By Lazaro Vega
Vega: No, what I was going to say, and it's a point that you did make,
Ornette decided his phrase lengths and syntax would be determined by what he
had to say. And that to me is the blues. He went back to that earlier form
of the blues before W.C. Handy standardized them, and he said that's how I'm
going to make my jazz improvisations, not necessarily by reporting on the
chord changes. I thought you could have tied that in to what Miles' was
doing on "Kind of Blue."
Kahn: You know what, that's a very interesting comment, and there are
interviews that I've read with Ornette where he refers to country blues. He
doesn't refer to any blues men by name, I wish, you know, if he was talking
about Lightning Hopkins or even more, I hate to use the word 'primitive,'
but more un-schooled blues musicians like Robert Pete Williams or someone
like that. I would love to know if Ornette was hip to the very loose
approach to the blues that is all about individual expression.
Vega: I think he is. That was the point I'm making.
Kahn: You know what? Knowing how just all encompassing he is in his taste I
would not be surprised. I totally agree with what you're saying. The point I
think I was really trying to make was in 1959 the jazz world was ready to
explode with change and that Miles was not alone. Miles' approach to change
happened in such an under whelming way. Very influential, unbelievably
influential especially when you consider the effect that the album that was
certainly his watershed album of that period still has 40 years later. I'm
talking about "Kind of Blue."
But the sound of jazz revolution in 1959 it was, I mean, Ornette owned that.
When he came to New York and opened up at the Five Spot in November of 1959
it set the whole jazz world on fire. The coming of free jazz and the fact
that you could make beautiful music as collectively improvised, and really
stretch out the rhythm and melody structure, just break open the structure
of jazz, was Ornette's contribution.
Vega: And Miles, and Sun Ra and Cecil Taylor.
Kahn: Exactly. It's funny, though, because Miles I don't think ever left
behind total -- I mean the way that Ornette and Sun Ra and Cecil did, the
throwing out the baby with the bathwater type of idea. Like we're going to
leave everything behind. Miles never wanted to burn the bridge behind him.
There's a couple of comments that I quote where he seems to be saying from
as late as 1969/1970 when the sound of Ornette has become very established
and people like Albert Ayler and Coltrane's explorations have followed in
Ornette's wake, and Miles makes the comment, "We have to meet in a room, and
that room has to have walls." You know? Blah blah blah. So he never totally
embraced that sort of departure from melodic structure.
Vega: No he didn't. At the same time he dissed Eric Dolphy, but then later
on he had Benny Maupin playing a bass clarinet in his band playing much like
Dolphy did. It was hard to understand him sometimes, or hard to read him
with that later in his career. Many of the things he did seemed to be
influenced by what Trane did later on. It was modal and deeply African.
Kahn: I love that moment that Paul Bley describes where Paul, of course, is
in New York. He was part of the L.A. scene and Ornette and him were in the
same band.
Vega: At the Hillcrest Club.
Kahn: Exactly. There's Paul at the Five Spot (in New York) and Miles walks
in. And Paul describes it as Miles acting as if he just happened to be in
the neighborhood to grab a beer. 'Oh, here's the Five Spot, let me go in
here.' And Miles is listening to Ornette, but he's not even facing the
stage. He's like talking with a bar tender. But of course there's got to be
some listening going on as he's checking out what Ornette is doing.
Although he might have dissed Ornette, dissed Eric Dolphy and the coming of
free jazz publicly and in words, there definitely was an influence. That was
part of Miles's genius, anyway. Is that he would listen to the full gamut of
sound out there and pick and choose different players and styles, etcetera,
and encompass it into his music.
Vega: I really appreciate the work you did to show us what the Columbia 30th
Street Studio was like. I had a friend of mine who made a record there in
the 1970's with Roscoe Mitchell. It's called "The Maze." On Nessa Records.
It's a double LP set and you open it up and there's big gatefold color
picture of the inside of the Columbia 30th Street Studio taken by Chuck's
wife AnnNessa. She went up on scaffolding above so you can see all of these
percussion instruments.
Kahn: Wow, I'm going to have to try and find this.
Vega: Oh yeah, he's in Whitehall, Michigan. E-mail: nessa@earthlink.net. Chuck is really proud, a proud man to have worked in
that studio because that parquet floor and those vaulted ceilings and those
micro-phones and that equipment made for a very important place in a musical
history of America.
Kahn: That's the type of stuff that really should be enshrined as well,
along with all the biographical detail, say, of what Miles is going through.
What you're describing is exactly what the engineers. Unfortunately when you
put something in print, unless you actually say it, you can't really suggest
the emotional intensity that Quincy Jones still has for that studio. When he
praises the wooden interior and the quality of the reverb that the room
offered, it's almost like he's talking about his first girlfriend. (Laughs).
Vega: It was really an important place, and no other records sound like
those records sound. Joe Morello's drums on "Take Five" sound so good. And
so did the band with Miles anytime he was in there. And so did Horowitz, or
whoever else who might have been in there. They probably had, what, 10 or 15
Steinway pianos to pick from?
Kahn: Well Columbia actually owned Steinway by the early sixties. They had a
very intense and intimate relationship with the company. It was funny
talking to the engineers and having one engineer saying, "Oh yeah we had two
or three to choose from, but there was one that was always the jazz piano.
And that was the one that Dave Brubeck beat the s--- out of, you know?" That
was what Bill Evans played and this piano is still around in New York
somewhere. I love little clues and little detective stories this book
allowed me to follow.
I'll tell you one other story about one of the engineers I talked to. It
turns out he lives five minutes away from me here in New Jersey. He was
amazed that anyone wanted to talk to him, and invited me over. We sat and
talked for a while and he said, 'Hang on, hang on. I'll be right back.' He
disappears and he goes downstairs, and he comes up from the basement. He had
saved one of the knobs from the mixing board. And he had this in a shoebox
with a velvet interior to it, and he brought it up as if it was a holy
relic. I guess for him it was. He offered it to me and let me look at it for
a while and hold it. He goes, "You have no idea how much great music passed
through that knob."
That type of reverence people still have for the technology that made the
preservation of the music possible is really stunning.
Vega: I think if that studio had been in Europe it would still be there.
Kahn: Oh yeah.
Vega: I don't think the economic forces would have made it go away. But they
'll tear down Yankee Stadium someday, so nothing's sacred in America's
commercial individualistic rugged world, but there's still thankfully people
such as yourself who can document it, get it down, and talk to the surviving
cats and let people know on a more general level what it really meant.
I really appreciated your research. I loved the denouement of the book,
putting "Kind of Blue" in historical perspective, the interview with Ray
Manzarek and the whole thing about James Brown's tune "Cold Sweat" and its
relationship to "So What," that was just great, and then all of the people
who have gone on to record the music from "Kind of Blue." I really
appreciated all of that.
Kahn: Its one thing just to say this album was influential and it sells a
lot. You can talk about sales figures. I thought, you know, I want to give
it a different type of scorecard. I want to show people how many different
types of musicians and how many great musicians have come to embrace this
album and make it part of their own repertoire, from Jerry Garcia to Ray
Manzarek to The Police, back to the jazz world with people such as Wes
Montgomery, Grant Green and Joe Henderson, etcetera.
Vega: One of the people influenced by this, too, who doesn't get discussed
often for his work in that period immediately following "Kind of Blue" is
Jackie Mac. Jackie McLean's records like "Omega" and things that really went
modal, he went off into the modal thing and right up to the brink of
freedom, yet he seems to be overlooked a little bit in that discussion. But
he seemed to be one of the cats that really understood where Miles was going
with this.
Kahn: I tried to mention this at the opening is that I was limited by the
musicians and people who were willing to be interviewed and discuss this.
There are many musicians out there who are just burnt out on interviews.
Granted. There are also a lot of musicians who were burnt by Miles. Because
of the way they may have been portrayed, say, in the autobiography they don'
t even want to discuss the subject.
I won't say that's my excuse, but I will say do you think I did not pursue
Sonny Rollins, Jackie McLean, etcetera, etcetera? Of course I wanted them in
the book and would have loved to have them open doors for me and see how I
could have maneuvered their stories in there, too. Sometimes you have to go
with what you can find.
Vega: Absolutely, and thank you for telling me that because people on the
back end are armchair quarterbacks and there's a reality out there that
anyone faces when they try to make anything happen.
Kahn: I tip my hat to you for knowing that and adding that to one more
unwritten chapter to the book, and to the study for your listeners, because
they should be aware of stuff like that.
Vega: I enjoyed the way you used Lewis Porter to describe John Coltrane,
which really nailed it; the historical perspective on page 183 that relates
Miles music back to the blues was very good. I really didn't think the Miles
Davis Quintet with the Gil Evans Orchestra at Carnegie Hall worked very
well. The quintet sounds like it comes in early, but I may be wrong.
Kahn: I also don't think it was recorded that well, but then the
technological aspect of what it was like, I remember reading in the files,
because I was able to find Teo Macero's files at the Public Library here in
New York. He talks about the problems he was having one, getting permission
to record the Carnegie Hall concert and other concerts, the 1964 concert,
and two, the problems he was having with union rules. Because of the set up
he was in some small little lighting room that was four floors up. So the
sound that you're getting at the very top level of Carnegie Hall, and you're
adjusting the knobs for the mix, is definitely not what you're going to be
hearing, say, in the third row where the acoustics are best. That's why in
any concert nowadays if you're having a problem hearing or you think the mix
is bad, the advice is always go to the mixing board, stand right next to the
sound man because he's mixing for himself. Well, Teo had problems.
I think the Carnegie Hall thing was a symbolic bookend. I could not have
continued my story, the Miles Davis bio time-line beyond a certain point,
otherwise I'm talking about the second great quintet. That's not my purview
anymore.
Vega: I thought the way you handled it going into Miles early history, then
slowing it down the once you get into the "Kind of Blue" sessions, and then
having a denouement with the effect of the music on the world was a
beautiful shape to the book. I think my favorite part of the story is right
after the album was recorded in that time they were together and touring.
That is so exciting to know that band was out on the road and people could
hear it. And describing the people that did hear it in various venues, with
Warren Bernhardt, especially, painting a picture of The Sutherland in
Chicago.
Kahn: I've got to tell you, I had chills when I would be doing these
interviews and Warren would remember Chicago, and Gary Burton would remember
French Lick, Indiana. Ron Carter would remember the Toronto Jazz Festival.
He was living in Detroit at the time and drove up into Canada. Shirley Horn
remembering Birdland and running into Stan Getz and them hearing modal jazz
for the first time and saying, "Where's he going with the chords, how come
he's still on that d-minor?" I'm thinking about "So What."
Without even requesting it or trying to find it, all these stories of summer
1959 were coming to me, and it was just, for a researcher and a writer like
myself, I could not have planned it better.
Let me say one other comment. My hope with this book is that, you know there
's an old Zen saying that when I point at the moon look at the moon, not my
finger. Which means let the book be the entrance to the album. And if you
already know the album, let the book add to your enjoyment and appreciation.
And if you don't know the album yet, let the book be your pathway to the
album directly.
Vega: Is this just coming out right now?
Kahn: Yes, it's about two weeks old. It's a baby.
Vega: Well good luck with it.
Kahn: Thank you. Thank you for your enthusiasm and understanding. I have to
say that this is one of the most knowledgeable interviews I've had.
Vega: Oh man.
Kahn: I probably won't call Chuck Nessa just yet, but I am starting to work
on a project where an incredible photo of 30th Street Studio might be of
interest to the people I'm working with. You can imagine I really did dive
into the photo archives over at Sony and they do have a whole loose leaf
binder of slides, contact sheets, etcetera of 30th Street because it was one
of their assets and they had to have a photographic record of it. But I
think it was done at the end of the seventies so you see mixing boards with
the slide faders, etc. I'm like, wrong era. But I did find some photographs,
which are in the book, of course, of the studio circa 1960 with the round
pots.
Vega: Small boards.
Kahn: Six channels. Three track tape with six channels.
Vega: Your whole layout of how "Kind of Blue" was recorded, the channel
assignments, the multi-tracking, were fascinating. I was really perplexed by
all of that. But to see how the instruments were divided up within the six
tracks is hip.
Kahn: Well, you know they weren't so multi-tracking. By multi-tracking I
mean sound on sound. They weren't doing that yet. They were doing stereo,
but it was totally live to tape. It just happened that they had an extra
track. And all they were doing with that extra-track was using it for
isolation purposes, and the advantage of being able to throw on a little bit
of sweetening through the echo room down in the basement.
Vega: I think the best example of their using the echo room was on the
recording they did with Duke Ellington, on "Ellington Uptown," of "The
Mooche." Jimmy Hamilton and Russell Procope play a clarinet duet, and
Russell plays in that reedy New Orleans style. The response from their call
and response comes out of the echo room. It's just the most brilliant use of
that: it's so effective.
Kahn: It's interesting you mention that because it's the same producer,
Irving Townsend. Well, I've learned a lot in this (interview), too: I've got
to tell ya. (Laughing).
Vega: Well good. "Kind of Blue" is a key. I think the once John Coltrane was
introduced to modes from Miles Davis, because he was such a tenacious
musical intellect, that he ran them to their utmost conclusion and that is
any note is possible.
Kahn: Right.
Vega: You combine that with the influence of Albert Ayler who insists on
opening up the realm of sound in music and you end up in 1965. Many people
don't understand how 'Trane got to that, but I think it's very clear if you
know "Kind of Blue" then you can get to "A Love Supreme." And if you know
Albert Ayler and what modality meant to George Russell, then you can get to
1965 and out.
Kahn: It's a tough step to take, though, for many listeners. Because many
listeners don't hear that.
Vega: Well they don't view jazz as an art form. It's more like an
entertainment. And 'Trane viewed it as an art form because he's a musician,
he's like Stravinsky or Webern.
Kahn: The one part of the book I really wanted to expand upon and there just
wasn't enough room was jazz in the fifties. Because that whole elevation not
just from a few but from a real school, a real center of the jazz world that
wanted to elevate this form to an artistic level and demand that type of
respect. There are very few critics writing about it: Nat Hentoff and Martin
Williams. That's about it, you know --
Vega: Leonard Feather.
Kahn: -- that were noticing this change that jazz musicians, just one wave,
a particular school that really were demanding the same type of attention,
respect and reverence as classical music got.
Vega: A. B. Spellman and Amiri Baraka, too.
Kahn: True.
Vega: But you're right: there was a sea change in the music. There was just
a huge difference to what had happened even in the immediate post-war
period. By 1955 and Bird's death there was something there. Musicians were
like, hey, wait a minute.
Kahn: I was fortunate to find that John Lewis quote where Nat interviewed
him, and John Lewis said, and this is like five years afterwards in the
early sixties, and he says five, six years ago there was me, there was
Miles, there was a handful of us, and we were demanding that our jazz be
looked upon as an art form.
Vega: His quote puts it in clear perspective. Isn't Duke Ellington's "Koko"
modal?
Kahn: What is modal jazz? Is the ultimate question. I quote Dick Katz. He
says if you take a simple cadenza, at the very end of a tune where the band
drops out and the soloist stays on a chord for sixteen bars or whatever to
show off his stuff and then, boom! they bring the song to a final close,
that cadenza is an example of modal jazz.
One of my favorite images in the book is that close up of Bill Evans's note
to Cannonball Adderley on "Flamenco Sketches" where he doesn't write 'play
the scales, play the notes in the scale' he says, "Play in the sound of the
scale." What he's saying is this is a suggestion. Play the blue notes, play
off of these scales, and play on the scale: it's up to you. But the idea is,
use this as sort of a foundation.
Modal jazz is not a direct script it's a suggestion. It's up to the
improviser. I think modal jazz, whereas you have modes, modal jazz is more
about freedom for the improviser.
Vega: Right, it is not just that you're going to play mixolydian, Dorian,
Phrygian - you're going to use those as a template for what emotional
climate you're trying to convey.
Kahn: Yes, you said it better than I could (laughs).
Vega: I don't know about that. Well Ashley man you better get to your family
dinner or else I'll keep you all night.
Kahn: O.K., we'll stop. But let that be a comment on how I'm enjoying this.
Vega: I appreciate it.
