Posts tagged trumpet

2008 Jazz Police Interview with Randy Brecker

Mar22
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

The JazzPolice website is filled with great content, including some interesting interviews. Here’s a 2008 discussion with trumpeter Randy Brecker. In the interview, conduvted by Joe Montague, the Jazz great reflects on a number of topics, including the delicate subject of his late brother Michael:

“It is hard for me to relate to Mike as an iconic figure in jazz, because to me he is still just my brother. It is hard for me to focus on how influential he was, even though I obviously know that he was. Foremost, I think of him as my brother. If I could get past that and look from afar like anyone else, I would say that he has to be one of the most influential jazz musicians, other than John Coltrane, because he had a real vision in mind, and he stuck to his artistic vision. He was one of the few guys, and I think partly because he had a big following, that was able to do musically pretty much whatever he wanted, and people didn’t try to channel him into doing something else. He will occupy a unique position in jazz history, and he certainly was one of the most popular saxophonists ever, but he could back it up, because the music had so much emotional depth,” says Brecker.

Click here to read 2008 Jazz Police Interview with Randy Brecker

Posted in Brecker, Randy - Tagged ,

Wynton Marsalis Speaks Out

Feb25
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

Hello all! This week I’ll be posting some great interviews from the fantastic AllAboutJazz.com, which is simply one of the top everything-jazz destinations on the web.

Trumpeter, composer, educator—Wynton Marsalis requires no introduction. Since beginning his career, he has received an almost endless stream of accolades, his share of criticisms, and an ever-growing level of recognition from within and without the jazz community. Speaking with Franz Matzner in 2004 from his tour bus to the accompaniment of companionable laughter, instruments being tuned, and the ambient hum of traffic, Marsalis offered thoughts on education, jazz and the internet, the significance of art, and the identity of the jazz genre, as well as his CD The Magic Hour. From the interview:

AAJ: Over the years, what have you found to be the most difficult part of teaching jazz?

WM: I think the most difficult thing about teaching jazz is a lack of reinforcement. You might teach a really good class, but there’s not a lot of reinforcement in the larger society. Many times the best environment to teach in is one where you say something and you teach a certain thing and then students can go out and see that in everyday life. But in the teaching of jazz, our sense of teaching is isolated. That’s the most difficult thing to overcome.

 Click here to read Wynton Marsalis Speaks Out

Posted in Marsalis, Wynton - Tagged , ,

Louis Armstrong in exclusive interview from CBC’s Hot Air archive

Jan29
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

I’ll be posting interviews from the CBC-Radio Canada archives this week. The Bob Smith Hot Air archive is a treasure trove of approximately 50 interviews Smith recorded with some of the greatest stars of the day, from the world of jazz and beyond. Captured between 1950 and 1982, these interviews include conversations with Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Harry James, Oscar Peterson and Lena Horne, as well as Sammy Davis Jr., Bill Cosby, Harry Belafonte, Liza Minnelli and many others.

This Hot Air interview with the legendary Louis Armstrong took place on Jan. 17, 1968, just three years before his death. In their relatively short conversation, Hot Air host Bob Smith engages Armstrong on a wide range of topics, including his earliest memories living and playing in a New Orleans orphanage, joining the band of his hero Joe “King” Oliver in Chicago in 1922 and explaining the origin of his many nicknames.

At one point, Armstrong is asked if the rumors of his retirement are true, to which he replies, “Musician don’t retire no how. They just stop when they ain’t got no more gigs.”

Click here to listen to Louis Armstrong in exclusive interview from CBC’s Hot Air archive

Posted in Armstrong, Louis - Tagged , , ,

Chet Baker with Les Tomkins in 1979

Jan23
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

Here is a great 1979 interview with Chet Baker from Les Tomkins and the JazzProfessional website. Chet talks about his reunion with Gerry Mulligan, his ear;ly years, and “Cool Jazz”. From the interview:

What originally caused you to take up the trumpet as your instrument?

My dad was a musician—he played guitar—and when I reached thirteen, his favourite musician was Jack Teagarden. So he brought home a trombone, but I was rather small for my age; I couldn’t make the positions, and the mouthpiece seemed so big. I messed around with it for a couple of weeks; then he took it away, and brought home a trumpet.

That seemed to be much more comfortable; I could get a sound—the smaller mouthpiece seemed to fit a lot better. I went to a little instrument training class for a year, and I played in the school marching band and the dance band.

When I was sixteen, I went in the army; for a year I played in an army band in Berlin, Germany. After discharge, I studied music at junior college, but at the end of a year–and–a–half I failed that—and I still play by ear. Although I can read, I don’t know the chords. I just hear them, you know, but if you ask me what the name of it is, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.

Click here to read Chet Baker with Les Tomkins in 1979

Posted in Baker Chet - 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 , , ,

Randy Brecker’s Uncut DownBeat Blindfold Test

Jan03
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

Today is a 2008 Blindfold Test with with the trumpeter Randy Brecker. The famous co-leader of The Brecker Brothers, along with too many other recordings and gigs to mention, listens to a dozen cuts with Ted Panken, and then sums up the various trumpet players thusly:

All these records were very good. It’s a reality these days that it is harder to tell guys apart trumpetistically, because we all study out of the same books, and there’s a certain trumpetistic artistry that’s prevalent these days. So it’s harder to pick people apart, but that’s overshadowed by the musicianship on all these records, which was really excellent. That’s always my answer to the problem these days, when guys say, “Ah, too many guys sound alike.” I say the musicianship is so high it doesn’t matter.

Click here to read Randy Brecker’s Uncut DownBeat Blindfold Test

Posted in Brecker, Randy - Tagged , ,

Clark Terry in 2010

Dec19
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

This week I’m posting interviews from Marc Myers’s award winning JazzWax blog, a very important web destination for today’s Jazz journalism. Here I’m posting Marc’s 2010 interview with living legend and most recorded Jazz trumpeter on the planet, Clark Terry. In Part 1 of the two part interview, Terry talks about growing up in St. Louis, playing in the Navy and working with Charlie Barnet and Duke Ellington. Part 2 covers Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Norma Carson, and the first time he recorded on the flugelhorn. An excerpt:

JazzWax: What was St. Louis like in the 1930s? 
Clark Terry: St. Louis was very prejudiced when I wasgrowing up but it was a good jazz town. All the riverboats used to stop there heading up and down the Mississippi River. The boats brought many musicians into the area who were looking for work in town and in Kansas City. As a result, St. Louis was a good jumping off point to get established. Rent was cheap, the food was good and the ladies were beautiful [laughs].

Click here to read Clark Terry in 2010

Posted in Terry Clark - Tagged , , ,

Trombone Shorty on Tavis Smiley 2010

Nov16
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

Keeping with this week’s string of interviews from talk show host Tavis Smiley’s archive here is a cool 201o talk with the very hip trombonist and trumpeter Trombone Shorty. The New Orleans native talks a little bit about wanting to be both a Jazz musician and an entertainer like Louis Armstrong:

“Well, I mean, just being in New Orleans, you’ve got people from Louis Armstrong that was an entertainer and I try to follow that. You know, just follow that plan hard and I just get bored by myself when I’m up there playing all this. So I just wanted to become an entertainer all around, singing, dancing, whatever, getting the crowd involved. You know, it’s just that thing. It’s just part of the city and what we do and taking that from Louis Armstrong.”

— Peter Blasevick

Posted in Shorty Trombone - Tagged , , , ,

Wynton Marsalis on Tavis Smiley in 2011

Nov15
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

More interviews from talk show host Tavis Smiley’s archive today with a great 2011 talk with musician and educator Wynton Marsalis. In this excerpt, Wynton speaks about the hot young conductor Gustavo Dudamel:

“I love Gustavo and I love what he does for classical music, and I love what he comes out of, El Sistema and the old man Abreu. When we were in Venezuela, I had the chance to go to his building. He had, like, five or six orchestras playing of kids from the hood playing, like, Mahler’s third symphony and Shostakovich fifth and Beethoven. Man, it’s unbelievable. I mean, they could play.

He also introduced me to his oldest teachers, who are trumpet players. He started with a couple of teachers and they’re both trumpet players, and they have an unbelievable system and he’s a great representative of that system and a great representative for the younger generation in classical music.“ 

— Peter Blasevick

Posted in Marsalis, Wynton - Tagged , , , ,

Benny Carter in 2002: Life Is Carter’s Main Instrument Now

Nov05
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Peter Blasevick

I’m going to post a few interviews this week that are hosted on Mel Martin’s great site. Here is a cool 2002 interview with Benny Carter by Don Heckman for the Los Angeles Times on the eve of Carter’s 95th birthday. From the interview:

Carter, sitting quietly, smilingly insists that he is “really not a good interview.” But that’s true only if one is seeking the sort of sensationalism that has often surrounded the jazz world rather than the soft-spoken insights that he has to offer. Why, for example, did Ken Burns, despite having interviewed him extensively, find so little of Carter’s accumulated knowledge worthy of inclusion in his massive jazz documentary?

“There’s a lot that’s valuable in what he did,” Carter says in typically courteous fashion. “But I don’t understand why there’s such a need to emphasize all the darker aspects of jazz. It was the same with that Clint Eastwood film, ‘Bird.’ I didn’t know Charlie Parker well, but I spent some time with him, and he was articulate and well spoken with a lot of curiosity about music and the world. But the only way he seems to be depicted is as a junkie. And that’s not the full picture.”

Click here to read Benny Carter in 2002: Life Is Carter’s Main Instrument Now

— Peter Blasevick

Posted in Carter Benny - Tagged , , , , ,
← Older Entries

About TNYDP

The mission of The Notes You Don't Play is to be the Web's first comprehensive library of jazz interviews. Click on an artist below to go to their collection, visit our about page for more information, or contact us to suggest interviews to include in the library. Read more...

Artists