JazzWax

Interview: Ted Gioia (Part 2)

Yesterday, my conversation with Ted Gioia, author of the new book, Delta Blues (W.W. Norton), centered on the blues and what makes the seemingly simple musical form so fascinating to so many fans. Much of its appeal has escaped me over the years, given the music's down-and-out themes and repetitiveness. That is, until I read Ted's captivating book, which tracks the blues' development through a series of dramatic artist portraits. [Photo of Ted Gioia by Kent Barker]

Understanding how the blues traveled from the mud roads of Mississippi to the record studios and national popularity is a saga that Ted tells expertly. If there's a date when the blues began that journey, it's likely sometime around 1903, after W.C. Handy took a job in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Handy went there to lead a band, secretly harboring ambitions of topping John Philip Sousa by becoming the next March King. But a late train changed all that. Ted picks up the story in his book:

"Late one evening, at a railway station in Tutwiler, [Miss.], as he half nodded off to sleep while waiting for a train that had been delayed nine hours, W.C. Handy [pictured] encountered a new aspect of the Delta, a different feature of the local landscape, hitherto unknown to him. This chance interaction would change his life decisively, and alter the course of American music. 'A lean, loose-joined Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept,' Handy later recalled. 'His clothes were rags; his feet peeped out of his shoes. His face had on it some of the sadness of the ages. As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars.'

Handy did not yet recognize the local Delta tradition of tone-altering and bending with bottle necks, knives and other implements that would come to be known as 'slide' or 'bottleneck' guitar. But he was instantly spellbound by the sounds he heard: 'The effect was unforgettable. His song, too, struck me instantly.' The lyrics were simple and evocative. Three times the singer repeated 'Goin' where the Southern cross' the Dog'—all the time 'accompanying himself on the guitar with the weirdest music I had ever heard.' This three-line form would become a defining aspect of the blues... [Pictured: A Yazoo Delta Railroad or "Yellow Dog" locomotive]

Handy continued to think back to this meeting during the following days and months, and he came to appreciate that the guitarist's music had been more than just an isolated performance but represented nothing less than a regional style....Within a day or two [of hearing a local band in Cleveland, Miss., play music with a similar form], Handy had written arrangements for several of the local plantation songs and began featuring them in performances. He soon learned that the blues were popular with both black and white audiences."

In Part 2 of my two-part interview with Ted (conducted by email), the author and founder of Jazz.com talks about the blues and its influence on jazz. He also shares five must-own blues recordings to help get novices like me started:

JazzWax: When did the blues become such an integral part of jazz expression and performance? Or did jazz grow out of the blues?
Ted Gioia: The relationship between jazz and the blues is clearly a very old one. Jelly Roll Morton [pictured] talks about hearing the blues at a very early age, long before the first jazz recordings were made. I imagine that jazz musicians have always borrowed from the blues. But in time, everyone else did, too.  And they have continued to do so. Today you can hear blues inflections in almost every style of popular music. Rockers and rappers, boy bands, Christian singers, you name it. Everybody has learned from the blues. Jazz players just went there first. 

JW: Was part of the blues’ early commercial success that it was easy to steal and adapt?
TG: Once blues became codified as a 12-bar form with certain set chord changes and licks, it became fairly easy to steal. Certainly this was a cause of its commercial success.  But, in a funny way, it was also a cause of its failure.   

JW: How so?
TG: The aspects of the blues that are the easiest to steal are the least interesting parts. One of the reasons why I didn’t appreciate the power of this music when I was 20 years old was because I saw how simple the formulas are. What I realized only later was that the essence of the great blues players is not contained in the formulas. This is music that breaks the rules. Especially today, when so much commercial music is manipulated and packaged and homogenized, hearing these recordings will give you a much-needed jolt.

JW: Which blues artist had the most influence on Kansas City jazz artists of the 1930s?
TG: Certainly the piano blues was very influential in Kansas City. But separating the blues and jazz elements in the American piano tradition is not an easy task. For example, one of the most prominent of early blues pianists was Little Brother Montgomery, who was born in 1906. But Montgomery heard pianist Jelly Roll Morton as a youngster and was influenced by this New Orleans jazz player. So even at a very early date, jazz was influencing blues as well as blues influencing jazz. Kansas City figures such as Count Basie, Jay McShann, Mary Lou Williams and others no doubt drew on both traditions. Yet in the final analysis, they created a new sound that transcends their influences.

JW: Has the blues evolved over time? Or is it essentially the same?
TG: I recently heard a great recording of Hindustani slide guitar. It borrowed from the blues idiom but created something fresh and different. The blues vocabulary will continue to spur new musical sounds, and this is a striking example of that. But there is also an important tradition of older blues that deserves to be preserved and celebrated. I would like to think that there is room in our cultural life for both the old and the new. 

JW: When did sexual innuendo first become part of the blues expression?
TG: It was probably always there, but commercial pressures likely made it more prominent. Certainly record companies liked the racy parts of race records. As did the audiences for blues music. This was true in the 1920s, it was true in the 1950s and it's true now. I think it is safe to predict, this will still be true 50 years from now. [Pictured: Bessie Smith] 

JW: For listeners like me who have shunned the blues because it seems too static, what recordings would you suggest?
TG: I would recommend listening to blues recordings that transcend the formulas. Of course, you need to listen to Robert Johnson, but you also need to check out the Delta blues musicians who came before Johnson, such as Charlie Patton, Son House and Skip James [pictured, right]. If you don’t have the patience for the poor sound quality of the early recordings, track down the releases some of these artists made when they returned to the studios in the 1960s.   

JW: For example?
TG: Listen to the young John Lee Hooker from the late 1940s and early 1950s. Check out the early Muddy Waters [pictured] and Howlin’ Wolf recordings. Get the first recordings of R.L. Burnside and Mississippi Fred McDowell.

JW: How about five "must have" albums that will provide a fine introduction?
TG: Sure. Here are essentials for anyone who wants to hear the blues in all its authentic and primitive glory [all are available at iTunes or Amazon]:

Robert Johnson—The Complete Recordings

Skip James—Today!

Muddy Waters—The Complete Plantation Recordings

Son House—The Father of the Delta Blues

John Lee Hooker—Jack O’ Diamonds: The 1949 Recordings

Interview: Ted Gioia (Part 1)

I've never been big fan of blues music. I grew up in New York City, so blues has always been a bit simplistic, one-dimensional and repetitive to my ear. I much prefer how jazz artists like Count Basie, Art Tatum, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday and others have interpreted the back-country idiom. But over the past few weeks, I've become much more open-minded after reading Ted Gioia's breathtaking new book, Delta Blues (W.W. Norton). [Photo of Ted Gioia by Kent Barker]

Ted is founder of Jazz.com, which launched in December 2007 and has rapidly become a prominent web destination for jazz intellects and fans. When Ted isn't writing and editing, he's a jazz composer and pianist who has recorded several CDs. So he can walk the walk. He's also author of several essential books on jazz, including The History of Jazz, West Coast Jazz, The Imperfect Art: Reflections on Jazz and Modern Culture, Work Songs and Healing Songs. In the parlance of scribes, Ted can crank it out.

More important than all of this to the average reader is that Ted is a superb storyteller, and Delta Blues is a fabulous read. Here's how the book opens:

"The Delta region of Mississippi is an expansive alluvial plain, shaped like the leaf of a pecan tree hanging lazily over the rest of the state. Stretching some 220 miles from Vicksburg to Memphis, it is bounded on the west by the Mississippi River, and extends eastward for an average of 65 miles, terminating in hill country, with its poorer soil and different ways of life, and the Yazoo River, which eventually joins the Mississippi at Vicksburg. For blues fans, this is the Delta..."

Ted knows how to draw you in and hold you. I wasn't particularly interested in the blues, let alone hill country before I picked up Delta Blues. Yet I found myself returning to Ted's book night after night, learning a lot along the way. Now I'm ready to start listening.

In Part 1 of my two-part interview with Ted (conducted by email), I asked the author about the Delta blues, its origins and how it has managed to survive and remain so vital and important today:

JazzWax: Is the blues as simple an expression as the songs make it seem, or is there more to it?
Ted Gioia: These old blues songs seem simple enough to understand based on their lyrics, at least at first. They linger over everyday events, often very banal ones. I can’t even begin to count how many blues songs start out with the phrase, “Woke up this morning.” But the more you dig into this music, the more you see how deep and complex these songs actually are.

JW: How so?
TG: These songs may talk about everyday events, but there is always something larger lingering below the surface. Sometimes it's a bigger personal or social tragedy. Heaven knows there was plenty of that to go around in the Mississippi Delta. But psychological and even spiritual conflicts also figure in this music.

JW: What are the broad themes?
TG: Redemption and damnation, which recur over and over again in blues songs, sometimes in very surprising and peculiar ways. The end result is a body of music that no longer is quite so simple. As you dig deeper into it, the music responds by getting deeper too. This discovery on my part was one of the reasons why I wanted to probe the history and meaning of these songs. 

JW: But this music in its most basic form is pretty simple stuff, no?
TG: The story behind the music is the same as the story behind the words. Yes, the music seems pretty basic. Just three chords, and sometimes you don’t even get three. When I was 20 years old, I would have dismissed a lot of early blues just by looking at the chord symbols on the lead sheet.

JW: What changed your mind?
TG: I now realize how much I misunderstood the music when I was younger. The early blues has very little to do with chord changes. It reflects the influence of even earlier African and African-American traditions, in which musicians conceptualized their songs in terms of sound and sound colors instead of discrete chords and notes. 

JW: What do you mean by "sound colors?"
TG: Let me give an analogy from the jazz world. If you listen to King Oliver’s solo on Dippermouth Blues from 1923 with a jaded modern perspective, you will be tempted to dismiss it as simple stuff. Oliver’s solo is just built on a few notes, really little more than a single phrase that he plays over and over again. When you compare Oliver to his protégé Louis Armstrong, Oliver seems to be out-classed. After all, Armstrong knows lots of notes, lots of phrases. He’s all over the horn in ways Oliver could never match.

JW: What's the lesson here?
TG: Clearly, this is not the right way to listen to King Oliver. Oliver is a master of textures and colors, and he can play the same phrase 20 times over and make it sound different each time. In other words, Oliver’s greatness was in mastering music as an infinite universe of sounds, not as a way of manipulating the notes in a scale. Even today, jazz musicians could learn a lot by studying this aspect of King Oliver’s work. 

JW: What’s a good blues comparison?
TG: In the blues, the evolution from Son House [pictured] to Robert Johnson is the same as the shift from King Oliver to Louis Armstrong. Son House is almost like an African griot. It is impossible to reduce what he does to notes on a page. When he plays a note, it is more than a note.

JW: How did Robert Johnson extend Son House's blues?
TG: With Johnson [pictured], things start to change in the Delta idiom. Johnson, in this regard, is like Louis Armstrong. Johnson brilliantly conceptualized the blues as a system of licks and chords and notes. Because of this, Robert Johnson created a vision of blues music that could be assimilated by Western music, with its preference for things that are neat and codified. But in the background of all this Delta music there is a powerful Africanized current, a vision of songs as torrents of sound. This part of the blues is anything but simple, and has proven much more difficult to assimilate and appropriate. The blues can be a simple formula. You can teach it to a guitarist in a single lesson. But the Delta greats transcended the formula. 

JW: How so?
TG: For example, listen closely to the music of John Lee Hooker [pictured] and you will hear how he struggled to play a 12-bar blues. He might end up leaving out a bar, and getting an 11-bar blues. Or he might add extra beats to get a 12-and-a-half bar blues. Every time Hooker played a song, it sounded different. But his resistance to the traditional blues formula was part of the reason why this music sounds so good. What Hooker achieved you can’t teach in a single lesson. You can’t teach it in a thousand lessons. 

JW: What made Hooker more special than blues artists of the same period?
TG: His music, especially his early recordings, always captured a groove and a flow and an exciting sense of spontaneity. His ability to enter into the pulse of the blues and not try to contain it in neat metrical structures of Western music is breathtaking to hear. I offer Hooker as an example here, but there are many other early blues musicians who did the same thing.

JW: Such as?
TG: There is an interesting recording by Blind Lemon Jefferson called Rising High Water Blues from 1927 that finds him collaborating with a piano player. Jefferson sticks to a strict 12-bar blues form because he doesn’t want to confuse his accompanist. But, in fact, this is one of Jefferson’s least interesting records. He shows that he knows how to handle a formulaic blues when he must, but his music is much more exciting when he plays solo and ignores the bar lines. 

JW: What’s different about the birth of the blues and the birth of jazz?
TG: There are still many mysteries about the birth of both. They both tantalize us. We try to pinpoint how a folk-oriented music became commercial music. The fascinating thing about early blues is that you can hear this process first hand. Musicians would go straight from the raw life of plantations and prisons into the studios to make commercial recordings. This is a remarkable thing to hear. I wish we had such unfiltered insights into the birth of jazz. 

JW: Yet for the blues to have meaning, it must remain true to its coarse folk roots as it surfaces commercially, yes?
TG: One of the aspects of the Delta blues that I find most compelling is the large number of artists over time who never have seemed to settle comfortably into the role of commercial musician. They existed at the periphery of the music industry.  From one perspective, this was a tragedy.  They would have made a lot more money if they had been more commercial. At the same time, this distance from the music industry allowed them to hold onto the traditional pre-commercial roots of their music in a way that was far less common in the jazz world.

Tomorrow, Ted talks about the relationship between jazz and the blues, why the blues became so easy to steal by other musicians, jazz's influence on the blues, how the blues continues to evolve, and five essential blues recordings.

Neal Hefti (1922-2008)

Neal Hefti, one of jazz's most intuitive big-band arrangers and composers of the 1940s and 1950s whose scores so perfectly matched the bands he wrote for that they often became their best-known recordings, died on October 11. He was 85.

For six decades, Hefti's keen ear and fast pen enabled him to move effortlessly between swing, bebop and cool jazz styles as well as meeting the demands of Hollywood's studio system. From his first recorded arrangement in 1942, Hefti's tasteful and swinging composing and writing sensibilities won the respect of both jazz's most skilled soloists and best-known big band leaders. Hefti's now nearly forgotten prowess as a trumpet player and improviser in the 1940s put him in the recording company of Louis Armstrong, Benny Carter and Lucky Thompson.

The magic of a Hefti arrangement often began with a bouncy theme. As the theme advanced, different sections of the band would join in with strong, inventive harmony lines. The arrangement would then continue to rise ambitiously to new levels of intensity. Finally, the tune would plateau with a crescendo passage that sealed the deal for the listener and made you want to hear it again. From a musician's standpoint, even a straightforward Hefti arrangement could be deceptively demanding, requiring strong reading skills and an innate ability to swing. As a result, Hefti's charts often made quick work of dilettantes and poseurs.

While many arrangers during the late 1940s and early 1950s reached for moody post-war European classical motifs, Hefti remained true to the swing tradition. Whether he was arranging for Charlie Barnet, Woody Herman, Harry James [pictured] or Count Basie, Hefti always understood that the reeds did the talking, the trumpets did the shouting and the trombones did the badgering. To keep an arrangement interesting, Hefti always wrote as though the band's different sections were having conversations among themselves across some imaginary fence. And yet, Hefti's charts for one band sounded nothing like his charts for another. The bandleader who commissioned Hefti received compositions and arrangements that suited that orchestra's personality.

Hefti's first known recorded arrangement was Daisy Chain in 1942 for Charlie Spivak [pictured], in whose band Hefti played trumpet. Hefti joined Woody Herman's trumpet section in 1944 and freelanced as a member of several ensembles, including Flip Phillips' Fliptet, a bop ensemble that included Bill Harris on trombone, Ralph Burns on piano, Billy Bauer on guitar, Chubby Jackson on bass and Dave Tough on drums.

Caldonia was Hefti's first hit arrangement for Herman [pictured] in early 1945. By the fall, Hefti had carved out a new explosive bop sound for the band with The Good Earth, Black Orchid, Wild Root and Blowin' Up a Storm. The hard-charging arrangements were so impossibly difficult and performed so flawlessly that they instantly set Herman's band and musicians apart. Much of Hefti's bop feel was learned firsthand while hanging out in kitchens of jazz clubs on New York's 52d Street.

In 1946, Hefti freelanced on trumpet and arranged for Benny Carter, Georgie Auld [pictured], Herbie Fields, Charlie Ventura, Buddy Rich and others. His first recording session as a leader came in December 1946, fronting a group that included Kai Winding, Charlie Ventura, Billy Bauer, Chubby Jackson and singer Frances Wayne, whom Hefti would later marry.

In 1947, Hefti recorded for RCA with Lucky Thompson [pictured] and His Lucky Seven. The now almost-forgotten session included Hefti on trumpet, Benny Carter on alto, Thompson on tenor, Bob Lawson on baritone sax, Dodo Marmarosa on piano, Barney Kessel on guitar, Red Callender on bass and Lee Young on drums.

Hefti's first big career turning point came at age 25. In December 1947, as Hefti rehearsed an orchestra at Carnegie Hall prior to recording two compositions for Norman Granz's [pictured] The Jazz Scene album, Charlie Parker wandered onto the stage. Fresh from his own Granz recording session in the hall, Parker enjoyed the song being played so much he asked Neal if he could solo on top of it. Rather than rewrite the intricate arrangement, Hefti merely had the orchestra play the song twice, with Parker soloing on the second run through. Renamed Repetition, the song not only was an early example of linear writing and an inspiration for cool jazz, its success led Granz to record Parker with strings in 1949, 1950 and again in 1952.

Following this 1947 date, Hefti continued to arrange for Woody Herman as well as Harry James, resulting in James' only bebop efforts and many believe his most exciting work. Throughout his career, Hefti retained a close working relationship with both Herman and James.

Hefti's first arrangement for Count Basie was an octet session in 1950 that resulted in Neal's Deal, Bluebeard Blues and others. The following year Hefti began arranging in earnest for Basie's big band. He wrote and arranged compositions such as Little Pony, Plymouth Rock, Cherry Point, Cute, Coral Reef, Splanky and others that would become the "New Testament" band's musical fingerprint. Hefti's arrangements also added enormous drama to Basie's swing, purposefully holding Basie's role to here-and-there chords and individual notes played in between the orchestra's brass and reed lines. This cooler sound created an electrifying contrast between a minimalist bluesy piano and a roaring band that could take your head off. In effect, it was the musical equivalent of a seasoned driver cockily handling a Mack truck with just two fingers on the wheel. Hefti's work for the Basie band reached a peak with Atomic Basie (1957) and Basie Plays Hefti (1958).

Included on Atomic Basie is Lil' Darlin', one of Hefti's best known ballads.  Not long ago I spoke with saxophonist Hal McKusick [pictured], who recorded with Hefti's bands in the 1950s, about the song and its slow, un-Hefti-like tempo:

"When I asked Neal about it, he said he originally wrote Lil' Darlin' as a medium-uptempo tune. But after Basie ran it down the first time, he asked Neal if the band could try it really slow. Basie said, 'I'm hearing something.' Neal said sure. He knew Basie's instincts were always spot on. Basie said, 'Let me beat it off.' He proceeded to count off Lil' Darlin' at the much slower pace. After it was over, Neal said all he could do was smile and say to Basie, 'You did it.' "

Throughout the 1950s, Hefti arranged for many other orchestras as well as studio bands that he assembled for a range of semi-jazz, easy-listening projects. In 1962, Frank Sinatra recorded Sinatra and Swingin' Brass, an album of standards arranged by Hefti and featuring Ben Webster on tenor saxophone. Around this time Hefti began scoring for the movies and television. Among Hefti's most popular TV themes were for the Batman and The Odd Couple series. His best-known movie scores were for Sex and the Single Girl, Boeing, Boeing and Barefoot in the Park.

Deep down, Hefti was always a jazz musician first, with a strong bop upbringing. As he told Ira Gitler, in Swing to Bop:

"I would say I got into jazz when I got into Woody Herman's band [1944] because that band was sorta jazz-oriented. They had records. It was the first band I ever joined where the musicians carried records on the road...That's the first time I sort of got into jazz. The first time I sort of felt that I was anything remotely connected with jazz.

But anyway, when I was stranded in New York [in 1946] before I joined Charlie Barnet and during the time that I waited out my six-month transfer period in New York, Dizzy was playing on the Street at many of the clubs that were there. Sometimes as a leader, sometimes as a sideman. So I used to go down there quite often. Got to see him. Got to know him. Got to know all the musicians one way I could go hear them play without paying for it, cause I didn't have any money anyway. I didn't drink so I wasn't going to be able to sit at the bar. So I'd sort of hang out back in the kitchen with them. So I got to hear a lot of that. I presume that I started bringing those things [that I heard] into [the songs I wrote for] Woody's band."

JazzWax tracks: Rather than feature a five-foot long list of Hefti's recordings, I thought I'd simply list my favorites:

Daisy Chain (Charlie Spivak, 1942)

The Good Earth (Woody Herman, 1945)

Repetition (Neal Hefti's Orchestra and Charlie Parker, 1947)

Or Words to That Effect (Harry James,1949)

Neal's Deal (Count Basie Octet, 1950)

Coral Reef (Neal Hefti and His Orchestra, 1951)

Skylark (Jackie Paris vocal, 1953)

Plymouth Rock (Count Basie and his Orchestra, 1953)

Portrait of Jenny (Clifford Brown with Strings, 1955)

You Do Something to Me (Hefti Hot N' Hearty, 1956)

Flight of the Foo Birds (Atomic Basie, 1957)

Two for the Blues (Hefti, Pardon My Doo-Wah, 1958)

I'm Beginning to See the Light (Sinatra and Swingin' Brass, featuring Ben Webster, 1962)

How to Murder Your Wife (soundtrack, 1965)

Barefoot in the Park (soundtrack, 1967)

The Odd Couple (movie theme, 1968; TV theme, 1970)

JazzWax clips: How to Murder Your Wife (1965) is my favorite Neal Hefti soundtrack. The movie is dopey, but the theme is pure joy. You can hear the score here in the trailer (once you get beyond the sappy narrated intro). This one deserves a reissue. I have it on vinyl, and Hefti's jazzy 1960s sound is pure bliss all the way through.

Hefti's score for Barefoot in the Park's comes in a fast No. 2 for me. Here's the trailer, which gives you snippets of Hefti's waltz used for the theme. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the film's intro, which is one of the sweetest love letters to Central Park. It features a just-married Jane Fonda and Robert Redford riding in a Hansom cab through the park on a winter afternoon on their way to the Plaza Hotel.

Love Hefti's The Odd Couple theme as I do? Here's the original movie theme with vocals. Based on Sammy Cahn's lyrics, I'm not sure they showed Sammy the film or filled him in on the storyline. And here's the TV theme from season No. 1. Here's season No. 2's intro. I guess the second season required some 'splainin'.

Interview: Art D'Lugoff (Part 2)

Art D'Lugoff owned the Village Gate from 1958 to 1994, when the storied jazz club closed. During the Gate's 36-year run, Art booked a wide range of jazz talent along with folk, comedy, blues, Latin and pop acts. His accomplishments in this role include combining jazz and folk acts on the same bill, combining jazz artists and comedians like Bill Cosby and Woody Allen, and moving Latin-jazz and Salsa beyond their initial dance-hall popularity in the 1960s and 1970s.

Art is from a different era. Back in the late 1950s and 1960s, making a killing as a club owner mattered less than managing space where gifted artists could express themselves. Today, sadly, the financial stakes are different, and return on equity almost always trumps art. Fifty years ago, Art's generation of club owners focused on showcasing poetic artists, brilliant music and creative risk-taking. If they broke even or lost a little each year, so be it.

In Part 2 of my two-part interview with the legendary club owner, Art talks about Miles Davis,  Nina Simone, Charles Mingus, McCoy Tyner, Gerry Mulligan and Bob Dylan.

JazzWax: Miles Davis played the Village Gate in the late 1960s, yes?
Art D'Lugoff: Yes, many times. Miles Davis was a character. He thought he was a pop star in the late 1960s but he wasn't. I loved him dearly but he wasn't doing the kind of business that pop acts were doing. At one point Miles felt that Blood, Sweat & Tears should open for him. This was at the time when the group had huge hits.

JW: Which of the two drew the larger crowd?
AD'L: Blood, Sweat & Tears. We didn't underpay Miles. Blood, Sweat & Tears got $25,000 for a week while Miles got $5,000. That was based on box office. Look, we were the first club to have Dizzy Gillespie and his group and Miles Davis and his group on the same bill. Unfortunately they didn't draw more than 500 to 600 people in the 1960s.

JW: What was Miles like?
AD'L: He didn't talk much. I remember that Jack Whitmore, Miles' agent, was very good about keeping him on a straight line for performing. Miles was a beautiful person and always dressed impeccably. His music was relatively new to me back in the late 1950s. I had seen him at the Cafe Bohemia and was very taken with what I heard, but I had listened primarily to Dixieland and swing then. At the Gate, Miles always wanted to open a show to get home early. He didn't have that thing many stars had about insisting on closing a show. It didn't matter to him. Upstairs I had a restaurant. Miles liked the spinach salad I prepared for him every night when he played the club. It had spinach, chickpeas and Baco-Bits tossed with a creamy vinaigrette. He watched what he ate.

JW: You played a big role in singer Nina Simone's career?
AD'L: Nina was amazing. When she played the Gate, it was electrifying. Every show was an improvisation. As much as you may like Ella or Sarah, Nina was one of a kind. She played at the Gate for many, many years. [Pictured left and below: Posters for Nina Simone concerts produced by Art D'Lugoff; click to enlarge.]

JW: From a club-owner's standpoint, was she easy to deal with?
AD'L: Nina could be difficult. I remember one night she didn't want to go on. I have no idea why not. New York Times jazz critic John Wilson was in the audience. So was author James Baldwin. I sent both of them into Nina's dressing room to get her to go on. Finally she did. It was a bit excruciating and nerve wracking. I think we all drank our share of vodka that night.

JW: Did you ever pair her with someone unusual on the same bill?
AD'L: Yes, Carmen Amaya, the great flamenco dancer. Each one did her own thing, and the same audience loved them both. Langston Hughes told me afterward that gypsy music and jazz shared many similarities.

JW: Did Nina's political shift occur around the time she played the Gate.
AD'L: I think so. I introduced Nina to Lorraine Hansberry [pictured], author of Raisin in the Sun and a dear friend of mine. Lorraine had a big influence on Nina politically. I also introduced Nina to Langston Hughes. You have to understand, back then I was friends with a large eclectic group of artists who were passionate about music, art, literature and civil rights. It was a different time. Nina had enormous courage and she knew she was free to do as she pleased creatively at the Gate.

JW: Did you ever discuss civil rights with Nina?
AD'L: Plenty of times. During the early 1960s, everyone was very aware of what was happening down South to African-Americans. In March 1965, Nina was booked into the Gate but she wanted to go down to Selma, Alabama, and join the protest march to Montgomery. So I called Langston Hughes and some other friends. I closed the Gate, and we all flew down to Selma to march to Montgomery with Nina.

JW: Did Nina have a big impact on other folk artists who appeared at the Gate?
AD'L: I think so. Nina had a big influence on all forms of music, including jazz. Her form of protest music was so open and honest, and I think it inspired many musicians coming through the Gate to try a similar, expressive approach. Her song, Mississippi Goddam, is a great example. She first performed that song at the Gate in 1964.

JW: Did McCoy Tyner play the Gate?
AD'L: Twice. And this is unbelievable: On both nights, New York City had a big blackout—once in November 1965 and again in August 1977. We put candles all over the place. We still laugh about the coincidence.

JW: Was Charles Mingus tough to deal with?
AD'L: Not at all. Despite what many people think, Charlie wasn't a racist against whites or anyone else. He was a fascinating guy and a terrific musician and composer. I remember one night I was catching a nap on the couch in my office. At around 2 am Charlie came in and woke me up. He wanted to apologize.

JW: For what?
AD'L: He said, "Oh, Art, I'm so sorry I threw all those ashtrays at people in the audience." He said he was flinging them at people who were too noisy. He was as polite as can be when he was telling me this. I said, "Charles, don't worry about it. I can understand your feelings." He said, "Thanks so much, Art" and quietly left. I always loved booking him.

JW: Why?
AD'L: The music mattered more to Charles than anything. One summer in 1961 I booked him for a month. I made a price and we agreed to it. Then he wanted to bring all sorts of musicians in, like Rahsaan Roland Kirk, with his incredible musicianship and instruments. He said the musicians would be paid out of his share. I went around to various record companies to tell them who was going to be there. Not one would come in to record the group live. Can you imagine that? What a shame.

JW: How was Thelonious Monk?
AD'L: Monk was fantastic. He played his last club performance at the Gate. The Baroness [Pannonica "Nica" Koenigswarter, Monk's benefactor], told me that. His piano playing was amazing, not to mention all those different hats he wore. Why he did that was very secretive. I'm not sure what the significance of that was.

JW: Who else was eccentric?
AD'L: Gerry Mulligan was pretty intense. I liked him a lot. We often talked politics. I saw him at one of the Newport Jazz Festivals. He told me out of the blue that his relentless playing schedule took away his sexual prowess. What could I say? He was a wonderful guy and very pleasant to be with. Earlier, when Gerry played the Gate, Judy Holliday pursued him aggressively, coming in every night. Of course, they wound up together. [Photo: Gerry Mulligan and Judy Holliday in 1961]

JW: So I hear you turned down Bob Dylan?
AD'L: He had just come to New York City and was playing at Gerdes Folk City on West 4th St. with Joan Baez. He caught me on Bleecker St. one day and asked if he could audition to play at the club. I said, "Now?" He said, "Yes." So I said we should go to the Caricature Cafe on McDougal St. I knew it would be empty in the early afternoon and it was easier going there than turning on all the lights at the Gate. When we got there, Bob took out his guitar and played for me. It was all Woody Guthrie. I said to myself, "I already have Ramblin' Jack Elliott playing the club, who already was doing Guthrie's stuff. What am I going to do with this kid?" Besides, Guthrie was still alive, and Bob was so clearly doing him.

JW: What did you tell Dylan?
AD'L: I listened to Bobby and I was nice and said I'd consider it. At the time, he wasn't big enough to draw a crowd at the Gate. I didn't think doing that close an imitation of Guthrie was going to get him anywhere. A couple of years later he played Town Hall and the event lost money. His big break came in 1961 when Robert Shelton, the New York Times' folk critic, gave him a big write-up. No one was reviewing folk music for newspapers other than copyboys at the time. Even when Bobby made it, I didn't care much for him. It had nothing to do with the music. I just never liked his voice. But the youngsters cottoned up to him. He was very clever to go electric at [the] Newport [Folk Festival] in 1965.

JW: Looking back, what made jazz musicians in the 1950s and 1960s so special?
AD'L: What you have to remember about all of these musicians is they were very creative people. They were eccentric because they were enormously gifted. They didn't live by everyone else's rules. If they did, they wouldn't have become jazz musicians. They would have been something else. They lived and performed by their own rules, which takes courage. It's hard to understand that culture today, where everything has to fit. These musicians were driven by emotion and sensitivity. They didn't always think everything through, which is what made their art exciting. This way of life doesn't really exist anymore.

Interview: Art D'Lugoff (Part 1)

As jazz legends go, Art D'Lugoff is up there. He's among the last of a breed who in the 1950s owned and operated a prominent New York jazz club. Art opened The Village Gate in 1958 on Bleecker and Thompson streets in Greenwich Village. The club initially hosted jazz and folk but soon expanded to include comedy, Latin, blues and pop. The club closed in 1994, but during its 36-year run, the Village Gate featured John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Thelonious Monk, Horace Silver, Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Nina Simone, Herbie Mann and many others.

Tonight, Art, 84, is producing the first of three Salsa Meets Jazz performances in Greenwich Village, reviving the famed Latin-jazz series he started at the Gate in the early 1970s. The concert will be held at Le Poisson Rouge, a restaurant-club located in the exact same building as the former Village Gate. The concert will feature the big band of Bobby Sanabria [pictured], with guests Jon Faddis on trumpet and Candido on congas. (Show times tonight: 7 and 9:30 pm; information: 212-505-3474). Two more Salsa Meets Jazz concerts are planned for December 1 and 29.

In Part 1 of my two-part interview with the legendary jazz club owner, Art talks about Billie Holiday, John Coltrane, Odetta, Stan Getz and the greatest night of his career at the club:

JazzWax: Before you opened the Village Gate, you were a jazz concert producer, yes?
Art D’Lugoff: That’s right. One of those was a Billie Holiday concert in June 1957. I co-produced it with the Village Voice newspaper. Dave Brubeck and other musicians were on the same bill. The concert was held at the Loew's Sheridan [pictured] on 7th Ave. and 12th St., a theater that held about 2,500 people and has since been torn down. It was Billie’s first performance in New York since the 1940s because of her cabaret card problems.

JW: She was in Philadelphia that night, wasn't she?
AD’L: Yes. The plan was that when she finished her club date down there at 11 pm, Jerry Tallmer from the Village Voice was going to speed her up to New York by 1 am. She had to arrive before 2 am to perform, since there was a 3 am entertainment ban in New York at the time. The time of night sounds crazy by today's standards, but things were different then. People were much more passionate about music and art and ideas.

JW: Did she make it in time?
AD’L: On the way up, Billie insisted that Jerry keep stopping at restaurant areas on the New Jersey Turnpike for drinks. We expected her a little after Brubeck got off at around midnight. But she wasn’t there. The audience didn’t move and waited. We knew she'd get there eventually. Jerry called us along the way. Finally, she showed up close to 3 am. I think someone paid off the police to let the show go on that late. As I remember the event, Billie gave a fine performance but not a great one.

JW: You opened the Village Gate in 1958. How did the club get its unusual name?
AD’L: The club was on the corner of Bleecker and Thompson streets in Greenwich Village. The club’s entrance was on Thompson St. and it had a gate. I also may have been thinking about the Gate of Horn, a famous folk club at the Rice Hotel in Chicago. Either way, the building had a gate, so it seemed like an appropriate name.

JW: There were two clubs there, yes?
AD’L: Yes. I had the Village Gate and later the Top of the Gate, a smaller space I started as a place for pianists. When Bill Evans would play there, pianist Peter Nero [pictured] used to come in and crib from him. Bill was sort of introverted, and we didn’t talk much. I've heard that tapes of Bill playing the Top of the Gate were recorded surreptitiously and that producer Orrin Keepnews may have them.

JW: Who was the first artist to play the Gate?
AD'L: Earl "Fatha" Hines. He was fantastic. He could make any piano sound great.

JW: You were known for putting two radically different types of artists on the same bill. Why did you do that?
AD’L: It was always a risk but I liked to mix it up. I wanted to see if audiences for one artist would go for a completely different type of artist. To me, great music was great music, no matter what. Sometimes the combination worked, sometimes it didn’t.

JW: Which pairing specifically didn’t work out?
AD’L: There were a few. One was John Coltrane and folk guitarist and singer Odetta. Putting them on the same bill was a big mistake.

JW: What exactly do you mean by “the same bill?”
AD’L: One went on after the other performed, with the audience remaining largely the same. You’d see both for the same cover charge. Each artist, obviously had a different fan base. This was in the mid-1960s, and Coltrane’s fans enjoyed his far-out approach. So they didn’t warm to Odetta’s softer, more introspective folk music. Meanwhile, Odetta’s fans didn’t get Coltrane for much the same reason. The two types of music weren’t in sync.

JW: Did fans walk out?
AD’L: No, no. [laughing] I had heard from several people that the pairing wasn’t happening and that the audience wasn’t happy. It just wasn’t an exciting match for the person who came to hear one or the other. I sensed right away it was wrong. Coltrane and Odetta got along personally. But the audience was clearly uncomfortable. [Pictured: Coltrane at the Village Gate in 1961; photo by Herb Snitzer]

JW: What was Coltrane like during this period of his career?
AD’L: He was taciturn and didn’t talk much. He wasn’t an extrovert. He was someone who didn’t mingle or socialize. I would say he was an unusual artist with unusual style of music and influence. Hearing Coltrane live was like listening to sheets of sound. They’d come thundering at you. At first it would be difficult to absorb but you’d get used to it. At different times I also had Albert Ayler and Eric Dolphy at the Gate. They were unusual and terrific. [Pictured: Eric Dolphy and John Coltrane at the Village Gate, 1961; photo by Herb Snitzer]

JW: Were such pairings bad for business?
AD’L: Not at all. I liked to try different things. When I discovered Tom Lehrer in nearby Washington Square Park, I booked the singer-satirist with Odetta, whose message was much more serious. Putting them on the same bill didn’t click with the audience. But I didn’t lose money.

JW: Did such pairings ever go really bad?
AD’L: The worst combination was pianist Erroll Garner and Leon Bibb, the folk singer. Leon opened the show, and when he finished, Martha Glaser, Erroll’s manager, came up to me and said, “Get that guy out of here.” Apparently Martha or Erroll had such a bad reaction to Leon that either Erroll or Leon had to go. Erroll was the bigger draw, so I had to make nice with Leon, who is a terrific artist. I gave him another booking. After that, Leon appeared at the Gate for a week.

JW: Horace Silver’s Doin’ the Thing was recorded at the Gate in May 1961.
AD’L: Horace [pictured] played the Gate many times. He was terrific. How can anyone forget Filthy McNasty off that album? Stan Getz discovered him. One night I remember Horace tried to pick up my wife. [laughs] Horace was a gentle guy.   

JW: Did Stan Getz play the Gate?
AD’L: Oh sure. Stan was a mashugana. That's Yiddish for a crazy person. He would make bookings and then not show or up or he'd come late. He'd drive me nuts, but I let stuff like that slide because he was such a great musician. My most memorable night at the Gate involves Stan.

JW: What happened?
AD’L: Days after the album Jazz Samba and the single Desafinado were released in 1962, I booked Stan and Charlie Byrd at the Gate. A friend of mine who worked at Colony Records, at the base of the Brill Building, tipped me off. He said the album was incredible and that it was going to be huge. This was the first bossa nova album. So booking them meant I was going to be first one to get them live. I wanted to record the group that weekend, so we negotiated. Charlie Byrd wanted to do it and tried everything to get the deal done. But Stan was a hard ass and just wouldn’t do it. Then I added Bola Sete [pictured], the terrific Brazilian guitarist. So I had Stan, Charlie and Bola playing all the stuff from the Jazz Samba album. The tragedy is that the performances that weekend were never recorded. What a shame.

JW: Did it ever cross your mind to tape them yourself?
AD’L: I never did that. Some club owners did without consulting the artists or getting their permission. I never played that game. I had too much respect for them.

JW: Was the Getz-Byrd-Sete performance great?
AD’L: Unbelievable. That was one of the best bookings of my life. I still hear the music in my head. Stan wanted more money to record, and I just didn’t have it. Stan was the deal breaker. But we always got along. A few days before Stan died in 1991, he called me just to ask how I was doing. Out of the blue. I think in retrospect, he always wished we had recorded that night.

Tomorrow, in Part 2, Art talks about Miles Davis, Nina Simone, Charles Mingus, McCoy Tyner, Gerry Mulligan and Bob Dylan.

JazzWax tracks: Upward of 20 jazz albums were recorded at the Village Gate. Among the best-known are:

Horace Silver: Doin' the Thing at the Village Gate (1961)

Herbie Mann: At the Gate (1961)

Herbie Mann: Returns to the Village Gate (1961)

Herbie Mann: Monday Night at the Village Gate (1965)

Nina Simone: At the Village Gate (1961)

Coleman Hawkins: Alive! at the Village Gate (1962)

Lambert, Hendricks & Bavan: Havin' a Ball at the Village Gate (1963)

Mongo Santamaria: At the Village Gate (1963)

Thelonious Monk: Live at the Village Gate (1963)

Tito Puente: Live at the Village Gate (1992)

Milt Jackson: Live at the Village Gate (1963)

Chris Connor: At the Village Gate (1963)

Jimmy Smith: At the Village Gate (1963)