Elvin and Me
by Ronan Guilfoyle and David Liebman
I took advantage of being at the recent
International Association of Schools of Jazz annual meeting in Lucerne with
Dave Liebman to interview him about his time with Elvin Jones in the early
70s. Dave was of course in the Jones quartet that recorded the seminal ‘Live at
the Lighthouse’ album, a recording that’s still considered to be probably the
greatest album under Elvin’s own name and one that captures the live experience
of post-Coltrane jazz to perfection.
I was conscious that Dave had been interviewed on his time with Elvin dozens if
not hundreds of times, but I wanted to try and get a bit more inside the story
from a musician’s point of view and really try to find out what it was like for
a young musician to work with someone of the stature of Elvin Jones and how
things were organized in relation to the usual things we experience as musicians
– touring, recording, playing, rehearsing etc.
Dave of course is not only a great musician but the perfect interviewee -
honest, enthusiastic, well-spoken and funny. And I think the interview is
fascinating not only because of the info about Elvin, but in how it gives a
glimpse into a musical world and way of working that’s all but disappeared.
RG: Can you remember the very first time you played with Elvin?
DL: I was living on 19th street, I got a call from Gene (Perla) who’d been
playing with Elvin, (with Joe Farrell), for about 6 months and who had said,
when he joined Elvin, ‘I will get you and Steve (Grossman) on the gig’. He was
the first in our generation to get this kind of gig and was very heavy in the
little community we had. And sure enough, at 11.30 one night he called me and
said ‘Slugs, now!’
RG: So at 11.30 one night you got a call saying come down and play!?
DL: ‘Come down and play now, he wants to hear you now’, or whatever he said, and
it was from the West Side to the Lower East Side – Slugs, in a terrible
neighbourhood, you know all the stories about Slugs. I went, I walked in, there
might have been 8 people in the place, Elvin was standing at the bar with Joe
Farrell, I didn’t see Gene. I walk in, Elvin is standing there smoking a
cigarette, he says, ‘Are you ready?’ – it was a real set-up! I said, ‘Yeah, I
guess’, and he said, ‘Get your horn out’, We go up to the stage and Joe stays at
the bar, so it’s just me, Elvin and Gene! He says ‘what do you want to play’ and
I played what I played the first time I played when I auditioned for Pete LaRoca,
with Steve Swallow and Chick Corea two years earlier (A whole other story!).
RG: Which was?
DL: ‘Softly as in a Morning Sunrise’, and I played that, and finished that, and
he said ‘Got another one?’ and I played ‘Yesterdays’, he said ‘Another one’, and
I played ‘Tunisia’. So, three tunes, Joe stayed at the bar, I think there were
three people in the place, it’s 1.30 in the morning, Elvin says ‘I’m recording
next week, be at Rudy’s on February 12th, next Thursday, 10 O’ Clock, bring a
tune’ – and that was ‘Slumber’ on ‘Genesis’
RG: Wow!
DL: So that’s it, I did the record date and six months later, in September of
that year – ’71 – Keiko called me at 4 in the morning, I was living in a big
loft, I didn’t want to answer the phone, my girlfriend said ‘you gotta answer
the damn phone!’, but I said ‘no, I’m not answering’ so she answered the phone –
it was on the other side of the loft – so it’s four in the morning and it’s
Keiko, and she says ‘Elvin wants you to play tomorrow in Chicago at noon, you
have to take the next plane at La Guardia, there’s a ticket waiting for you’.
So I take a 7am plane and I end up in Chicago, I get to this school in the
middle of a suburb, a 12 o’clock concert for high school kids – me Elvin and
Gene. Joe’s still on the gig, he just didn’t make that particular afternoon
concert. After the gig we go to the hotel – the Croydon Hotel – very well known
for jazz musicians, and Elvin…….. I had no idea if I was supposed to play with
him for the next few nights or what, I don’t remember, but he said ‘Come and see
me in my room’ and I go up and he’s sitting there, smoking a cigarette, looking
like a King (laughs), and he says ‘I’d like you to be part of the band for good
now, you start right now, tonight. Joe’ll still be here, you’re gonna take his
place, we’ll work you in’. Nothing about saxophonist Steve Grossman yet, though
he knew Steve, so from then on I started working with him steady – from that one
day, right there.
RG: Let me ask you a specific musical question – so, you’re playing with
Elvin Jones, whom you saw many times with John Coltrane, but once you were on
the stage, playing with him….
DL: Well I was scared – scared like shit! (Laughs) Shaking!
RG: Of course, but to get to the actual music - at any point in the first
night was there a point where you got over the fear and got a feeling of how it
felt musically to play with him?
DL: I don’t remember a specific time, but that first audition night probably
not. But six months later, after I joined the band, going home every night was
either a nightmare or a celebration, depending on how I felt about my playing
that night.
RG: Depending on how you felt?
DL: Yes, depending on how I felt – though nobody really said anything. Of course
Gene was there and then Steve joined and eventually it became our thing. Me,
Gene and Steve were like a loft crew anyway, so with Elvin it became like a
family vibe, you know?
But of course the main thing, and the story I tell everybody about playing with
Elvin, is the time – playing behind the beat. I mean, if there was anything you
knew Elvin for, besides the power, it was the back of the beat. And I just knew
it, and understood it, and cognized it, and taped it, but just couldn’t fucking
do it! (Laughs) I mean, I always say – I was rushing for six months – and I was!
I was very conscious of that aspect of it – that cymbal beat.
And of course the other thing was, after seeing Trane so much, I just wanted
Elvin to……….I thought, you know, ‘I’m gonna get Elvin to open up’.
RG: You mean open up playing-wise?
DL: Well you know – start to bash, start to burn! And I’m on my knees, literally
and figuratively, and he’s just - {imitates the classic Elvin grunting sound
that he made when he played} – he ain’t givin’ up NOTHIN’! And he isn’t
givin’ it up until he’s good and ready to give it up. You know, my first chorus
I’m squeezing my neck, and he’s just tippin’ like this, and once in a while
he’ll say ‘take your time’ – he’ll yell ‘take your time’, and he’s just tippin’,
and then eventually he does his dance so to speak. But what I realise is number
one, obviously, this is not John Coltrane, and number two - Elvin is not the
same Elvin – it’s Elvin Jones the bandleader – the architect of the set. He’s
gonna do it in the time that HE wants. And of course he’s now the leader,
not the sideman. You know, understanding all this came later on – that this is
not him with John Coltrane. So these are the first cognizant things I remember
about it. And then of course when Steve got in the band, we had our little scene
together, from all our playing in the lofts, It felt more normal, more natural.
I mean we just started having a good time then.
RG:
So when he said ‘take your time’, do you remember if there were more
instructions on playing, or was it just occasional things?
DL: Occasional things, we rehearsed a little – we tried ‘Picadilly Lilly’ but it
didn’t work, but he liked ‘New Breed’. Picadilly had a funny bridge and he said
‘I don’t know if we want to do this…..’ kind of thing. Once it didn’t work with
him, you know, with those guys – it wasn’t like what we do, like ‘OK, let’s try
it again’ – if it didn’t work with them, if it wasn’t natural for them, you knew
you were never going to play it again! (Laughs)
Now ‘New Breed’, for some reason, worked, though at about half the speed I had
contemplated it at. You know that tune?
RG: Yes
DL: And I had thought of it like that Tony Williams ‘Spring’ record, with
brushes and Sam and Wayne and Peacock, and I’m thinking of it like (sings fast
snatch of the melody), and Elvin says ‘I don’t think so’ (Laughs), ‘let’s go
here’ (sings it much slower). So he’s slowing it down to half of what I ever
thought it as being and that became ‘New Breed’
But no, he never gave instructions, in fact I think in Miles’ way Miles might
even have done a bit more, and even that was very little. Elvin never said a
word about the music really – he never really said anything, and the other thing
was, once you had a set, you pretty much played the same set every night.
RG: Once he was happy with it….
DL: Yes, for a couple of years we more or less played the same set – you had
your ballad feature etc., and then there was my famous story about playing ‘I’m
a Fool to Want You’ every night and going to him and telling him I had nothing
left to say on it. It’s a dramatic story that I’m sure you’ve heard, but the
point he made to me was ‘it’s your job to make them believe it every night -
nobody ever heard it before tonight – don’t be thinking you can play something
new every night - refinement is the name if the game’ that whole lesson – that
was a big lesson for me when he gave me that. But otherwise, not much really in
the way of instructions.
RG: And you said earlier about during the first six months with him, going
home was either a celebration or a nightmare….
DL: Depending on my state of mind
RG: Yes, I guess he didn’t say much after gigs?
DL: Oh no, he never said ‘you played good tonight or you played bad tonight’
nobody ever said anything. I mean I learned that from LaRoca, because with
LaRoca, who was my first real test, with Chick, with Jimmy Garrison – it was
always a different piano player or bass player – with Swallow….. I mean I was a
nut case. This was already two/three years earlier in ’69, and I said to LaRoca,
you know,’ I’m so nervous here, I’m ready to commit suicide!’ And he said to me,
because he was very smart, he was a real intellectual, ‘You’re doing that to
yourself – you wouldn’t be up here if you weren’t doing it
RG: Yeah
DL: in other words he said, ‘Don’t expect to be patted on the head, but if
you’re playing, then you’re doing it’, and that was a very good piece of advice
and I kept that with Elvin, you know, I’m not waiting for him to cop, this is
not my mother, no gold star or anything. In other words if you’re there and
they’re not saying you’re fired, then you’re doing good! Don’t expect them to
say you’re doing good though – they’re not going to come up to you and say ‘you
played good tonight’ – it’s just that you got the gig, if you got the gig then
you’re doing good.
The truth is, you know, with those cats, the way they were, if you weren’t doing
good they’d just say ‘I got a replacement’. Look, I took Carlos Garnett’s place
with Miles – he came to the first rehearsal I had in Miles’ house. I was in
Miles’ house playing and he comes expecting to play! And the road manager says
to him ‘go upstairs’, and he goes upstairs, and then walks out
RG: Because he sees someone else playing?
DL: Yes, because you know, with these guys, when you’re fired, you’re fired!
It’s simple, there’s no ‘you know man you played good, but I can’t use you’ –
it's more like the next day you come to the gig and there’s another guy there.
Those cats didn’t….. for them it was a job – so I didn’t expect Elvin to say
anything, and he didn’t! (Laughs)
RG: So also with Elvin, you rehearsed very little?
DL: We did a few rehearsals, but mostly at record dates – if you had a record
date then you rehearsed at the record date and it was a first take. Almost
invariably a first take – you would rarely do a second take – he wouldn’t do it!
You’d finish your tune and he’d say ‘Next’. I learned very quickly – and this
was a good lesson for playing with Miles – don’t expect a second take. You’d
better be in tune – which was a struggle for me at that time – and you better
play good because you’re not going to be able to say ‘I don’t like my solo’
(laughs). And I can tell you, a few times on record, how it sounds – I’m sorry,
I didn’t have a second take!
RG: So, recording in general, recording with Elvin….
DL: Three or four hours – max. Because you know, time was money – three hours
was a session, over three was a double session, and Blue Note didn’t want to pay
overtime. ‘Merry Go Round’ with Chick and Jan Hammer, there was a couple of
tunes with a couple of horns – there was one with Farrell, me and Steve, and
Frank Foster – four horns – I think that was a six hour session. But it was
really like ‘next’, ‘next’ – the first time you saw the music………
RG: That was it
DL: Yeah – that was the way they worked.
RG: So when you were in his band – what did that mean in terms of the amount
of work you did – was it a certain number of weeks, months………?
DL: It varied – he certainly worked more than Miles – you’d do a couple of weeks
on a week off, a week or a couple of weeks, then another week off. Or you’d do
Canada - Montreal, Toronto etc. Or we’d play the Vanguard and then do Boston
immediately afterwards – I remember doing that with him at least twice in the
time I was with him. With Miles you might do a few gigs and then be off for a
month or more. Of course Miles played concerts while Elvin played clubs – I
hardly ever played clubs with Miles, though it was great the few times that we
did it. And of course the money was better with Miles – with Elvin it was about
$300 a week, while with Miles it was $400 a gig.
RG: And after you finished playing with him, you played again with him
several times later on.
DL: Yes, in the 80s
RG: Did it feel any different
DL: Yes
RG: In what way?
DL: I was better! (laughs). Just like with LaRoca, I was finally able to keep up
with him, and I can’t say lead him, but there was confidence, I had confidence.
So the gigs I did with Elvin, they were all in Italy – Palle Danielsson, JF
Jenny Clarke, Albert Mangelsdorff, Swallow and Scofield…….. there were three
times when we did it, three years in a row where a promoter would put this
together, so I had three or four gigs with Elvin for a couple of years, just
these little special situations. And I was kind of the leader, because now I was
kind of the heavy.
On the gig with Swallow and Scofield, at the soundcheck, we’re trying out ‘Day
and Night’, you know that tune?
RG: Yeah
DL: Well Keiko comes running up to me, she says (pointing to Swallow)
‘What’s he playing?’
‘Electric bass’
‘But where’s the other bass?’
‘He doesn’t play the other one, this is Steve Swallow’
and she says in her Japanese accent,
‘I don’t know who he is, Elvin don’t like that – Elvin don’t like that bass!’
(laughs)
I didn’t say a goddamn word, I didn’t say anything and Sco was asking ‘is it
cool, will it be alright?’
(You can see a short clip from that gig
here)
RG: So what happened? Elvin didn’t say anything?
DL: No he didn’t - he did the gig. You do the gig – it’s a gig, those guys did
thousands of gigs. They don’t care about one night, nobody cares – they’ve done
it all before. That’s the other thing, they didn’t give a shit – I mean they
cared about it at the moment, but they never thought about it before or
afterwards. For them it was just another night of thousands of nights. We don’t
have that – we have the big deal thing, which is why I was a maniac those first
years. But once you do that for years it’s just like, ‘this is just another
night – so what?’ And they were really like that and it took me a minute to get
to that - this not a big deal – you might think it is, they don’t! (laughs)
RG: On the later gigs, his feel – did it feel any different in the 80s
DL: It was just so mature, what can I say – mature. Everything was perfect, his
touch was perfect, he would turn on the energy in a perfect way, he was
soulful…. He was classic by the 80s, he was classic Elvin Jones. It was beyond
the records he did with Coltrane in the sixties – he was like a Max if you know
what I mean….
RG: He was like an institution?
DL: Yes, he was an institution – you went to see Elvin Jones, which was why when
sometimes the bands weren’t that great it didn’t matter, you went to see Elvin
and watch him turn it on. And of course he had that wonderful smile, that
personality, that charisma – which of course was another part of his attraction
to people, because he was open and friendly.
I mean in my opinion, as far as I was concerned, he was the heaviest guy I knew
in terms of the combination of the spiritual, warmth and knowledge. You know he
was a wise man, who’d been around the block, and who was really open and
friendly and nice to everybody. I mean he could get out too – if he saw
something wasn’t right he’d call it, he could get tough. But for the most part
with normal people he was a real gentleman, and not just a gentleman, but
inclusive – like ‘come in here and hug me’
RG: As a person, was he a good hang?
DL: He was a great hang! He could be cool, and with me Steve and Gene we really
had a good time – the chemistry was great, I mean he said it was his best band
and ‘Lighthouse’ was one of his favourite records etc. We had a really good
vibe, he would get high with us a little bit, just a little bit – he definitely
enjoyed us. You could tell he liked us and loved playing with us, and we had a
real band spirit there for a year, a year and half. Don Alias was on congas in
the band for six months, and that added even more to it – they were great
together.
It was a completely positive experience for me, there’s not one negative thing
that I can think of with Elvin. Sometimes his personality, like everybody,
sometimes he would have a bad night, that could happen from a physical
standpoint – whatever. But he was pretty good, and he was going through
methodone, he was kicking, he was on methodone and so when things were good they
were good and when they weren’t it could be a little tough. But he was really
trying to be cool, trying to control himself, trying to get himself straight.
Because he could see that in order to live long he had to be cool. And Keiko,
and you’ve got to give it to her, she kept him together – without her he would
have been gone – everybody says that and I definitely agree with that.
RG: Great Dave – thank you!