In Part 4 of my interview with jazz and classical composer and musicians David Amram, he talks about bassist Oscar Pettiford and Pettiford's all-star orchestra in the mid-1950s as well as his work for off-Broadway shows...
JazzWax: When did you meet Oscar Pettiford?
David Amram: I met Oscar at the Café Bohemia in the fall of 1955. Café Bohemia was where everything was happening at the time. We struck up an acquaintance and started playing together. In the spring of 1956, he said he wanted to form a big band and use me and Julius Watkins on French horns. Oscar knew everyone in New York and had played on almost everyone’s recording session, so it wasn’t hard for him to form that band.
JW: Pettiford was at the center of everything, wasn’t he?
DA: Absolutely. Oscar was the guy at the Onyx Club who brought Dizzy [Gillespie] and Bird [Charlie Parker] to 52nd St. so they’d have a paid engagement, not just jam and sit in. Ever since he replaced Jimmy Blanton in Duke Ellington’s band, Oscar was a big figure in jazz. There was a real strong, jazz community and a mutual respect among musicians then. It was an exciting time to be in New York. Musicians still went to jam sessions to play. It was how we networked, as you say today.
JW: When was the first performance with the big band?
DA: Around Easter of 1956. Monk played with us. His apartment had caught fire and he was staying at his brother’s place in the Bronx. He was playing with Sahib Shihab and Ray Copeland. Clifford Brown had just died in an auto accident, and Benny Golson played us his song, I Remember Clifford, on an old piano backstage. Arranger Tadd Dameron was there. All of us gathered around. Then Monk played a phenomenal set. Monk hadn’t made his comeback yet. He was a mysterious figure.
JW: What do you remember about the Oscar Pettiford Big Band's first recording session on June 11, 1956?
DA: I remember Lucky Thompson and Oscar got into an argument because Lucky wanted to rehearse a song he had arranged. Oscar was excitable, fun and passionate. He said the song sounded fine. Lucky insisted it didn’t sound fine. Oscar said it did, and Lucky cursed. Oscar yelled back. Ultimately, we didn’t record the song. We recorded Lucky's Deep Passion instead.
JW: Lucky Thompson had a rough career.
DA: Despite Lucky’s nickname, he was always outspoken and just said what was on his mind. He was a musician’s musician and one of the nicest people I had ever met. And one of the best players. You knew it was Lucky playing within four notes. Despite his outspokenness, he got along with everyone. [Producer] Creed Taylor put that date together for ABC-Paramount.
JW: Did Oscar rehearse the band?
DA: Not extensively. Everyone in the band was busy and there wasn’t time. But Oscar wanted everything to be right, and he had a sharp set of ears. If we missed a note during a recording session, Oscar could hear it. Julius Watkins and I were playing impossible French horn parts. I remember Oscar said one time, “I hear you guys. I don’t care how hard French horn is. If you and Dave make any more mistakes, I’m going to hire two mellophone players.”
JW: Why the mellophone?
DA: The way the mellophone is constructed, the sound of the notes aren’t as close together, thanks to the instrument’s valves, which are easier to hit and leave less room for error. Oscar could hear everything. When something wasn’t right you’d get a look at his face and he was in anguish.
JW: How was Pettiford as a musician?
DA: During the time we played together, even if he just got off the bus after eight-hour drive, none of us ever heard Oscar play out of tune or play a solo that wasn’t stunning. He was a perfect musician. He had such a strong character and innate musicianship that was so strong-willed, he couldn’t’ do anything wrong.
JW: What about his personality?
DA: I saw Art Farmer at a memorial service for Gerry Mulligan in the late ‘90s. We both had played in Oscar’s big band. Art said, “You know, Oscar was only four years old than us but he was like a father to me.” I felt the same way. When Oscar spoke, he was like a great orator. He had this tremendous majesty about him when performing and when speaking. In the mid-‘50s, I used to go up to Oscar’s apartment on West 18th St. and we’d talk about it. When we’d head out, everyone on his block knew him and said hello or waved. That was the kind of personality he had.
JW: How did the band go over with audiences?
DA: Audiences were amazed. Everyone in that band had led his own group and had played with Oscar at one point or another. That band wasn’t about the money because there wasn’t any. If there was money from the door where we played, the guys with families got the most and young single guys like me would get the least. No one ever complained.
JW: What about Gigi Gryce, who arranged and played in the band?
DA: Gigi would sit on the bus and talk the whole way about different harmonies and chords, and then scat sing them. The bus rides were like music camp. It didn’t matter who was in the audience that night. I remember we traveled up to an armory in Springfield, Mass., and Dinah Washington was on the bill. I think about 38 people showed up. We played the whole show anyway, and they loved it.
JW: The band sounds a little breathless with the music.
DA: I don’t think most of the guys in the band were up to the writing. We just didn’t have much rehearsal time. The guys who knew the charts cold pulled everyone else along.
JW: The addition of the harp was an interesting coloration, giving the music an angelic feel.
DA: Betty Glamann, the harpist, was very well mannered. She had blonde hair and was very conservative looking. But she loved jazz. And what a musician! Somehow she was able to figure out how to play different harmonies without making a sound on those pedals. We couldn’t figure out how she did it. The few classical musicians who came to Birdland to hear us couldn’t figure out how she made those silent pedal changes either.
JW: What did the guys in the band think of her?
DA: Everyone really admired her. You see, the instrument has open strings. To get from one chord to another, you have to step on pedals to sustain the sound. It’s enormously difficult. Betty was able to do it without everyone hearing the pedals clunking as she prepared for her next series of chord changes. Swooping arpeggios would have sounded corny.
JW: What was so special about Pettiford’s playing?
DA: He could make you sound five times better. When he soloed, his playing was simple and musical. One time I heard him play on a record with Monk and later told Oscar he was amazing. His face changed. He said, “Man, I was scared.” I said, “What do you mean?” He said in a whisper, as if he were afraid: “I never knew what he was going to do next.” Yes, on the recording, Oscar was perfect.
JW: Did anyone ever sit in the with the big band?
DA: I remember Erroll Garner sat in during a rehearsal. Some of that music was so difficult. Even after you got the arrangements down you’d have to go home and practice them just to get it right the next time. The day Erroll sat in, he just sat down at the piano. We weren’t sure how he was going to play the chart. Erroll could play in all 12 keys equally well but he didn’t read music. We ran through the first number and Erroll just sat there. We figured maybe he was going to lay out. The second time we came through the song, he started playing some chords quietly. The third time he filled them out. Oscar gave him a solo and he played up a storm as if he’d been playing with us for months. We couldn’t figure out how that was possible. Oscar had people sit in all the time with that band. Occasionally we’d just stop playing the arrangements and jam and play the blues.
JW: In May 1957, the band was at Birdland and Ed London was on French horn, not Julius Watkins. Why?
DA: Everyone was so busy in that band. Members changed often when we performed. That night, in May, Julius had to play a Broadway show, so I got Ed London to play French horn with us. Ed was a college roommate of mine at Oberlin College. He was the only other person I knew who could play what was written and improvise. French hornist Jimmy Buffington could do that too, but he didn’t play much jazz. Ed London was a classical player. When he played with the symphony, he played bald. When he played on TV, he wore a toupe. When he played at Birdland, he wore a toupe.
JW: Your Two French Fries sounds extremely difficult to play. Was it?
DA: The tempo was up there but not too tough. I remember when we played it at Birdland, there was this paper mache thing over our heads. When Ed took his solo, he stood up and the paper mache thing knocked off his toupe. But Ed kept wailing. Ed was a classical composer but also an accomplished jazz player who could play Bird and Dizzy’s stuff in all 12 keys.
JW: And yet the band eventually fizzled out and everyone went their separate ways.
DA: There was too much playing and recording work out there then. You didn’t want to turn anything down Unlike many of the guys in the bad, Oscar had a family and ended up having to pay for the band out of his own pocket. The band eventually had a tough time surviving. There weren’t enough venues willing to hire us to keep the music alive, and Oscar didn’t have a manager to help out. The band just slowed down.
JW: What did you wind up doing after?
DA: By the summer of 1957, I had already started writing for producer-director Joseph Papp and his "Shakespeare in the Park" in New York's Central Park. Oscar really dug that I was writing for it. He used to say, “My French horn player, Dave Amram, wrote Shakespeare in the Park. Let’s go dig David Amram’s Shakespeare in the Park." I kept telling him I just wrote the music. He kept saying that I wrote Shakespeare in the Park. Oscar and the other guys came up to Central Park and dug it. And in turn, a lot of actors would come downtown to hear us play.
JW: Pettiford loved anything that was exceptional, didn’t’ he?
DA: Yes, in all the arts. His girlfriend was this great society lady who loved jazz and loved chamber music. She had chamber music performances at her house. That’s where I met Frank Corsaro, who is now the head of Juilliard’s American Opera Center [Mr. Corsaro died in November 2017]. When I wrote for Shakespeare’s Richard III in the fall of 1957, Frank came and sang some of the offstage music. He also sang at the home of Janet Rhinelander Stewart, whom Oscar was seeing, and she’d come down to hear us. There was this connection between all of the music and the Shakespearean actors. It was a great time.
JW: Later that year, you spent time with the Beat poets and writers, yes?
DA: Yes, In October ‘57, Jack Kerouac and I did the first jazz poetry reading in Greenwich Village, which further linked jazz and the other arts. That was the thing about jazz. It reached across all levels of society, from the street to high society.
JW: What were you doing in 1958?
DA: I was still working for "Shakespeare in Park." During the summer of ‘58, Jack and I did our last public poetry readings in Greenwich Village. My album, Jazz Studio Six (Decca), came out that year. I was writing music for off-Broadway plays, including Sign of Winter. That fall, I started working downtown at New York’s Phoenix Theater. But I was struggling.
JW: Why were you struggling?
DA: The work I was doing didn't pay top dollar, but I loved it. I was barely surviving doing odd labor jobs sand playing different jazz gigs. In my spare time, I’d play with George Barrow and our quartet. I also sat in and played with all types of musicians. In the summer of ’59, I wrote music for Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. That fall, Stewart Vaughan became the artistic director of the Phoenix and asked me to become the composer. I had a job where I was the composer for a good off-Broadway way theater and music director. I also finished my trio for saxophone, horn and bassoon—one of my first classical pieces that I didn’t throw in the wastebasket. Joe Papp got a job as the stage manger for a play on Broadway called Comes a Day. George C. Scott was in it. The play ran only a few performances.
JW: In January 1959, you recorded on trumpeter Kenny Dorham’s Blue Spring. What do you recall about that session?
DA: On that date was Cannonball Adderley, Cecil Payne, Cedar Walton, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb. I first met Kenny in Washington, D.C., back in 1952, when he and Charlie Parker came to my apartment for a jam session. I had run into him countless times and jammed with him, too. I also had played with Cannonball’s brother, Nat, down at a place in Washington’s Chinatown where there were strippers. Jazz was featured during the breaks.
JW: What was Cannonball Adderley like?
DA: Cannonball had been a school teacher. He was the wmost lovable and brilliant guy. He was a joy to be around. What made him special were his warmth and maturity. He had a real understanding of the social significance of jazz and realized that somehow, as musicians, we had to be educators. When he spoke to you, he was so friendly. He was like an educator or an ambassador.
JW: On Blue Spring, Jimmy Cobb replaced Philly Joe Jones on drums. Why?
DA: We recorded two songs with Philly Joe. But for the second date, he didn’t show up. So someone went to call Jimmy Cobb. While we waited for Jimmy, instead of getting everyone freaked out, Kenny just had us read down our parts. Then he sat down and wrote out another arrangement. He also fixed up some of the charts he had already written. [Riverside producer] Orin Keepnews, to his credit, was really calm and very supportive. Kenny wasn’t pissed off. That was the thing about him. He had the personality of a Buddha. He just sat at the piano and wrote another arrangement and then gave out the parts. There were no temper tantrums.
JW: Was Kenny happy with your playing?
DA: After, Kenny said to me, “Well, David, how’s it feel to play with the heavyweights.” “Great,” I said. Kenny said, “Terrific, now you’re a heavyweight.” That was a beautiful thing to say. He had remembered meeting me when he was with Charlie Parker back in ‘52. Anyone who knew Parker had a certain bond. But it was never an exclusive thing. There was an amazing quality that these musicians had. Even when they were celebrated, they weren’t snobbish or egomaniacs. It’s about the music’s spirit. Life, music, art and people are the same with these musicians.
JW: How did Dorham and Cannonball Adderley get along?
DA: They loved each other. In ’59, Cannonball was more widely known than Kenny. He had come in as a leader himself and got terrific press and attention. Kenny was already a master since the late 1940s, when he went to Paris with Bird. Now we can see Kenny’s importance historically. Back then, Kenny wound up working in a music store. The players of his generation never became prominent during their lifetimes except among musicians and in Europe. Kenny never expressed any bitterness about that. He loved to play.
JW: Are things different today?
DA: The whole philosophy back then can be summed up by the titles of two songs—Now’s the Time and Straight, No Chaser. The first meant, “Don’t hesitate, just jump right in.” The second meant, “Whatever setbacks and obstacles exist, keep going straight ahead.” There was zero whine-ology and blame-ology and greed-ology among these guys. It was a beautiful time.
JW: Where did that lead?
DA: Because of that, and the fact that I had been doing off-Broadway, I got a phone call from director Elia Kazan. At first I thought it was joke. It was his office. Then they put him on. He said, “I heard about you from different directors and people who work in the theater. Lucinda Ballard, a Broadway costume designer, said you’d be perfect for this play. Send me some of your music.
JW: What music did you send?
DA: The only music I had on vinyl was my jazz record for Decca and my albums with Lionel Hampton and Bobby Jaspar. And a score I had written for a documentary on the Third Avenue El. I sent that.
JW: What happened?
DA: The next day Kazan calls and I hear my music playing over the phone. He says, “I love jazz. I used to spend all my time as a kid going up to Harlem to listen to it. I love Chopin, too. I hear from your music that you’re home in classical and jazz. You can do this.” Then he told me all the classical composers who turned him down because they were too busy. I was 11th on his list.
JW: What did you do?
DA: I went up and met Kazan. He said, “Even though no one has ever heard of you, I’m just trusting my gut instinct,” which is how he did everything. There I was with a chance to write incidental music for JB, a play directed by Elia Kazan. George Barrow played sax on some of it. There’s a recording somewhere of the entire play with the score of jazz and classical music. The play won the Pulitzer Prize and ran for a year.
JW: What then?
DA: All these theater groups wanted me to write music for their plays. In 1959 I wrote music for The Rivalry, The Beaux Stratagem, Kataki, The Great God Brown and Lysistrata. My scores for the movies The Young Savages (1961), Splendor in the Grass (1961) and The Manchurian Candidate (1962) would come next.
