...that was before I worked with Miriam Makeba in the Union of South Africa, 'cause I worked with her in 1973... we did a tour for the Pan-African Congress. And it's funny because a friend of mine, Leo Mensa, who was at the UN... because she was married to Stokely Carmichael at the time, they wasn't gonna let her into the country, because she was married to a subversive. So, Leo... he got her into the country, for us to do those tours for the Pan-African Congress.
'Cause they were livin' in Conakry in Guinea... that's where Kwame Nkrumah had asylum with Sekou Toure. Y'know... he was one of the Pan-Africanists from the Patrice Lumumba era... a lot of people got killed, man, because that... because Patrice Lumumba, and that "Africa for Africans", they... they really didn't like that... they killed Dag Hammarskjold... Whitney Young, y'know, "mysteriously"... that was like, a really weird time, y'know? See, that was during the whole revolutionary period in this country... and it's funny how, ironically, all that stuff related... you could hear it in the music. John Coltrane, during that time... that was like... John Coltrane died in '67, but y'know, in '62, '63, all that stuff was building... you could hear it in the music. People were trying to free up... get freer, y'know...?
...friend of mine used to say "they had Be-Bop on the top, and funk on the bottom", you know so they always had it with a beat... so people were gonna be dancin'! As opposed to intellectualizing - back to what Jack Kerouac and all those guys were doing. That's where the first beat poetry was - poetry to jazz, and it set up that whole scenario.
Because, y'know... these are guys that came back from World War II, and they... y'know, they were letting their creative juices flow, and that's what started what they called the beatniks. 'Cause you have to realize after World War I -- I mean, [World War] II was over, in like basically 1945... so from that era the bands, the big bands broke up... bands got smaller... and that left smaller bands...
Like - like, my teacher used to tell me, "Art Blakey used to come to Pittsburgh", he said "Art Blakey, the big dummy, used t'come back to Pittsburgh, told me he heard a five piece band in New York, that sounded like a big band. You know who he was talkin' 'bout, Lee?" I said, "No". He said "He was talkin' 'bout Louis -- Louis Jordan's Tympany Five..."
Well see that was... he was kind of a blues cat that had put lyrics, y'know... like one of his hits when we were kids, I used to like to listen to:
"Moe and Joe had a candy store
Sellin' fortunes behind the door
Buh duh dum duh, th' police ran out
Then J-- then they began to shout...
Run Joe, run as fast as you can
...P-police holding me han' "
-- Louis Jordan - Run Joe
That was about the numbers business.. and the police are comin' to rob him, to get the policies... So the bands got smaller, so it left more room for them to solo and perform, y'know... people started intellectualizing.
Because prior to that, if you were in a big band, basically you might get a four-bar solo, or a eight-bar solo, or if you really had -- was really playin' somethin', y'had sixteen bars and, y'know... on a record and all that kinda stuff -- that was major!
But that fact that... y'know, that just... three- and four- and five-piece bands, like, two horns... that left more room to solo. And see, records couldn't be on the air longer than three minutes... so what they started doing was having a format where you... where you play the melody down, take two choruses on solo -- two instruments -- then take the melody out.
...there was such a great influx, because New York was like, the Mecca - the Jazz Mecca... because, I mean, Duke Ellington came here from Washington D.C.
Y'know, everybody came here because this is where the music could actually be played. Let's face it: New York was the media capital - still is - of, uh, of the country... and most of the world, for that matter. So, y'know like, Paul Whiteman, that they called the King of Jazz... in the '20s, during what was know as the Jazz Era.
So, y'know, all that was here - the flappers, and "the Charleston" and all the kinda stuff. Y'know, and then the "after hours" joints, the speakeasys and all that kinda stuff, is what created that kinda night life, that you had to know somebody to get in.
So, y'know... so that's what the speakeasys were about... because when they... during Prohibition, y'know, you couldn't buy a drink... alcohol, 'cause, you now - so... people still went out and drank: because it was against the law didn't mean it didn't still happen.
When they banned liquor in this country and, basically... you got a... a sport that's one of the highest paid sports in this country - called NASCAR - NASCAR started from bootleggers, drivin' souped up cars, runnin' away from the police...!Y'know - so they could sell "white lightning" or "moonshine"...
...the bebop era really only lasted from about, maybe, 1943 when Billy Eckstine's band was one of the first bebop bands, to about 1955. And it went up until 1965... Birdland, I think, opened up in 1949 and stayed open... uh... it stayed open until 1965.
'Cause I played at the original Birdland. And they had other places - 'cause all these guys like Symphony Sid, they had these radio broadcasts that were on major radio stations... like on A.M., 'cause after midnight that.. those stations would carry damn near 'cross the country.
So, you know, you had Sid McCoy out of Chicago -- like that was in the late '50s/early '60s... Y'had Al "Jazzbo" Collins - he was in New York - and y'know, Symphony Sid used to do stuff at a place called the Royal Roost, on 48th Street and Broadway,
that was upstairs; that's why they called it the Royal Roost.
The only place that's still down there, in its natural... in its pristine state, is 21... which is the jockey club. On that same block... they used to all be brownstones, just like that... and the Onyx Club, 3 Deuces... [there] were all these famous... jazz joints, where Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie and all them cats played. Y'know.. it was just one block long, and they used to go from club to club, right in that block. Jimmy Ryan's and all them... and all that kinda stuff...
You know, Frank Sinatra was Vito Genovese's godson... or some stuff
-- related to him, 'cause, you know, blue-eyed skinny kid from Hoboken, New Jersey. But y'know, see Frank, man... Frank helped a *lot* of guys, y'know... he's the one that really catapulted Sammy Davis, Jr's career... he helped out Sammy a lot. And they used to work at the Paramount you know like, in the '40s -- bobby soxers days... but all that stuff was real segregated then. That's why everybody went uptown.. after the places closed downtown, everybody went uptown and hung out -- that's why Minton's Playhouse had it's famous after hours joint.
And the famous jam sessions that happened after hours... now, that was on 118th Street, between, uh... 7th Avenue and St. Nick. The after hours joint... the entrance was on the Saint Nicholas Avenue side, between 117th and 118th, down in the basement. To this day, the original piano is still down there, from the jam session. You see, 'cause, that was where George Gershwin and them went and hung out... and that's where they got a lot of the stuff.. y'know, that they got...
[What] existed in the past that you're not having happen any more - it's called the apprenticeship program. The apprenticeship program... that's how everybody comin' up played in somebody's band at some point or another... it helped them to develop what and who they are today.
You know but... the unfortunate thing - a lot of those masters, [those] who became masters doing due diligence in the field, when they died off that was the end of a whole generation. That's why the apprenticeship program brought people into the fold, [such] that if you sat in a band, you sat next to a master and you learned how to blend and read the word, here, 'cause... they used to tell me "if you can't hear everyone in the band playing, you're playing too loud".
So you gotta have to learn how to listen to people, learn how to phrase, learn how to breathe. And see, that was an integral part of the... y'know, like when, y'know, most guys like Donald Byrd and them went to college and , y'know - but when they worked with Art Blakey, that was their on the job training, that got them to their next degree...
