Posts in category G

The Hal Galper Interview 2002

May13
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

halGalperPianist, composer, publisher, educator, and author Hal Galper has somewhere around 100 recordings to his credit, many as a leader. Best known for his work with Chet Baker, Cannonball Adderley, John Scofield and the Phil Woods Quintet, his recordings as a leader with Mike and Randy Brecker are considered among his best.

In continuing with a concentration on Bill Evans, here is an interview by Jan Stevens posted on the BillEvansWebpages which was conducted over a period of several weeks in April 2002 mostly in email, and after several phone conversations. In it, Galper shares his vast knowledge of and his love for the music of Bill Evans. From the interview:

What do you feel was Bill’s influence on your own playing personally, and how did that come about? And how did it change the way you approached voicings or perhaps rhythmic displacement ?

I was attracted to his harmonic conception but not his lines. I tried a few of his voicings but a truth I learned when I was copying Red Garland raised it’s ugly head again: what you play on any instrument will be dictated by the sound you get on it, i.e., one’s touch. When I played Red’s or Bill’s voicings, I had to either add or subtract notes to make them sound good with my hands.

Click here to read The Hal Galper Interview 2002

—Peter Blasevick

Posted in Evans, Bill, Galper Hal - Tagged , , ,

Maxine Gordon: The Legacy of Dexter Gordon

Feb27
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

I’m posting interviews from AllAboutJazz.com all week. Their mission is to “provide information and opinion about jazz from the past, present, and future,” and they do a good job of it!

Today we celebrate the late, great Dexter Gordon’s 90th birthday. Gordon was a focal point of the bebop and hard bop revolutions, and later in his career, he achieved the status of an American icon with his lead role in Bernard Tavernier’s 1986 film, Round Midnight, which garnered him an Academy Award nomination. Gordon’s wife and longtime manager, Maxine Gordon, has kept the legacy strong through lectures and guest appearances, donation of all of Gordon’s archival work to the Library of Congress, the licensing group Dex Music LLC and The Dexter Gordon Society.

Maxine is also a serious scholar, and is finishing her PhD at NYU in preparation for her biography of Dexter, which is due out this year. During this 2012 interview with Victor Schermer, she responds to a comparison of her exhaustive work to that of Monk’s biographer Robin Kelley:

“Actually, Robin was my adviser. I did the research for him on the San Juan Hill neighborhood in Manhattan where Monk came of age. But my biography of Dexter is somewhat different. I’m writing more of a cultural history, and a large part of the book is in Dexter’s own words. He did a lot of writing—vignettes, letters. While he was in Europe, he wrote letters to Alfred Lion and Frank Wolff at Blue Note. I have placed all those letters, his and theirs, in the Library of Congress. I became an archivist, and put together three Dexter Gordon collections in the Library of Congress: first of all, his papers. Then, in Culpeper, Virginia is the recorded sound—all his CDs, tapes, and 78s. Finally, there are the letters, music manuscripts, photos, and documents. My research for Dexter’s biography will utilize these collections extensively.”

I can’t wait to read her biography of Dex, but until then, we have this interview:

Click here to read Maxine Gordon: The Legacy of Dexter Gordon

Posted in Gordon Maxine, Gordon, Dexter - Tagged , , , ,

Diz on Bird—The Jazz Review, January 1961

Jan15
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

This week I’m posting interviews from the music journal The Jazz Review, which has been wonderfully preserved at the great website jazzstudiesonline.org. Founded by Nat Hentoff, Martin Williams, and Hsio Wen Shih in New York in 1958, The Jazz Review was the premier journal of jazz in the United States. Short-lived as it was (1958-1961), it set an enduring standard for criticism. All the interview links point to the full .pdf for that issue, so it might take a second to load. Worth the wait!

Today’s interview is a treat; Dizzy Gillespiegives a long interview to Felix Manskleid strictly on the topic of Charlie Parker. Diz passes on some interesting history during the talk, and here he talks about the evolution of Bebop:

How would you describe the evolution of jazz from the time when you started out, and Charlie Parker started out, until the time you had arrived and actually were known, and you had created something?

You don’t have any set time or place where any one thing happened in music. It’s such a big picture — you got to take it in terms of alto sax, in terms of tenor sax, in terms of trumpet . . . How can you say what started what or where or when? 

You should get a bunch of guys who were with us at the time and ask them to remember what happened. It’s very hard to remember. You might be putting yourself on. All the original guys know exactly who contributed what. One guy who has been sadly neglected in the history of mpdern music, I think, is Oscar Pettiford. 

Charlie Parker and I, we started out of the same kind of music, but our styles are different.

One thing that is different now, most soloists now know how to play piano — most of the best ones. It’s very important because it is the basic instrument of Western music, the piano gives you the key. When you know that, you can branch out to other instruments. It gives you a wonderful perspective. But you can’t say it was a new thing. We all were working on the same chords, the same notes that everybody worked on from before. It was just a different approach. It takes lots of little things that when they are added up, many, many, many, many of them, they add up to a great abundance. 

Click here to read Diz on Bird—The Jazz Review, January 1961

Posted in Gillespie, Dizzy - Tagged , , , ,

Robert Glasper on Tavis Smiley 2012

Nov13
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

Keeping with this week’s theme of interviews from talk show host Tavis Smiley’s archive, here is a brand new talk with pianist and producer Robert Glasper, one of the rare musicians who has been able to walk that line between jazz and other styles of music and have success, acclaim, and street cred in them all. When Tavis asks him if being called a Jazz pianist is too limiting a phrase, Glasper responds:

“Not really…when I hear the words ‘Jazz pianist’, that just means I have the skills to do most things. Because to be a Jazz pianist, even to be a BAD Jazz pianist, you have to be…you have to be pretty good, if that makes any sense, you know what I mean? It gives you a lot of tools just to play Jazz, even bad, so you can pretty much approach any other music and be able to technically play it.” 

— Peter Blasevick

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Stan Getz in Saxophone Journal 1986

Nov08
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

I’m posting interviews this week from Mel Martin’s great site. In this cool 1986 interview, the great tenorman Stan Getz speaks on a number of topics, including his future recording plans and his master plan for jazz education as the 1986 Artist-in-Residence at Stanford University. Here he is from the interview discussing how he developed his sound:

“I never consciously tried to conceive of what my sound should be. I never said, ‘ I want this kind of sound!’ I believe it was because of the bands I played with from the ages of 15 to 22. The first one was Jack Teagarden, who we all know played trombone, but his sound was so great, so…(pause) sort of legitimate, and effortless. I never tried to imitate anybody, but when you love somebody’s music, you’re influenced. Then I was with Benny Goodman when I was 18 and I believe his sound had an influence on me; such a good sound that he had in those days, you know? And, in-between I heard Lester Young of course, and it was a special kind of trip to hear someone like Lester, who sounded so good and almost classical in a warm way. He took so much of the reed out of the sound. I really don’t know how I developed my sound, but it comes from a combination of my musical conception and no doubt the basic shape of the oral cavity. I did always try to get as much of the reed out of the sound as I could.”

Click here to read Stan Getz in Saxophone Journal 1986

— Peter Blasevick


Posted in Getz, Stan - Tagged , , ,

The Peripatetic Benny Golson

Oct20
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

This week I’ll be linking to some classic Downbeat interviews. In this 1966 interview with legendary tenor man Benny Golson, Valerie Wilmer asks him about working in Europe, composing, and host of other topics. Here, Golson is very honest about one meeting with the great Clifford Brown:

“When I walked in, everything was very informal. Sonny Rollins and Clifford were leaning against the bandstand, and the music I brought was up on the bar. I was sitting on the bar facing them. The first tune was called ‘Step Lightly,’ and they began to play through the melody. Sonny took the first chorus and played it very well, and then Clifford started to play. His horn was pointing straight at me, about two feet away from my face, and the sound was coming straight at me. And then I got the strangest feeling. I got chill bumps all over my body, and I felt a sort of involuntary nervous reaction. He was playing so much on the horn that I felt like somebody was holding me on the stool. It really frightened me. I got scared, and then when he finished, I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to let him know how much he had impressed me, but it was a little embarrassing for a man to come on like this to another man, you know: ‘You made my heart beat fast’ and so on, so I didn’t say that.

“Instead I said, ‘Clifford, boy, you sure did play.’ And then he said something classic. He said, ‘Oh, I’ll get it the next time.’”

Click here to read The Peripatetic Benny Golson

— Peter Blasevick

Posted in Golson, Benny - Tagged , , , , ,

Dexter Gordon: 1976 & 1979

Oct11
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

This week I’ll be linking to a series of interviews from the Canadian Jazz Archive Online, a project of JAZZ FM.91, Canada’s premier jazz radio station.

Here are two 1970s talks with tenor great Dexter Gordon. In the first Gordon discusses playing with Fletcher Henderson, Los Angeles, and his history with addiction; in the second he covers his strength as a player, his fame in Japan, and musical integrity versus commercial success. From the first interview:

“I come from the Los Angeles, which is not too far from Texas, and so many of the Texas tenor players were my inspirations. And they traditionally have big, strong sounds … And I mean, for me, really if a tenor player doesn’t have a big sound, he’s lacking a little something. Of course, everybody can’t be Gene Ammons or somebody, you know, but still it should be of, you know, full tenor sound.”

Click here to listen to Dexter Gordon: 1976

Click here to listen to Dexter Gordon: 1979

— Peter Blasevick

Posted in Gordon, Dexter - Tagged , , , , , ,

Stan Getz: Dec 8, 1977

Oct10
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

This week I’ll be linking to a series of interviews from the Canadian Jazz Archive Online, a project of JAZZ FM.91, Canada’s premier jazz radio station.

Here are audio three clips from a 1977 interview with saxophone great and latin jazz pioneer Stan Getz in which he discusses playing bass as a young man, selecting bandmembers, and his love of New York. From one of the clips:

“When somebody is going to leave my band, everybody knows it and they all scurry for a chance because they know that I give them plenty of room in my band. Nobody is stifled in my band, and I think it should be that way because jazz is s developing thing and jazz musicians develop and where else do they develop but on the job.”

Click here to listen to Stan Getz: Dec 8, 1977

Posted in Getz, Stan - Tagged , , ,

Erroll Garner Interview

Sep25
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

This is a great undated three minute video clip of Erroll Garner in what seems to be a Danish (?) TV clip from the 1950s judging by the look of Erroll and the quality of the clip. Anybody with info on where and where this clip is from, let me know and I’ll update the post! From the interview, Erroll comments on his famously self-taught self:

“Well, I’ve had no musical background; mine is all a gift I was born with. And it’s been up to me, years and years just to teach myself to come up with whatever I can come up with!”

Posted in Garner, Erroll - Tagged ,

Johnny Griffin 1982

Sep24
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

Johnny Griffin was a great tenor player who is probably best known for his time with Thelonious Monk. An excerpt from the linked 1982 interview at the Canadian Jazz Archive:

Q: “Of everybody you worked with, you had the most admiration for Monk?”

A: “Yes, Thelonious. Yes, I admired Thelonious more than anyone else, you know, just for the man himself. I’d been with Monk when he was getting unemployment compensation from New York State in the 40s and I was with him when they acclaimed him as the greatest, you know, working in the five spots, you know, he’s getting all this acclaim and the man had never changed. He never changed. He was a beautiful person.”

Click here to listen to and read Johnny Griffin 1982

Posted in Griffin, Johnny - Tagged , , , ,
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