill Saxophone Sextet, the Dutch Six Winds sextet and his own sextet, Andrew White’s Zorrosax Allstars. As a soloist he has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Town Hall, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. He worked as a bassist with Stevie Wonder while continuing to perform as principal oboist with the American Ballet Theatre; later he would tour for five years with the Fifth Dimension and with the jazz-fusion group Weather Report. White was featured as composer, conductor and soloist with the Mass Double Reed Orchestra, a 300-player ensemble, at the International Double Reed Society conference in 2003. Among the honors and awards he has received is a gold medal from France’s distinguished Society of Arts-Sciences-Letters (ASL), awarded to him in Paris in May 2006.

1 Andrew White, 'Keeper of the Trane,' is a Living Legend Unknown to Many Mark Minsker, CapitalBop (March 7, 2011) Reprinted with permission, with thanks to Giovanni Russonello http://www.capitalbop.com/musician-profile-andrew-white-keeper-of-the- trane-is-a-living-legend-unknown-to-many/

Andrew White in his D.C. home. Giovanni Russonello/CapitalBop

Over the course of the twentieth century, D.C. was home to many significant jazz musicians, including such luminaries as Duke Ellington, , and Jelly Roll Morton. But there’s one D.C. jazz figure who is the ultimate Renaissance man: a saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist who has been performing and recording here for 50 years; a collaborator who has played with countless jazz greats and soul artists; a scholar who is known as “Keeper of the Trane” for his meticulous transcriptions of 650 John Coltrane solos (virtually every one on record); and a producer who has released thousands of products, from recordings to transcriptions to books.

One would think that with all these accomplishments, this person would be the darling of D.C.’s music community, a poster child for jazz’s greatness in the nation’s capital. But for one reason or another, this has never happened.

Andrew White began his career as the leader of an innovative quintet on one of the world’s top jazz labels, then went on to record with McCoy Tyner and Weather Report and toured with Stevie Wonder. Nowadays, the 68-year-old seems destined to fade into obscurity.

2 A possible reason why White hasn’t been as celebrated as certain other D.C. musicians is his refusal to compromise with the music industry. In an age when so-called DIY music production and promotion were unheard of, he founded his own label, Andrew’s Music. From there, he recorded, produced, pressed and disseminated his own records – more than 40 in all. He also used the label as a vehicle for publishing his writing, which has ranged from essays and “treatises” on music and life to adult fiction to an 850-plus-page autobiography.

With the possible exception of Sun Ra’s El Saturn label, Andrew’s Music is the longest-lasting self-run, self-produced jazz record label in the world.

White's framed transcription of Coltrane's "Afro-Blue" solo runs along an entire wall in his Brookland home. Giovanni Russonello/CapitalBop

On my recent visit to Washington’s other “White House,” located in the Brookland neighborhood, White let me browse the inventory of works on his imprint. “All of my records are still in print,” he mentioned, pulling out several shrink-wrapped LPs available for me to purchase. “If you’re interested, I also have copies of my autobiography for sale. Everything is in there, at least everything up till now.”

As I flipped through the impossibly thick autobiography, it quickly became apparent that this aging man had done it all, seen it all – most of which he had meticulously documented in the tome titled Everybody Loves The Sugar. Sitting down with me to discuss some important moments in his life, White pinpointed his freshman year in college as the beginning of his long career in music and the arts.

3 Born in D.C. but raised in Nashville, Tenn., “I came back to Washington, D.C. to attend Howard University, where my father had gone to school,” White told me. “Within six months, I was already involved on the jazz scene – and I wasn’t but 18 years old.” With an intense interest in music, he majored in music theory with a minor in oboe. But the music program at Howard in 1960 was vastly different from how it stands today. “Back then, there were no jazz musicians there,” White recalled. “This was before the Jazz Studies program had started. There were students interested in classical music and music theory, but it was primarily an educational institution.”

Within the first six months of his time at Howard, White landed a gig at Bohemian Caverns with a group that came to be known as the JFK Quintet. The band featured White on alto saxophone, Ray Codrington on trumpet, Harry Kilgore on piano and , Jr. on bass. Drummer Billy Hart, who went on to become a major figure, was in the first incarnation. But “he had prior commitments, and so we brought in Mickey Newman,” White explained. As is the case today, Bohemian was nestled in the heart of the U Street Corridor, so many other musicians who were gigging in the area stopped by at the JFK Quintet’s Monday night gigs. Luminaries like John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy were among the many.

“Cannonball Adderley was playing around the corner at A. Bart’s International Lounge, and he’d come by on his breaks to hear us,” White recalled. “Just like we’d go and hear him on our breaks.” Adderley was enamored with the young, forward- thinking quintet, and he invited the group to New York for a recording date with Riverside Records. This led to the debut album,New Jazz Frontiers from Washington, which Adderley produced and garnered ample fanfare. But after a second Riverside LP, Young Ideas, was released, the band dissolved in September 1963.

White completed his final semester at Howard and headed for Europe to study the oboe at the Paris Conservatory of Music. It was during this time that he met his future wife, Jocelyne, and honed his chops at some of the finest jazz clubs in Paris.

“In January of 1965, I started playing heavily at the Blue Note club – that’s the club they depict in that Dexter Gordon movie [‘Round Midnight]. I was in there quite a bit, all the way up until the time I came back to the states. There were two bands each night. Kenny Clarke’s was the main band. They listed me as Andres Blanc. I started out with three weeks subbing for Ornette Coleman; something happened and he couldn’t make it over there. So they had a rhythm section there for me, including Marc Hemmeler on piano and Michel Goudry on bass.”

With the assistance of a Rockefeller grant, White returned to the United States to “perform contemporary music” as part of a two-year residency at the State University of New York, Buffalo. Upon returning to D.C., he continued performing around town, primarily with Shirley Horn’s group, which had taken up a residency at the Showboat Lounge in Adams Morgan. But White was unimpressed with his hometown’s music scene.

4 “The jazz scene has never been good here, in my opinion,” he said. “That’s why I’m thankful for rock ‘n’ roll; I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for rock ‘n’ roll.” This is a reference to a break he received in 1968. Stevie Wonder was scheduled to play at D.C.’s Carter Barron Amphitheatre, and at the last minute he found himself needing a bass player. White received a call from major D.C.-based bassist Keter Betts.

“I had just started playing bass around that time,” White said, “so I did the Carter Barron show and one thing led to another. I ended up staying with Stevie for almost three years.” And although it may be a stretch to think of Wonder’s music as “rock ‘n’ roll,” White uses the term for Wonder’s commercially successful R&B sound. From Wonder’s band, White landed a spot as the 5th Dimension’s bass player from 1970 until 1975. “That position and the one with Stevie helped me pay the bills,” he said with a smile.

A younger White clowns in the studio. Courtesy of Andrew White.

But in September 1971, White was about to embark on an adventure that would cost far more than any utility bill, and would be far more challenging than [any] other gig he’d ever agreed to. “Around 1971, and at the age of 29, it was apparent to me that the music business, music industry, the entertainment ‘confabulation’ and/or even the art world itself, all or in part, could not and/or would not have accommodated me and/ or my various artistic gifts of excess. Therefore, I took it upon myself to create an umbrella business that would shelter, nurture, develop, produce and distribute my wares in the context of my own stamina,” he explained.

Founded on the day of Coltrane’s birthday, Andrew’s Music became White’s most ambitious project. Commencing with the very first release, the self-titled solo record Andrew Nathaniel White II, the label was a vehicle for not only White but the various players who regularly performed with him. Steve Novosel, one of D.C.’s most

5 accomplished bassists who also recorded with Rahsaan Roland Kirk, first joined forces with White in 1963 and has appeared on more than a dozen of White’s LPs. “Steve’s been with me for 48 years,” he noted, “and there’s not a finer bass player out there.”

Year after year, White released recordings that demonstrate his diversity as a musician and his interest in exploring wildly variant soundscapes. A survey of his 40-plus recordings gives insight into his interest in everything from classical oboe compositions to early-1970s funk. One consistency among all of his albums is the recording quality; even the live recordings are well balanced and mastered.

White stands next to "Saxophonitis," one of his 40-plus albums he has released on Andrew's Music. Giovanni Russonello/CapitalBop

As a sideman throughout the years, White played saxophone on McCoy Tyner’s LP Asante and oboe on the pianist’s album Cosmos; bass and English horn on the famous Weather Report albums I Sing the Body Electric and Sweetnighter; and saxophone on Bobby Watson’s E.T.A.

Today, White rarely performs, and has stopped composing and recording at the frightful clip he maintained for years. Ask the younger musicians coming up on the District’s jazz scene, and some simply do not know who White is.

It’s shocking that White hasn’t received more recognition for his work. He has delivered the world a complete package: the adroit multi-instrumentalist and consummate showman, the inspired composer who is an equally formidable improviser, the dedicated producer and chronicler, and the serious scholar who isn’t afraid to clown. He has been making uncompromised music through his company for the last 40 years. One thing is for sure: White’s name and label will forever be two of the most important components of D.C. jazz history.

6 Concerts from the Library of Congress

The Coolidge Auditorium, constructed in 1925 through a generous gift from Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, has been the venue for countless world-class performers and performances. Gertrude Clarke Whittall presented to the Library a gift of five Stradivari instruments which were first heard here during a concert on January 10, 1936. These parallel but separate donations serve as the pillars that now support a full season of concerts made possible by gift trusts and foundations that followed those established by Mrs. Coolidge and Mrs. Whittall. • Concert Staff

CHIEF, MUSIC DIVISION Susan H. Vita

ASSISTANT CHIEF Jan Lauridsen

SENIOR PRODUCERS FOR Michele L. Glymph CONCERTS AND SPECIAL PROJECTS Anne McLean

MUSIC SPECIALISTS Nicholas A. Brown David H. Plylar

ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER Donna P. Williams

RECORDING ENGINEER Michael E. Turpin

TECHNICAL ASSISTANT Sandie (Jay) Kinloch

PRODUCTION MANAGER Solomon E. HaileSelassie

CURATOR OF Carol Lynn Ward-Bamford MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

BOX OFFICE MANAGER Anthony Fletcher

PROGRAM DESIGN Nicholas A. Brown

PROGRAM PRODUCTION Michael Munshaw

7 Support Concerts from the Library of Congress

Support for Concerts from the Library of Congress comes from private gift and trust funds and from individual donations which make it possible to offer free concerts as a gift to the community. For information about making a tax-deductible contribution please call (202-707-5503), e-mail ([email protected]), or write to Jan Lauridsen, Assistant Chief, Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC 20540-4710. Contributions of $250 or more will be acknowledged in the programs. All gifts will be acknowledged online. Donors can also make an e-gift online to Friends of Music at www.loc.gov/philanthropy. We acknowledge the following contributors to the 2016-2017 season. Without their support these free concerts would not be possible. • GIFT aND tRUST fUNDS DONOR cONTRIBUTIONS

Julian E. and Freda Hauptman Berla Fund Producer ($10,000 and above) Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation The Reva and David Logan Foundation William and Adeline Croft Memorial Fund Dr. Sachiko Kuno Da Capo Fund Adele M. Thomas Charitable Foundation, Inc. Ira and Leonore Gershwin Fund Isenbergh Clarinet Fund Guarantor ($5,000 and above) Irving and Verna Fine Fund Mallory Walker and Diana Walker Mae and Irving Jurow Fund Carolyn Royall Just Fund Underwriter ($2,500 and above) Kindler Foundation Trust Fund Embassy of Sweden & Swedish Arts Council Dina Koston and Robert Shapiro Fund for George Sonneborn and Rosa C. Iping New Music The George and Ruth Tretter Charitable Gift Boris and Sonya Kroyt Memorial Fund Fund, Carl Tretter, Trustee Wanda Landowska/Denise Restout Memorial Fund Benefactor ($1000 and above) Katie and Walter Louchheim Fund Stephen and Louise Burton Robert Mann Fund Susan Clampitt and Dr. Jeremy P. Waletzky McKim Fund Dr. Ronald M. Costell and Marsha E. Swiss Norman P. Scala Memorial Fund In memory of Dr. Giulio Cantoni and Mrs. Karl B. Schmid Memorial Fund Paula Saffiotti Judith Lieber Tokel & George Sonneborn Fund Remmel T. Dickinson Anne Adlum Hull and William Remsen Strick- Diane Dixson land Fund Carole J. Falvo Rose and Monroe Vincent Fund Andrew and Eleanor Glass Gertrude Clarke Whittall Foundation Milton J. Grossman, Various Donors Fund In memory of Dana Krueger Grossman Randy Hostetler Living Room Music Project and Fund Dexter M. Kohn David A. Lamdin, In memory of Charles B. and Ann C. Lamdin Lee, In memory of Dr. and Mrs. Chai Chang Choi

8 Benefactor (Continued) Patron (Continued) Egon and Irene Marx Allan Reiter John Mineto Ono Robert Roche and Nancy Hirshbein Joyce E. Palmer Bruce Rosenblum and Lori Laitman Dr. Judith C. and Dr. Eldor O. Pederson Roberta Ong Roumel Arthur F. Purcell Victor Roytburd Mace Rosenstein and Louise de la Fuente Rebecca and Sidney Shaw, S&R Foundation In memory of Dr. Leonard G. Shaw June H. Schneider Christopher Sipes Beverly and Philip Sklover Patron ($500 and above) Maria Soto, In memory of Sara Arminana Anonymous Elaine Suriano The Hon. Morton I. and Sheppie James C. Tsang Abramowitz Joan M. Undeland, Mr. and Mrs. David Alberts In memory of Richard E. Undeland William D. Alexander Harvey Van Buren Daniel J. Alpert and Ann H. Franke Linus E. and Dolores R. Wallgren, Devora and Samuel Arbel In memory of Dana Krueger Grossman Agatha and Laurence Aurbach Sidney Wolfe and Suzanne Goldberg Bill Bandas Gail Yano and Edward A. Celarier Leonard and Gabriela Bebchick The Hon. Anthony C. and Delores M. Sponsor ($250 and above) Beilenson Anonymous (2) Peter and Ann Belenky Henry and Ruth Aaron David and Judith Bernanke Eve E. Bachrach, Sandra J. Blake, In memory of Ronald Diehl In memory of Laurel and Linda Bergold Marc H. and Vivian S. Brodsky Elena Bloomstein Richard W. Burris and Shirley Downs Jill D. Brett Dr. Susan Canning and Dr. Adam Lowy The Caceres-Brown Family, Doris N. Celarier In memory of Beryl A. Brown & Frances William A. Cohen Rowan Herbert L. and Joan M. Cooper Gerald Cerny Becky Jo Fredriksson and Rosa D. Wiener Carol Ann Dyer Fred S. Fry, Jr. Lawrence Feinberg Geraldine and Melvin C. Garbow Ronna L. and Stanley C. Foster Howard Gofreed, In memory of Ruth Tretter Elizabeth A. Fulford The Richard & Nancy Gould Family Fund Roberta A. Gutman, Wilda M. Heiss, In memory of David Gutman In memory of Norman Middleton Margaret F. Hennessey, Frederic and Lucia Hill Charitable Fund In memory of Edward Schmeltzer Sheila and John Hollis Zona Hostetler Michael B. Jennison R. Bruce Johnston Harold F. Kendrick In honor of Carolyn and Bob Johnston Sandra D. Key, In memory of Dr. James W. Phyllis C. Kane Pruett Kay and Marc Levinson Rainald and Claudia Lohner Eileen Mengers, Mary Lynne Martin In memory of Charles and Eileen Mengers Winton E. Matthews, Jr. George P. Mueller Donogh McDonald Jeff and Carolyn Serfass John and Eileen Miller Linda Sundberg Undine A. and Carl E. Nash Ianina J. Tobelmann Morton and Ruth Needelman Jan Wolff John P. O'Donnell Judith C. and Eldor Pederson 9