Blue Note. A Story of Modern Jazz (BBC) Page #2

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Frank Wolff were interested in.

Bu-dum-bu-dum-bu-dum da-da

Bu-dum-bu-dum-bu-dum da-da.

What? I mean,

every piano player I know,

sat down and tried to play that.

I know I did!

MUSIC:
Come On Everybody (Get Down)

by Us3

No problem. Thank you for calling.

Bye.

Hello, Vanguard. Can I help you?

Yes. Ron Carter will be here,

two shows, 9:
30 and 11:30.

Yes. You may, sir.

Hold on one moment, please.

Wait, wait, 9:
30 or 11:30?

11:
30, OK. Two people?

Monaco?

M-O-N-A-C-O? Spell.

That's what I said. Monaco.

Very good, sir.

So come at 11 o'clock.

Thank you.

When you come to the door,

they'll seat you.

They'll give you the best seat

in the house. OK?

Bye. Oh, my goodness.

Luckily, I don't seat people.

Anyway, there we are.

In New York, at our apartment,

which was kind of cute,

right down here in the Village.

Yes, I was young.

I was about 17 or 18

when I met Alfred

but I used to listen to his records

on the radio,

I didn't know who he was,

and Alfred had called me once

and he had an office

and he invited me up and I did go,

I brought a friend with me,

and we had to go to their apartment

where there was nothing to eat,

two eggs in the fridge

and we cooked up the eggs, a little

bread, a little cheese on the side.

They didn't have any money.

They were very poor.

Anyway, the war came, the war,

and Alfred got drafted

and, then, he got shipped to Texas,

El Paso,

and, of course,

Alfred kept writing to me.

Compton, Texas, and I...

My mother thought he was

wonderful, by the way.

She said, "He's a wonderful guy".

Anyway, there we were

in El Paso, Texas,

and Alfred and I got married.

That's a test pressing

of a Blue Note record.

See, we used to get them

from New York,

and we would listen

to them in El Paso.

The record business was still

in his mind and life,

even though he was in the army.

That's...

Oh, and here's Alfred and Frank.

See, they were very good friends.

And here's Alfred and I.

We had this crazy cat.

We called it Victor

because we got him on VE Day

at the end of the war.

That cat was like my kid,

you know? It was...

I really wanted children,

but I had a cat.

It wasn't a terrible split-up,

for that matter,

cos we liked each other

an awful lot,

and Alfred loved me,

and I was terribly fond of him.

But the reasons are obscure,

and as I say,

I don't intend to discuss

my deepest personal life now.

TELEPHONE RINGS:

Yes, Alfred?

Wh... Sorry, Vanguard.

Hello? Oh, same person.

I just talked to you before.

I'll see you later. Bye.

I don't know who it is.

There's some strange people call.

APPLAUSE:

What you doing?

MUSIC:
The Sidewinder

by Lee Morgan

My name is Louis A Donaldson,

better known to jazz fans

as Lou Donaldson.

Hey, Lou! Look at the hat!

Who do we have here?

Mighty cool today.

Who do we have here?

Grandpa!

Yeah, you... You're the grandchild.

What's happening, Grandpa?

MUSIC DROWNS SPEECH

Yeah, I'm on the games

with the younger players.

Got to get it going.

He's still there. He won't budge!

THEY LAUGH:

Blue Note helped me

through some years.

My kids were young,

I was trying to

establish myself in New York,

just generally,

and so it came at a great time.

It was with a lot of great musicians,

so it was people that I didn't

really work in their groups,

but just to know them.

I mean, I'm sitting back

like people looking,

saying "Well, I played with Tommy."

I mean...that was an honour. Yeah.

You know? Come on. That was...

So it was just an honour to be here,

and I was a young bass player, and...

It fed my kids.

But you wanted to...

You knew you were not going to leave

until that record date was through.

That's right. Yeah. If they had

eight tunes or nine tunes...

You going to make nine tunes!

You'd say, "Come on,

let's get these nine tunes...

Let's get these nine tunes

in and get out of here,

so I can go spend that cheque.

You know? Let me go cash the cheque.

I mean...

Everything'll be closed

if we don't hurry, you know?

And we would all go to a drugstore

on 50th and Broadway...

That's correct!

..that used to cash cheques,

cos he paid us in cheque.

And we used to go and cash

our cheques. Yes, yes. Yes.

And...for a long time...

See you, Bob!

That was really my survival.

Actually, I was about 20

when I met him.

And then we got together,

but Alfred,

he always came around

to the jam sessions, you know?

And then I was...at the time,

I was practising with Coltrane

and I was practising

with Wayne Shorter.

But what was so great about Alfred

was that Alfred...

He would talk to you

about what you wanted to do.

The concept of

what you were writing,

and he gave a lot of young people

an opportunity to...

to experiment and write

something different. You know?

It's not like it is today,

where the record companies

will more or less tell you what is

marketable and what's sellable,

so you end up writing something not

necessarily coming from your heart.

But during those years,

at Blue Note,

that period was a very

creative period for me.

And after listening to

all these albums,

people like Art Blakey

and Sonny Rollins,

and to get an opportunity

to meet these great people,

and not only perform with them,

but hang out and study...

I mean, that was

the thrill of my life.

And Alfred was very responsible

for all that, you know?

And he was funny. He said...

He would come to the sessions,

he'd say...

MIMICS HIM:

"Freddie is not groovy."

HE LAUGHS:

"What do you mean, he's not groovy?"

If you were swinging,

he wouldn't say a word. No. No.

But if you weren't...

But if that stuff

started bogging down...

MIMICS ALBERT:

"Wait! Wait! Wait!"

HE DANCES ABOUT AND WAILS

LAUGHTER:

Sit down! Yes, he would!

He really loved the music, man,

and I'll never forget him.

And when I got my first cheque...

I'll never forget,

I bought two nice new suits,

and I bought a car, and...

But that's just part of it,

you know?

They knew when it wasn't happening.

Yeah. Boom!

I mean, if it didn't feel good...

it HAD to feel good.

I mean, it had to have a direction.

That I understood about him.

I used to laugh, cos,

the beat was 2 and 4

and they would be popping on

1 and 3, but they knew...

But they knew we were going down!

..that it didn't feel good.

You could tell when it was

starting to gel and come together,

because pretty soon, little smiles

was creeping across their faces.

And when it got this wide, it means

things are really popping now, man.

He's going for take number one.

MUSIC:
Chitlins Con Carne

by Kenny Burrell

All Alfred wanted to do was

go there knowing that the musicians

had rehearsed for the day,

that he had put together what

he thought was the best combination

of players for this band leader,

whoever that was, and that

during the course of the day,

there'd be something

he could relate to like this.

And by and large, all those

sections of music recorded,

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