Bluiett
October 2000

"I’m not involved in sport. A lot of people seem to be excited about competition, but there’s a higher level than that in music. I’m interested in the higher levels of art and humanity."

With Eyes Wide Open
Justin-Time
2000

Reviewed By
Jim Santella

By Don Williamson

Note: Bluiett recently has dropped “Hamiet” from his name.

BLUIETT: Are you recording what I say?

ALLABOUTJAZZ: Yes, this is a word-for-word interview. I don’t write anything but what you say. After all, the musicians know the most about the music--not the writers.

B: A lot of writers paraphrase, and the readers miss what I’m saying. They make it sound like I say one thing, when I say something altogether different.

AAJ: That happens sometimes. I understand you’re releasing a new album.

B: Right. It’s called With Eyes Wide Open. Jaribu Shahid is on bass, Nasheet Waits is on drums, and Ed Cherry is on guitar. Basically, I like a guitar rhythm section. Most of the songs are my compositions, except for Don Pullen’s “Sing Me A Song Everlasting” and “1529 Gunn Street.” “1529 Gunn Street” is kind of a blues that was written in the days when the organ was popular. Don write that song in that period of his life when he was playing organ. I played it with him years ago, and I always liked that song. Don wrote one or two other tunes that I’ll probably add to my repertoire. I’ve been playing most of the music on the CD for a while. A lot of times when musicians make records, they just write new music to put it on the record. As a result, the music doesn’t get fully developed.

AAJ: Do you think With Eyes Wide Open is one of your better albums because you could develop it more fully?

B: In one kind of way I like it. I don’t know about the word “better,” though. I’ve been playing the music on the album in my performances with the band. We worked at Sweet Basil for a week. I’ve been working with this group for a couple of years now. For alternates, I have three drummers, three bass players and two or three guitar players, I guess. Ed Cherry has been with me almost consistently throughout that time. I like the kind of sound that the two of us get when we play together. It’s not New Age in terms of some guys sounding too electronic. The kind of sound he got sounded more like his predecessor, Charlie Christian. He plays just a pure note. A lot of guys playing electric guitar have fuzz, or they add something New Age to it--some kind of overriding entity. The baritone sax and the guitar are a very compatible match.

AAJ: What about piano?

B: Well, piano’s cool, but to my ears, it’s not as compatible with the baritone sax.

AAJ: So you were less satisfied with your work with D.D. Jackson?

B: No, D.D.’s cool. I’m talking about the instrument, and not the person. If you ask me about a particular instrument, then I have one attitude. If you ask me about a person who is a virtuoso on the instrument, then that attitude goes out the window. I mean, I may not like singers, but if one of them is great, then, of course, bring him on. As a matter of fact, I’m getting ready to record in October with D.D. and Kahil El’Zabar. The group used to be called Bluiett-Jackson-Thiam, but now it’s called Bluiett-Jackson-Zabar. Now we’ve taken it to a new millennium level.

But I’ve worked with a number of pianists like Don Pullen and John Hicks. Now I’m trying to record some music that I hear coming from a different direction. Most of the piano players are in another harmonic spectrum.

The way my group performs reminds me of how Miles used to work with his band. They played a lot because his group had many week-long and sometimes month-long engagements. Back then, the bands had time to work on their music. Everybody was hands-on in the groups. Even though individuals may be real good, that doesn’t really jive when it comes to group performances. It’s like being in a family situation, you understand? It’s another level of sound when you have a unit, as opposed to just putting people together.

I used to play a lot of rhythm and blues. See, the baritone saxophone was not saved by jazz per se. If you listen to Dave Matthews and others in the rhythm and blues world, the baritone sax never left. The instrument goes back to Little Richard, Fats Domino and on and on. I’m talking about the smaller groups. You won’t catch a jazz ensemble under eight pieces with a baritone. The baritone is used as the ninth man.

AAJ: Have you talked to James Carter about this subject?

B: James Carter is one of my protégés, in a way. I met him as a teenager in Detroit and turned him on to his first baritone saxophone mouthpiece. He’s into everything now. His array of instruments is incredible, from piccolo to F-stop alto. I don’t know if James doesn’t have five hundred instruments. He plays all of them. James is like this generation’s Jerome Richardson.

AAJ: You have an array of instruments too.

B: Yeah, but not like James’. I play baritone. I don’t fool with tenor, alto or soprano. The baritone is the first saxophone I saw when I was about ten years old. I fell in love with it like a kid looking at a rocket ship. It took me until I was nineteen to get my hands on one. Before that, I was playing clarinet. When I switched to baritone, I slowly dropped the clarinet. I was a good clarinet improviser—very good. A lot of people like Cat Anderson encouraged me to keep going with the clarinet. The problem is that the clarinet doesn’t have a baritone voice. So I had to switch to contra-bass clarinet to get my baritone voice. I’m a decent flute improviser, but I had to leave the flute alone because the instrument is too high. It’s too small for the amount of my wind supply. Other guys don’t like the baritone because it requires so much wind.

AAJ: You’ve extended the range of the instrument.

B: Yep. That’s because I have a five-range hearing. So I play high and low. I can hear from the top of the flute to under the baritone. I’m still working on that range; it’s like a work in progress. That’s the thing about being an artist: We don’t have the same cut-off times that, say, a baseball player has. A musician has to keep working on and on and on and on. I realize that coming of age is very unique and wonderful. So I don’t try to play in competition with someone who is twenty or thirty. I’ve already been there. It doesn’t bother me. When I’m playing with James or some of the other cats, people ask me, “Are you going to let him play?” I say, “What do you mean, ‘Am I going to let him play?’ I’m not going to stop him.” Why would people even think that way? I’m not involved in sport. A lot of people seem to be excited about competition, but there’s a higher level than that in music. I’m interested in the higher levels of art and humanity.

Let me give you an example. Do you remember when Pablo Casals was living? Years ago, promoters sent out notices that “Pablo will play on Saturday,” and people jumped on airplanes all over the world to go hear him play for a half hour or however long it was. I was always amazed at that. The older I got, the more I realized that musicians have other gifts. In the past, there were cutting sessions with Jazz At The Philharmonic. At that time, people liked the cutting sessions, like a heavyweight boxing match. If musicians want to do that, they can, but I’m not part of that scene. I hear and feel something else. The music can be very healing, uplifting and soothing. Knocking people out doesn’t make you feel good because then one person is happy and another is sad. Why not do something positive so that everyone can feel as if they all won?

AAJ: How do you teach students how to get to a higher level?

B: You just have to hope that they understand it in their souls. It has to come from within. You can’t teach the higher level; you have to nurture it. Cats go through periods of competition. I mean, young men fight. Come on! They can hit each other upside the head with sticks and all kinds of things. That’s just the process they go through. It’s like a family; sometimes you have a blowout. That’s part of what goes on because music is like life.

AAJ: Did you have an argument with Don Byron when he was in your group?

B: I had a real blowup with Don on the job. I just went ballistic, but I was in a crazy space. I had to apologize to him years later. It happened because I was going through some problems. At the time, my wife was dying of ALS [amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease]. I blew up on Don because he was so heavy on me. It was displaced anger. I had someone who was dying, I was trying to deal with Don, I was putting up with what the musicians do, and I was trying to hang on to the music.

I went out and found Don because I was putting together a group called Clarinet Family. I told Branford Marsalis, “Man, I need a clarinet player who can play!” Branford said, “I know somebody named Don Byron. He solos as well as the saxophone players do. He can kill.” It wasn’t like Don played clarinet as a secondary instrument to saxophone. So Don came over to my house and played one of Monk’s tunes: Trinkle Tinkle. I said, “OK. Cool. You’re the guy I want.” Don’s a good writer and a wonderful musician. Then I blew up at him for a reason that was related to me. It wasn’t his fault. I’m glad to put this in print. I take full blame for the misguided anger. You learn from those experiences and move on.

For example, Chief Bey is eighty-eight years old, and I can learn from him. Sam Rivers is around seventy-eight. Jimmy Heath and all of these cats are getting older. It’s not like people should throw them away because they reached eighty. Cats try to seek their own identity. That’s why they have respect for their elders: They start to smell their own mortality and try not to copy others. Some cats are great musicians in their twenties now. But then you have Max Roach who was a great musician since was he fifteen. I like all of the cats.

The next guy I’ll bring into the fold is Lionel Young, who plays electronic violin--not an amplified violin. What he does on the violin is different from anything I’ve ever heard. Everybody else plays electric violin with acoustic technique. I don’t look for individual instruments. I look for somebody who can play. If someone says, “This cat is bad! He plays trumpet,” I say, “OK.” If someone says, “He’s bad. He plays trombone,” “OK.” “He’s bad. He plays tuba,” “OK.” They have to bring something to the music. We don’t have to regurgitate the past. In a way, I do regurgitate the past by trying to be as creative as the older musicians were. But I’m not trying to be a plagiarist.

AAJ: What do you think about Wynton Marsalis?

B: Man, let’s not even talk about Wynton. He’s a work in progress. I just get tired of some of the things he talks about.

AAJ: You seem to want to advance the music while Wynton wants to rediscover previous works.

B: Well, Wynton wasn’t there in the first place. When you aren’t involved in the earlier music, then you do want to go back. I played the blues, and I played with blues people. I have a blue-inflected voice. I don’t have to go back to the blues. I don’t have to go back to gospel. I came out of that type of music. I see that people go back to the older music because they weren’t necessarily there. I was there in the good old days. Where were they?

The music isn’t about going back. This is the year 2000. I’m looking forward to keep going. Some of the music has to be better than what we did. So let’s keep going.

Wynton makes a lot of money with what he does, and I’m fighting to hold my own. I’m damn near like a salmon swimming up stream.

AAJ: Is it hard for you to make a living playing baritone sax?

B: Yes. Of course. All of my life, people have told me to play alto. Even Mingus told me that. He said that that’s what the industry wants.

AAJ: Mingus didn’t seem like the type who would be worried about the industry.

B: He just told me that there was more demand for alto players. I told him that I wouldn’t switch to alto, and he smiled. Mingus just told me the truth to challenge me and to see if I would be weak enough to go with the junk. Once you go with it, they got you.

AAJ: Well, you’ve always been committed to the baritone, and you’ve helped to advance the instrument.

B: Thank you. And that’s what I’m going to keep on doing. I’ve been playing the baritone for thirty years now, way before anyone else wanted to play it. I’m not a multi-instrumentalist. You don’t find all kinds of instruments stuck in my house. Mario Rivera, who played with Tito Puente, is one of the most dangerous baritone players in the country. But he can’t make a living with the baritone, so he plays tenor.

AAJ: What about Cecil Payne and Nick Brignola?

B: They’re both good players. I mean, Cecil played the baritone before I did. He was one of the cats who came through the bebop idiom. Cecil started on alto, though. I’m one of the few people who played nothing but the baritone. I figured that I could play on one instrument all of the other instruments’ parts, from soprano on down. I didn’t want to change instruments as I played different ranges. I used to play the top register of the baritone better than I do now. But I got tired of playing up at the top all of the time, and now I play at the bottom. If you play at the top all of the time, you’re always extending.

As a matter of fact, Olatunji asked me one day, “Why do you always play in the upper register? Don’t you ever play in the baritone range?” That made me rethink about how I play the instrument. I said, “You’re right.” I was working on the top range for ten or fifteen years. Now I’m trying to be more full-bodied. There’s a certain amount of magic in the baritone as a voice. What I was doing was to try to play the baritone like a tenor and a soprano and an alto. Now I play the baritone like a baritone, but I extend it. Finally, I started speaking in a true baritone voice because I was in competition with all of the other horns.

If I got a job, it would be one for a tenor saxophone. The head of the band would say, “Man, I don’t need no baritone. I told you that.” And I would say, “Now, wait a minute.” So I would take a tenor part and drop it down. The guy would say, “Damn. You’re bad. Not only are you playing the tenor part, but now my band sounds like a big band.” I would say, “Yes, that’s what I’m trying to tell you.” So I would get the job. When I would leave, the cat would say, “Damn. Nobody else can play that way. Get me a tenor.” That’s because the tenor is a safe horn. I ended up playing up at the top of my instrument because I was always playing tenor parts. I wasn’t even playing baritone jobs; they were tenor jobs. After a while, I got tired of that.

See, I’m from a place called Brooklyn, Illinois. The town also has another name: Lovejoy.

AAJ: So if I looked on a map, it would be shown as Brooklyn?

B: It could be shown with either name.

AAJ: I’ve never heard of a town with two names.

B: Well, that’s the way it worked out.

I tried to play classical music when I attended Southern Illinois University. I did a clarinet audition with piano to get a scholarship by playing a classical piece. I got really wrapped up into it. Oh, man, I thought I had burned! When I got through, they said, “Well, Mr. Bluiett, that was quite rambunctious of you.” I said, “What do you mean?” They said, “You can’t play classical music like that. And blah blah blah.” So I thought, “I’m not going to try to play classical music because I have a burning desire to play another kind of way. I’m not going to let nobody change it. I’m not going to play anything that I can’t put my soul into.” I’ve always had my own way of thinking. I’m not against other people expressing themselves differently, but I have to do what’s best for me. I couldn’t get lessons, and so I had to do a lot of things on my own.

AAJ: Is that why you left the university?

B: No, I left the university because I wanted to play. When I was in the Navy, I used to play the alto parts on baritone.

AAJ: Was that at Great Lakes?

B: I started out at Great Lakes; that was boot camp. Then I went to the Navy School Of Music at Anacostia in Washington D.C. After that, I went to Norfolk, where I was on the U.S.S. Newport News, which was a heavy cruiser.

AAJ: Was anyone else in the Navy band we would have heard of?

B: Well, Thurman Green was there, and I recorded with him. Lanny Hart, a piano player. John Miles was in the band; he’s dead now. Andy Ennis, whose sister is Ethyl Ennis from Baltimore, was there. I can’t think of anybody else who got big recognition. George Davis, a guitar player with Dizzy, was there.

I was in the Navy when Kennedy was President. So we’re talking about 1962.

After I was stationed in Virginia, I went to Boston, where I got a Selmer horn with a low A. I took some lessons with Joe Viola and some others. He’s a great teacher. But those lessons didn’t last long. I played something I heard one day, and Joe said, “No, that’s technically wrong.” So I made a decision. I said, “Well, I’ve always been trained to play the way I feel and the way I hear.” That time, I played what I heard, which was one of the few times I did that. That may not have been the best decision at the time.

AAJ: Didn’t you go back to St. Louis after you left the Navy?

B: Yes, I went back. I got out of the Navy on January 26, 1966. I left St. Louis again on September 16, 1969. While I was in St. Louis, I played in a group there called Leo’s Five. Some of us formed The Black Artists Group: Oliver Lake, “Bobo” Shaw and Julius Hemphill. I was the only one in the group who was blues-based.

AAJ: The others were freer.

B: Well, yes. That’s not a bad way to put it. Basically, what I wanted to do was to play every day. I got used to doing that in the Navy anyway. Ornette Coleman and some of those people were taking the music somewhere else, and I was hearing it. So I wanted to do something altogether different. I looked at their music, and I told my cousin, Calvin Miller, one day, “Man, I have some stuff I like.” Calvin said, “You like that way out stuff.” I said, “Yeah, I know.” Later, I read Miles Davis’ biography by Quincy Troup, and Miles said that when he heard a version of his band, the music went up into him. I was the same way. When I heard the guys in St. Louis and Chicago playing, the music went up into me. I loved bebop and was enthralled by it. But my music was this crazy stuff that caused me to run out of school and run away from work. I ran across a bunch of cats who thought the same way I did. The Black Artists Group had more of a collective improvisational aspect than a platform for soloists. That was a totally different way to play. Even today, my rhythm sections are improvising musicians. They don’t just play rhythms for the horn men to play solos off of. After I start, there’s no telling where the cats may go. It doesn’t bother me. That’s the way I want it to be.

AAJ: You always played with great rhythm players like Mor Thiem or Babatundi Olatunji.

B: Well, Olatungi made me start hearing African drums. I hear drummers better than I hear pianists. With a drum, I know exactly what’s going on. Even if I don’t know the drummer’s language, I understand all of his intricacies and details. For example, if a drummer and I are playing together, we’ll hit the same note. And the drummer will look at me and say, "Oh, you heard that too?”

To me, the baritone is my center of the universe. In my group, Baritone Nation, we spent four or five months getting together before we even got a gig.

AAJ: Where did they practice?

B: In my place. We brought in composers. I called Sam Rivers on the telephone while the horns were blowing, and I said, “Sam, write me something for this.” He said, “OK, Bluiett.” In the overnight mail, I got a chart from Sam. I had all of the composers sitting there while the horns were playing. They all said the same thing: “We’ve never heard anything like this before.” I said, “I know you haven’t. No one else has used four baritone saxophones at once.” You could hear four of a whole lot of things, but not baritones.

AAJ: Wasn’t Sam Rivers one of your first contacts in New York?

B: Right. He and Olatunji. I came to New York when I was twenty-nine. I had talked to Oliver Nelson because I could see what was going on on the horizon. St. Louis was on its way down; in fact, the jazz in most areas of the country was going down. There was nowhere for me to do what I wanted to do in St. Louis. I wanted to play baritone and be a lead instrument--not to be baritone and work for other people. Who else played baritone as a lead instrument? How do they work? I wasn’t Gerry Mulligan or someone like that, and so I had to make my own way.

Oliver said, “What do you want to do? Do you want to play, or do you want to make money?” I said, “I want to play. What did you ask me that?” He said, “If you wanted to make money, I would tell you to go to L.A. And I’d tell you to make sure you can play oboe, bassoon, all of the clarinets, all of the flutes, and all of the saxophones.” I said, “No, man. I’m going to New York where I can play baritone saxophone.” He said, “Well, OK. Good luck.”

AAJ: How did you meet Sam?

B: I think Eddie Gale introduced me to Sam. I went to a club once with Eddie Gale, and Sam had a band there. I walked up to him and said, “Sam, my name is Bluiett and I played baritone sax.” He said, “Ah, good. Look, we rehearse on Tuesday.” That was that. I sight-read the music and was really blowing, and Sam said, “Whoa! That’s exactly what I want!” During that time period, Bob Stewart, Virgil Jones and Billy Hart were in the band. It was a real good band, but Sam’s concept hadn’t quite gelled the way it has now. His writing is at another level now. He told me he’s trying to write odd concepts for the nights that he uses the big band format. On those occasions, he plays the extra horn part. Sam has the concept he wants now.

AAJ: How did you meet Mingus?

B: Mingus heard about me when he was looking for a baritone player. He used to play with two baritone players because he couldn’t find one with a sound. I think Roy Brooks and maybe Paul Jeffrey referred me to Mingus. There was a vibrant musical community in New York then, and so I jumped into it and met people. A musician’s reputation got around.

AAJ: Where did you meet Don Pullen?

B: I met him at a club when he was playing organ with Gloria Lynne. The guys I know, like Don and Lester Bowie, are the types who worked with a ton of different people. I used to play bassoon parts on baritone sax when I played in a symphony orchestra. I worked with concert wind ensembles. I’m talking about the kind of bands where the whole clarinet section would be playing violin parts. I used to play regular rhythm and blues music in Louis Jordan’s style. The baritone sax reinforced the bass parts because the Fender bass didn’t exist. I’ve played church music and on and on and on…anything I could do on the baritone. I didn’t see any reason to limit my work because there wasn’t enough work for a baritone saxophonist. If I went somewhere and a trombone player didn’t show up, I’d pull out my horn and start playing the part.

AAJ: Did you ever meet Harry Carney?

B: One time in a music store. I was so in awe of him that I was damned near frightened. In my opinion, Harry Carney was the man on the baritone. Duke gave him a baritone, and he played that horn until he died. No one has a sound like his. He breathed through that horn and came up with such an extraordinary sound that it was absolutely insane. When I was stationed in Boston in 1964 or 1965, I heard Duke’s band near a lake. We had to drive an hour or so to get there. I sat maybe ten feet away from Harry Carney. I thought, “Oh. It’s Duke Ellington’s band and Harry.” That’s what it sounded like. Harry’s sound was as large as a big band. So Ellington had the sound of two bands. Paul Gonsalves and all of the other guys in the band took solos. Toward the end of the night, Harry Carney stood up and held one note. Everything in the building stopped: the cash register, the telephone. No one made a sound. No one shook the ice in their glasses. He held that note for what seemed like an eternity. Then Harry went down to this low note at the bottom of the horn, and--bam!--Duke brought in the whole band. It sounded like an explosion. People were screaming and hollering. Then everything went back to normal. I used to tell musicians that Harry Carney was my favorite baritone saxophonist. They would say, "Well, I like Pepper Adams.” And I said, “Yeah, but I never saw anybody else stop time. He took total control. I learned two things out of that experience: the power of the instrument and the power of the man with the instrument. Here was a guy playing an instrument, and I had a feeling in my body about it. My hairs were standing on end even though Harry Carney wasn’t touching me [physically].

AAJ: What about Gerry Mulligan?

B: Gerry Mulligan was very influential. I listened a lot to Gerry Mulligan, Pepper Adams and Serge Chaloff. Serge played the baritone more like an alto. Mulligan played the baritone more like a tenor, the way Lester Young would have played it in an extremely harmonic sense. But Mulligan and Pepper Adams didn’t touch me in the way that Harry Carney did through just the power of his instrument. I thought, “Maybe they don’t have a powerful sound because they’re trying to play too fast.” So speed and power are not necessarily compatible. I thought about that for a long time.

I got a chance to play with Cat Anderson, Roy Brooks and Joe Gardner on a three-week tour with Mingus. George Wein was taking the Newport festival to Europe in 1972. Joe had an accident that almost killed him, and it crushed his career. He never will play the same way he used to.

AAJ: What happened to him?

B: He was in a Volkwagen, one of those Super Beetles, and he got hit by a truck. He ended up being in a body cast from head to foot; I never saw anyone in a body cast like that. It just really wiped him out as a musician. I think he’s doing wonderfully to be playing as much as he is.

Anyway, I was always astounded by some of the things that Cat would do. Like, Cat taught me how to play real soft and still be heard. He had the biggest soft note I ever heard in my life. These cats who played with Duke were something else.

I heard Cat sit in with Ben Webster just before Ben died. I went down in the elevator with Ben. I was almost crying. I could see death coming. He was sick, but he said, “Back to the salt mines.” That was the only thing he said to me. That made an impression on me. I was so choked up that I couldn’t say anything to him. I was trying to keep from losing my manhood by breaking down and crying. Later, I watched him play and listened to the magic that came out of him, in spite of his illness. He played so few notes, but he played so much music! It was unbelievable.

Cat didn’t feel the same way I did. Cat saw his opportunity to jump up and play with Ben. Cat sounded like Don Cherry that night. Mingus was there, and he got mad. He went on and on and on. He asked, “Goddammit, how come you don’t play that way with me?” Later on, Cat said, “I can’t play like that with you because you don’t play long enough. All you do is one set, and it takes me a while to warm up.” At that time, I didn’t understand what he meant. Now I do because I don’t warm up fast either.

What Mingus really meant when he got mad was, “Ben Webster’s dying, and it hurts.” See, I understood Mingus a lot. Mingus may have cussed you out, but it might have been his way of saying, “I love you.” I’m not saying that I was a master because he was going to run me out of the band too. He threatened to run everybody out of the band eventually. But Mingus was a genius. When Don Pullen joined the band, Mingus cussed me out and said, “I got somebody better to do your shit.” But what he really meant was that he got a piano player who could really play. Mingus was so happy that he expressed himself in strange ways. I understood that. It wasn’t any big deal; I come from hot-headed people too. Mingus said, “You understand me, don’t you?” And I said, “Yeah, I understand you.”

I’ll give you one more example of Duke’s people I had a chance to play with. Jimmy Hamilton had a group called The Clarinet Summit with Alvin Baptiste and John Carter. They were going on tour, but the bass clarinet player couldn’t make it. So he recommended that Jimmy hire me, which was cool because he knew I could cut the bass clarinet part. We worked on the music and got it down, whether it took eight or ten hours a day. We were playing on the roof of a place near the North Sea. Jimmy Hamilton took a solo and did the same thing that Harry Carney did. Everything stopped. That’s the second time I witnessed that. Can you imagine a few hundred people sitting on a rooftop? Everybody is drinking. And I’m not talking about social drinking; I’m talking about heavy drinking where the people are loud and obnoxious and having a ball. Then when you start playing, everybody stops! I’ve been around Clark Terry when he single-handedly takes over the whole sound of a band. Plus, I had a chance to play with Britt Woodman. That’s five Duke people I told you about. That made me think: Duke Ellington was a master to have chosen all of these guys to play in his band at one time.

AAJ: What are the plans for the World Saxophone Quartet?

B: We’re going into our twenty-fifth year in December. We’ll have a new release on Justin Time. We had an earlier release this year called Requiem For Julius before we make our next step. We said good-bye to Julius [Hemphill]. With our new alignment, we’ll have a new sound with John Purcell.

I’m playing on the eighty-year-old Conn baritone, the horn I started with when I was young. All of my work with the World Saxophone Quartet in the past was done on a vintage Selmer. But I never could get away from the old baritone’s sound. That sound always worked for me. Those baritones used the old technology, and a lot of the work was done by hand. The manufacturing wasn’t computer-generated then. Technologically, the newer horns are almost perfect. I’ll give you a good example. If you see a car coming down the street today, you have to look close to see what brand it is. All of the cars are designed by computers, for example, to figure out how they can drive better through the wind. Then they all look the same, basically. Musical instruments are starting to be manufactured the same way. I don’t see that as being a plus in music. One advantage, though, is that you can shift from one of today’s horns to another quite easily. But in terms of having an identity, it’s not there [in the newer instruments].

AAJ: What do you see in the future?

B: You’re going to see more and more and more baritones. The baritone will be the lead instrument and not a complementary entity. Maybe I’m talking more about me than the instrument. The baritone happens to be my voice. I think you’ll see more instruments being played in the bass clef voice.

In the past, the tenor could always be heard better because of the nature of the recording apparatus. In the digital domain, engineers can capture sounds as far up or as far down as you want. In order for the baritone to assume its legitimate place, the music is going to have to change. I don’t play the music that was written for altos and tenors. I don’t see it fitting my horn very well. We need to have baritone saxophone-induced melodies, instead of always getting another instrument’s literature and having to transcribe or adapt it. I’m tired of those adaptations. The baritone saxophone is an E-flat instrument. All of the other instruments are always in B-flat or concert C. The music I play now was written for me and for my instrument. I’m trying to develop a whole new language for the baritone saxophone.

A tone that’s written for tenor doesn’t really work well on the baritone. If you play a tenor part in the key that it’s written, it sounds OK but it doesn’t work. Those parts aren’t really written for the baritone voice. Now I’m writing music with the baritone saxophone in mind and written in the particular keys that make that horn sound best. Duke is the guy. You can play all of Duke’s music on the baritone saxophone.

Duke influenced me. Miles was an influence. Monk was an influence. I had a million different influences, but not in a plagiaristic sense. Some guys have copied notes off of a musician’s record. But they don’t really go into a guy’s psyche to find out what he’s playing about. Miles’ influence on me was to be as intellectual as I can in finding the prettiest way to play. These people didn’t try to take existing footsteps and try to walk in them. I try to find me an open space and make me a footprint! It takes a while when you try to create your own identity at an early age. Of course, some of the innovators in jazz die early. There’s a whole history of that. They got innovative real quick, and then they get out of here real quick. As long as creative musicians stay around, they constantly a work in progress—developing and becoming better and better like fine wine. They don’t stagnate. Going backward is not part of the process. It is verboten! I don’t believe in throwing away anything from the past. There’s so much information from the past that you can’t use all of it.

I don’t like the way this business is happening, but I think I’m going to forget about that. That’s just part of being creative, I guess. You can’t fight it. You would just waste a lot of time and energy that could be spent in creative activities. Ornette Coleman told me that. He said, “Nobody cares.” I looked at him. I knew that he had been knocked down and upside-down and backwards. So I listened to him. I called him one day and said, “Man, I’m stuck. I can’t figure out what to do.” He said, “Have you ever thought about trying to make your sound different from what you’ve already done?” I hung up the telephone. Then I picked up my horn and played it completely different from what I’ve normally done. While I thought the music would be nothing, instead the music was wonderful. I hadn’t thought about putting a different sound on it.

I have so much of a burning and a craving inside that I have to keep moving. I don’t how people are content to stand still. The baritone is a beautiful horn, and I want to keep developing its sound.

I like to check out the influences of pitches that are out of tune. Those kinds of pitches can be wonderful. I have written pieces that utilize those microtones. That’s what I don’t like about the new instruments: They’re always in tune. There’s a benefit to being out of tune. With the older instruments, you learn how to use the microtones. Sometimes if you want to cry through your instrument, being out of tune is a good way to do it. You can’t cry in tune. It’s not believable.

I’m aware that certain notes have an effect on the human body. And I don’t mean written notes like A, B, C, D and E-flat. I’m talking about certain pitches—whether the pitch is a throat pitch, a head pitch, a booty pitch, a thigh pitch, a foot pitch. If I play certain dark pitches, people will feel a certain way. I noticed that Miles and other musicians chose certain keys that created dark moods. That kind of metaphysics has always been interesting to me.