By Lazaro Vega
This interview by Lazaro Vega with the late Art Farmer was originally
broadcast over Blue Lake Public Radio (www.bluelake.org) in 1988 and portions were
quoted in The Grand Rapids Press.
Lazaro Vega: How long is this tour in the U.S.?
Art Farmer: My tour is going until the 31st of October, and then I'm going
back over to Europe. As far as I know I'll be over in Europe for the rest of
the year. I have some things to do over there in German, France, Belgium,
and Finland.
Vega: Do you have a family in Vienna?
Farmer: Yes I do.
Vega: Do you have children?
Farmer: Yes, I have one 16 years old. My wife is born in Vienna, and my son
is also born there.
Vega: I've never been there but I know people that live there; they
vacation in the region I live in now. At home they see some of the greatest
music in the world.
Farmer: That's right, there's a lot of great music being played there. That'
s one of the nicer things about the city.
Vega: Do they appreciate you as a jazz player there?
Farmer: Yes. Yes, there's a very good jazz audience in Vienna. There's a
good audience in Austria in general, in Europe in general.
One of the things that I like about living and working in Europe that's not
the case over here so much is that there's more activity in the smaller
cities. Like you can go into a town in Europe that has a population of maybe
10,000 people and manage to play a concert there and there will be, say,
like a thousand people will come to the concert. You're not just restricted
to the larger cities.
Here in the United States I'm playing at a place now, here in New York City,
called Sweet Basil. This is only one of the places in New York City, there
are quite a few here, that are well attended. But once you leave New York
City the next stop is generally Chicago, and then after that it's all the
way out to California as far as playing in a club. There might be one club
in a town. But all these nice sized towns, say, like Pittsburgh or
Cleveland, even Detroit, there's not that much going on as far as the size
is concerned. If you go into smaller towns it's actually zero in most cases.
Vega: That has to be comforting to know you can put things together like
that in Europe. So you're playing Sweet Basil right now.
Farmer: Yes, I'm in my second week at Sweet Basil now.
Vega: I was there last November.what do you think of that place?
Farmer: Well, the audience is very nice. I think physically it's not so
comfortable for the players because we don't have anyplace to go when we
have a break. But other than that, what? Then it's a hard room for drummers,
because you have a brick wall on one side and a wooden wall on the other
side and it seems like the drum sound is just magnified there. So the
drummer sounds louder than they would sound in a place that had sound
deadening material.
Vega: When I went there I stood and wondered how they ever fit the Gil Evans
Orchestra all up there on Monday nights. That made me curious. I had a great
time seeing jazz in New York.
Farmer: Yes, well, this is the greatest place in the world for jazz because
you can go out and you can find so much going on in any one given night.
Vega: Who are you playing with there? Is it the quintet with Fred Hersh?
Farmer: No, it's the quintet with Clifford Jordan on tenor and soprano, the
pianist that's been working with me for about the past couple of years is
James Williams; and Rufus Reid on the bass. And I have a drummer named Tony
Reedus, who's like a nephew of James Williams.
This group with the exception of the drummer is the group that's recorded
the last two albums that I made.
Vega: Sure, on Contemporary, with Helen Keane. That and the record on Soul
Note are beautiful. I love them. Especially that one, I like this
"Flashback." Man, that's a great composition.
Farmer: Oh yes. Thanks, thanks.
Vega: I heard you at the Chicago Jazz Festival with the Jazztet a couple of
years ago. Do you remember that? You guys (lit the house up). I hadn't heard
that kind of bop played with that much intensity in a long time. That was
Marvin "Smitty" Smith on drums?
Farmer: Well thanks. Yeah, Smitty is my favorite drummer, really, because he
has a concept of playing in a group that the younger drummers don't have.
But to go along with that he has the concept that the younger drummers do
have as far as being inventive and creative. He just doesn't sit out there
and sort of plug away. He always adds something to it. He's very inventive.
He's a rounded musician, you know, he composes, he understands harmony, and
notes. He's not just a person of rhythm, but he's a person of harmony and
melody, too. And since he understands the function of harmony and melody he
knows how to respond to it. And anytime you hear him play a drum solo, why
you can hear the form of the piece in it. It's just not filling up 40
seconds, but what he plays goes along with the harmonic form of the piece.
Vega: So he'll play an AABA drum solo.
Farmer: Right, exactly. You can hear it. You can hear the change from one 8
bars to the next. He really makes the group sound like a group. That's from
the Art Blakey school. Every thing has a beginning. Like if somebody takes a
solo, he brings you into the solo, and then he responds when you end the
solo. He's on to everything that's happening up there and he responds to
everything that's going on. He's just not going his own way, the way some
guys play, as if they're only concerned with what they do.
Vega: I sat at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago just this summer and listened to
Wilbur Campbell play. The Chicagoan.
Farmer: Yes.
Vega: And really dug it. He's real conversational like that. And then Kenny
Washington sat on the stand -
Farmer: Yes, yes.
Vega: -- and he's real loud, maybe a little insensitive like that, but he's
a good drummer. So, I think I know what you mean: you're talking about a
real subtle shaded area.
Farmer: Yes, somebody who has a sense of dynamics. Now I've heard Kenny play
with Tommy Flanagan, with the trio, and he wasn't too loud then. But I haven
't heard him that much with horns, so I couldn't say anything about him.
Vega: He came into town with Johnny Griffin. But anyway let's talk about
these records: three with Clifford Jordan, a Chicagoan originally, on tenor.
How about the Billy Strayhorn songbook, "Something To Live For"? Or,
"Something to LLIVVV For."
Farmer: (Laughing) Oh, thanks.
Vega: I like "Raincheck" and "Johnny Come Lately." Everything seems to work
really well with you and Mr. Jordan.
Farmer: Yes.
Vega: Your tonalities blend perfectly on the heads.
Farmer: I think a great deal of that is due to Clifford Jordan. His ears are
open, too. Whatever little, no matter how small the degree of subtle shading
that I might do he's right on it. I never have to say to Clifford, 'Clifford
play it this way, or play it that way,' because he is listening. In my
opinion he's really a great player.
Vega: When did you form this quintet?
Farmer: I've been working making recordings with Clifford in the quintet
context for about the past four or five years. I think we did a couple of
things on Soul Note, at least a couple.
But as far as a working group I really can't say when we actually started
working this time. Because it was always a matter of if something came up
where I could use a quintet then I would call Clifford, but I hadn't made a
deliberate effort as far as the quintet.
When we made the first records on Soul Note I was actually working with the
quartet, with Fred Hersh most of the time. But then, like I say, if I were
able to use a second horn I would call him.
(I) made one quartet record called "Warm Valley" and one called "Work of
Art" for Concord.
Vega: I imagine the reformation of the Jazztet was a little more conscious.
Would you please talk a little bit about that project?
Farmer: Well that came about when a Japanese concert promoter suggested to
Benny (Golson) that he should ask J.J. (Johnson) if J.J. would come over
with him to go on a tour, but J.J. wasn't available. Then the idea came to
the Japanese promoter to, instead of getting J.J., what about the next
logical step, getting Curtis Fuller? Then the once you have Benny Golson and
Curtis Fuller, what about getting the Jazztet back together? So that's where
the idea really came from; was a Japanese tour. So we did that around 1981,
maybe '82, '83. I don't remember exactly now.
After that first step was taken and people heard about it, clubs back here
were interested and festival promoters in Europe were interested also. That'
s how it sort of got off the ground.
The initial idea didn't come from Benny or me, though. Like I said it came
from the Japanese.
Vega: How do you feel about that?
Farmer: It was fine, but it doesn't exist now at this time. No, we did it
for maybe three years or so, but now Benny has said that he would like to
for once in his life work in a smaller format with just a rhythm section
where he would feel no restrictions as far as what he plays from one night
to the next.
The more people you have up there, the more your sort of bound to stick to
what's been already agreed on. Because you just can't tell everybody I'm
going to change it now and do it a certain way. Because it's hard to
communicate that when you're on the stage. So the less people that you have
up there, the more freedom you have to take the unexpected turn. He said
that this is something that he actually has never done. He's always been in
a group where there was at least one other horn, going all the way back to
The Jazz Messengers.
He said for once in his life he would really like to have the experience of
just playing with a rhythm section.
Vega: That period with the Jazztet, from 1959 to 1962, was a period of great
change in the music.
Farmer: Yes, that's true: absolutely.
Vega: Great change for you, too: when did you make the switch from trumpet
to flugelhorn?
Farmer: Actually, I made that change it must have been in '62. When it was
almost at the end of the Jazztet I started doubling (trumpet and
flugelhorn). Then, when the Jazztet did come to an end, the next thing that
I wanted to do was to work with a quartet with Jim Hall (guitar).
I had made a record for Mercury with a big band and I'd only played the
flugelhorn on that record. It seemed to me that the sound of the flugelhorn
would go better with Jim's sound, so I decided to stick with the flugelhorn.
So that's when I started really concentrating on the flugelhorn. It was in '
62 because I remember when I was getting ready to make this record. In order
to make the record just playing flugelhorn, I just had to concentrate on the
flugelhorn. I put the trumpet in the case and really worked for a few months
like in the woodshed just on flugelhorn in order to feel comfortable with
it.
So, after finishing this record, I just didn't feel like it made any sense
to go back to the trumpet to play with a guitarist that plays like Jim does.
So that's how it all started.
But now I'm starting back to playing the trumpet again. Yeah, this is my
first engagement in about 26 years where I've played the trumpet with a
small group.
Vega: This one you're doing at Sweet Basil? Are you going to be doing that
in Grand Rapids?
Farmer: I don't know. I might do some playing on it, yeah. Right now what I'
m doing as far as the programming is concerned is sort of experimenting and
seeing what piece goes with what instrument better. So like I try it one-way
tonight and then another way the next night. So, I'll probably do some
playing on it out there, too.
Vega: So where are you going on this tour?
Farmer: I know the first stop is Interlochen (Note: Interlochen Arts
Academy, Interlochen, Michigan), and Kalamazoo is the second. I don't have
the list in front of me.
Vega: And then Grand Rapids on the 23rd, but I was wondering where are you
off to after Michigan?
Farmer: After Michigan is to Chicago to the Jazz Showcase starting on the
25th. I'll be with the quartet in Chicago. Clifford won't be there, but
James Williams and Tony Reedus will be there. Rufus Reid won't be there,
there's a bassist from Boston named John Lockwood who'll be there.
From Chicago, I close in Chicago on the 30th, and then my last date is just
a free concert at a prison in Southern Illinois. A guy that I met, one of
the inmates started writing me a couple of years ago. He's like an amateur
trumpet player. We got to be pretty good friends through writing and he set
up this concert. In fact I'll probably play a couple of concerts during the
day that I'm there. This is something that I usually do whenever I'm asked,
which is to play these concerts in prisons or jails or whatever. Because
these people seldom get to hear anything. I think just because of what they
have done. Who knows what they have done. Music doesn't do anybody any harm:
it can only be a positive force. It makes me feel good to be able to give
something to someone and it's just a good feeling.
Vega: I have a few records that have been made in Chicago jails.
Farmer: Yeah! I remember playing out at the Cook County Jail. Let's see, it
was me and Joe Williams.I don't remember everybody who was on it but it was
quite an experience because we just went to the whole jail, one section to
the other. When Joe was in one section, well then I would be in another
section, and then we would change places. It just felt like we were doing
something worthwhile.
And those people are really not blasé about the music.
Vega: No polite applause, huh?
Farmer: No, (laughs).
Vega: Do you play a different repertoire for them, do you play real bluesy?
Farmer: No! Oh no, no: I play whatever I feel is the best that I can play. I
wouldn't change my repertory. I always try to play something that I think
the people would like, but that doesn't mean to play down to anybody,
though.
Vega: Mr. Farmer, how old are you?
Farmer: I just turned 60 in August.
Vega: Well, congratulations. Actually I should tell you this before I go on
to the next point. It was I think last year that Dizzy Gillespie came
through Grand Rapids and some people threw him a birthday party before his
concert. He was talking and I don't remember exactly how the conversation
went, but somebody was asking him about, you know, who do you consider to be
a great young trumpet player? And he said, 'Art Farmer.'
Farmer: Oh yeah? (Laughs) Wow! (Laughs) That's a kick. (Laughs). Yeah, that
was nice to hear.
Vega: In your lifetime you've played with some great cats, some guys that
aren't that well know like Wardell Gray.
Farmer: Yeah.
Vega: 'Farmer's Market,' and Hampton Hawes: that little band. That was a
great little band, or the recording sessions that came out. Do you ever play
'Farmer's Market'?
Farmer: We played it with the Jazztet sometimes. It's a nice line but it's
just a blues line, it's just a bebop line.
Vega: Well, what about Wardell Gray?
Farmer: Wardell was really a great guy. He was like a big brother to me. He
was the first person that I would see everyday that really knew what was
going on as far as the music was concerned.
Frank Morgan who's here in New York now, we were just speaking about Wardell
yesterday. Just talking about how much we missed him and how great he was to
all of us. Speaking of all of us I meant Frank and Hampton Hawes. Because he
was like the big brother who had gone and done everything and he's coming
back and telling us how it was. So he was the soul of patience. He just had
a way about him, he was very relaxed. He had a way of teaching without
teaching, he was teaching by example. He was a big force in my life as a
jazz player.
Vega: From your California days, huh?
Farmer: Yes, the last days that I actually lived in California that's when
we were playing together, it was in the early '50's.
Vega: Now was that before or after Lionel Hampton?
Farmer: That was immediately before Lionel (Note: pronounced 'Lye-nel").
Vega: I see, in '53?
Farmer: Well I joined Lionel in the fall of '52 and stayed with him until
the fall of '53 and then I started to live in New York City as a freelance
musician, playing with whoever would give me a job.
Vega: So while with Lionel Hampton you went to Europe -
Farmer: Yes.
Vega: -- and you were with Brownie.
Farmer: Yes, that's when I met Brownie was when I was with Lionel. I met a
lot of (musicians): Benny Golson, Alan Dawson, Gigi Gryce, Quincy Jones, and
James Cleveland, you know, because it was quite a personnel in his band.
Vega: It's hard to imagine that being put together now.
Farmer: (Laughs at the thought of it).
Vega: Well, that's the band for your record, that 'Art Farmer Septet' record
on Prestige.
Farmer: Yes, yes, well that was the first record that I made under my name.
I was with Lionel. Let's see, Quincy was listed on that record. He wrote
the arrangements and played piano on it.
Vega: Yeah, 'Work of Art' and 'Up in Quincy's Room."
Farmer: Yes, that's right.
Vega: So what about Clifford Brown?
Farmer: Well, Clifford Brown was one of the true giants. He was one of the
true giants of jazz and, of course, of trumpet. It was like he was already
300 years old. He was just -- (pause). It's hard for me to find words to
say how much I feel about Brownie as a player.
Vega: Well you guys stood shoulder to shoulder and traded phrases.
Farmer: Yes, we would do that every night. When I first went in Lionel's
band I was thee soloist, thee trumpet soloist. When Brownie came in, well
one good thing about Lionel was that he just didn't take solos away from me
and give to him, but he would just open up the arrangement and make it
longer. So instead of there being one trumpet solo there would be two.
I would say Brownie was much more advanced in his stage of development as a
trumpet player than I was. So knowing that, well there was no doubt that was
the reality. But being that it was the reality well then that really made me
try that much harder. Because I felt sort of desperate that I had to really
put my best foot forward. I couldn't relax a minute because if I did and
didn't do my very best I'd then just get washed out, just get wiped away,
because he was really firing. That was a pretty hot environment. (Laughs).
Vega: When you were younger who were the guys you were listening to? Were
you listening to Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro?
Farmer: Yeah, well the first guy that I listened to was Harry James. Strange
enough Miles did, too. (Laughs). Well you see Harry James was the guy that
was getting all the airplay. Say as far the trumpet player was concerned,
boy he was the rage, the rage of the United States in the early 40's, and
that's when we started playing.
You could hear Harry James no matter what cow town you were in. You could
hear him on the radio all day long. He was one of the hottest things there
ever was. And he was, yeah, that was the first guy that I listened to and
then after that I started listening to the trumpet players in the big bands,
like with Count Basie and Duke Ellington, guys who would come to Arizona.
Like Erskine Hawkins had a great trumpet player named Dud Bascomb. This was
prior to the days when I was listening to small groups.
When I started listening to small groups well then there was of course Dizzy
Gillespie, and Fats Navarro, Miles Davis and Kenny Dorham.
Vega: What about Miles, I mean, what do you think of his current direction?
Farmer: His direction as far as what he is surrounding himself with, I don't
like what he's surrounded himself with. I still think that he's a great
player. He can still come up with an idea that just knocks you over, but the
style of the group in general is not what I like to hear. What they've got
in the rhythm with the electric guitar and electric bass and all that sort
of pop, or whatever you want to call it, that's really not to my taste.
I love Miles. I think he has a great sound. He has one of the nicest sounds
on trumpet I've ever heard.
We worked on the same concerts but I've never worked in the same group with
him. I've known him and I consider us to be friends. I've known him for a
long time. I think I first met Miles in 1947 out in Los Angeles, and he's
been one of the major inspirations in my playing. For sure. He's always had
a nice sound, a great sound.
Vega: I'm looking at the current situation in jazz right now, the way things
are, and there are people like you and the generation before you who have
left so much great recorded music and have given your entire lives to the
music, and I just wonder about the people coming up behind you: it's a whole
different ballgame.
Farmer: Yeah sure, that's life, things change. I think as long people are
coming up like Smitty (drummer Marvin 'Smitty' Smith), (laughs); well the
music is going to be here. It's hard for me to imagine Smitty doing
something that wouldn't be musical. He's a young guy and I don't expect him
to be doing the same thing 20 years from now that he's doing right now. But
he might change. He might just develop into a higher degree, but I don't
expect him to do something that I would call un-musical, or that I wouldn't
be able to like. Because of his background I just don't think it would
happen.
I think the music will prevail because right now there's more interest:
there's more younger people trying to play than ever. I don't expect
everyone to stay in it because there's not room for everyone. It's just
impossible, but when there's so many people involved on the learning level,
on the educational level, then some good has to come of it. There's no way
that the whole thing's going to degenerate into just another form of pop
music. Everybody's not going to go that way. Somebody's going to say, 'Hey
wait a minute.' (Laughs).
That's the great thing about jazz, is that it never reaches the point where
everyone is doing the same thing. Someone is always going to come up with
another twist to it. Say like 30 years ago when the Jazztet first got
started, complicated harmony was the thing, and then along comes Ornette
Coleman going exactly the opposite way. And he was accepted on that. A lot
of people didn't like it, but a lot of people did. There's always a freedom
there that someone is free to try to do something a different way. So the
music just doesn't stay one way all the time. It doesn't stay one way and no
one is forced to sort of knuckle down and do what everyone else is doing. In
fact you just can't force people that way. The people just say, 'Oh the heck
with it, this is what I want to do make it or not.'
Vega: Sometimes waiting for society to come around to appreciating that.
Farmer: Right. You're right. It can take a long time, too. It can look like
it's never going to happen, but then that're the rules of the game, that's
life. You know Monk was out here scufflin' for a very long time. He was
around here in New York doing nothing! When I first left Lionel's band Monk
hardly ever got a gig. It's like slowly and slowly, year-by-year he started
to, it took a long time for him to become accepted, but he stuck to his
guns; and he was right; and the music has proven itself. I think that's what
people have to be prepared to do.
Vega: Do you think that will happen with guys like Cecil Taylor?
Farmer: Umm, 'with guys like Cecil Taylor'?
Vega: Well. The avant-garde. Do you think people will ever come around to
listening to that more frequently than they do now?
Farmer: Well, actually, it's much more accepted over in Europe than it is
over here. Already. I think it depends on the ability of the player, on the
ability of the player to strike a responsive chord in the listener.
Cecil Taylor is a player who just hasn't done that as an example, as an
individual. But that doesn't mean that it's not possible for someone else to
do it.
Vega: I just wondered. It seems like the evolution of the music is about a
decade ahead of the evolution of the public's appreciation of it.
Farmer: Yes, yes, that's a pretty fair estimate.
Vega: Well you sure would know. Man, there's a lot of musicians from your
generation that live in Europe, or there were. Maybe even guys a little bit
older, Kenny Clarke, Kenny Drew.
Farmer: Well the reason is not the same for everyone. People live over
there for various reasons and I would say it would be a mistake to
generalize and put everybody in the same category.
For instance, I live there, but I'm over here at least half the time. It's
gotten to be now where if you want to play as an active musician it doesn't
matter where you live, especially if you're a horn player, because horn
players have to travel. It's not like a rhythm player. If you're a bass
player, a piano player or a drummer you want to live in the United States
and live in a place like New York City. You can work almost all the time
just in New York City. But a horn player can't do that unless you work in
the studios. So, I could be living here and I'd still be traveling just as
much as I do travel.
Vega: So you're a citizen of the world.
Farmer: Yeah, by necessity (laughs).
Vega: Well, I think I could talk to you all day, that's the way I feel with
this conversation anyway. You're very approachable and it's a joy to hear
you. I really feel honored that I've had a chance to talk to you for this
brief period.
Farmer: Well thank you very much. Thank you.
Vega: We're all looking forward to hearing you play in Grand Rapids,
(Michigan).
Farmer: Well I'm looking forward to playing there. I don't think I've played
there in about thirty years. I think I played there with the Gerry Mulligan
Quartet many years ago. Somehow that name rings a bell: Grand Rapids, yeah.
We played a concert, that's all I know.
Vega: You know that song from when you were with Mulligan, that song called
"Blueport?" Did you write that?
Farmer: Yes, yes.
Vega: I like that tune. I know people who really dig that - it's on their
party tape. How long were you with him?
Farmer: (Laughs hard). Oh, for a year, maybe a little less or a bit more I
don't remember exactly right now.
Vega: Things were different there, eh? no piano.
Farmer: Yes, because I had been with Horace Silver right in front of that
and Horace was a very dominant piano player. But I enjoyed working with both
of them. I think Gerry Mulligan was a great musician.
Art Farmer photograph © 1999 Jeffrey Kliman. All rights reserved.
